1847 - "Off-Road"

I just couldn't take it anymore. Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak. It's Sunday, March 1st, 2026. This is your award-winning Gilbert Nation Media assassination episode 1847. This is no agenda. Saying hello to the new boss and broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas hill country here in FEMA region number 6. In the morning everybody, I'm Adam Curry. And from northern Silicon Valley, we're all wondering, did I miss something? I'm John C. Dvorak.

Yeah. Well, that was a little more extreme than I expected. I thought... I'm sorry. I thought we'd just blow some holes in the desert, but we went a lot further than I think you and I expected. This was more than a face-saving exercise. Yeah, well, I guess the back-channeling wasn't working out. Our back-channeling? Well, you know, we had the assumption that there's back-channeling going on in the...

Everybody was in on the deal, and I guess somebody did something different, and it wasn't appreciated, and the results are obvious. Yeah, it was a face-saving exercise. Unfortunately, the face had to be saved from multiple locations. Bits and pieces. That was pretty extreme. And, of course, we're talking about, oh, for people who just listened to the show cold, who may not know what's going on, we bombed the hell out of Iran. Well, out of parts of Iran.

Yeah, it was the parts that were important. The parts that mattered. And, of course, my email box is filled with people yelling at me. Yeah, that's probably just. Are you Brutus? Really? I mean, why should they be bothering me? You need to apologize to the anti-war people. I didn't bomb anybody. It's like now it's my fault. I got that note too. Now it's my fault. You guys, you phonies, you've been anti-war and here you are. We didn't even do a show yet.

We haven't even done a show, and you're telling us what we're going to talk about. Give us a chance, will you? I did get a couple of thoughtful notes. One is like, I don't get it. A thoughtful note? Here's a thoughtful note from younger men. I don't get it. I'm just trying to get by. I'm a homeowner. I'm trying to do things. Here we are spending money we don't have bombing Iran. Another war. And I was thinking about it.

I don't think there's been a single generation that hasn't been born into a world at war and a world in debt. Maybe with the exception of the time of King Solomon, but you were born in a period of war, were you not? Think carefully before you say World War I. Just think carefully. Korean War. I was born in 64. Vietnam War. Every single generation. I'll give you a war. What? Give me a date, I'll give you a war. Okay. 1850. Isn't that Crimean War? Wasn't that 1850? I don't know.

There's a war in 1850, I'm sure of it. But the point is, is that this is what it is. And there's this feeling of, I deserve better. Yeah, we all deserve better. It was a period of peace during Clinton, I think, wasn't it? Didn't we bomb Kosovo? Oh, that's right. Herzegovina. Yeah, that's right. It wasn't very peaceful over there. They also bombed the Chinese embassy during that little fracas. I remember, in fact, that was in the 70s. I remember Yugoslavia kicked off too.

No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Yugoslavia blew apart and became Bosnia-Herzegovina, I think? Yugoslavia also became, yeah, Croatia, Slovenia. Yes. All came out of Yugoslavia. They still love Tito in Slovenia. When you go to Slovenia, which is a beautiful... Just order some Tito's vodka and see what happens. Is Tito... You go to the farmer's market... Not a farmer's market, but the flea market on Sunday, along the river there, and there's all these old ladies with framed pictures of Tito.

I don't know why I didn't buy one. But the point is everyone is born into a world at war and a world in debt. I don't think... Has there ever been a time that the world has not been in some form of debt financing? The bad damn bankers. Yes, the bankers, I tell you. Those bankers. So that's what it is, and we're going to see if we can deconstruct what is going on in particular in the media.

I found from TRT, the Turkish radio television outfit, a nice backgrounder on the history of Iran's supreme leader. And I figure if we just start with that, there's even stuff I'd forgotten. Yeah, I think we do have... You probably got your... I don't know what you sourced your material from. I've got a lot of Al Jazeera stuff, but they got bumped by a lot of... BBC I liked a lot. I liked what the BBC was up to. I don't think our people were doing a very good job. Rarely.

Fox and the rest of them, they were just reiterating. So we have stuff that I think probably gives some insight. Yes, and I also have clips from the Sunday talk shows from this morning that'll be a little more au courant. But let's just start with TRT. This is a two-parter. The history of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Sayyid Ali Husseini Khamenei was born into a troubled time.

1939, Mashahad Iran. World War II raged on Iran's doorsteps preceding a British and Soviet invasion that installed a young Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on the peacock throne. Amid the turmoil, the young Khamenei entered the seminary, studying under clerics including Ruhollah Khomeini. Like Khomeini, he believed the clergy's role was more than religious and joined the opposition against the monarchy. As revolutions swept Iran in 1979, Khomeini fought and won the ensuing power struggle.

Khamenei was at his side to establish a new order, the Islamic Republic. And almost a decade later, he succeeded Khomeini as a supreme leader. Under his leadership, the Revolutionary Guard expanded its power and anti-American stance. Internal dissent grew. So too did allegations of mass corruption, cronyism and human rights abuses. In 2009, weeks of protests engulfed the country after a disputed presidential election.

Khamenei sided with the incumbent president, Ahmadinejad, against the protesters. Meanwhile, Iran's domestic nuclear program was gathering pace, raising concerns that it could soon develop an atomic bomb. I repeat that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not developing capabilities for nuclear weapons, but also will not overlook the rights of its people and their need for access to peaceful nuclear energy.

