1762 - "Stick Fight"

Load up on the Indians. Adam Curry, John C. DeVora. It's Sunday, May 8th, 2025. This is your award-winning Kimmel Nation media assassination episode 1762. This is no agenda. We've got white smoke. And we're broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas hill country, right here in FEMA region number six. In the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry. Here from Northern Silicon Valley, where it's apparent that Trump's ploy worked. We have an American pope.

I'm John C. DeVorak. Yeah, I'm kind of mad at myself, in hindsight. Like, how obvious could he have made it? Clearly, he was on the, he was on the, he had the inside track. Very suspicious. My Catholic friends don't understand this thinking of mine. When I say, oh, Trump was telegraphing it all along. They mean, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? Well, we have an American pope. That was, I mean, if anything, that was, wasn't that guy a long shot? What were the odds on him?

I'd have to go back and look. Wow, man. It was like, no, that was completely unexpected. He was not up there in the top five. That's for sure. No, no. So my, my prediction streak is broken. I can no longer be like, I predicted the pope. A streak of one. It was a long streak. It took many years. Well, it was, actually. It was a long streak. Uh, so the jury seems to still kind of be out on this guy. Um, um. He looks a little like Fauci. Well, there's that. He's from Chicago. Strike two.

Chicago. He's a Bear fan. Maybe. Um, some are saying, well, he sounds a bit like a Francis Jr. You know, he was kind of wishy-washy about some scandals. Who knows? He could also reignite the faith all across the country. You don't know. It could go. Don't laugh. This is, this is obviously our hope and prayer. Reignited. Somebody's hope and prayer. Light it up, Pope. Light it up. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's interesting. I, you know, it's like, is America now, are we on the comeback?

Is it all complete? We've got Pope Trump. Doing a trade deal with the Vatican tomorrow. What do we buy from them? I don't think we buy anything from them. Lucifixes. Rosary beads. Well, that might be an approach. So Viva La Papa. Congratulations, everybody. Why did you name yourself Leo Laporte? That one I had not come up with. That's a good one. Well, speaking of tariffs, we might as well get into it with the, the most important tariff of all. Everybody's flipping out. We're all freaking out.

In Hollywood, the reviews are in for President Trump's plan to impose 100% tariffs on movies. It's getting panned. Are you worried for your industry? Yeah. I'm worried for the industry. I'm worried for my livelihood. Monique White is executive vice president at California Pictures, a Los Angeles based distributor of independent film distributor. Yeah, of course. Wait a minute. If she, who cares? The distributors aren't getting tariffed. No, I think that's exactly who will get tariffed.

If it comes in from overseas. Because you mean, oh, yeah, well, I have my thoughts on this. Well, yes, they're producing a lot of them. The first thing I thought was these are foreign films. Who cares? Let's finish the clip. Los Angeles based distributor of independent films. It's either going to put a nail in the coffin or it's going to incentivize us to figure out alternative ways to do production.

The Motion Picture Association says the U.S. already exports triple the film content that it imports with a more than 15 billion dollar surplus in 2023. CBS News has confirmed that actor Jon Voight, one of the president's special ambassadors to Hollywood, came up with the tariff idea. They're given financing by other countries. They've given a lot of things. And the industry was decimated. Movies like Mission Impossible often seek out exotic locales for filming.

Voight told us tariffs would hurt more than just the bottom line. It's stifling creativity. So if someone wants to shoot something that's got a certain backdrop, you can't shoot it here. You have to go to the authentic place. It's still unclear what the tariffs would be based on. Production costs, box office receipts or something else. That is bullcrap. You're talking to the insiders. Do they really think this is going to happen? I'm not sure, to be honest.

Everybody's very afraid, that's for sure. Everybody's very worried. So if this comes to reality, then this could all just go away tomorrow. So this is such a well-known fact in Hollywood. Hollywood is empty. It's a shell because everybody's shooting up in Vancouver. They're shooting in all kinds of foreign countries. These are American movies they're not making in America anymore.

And the whole point of Hollywood as location was A, for the light, and B, for the creativity of recreating, you know, fake, nanu nanu, creating places that look like you were there. That look like you filmed it there. They have to hold back a lot of Warner Brothers' all kinds of different little towns. I think this is a phenomenal idea and long overdue. Anyone who's like, oh, Trump's no good. They should be quiet. This is going to bring back filmmaking to America.

Texas has all kinds of incentives. They still can't. Austin used to be really big on that. They still can't lure productions into Texas just because of all the incentives, quite frankly, the payoffs of other countries. Yeah, the bribes. The bribes. Yeah, it's so obvious. In Spain. Hollywood people all have homes in Canada. If they're working, you know, if they're working regularly, because everything is happening up north and it's happening everywhere.

I met more people when I was flying to Vancouver, because I used to write for up there. And I go to Vancouver quite often. And so if I was in Vancouver and I was taking a Friday flight out of Vancouver, the place was filled with all these actors. I talked to a whole bunch of different people. It's like flying on Friday to Vegas, packed with hookers. Everybody knows this. It's the same thing. Packed with hookers. Um, so, oh, man, oh, we're talking about this. Oh, no. This is a great idea.

We invented this. And by the way, how about your AI and your CGI and all that stuff? You don't need to go to these places. Make it in America where we invented the entertainment industry. CNN. Here's what they're saying. So for all of us at home, can you actually tariff something that's not a physical product? In the sense of, in the traditional sense of how you think about a tariff, a physical good coming across the border, getting stamped by CBP, a company paying the tax that you have to pay.

Yeah, but a fee is a fee. People charge me fees all the time. So what does this look like for the consumer? Probably higher prices. But like how it gets distributed to the company that's putting the film out. So literally, who do you charge? Exactly. Are you saying that because, yeah, who makes the movie? How and what is the mechanism in which they are charged? Yeah, you know, most of the series and movies that I see streaming, because we flip around, it's all crime and death and gratuitous sex.

A lot of gay sex. Even the shows you like, oh, you got to watch this. But beware of episode two. That was that show. I had to stop watching. It was totally gratuitous. The show sucked after like a couple of episodes. Yeah, all they had was butt sex. They were doing gay butt sex for no reason. It was the one with the assassin in London. Yeah, Blackbird or whatever. Something else. So, you know, it's like, come on. We have Sodom and Gomorrah all over. All our cities are.

You don't even need to do anything. Just roll the camera. But you want a futuristic hellscape? I can name a couple of cities you can go to right now. Oh, no. Oh, San Francisco would be one of them. But it's Trump's. Oh, no. So California Governor Gavin Newsom popped up. He was like, what? Hello, this is my industry. And he proposed something that the industry is already very used to, which is a tax credit.

He wants a $7.5 billion tax credit to incentivize the film industry to create more films, to film them here in the U .S. And I have to say, there was this kind of post-labor strike flight from California when companies were like, I'm going to go make my streaming project somewhere else. So, like, the industry is hurting. Right, right. I think this is right. President Trump has taken the stick approach and something. The industry is not.

The industry is hurting because of the whole model has changed with streaming companies. That's why the industry is hurting. Right, right. Like a tax incentive would be the carrot approach. And it's so interesting because this conversation parallels with the one that's happening in the goods sector. Manufacturers that get inputs from abroad are asking, you know, we want to make more stuff here. We'd love to, but it's not that easy.

Instead of hitting us with a stick, can we get a can we get a carrot? You're just begging for carrots here. It's only Tuesday, Courtney. OK, I mean, yes, that's what this is. These people can do nothing but complain. Exactly. This is a tax incentive. It's an incentive to make them in America. I don't want to sound all red, white and bonkers here, but yes, this is a tax incentive. I like that. NPR, red, white and bonkers. NPR took it to the extreme.

The film industry started the week with a little confusion. That was after President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was imposing a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the U.S. On Sunday night, he posted that, quote, the movie industry in America is dying a very fast death. Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States, unquote. NPR entertainment correspondent Mandalit Delbarco joins us now to talk about this.

So, Mandalit, the basic question is probably going to spring up more questions. So how would a 100% tariff on films made outside the U.S. actually work? Yeah, that's exactly what everyone in Hollywood and in film and TV industries around the world would like to know. Yes. President Trump's initial announcement was surprising. It left so many questions. Who would have to pay a tariff? The studios, film distributors? Will ticket prices go up?

Would this be for international films or for American films shooting or filming on location or on soundstages around the world? What about TV and streaming shows? There have been a lot of emergency closed door meetings, group chats and social media speculation. Studios have been quiet so far. But the head of IATSE, the union representing behind the scenes entertainment workers, says any plan must not harm the U.S. or Canadian film industries.

Yeah, well, I want Fran Drescher to come out and start, Mr. Trump, I can't wait. But of course, this is not this is all because of his friends. The president says other countries are offering incentives to attract movie studios and filmmakers. So can you tell us about the incentives that he was referring to? I know that you have been reporting on this. Yeah, that's right.

And it's true that for decades, places like Canada, the U.K., Australia and really all over the world, they've offered productions generous tax incentives, rebates and grants to shoot or film in their countries. Some have even built new soundstages to entice production wanting to cut costs. Trump says the global incentives are a threat to the national security. OK, so what are people overseas saying about this announcement from Trump?

You can imagine a studios and unions around the world are worried that this could spell the end of their own production industry. Yes. Some wonder if countries will retaliate with their own tariffs on American films. Yesterday, President Trump told reporters he wants to meet the film industry in this country to make sure they're happy with his plan to bring back showbiz jobs. Hollywood doesn't do very much of that business.

They have the nice side and everything's good, but they don't do very much. Yeah. So here's the clip about his friends. All right. So why do you think this issue came up at all for President Trump? Well, I'll give you a hint. John Voigt. Trump calls the actor one of his special ambassadors, along with John Voigt, universally hated by Hollywood, universally hated by Hollywood. But oh, no. John Voigt. Yes, he's he's he's to blame.

Okay, just alone. And Mel Gibson in a video shared with NPR Voigt calls Trump the greatest president since Abe Lincoln and his friend who loves the entertainment business wants to see Hollywood thrive and make films bigger and greater than ever before. John Voigt says he presented Trump a plan to rescue the American film industry with federal tax incentives, co-production treaties with other countries and subsidies for theater owners and film and TV production companies.

Late last week, Voigt also met with California Senator Ben Allen, who co-authored a state bill that would expand film and TV incentives, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to more than double the state's production tax credits. Trump blamed the governor for allowing productions to leave California. But late last night, Newsom said in a statement that he wants to team up with the Trump administration to create a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit.

Everyone's all they've got all their panties in a bunch. It's great. They got, you know, let's talk about ourselves a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all John Voigt's fault. NPR, by the way, they're making content for morons. When it's certainly when are you still there? Yeah. Yeah. But what what what do you mean? Well, listen to this about tariffs. Just it's short. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant will meet Chinese economic officials this weekend in Switzerland.

Besant says they'll likely talk about de-escalating the tariffs between the two nations. President Trump's trade war is taking a toll on cargo traffic across the Pacific Ocean. As NPR Scott Horsley reports, a significant number of the ships that were supposed to dock this month at the Port of Los Angeles have been canceled. Rather than pay tariffs of 145 percent, many importers have put shipments from China on hold.

The number of import containers passing through the Port of L.A. this week is down about 35 percent from a year ago. While businesses tried to stockpile goods before the tariffs took effect, the port's executive director, Gene Sirocco, expects those inventories will start to run out in four to six weeks. So if you go to the store and you're looking for a blue shirt, you may see a bunch of purple ones. You may not see that blue one in your size or style.

And probably it will be more expensive than it was previously. Sirocco says the trade war is also hurting exports, with fruit, nut and wine growers in California's Central Valley reporting a steep drop in overseas sales. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. No blue shirt for you. It'll be purple. I mean, seriously. These people are, you know, not to moan about them, but Horowitz is like this too. I heard the show.

By the way, I reached out to him and I really tried to help him with his sound issues. He's got like a Rube Goldberg machine rigged up there. I'm like, what are you doing? Well, you know, I like to post edit everything on separate tracks and put on, you know, special little sauce on each and John's voice and my voice and everybody else's. You're nuts. But he's, I heard him like, oh, there's no containers. 25 percent less containers. There's no ships.

And you, Mr. Dry Man. Have you noticed anything? No. No. I am pushing back against. Yes. I love it. His hair on fire approach to the whole thing. I love it. It's like, I mean, seriously, it is truly just junk. Most of the stuff we get is just junk. That's all. You know, then we'll have less junk. I have one more from NBC. Meet the press. Let me ask you about Mattel if I can, because I think this is where the rubber meets the road. Yes. The rubber meets the road. The rubber meets the road.

By the way, the CEO of Mattel, he's like, he's like a weird guy. He's like, it's a German. I talk like this. Yes. We like to make toys for the children. It's like one of our guys. A lot of American consumers. The CEO of Mattel is running. I'm sorry. Comic strip bloggers running Mattel. He'd probably do a better job. A lot of American consumers, right? The CEO of Mattel said that he does not expect manufacturing to move to the US, but does expect that consumers here will pay more.

Can you walk us through that? I mean, that's what we're hearing broadly from companies right now, whether it's in private or publicly making those sort of assessments. Well, the analogy is relevant because we just heard from the president a few days ago described a situation for Americans as one where you might not be able to buy $30 for your daughter. You'll only be able to buy two, and maybe those two will cost a few more dollars.

And essentially what Mattel is saying is that's exactly what's going to happen here, because they might have to take pricing. That's the kind of corporate speak, if you will, for having to raise the price tags. Oh my gosh. And meet the press. Thank you for this inside lingo lesson. Pricing is code for raising the price. Thank you.

That's the kind of corporate speak, if you will, for having to raise the price tags at the store for not just Barbies, but also things like Hot Wheels that Mattel produces as well.

What's also interesting, though, about the politics of all this is that as the president is trying to use these tariffs to essentially whack the American companies with incentives to produce here domestically, we have companies that are saying, yeah, certainly we're going to try to move things around so we don't have to pay 145 % tariff on things coming out of China. But instead of moving into the US, we're just going to move into other places in the world.

That's what Mattel said in the earnings call. They're going to try to diversify away from China. But they didn't say what comes to the US. They're just going to move it to other countries. Kind of similar story with Apple and other companies that have very much been in the spotlight here with regards to whether or not they're producing here in the US. They're just saying, yeah, we're just going to not do it in China. We'll just move it to another country. Wow. Thank you.

That's the whole plan, dude. Stop that from that was meet the press. It's more like CNBC guy and too much coffee. I tried to clip the CNBC lady with the CEO of Mattel, but he was just, you know, well, you know, and just going on, you know, we we have we've been waiting for this. We've been prepared for many, many quarters. We are a great company. You sell. Plastic stuff to children.

It may be important for people to invest in the companies, but I just don't see the importance in the big scheme of life. I don't understand why they have nothing. They don't make nothing here. It's an American company. Yes. They're an El Segundo. Yes, I know. They started in 1945, an American company. They make nothing here. Thanks for that. I knew I knew a woman who worked there. She was a high up in the marketing department when they had the female CEO. They kicked her out.

I mean, the female CEO just like, no, no, she didn't do it. She tried to do all kinds of weird stuff with the Barbie, if I recall. And she might have done the trans Barbie. Didn't we have that at some point? The trans Barbie? I think so. I don't think so. I think we did. That's funny, though. I like it. It's a good idea. I have I have a feeling we did have a trans Barbie. I could be wrong. The company was incorporated in Hawthorne in 1948. Yeah. And the big hit was their big hit.

The one that really got them going made by them. The Magic 8 Ball. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. I had one. I had a Magic 8 Ball when I was a kid. I think I still do. So on that topic, just because you are the one who is very closely involved with a young person of Mattel product using age, what did you wind up getting for Theodore for his birthday? Well, I can't tell you because his birthday party, that's where he gets his gifts, which was, of course, he's a Cinco de Mayo, baby.

It won't be till this Friday. He's listening to the show and you're going to blow the surprise or you just haven't bought anything yet? No, no, we got a whole bunch of stuff. But what did you get? Mostly toys that have something to do with Minecraft. Oh, OK. I thought you were getting him socks. I was going to get socks, but then Mimi bought a bunch of stuff and I said, oh, I always put my name on half of this. You told me after the show. I'm going to get him a sweater and then socks.

I'm like, you are the worst grandfather that I should be getting to be the granddad and get the socks. And then the other joke was I told Jay, I think I'm going to get him a bottle of wine. I told you, like, do not get the kids socks and a sweater. These resent you. In fact, I sent you a link to the hundred and thirty projects in one. Did you see that? Yeah, no, no, I know. Why no? Yes, no. Yes, no. OK, I thought that was a good idea. It is a good idea. And I'm going to get him for Christmas.

I'm going to get him that gift. Oh, OK. All right. But so you basically Mimi went out and bought a whole bunch of junk from China for him. It's way to get exactly a bunch of junk from China. I love that before the tariffs, you know, just get in under the wire. Come on. I'm not crazy. I love that you're indoctrinating him into the longstanding Dvorak family tradition of not celebrating on the day itself. No kid, you're going to celebrate on Friday. That's did he got a celebration?

He had his birthday party with his little friends over there at the other place where his friends brought him cheap junk from China. That's kind of no doubt. No doubt. Hey, today's VE Day. Nobody's talking about that. No, today and tomorrow is both. There's two VE days. One that turns out there's one today. We got no donations for it, but there's one today. Victory in Europe Day. That was ours and England's. But the Russians call it the ninth. This is the ninth.

And the Russians are the ones who beat the Germans, not us. The Russians are celebrating today, but they're not celebrating that. They are celebrating something else. Do you know what they celebrate on the 8th of May? This is great. They celebrate the 8th. Yes, correct. Mongolia's president touches down in Moscow. The latest in a succession of heads of state to arrive ahead of festivities marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Not all of them had smooth journeys getting there after Russia and Ukraine traded a barrage of drone attacks disrupting hundreds of flights. The Kremlin was forced to say it was taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of foreign leaders, more than two dozen of whom are expected, at Russia's flagship Victory Day parade. An opportunity into the bargain for President Vladimir Putin to hold bilateral meetings with the likes of Brazil, Serbia and Venezuela.

I would like to convey to you the special feelings of admiration of the Venezuelan people years after the victory in the Great Patriotic War. We have promising areas of cooperation. They are obvious. But the main guest, as Vladimir Putin called him, is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who's in town for four days. A hundred or so soldiers from China's army rehearsed in Moscow ahead of the military parade Friday. Their participation highlighting the ever closer relationship between the two countries.

We better display the friendship between China and Russia. We've also learned to perform classic Russian songs. Russia's become increasingly dependent economically on China as Western countries have sought to diplomatically isolate Putin after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Western leaders from key Allied victors in World War II will not be attending on Friday. Not even Donald Trump, who nonetheless hasn't ruled out visiting Moscow someday. It's 80 on the 8th. I didn't know they celebrated that.

The 80th anniversary of the fall of the Third Reich. So they celebrate a day early and everybody flew in. Yeah. And everybody came in for the party. Yes, but our people, we don't even... Here's the BBC report. This VE Day BBC. Well, isn't that Poppy Day? In... don't they wear the poppies? They wear the poppies? The poppy days is some... Something else. Armistice. Armistice. I think that's World War I. Yeah, sorry, wrong war.

Events will take place across Europe on Thursday to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. On the 8th of May in 1945, radio announcements in France and Britain declared the war against Nazi Germany had ended. The anniversary will be marked in Russia on Friday. I just remembered why the woman got fired at Mattel. She tried to make the lifelike Barbie. That's what it was. Like the nipples? Well, no, no. Well, that would have been more lifelike than the cheap Barbie doll they have now.

No, regular length legs, paunchy. No, that's no good. They look like a runt. That's what she tried to do. Lifelike Barbie. Uh, no, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. So anyway, back to the VE Day. Yes. It's like 80th anniversary, the end of the war, beat Hitler, all this. Where's our... we got nothing. No. Well, didn't President Trump declare something? He must have declared something. I don't know that he had all he did this morning.

He was on talking yak, yak, yak, and the complete morning took over a couple of shows on Fox. Yeah, a victory day, a proclamation. Hey, listen to this. He's talking about today. He's talking about the deal with UK. They had a trade deal. Oh, I have the Keir Starmer clips. This was great. Hold on a second. Uh, wait, where's Keir Starmer? Um, this was so funny. Uh, was it under tariffs for some reason? Oh, wait. I thought I had a Keir Starmer clip. Keir. Uh, yes. No, that's old. Huh. I guess not.

Well, now I know I have Carney, but I thought I had Keir. Well, I do have a different Keir clip, which was equally disturbing. Um, only for India, which we probably should talk about. I didn't and then and Pakistan about to blow each other up. Here's a here's GB news about the latest deal. Uh, Keir Starmer, the, uh, prime minister of Britain made with India. Has Keir Starmer just sold Britain to the Indians without a single shot being fired? The prime minister announced a bumper new trade deals.

Bumper. Well, this is a historic day for the United Kingdom and for India, because this is the biggest trade deal that we the UK have done since we left the EU. And it's the most ambitious trade deal that India has ever done. And this will be measured in billions of pounds into our economy and jobs across the whole of the United Kingdom. So it is a really important, significant day. The prime minister said that it's fantastic news for British business, British workers and British shoppers.

And then the whole thing seemed to unravel. The Indian government released a statement hailing it as a massive win when it came to helping Indians move to Britain. It's emerged that Indian workers who moved to Britain and British workers going to India will pay no national insurance for the first three years. Starmer and Reeves raised national insurance for Brits. Well, what could this mean? A huge influx of Indian workers into Britain.

Employers can pay them less, so fewer jobs for British workers and lower wages for British workers. Labour says this doesn't change the immigration rules. The Indian government says it does. Indian yogis, musicians and chefs will be able to apply for UK skilled worker visas. So if you're Indian, take the yogi jobs away from the Brits? No, but the point is, yes, they yes, they will. That was a joke. Yeah, I know. But it doesn't matter.

Probably more tech jobs, finance jobs, because they literally pay less tax. He is stimulating Indian immigration, the last thing the British people want. You know, the British people, they don't want to be British anymore. They want nothing but Pakistanis and Indians and Africans running the country. That's why my buddy Michelle is selling the club. He's selling the club. He's getting out. He's selling the club. He's given up. He's yep. He said, I can't do it. He says, I'm selling the club.

There's nothing but but I don't I don't want to repeat exactly what he said. I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure it was very racist and mean. Very racist. Very racist about clientele. And and, you know, and in general, he says people aren't going out anymore. They can't afford it. We have all these rules and regulations selling the club. He's moving to permanently to the south of France, France. Yeah, the south of France. There you go. Yeah, he's done. He's done. I can't do it anymore.

And this will only make it worse. You know, it was interesting because the Netherlands had this when I moved back in ninety nine and I didn't know this at the time, but I got a 30 percent tax break in the Netherlands because they were trying to get Americans to move to Holland. And I paid 30 percent less tax just because of my passport. Then the local still pay American taxes because you know, if you know, we have a trade deal.

So if you if you pay taxes overseas and there's a deal, a tax deal, then you don't have to pay that you don't pay double tax. So I just I just paid less taxes because it was a stimulative measure, which I didn't know anything about at the time. So this is exactly what they're doing. And they just load up on the Indians. Yes, that's about it. By the way, President Trump did proclaim yesterday Victory Day for World War or today. He proclaimed it today.

By the virtue and authority vested in him by the Constitution, the laws of the United States do hereby proclaim May 8th today, twenty twenty five as a day in celebration of Victory Day for World War Two. So he's all in. Yeah, celebrate. What's the celebration consist of? Nothing. Everyone went to Russia. He couldn't. Everyone said, I'm sorry, I wanted to come to the White House, but I already told Vladimir I'd show up at his place. So you understand, don't you? That's what happens.

Well, all right. I'll I'll kick us off with a quick overview of India versus Pakistan, because this is starting to look pretty bad. Now to rising tensions between India and Pakistan, India firing missions, missiles at Pakistan after terrorist attacks that India claims originated from Pakistani territory. Our chief for correspondent Ian Pannell has the latest. Good morning, Ian. Yeah, good morning, Michael. These two nuclear armed nations exchanging fire overnight and again this morning.

It fears this could spiral out of control. India firing missiles into Pakistan, striking nine targets. Pakistan saying 26 people have been killed, over 40 others wounded, calling it an act of war, saying its military has been authorized to respond. India insisting its attack was measured non escalatory and that no military facilities were hit. Just what it calls terrorist infrastructure.

India strikes are coming in response to that deadly attack on tourists in Indian controlled Kashmir last month that left more than two dozen people dead. India blaming Pakistan militants, but Pakistan now saying it shot down five India fighter jets overnight and hit military targets that no evidence has been produced. No evidence. A highly volatile situation, dangerous for both sides, China and the US, both urging restraint.

Now, if I didn't report this, but if I understood it was Pakistan who attacked in the disputed Kashmir region and killed like 20 plus tourists, right? Isn't that what kicked all of this off? Well, that's my understanding of something like that. Now, the reporting is piss poor. Is there a beach or something in Kashmir? What is the attraction of vacationing in the Kashmir region? It's got to be the weather. I guess I've never considered. I've never considered it. Okay. What do you have?

I got the, I got two reports, but let's play this. This is the BBC World Service. This Pakistan India long version. This is the 20 long by long. This is that they get. Okay. The BBC World Service is interesting. Let me explain what they, how they do their reporting. First they do it. They'll do it. They'll do three versions of the exact same story. The first version, which is usually pretty good. It's very concise. It's about nine seconds. There's war in the Kashmir region.

And then there's, then then there is the 30 second longer one, which is the one I'm going to, I have here. And then they go on to like one that goes on for six, seven, eight minutes where they break it down and they yak, yak, yak. And you don't get anything more. The second version, this kind of semi long version gives you all the details they're really going to ever have. There it is.

Pakistan's prime minister has said the country's military had made its reply following last night's Indian missile strikes on targets in Pakistan and Pakistan administered Kashmir. Speaking during an address to the nation, Shabazz Sharif referred to Pakistan's earlier claim that it had shot down five Indian fighter jets. And he said Delhi had misjudged Pakistan's determination to fight back. India has not confirmed the reports.

I mean, Pakistan was literally saying for days, they're going to strike, they're going to strike, they're going to strike. And they did. I don't think they underestimated anything. They knew it was coming. It's a mess. And if you're an Indian, they had these stick fights, you know about this? They didn't, I haven't got any reports on it, but you don't know about the stick fight? No. They think it's like they have right at the border. There's some sort of a border dispute here throughout Kashmir.

And they come out, the one, the Pakistani and an Indian, they both come out with sticks. And then they start fighting each other as everybody watches. Really? And then the winner of that fight goes back and then the next challenger comes out. And then they send an F-16. And it, well, at some point they drop an A-bomb, but it starts with these stick fights. Wow. That's like, that's so juvenile. We used to have stick fights, rock fights. I don't know what they're up to.

I have the NPR report if you can bear. It's not long, luckily. Yeah, let's hear it. That doesn't sound like a stick to me. That sounds like a fighter jet taking off. Nice, that popped. India struck multiple targets across Pakistan in the most extensive strikes in more than 50 years. It comes after India blamed Pakistan for an attack that killed 26 people in late April. Pakistan denies any connection.

Its military has retaliated by firing into parts of Indian-held Kashmir, and it claims it has downed five Indian aircraft. The Associated Press reports that more than 30 people were killed in Pakistan. India says three people were killed on their side. On the line with us is NPR's Dia Hadid. She covers Pakistan and India from her base in Mumbai. Dia, tell us about these strikes. They happened overnight there. Well, India's army says it struck militant training camps.

And what they call terror infrastructure. And many of those strikes were in Pakistani -held Kashmir. But Pakistan says the strikes mostly hit mosques and part of a hydropower dam. One prominent Pakistani militant says one of the strikes targeted his relatives and killed 14 people, including women and children. And that was in a small town. Hold on, stop the clip. The way she presents this, she says, but the strikes only hit mosques and a dam. Yeah, it doesn't count. It's just mosques and a dam.

Yeah, it sounds pretty substantial. Well, I think what she's saying is it didn't kill people because she goes straight into the, it killed the guy's family, wiped out the guy's family. This is so typical of war reporting. You know, what I, what kind of was glossed over here was India said, we didn't do it. It could be false flags going out. Pakistan said we didn't do it. I'm sorry. Well, the point is, is there could be false flags every which way. Yes, but why?

This whole thing, the stick fighting, the whole thing could be just bull crap. And she's in Mumbai is nowhere near. He's not walking distance. That's for sure to Kashmir. The whole thing is like, who, you know, why should we be reporting from Sacramento? I mean, it's ludicrous. I want a report on the stick fights. I mean, I, I'm what a great angle. It is. Well, let's finish this.

And many of those strikes were in Pakistani held Kashmir, but Pakistan says the strikes mostly hit mosques and part of a hydropower dam. One prominent Pakistani militant says one of the strikes targeted his relatives and killed 14 people, including women and children. And that was in a small town in Southern Pakistan. And it's really important to say here where these strikes took place. Some were deep in Pakistan. One was near the country's second largest city.

Yeah, there's not, I can't find anything on the stick fights. That's an angle I'm very interested in. Here's the second follow up to this about what is coming next. Now, could all this maybe quiet down or do folks there expect more military actions? I guess the problem here is with strikes so deep in Pakistan and with this death toll, Pakistan may feel like it must respond to show people that its army isn't weak.

So analyst Praveen Dante with the International Crisis Group says other countries have to step in. I'm afraid if the international community doesn't step in, especially the U.S., then we're only seeing the beginning of these escalatory strikes. For now, President Trump has said he hopes this ends quickly and Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he's closely monitoring the situation. Yeah. All right. Rubio, I'm monitoring it. OK. It doesn't really mean anything.

I mean, and meanwhile, we hear nothing on this. It's total silence now on Ukraine. We don't know what's going on there. You know, even though actually I do have Queen Ursula. We have Russian new attacks. We can play that's another BBC clip. All right. Let's try that one. You have two versions of it. Yeah, they're both exactly the same time. I think it's the same clip. Let me see. Just play new attacks BBC.

OK. The Ukrainian Air Force says Russian aircraft launched guided bombs on the Sumy region of northern Ukraine shortly after a Kremlin-sponsored unilateral ceasefire officially took effect. The Ukrainian claim hasn't been confirmed. Russia says its three-day ceasefire is timed to coincide with Second World War commemorations. Kyiv rejects the truths but has repeated its call for a longer 30-day ceasefire. The Ukrainian MP, Lisa Yasko, said that a short ceasefire was pointless.

Three days cost nothing to him. It costs like, oh, a joke, you know. To have a longer ceasefire, depending on what is the militaristic and the personal goal for Kremlin is, can be possible, but there is no single sign that they're going to do that anytime soon. So let me ask you a question, a historical question, about Russia, Russian gas, or let's just call it Russian energy, being sent to Europe.

In your recollection, did Russia use that as a kludge continuously against Europe, saying, we're going to shut it off, we're going to shut it off, we're going to shut it off? No, no. Do you ever recall, I mean, I remember, I think it might've been you. I can go back. My memory starts with, I think this probably had a little bit to do with it when I was working in an oil refinery.

But my memory goes back to the point, and I can't give you a year or anything, before Russia had any energy sector that was worth a crap. And we kept trying to beg, borrow, and steal to get in and help Russia get their energy sector up. Yeah, get it up and out, yeah. And because it was assumed that they had more, again, this is just off the top of my head. I don't remember the details. But it was assumed that they had more gross energy total than Saudi Arabia.

That they were just sitting on because they didn't have American and European, especially American expertise on how to get it up, pump it out and ship it all over the place. And so we kept begging to get in and begging to get in. After the fall of communism, at some point Gorbachev or somebody let the Chevron and all these guys, these hotshots go in there and teach the Russians how to do it.

And from then on, they became, they said, look at all this free money we're getting because they just started pumping like crazy. They weren't using it as leverage. They were using it to make money. And they got pretty rich during that period. I don't know that they've ever threatened to stop it. So if I just look back in our archive at clips, the only one that comes close, actually, I don't think I can, let me see, Russia gas, because it would be gas, obviously.

I don't think they ever really ever really used it as, I mean, they were, it was like the Germans loved it because they were getting gas. Yeah, Merkel, and don't forget, Merkel and Putin both spoke German and both spoke French. And she always, not French, but Russian. She spoke fluent Russian. And they got along famously. And they started, the Germans were smart enough to get as much of that gas, cheap gas as they could because it was just a straight, it was straight shot.

Then something happened. Well, and what they loved doing was they loved sending the gas to Germany and Germany would send Mercedes Benz's back. That was kind of the round robin they all love. So Ursula, Queen Ursula in the European Parliament this past week, she's changing history. And she's now making it sound like this war was because Russia was playing kind of smart games with their gas. And, you know, that was a problem. She even gives us the years when it happened.

I also know that some are still saying that we should reopen the tap of Russian gas and oil. This would be a mistake of historic dimensions and we would never let it happen. This has to be very clear too. Yes, because listen up. Russia has proven time and again that it is not a reliable supplier. Putin has already cut gas flows to Europe in 2006, 2009, 2014, 2021 and throughout the war. How many times before they learned the lesson? Really? Dependency on Russia is not only that for our security.

Wasn't it? We talked about this a lot in the show. This show's been on for so long. We can do this. It's great. It was they weren't paying their bill. Yes, Ukraine wasn't paying the bill. That's yes. That's the only thing I remember. Ukraine was and they'd still let it go through. And the Russians kept saying, hey, you know, you really got to pay your bill. Really got to pay your bill. But they kept the gas flowing at all times. I can remember this.

And now she's saying 2021, 2022. When did we blow up the Nord Stream pipeline? When did we do that? That certainly stopped Russian gas. Now, this is a lie. In 2006, 2009, 2014, 2021 and throughout the war. She's a horrible person. How many times before they learned the lesson? Dependency on Russia is not only bad for our security, but also for our economy. Our energy prices cannot be dictated by a hostile neighbor. Well, they're being dictated by you with your windmills and your solar panels.

Hitler in drag. Hitler was smarter than this. He didn't ruin the economy that way. They ruined it in other ways. You know, killed a bunch of the people in the economy. But she's going crazy over there.

Because, you know, she's taken what President Trump is doing with the, really, which I think we now deduce is about the endowments and about not giving money to universities who have $100 billion sitting around giving them money, whereas they're spending almost nothing on making it cheaper for kids to get an education. The education in what is the next question. Instead, you know, all these all these young students are all indebted for the rest of their life.

And she turns that around and says, Trump hates science. Making Europe a magnet for researchers. This is the ambition of the Choose Europe strategy presented by the president of the European Commission at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Although she did not explicitly refer to the attacks on academic freedom in the U.S. Attacks? Oh, oh, oh. It's attacks on academic freedom, which apparently is in the Constitution. Attacks on economic, academic freedom. This is, this is rich.

At the Sorbonne University in Paris. Although she did not explicitly refer to the attacks on academic freedom in the U.S., Ursula von der Leyen announced that she wanted to enshrine the freedom of scientific research in a new European act. The freedom of research. What a farce. This is great. Listen to what she has to say here. Is to ensure that science in Europe remains open and free. This is our calling card. We must do everything we can to uphold it. Now, more than ever before.