And this is about, so the show had started, we were doing the show, we were there during the 2009, I think, wasn't that the Green Revolution? They tried to get it going? Exactly. The Green Revolution during Obama. Yes. Who Obama, looking back on it, has said he missed the boat on that deal. So this is the time that he would have liked to have helped. The Israelis came into play.

Israel threatened to take military action, but President Obama pursued a diplomatic path to constrain the Iranian program. Those efforts bore fruit in 2015 in the form of a deal to curb Iran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief. Khamenei backed the deal, which elevated some of Iran's economic distress. But in 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement and imposed a maximum pressure campaign of economic sanctions.

Iran did not bow to Trump, ratcheting up its nuclear program. At the same time, the Iranian economy collapsed and there was an explosion of domestic unrest after Agar was killed by security forces in 2022. Iran backed Hamas during Israel's assault on Gaza that started the following year. But Hezbollah, Tehran's ally, was weakened by an Israeli offensive in 2024. And Iran's long-time partner, the Assad regime in Syria, fell from power, delivering another blow to Tehran's regional position.

Trump took office for the second time in 2025, seeking a new deal with Tehran. But talks ended abruptly after Israel attacked Iran in June. Certainly, the armed forces of the Islamic Republic will inflict heavy blows on this weak enemy. The nation stands with us. It stands behind the armed forces and the Islamic Republic and, God willing, will overcome this Zionist regime.

The dear people should know this, be assured, and rest easy that there will be no leniency in this regard. His life marked by resistance to the West and dedication to the ideals of the revolution he helped lead. But that same attitude left his country isolated, unstable, and impoverished. There you go. That's a very short history from Turkish radio television. And the response to this is quite interesting. We have, well, of course, Lindsey Graham is just sweating. We shouldn't even include him.

He's sliding across the floor out of wetness. He's so happy. I do have clips from him this morning. We can play them later if we want to laugh. Well, I got one more backgrounder that would probably be good, which is the NPR. I'm looking at my clip list. It's got a lot of Iranian clips here. Iranian. There was one here that was a NPR backgrounder. I don't know. I can't figure out what I'm doing here. This is rocking and rolling, baby. You don't know? You don't know where it is? Well, let me look.

Let me help you out. You can usually find my clips better than I can, which I find embarrassing, by the way, but I decided to just put up with it. Well, that is only if you titled NPR. We have... I don't know. You got a lot of NPR here. You got all kinds of stuff. I thought there was a backgrounder. It should say backgrounder. I don't see any backgrounder. Okay, we'll just skip it. Move ahead. Backgrounder. No, you have no backgrounder.

Well, I was going to say the opinions range from, I told you so, he's taking us back into another war, to this is no Iraq 2.0. I thought Tucker's take was so... Who's? Tucker. Tucker Carlson. So typical. Which is another take, which is out there, which I'm sure... Can I mention another take that I followed up on?

There's a bunch of communists, and it turns out that Ray McGovern seems to be in this group, and I include Judge Napolitano, and they all had a take on this, and there's a very negative side to a lot of this, because I see the whole thing as being planned out from the day Trump got in office when he went to the Middle East. I would say even yes, he went to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela was... Made buddies with the Saudi guy. Well, there's your difference right there.

First of all, the Saudis were not passive. They were active in this. Everybody was seemingly on our side. This was also not run from the Situation Room in the White House. This was run from Mar-a-Lago, which tells me the president kept this very quiet with a very small group and didn't want to... I mean, how quiet was the double armada? But, you know, the timing of everything was not going to take place from the White House for, I guess, obvious stooge and spy reasons. But here's the one from...

And this may be closer to what you were talking about from Judge Nap and those guys. This is Tucker's take. Iraq was a true disaster, and Trump was the first big political candidate to say that out loud. He knows this. He always has. So why would he even be considering a war with Iran?

Well, one way to think about it is the United States may not have a choice about whether or not this war starts because, of course, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu could always act unilaterally, preemptively against Iran and just do it, just strike Iran. What would happen then? Well, most likely the Iranians would strike Israel and then potentially strike American assets in the Gulf and then potentially strike energy facilities in the Gulf.

And the United States would be, by definition, drawn in. So it's possible that the US government, while not anxious to go to war with Iran, is trying to find a way to contain the behavior of its closest ally, Israel. Rather than sit back and wait for Bibi to do something that we have to clean up, that we're implicated in and then sucked into, it's possible that the US government is attempting to steer this in a less destructive direction. It's possible.

None of this, of course, is filtered down to people paying attention because, the few who are paying attention to this, because all the noise has been about Iran's nuclear weapons. They're on the verge of building a nuclear weapon any day now. This is a disappointing take from Tucker, because the one thing we definitely noticed is that that wasn't happening. There wasn't a, the bomb is coming next week. None of that was happening.

And if Tucker's takeaway is, oh, well, Israel was going to do it, so we had to jump in. Come on. Well, that falls in line with another thesis that's out there, which is that we assuming that we moved all the stuff there for no good reason, by the way. You have to make a lot of leap of faith to accept any of this.

And, of course, the people that dislike our show will groan when I come up with this one, but the thesis is that, oh, well, we moved the stuff to kind of threaten them, but we just wanted to do negotiations, and then the Israelis struck. They jumped the gun, and we had to go in and claim that we were part of it to make it look okay so it wasn't so obvious that Israel's telling us what to do. That thesis is out there, and that's actually very prevalent.