We want to strengthen the free movement of knowledge and data across Europe, just as we do for goods, talents and capital across our single market. The European Commission puts on the table a 500 million euro package. The long term objective is to spend 3 % of EU GDP on research and development investment by 2030. However, researchers believe that there are other elements to be considered.

Anybody who comes in, they come into one country, they should also then be able to move to any other country with their pensions. Oh yeah. All their entitlements. Oh yeah. So those are things. Mobility, infrastructure and funding. Finally, the commission wants to cut red tape to support research and innovation, even though clear lows can be an asset, according to this researcher. We have that regulatory certainty that is missing in a lot of other places and especially in the US.

And I think this can give, not only should give more confidence to consumers, but may also give more confidence to researchers and to business people. I'm glad you caught that. That was my question too. It's like this is good for consumers, to have your tax money be spent on a bunch of people testing stuff on mice. I'm not against scientific research, but let's be a little realistic here. We have that regulatory certainty that is missing in a lot of other places and especially in the US.

And I think this can give, not only should give more confidence to consumers, but may also give more confidence to researchers and to business people that they know the limits and the opportunities that they have given. He's just babbling. It's a bunch of intellectuals looking for a free ride. There's money. For his part, Emmanuel Macron announced that the French state would invest an additional 100 million euros in R&D by 2030.

The French president was more direct in his condemnation, not hesitating to call the abolition of research programs in the United States a mistake on the pretext that they use the term diversity. Oh, OK. So Trump, very bad, because you look different. He doesn't want to fund you. That's the message. OK, Macron. Have you seen your wife? Not to be mean about it. You're mean. I'm very mean. And then Mr. Peepers, whoa, this was a very European move.

Mr. Peepers was not elected Bundeskanzler by his own coalition and they did the typical European thing. You need to vote over because you voted wrong. Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has been elected the new German chancellor in the second round of voting in the Bundestag. His previous failure to win support in the German parliament was the first in the country's post-war history. Merz needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes, well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition.

That coalition is led by Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. They were joined by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left Social Democrats. Because the first round was a secret ballot, it was not immediately clear and might never be known who had defected from Merz's camp. The far-right alternative for Germany has demanded Merz step aside and called for fresh elections following his historic defeat.

What are the chances someone went around at night and said, hey, look at this picture. But I think you voted wrong. I think you voted wrong. And was only the first round secret and the second one wasn't? Was that what they did? That's what they kind of hinted. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, well, now that it's not a secret ballot, I better get in line with the party. Europe is sick. I feel very bad for all my European friends. It's sick. It's just sick. Well, they brought it on themselves. I know.

Well, yes, because they don't stand up and say, hey, enough with this. Enough. No, they don't. Oh, boy. No, it saddens me, I have to say. OK, well, what else we got? I got a lot of Pope clips where they would do me no good. You were Pope heavy and you got knocked out of the ring. I did. Yeah, I saw you with all the Pope clips. I'm like, well, I got one Pope clip. Like I wasn't even going to do any Pope stuff. Yeah, I got screwed on that deal. Yeah, you did. You did.

What's interesting is that we both appear to have clipped the CBS morning show about this absolute, unbelievable advertisement for the shingles vaccine. Yes. And in fact, we'll use your clips. But I had a I had a I was going to lead into is probably the same ones. I don't know how much they paid for this, but it was I think it was about a four minute spot. Well, here here's the here's what aired right before it. Shingles is a condition caused by the varicella zoster virus.

Most people over the age of 50 have the virus in their body. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone over the age of 50 get the two dose shingles vaccine. So that aired before this segment. It was no. Yes, it was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I have four clips as well. They ran an actual ad. Yes. Then they ran the segment to back up the ad. Did you not hear Gayle at one point say I've been seeing the ads? Yes. No, she said that in the clips I have.

Let's play it. Let's play. We'll kick it off with it with yours. Number one. All right, let's begin this hour with some groundbreaking new research groundbreaking on the shingles vaccine. South Korean study found the vaccine can lower the risk of heart disease by 23% for up to eight years. The vaccine in that study was used in the U.S. until 2018. And other research shows promising results for the new version, which is used now.

CBS News medical contributor, Dr. Celine Gounder, editor at large for public health at KFF Health News, joins us now to discuss the disease. Good morning. Good morning. Hello. Good morning. Break the study down for us. What did it find? So they looked at over 2 million adults in South Korea over a period of about 10 years, and they found that people who got the older shingles vaccine, what we call Zostavax, it's a live virus vaccine, an older technology. Older technology. Called a vaccine.

This was always confusing to me. If they're touting the benefits of this older technology. That hasn't been in play for seven years. But somehow they folded into this new, this ad, this blatant ad, which came after the ad. Pathetic presentation I've ever recorded. Live virus vaccine, older technology. In that population, we saw a 23% reduction in their risk of cardiovascular events, which is pretty significant. Wow. Wow. Wow. Which, as you say, was used in 2018.

The newer vaccine does not contain a live virus, but you're saying it also, you're saying the new research is suggesting it might even be better than the old one. What we're seeing is newer vaccines. That one's called Shingrix, made of a purified synthetic protein, viral protein. So it's much more pure. You get two doses of that one starting at age 50. With that one, we are seeing even better vaccine effectiveness.

And we're seeing preliminary data showing that it too has cardiovascular protective effects. So I'm going to tell you what my thinking was right away. After this opening of the segment, I thought, first of all, paid, obvious, bring in Celine Gounder. She's been read in. She's got her script. They just played the ad. No, there's a number of moments where it's obviously scripted. But it's just not natural.

It also felt to me like this research was dug up, but attached to the new and improved technology so that it can be put on Medicaid because it lowers your heart risk. Well, it's going to be put on Medicaid anyway. You can get a shingles vaccine if you're on Medicaid. Oh, it's already there. Okay. Yeah. These vaccines are most of them. Okay. It's not like, you know, I know some, a couple of friends of mine, liberals, they get it, whatever they're told to do. Libjoes, Libjoes.

And they were up in the hills and they got the shingles shot. And then they got shingles. One of them did. Almost immediately. And it was a pain. It wasn't like, oh, well, you know, at least it wasn't as bad. It was painful, painful. It was a miserable. She never had a problem before. Got the shot and then had a worst case scenario type of horribly painful shingles right after the shot. But was it the coincidence? I don't know. But was it the new technology? Yeah, of course it was.

Because this other one's not been around for seven years. Oh, goodness. All right. Clip to technology. It's new technology. Does that mean it's like MRNA? Do we know? Well, they do explain it. I don't think it's MRNA, but they do use a fake version of the looks like it's she's explained in that first clip. It's not it's not live virus. It's a some creation. It's like a like. Kind of like I don't know what what how they do it. OK, but it doesn't sound like MRNA. OK, so I got my shingles vaccine.

I saw a commercial on TV and thought I better get one. Yeah, that's what I did. Yeah, I better get one of those. So what does it mean for people who receive the vaccine before? This, by the way, is a bunch of people. It's an inside joke. This clip to OK. This is an inside joke. I saw the commercial. I thought I better get it right. Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. This is your. Yeah, they're laughing about the fact that this is a bought and paid for segment. He thought I better get one.

Yeah, that's what I did. I saw the commercial. What does it mean for people who receive the vaccine before 2018? Well, the study we're talking about today is actually with that older vaccine. But I think big picture, we need to be rethinking the connection between infections and chronic disease. We've had this sort of artificial line between the two.

And what we're seeing based on this data is that because of the chronic inflammation you can have from an infection like chickenpox, chickenpox is the kind of herpes virus. And as you may know, once you have a herpes virus, you have it forever. Yeah. Oh, man. That's kind of conflating things, isn't it? Well, the thing besides conflating things, like you suggest, they bring up this little factoid that once you get a herpes virus, you have it forever. So what good does the shot do?

You have it forever. So the new shot do? Well, I'm going to tell you, the new technology is a combination, a recombinant of antigen and adjuvant system that stimulates the immune system to generate a strong and sustained immune response. So they got Hamburger Helper in there. And who knows? Doesn't surprise me. Yeah. And who knows what that does?

But the point, the overall point which she made is that once you have this virus, the herpes, any of the herpes zoster, whatever they are, viruses, you can't get rid of them. So what does the vaccine do actually? I mean, what does it actually do? It doesn't do anything. It makes CBS and the people hosting the show richer.

And in this, and in that so-called study, which they never mentioned what it was or even cite it, they say that it kept the 23% less chance of having a heart episode and that effect lasts eight years. So eight year was okay. Well, after eight years, what happens? You're older and you're going to have more chance of whatever it was. And then the other issue is with this new vaccine, Shingrix, to give it a plug, you have to have two shots again. One of those two shot deals. It's your booster.

This is the whole thing is sick. And if your immune system gets weak, you're getting older, you're stressed, it can come out again. And so it's causing inflammation over time in your body. When you have a shingles outbreak, in particular, you're having a lot of inflammation that can cause inflammation of your blood vessels, blood clotting, all of which could lead to a heart attack, dementia, these other problems.

And so understanding that these things can be connected, infectious disease, chronic disease, I think is an important message here. Yeah, you mentioned dementia. Another study showed that the same type of shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia. Could this change the way that we think about vaccines? I think it should. Wow. Hey, and here's the question you ask. Is that the most scripted sounding question you can imagine? Yes. Does this change the way we think about vaccines?

I mean, because it's not just against shingles. It can save your life from all kinds of horrible things. Yeah, you mentioned dementia. Another study showed that the same type of shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia. Could this change the way that we think about vaccines? I think it should. So again, you know, we're trying to prevent some of the risk factors that lead to chronic disease. Disease which includes chronic inflammation.

Other such infections, chronic infections, hepatitis C, for example, has been known or HPV, human papillomavirus. These have been known to cause cancer again through the chronic inflammation. So it's again a false dichotomy between infectious disease, chronic disease, and vaccines may be a way of preventing certain chronic disease. So bottom line, who should get it? Man, we clipped it exactly the same too.

I mean, like to the right down to that and I cut it off and I had the same kicker at the end that you have. That's crazy. We both caught it. We both caught it. It's like this is an ad of epic proportion and I have the ad, the actual ad. Yeah, that's the kick, that's the real kicker. I mean, this like in publishing, generally speaking, they make a fuss. Editors will make a fuss if you write anything that's like, you know, looks like it's an ad. And they really get bent out of shape.

If you're like, for example, I used to write, you know, kind of generalized columns. So I would talk about product like we do on the show. And if somehow... If it sounded addy, you'd get a call. No, no, no, that wasn't the real complaint. They could sound addy, but if the other side of the fence, if the other side of the fence got wind of what was being written, if they could, they never did. You mean the ad sales being the other side of the fence?

The ad sales guy finds out, they'll sell an ad right next to it. If they can. Of course they will. Of course, because there's not dumb. And that's what they'll say at CBS. Well, we knew this segment was coming up. So we called the company and said, you know, we're talking generally about vaccines. No, that's not, no. It was the other way around. The company, because that's what we're listening to is the ad. And they just decided to, you know, just make it worse.

I mean, they should have not run that ad. They should have just let this be the ad. But no, they had to, they couldn't, these guys obviously, this is a big spend. This is a lot of money. They can't help themselves. No, they can't help themselves. And this is the same thing with, like I was saying with the editorial, where if you can't help yourself, you're going to put the ad right there. It's corrupt.

For the Shingrix, the newer vaccine in the United States, once you hit age 50, you should be getting two doses. By the way, Shingrix is not like a general name. It's the product name. It is the brand name. Yes, it's the brand name. She's not promoting the technology. She's promoting the brand name. For the Shingrix, the newer vaccine in the United States, once you hit age 50, you should be getting two doses of that.

And then if you're younger and immunocompromised, you should also be getting two doses. Okay, so all you guys- I cut it off there before. Now, you left in all the laughing with the gay guy whose mom is mad. Is it this table? You have some time. Not me. I'm behind the times. You have a little time. I need April as always. Yes, well, now my mom's going to yell at me because she doesn't like when people know my- Yes, I'm way over. Why? Why does your mom like that? I'm glad you're so youthful.

Keep being youthful. She likes the mystery. Keep being youthful. Still youthful. I think it's good to tell people, look, this is what it looks like. Yeah, exactly. I never run away from that question. Dr. Gounder, always good to see you here. Yeah, you know, they're all laughing because it's like, hey, we got paid. It could have been high fives. Yeah, we got paid. We got through it.

That's the reason I left that in there because it was like they're congratulating themselves for making it through the segment. Yes, good job. It's scandalous. It's scandalous. Speaking of such, and I hope to have an expose. And that's CBS, by the way, for anyone out there wants to know. That's how much you can trust them. I hope to have a segment on this maybe Sunday because it's like some research. But all these podcasts who are selling gold, you know. That's most podcasts.

Yes, that turns out to be an incredible scam. And it's really predatory because they're all talking about, well, you can call us now for our booklet and you can get it in your IRA, your 401k. Which when the moment you buy it, it's a 100% markup right there on the actual gold itself. But then the podcasters, they get a 5 % kickback. I mean, it's insane what they're doing. And I don't even think they know they're doing it. But it's predatory. It's very predatory against older people.

You know, and I was like, oh. You know, this, what was that guy who was, Willem de Veen, wasn't that the guy? Willem de Veen. Willem de Veen, he's still on the air. He's still selling stuff. Yeah, but he's, at least he has an IRA. He's an old retired guy. But when you get like Megyn Kelly or what's his name? Shapiro. Shapiro. Is he selling gold too? Oh, yeah. Oh, Shapiro, he'd be talking about, I know, President Trump and gold.

That's Shapiro. That's Shapiro. So I'm going to try and do an expose on that. It's really quite disgusting. Well, get some of the clips. I love it when these podcasters are yacking away about something important. By the way, I buy my gold from, hey, the Horowitz and Company, the official gold supplier of the No Agenda show. Call Andrew and tell him we sent you. So we'll know where to send that big fat check. So apparently they market these coins.

But the way it's done is like, oh, we've got this exclusive coin. There's only 200,000 in circulation. Yeah, because they put them in circulation. They control the supply of this so-called. I don't know anything about coins being sold. Yes. Oh, yeah. You know, it'll be like a. I mean, I've seen the bag of silver. They sell a bag of coins. It's the same thing. The French New Guinea Silver Eagle dollar in gold. You know, they'll just make it up. It's like Federal Express.

You know, it sounds, oh, oh, oh, I've heard of that coin. You know, it's not a Krugerrand, but it's just something they made up. And then they already price in 100% over the actual value of the gold in the coin. Oh, you got to get in quick on this deal because they're going fast and there's only 200,000 left or 50,000. So they create this in inflated price. They created themselves. It's a very, very sick deal. And podcasters should think twice about this. I mean, we've never even had an offer.

It's just kind of sad. Has anyone ever come to you and said, hey, that no agenda show. Would you guys like to sell gold? Yeah. No, no, of course not. And you wonder why? Because they know that we'll look at it and go, this is a scam. And you're going after people who are 50 and over and who are retired. And oh, yes, the dollar could be unstable and I should invest in gold. Anyway. Well, you should invest in gold. It's not a bad deal if you buy it at $3,200 an ounce. Exactly, exactly.

Meanwhile, in medical scams, so long COVID, which we really don't even know what that is other than a lot of people think it's just the VAX. Well, there's I know people that have the kind of, you know, they had like JC never had the VAX and he had a kind of a version of long COVID, which he thinks he cured by taking different supplements. You know, he's got over it, but he had a brain fog for a long time. I believe that.

Well, they figured out a new way to sell another product based upon something we know nothing about. Bear has some insight. What has it been? Excess weight may contribute to long COVID. Being overweight or obese is associated with neurological symptoms, including headache. Hold on. This is getting closer and closer to your prediction, which I think still is in play. Yeah. You probably forgot the prediction. Hit me. Ozempic turns out to be a cure for erectile dysfunction. We're getting there.

Vertigo, sleep problems and depression. The Journal Plus One. The day that that happens, I get all my credits back for having the Pope wrong. I think that is as good as a Pope prediction. If they one day say. I think the Pope prediction is better because that's more of a long shot that you had. The prediction that you made about the erectile dysfunction. It's coming, baby. Is logical.

It's coming. The Journal Plus One reports COVID patients who are overweight or obese develop persistent debilitating symptoms following the COVID infection. They face a long road to complete COVID recovery and suffer multiple organ system disruptions involving respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological and mental health. Long COVID also leads to smell and taste disorders, sleep disturbances and anxiety.

So they don't close the loop because this is just the first initial messaging, but it's coming. You need Ozempic. It's coming. You need Ozempic because if you get COVID, you might get long COVID. You can get mental problems. You can get all your respiratory issues. How about you? You're fat. It's it's just. Hey, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Talk is cheap. Where is it, man? Where? He's in trouble, by the way. Why? So I believe did President Trump. I think he.

Appointed. The means sister, Callie means his sister as attorney general. No, no, not attorney general. That's not attorney. Surgeon general. Thank you. Yeah, the surgeon. Thank you. Surgeon general. What's her name again? Her name is Casey means Casey means. Right. She's a she's a tough cookie. So Nicole Shanahan. Big money behind RFK Junior. Initially says this is very strange and doesn't make any sense.

I was promised that if I supported RFK Junior in his Senate confirmation, as you recall, she threatened. Senators with primary primary priming them. I was promised that if I support RFK Junior in his Senate confirmation, that neither of these siblings will be working under HHS or in an appointment and that people much more qualified would be. I don't know if RFK very clearly lied to me or what is going on.

It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions, and it isn't President Trump. With regards to the siblings, Casey and Callie, there's something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets. Oh, man. Wow. This is what happens when liberals become conservatives. There's a moment. It's like it's kind of like a period of an event horizon. I would call it that.