Yeah, and what I find interesting is that AIPAC, with all its power, has not already organized all of their controlled congressmen, congresswomen, and senators to declare war. Yes. That hasn't happened. The other thing is the Israelis have mobilized 100,000 of the IDF. We've lost three people by some sort of accident. We haven't really you know, for the Israelis that are telling us what to do, they're the ones getting killed.

Well, there's always that, but I'm specifically because, you know, this Where's the media? Or the rest of it? All these people that have sold out to Israel because they're telling us what to do, how come they're not all doing an active war as we speak? Yeah, and... It doesn't. The nonsense aspect to that theory is just beyond us, the two of us. Because you're on board with me. We're two lonesome doves out here. As opposed to everyone who thinks that Israel's calling the shots.

Yeah, well, they're doing a poor job because this is happening under the You're doing a poor job. This is under the War Powers resolution which means the President has 60 days I think all the notifications were made within the 48 -hour period and he can extend it another 60 days after that for a drawdown, and I'm pretty confident that well, no, I'm not actually.

This is a big game that is being played, and either it's brilliant and Trump pulls it off and we build through, we piece through construction which is the whole idea of the Abraham Accords and the Board of Peace and the rebuilding of Gaza or World War III and we're all going to die. It's really only, it's pretty binary at this point. Well, there's other possibilities. There's a middle possibility which is an Iraq conflagration that hangs on and drags on forever. But Trump's not that style.

He's impatient. He also made very clear that it's up to you, Iranians. Now, I find it hard to believe that we don't have people on the ground trying to steer stuff around, and I have some clips later about the new leadership council, Starfleet Command that is being set up, but maybe just to ease into all of this, this is the Iranian foreign minister. His take is that, hey man, negotiations were going quite well. What happened? This wasn't the deal?

I don't know why the US administration insists to start a negotiation and then in the middle of negotiation attack the other party. Today happened exactly what last June happened. We were in the negotiations and it was interesting that this time we made a big progress. Two days ago on Thursday we had a very good meeting in Geneva together with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and we were able to address serious questions related to Iran's nuclear program.

We obviously have differences, but we resolved some of those differences and we decided to continue in order to resolve the rest of questions. We actually instructed the technical team to go to Vienna and have a meeting with IAEA so in order to find technical solutions for the problems we are facing in the negotiations. Everybody was happy at the end of those negotiations.

As you saw His Excellency Badr al-Busayidi, the Foreign Minister of Oman who is mediating between us, he concluded by posting a tweet saying that today we made significant progress and before he posted his tweet he consulted with both delegations and both were happy. So I don't know why we were progressing in our talks and we had made good achievements and a deal was at our reach. Why they decided to attack us?

Perhaps, you know, it was others who dragged the United States for their own benefits into this, you know, conflict. It's really pity. It's very unfortunate. I'm kind of with you on the idea that this was planned even before Trump took office. Just looking at Venezuela, you get that all set up, we got tons of oil, so the oil markets are reasonably stabilized. I think oil is probably up 10-15 dollars, but it's not 100. And look at how Venezuela played out. No regime change.

It's like, oh, you're the second in command, you're the VP? Okay, we're going to work with you. Obviously you've seen what happens if it doesn't go well. We have to, yeah, we have to assume, I mean, on the best case scenario, we have to assume that our people did their job and they lined a guy up in the IRGC or the military who's going to be the guy who emerges as the ruler and he's going to do business with us. The same thing that happened down in Venezuela.

We already did a deal with that woman who's running the place in advance. We had our people on the ground doing their thing and they said, okay, we're going to do this and you want to get rid of this guy. Who else needs to go? Well, you better get rid of this guy, that guy, and this guy. Okay, we can do that. We'll get rid of all of them and then you're going to emerge and you'll make, you know, you can shake your fist a little while and then we'll do a deal. Okay, I'm in.

With the advantage that this also told China to go home with their 400 billion dollar investment. Okay, it's over 10 years, but still that's half a trillion almost. You know, they, China was the partner and China doesn't fight. They go, oh, they go, okay. Now, if you listen to these guys on the extreme, especially McGovern and some of these other guys, they talk about China was loading the Iranians up with all kinds of gear. Yeah, cool gear, stuff that goes boom.

And they had this one thing and this was mentioned, it's in the show notes because I had Adam put it in there. And this has not been discussed by anybody. And I don't want to bring it, I'll bring it in soon on the show, I guess I'll bring it right now. Yeah, go ahead. This was the Middle East Forum report and they had discovered that China, and I'll read the headline, China's aircraft carrier missile, killer missile may have been fast, may have fast forwarded the Iran war of 2026.

The Chinese had developed and I heard a general It was a supersonic too, wasn't it? I don't know. I think so. But there was a general in Iran that had threatened and said, we have new weaponry that the world has never seen before and the Americans are in for a problem. And this is what they're talking about.

The Chinese had imported these high speed missiles that were designed to take out aircraft carriers and they were months away from getting them operational because they need training and there's all these things I guess you have to you just can't light a match. And this was going to blow up. It's not like Wile E. Coyote, you just light a match under that thing and it goes ah, that's disappointing.

And if they had taken out the Gerald Ford or the Lincoln or the Abraham Lincoln or whatever, just imagine blowing up an aircraft carrier sinking it and killing 3,000 people and the whole, I mean, this would have been the end of Trump for sure and would have caused an issue. And the Chinese also apparently have long range radar that had to be taken out. It was a weapons testing program using Iran as the proxy. Well, I heard that at least...