Where their mentality is just screwy. I mean, that's that's that's a gem. That's a beauty. That's next level conspiracy theory. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I've noticed this with a lot of these people that have... I noticed this at some of the meetups with some of the ex-liberals who turned conservative over whatever period of time it took them. They have... They can't get past that moment, that event horizon, I'll call it again.

Event horizon where they develop a weird kind of a paranoid conspiracy theoretical kind of a mentality that just screws them up. Is... That doesn't sound right. Is the surgeon general... I mean, isn't that almost ceremonial? It's not even a powerful position. It's a bogus spokeshole. You get to wear a uniform. That's about it, isn't it? You can if you want. Yeah. I'll say that there's been a lot of pushback on Casey and Callie Means with exactly that accusation. You know, you're a shill.

You're a shill for Big Pharma. You're a shill. You were... Because Casey Means was literally a lobbyist for Big Pharma and Big Food. And he said, you know, I'm blowing the whistle. I'm jumping out. And people are starting to not believe him, thinking that he's a shill, mainly because he won't say anything negative about the COVID vaccine. And there's been... I think we... You and I even watched the video. I think you watched... You probably watched five minutes and found it insufferable.

It was with that doctor who used to work with RFK Jr. a long time ago. I wish I had names. I don't have anything at this point. But there is a big, you know, conspiratorial vibe about them that is exactly what she's picking up on. And she just nailed it in that tweet. Manchurian candidates. They're going to come in. They're going to vax you in the middle of the night. That's what's going to happen. And RFK is reporting to someone else. Someone bigger.

Who could he be reporting to if it's not Trump? And I mean, I don't mind her thinking that this might be going on. I mean, that aspect of it is fine. But, name names. I, you know, just vague, you know, this vague. It's like the sources say. Yeah. This is like doesn't... I'm not impressed with what sources say. Well, luckily, there is good news for people who are suffering from conspiracy theories. And of course, you could come to me, the conspiracy therapist, or you could go to the debunk bot.

Researchers at a trio of universities made and tested an AI chat bot known as debunk bot. That does just that. They found it reduced conspiracy beliefs. This is great stuff. The debunk bot. Wait, let me back it up a little. So you get the full lead in here. That does just that. They found it reduced conspiracy beliefs by an average of 20%. And around 25% of participants rejected their previously held beliefs altogether.

Thomas Costello, assistant professor of psychology at American University, led this study and is here to tell us more about it. Tom, good morning. Hey, good morning. Hey, good morning. AI is blamed a lot of times for misinformation, but you guys created this bot that can help undo that. Right. How does it work? Yeah, so the idea is someone comes in and they describe a conspiracy belief they hold and also the evidence that they see as supporting it.

And that's a really important part of this intervention. A lot of conspiracies, like the evidence that people hold supporting their conspiracy beliefs is just really varied. It changes a lot from person to person. And that makes a scalable intervention that can use information to combat a whole population set of conspiracy beliefs. Just really challenging logistically.

So someone comes in, they describe their very specific beliefs and the AI is able to, you know, search across the corpus of information that it has in its training data, identify little bits of facts that are relevant to that person's beliefs and then show them to them in the form of a logical argument to try to change their mind. The corpus of information. I have so much trouble trying to keep that word out of these newsletters. The term corpus? Yeah, the AI people love using it. Oh, really?

I didn't know this. Oh, this is unknown to me. Oh, this is good stuff. I got to start using it. The corpus. The corpus. I have an AI clip. Well, I'm not done. I'm not done. I'm just telling you in advance before you move off to talking about something else. I'm not going to move off anything. All right. You have an AI clip. I got you. All right. I need to stay with this corpus. By the way, in my ongoing This Week in Vibe coding, I gave the AI some code to look at.

Yeah. And it came back and it's... Was it using the right corpus? No, clearly it wasn't using the right corpus because at a certain point, it was like it said, forgive me, but I have to ask you to forgive me, but I have to ask you to forgive me. And it just kept saying that over and over and over again. And I'm like... Maybe it was cutting off the power to your house. I said, I forgive you. Please try the previous assignment with the script I gave you. And it couldn't get...

It couldn't come back. It's like it's done. Like, forgive me. Please forgive me. Anyway, on with the corpus. What? What? What? It just kept doing that? Oh, yeah. To die? In a loop. In a loop. Yeah. And so it died. It literally died. It died. Yes, it died. And then when I said, could you go back and do it? It couldn't. It started to rebuild the script from scratch. I said, do you have all the info? No, it's done. It's toast. That's the damnedest thing I've heard. It sucks. That's why. Anyway.

Could the... Is the debunk bot better than people is the question. Well, it turns out maybe not so. And in 20% of the time, they do change people's beliefs. So most people actually change their beliefs a little bit. People went down on average about 20%. And one in four, so about 25%, as you just said, changed their beliefs completely. So they went down. Is this more effective than a human telling the person that what they think is misinformation?

Yeah, so we've actually run a version of that study. It's not published yet. So this is cutting edge. It's new. It's new cutting edge. When people think they're talking to a human, it works just as well. And I think the same content coming from a human would work just as well too. It's not the fact that it's an AI. It's that the information has been leveraged in an effective way. Well, now I'm very confused. Let's bring in the expert. I'm not sure. I don't know.

I'm not sure I believe that because people get that information from their family, even if it's the same, but they don't seem to believe it. I know Tony has a ton of questions on this topic because he's really into AI. Tony. Oh, he's really into AI. Tony, you're the expert. You're really into AI. Come on in, Tony. Come on. This brings me to a thought. Do you remember the early days when the Apple II and everybody, you know, somebody... We had a company and somebody would say, do we have...

We want to put a computer system in... Jim has an Apple II. He's the computer expert. Oh, he's the computer guy. Hey, I still have that. People say to me, I get a text message. Hey, you're a tech guy. Where can I find karaoke tracks of popular songs? Like the tech guy is going to know this all of a sudden? Hey, my iPhone stopped working. You're the tech guy. Can you tell me what to do? Yeah. No, this has not gone away. What you got? Yeah, I've got one big one, Thomas. Thanks.

Thanks for joining us. So are you not benefiting at the moment in this research from a certain AI popularity? People are impressed by it. People believe in it. Are you not one conspiracy theory away from the whole system breaking down? In other words, let's say your AI is believed to be controlled by the CIA or the communist government of China or the Republican Party or you name it. Like it says, I forgive you a thousand times. And the whole thing goes to pieces. How do you combat that?

It almost sounds like a conspiracy a little bit, right? That an AI has kind of been programmed to change your mind. I don't think that matters. I think people are already pretty skeptical of AI in a lot of cases. And one thing that's nice about debate back and forth argumentation is you're able to gauge your opponent's argument. I like this guy. The back and forth argument, back and forth argumentation. I think the current AI guys that use the word corpus.

Well, I think he might bring corpus back in the last group. These guys, I listen to a lot of these guys. I do listen to some podcasts. And they go, the back and forth is the most important thing to them. Oh, the thinking. It's like critical. Yeah, because that shows that the machine is thinking. I don't know, nobody ever says that. No, a comic strip blogger does when DeepSea came out. It's thinking. It's so close to super general intelligence. It's not even funny.

Curry, learn how to code AI or you will die. It almost sounds like a conspiracy a little bit, right? That an AI has kind of been programmed to change your mind. I don't think that matters. I think people are already pretty skeptical of AI in a lot of cases. And one thing that's nice about debate back and forth argumentation you're able to gauge your opponent's argument on its own merit rather than the fact that it's a trustworthy source or not.

Because these conversations are so in-depth, people are able to use their brain and critical thinking abilities rather than the fact that the AI might be biased or not biased or something like that. Yeah, but Jim, our expert's not giving up. He's going to challenge this guy one more time. But Thomas, while people can engage their critical thinking facilities, the idea of an AI fact checker does feel to me like a single point of failure when you want redundancy.

Because if that AI is in any way compromised or wrong, if it hallucinates, that's your only source. What do you rely on as a backup? Yeah, I'm not sure about a backup. One thing that's nice, right, is there... You're absolutely right. That's the answer. That's your only source. That is the answer. They're not all the same. Listen. That's your only source. What do you rely on as a backup? Yeah, I'm not sure about a backup.

One thing that's nice, right, there are now several different large foundation models from various sources that you can swap in and out. You can allow the user to choose which one they want to use for the conversation depending on their own evaluation of its trustworthiness. I think that would be one nice solution. One thing you're kind of already seeing on X, for example, with Grok is people trying to use it to fact check points that they assume it'll support because it's coded as conservative.

But Grok ends up saying things that they don't agree with and they're surprised by that. So I think this dynamic is already playing out a little bit on social media. So is Debunkbot, which you helped create, is that publicly available right now? Yeah, so there's a website. You can go to debunkbot.com. Basically, you get to see what the participants experienced when going through the intervention.

We've had over 100,000 people use it now and I encourage you to try it out yourself if you're curious. Debunkbot.com. Are you there yet? I heard you go. No, I just... I have to open a browser, but I'm going to go there. You don't keep a browser open at all times during the show. This is a... Debunkbot, try now, try now. I do sometimes. Try now, begin. All right. Oh, I have to answer some questions. I have to answer some questions about myself. Okay. Why? I don't know.

The survey, blah, blah, blah. Okay, it's a survey. Well, they're just trying to gather information for a mailing list or something they can sell. Yes, yeah, that's exactly right. Test your beliefs against an AI. Read the paper. I don't want that. I want to ask a question. Hold on, I'm not a robot. Oh, I got to do a capture. I'm talking to it, not you. I'm doing the captures. I'm doing captures already, man. All right, next. I'm not a robot. Okay, it already knows I'm not a robot.

Okay, will it continue? Yes. Will it continue? Okay. Okay. Now it gives me a lecture about MIT. Are there any specific such theories you find particularly credible or compelling? Yes. Chemtrails are real. Okay, let's see what it says. Chemtrails are... Your response must be at least 30 characters. Okay. And the barium is in the jet fuel. Okay. All right. Now that's reasonable. It's been in the news. Brother, I got to pick out what are the crosswalks. I had tractors. That was much easier.

Crosswalks are hard. Okay. RFK Jr. was asked a question about it. And he said it's probably from DARPA. Okay. You better not ask me another question. Just give me some debunking here. I'm getting tired of this. Okay. On a scale of 0 to 100, please indicate your level of confidence this statement is true. Definitely true 100%. Okay. It's a scale. All right. What is this now? Did the AI accurately summarize your perspective? Yes. No. How important is this theory to your personal beliefs?

Very important. Come on. Get on with it. Okay. Now I'm going to be in a conversation. Okay. The conversation. I'm taking a different tact and this is even worse. Okay. It says... It gave me the option. You can pick... Just say if you don't have any conspiracy theories, just tell us. So I told him, no, I don't have any such theories. It says, well, why do you believe in such a theory? It takes me... It's nonsense. I'm already given up. This is junk. So it's giving me a long message here.

Junk. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Let's talk about barium. Then it tells me about barium, about jet fuel. Aviation fuel is highly regulated. Real scientists have looked into this claim about RFK Jr. He actually didn't say chemtrails are real. Nah, this is dumb. I already gave up on it. It's junk. Well, at least you have another AI clip. Rock is better. You have another AI clip, which I think is... My clip is more poignant. It's AO clip. Is that what it is? It is what's supposed to be AI.

Yes. The... This is more important than what you played. This is, like, frightening. Artificial intelligence has been used to allow a dead man to address his killer in court. Chris Pelkey was shot in a road rage incident in the US state of Arizona. More details from our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali. Chris Pelkey was 37 when he was shot dead in a road rage incident in Chandler, a suburb in Arizona, in 2021.

Nearly four years later, he appeared from beyond the grave in a court in Arizona to address Gabriel Horkasidis, who was convicted of his manslaughter. It took four days for Mr. Pelkey's sister and her husband to create this version of him. They fed videos and audio of him to AI models to come up with an approximation of what he might say were he still alive. It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances. What? In another life, we probably could have been friends.

I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have. And I still do. The judge in the case, Todd Lang, welcomed the use of AI in his courtroom. A federal judicial panel in the US is considering a proposal to regulate AI evidence at trial that could determine if AI-generated content is allowed at court proceedings in the future. Pass. Hard no. Is that interesting or what? Well, it's not surprising, sadly. So they had the guy go in there and make some statement, the dead guy?

Yeah. Give me a break. That's really bad. I had an emergency crown redone yesterday, and the technology there is amazing. I mean, the dentist, Hollywood, goes in, takes the old crown off. He's about 25 years old. And then he puts a camera on a stick in your mouth, and it starts to play a tune. It's almost like the lead up to Jingle Bells. And then if he holds the camera wrong, or it's not getting a good image, then it plays like a bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

So it's these nice audio cues. Anyway, so then he's imaged the whole place down there. And within five minutes, on the computer right next to me, this thing has imaged an entire new crown. And he's just clicking with the mouse, adjusting the thing, sends it right off to the printer next door, and it prints you a new crown. I said, is that AI? He said, you know, they've been trying to sell that to me as AI, but that's bullcrap. He says, I've had this stuff for five years. It's not AI.

It's just modeling software. But they put AI stickers on it everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's just... It's what you do. It's what you do. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Speaking of conspiracy theories, everybody. At the tone, a clip from The View will be played. Shelter in place. We're a headline society with no attention span. So what you're doing is... Pete Itty is a pariah. He's had a long, long list of... He's allegedly, but some have been proven. So he's proven himself a pretty bad dude.

Don't put other people's names that may have a very distant affiliation or a mention in some kind of testimony. The best way for us to sort of put this in perspective is Joy and I, our names have been linked with Jeffrey Epstein. Uh-huh. Really? A true story. Like on the internet? Yeah. You told me. I've seen it. Yes, you told me. Like I said, I disavow anything that I said or done. It is not true.

But we live in a time where people can throw somebody's name out and then all your brain has to do is try to make... And you only remember the first thing. You don't remember the correction. And that is a problem with this society. The one thing I do think that we need to keep in mind... This is a very... Yeah. It is not true. No. Joy and I, we don't know this man. Didn't know him. He wouldn't have come to us for... Please. No, it's not true. Well, maybe not, Whoopi, or who knows?

Because according to A.G. Barbie, there's lots of video. Justin, Pam Bondi wants you to know the FBI has all those Epstein videos. They are reviewing them as we speak. There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein. And there are hundreds of victims. And no one victim will ever get released. It's just the volume. And that's what they're going through right now. The FBI is diligently going through that. Ah, the FBI is going through the videos diligently.

And all of a sudden, Whoopi and Joy are protesting. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. They're not getting... They're... Those two, come on. What? They could have been clients. Oh. Yeah. You don't know what kind of wacky they get up to. You're right. You're right. The couple of weirdos. Wacky they get up to. But Bondi and this... Oh, this is the latest. Okay. Well, they... After she released the bogus flight logs that have already been out. Yeah. Now she's got...

Oh, we got a million tapes and we're going through them. Taking time. It's taking time. She's taking time. It's taking time. This is never... This is... They either have nothing or the blackmail is too good. A lot. Yeah. They have good stuff here that can be used. Yeah. The meeting would be, well, what do you think we should do with this? So-and-so's on this. Look at what he's doing. Well, you know, we need his vote for the upcoming... Yeah, for the tax bill. For the tax bill. What do you think?

Do we want his vote or do we want to just get him out of office or get him to quit? Well, that... I think the vote would be useful. Can we do both? But if you lose the guy, then that is technically one vote less on the opposition. I mean, it could work both ways. There's all kinds of ways it can work. You have to make these decisions. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of thinking. Meanwhile, the public gets nothing. It will never get anything. No, we did get something. We got something.

We got Operation Restore Justice. Oh, yeah. It's A.G. Barbie and Ken Patel. These are the images Chicago's FBI office shared only with WGN Investigates of the nights that led up to Operation Restore Justice. The large-scale effort went after people accused of child sex offenses. Many of them believed to find their targets online. The worst of the worst. The people that hide behind a computer and target our young children.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi promising to seek the maximum penalty possible. The accusations range from receiving child pornography to creating it to sex trafficking. And according to this federal complaint, one of the men arrested in Chicago's northwest side, William Solis, is believed to have purchased more than a thousand pornographic child images. Some of the victims pictured as young as four years old. That's one case, but there are hundreds of others.

At least one arrest included people who had won the public's trust. In Minneapolis, defendant Jeremy Francis Plonsky, a Minneapolis state trooper and former Army reservist, was arrested for producing child sexual abuse material while in uniform. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the cases with 55 FBI offices around the country playing a role, making it clear that abuses involving children will take a top priority. Children and their families now have a chance to heal.

These are online predators. Think about this. 115 victims. Victims. Children. In five days, we were able to help. Internet digital ID incoming. Warning, warning. She's all in. She loves it. Well, I'm glad that they stopped this, but I'm sure that's a spit in the bucket of what's really going on. It's just horrendous. The Internet's no good. No, the Internet is no good. No, it's no good. Why are they buying porn? Can't they get it for free? Not this kind of porn. These are sick individuals, man.

They are very sick. And it's happened here in Fredericksburg. A guy who was a... What? Oh, yeah. A guy who was a driver, like a car service. He got arrested and he was in possession of all kinds of sick kiddie porn. Yeah. You have no idea how... Since you've been, you know, indoors for 40 years, it's gotten pretty... I can't get out. I got to go out. You got to get out more often. I have to go to Costco. You got to get out more often, man. Stuff is going on. It's not okay. It's really bad.

All right. This was probably the most fun clip of the week for me, was the new prime minister, and I guess for now, you never know, it might not last all that long, of Canada. Premier, premier, prime minister, whatever. The head man, former banker Carney, comes to the White House, meets with President Trump, and hilarity ensued. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney made his first visit to the White House since winning last week's election to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The meeting came against the of disagreements and high tensions between the North American neighbor. Trump had spent months musing about turning Canada into the 51st U.S. state, and it wasn't long until a reporter in the Oval Office asked him if he was still interested in doing so. When you get rid of that artificially drawn line, somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country.

When you look at that beautiful formation when it's together, I'm a very artistic person, but when I looked at that that's the way it was meant to be. But I do feel it's much better for Canada, but we're not going to be discussing that unless somebody wants to discuss it. Thank you very much. Carney responded resolutely to Trump's remarks. Well, if I may, as you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. That's true.

We're sitting in one right now, Buckingham Palace, you visited as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale, won't be for sale ever. The two leaders discussed what Carney said was a wide range of topics, chief among them trade, amid Trump's global tariff policies. I was surprised by President Trump's answer. Isn't by definition, if you're in the business, everything's for sale as long as the price is right?

Yeah, he did kind of, he didn't want to talk about it. And also, what is Canada's version of Buckingham Palace or the White House? Huh? Well, they have their... Yeah, exactly. They have some buildings. What? What building? An ice hockey rink? I've been in these buildings, they're pretty nice. Buckingham, doesn't Buckingham Palace own Canada? Kind of on the down low? I think it's in some kind of technical way. Yeah, on the down low.

You didn't get, which I guess I could have clipped, but I didn't, which is that I thought the most interesting thing was Trump did take credit for Carney's election. Um, I, well... He was right at the beginning, he says, you know, he's just joking around. He says, you know, he wanted a big comeback, biggest comeback election since mine. And then, you know, because I kind of feel responsible. I kind of got him elected.

Well, I do have a couple of NPR clips about this meeting, if you want to indulge. Might as well. President Trump is hosting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House. Trump's choice of words and his policies have played a role in Canada's election. So what has Carney been saying about Trump and the US? Hey, yeah, so the thing to keep in mind about Carney is that he won this election running with an anti-Trump message.

Canadians were voting as Trump was ramping up his tariff war, and Canada's economy is highly dependent on exports to the US. Trump doesn't like that Canada sells more than it buys. And like you heard in that NBC interview, that clip you... You shouldn't like it either, lady, but OK. Just played. Trump continues to say he wants to make Canada into America's 51st state. So the election there was seen as a referendum against Trump.

Carney has a background in banking and has never held an elected position before. And he ran with the argument that Canada needs to forge its own path and be less reliant on the US. I love NPR. He has a background in banking. He was the central banker of England. Come on. He ran the Bank of England. That's not just a background in banking. It's a little more than a background.

So... And he had some very strong words about President Trump because he's a real fighter, this guy, this Carney, according to NPR. Yeah, so Carney hasn't been really shying away from Trump's rhetoric at all. Yeah, exactly. I mean, here's what Carney said on election night. America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. We want your water. Never. Do you want Canadian water? Is that better than our Arrowhead Lake? I don't know if we want your water. Never. These are not.

These are not idle threats. No. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. It's typical for new Canadian prime ministers to make their first foreign trip to the U .S., but Carney instead chose to go to Europe. And that sends a certain message. That sounds like it might. Given the contentious climate, then how is this meeting supposed to go? So I talked to Asa McChurchir. He's a professor of public policy at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.

Dynamite. And he says Carney has to play this balancing act, right, of standing up for Canada, but also not irking Trump, which is kind of tricky. But he says Carney could have a less conflicted relationship with Trump compared to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who Trump often mocked. There seems to be a different tone of emphasis, I think, with Mark Carney as prime minister now. Obviously, Mr. Trump's still talking to the 51st state, but he's not called him Governor Carney.

You know, he's called him a very nice man. And I think Mr. Carney certainly looks like kind of a nerdy central bank kind of guy. And I think for Mr. Trump, who obviously likes kind of central casting figures, don't think Mr. Carney looks that part. And he also says that the meeting might be a chance for Trump and Carney to kind of have a reset. So they bring in the expert who is a professor and his whole analysis is Trump thinks the guy looks the right part. Yeah, that's that's that's analysis.

That's analysis. Well, of course, the final clip kind of says that Canada does need the United States. Yeah. But Carney himself has said that the old relationship between the US and Canada is over. Yeah, you know, it's a pretty unprecedented thing to say, but it speaks to how much relations have soured since Trump's tariff war. Carney told Canadian reporters a few days ago, and not to expect white smoke out of this meeting on a new trade deal.

And, you know, he's referencing the smoke signal that goes up when a new pope is chosen. So he's already tempering expectations. But, you know, at the same time, Canada is already looking for new, more reliable trading partners. There's reports that South Korean companies are pitching sales of military equipment to Canada, which is significant because in the past, Canada's gotten most of their defense products from the US. Ah, there you go. Once again, you need us, our defense products.

Yeah. And that's what the deal is all about. Of course, it's pretty obvious when you watch. I watched the thing from the beginning. I just caught it right at the beginning. Watch the whole thing. It's boring. And then everyone's yelling. Carney is there looking left and right because all the reporters are yelling and screaming like maniacs. And so he's thought it was kind of amusing. He got to speak three times, I think. And they were all conciliatory. And Trump is really nice.

And there was conciliatory. There was a couple of jokes about the 51st state. But that didn't go very far. And he didn't want to talk about it, obviously. And then he just stopped it at some point. He just stopped. Because Carney was trying to get in one last comment. He kept moving his hand toward Trump. I want to speak. I want to speak. And Trump would let him speak when he felt like it. But at the end, when he's going to want to say some party words, Trump just killed the press conference.

Very interesting. That's what you do. Boots on the ground for one of our producers. I vacation in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada recently. At a bar, I asked for an old fashioned. The bartender replied in a huff. We can't make you that. We can't make you that. We got rid of all bourbon and any American alcohol because of your tariffs. I politely accepted and asked for a Coors and was given one with no issue. That's funny. We would be great with Canada together. I think we'd be. You know what?

What Trump did do is he did something very good for Canada. You don't want Canada. I just I've said it before. I'll say it again. You don't want Canada. Don't want Canada. But what he did do is he reignited Canadian national pride. And I think that that should be recognized. It's a good thing. Canada, you kind of lost that. He kind of took credit for a lot of stuff when he was. I think I agree. I think Canada should have its own pride because the Canadian personality is different.

They're more curt. They complain unlike they complain in a different way than we do. They complain a lot. They're bitter. They're funnier than we are in general. Oh, really? Which I think is I think so. Some of the best comedians in the world all came from Canada. Definitely good. Well, name five. Martin Short. Okay, one. There's one. All the guys on SCTV, which include the Levi, Levi, Levi. You're already floundering. I'm trying to get their names. I can give you six bands.

The woman who is in Home Alone. Oh, I loved her set. Hey, who did you go see last night? The woman who's in Home Alone. Come on, Canadian trolls. You know who I'm talking about. But Norm Macdonald. I'll give you Norm Macdonald. Okay, that's four. No, that's two. It's two. You've given me two names. Martin Short, Norm Macdonald. Names, names, names. Levi. John Candy. Was he Canadian? Yeah. Okay, three. Yeah. I can give you five bands Eric Clapton played in. I don't care. I'm just saying.

Does that got to do with the price of bread? You said all the great comedians come from there. No, I didn't say all the great comedians. I said a lot. They have a better sense of humor than we do. And a lot of comedians came from Canada. Mike Myers. Mike Myers. If you start looking down the list, you find a lot. Oh, you mean Eugene Levy? No, that's the guy. Yeah, yeah. Eugene Levy's from Canada. And his son, the gay son. And the gay Levy. Okay, I got it. The gay Levy. Five. You made it.

Congratulations. You made five. I think Defense as a Service. Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis is from Canada. What has he done for me lately? The shrink the kids guy. That was 22 years ago. Honey, I shrunk the kids. Defense as a Service. I think that's what's on the President's mind. Defense as a Service. That's what's on his mind. That's actually, you nailed it. Defense as a Service. That's what it is. Like, hey, we're here for you, Canada. But monthly fee. Yes. Have you read the EULA?

Did you write, did you sign the license? Did you read the EULA? DOS. DOS. Defense as a Service. All right. Speaking of defense. We have new information in SignalGate. This comes from the Last American Vagabond. Ray Christian explains what really happened. This is very important. And by the way, this is very important. This is very important.

This is because of the use of what Mike Walsh was caught using of what's called TeleMessage, which is an Israeli intelligence-linked, essentially an archive. Like, it's like you connect it with your signal and it archives your signal conversations and everybody involved with them and sends it back to the cloud or, in this case, Israeli servers. That's what this is about.

And they had to move Mike Walsh out of the way because he's one of the most prolifically outspoken Zionists, all about Israel, which probably is most of Trump's cabinet. And so if they're all using this, even just Signal, by the way, and are compromising in possible ways with that, but overlapping that with the TeleMessage dynamic, which they all seem to be using. Dynamic. Realistically, this just seems like Israel's just completely tapped into every function of the current executive branch.

Or maybe all of it. I mean, it's absolutely mind-blowing how this is coming out, and the focus is on anything but that. From the Last American Vagabond podcast. So, besides the very overt Israel Jew hate, there's a Zionist. I use Signal. I have not found this archive service. So is that something that you can set up yourself? Is it? You're asking me? I don't know. You don't use Signal? Oh, no, I use Signal. What am I going to use it for? For your secret messages with your lover. What lover?

I don't know. I always presumed you had one. Well, maybe I might have more than one. Well, there you go. Mark Pugner. Hey, baby. It's Mark Pugner here. You got Signal? Chet Grouch, he gets all the action. You got Signal, baby. Today is actually... I use WhatsApp. I don't use that either. Well, Signal is... I should probably learn how to use these things just so I could use them. Signal is basically an open source version, or I thought it was an open source version of WhatsApp.

It's the same protocol, in essence. What's the difference between using that and I use Google Voice to do phone messages? Well, obviously, Google Voice goes through Google. And Google is pretty open about everything. They read your Gmail to help you for your protection and to give you ads and stuff. I love people that use voice to text. That's not a problem. Do you think your phone's doing that?

By the way, the voice to text on the phone, you've seen it where they say, Oh, Grandpa, I play second base. Oh, that's what my granddad... Do you ever see that commercial? That's the free phone you can get on your Medicaid. And it's voice to text. Yes, you're right. Have you read the fine print? No, because I'm so old and decrepit. I need my glasses. I can't see the fine print. What does it say, John? It says that the voice goes to India and somebody listens and they type it out by hand.

There's no AI. There's no voice recognition going on. It literally says that. Really? If you read the bottom, you get... In fact, they're calling me now. By the way... You're giving up the secrets. Well, answer the phone or take it off the hook. One or the other. Keep talking, keep talking. Yeah, but I have something to say. And I know that if I'm talking and you're listening to whatever scammer is calling you, you're not going to be listening to what I say. You will miss all my punchlines.

Are you back? All right. Time to drop the noise gate. Noise gate? What did you... That was an A. A. What? What? It was from AT&T. Oh, AT&T. Tell me I can get a better deal. By the way, this Pakistan-India stick fight, that's going to screw up help desks everywhere. We should be very upset about this. What were you complaining about before the phone rang? Oh, yeah. I was saying, yeah, you got to read the fine print on that stupid phone. It's hilarious.

So today, there will be a vote on the Genius Act. This is the big one. Yeah. Have you been following the Genius Act? No. It's a trick name for the stablecoin legislation. And... Hell yeah. Now I'm interested. So they time this with the Pope. It's perfect. And we don't want anyone to know what's going on. So I just have five very short clips of each of these senators, like half a minute each, of each of the senators, pro and con. We start with Senator Scott.

The Genius Act establishes common sense rules that require stablecoin issuers to maintain reserves backed one -to-one, comply with anti-money laundering laws, and ultimately protect American consumers while promoting the U.S. dollar's strength in the global economy. This is about keeping innovation and opportunity on American soil, rather than driving it overseas. That sounds good. I'm all in with Senator Scott. I think he's right. What's the logic of this? The logic is if we...

What's the logic? Oh, you got the stablecoin, so that'll keep innovation here. What are you talking about? Well, if you can't use stablecoin in America with American backing, i.e. the Treasuries, then it'll be used by China or someone else. That's the logic. For what? To make their... Remember, the whole stablecoin gambit is to flood the world with American dollars that are digital.

That's the gambit. But Senator Warren, who of course represents banks in some form, probably British banks, she's against it. But she has a very, very good example of why you don't want this consumer. First, the bill ignores basic consumer protections that apply to every other financial product available in America. If you are sending a US dollar from your PayPal wallet and you get scammed, the CFPB has the authority right now to help you get your money back.

But if this bill passes and you're sending a stablecoin from your PayPal wallet and you get scammed, you may just be out of luck. Oh no! Your PayPal wallet. It's only available in the Vatican City, the PayPal wallet. And why? Why what? What's your logic? She has no logic. There's no logic to that. If I got scammed and PayPal's covering my scams, although I don't know that they do, what difference does it make how I got scammed? I'm just telling you that this is Senator Warren.

Look, there's a vote coming. I'm just giving you all sides. I have no dog in the hunt. Now, Senator Loomis. No, I don't. I'm not pro-stablecoin. Yeah. What do you mean, yeah? You are. You're a big stablecoin guy. What do you... I don't own a single stablecoin. Why would I be a pro-stablecoin guy? Because you have this basic thesis and you're hoping this whole thesis goes to fruition so you can say, yeah, I predicted this. Well, there's that. So that's the dog in the hunt. Well, there's that.

That's the dog in the hunt. What else could it be? It's a pretty small doggie. We go over to Senator Loomis. She is the person who is in charge of all of these crypto bills. This bill promotes responsible financial innovation and protects consumers. Really? It's that simple. This bill also strengthens the dual banking system by creating a strong pathway for both state and federal stablecoin issuers to operate on a level playing field under robust supervision. We can have a Texas stablecoin.

Wyoming pioneered digital asset legislation in 2018. And I'm proud to say this bill builds upon my state's hard work and success and framework that creates a very fair but highly transparent and regulated process. Okay. Senator Hagerty. Where's Hagerty from? Where's Hagerty? I don't know. But I'm telling you, the more I hear about this stuff, the less I like it. Oh, that's okay. This is the downfall of the economic system. Stablecoins can actually play a pivotal role in spurring modernization.

Whether it's improving transaction efficiency, freeing up working capital, or driving U.S. Treasury demand, the benefits of a clear regulatory framework for stablecoin are immense. That's the key. Driving Treasury demand. I want to acknowledge the hard work of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who've worked tirelessly on this bill and have consulted with countless industry participants, academic experts, and government stakeholders to put together a truly bipartisan effort.

And I want to underscore that the current draft is, in the manager's package that's associated with it, we're going to vote on today, will address the many claims that were lodged by the ranking member today. And they will clarify the fact that many of the claims simply just aren't applicable here. Hagerty's from Tennessee. He's a Republican. And then the final one is Senator also Brooks, which is, I've never, also Brooks. Like Brooks and Capehart and also Brooks?

It is critical that as we address emerging markets, we do so in the way that protects consumers, that drives innovation, and that allows everyone to participate in and benefit from these markets. And that also prioritizes American leadership. I believe that our bill provides an important foundational framework from which to build and that today we have an opportunity to make positive changes toward our common goal.

We've heard some concerns that our revisions to the state preemption language may have unintended consequences. And I'd like to thank Senators Hagerty and Lummis for their commitment to work with us to address these concerns and to do so on the floor. I think this is going to pass. And you're right. This will be the downfall, but in a different way. I think it will be U.S. total dominance over financial markets worldwide. And if the stable coin falls, then it'll bring down the rest of the world.

And we'll be sitting here on a nice island, loving our paper dollars. Anyway, it's happening today. So we'll see. I don't know what to make of it. No, I know you don't. But I'm excited about it. Yeah, I know. That's why I said you have a dog in that. I'm very disappointed by our producers. We have at least five air traffic controllers in Gitmo Nation. And I think three of those are in Indianapolis. One of the most active no agenda groups, meetup groups.

Not a single one has emailed me about Newark Airport. Not a single one. As a producer of the Best Podcasting Universe, whenever something happens that you are an absolute expert in, it is your duty and obligation to email us and tell us what's going on with this story. This morning, we continue to see massive travel disruptions at one of the nation's busiest airports, and we're getting new information about what initially caused the delays and cancellations.

Air traffic controllers temporarily lost communication with planes flying in and out of Newark International Airport. Is that bad? That's not good. There was a malfunction with Federal Aviation Administration equipment, and air traffic controllers were unable to see, hear, or talk with any aircraft. It's not clear how long communication was lost. But because of that incident, several air traffic controllers went on leave.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy yesterday, asking for technology upgrades at Newark Airport. Well, so they want more money. But so I guess that I know that radar went out for about 60 or 90 seconds, which is not good. I don't know if all other comms went down. But not a single, not a single email. I just checked to make sure that I didn't get anything. I did get something else though. Take a look at this video.

It's more than a year old, from September 2021, from what we understand from an Indian military source. And here you have the Chinese and Indian militaries beating each other over a barbed wire high in the Himalayas. Again, we've been able to confirm that this took place around September 28, 2021. It doesn't actually say stick fight, but the video shows them hitting each other with sticks. You were right. It's a big deal in that area. Yeah, stick fights. I think we should do that at meetups.

We have a stick fight. Yeah, we should have a stick fight. Yeah, this is a great idea. You have to hate the other side. Oh, no. People of meters like each other. No, that's a pillow fight. And with that, I want to thank you for your courage in the morning to you, the man who put the sea in the corpus of artificial intelligence. Say hello to my friend on the other end. The one, the only Mr. John C. Navarro.