We couldn't take a chance on this thing getting used and so we had to attack immediately. And the president said that several times. He said that they've got stuff that can reach in Europe, they've got stuff that can eventually reach us. And from what I heard from our boots on the ground on one of the ships, is that one of them was struck by either a supersonic or a hypersonic missile and it was something they weren't expecting. Also not expecting is some of these drones.

You said the ones that hit Bahrain? Man, that thing just sails under all of our super duper anti-missile tech and just blows out the half of a skyscraper. Yeah. You know, so... And they were doing some analysis this morning about how it costs us... Our anti-missile missiles, the things that could take these drones out from the ground, they cost $300,000 a pop. And it could break us because these drones don't cost that much to make.

And so they're shooting them out of the sky with jet fighters and helicopters because it's cheaper. There's a lot of issues. This was not going to get any better. This had to be stopped. I can say that thanks to my Mossad handlers, I'm not in Israel right now. They told me, don't go, man. Don't go. Don't go. It's not a good time. I would have been on the way... No, we would have been there already. You would have been stopped. Well, I would hope so. When was the flight supposed to leave?

Uh... This morning. I wouldn't have gone. No, the airspace is done. But that's only because we decided to stop in Amsterdam first to see Christina. But the original plan was to be there Friday. Oh, that would have been funny. Yeah, I'd be doing the show from Egypt. Same thing. I have this analysis that came in from ABC and it was quite good about the... because that's what everybody wants to know is who's next? What is this leadership council that everyone's talking about? There's short clips.

I just wanted to play these because I think there's some interesting information. This guy seems to know what he's talking about. Iran's top national security officials say an interim council will be formed today to rule the country after the Supreme Leader was assassinated. A three-member transitional council will govern until a panel of 88 members chooses a new leader for the country. Joining us now via Zoom is Kian Tajbakhsh. He's an adjunct professor of urban policy at Columbia University.

Kian, thank you for joining us. It could be one or two days until a new leader is chosen. What do you make of the speed of that? Well, it's not surprising because the Iranian regime has been in power for many decades. It's deeply institutionalized. It's deeply ideological. And it does have a deep bench of middle-level and lower-level officers who for decades have been preparing themselves for just this scenario.

And so I would imagine that over the next week, a pre-planned scenario for providing a new leadership will be put in place. We'll have to see who they are. So there's a, according to this guy, there's two clocks ticking at the same time. We're in a race condition. So 88 members are going to be voting on this. Is that correct? But are we going to see a larger democracy spread and emerge within Iran? I mean, I think some people think that might just happen, but it's not that simple.

That's correct. It's not that simple. But you can imagine, you can think about it and there are two clocks ticking right now. One clock is the regime trying to scramble and put itself back onto a secure footing, try to put command and control and the hierarchy of command across this huge territory. Remember Iran is bigger than, you know, France, Spain, and Italy combined. And so they're going to try to reassemble. The second clock is the people inside Iran who want to overthrow this regime.

They are waiting for to see how much damage the military operations that the United States and Israel is inflicting and whether the balance of power can shift towards them. Those are the two clocks that are racing at the moment. Which means an obvious power struggle, and that's what it's going to come down to. It seems like there might be some kind of power struggle that could be happening in Iran. Come on, man, I label my clips. It's called scripting your clips. This is the...

Gutfeld does this. Well, it's called producing. It seems like there might be some kind of power struggle that could be happening in Iran. How many people do you think want to become the supreme leader? Well, I think that at the moment the scenario that has been often spoken about is not a single supreme leader, but a group, a kind of council of supreme leadership, which they feel is perhaps more protected from a future strike or a future assassination.

But I think that at the moment we'll see about four or five people being nominated, and that 88-member council is a council of very elderly clerics, very ideological and fanatic, and they will just be a figurehead putting forward really what might be the IRGC or the military's chosen leaders. So that seems still kind of pretty much on the table.

We don't know everything that's happening in Iran, but this final clip is, of course, what the president called for and what the desired outcome is of epic fury. During President Trump's video address he did make a plea to the people of Iran. It makes it sound simple as though democracy is being airdropped into Iran as we speak, and that it will just flourish and can happen. I love how they keep bringing democracy into it.

Democracy. No, that was Bush. That's the old way of we're bringing democracy to you. As we speak. They never said that. No, he didn't say that. It will just flourish and can happen. Will we see anything Would you say that most of Iran would like to see a different reality for themselves? What would you say?

Yes, I would say that from my I've been living and working in that country for many years, and my estimation is no more than 15 20% of the population is either ideologically committed or materially dependent on this regime. Maybe 30-40% are indifferent and are waiting to see what happens but there is a large, significant minority, maybe 30, 40, 50 % I'm sure the majority of the Iranians who want to get rid of this regime and to move towards a secular a more democratic regime.

One point I'd just say in terms of what President Trump said which is that the United States is not seeking directly regime change in Iran. It's like a one-two punch. The U.S. is securing its own national interest, weakening the possibility, weakening the regime and waiting and in a sense paving the road for the Iranian people themselves to pour into the streets in their million to overthrow this regime. That is, I think, the game plan and it's the most reasonable game plan.