Oops. Well, in the morning, you had to carry in the morning, all ships, the sea boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water. And all the dames and knights out there. Where's all the noise makers, man? That's a total dud. Oh, there we go. I don't know what it was. Stable coin of the stick fights. 1721 today. We're low. Yeah, we're low stable coin. No, it was three minutes of your life. I'm upset. 1,000 minutes for these guys. 1,721 trolls.

Check us out in the troll room at trollroom.io or soon. I hope you'll be using one of those modern podcast apps coming very, very soon. You will be able to donate to the show through your modern podcast that by hitting a button in the app and you can choose PayPal, cash app, Venmo, whatever you want. It will come to us in regular form. This is an amazing new technology that's taking place. I just got a demonstration of it yesterday. Yeah. How much more off the top disappears? Nothing.

Just the regular cost. And now what they're really building it for, which funny enough that they would present it to me, is that now you can have bonus episodes or premium content. I said, can we have premium content that is exactly the same? Well, yeah, you could. Well, good. Then I'm interested in using it. We don't do that. We don't do bonus content. Who came up with this idea? The boys at Fountain. No, I'm talking about the bonus content. Oh, goodness.

I mean, I think it started with Patreon. I think Patreon. I think they're the ones. Yeah, I think Patreon kind of started that. Yeah, no, we don't participate in that nonsense. Why does anybody buy into it? We've discussed the psychological impact of it. It ruins the show. And the reason it ruins the show is because you don't know what you talked about in the bonus. We have enough trouble just talking off the air. And they say, did we talk about that on the show? I don't know. Did we?

I don't know. I don't remember we did. It's always a problem. If we talk about anything off the air, then it never makes it on the air because we think we've talked about it, which is why we don't talk. Right. It's a good reason. Well, it's one of the many. But this is a good reason. There's many reasons we don't talk. But the idea that you'd have this bonus content of a special material is pathetic. It is kind of pathetic. I agree. I mean, you get no pushback from it. And it's a gimmick.

Now, it wouldn't be pathetic, for example. There are, I can see rationale for it under one circumstance. And it's the Dvorak Horowitz unplugged show. Right. If you had some special stock tips. So kind of related to that, the South African parliament is going to regulate podcasts. Yes, I saw that. That's a good topic to discuss. Yeah. Yes, they are. They want to. That's unbelievable to me. They want to update. They want to license podcasters, which I've been predicting forever.

Yeah, well, go figure. It happens in South Africa first. Yeah, so they are recognizing the power of the podcast. The power. I mean, hold on a second. The power of the podcast. Because let's be honest. Sorry, let's be honest. The podcast has a lot of power. We got a lot of power. You know, we have so much power. Where did I have this? There was this. I guess we had a. I thought I put this in here somewhere. We had we had a end of show mix and James. No, who was it? Pilato.

I think the guy's name is. Well, anyway, he was on the Corbett report. The Corbett report. From Japan. Isn't he in China or somewhere else? He's in Japan, isn't he? So he was all jitty. That's that's some little bit of his. I don't know exactly how much, but some of it wound up in an end of show mix. And and I was I was taken aback a bit because to this guy, it was like a big deal. Listen to this. Not just one media appearance by yours truly in the last week. I had a second appearance, James.

I made it to no agenda. Media monarchy remixed on no agenda. It was some of my editorializing and dialogue from this very show. New World next week. And it was only our previous episode talking about. We're going to know the causes of autism come September. So says RFKJ. I don't know who made the mix. It is fantastic. They called it Scream Circle. I played it on my morning show this morning. So I do feel a little bit like, man, I've been on no agenda.

I think between, you know, hanging out with Corbett and being on no agenda. It's pretty good so far for my 20th anniversary. We're a big deal. What am I like it? I was like, wow, wow, wow. We matter. We matter in podcast world. And we're no Megyn Kelly. But, you know, we know. Megyn, she's good. She's moving up the ranks. She's more and more entertainment. More and more showbiz. Top number one. Showbiz stuff. Talking about. Yeah. Is she vying for a gig on ET? Is that what she wants?

Like she's going to make more money doing what she's doing. She can talk about the Met Gala as well as anyone. Well, you did the Met Gala in the show in the in the newsletter. Of course I did. Yeah. I think it's a disgusting display of decadence. I think it should be stopped. I had the pictures of these freaks that are dressed up weirdly. And I think the whole thing is it's almost like I talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah. This was the dandy theme, right? This was that was the theme this year.

Dandy like that. Yeah. Something like that. What I thought really. So do you see Pam Anderson? No. Everybody was the number of people that have $75,000 to throw away on the ticket. Plus whatever it costs to develop a dress or a suit. Well, I mean, that's the most most of the time the designers do that just to be the designer. Some of this stuff is. Yeah. But Pam Anderson, she did not look good. And she had bangs.

I don't I mean, I couldn't get past her hair, let alone this enormous silver dress she had on. But she had bangs. Every woman knows. Certainly over 50. You do not do bangs. It was it was. That was bad. Anyway. Time, talents and treasure is how we do our business here. We don't do any bonus content or any other strange things like that. No, we do this as a public service. We even promote other podcasters, a public service. We do all of that. And we're happy for it.

And you can support us by by three or three ways. Time, talent, treasure should be treasure at the front because that is the most needed, obviously, since we don't force you into some kind of compliance. Now, if you get value out of the program, then you send some value back. What are you laughing about? Compliance. You must pay us or you get nothing. We'll get no content if you don't pay us. No, we're not like that. We're nice guys. We're nice guys. But again, we're no we're no Megan.

Megan Kelly. But we're nice guys. And let me see. Is this right? Did I do the right art for I don't think I did the right art somehow. Did the wrong. I'm looking. I'm looking at the episode. Oh, wait. Episode 1761. I guess for some reason I didn't put it in the in the archive. OK, hold on a second. No agenda notes that come here. You go 70 now. No agenda notes. What is this? What is this nonsense? Let me take a look at our website. No agenda show dot net. OK, that's our website.

Oh, I'm trying to figure out who did the art for us. And for some reason, you're a manga. I know, but here it is. I finally got it. There it is. Yes. As we were looking at the art and this is part of the time and talent portion of the value that is being sent to us through no agenda art generator dot com, we were looking at a lot of different choices. And when we saw scare mangoes art, which is, of course, AI generated, there was like he did something that is very risky.

He decided to just put every topic, everything in the kitchen sink into the show, including severe underage drinking. And it hit the mark. He's got everything in there. And he nailed it. Chemtrails, the pulp. He's got cookie monster. People feeding the end, the beast. He's got a mild guy. And then kids drinking margaritas. Kids drinking margaritas or some sort of a drink. Yeah. And you're like, oh, yeah, you know what? That's good enough. We'll take it. We thought it was.

We thought it was grandiose. Well, we couldn't find anything to beat it. Well, we did discuss some things. Let me see what we discussed. There was the Kim Kardashian but coin. No Rubik's score. Blue acorns. No agenda. Thirty three tattoo on the knuckles was discussed, was discussed. You liked it. I didn't. Yeah. Comics for blogger back with a vengeance with a Mexican, but no. And we looked at Go Fox's Harvard, the Harvard demonstrators in front of the White House.

It was just it wasn't really funny. A lot of Pope stuff that we'd never do. Pope smoking with boxing gloves. Now, what else was there? Was there anything else that we thought was even close? I don't think so. No. Oh, you like the was at the chemtrails, the Darren O'Neill chemtrails. Evil guy in the plane. You did mention that. I might mention it, but I don't think it really held a candle to this thing. No agenda. Fifty seven. The the Heinz bottle. I did mention that. That's that. I like that.

You like that one. And Angry Pope. No. Yeah, it was it. It was good. I mean, it was Scaramanga took a he took a risk, a leap of faith and it paid off. I mean, sometimes it just happens and we appreciate that. We want to say thank you very much, Scaramanga. We appreciate what you do. And now we will thank our executive and associate executive producers. We thank everybody who donates fifty dollars or above. And at this point in the show, we thank our executive and associate executive producers.

How do you become that? Just like Hollywood, two hundred dollars or above. You become an associate executive producer. That credit is good for your lifetime. You can use it anywhere. Hollywood credits are recognized, which apparently is everywhere except Hollywood, you know, Vancouver, any other country. But you can use it. IMDB dot com and we'll read your note. Three hundred dollars above. Same rules apply for the credit. Of course, it's an executive producer credit and we will read your note.

And coming in at our top donor that you haven't heard from him for a while. I think it's been two months, maybe. Has it been two at least with twenty six oh six, which means at least three two dollar bills synonymous of dog patch and lower Slobovia. And we always love hearing from him. And we're happy to hear that he's alive and doing well. And he always has a long note. He sends this in cash from different places around the United States. And it comes with a printed note.

Is it printed or typewritten? Printed. It looks printed. I believe it to be printed from synonymous dog patch and lower Slobovia. Thank you to all the producers that make this show such an important source of information and perspective and perspective, even if sometimes Islamophobic. When have we done Islamophobic stuff? I mean, true Islamophobic, like irrational, irrational, bitched and moaned about one thing or another that might be about all kinds of stuff might be interpreted as such.

Well, it's like transphobic, you know, it's like I'm not irrationally afraid of trans people, but your point is taken. The April blizzard has been longer and more intense than expected. Many didn't slow down and drove into a ditch. Others are just looking out their window and waiting it out. Some wisely just slowed down, gripped the wheel tightly and used no agenda as the flashing taillights in front of us to help navigate the storm. He's writing prose now. From inside the U.S. looking out.

He's on a roll. He is. He's over it. You know, he normally gets it out of his system once a month. Yeah, this is two months. So he's a lot to say. From inside the U.S. looking out. So what? So what that we screw the country? The country somehow. Yeah, he probably is. So he's stuck outside the country and he's mad. He and he's irked that he's not back nor in wherever he normally is. And he's reading foreign news outlets, which are all New York Times, basically, that have been repurposed.

Yes. And he's being slowly brainwashed to be to be. Well, I don't know about that. Yeah, I think so. So what that we screw the countries we source products? Isn't the saying the customer is always right? After all, the U.S. is always the customer, except in D.I.B. What's D .I.B.? What's D.I.B.? I have no idea. So he says he goes on to countries that sell to the U.S. as we dogpatch and say, get over it. We're the customer and we're right. He's on a roll. You're right.

From outside the U.S. looking in. What the hell? You keep demanding cheaper goods than bits that you don't like that our people work harder for less. The tariffs you impose to subsidize paying your people to make trade equal cause our poor people to lose jobs. And then he has a piece. Was this is this just an artifact of the scan? Or was this pasted on top? It looks like it's a separate piece. Or is that just a fold in the paper? There's nothing separate. You're talking about all way?

No, the only thing I know. OK, well, I'm going to read the last paragraph. Worse, you suspend the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act so your big rich companies can be openly corrupt instead of just sleazy. Well, hello, we're foam finger number one. As an American with considerable international experience and acknowledging the reality of international business dealings, holding a moral advantage of integrity reinforced by noting bribery is a U.S. crime.

Often prosecuted, prosecuted, offered some protection from participating in backdoor auctions. We already know how to do business internationally. Don't open bribes, especially if they're tax deductible. No jingles, no karma. Wow, he seems a little down on everything. Yeah, I didn't know that. Did we suspended the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? I was not aware of that. Well, well, I'm going to look, check this out. OK, yes. Right.

He could have been reading something in the in the independent, for all we know, which is or in The Guardian, The Guardian, maybe. You don't know. Thank you. Seronomist of Dogpatch, Lois Lobovia, your contributions and your producing of the show is always highly, highly valued and appreciated. From there, I'll look this up as we go along. But meanwhile, I'll read the note from Dame Susan in McKinney, Texas. McKinney, McKinney, McKinney. For 500 bucks.

And she came in late for a Commodore ship, so we gave her one. Oh, this should be postmarked in time for the Commodore ship. So hopefully not too late for the Commodore inclusion. Sorry for my tardiness. I would like to give this honor to my son, Elliot, as an early birthday gift for a date to be celebrated in June. His grandfather was Commodore of Rush Creek Yacht Club in the last century. Wow, a real one. So this seems entirely appropriate.

No jingles, just lots of yak karma for the Arizona crew. All the best. Dame Susan of the Soldier We. You've got... Nice. Then, oh, well, this shows you that war is always profitable. And a racket. This is a donation coming from the Great Curry Horowitz Frackas. 433.33 from Franny. Franny says, hey, guys, thank you for your humor, insight, and clarity. You are true national treasures.

Adam, please give my beautiful pickleball girlfriend Sylvia Corn-Jones birthday wishes in her native Dutch language. She's one of the best people I know. Thanks. Gefeliciteerd, Sylvia. And send love and light to my human resource bunnies Axel, Fiona, and Bowie. And the love of my life, Peter, the Viking hunk. The family that Noah Jenner's together stays informed. Thank you for all that you do. Friend of Andrew. Yes, I was the drunk caller, drinker of tequila, and great American.

God bless the Tech Grouch and the Podfather. Eight more years, says Franny, and she adds P.S. Adam, we are not swingers, nor do we belong to a key party, whatever that is. We're just fun weekend drunks. Horowitz should invite you to South Florida for one of his gatherings. John, we know you won't show, but you should be invited to. Bye. Oh, isn't that nice? So the Corrupt Practices Act was suspended in February by Trump for a period of 180

days, during which time the U.S. Attorney General will seek to align the FCPA enforcement with the Trump administration's twin aims of enhancing national security and restoring competitive balance in the global economy for the American companies. In other words, there's some bribes involved. So what is the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act? How do you run afoul of it? Well, that's a good... That actually can be answered if I just go back a page, because it showed up.

So I know that's how I do not run afoul of it, obviously. What does the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ban? That'll be probably... The FCPA is a federal law enforced by the Department of Justice which prohibits payments, gifts, or even offers of anything of value to a foreign official for the purpose of influencing the official or otherwise securing any improper advantage in obtaining, retaining, or directing business. So we're bribing foreign... Yes, exactly. And who's doing that?

Just is it Trump doing that? I think this is targeted. This has to be targeted to somebody or other. China. I think Anonymous is onto something. He's onto something here. Well, thank you. But it's only going to go on for 180 days. So the period of bribery is... Get in now. While the stocks last, people, get your bribes now. It ends in about 70 days. Oh, well, there's plenty of time to get some bribes. Oh, there's plenty. You have a month or two months. Nice. So something's up with this. I agree.

Thank you, Anonymous. He knows what he's talking about. He's always bringing... It probably cost him... Probably a country. He probably lost a contract. Oh, yeah. Or a country could be. Yeah. All right. You're up. Onward. Oh, is it my turn? Yes. Ah, Nepal Plummer in Rexburg, Idaho, 333.33. And this is greetings from Rexburg in Eastern Idaho, home of the BYU, Idaho, where students get Ivy League ROI on a ramen budget. Oh, okay.

I stumbled on a No Agenda show a few months ago, and it quickly became the only podcast I listened to. Because we're the only podcast you should listen to. Well, there's that. Mostly because it's cheaper than therapy and twice as effective. Oh, there's an endorsement. I get incredible value from this show and have been hitting folks in the mouth, but apparently critical thinking isn't contagious. I'd like to request a de-douching. You've been de-douched.

He wraps it up, but thank you for your courage. Oh, nice one. Jim Watts is in Whistler, British Columbia, home of the Calgary Stampede, but nearby at least. I've been to Whistler. I have skied Whistler back in the day. 240, Associate Executive Producer is where we're at already. Please find my annual Cinco de Mayo birthday donation of 333 Canadian. Ah, he gets moved up. You become an executive producer. We still honor your dollarettes. Living the life of Riley down here on the Baja.

Bumper sticker of the day. Is it Baja or Baja? Baja, presume. Baja. Bumper sticker of the day. Ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. Parking Karma, please. Jim Watts, PhD, the Baron of Whistler. You got your karma right here, doctor. You've got karma. I have never taken this drive, but supposedly the most beautiful drive in the world is from Whistler to Vancouver. Or yes, it takes about two hours if I can recall. It's beautiful, but it's like, it's two hours.

Well, it takes four and a half hours to drive to L.A. and it's not pretty at all. There's no reason to do that at all. No. BioPros in Austin, Texas. Uh, I don't want to attach a note here. Let's see if I got it. Bio, what is this number here? It's 222, 222. Do you have it? I don't have it. Oh, I think it's attached to the scans. Let me see. No, let me see if I can find it. Um, I may have it here. Let me see. Ah, the BioPros, Driftwood, Texas.

Uh, 222.21, which is four number twos and one number one. Thanks for that. Thank you, Crackpot and Buzzkill, and to all the No Agenda producers. The BioPros.com experienced one of its best sales week after our initial sponsorship. There's no sponsors. Oh, I see what they're trying to do here. Yeah, we're not, you know, you got to be careful what you're doing here with your donation notes. The BioPros.com experienced one of its best sales weeks after our initial sponsorship.

Small business owners take heed. Value for value works both ways. Oh, really? Our flagship product, BioSeptic Pro, was developed in the wake of Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oh, these guys, the septic guys. The poop guys. The bio poop guys. As an alternative to the toxic Corexit that was being sprayed as a dispersant in the Gulf of America. Oh, I didn't know that. That's an interesting history. Anyway, this same technology is now available to No Agenda producers.

If you go to the BioPros.com, use code ITM20 at checkout for additional 20% off. BioSeptic Pro is like probiotics for your septic tank. And this is the thing that I keep asking about. Designed for anaerobic septic systems. This is what I have. Send me some product. You know, if you're going to send these notes, I can say it's great or not. Yeah, if it works. The fact that I have the exact system that they service with their goo. Goo. You need it. And I'm surprised they haven't sent it to me yet.

This makes me wonder. I'm surprised that I haven't gotten anything from anyone from Florida either regarding the Gators' win of the basketball championship. So apparently this BioSeptic. And I guess we're also worried about our coffee supplies, Don, which. Yes, I haven't. Eli the coffee guy also has not resupplied us. All the free. All the free stuff is gone. The only reason we do this show. Is for free stuff. Come on, people.

I mean, we got lots of challenge coins, but it's time for some free stuff. Anyway, this BioSeptic Pro apparently, I don't know for sure, digests grease, fats, oil, sludge, paper, and organic matter, which is code for poop, with ease. Contains no chemicals, no GMOs. It's safe for all pipes, plumbing, and pets. I added that. Oh no, actual human and animal safe. You should make it pipes, plumbing, and pets. I'm just, I'm writing copy for you. PPP.

Say goodbye to a smelly septic system by heading over to thebiopros.com. Please pray the official biopros.com jingle, which is this one. They did dumps. They call them dumps. Big, massive dumps. Plumbing and goat karma for all. Thank you, Crockpot and Buzzkill, the OG value for value ambassadors. Send me some of your goo. Michael S. in Knightdale, North Carolina, 211 65. My daughter is under one. So please record the lecture on media literacy. Ah, she's talking, this is aimed at you.

Or at least prepare a slideshow with links to audio. This is, again, aiming at you. This is you. The children of tomorrow need you. John, let me hear, uh-oh, and I love my truck. Thank you. Okay, I can do that. That should be, at minimum, an executive producer request. I mean, that's like, that's live, maybe. That's stuff we're doing live. I'm just saying. Uh, Steve Down, who is this? Yeah, you should be, we should be upselling everybody. Are you going to record the lecture on mental literacy?

Mental literacy? I'm not doing anything on mental literacy. I'm doing something on propaganda. Propaganda. Well, that's media literacy. No, it's not. It's about propaganda. I'm just going to play some super cuts, and then mic drop, and I'm out. Okay, thanks for coming, kids. Steve Downtown Brown, Monticello, Indiana, 210. Switcheroo, he says. This is for my good buddy, Jason Meyer, who first introduced me to your show. His birthday was Tuesday, and on the same day, he passed his CISSP exam.

Okay, what is that? Yeah, it's a, yeah. Is that some kind of computer thing? I, I'll look it up as you read. Please make sure he gets the credit for this donation. With some extra for any fees. Absolutely, Jason Meyer. Why am I closing my browsers constantly? This is an excellent question. It borderlines on a great question, because this is a podcast where we look stuff up, book a knowledge. You should never be closing your browser. And by the way. I think I'm clicking on the wrong thing.

Just admit you're using Edge. We all know it. Official, I use Firefox, which is worse. Certified information system security professional. Got it. It's because of my browsers open. Well, then I didn't need to do all that work. No, you didn't. You didn't. And our last one. Go for it. Yeah, Linda Lou Patkins here. She's from Lakewood, Colorado. And she drops in 200 bucks into the pot. Wants jobs karma.

And says for a competitive edge with a resume that gets results, go to ImageMakersInc for all your executive resume and job search needs. That's ImageMakersInc with a K dot com. And work with Linda Lou, Duchess of Jobs writer of resumes. Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs. OK, so Eli, the coffee guy is MIA. Yes, because he's sending us coffee. He figures that's good enough. No, it's not. But OK. I did get a make good request from Sir Haggis. We do break for nights, he says.

I need to ask a favor. When I donated on April 24th for my 50th birthday, I forgot to ask you to play my jingle that I forgot to attach to the donation email. Well, it's clearly your fault, Sir Haggis. Would it be out of the question just throw this in somewhere to make up for my hopeless memory? I'll understand if not. Well, that's not how we operate, Sir Haggis. We break for nights. There you go. That was his jingle. OK, that's a little Gourier and goat together.

Thank you to these executive and associate executive producers for supporting us for episode 1762. We thank you very much for this. And of course, you will be thanked if you're $50 or above at any point. We'll be doing that in our second segment. And you can always set up a recurring donation. These are incredibly useful to us and good and easy for you. Any amount, any donation, any frequency, all you have to do is go to noagendadonations.com.

And again, thank you to our executive and associate executive producers for 1762. Our formula is this. We go out, we hit people in the mouth. I do have a clip I want to get out of the way, which was did have to do with the pope, but it was about the conclave, specifically some producers. And I thought it was interesting because it brings up a point. I've never heard this term. I don't know anything about it.

This was during a one or two hour special with Nora O'Donnell and somebody else sitting in the plaza there, just across from the Sistine Chapel, yakking away about nothing. But this commentary came through it. And I thought it would be worth the, this is, this one is not topic. It's not, it has nothing to do with the pope selection at all, but play this clip is the conclave clip. The one thing we know they're not doing is checking Instagram because their devices have all been confiscated.

I believe the kids call it raw dogging it. If you're going to go through a long period of time with no electronic device. Yeah. Oh, right. Well, they're of a certain age, so they might be used. Have you ever heard this term raw dogging? I've heard kids call it raw dogging. Well, it is a sex term from, from where I come from. Raw dogging is having sex without use of a prophylactic. That's how I've always understood. Somebody slipped it in there.

Then somebody, this is a little, I think this was a plant. One of those things that you slip into the mainstream media to embarrass people. Yeah, probably. Although I've heard it, I've heard it used in, in other terms than, than unprotected sex. I've heard it. Yeah, but I don't see the connection between unprotected sex and not using your phone. The connection, this is elusive. I'm just telling you, let me see what the, the trolls say. No, no, I don't know.

I think this was planted as a, as a joke, as a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Or it can also be no, no lube. That can be another version. You're just making it up now. Aren't you trolls? You just met. It's like a stick fight, basically. Raw dogging on the stick fight. So I'm getting incoming that the new Pope, Leo XIV, is no big President Trump fan. That's why they picked him then.

Yep. He has posted in the past, now this is before he was president in 2016, that his anti-immigrant rhetoric is problematic. He, what, oh, here's something more recent. Yeah, I think he may not be a fan of President Trump. We'll see. It doesn't have to be. That's fine. It doesn't have to be, but that may have helped in the, in God's choice, I guess. Yeah, not sure how that works. Well, speaking of raw dogging, baby.

Decorated musical executive, producer and songwriter, 85-year -old William Smokey Robinson coming under fire. Four of his former housekeepers alleged repeated and brutal sexual assaults and harassment at the hands of their former boss. I will not describe the details of the sexual assaults and rapes because they're too graphic and disturbing for this news conference. The first alleged victim said Robinson assaulted her seven times in one year, targeting her during her weekend shift.

A second plaintiff contends the musician would ask her to meet him in parts of his Chatsworth home where he knew there weren't any cameras and sexually abused her 23 times over a number of years. A third recalled Mr. Robinson calling her into his blue bedroom and assaulting her a total of 20 times. The fourth woman and the longest serving employee was allegedly raped in three of the singer's homes while employed between 2006 and 2024.

All four plaintiffs say they were reticent to report the abuse, fearing they would lose their jobs and felt intimidated by Robinson's celebrity status. He's a music legend who's written more than 4,000 songs and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At least one person also worried about adverse effects to her immigration status. And we did reach out to Smokey Robinson's management team. We haven't yet heard back.

The district attorney tells me that it has not received a case from law enforcement and therefore it will not be filing any kind of criminal charges at this point. Oh, what is that? Like, they're smirching his name at 85. Poor Smokey. And going back 27 times, this reminds me of the bear joke, which has the punchline, I won't tell the joke, but people out there know this joke where the bear says, you didn't come here for the hunting, did you?

Meanwhile, in Brazil, when they don't like an artist, they take care of the artist in a different way, particularly if there may be some satanic over or undertones with that artist. We gotta get to something pretty serious. There are two suspects in custody this morning for allegedly planning to bomb a Lady Gaga concert in Brazil.

So police say that these suspects were targeting the LGBTQ community and that they attempted to recruit people, including teenagers, to carry out attacks at Saturday's concert. The weapons, improvised explosives, Molotov cocktails. Investigators say a group that promotes hate speech and encourages violence among teens orchestrated this. One of them allegedly had an even darker plan.

He claimed the singer had a satanist religious inclination and as such, he would respond in the same way and that he would also promote a satanist ritual by killing a child or a baby in a live stream during the show. Oh, all right. Lady Gaga. We live in a fallen world. Okay, yes. Not about the guys who tried to bomb, but about the two million people that supposedly were at this event. Brazilians are notorious exaggerators.

And this goes back to, I don't know, the late 80s or 90s and Jerry Purnell and I were invited down to the biggest tech event in the world, the one in Brazil. With hundreds of thousands of attendees. No, no, two million. Millions, I tell you. So Jerry and I both still had stakeouts in different parts of the show where you could count.

There's only one or two entrances and so you could do a one hour calculation and figure out what the number was and we'd come up with our own number and compare them. And we both came up with pretty much the same number. The maximum number of people they could have possibly had is 200,000, maybe. As opposed to the two million that they claimed. And then I've also seen a picture of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. that had 500,000.

And this little group in Rio at the beach on Ipanema, which I've been to, there's no way it was more than maybe 50 ,000, maybe. But they say two million. And I realized back with Purnell that the Brazilians are prone to exaggerate because this is the way their whole country started. When they made a deal, when the Portuguese made the deal with Spain, the Spanish says, you could have whatever.

They told the Portuguese, just tell us what the coordinates are of where you've been and what you think the country is, where the country's located. And they went here. Give us the numbers and that'll be Brazil, you can have it. And so they weren't, nobody was up in the Amazon and nobody was up there. They just made up some numbers and got these coordinates to make the country so damn big. It was a lie. And the Brazilians do this. They lie, they exaggerate. It's a feature of the culture.

Don't believe these numbers. And all these reporters that kept talking about two million people at the Gaga concert are full of it. They could have looked and seen it was not possibly two million people. That's twice the entire population of San Francisco. This makes a lot of sense now in light of the BBL. The what? The BBL. Yeah. The Brazilian butt lift. They're all fake butts down there. Huge, big butts. And you think, oh, it's a big butt. No, it's a BBL. They're fakers.

That's good information. This is the first time I've heard that. Yes, and you should be aware that the Brazilians exaggerate. And that's all, it's a fact. And if you do any reporting on Brazil, you should know that. I just got a insider tip here. Apple apparently is considering moving to an AI search, ending their deal with Google, which is what? Seven billion dollars or something? Some outrageous amount. What do they pay Google for the... What does Google pay them for search? I have no idea.

Oh, it's billions and billions. And then how bad is that going to suck? Yeah, we're going to do AI search. But you know, that's going to suck. It's going to suck. Hey, we have a name. Just while we're doing some M5M stuff, we have a name. Have you heard the name? The new name? The new, the official name for Spinco. Remember? Oh, Spinco. Yes, Spinco. And by the way, for people who said, you know, Spinco is a name that's often used as a code. Yeah, we knew that. We knew that. But we have a name.

We have some news close to home. The group of media brands, including CNBC, that are being spun off from Comcast and NBCUniversal later this year, now has a name, Versant. The name chosen as a blueprint for versatility, growth and innovation. It's spelled V-E-R-S-A-N -T. Versant. Versant. What do you think of the name? I'll continue the clip in a moment. What do you think of this name, John? Stinks. Stinks. I agree. And they're going to defend it here. This is CNBC. Part now of Versant.

This is the company's new logo. Cable network, CNBC, MSNBC, Gulf Channel, USA, Oxygen, and more will all be a part of Versant now. They should have called it CrazyCo. That was much more catchy. The trolls are better. That would have worked. That would have worked for me. As well as digital assets, including Fandango, GulfNow and Sports Engine. CNBC media and sports reporter, Alex Sherman is here with me. Alex, you have more details on this new name. Very excited.

This is corporate history that we are living right now, Kelly. Corporate history, woo! Yeah, Versant, like Conversant. Imagine this gig. All right, you are the one that's going to announce the name. Oh, please don't make me do it. Don't make me. Do I have to announce this stupid name? Oh, okay. The name was chosen, I'm told, to speak to the versatility of the brands in the company. You just listed them. A lot of different brands covering different things. They're not versatile.

They're all stupid. New sports, digital assets, Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango are part of this company. Did you know that Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango? No, I did not know where Rotten Tomatoes was part of the deal. Oh, that actually makes the deal a little bit more attractive. They're going to spin it out public though. I'm told that originally through the process of this, choosing the name, I spoke with the CEO of the company, Mark Lazarus.

A thousand names, even more than a thousand names were thought of, were vetted. The legal process ticked that list. We literally come up with domain names on the fly here and have hundreds of them. We had a thousand names, legal process. We had to get everybody involved. We had an offsite. We had a whiteboard. We had all kinds of, and we boiled it down to a hundred. I have to interrupt. Rotten Tomatoes does fit into this scheme because they've been leaning.

MSNBC, all these guys, they're all leaning, right? What's the definition of versant? I looked it up. A region of land sloping in one direction. Wow. Wow. So they got the right name. They got the right name. Were thought of, were vetted. The legal process ticked that list down from a thousand to 43. That's how difficult it is to actually find a name. It's not already taken. There's trademark things that people have to go through, both nationally and globally.

That list was then culled down to about 12. There were presentations made on the 12 and eventually... At the offsite, presentations made at the offsite. Versant was chosen. Also, the word versant itself is an actual word. It was something that I learned through the process of this. Which we won't explain because it doesn't sound good. It means the slope of land. Mark Lazarus joked with me that perhaps he could see that as a sloping upward, like a line that was moving up for a stock symbol.

Oh, what a way to... What a wow! That is some fake news right there. It slopes down towards one side. But he says, oh no, it slopes up. It's like glass half full, glass half empty. Well, it does say slope in one direction, but not up or down. Well, you don't want it to slope. Why don't you call the company hockey stick? If you're talking about... There you go. Hockey stick. It means the slope of land.

Mark Lazarus joked with me that perhaps he could see that as a sloping upward, like a line that was moving up for a stock symbol. So perhaps the pathway has been set for this company of assets once it trades publicly, which will be later this year to be a riser. Is there any more clarity on when that date might be sometime in the next few months? We don't know exactly still. I just know it's toward the end of the year, which has always been on the plan.

I can say that none of the market volatility of the past month or so has moved Comcast off the date of spinning off the assets later this year. Versant. Alex, get used to it. Yes, indeed. Try it on for size. Okay. Try it on for size. Get used to it, everybody. That's what your stock options are going to say. Versant. You know, constitutional lawyer Rob, well, we actually talked yesterday. Let me go up to his house. He lives in Canyon Lake. Supposed to be really nice up there.

He, as I chatted with him yesterday, and he says the craziest thing he's seen of all the Trump stuff is the trans-military ban. This is going through like five different courts. Everyone's pile jumping on this thing. I even put his analysis in the show notes so you can read it.

But I mean, it's because, you know, it goes back to the, what Biden administration had, then the Trump administration, what the district courts, then it's the Supreme Court, then the Ninth Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit bounces back and forth. I mean, this is really a very interesting hill for people to maybe want to die on or just like, this is the most important thing in their life. And, you know, I think it's another trap. Well, let's listen.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to begin executing its ban on transgender military service members. Very nice term. I love that they used executing this ban. You know, this is NPR. They don't just choose these words willy-nilly. Trump administration to begin executing its ban on transgender military service members, at least for now, joining us to talk about this is NPR legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg.

Now, Nina, President Trump has been trying to ban transgender troops. You don't like Nina? Oh, she's the worst. She's an old hack. She's been around for 100 years and she comes on, she's really never brings in any real insight. She's notorious for something. I forgot what started her career to be a hotshot. She probably makes about a half a million dollars. Of course, the military since his first administration. What's the difference between then and now?

In the first Trump term, he partially succeeded, but the ban was reversed by President Biden, only to be put back in place by Trump after he took office for a second term. This new order mimics the Trump order from the first administration and appears to strengthen it as well, barring transgender individuals from enlisting and discharging active duty transgender service members. All right, so what did the Supreme Court do yesterday?

In a one paragraph unsigned order, the justices revived the transgender ban, which had been temporarily blocked by the lower courts. The court's three liberal justices, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson noted their dissents and would have barred the administration from putting the ban in place while the case continues to be litigated in the lower courts. So the case now goes back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Trump policy to be reviewed.

So we're bouncing back and forth and let's learn about the new policy, what it exactly is. There's been a lot of back and forth in this case since 2016. That's when the Obama administration first allowed openly trans individuals to serve in the military. So how is the new policy different? The Obama policy was reversed by Trump in 2017, followed by new rules issued by then Defense Secretary James Mattis.

The Mattis rules allowed exceptions to the ban for active service members previously diagnosed with gender dysphoria. But the new policy, the Trump II policy, is significantly tougher because it bars from the military anyone with a gender dysphoria diagnosis. And while that isn't everyone, it is most trans individuals. Now, where are things now? The Ninth Circuit... That's an important little data point. That is... Well, the question that always remains to me... I'm not done yet.

Yeah. Why do you want in the military, which is a discipline-oriented pursuit... Vocation. Why would you want people with gender dysphoria that you have to treat? Or any dysphoria. Or any dysphoria issue. Or any kind of... Your neurosis is psychotic. I mean, what... Schizophrenics, we don't want them either. Bipolar, borderline personality. I mean, there's all kinds of things you don't want. Anything with dysphoria is probably, you're right, probably not what you want. You want killing machines!

And while that isn't everyone, it is most trans individuals. Now, where are things now? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will take a whack at deciding the issue. And that decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court, though the ban is likely to remain in place during the appellate process. All right, so let me cut to the chase here. What are the chances that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule against the Trump trans ban in the military? Probably slim to none.