It's not a game plan. I'm not seeing it. And the other thing is this idea that secular means democratic is bullcrap. Well, that's ABC. They're still living in old-school regime change. No, you're right. I think you nailed it. They're thinking the George Bush era. I have a couple of clips. You want me to get some of these out of the way? Yes, of course. First of all, let's go to BBC. Well, actually Al Jazeera has some good stuff and I want to play this one.

This is the they brought in this thesis of the IRGC and this let's play this so get my thinking out of the way, which is Iran IRGC thesis. AJ. Paul, if regime change is the stated objective here, now an air war on its own is not going to cut it, is it? That's absolutely right. Well, it's right there. What he just said, the air war is not going to cut it. Well, that's only if you want to force your own puppets in. Then you have to have boots on the ground. No, who says this?

The BBC does the same thing and we do the same thing. Everybody has said the same comment. BBC had it this morning. I heard it and I just couldn't take it anymore. He said there's never you can't do regime change with airstrikes. Well, it depends on the definition. It's never happened and no one's ever done it. No one's ever tried it. When is the last? When has anyone ever tried to do regime change with airstrikes? Well, now this is a very good point.

It's never been done because it's never been tried. And my thinking is, okay, here's how it works. I'll just say this. Every military person I've spoken to has that thesis. They all have the thesis. That's their training. The news guys have the thesis. The military, yeah, because they want boots on the ground. They want to kill people. Lindsey Graham, go do some regime change. Lindsey Graham is the classic. Send him. They're all this way. They've all said this and they said it in this clip.

You can't do regime change with airstrikes. Here's the way I would look at it. Because I thought this during the one of the first crisis when they were bombing Afghanistan and then we had to put people down there. The Afghanistanis, they really got freaked out when we were bombing them from the air and then when we moved people and then they were relaxed because now, okay, we can deal with this.

If you have, for example, just airstrikes, you've decided you want regime change and all we're going to do is do airstrikes until we get it and you say, okay, there goes Khamenei. Boom, he gets blowed up. And then somebody else well, I've taken over. You guys suck. Boom, you blow him up. You keep blowing these guys up left and right. The Israelis were doing it through hotel windows supposedly and blowing up different bedrooms.

They've already set the stage for killing these guys left and right and left and right and left and right. You keep doing this with airstrikes and bombings. You never have to put boots on the ground. You just keep doing this until they decide that maybe this is not such a good idea because I'm going to get killed in this job. But no, no, you can't do it that way. Why not? Well, I'm trying. I'm still trying to think if there's a way that it's been done in the past. It's never been tried.

Well, you know, they just make it as an axiom. You can't have regime change with airstrikes. Why not? And I hear it over and over and over. Okay, so I made my point. Let's listen to the rest of this clip. An air war on its own is not going to cut it, is it? That's absolutely right. So what will? Well, it's unclear what will. And if you parse President Trump's statement very carefully, he doesn't say that the United States will be in the business of regime change.

He says that the United States will facilitate the conditions whereby regime change will come about. And underlying all of this, there's a lot of context. Iran's nuclear enrichment program struggles with Israel, but also of course the crackdown on protesters over the winter that, you know, led to thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of deaths. So in Washington and in Tel Aviv, there's a sense that Iran's hold on power might be fragile. That might be a little bit optimistic.

I think it is actually very optimistic because people don't spontaneously rise up. And the only organized bodies in Iran that have the capability to take power if the top echelons of Iran's leadership are removed, are going to be groups like the IRGC, which I don't think the Trump administration would view as a win. The Trump administration may be planning that as a win. I like all the assumptions people make.

How about, you know, so Operation Ajax, which was in Iran in the 50s, that was, I mean, we have seen CIA covert ops but without air power. And arguably we kind of orchestrated through economics a regime change in Russia. But none of that was war. That was just sneaky stuff done by CIA, MI6, you know, operatives. Yeah, well that's doable. Yeah, but it's not quite the same as blowing somebody up. No, and keep blowing him up. The new guy, he gets blowed up.

Okay, so now let's, I want to play these clips. This is from the BBC, and this is a clip, this is Loren Blumenthal. And you'll find clips two and three. I killed clip one. Because it was useless. It was an intro to her. Who is she? Who is Loren Blumenthal? She is, I kept looking at her background. She is a professor. She used to work for the State Department. She's been this and that. She's with Georgetown. She's now with Johns Hopkins.

Okay. And she seems to me to be, and she has no wiki page, and she's just finding her bio is tough. She's covered. Can we just say it? Can we just say it? Yeah, but I don't think she's a CIA spook. I think she's one of the 300 Yeah, go ahead. I think she's one of the 300 real super spooks that work for the State Department that INR, that Bureau of Research, whatever it's called. Phony baloney little CIA that they've set up. Very spooky person. But not CIA type spooky.

And I've noticed that the CIA will let people have wiki pages, but the State Department people won't because she's got no wiki page. So I'm just thinking. Different HR department. So here we have her talking on the BBC that she's brought in as an expert because she's an expert. Are there the conversations you think that have been had about the next steps? Because that is one of the main questions we're certainly hearing from President Trump's critics, but really analysts as well.

Have there been plans made for what happens next? Well, it's very clever. It's interesting because yes, his critics are saying this is reckless. He hasn't thought it through. What I hear from both Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and President Trump is a kind of we broke it, but you own it to the Iranian people. So the big question now is who will seize power? My sources, my top intelligence sources in Israel say to me that this has gone better than expected so far.