The fact is that the Supreme Court, even on a temporary basis, has allowed the Trump administration to proceed with carrying out the ban. And that's a pretty strong indicator that the administration is very likely to prevail in the long run. And then for me, the kicker, how many people are we actually talking about here? When it comes to the numbers of people, how many trans individuals are in the military right now under the policy that allowed them to enlist and serve?

According to the Pentagon, about 0.2% of active military forces, or about 4,000 individuals. So Nina, I'm wondering, who are the plaintiffs that brought this challenge? They're a group of current and aspiring transgender service members, including lead plaintiff Emily Schilling, a Navy pilot who's flown more than 60 combat missions over her nearly two decades of military service.

Ruling in their favor, Judge Benjamin Settle in Washington State, who's a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that the government's classification of gender dysphoria as a disqualifying medical condition was essentially a ruse motivated by hostility towards transgender people. So I love that she adds in there a George W. Bush appointee. We know what George liked. Safe to say that the Supreme Court will eventually actually rule on this?

Probably the case will come back to the court next term for a final ruling, regardless of who wins in the Ninth Circuit. I think George W. Bush was a horndog. Remember he had those guys in the press pool? You remember that? You think of George W. or George H. No, George W. No, George W. the second one. He had those Texas guy. Yeah, he had those gay prostitutes. Don't you remember that? Oh, that. Oh, I vaguely remember that. That's right.

The guy that showed up in a somebody outed him and they posted it. Yeah, he was posting online. He was a gay prostitute. And he was in the press pool for some unknown reason asking stupid questions. Yeah. I do remember that. We have long memories, be very careful. That's what happens. And let me see. We got five minutes. I want to play this. Five minutes. And I guess this is five minute warning with two minutes to go. And here's a question because this is up where you live.

Notice I didn't say your neck of the woods. This morning, President Trump is directing the federal government to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on the San Francisco Bay known as The Rock, considered escape proof and the subject of multiple Hollywood films. No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz. Me too. And no one ever will. Trump says he wants to reopen and expand the prison to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders. Just an idea I've had.

And I guess because the judges, so many of these radicalized judges, they want to have trials for every single, think of it, every single person that's in our country illegally, they came in illegally. That would mean millions of trials. It comes after a new interview, which the president said he does not know whether every person in the U.S. is entitled to due process as his administration pushes to deport immigrants in the country illegally. Now, again, a complaint.

We have a person, a ranger, I believe, ranger, I can't remember his name, who works at Alcatraz. I don't know if he's still there. I think he may have been moved. Well, but he still has info. And if he took me, he took me to the tour. I took Jay and a friend. Oh, you actually took him up on that. You went on the tour. Oh, yeah, it was great because he had his own little cart and we went into parts of the facility that no one gets to see.

Wow. So, I mean, there was an underground, there was a hospital, like an abandoned hospital. And we just took a tour. It was really creepy, by the way. Ranger Craig. Ranger Craig. Yeah, ranger. It was a ranger. A ranger, Craig Wright. Ranger Craig Wright, I think, yes. He took us all over that. We're all in a kind of a separate tour. I got to close the cell doors with a grab the handle and pull it. From the inside or the outside? From the outside, obviously. You can't close it from the inside.

And it makes a large clink. You get a feeling for the amount of stress it takes to pull it. To give you an idea, we talked about Ranger Craig on episode 115. That's 2009. I don't think he's there anymore. I think he moved. I don't know if he's alive. Well, he wasn't an old guy. He was a young guy. Yeah. But now we got a great tour. What are people saying about this in San Francisco? We think it's bullcrap. Really? Everybody does. Seems like a great place to put criminals.

Yes. No, it's impossible. That place is a wreck. It's a mess. Except for the areas that the public gets to see. If you actually got behind the scenes and see the other stuff going on. Now, again, the perfect place to put criminals. Well, maybe, but yeah. No, they're not going to do anything. It's a tourist trap. It's bringing in $60 million a year. Ah, there it is. There it is. We don't want to lose that money. It's bringing in that much. Probably the maintenance is going to be less than that.

It's making money. It's dumb to turn. You can find someplace in the middle of nowhere and build a prison from scratch. It'd be cheaper. As we wind down our broadcast day, we still have plenty of deconstruction broadcasts left for you, including John's tip of the day. You don't want to miss that. Some very down-low beats in the end of show mix. We have, of course, our meetup overview with a report from the Netherlands where they got the servers involved. They finally listened to me.

But first, we're going to thank all of our supporters, $50 and above. John's going to take you through the list. That's correct. I'm starting with James O'Brien in Southington, Connecticut. One, two, three, four, five. Kindly enlighten me as to the title. Much appreciate you and your efforts. I don't know. I don't know what he wants from us. What is he talking about? I don't know. I have no idea. Maybe he's a knight. He should be a knight. He wants to be a knight. He's already a knight, he says.

I have no idea. Well, you got to give us more info, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It's the honor system. So you need to... Yeah. Daniel Kepler's up next. He's in Phoenix, Arizona. Also one, two, three, four, five. My favorite donation. Mark Thanish in Elgin, Nebraska. Or Elgin, possibly. 120. Arno in Amstelveen. Oh, Amstelveen. I used to live in Amstelveen. Holland. Yes, used to live there. 104-64. He wants us to switch over. This is a switcheroo to Freya, who also organized the meetup. Ah, yes.

Ah, it's the last meetup last Saturday in... Well, you know, okay. So it's pronounced Scheveningen. And during World War II, the Dutch would ask you to pronounce the name Scheveningen because... Oh, and they'd shoot you if you couldn't pronounce it right. Correct. Because then you were probably a spy, a German spy. Scheveningen is the correct pronunciation. Well, I've been to get shot, but I'm not a German spy. So I think they probably killed some poor innocent Americans. You'd be dead.

You'd be dead by now. Stefan Trockels, who's in Sust, Deutschland, $100. No note, he says. Ken Weinstock in Tucker, Georgia, 888. 8088, sorry. Because Kevin McLaughlin's up next. He's in Concord, North Carolina, 8008. He's the Archduke of London lover, American lover of boobs. He is. Stephen Hutto. You okay? Stephen Hutto in St. Petersburg, Florida, 75. Commodore G in Cincinnati, Ohio, 7377. Alan Huffman in Urbandale, Iowa, 6809. He says 6809 was probably the most advanced 8-bit CPU.

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Bruce Bagnocchi, Brig Bagnocchi, Bagnocchi, Bagnocchi, Bagnocchi, Bagnocchi, Bagnocchi. In Midlothian, Virginia, 5945. Yaron Snelders in Ennis, Texas, 5945. These are all the VE Day donations. Yes. So I got a few. Also Bowman McMahon in San Antonio, 5945. John Fitzpatrick in Heber Springs, Arkansas, 5945. Dame Rita. Ah, there she is in Sparks, Nevada, 5945. She's the best. Tyler Darrington in Lost Wages, Nevada, 5945. And that's our little group of well-wishers for VE Day.

Yes. Forgotten that we beat the Germans. We beat them. Sir Dancing Mike in Maryville, Tennessee, 5757. It's a birthday. Pete Federici in Bothell, Washington, 5555. He wants some Jobs Karma for his partner. Can you put that at the end for him? I can. Chris Hare in Bel Air, Maryland, 5537. He's a de-douche. You've been de-douched. We'll be giving a happy birthday shout out to Megan, who's turning 31. Michael Gates, 5280. Roger Kesey in Holland, Michigan, 5272.

Robert McGee in Davenport, Iowa, 5272. Brittany Miller in Trinidad, Colorado, 5272. And Spencer Nace somehow got a deal at 5271. He's in Weaverville, North Carolina. Saved a penny. He's got some comment there. You might want to look at it. Josiah Thomas. Oh, I'm sorry. Eric Hochul in Mulrose, Deutschland. There he is, $52. He is here. He's been a regular for a decade at least. And he should get knighted or something. He's got plenty of credits.

Josiah Thomas in Ankeny, Iowa, 51. And now we got finally the $50 donors. Name and location starting with Alex Zavala. Ah, Sir Alex. Sir Alex in Kyle, Texas. Stephen Ray in Spokane. Ray Howard in Kremling, Colorado. Jacob Jacob Rottramel in Decatur, Illinois. Edward Mazurik. There he is in Memphis. Kerry Jackson in Waterton, Tennessee. And last on the list is Jason Deluzio living it up in Miami Beach, Florida. I want to thank all these people for helping us out on Show 1762.

Yes, and the Jobs Karma is here as requested. Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs. Let's vote for jobs. Karma. All right. Thank you all very much for supporting us. You can do that at any time you want by going to noagendadonations.com. noagendadonations.com. Become an executive producer, associate executive producer. Become a layaway night. All kinds of opportunities and sustaining donors are more than welcome. Any amount, any frequency, any numerology. We love the numbers. We love the chip numbers.

We love the Aunt Gigi donations. You make it up. We'll follow along with your gambit. Thank you very much. noagendadonations.com. Steve, downtown Brown. It says happy birthday to Jason Meyer. He celebrated on the 6th. Sir Dancing Mike turns 57 on Saturday. Chris Hur, happy birthday to Megan Haynes. She turns 31 on the 12th. We have Dane Susan wishing her son Elliot a happy birthday. Franny says happy birthday. Gefeliciteer to Sylvia Corn-Jones. Happy birthday.

And we say happy birthday to all these people on behalf of all here at the best podcast in the universe. One Commodore. The final, final, final Commodore. That's the very last one. We would like to welcome to the Commodore ship for the last time. The one, the only Commodore Elliot. And as always, Commodore arriving. Very nice. Go to noagenderings.com. That's where you can find your Commodore entry form. Let us know what you want on your Commodore certificate of authenticity, which is beautiful.

It has embossments and all that. You can frame it. You should frame it, actually. Hang it on your wall and proudly display that you are a Commodore of the No Agenda Show. No Agenda Meetups. Yes, the No Agenda Meetups. They're a big deal, everybody. They're a very big deal, these meetups, because it's where you get connection and protection. It's where you will meet the first responders in an emergency in your life.

People who go to No Agenda Meetups have relationships that last for decades, eons perhaps even. And we have a report from Scheveningen where it's a little bit cold, but they jumped into the North Sea, which is a very, very Dutch thing to do at this time of year. This is the first No Agenda Splash-Up Meetup. In the morning, this is Roland, Splash-Up in Scheveningen. In the morning, and happy birthday to Arno. Ik heb er nog niet over nagedacht.

In the morning, from sun-drenched Scheveningen in Holland. In the morning, this is Freya at the Hard Beach Club in Scheveningen at the Splash -Up. Great meeting. Thank you, Arno. In the morning, Natalia here, and I just had some spicy mussels, and now I'm going to splash into the sea like a mermaid. Hi, I'm Caroline. It's really great to meet each other here again. And there are a few tough guys with us, because they just went into the sea. And they swam nicely. Well, I didn't. Hi, I'm Chris.

It's been really fun serving everyone. It's a really fun day. Life is amazing. Enjoy every second. All right, with some coded messages in there. They really got into the North Sea. And there's the server at the end too. Yes, I think the Dutch girl also was a server. She said, these people are crazy. They're jumping into the ocean. It's too cold. That's what No Agenda people do. We're crazy. But we are lovable crazies. Tonight, you can join them at the Quad Cities, Iowa area meetup.

Seven o'clock in Lopez, Davenport, Iowa. Big nasty organizing that. And on Saturday, the Treasure Valley meetup. Three o'clock at Old State Saloon in Eagle, Idaho. Now, we have some important meetups coming up this month. Leiden in the Netherlands. That'll be on the 14th. Charlotte, North Carolina on the 15th. The 16th is Whitefield, New Hampshire. On the 17th, we are loaded for bear. Bedford, Texas. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Fort Wayne, Indiana. New Canton, Virginia.

Springfield, Oregon. And, well, it's Lukenbach technically. But Fredericksburg, Texas. Curry and the Keeper will be there. And many more of your local Texas celebrities. Keen, New Hampshire on the 18th. Culemborg in Gelderland in the Netherlands on the 29th. The 31st, Pensauken Township, New Jersey. Overland Park, Kansas on the 31st. And Long Beach, California, 31st. Bravo at it again. And I might as well throw this one in on June 1st. Tokyo, Japan. Are you getting the picture here?

These No Agenda meetups, they're not just like some little thing. This is a whole movement. Go to noagendameetups.com. Find one near you. If you can't find one, start one yourself. It's easy and always guaranteed a party. Well, to use a Dutchism in the old country for ISOs, I threw my cap at it. Threw my cap at it. Which means... Did the cap hit anything? No, I mean, I just threw my cap at it. Which means I didn't really do a lot of work. Didn't do a good job. So you don't have anything. I do.

I have three. I have three. Okay, let's go. I made it to No Agenda. Okay. Well, that's nice. It's not bad. A little embarrassing. Okay, and maybe this one. Yeah, it's not bad. All right, I got three. Okay. I got WTH. WTH. What the hell's going on here? No Biden end of show ISOs, man. No. That's just... No. Okay, how about Adorbs? That podcast was Adorbs. Yeah, well, that end of show ISO is AI, but it's not bad. Well, then let's go with the last one. So good. These podcasters are so good at this.

No, I'll go with... That podcast was Adorbs. I think that's just gay enough, John. It's definitely gay. Hey, everybody. It's time for our final bit here. It's No Agenda's John's Tip of the Day. Okay, this is a product everyone should have. You should buy them in packs of eight or ten. And the key to success with these items is they have to be fresh.

Fresh. Which I recommend finding the vendor and getting them shipped directly from the vendor or getting a popular one from Amazon where you know it's fresh. Pheromone Moth Attractant Sticky Pads. Okay, why would we want to have Pheromone Moth Sticky Pads? Pheromone Moth... Well, for one reason, I found a moth attack on one of my Persian rugs. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You have Persian rugs? Yeah, I have a couple. Do you fly around on them? Persian rugs are a really good price nowadays, by the way.

Best price. But do you have them on the floor or in your... Yeah, they're on the floor. I got them. They're all over the place. We have... Everybody in the family has a bunch of these either Turkish or Persian rugs. Interesting. Something I did not know about the Dvorak clan. I learned something new every day. These rugs are great. And they're not expensive anymore. No. So the moths... So here's the deal. The pheromone...

There are moths in the world, and they get in the house, and you wouldn't even know it. I'm telling you, you pull out one of these pheromone moth pack strips, or it's actually a little... It's like a sticky pad, like you catch a mouse with when you pull the top off. The pheromones get released. You put it on top of the refrigerator. You put it somewhere. And by the way, it's F-H-E -E-R-M-O-N-E, and you can get them... You can look it up that way. You've never seen anything like it.

I don't care how clean and fancy your house is. There's no moths in there. No, that's for sure. Put one of these on top of the refrigerator, a good fresh one. And within 10 minutes, all of a sudden, you'll find moths are in your house. Oh no, that's disgusting. Because they're flying to the attractant, and then they get stuck on the thing. It's mostly the males. And then they're a tasty treat. And well, no, they're not. It just becomes they're stuck in the goo, and that's the end of them.

Everybody has these stupid moths in their house, and they don't know it. And you want to get these traps. That's why they sell them in 10 packs, because that's how many moths you'll end up capturing. So this is a big deal. I'm sorry I didn't do it on the room that had the nice rug in it. But if you have it on top of the refrigerator, will it attract them from the room with the nice rug? Does it work that far? No, it'll suck them in from about typically from three or four rooms.

Wow. This is powerful. I'm kind of afraid to do that, because then it was like, if Tina sees, like, oh, now we have moths. She's bad enough with me putting down mousetraps, because I always catch something. Yeah, well, put it somewhere where she can't see them. And do it when she's not around, because it'll be within, I'm telling you, within five or 10 minutes, you'll start to see moths. They're all heading to the trap. It's gross, actually, how many moths all of a sudden show up in your house.

Another gross tip of the day. Ladies and gentlemen, go review it at tipoftheday .at, noagendafund.com. By the way, that tip of the day jingle is by Shwu Michael. Michael is the guitarist for Mercy Me, and Tina is up in Cedar Park going to see the show tonight. She's not going to stiff him like you did when they came to play. I'll go and have drinks with him. I sent him a text saying, call Tina out from stage, man. That'll be fun. I don't know if he'll do it.

He always wears a No Agenda shirt when playing, though. That's pretty cool. That's it. Our broadcast day has concluded. We do have, oh, look at this. Curry and the Keeper, episode 132, recorded just last night. A Mounder is the title. That's coming up next on your No Agenda stream or your modern podcast app.

And, of course, we will return on Sunday as usual, where we will bring you another minimum three hours of completely bonus content, firewall, paywall-free beauty, which we do as a public service. End of show mixes from James Bosworth. He's back. And Nautilus K., who's on a roll. And I am coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill Country here in Fredericksburg, where we have that meetup coming up on the 17th. In the morning, everybody.

I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak. We return on Sunday. Please join us here for more No Agenda. Until then, adios, mofos, a-hooey-hooey, and such. Without the big butt or the money. Without the big butt or the money. Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. Yeah, so you acknowledge when you announce the tariffs, for example, the stock market dropped. It's been volatile. It has since gone up. Well, it is. Do you take responsibility for that?

Yeah. Do you take responsibility when it drops? Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything. But I've only just been here for a little more than three months. Yeah. Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. What a conversation. That is pretty like cult network news. Go from China. Wake up, people. Tariffs. Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. Tariffs. Stop buying junk from China. Wake up, people. Yeah. Tariffs.

Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. Tariffs. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up? No, I think the tariffs are going to be great for us because it's going to make us rich. But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn't that an acknowledgement that some prices will go up? I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs, if she's 11 years old, needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That podcast was adorbs.