That Iran has made every mistake possible and that's led to a great military success. On the other hand, my diplomatic and political sources in Israel say that we are not even close to the dawn. That we've got a long way to go. We are absolutely not there. Okay, I like her already. She has the right sources. That makes sense.

Yeah, what she said makes nothing but sense and it would be right that the spies, intelligence sources would have one way of seeing things and the diplomats who are always wringing their hands would have another way of seeing things. And the Crown Prince is on his way, I hear. You know, that guy's been left out of the conversation. Of course he has. Remember he wanted to go talk to Trump at Mar-a-Lago and Trump's like, man, I got no time for that guy. So I don't think he's the guy. No, he's not.

It's got to be somebody else. It can't be that guy. So here's Blumenthal wrapping a little bit. And we've also seen Iran striking U.S. partners in the region, Gulf states. We've seen Dubai hit. We've seen Doha hit, at least according to the reports that we've been seeing here, Laura. Do you think those regional partners could also play a role then in putting pressure on President Trump, on Israel to talk about how to wind the operation down? That's certainly Iran's hope.

That's their chance for survival. That's happened in the past, that the Saudis and important American allies will put pressure on Trump to take this, you know, to sort of dial it back. And I heard important words from President Trump today, two important words among everything else, all the bluster, which was off-ramp. This could end in a day, it could end in a week, or maybe two or three, but that's about it. So I don't think this is going to be a long-term conflict.

And the sooner it's over, I do think, the better for everybody across the region. Laura Blumenthal, it is always great to get your analysis on this breaking news day. Thank you so much, Laura. Really appreciate your time. Yeah, so the thesis that you're laying out is every single time a new guy pops up, if he's not the guy, then we bomb him. Yeah. Wow. Well, it's one way of doing it. Yeah, that would cause an issue. But I think the guy that we want is already lined up. Must be, must be.

Where's Victoria Nuland? Is it Nuland out there passing out donuts to somebody? We don't see anybody like that involved. No. And I think the model that was set up, it was staged and set up for Venezuela. Venezuela's the great opener because we get the oil so that, because the Strait of Hormuz thing is closed, and so, oh God, now what? Well, yeah, that's why we had the Venezuelan oil, because it's similar.

But that was also a test of how to do regime change by just taking out the top guy until we get down to the one that can do the job for us. But what we didn't use is that cool discombobulator. Yeah. A little disappointed we didn't use the discombobulator. Yeah, well, I think that has to be close range. We're not putting any boots on the ground, so. No. No, we're not. Alright, I have some more. Do you have more that you want to roll?

Yeah, I got plenty of clips, but you want to break it up here, you should take some. Okay, let us go to, well, let's just hear briefly about the Strait of Hormuz. Please go take a look at Google Maps, understand that all the Saudi oil comes through there. That's where the oil, 90% of China's oil, comes from Iran, comes through the Strait of Hormuz, the ghost ships, etc. It's been a mess with the Houthis for years, letting the Chinese ships go, but, you know, making a hassle for everybody else.

Great helicopter video, and here's what Iran says about it. Iran's Revolutionary Guard is sending radio transmissions to ships warning them that, quote, no ship is allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz. That's according to the EU's naval mission, whose operations aim to protect international shipping from attacks. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital export route for the Gulf's biggest oil producers, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Around 20% of the world's crude oil flows through it.

Experts have warned that even a limited disruption could spike energy prices and fuel inflation. No, probably not. Hence the Venezuelan oil. That was the gambit right there. It's like, we need that. Secure that. It's got enough. We've got enough for our 60 days or whatever we need. For us. Not for China, for us. And left out of this whole thing are the Europeans and the Brits. The Brits who kind of legendarily got into Persia, as it was known back in the day, in what 1908?

They're the ones who set us up. Yes. Go ahead. Say it. For their oil, because the Brits wanted... British Petroleum. British Petroleum wanted more oil and so they had, you know, and they had a democracy back in the day. They were like, you know... The girls wore miniskirts. They were gonna put the oil on the open market. The British wanted it all and so we put the Shah in play to make sure that the Brits got their way.

Yeah. And so they're out of this game and here's Keir Starmer admitting as much. Earlier this morning, the United States and Israel struck targets in Iran. Iran has since launched indiscriminate strikes across the region. I know the British people and communicators across our country will be deeply concerned about what this means for security and stability and for the fate of innocent people across the region, which for so many of us includes friends and family members.

So whilst the situation is evolving very quickly, I want to set out our response. The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes. But we have... Why would you say it like that? I mean, why is he saying, we played no role? We had nothing to do with any of that? Is that so that their new buddies in China don't get mad? No, it's their domestic audience. They have so many Muslims in the country. Ah, of course. Of course. Yes. I want to set out our response.

The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes. But we have long been clear the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent. They have murdered thousands of their own people, brutally crushed dissent, and sought to destabilise the region. Even in the United Kingdom, the Iranian regime poses a direct threat to dissidents and to the Jewish community. Over the last year alone, they have backed more than 20 potentially lethal attacks on UK soil. I didn't know that. 20? I didn't either. 20? That's a lot.

It is clear they must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. That remains the primary aim of the United Kingdom and our allies, including the US. Go sit down, Keir. You're not a part of this game. Obviously. He's left out. Everybody on the M5M this morning, all the questions are all the same. What's the goal? What's the point? What's the purpose? What's the goal? How is the president and his team talking about the goals of this war right now?

The president does claim that he has several off-ramps and a beautiful plan, but it's still not clear what that plan is. He says he could end this in a couple of weeks or end it in just a few days, saying, quote, until the Iranians see you again in a few years if you start rebuilding your nuclear program. What is clear, his goal here is regime change, but he still hasn't articulated exactly what that looks like. There are still big, very fundamental questions left unanswered.

Who does the president think should lead Iran? What role is the Trump administration and the US military going to play going forward? Trump promised no new wars. He vowed not to drag the US into more foreign conflicts, and yet that is now exactly what he is doing, and he still has not fully explained to the American people why this is necessary now. What was the imminent threat? Why did he change his thinking now?

Now, the administration is going to brief members of Congress later this week, but the president now, after the fact, has to make the case for this war to the American people, as he now warns that American lives may be lost. He put out that video overnight Friday. Any plans to address the nation over the weekend or early in the week?

George, it certainly seems hard to imagine that the president won't come out and speak more about this, but right now, this morning, he remains down in Mar-a-Lago at his resort in Florida with members of his national security team, where he has been monitoring all of this unfold and play out. He will be back here at the White House later this evening, but I am sure that we will certainly be hearing from him again soon, George. All right, that's Mary Bruce. She's just breathless.

Hey, this is exciting for these people. They get to do something again. Now, then there's the, well, aren't we at risk here at home because of this? Because the tentacles of Iran are far-reaching. Pierre Thomas. Pierre, officials on edge over possible threats to the homeland. George, the US military campaign adds to perhaps the most dangerous threat environment since 9-11. History suggests there's reason for concern.

US officials in recent years have identified a number of Iran-inspired plots, including an alleged plan to kill President Trump. Did he say Iran-inspired plots? That's interesting. That's a little different than Iranian plots, Iran -inspired plots. US officials in recent years have identified a number of Iran-inspired plots, including an alleged plan to kill President Trump. That's a screw-up. Well, it's in the script.

Yeah, I think somebody, whoever wrote that for him, I'd say somebody wrote it for him. These are newsreaders. That's a screw-up. But they pulled the ISIS script and just scratched out ISIS. That's exactly right. You nailed it. US officials in recent years have identified a number of Iran-inspired plots, including an alleged plan to kill President Trump, as well as others that have targeted journalists and dissidents living here who oppose the regime.

This morning, there's evidence that US law enforcement is taking this threat seriously, of operatives from Iran and sympathizers as well. The FBI has put all counterterrorism and counterintelligence teams on high alert. Sources tell me the FBI is planning to step up surveillance of suspected Iranian operatives, and the Secret Service is increasing security of President Trump, Vice President Vance, and all the living former presidents.

In addition, Homeland Security officials yesterday issued a bulletin warning police that Iran and its proxies may target US infrastructure with denial-of-service cyber attacks. George, it's a very dangerous moment. Denial-of-service attack? All you need is just CloudFlare to go down in its worst. That's all it takes. All right. Just go over here to San Francisco to the CloudFlare offices, and you could bring down the whole Internet.

So, last night, there was a shooting in Austin, and it was near a bar that some friends of ours have ownership in, and everybody at the church this morning was saying, oh, yeah, this is it. This is what's happening. It's because of Iran. We go now to Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who joins us from Austin. Good morning to you, Senator. I'm glad we got your audio working. You are from Houston, I believe, this morning. I am. Good morning, Margaret. Good morning.

I wanted to ask you about Austin, though, because there are reports of three people dead, more than a dozen injured following a mass shooting in that city. The FBI is saying this morning that their joint terrorism task force has joined the investigation. Is there any nexus to terrorism or anything that is going on in regard to the worldwide caution at this moment? We don't know for sure.

There are some early reports that this shooting may be connected to terrorism, but we need to follow the evidence and see, in particular, what motivated the shooting. We are certainly, Heidi and I, are praying for those who were wounded and the families of those who were killed. But at this point, we don't know what the evidence will show in terms of whether this was an act of terrorism. I don't think so. This is on 6th Street, which has been just a gigantic mess for years.

I mean, people who come to Austin don't even want to go to Joe's Club anymore, which is on 6th Street, which is where the old Paramount Theater was. It's a mess. And so it doesn't surprise me that 14 people got shot, several who died. But I think this is Ted Cruz's beat in this operation. Trump has said, hey, man, you just stay on this. You just talk about that stuff. Talk about my life.

Senator, just looking at the global environment right now, CENTCOM announced three Americans were killed and five seriously wounded in this operation. President Trump and Vice President Vance campaigned on not getting America involved in new wars. What do you say to Americans this morning who are asking why we are in this conflict now? President Trump's decision to launch this decisive action against Iran is the single most important decision of his presidency.

I think he laid out powerfully and effectively why he is taking this action. He is taking this action because the government of Iran is a profound and malign influence. They have been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for 47 years. They have over that time killed nearly 1 ,000 Americans. They provide more than 90% of the funding for Hamas. They provide more than 90% of the funding for Hezbollah.

The Iranian Ayatollah was until yesterday actively trying to murder the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. There you go. That's Cruz's bit. That's his part. Clearly just prewritten statements and script. Unimpressive. That sounds very, very scripted. Whenever someone says this decisive action, that's written. No one talks like that. John, what do you think of this decisive action by the President? Yeah. Yeah, it's scripted for him. He's doing what he has to do, which is fine.

Let's go back to the BBC. Okay. They brought in one of our Senators or Congressmen, Seth Moulton, to talk about this. The one thing that's obvious when you listen to it, no matter who's talking about who, this Khomeini guy, I think everybody in the Middle East hated him. I think everybody in the Democrat Party, everybody hated this guy. And I think half the Iranians did too, or more of them. Because this guy, you can't not talk about this.

This is an anti-Trump guy brought on the BBC to moan and groan about Trump. But he still can't say anything. Except for a very few outliers like this video podcaster, Jackson What the hell is his last name? Jackson? I don't know. A video podcaster named Jackson? Jackson Hinkle. Jackson Hinkle has 3.6 million followers on Twitter or X. That gives him credibility. Well, I think they're fake numbers. He posts pictures of Khomeini with a hero, this man didn't deserve to get shot.

He's like an American communist. He's a communist and he keeps reposting American Communist Party stuff. He's the one who had McGovern on the show yesterday. And who went on, who seems to be also in the same camp, which I'm kind of surprised by. Ray McGovern, ex-CIA. Except for that little crowd who thinks that Khomeini was a great guy, I don't know how you could get there. Most people reflected what you're going to hear in this BBC Seth Moulton clip number one.

There was plenty of debate here in the U.S. as well. Let's speak about that with Congressman Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts. He's on the Armed Services Committee. Congressman, it's great to have you back with us on BBC News. I want to start with getting your reaction to what President Trump put onto social. He said Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, is dead. I'm glad he's dead.

I mean, he's an evil person who's killed thousands of his own people and chanted death to America for decades. So I'm glad he's dead. But the question before us right now in the United States of America is should we be risking lives for this? Young American lives who we're putting on the line without any Democratic decision from Congress about whether this is the right thing to do.

What information have you received in the House Armed Services Committee, for example, about the justification to this point of why President Trump has taken this line with Iran? Nothing. Nothing. And you're expecting, we know the Gang of Eight, of course, was briefed. The Gang of Eight, the eight members of Congress who were briefed on classified intelligence.

But you haven't heard any further information from the White House, from the Secretary of State on why this attack would have taken place? Literally nothing. I mean, I've seen what you've seen on the news. But Trump has not come to Congress at all. The administration has not briefed us. The Gang of Eight briefing was just late last night to say this is about to happen. That's the kind of briefing that should happen in anticipation of a limited strike against an imminent threat.

This is obviously not a limited strike. The President's not even trying to make that case, as he did with Venezuela. And he's given us no evidence that there was an imminent threat. Now, I've got to just stop the Congressman here because he's making it sound like, well, it's a limited threat, you can do this, but not if it's, you know, something like this. And you didn't inform us, but you talked to the Gang of Eight. That's literally informing Congress.

So the rules of the War Powers Act, and I'm not saying that I agree with it. I would prefer, well, only once have we declared war in my lifetime, and that was 9-11. So the President must, I have it written down here, the President must consult with Congress quote, in every possible instance before introducing U .S. forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities. That was done with the Gang of Eight. The 48 hour reporting period, the forces are deployed without a formal declaration of war.

The President must submit a report to Congress within 48 hours of explaining the justification, authority, and estimated scope and duration of the deployment. I think he posted that on X, so that's probably on Truth Social, I'm sorry. So I'm sure that will take place, but the big thing here is the 60 day clock.

U.S. forces must be withdrawn within 60 days unless Congress either declares war, grants specific authorization for the use of military force, the so-called AUMF, or extends the deadline, and the President can still extend by 30 days for a withdrawal period, bringing the total time to 90 days. We never declared war on 9-11. Oh, we didn't? No. How about that? The last formal declaration of war by the United States Congress occurred in June 1942. Really?

We didn't do... I thought we did that on 9-11. We never declared war against Vietnam. Well, no, I knew that. I thought we did have a Congressional approval for after 9-11. Not a declaration of war. Hmm, okay. I stand corrected. So, Mouton, Mouton, whatever his name is, Mutton, he's kind of stretching it by saying, you know... Well, in fact, the clip, too, kind of brings up the BBC does a good job of kind of nailing him on this, and then which becomes an Ask Adam.

Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on, oh no, hold on a second. An interstitial Ask Adam. Hold on. Ask Adam. Ask Adam. Yeah, all right, an Ask Adam. All right. So this is my new technique. I like it, I like it. And so we're going to listen to the clip, too. Well, do it, do it. The ask will come afterwards? Yes, yes. Okay. Can I ask you about the push for a War Powers Resolution in Congress?

There were some of your fellow members of Congress on the Democratic side of the aisle who support these strikes, and I want to ask you about what one of your Republican congressmen and colleagues, Mike Lawler, wrote on social media. He said, the President must notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops. The President must then withdraw troops within 60 to 90 days unless Congress declares war. In this instance, Congress was briefed in advance.

And he goes on to say, the President has the authority to act. The notion that the strike is illegal or that the President needed Congress' authority is wrong. Biden and Obama conducted numerous strikes in numerous countries without Congress and none of the people, quote, screaming now seem to have any objections. What's your response to that? All right, what's your response to that? What is the question? And then the question is, what does Moulton say?

Now, this is a very straightforward thing, is that this happened before. Biden did it. Obama did it. Clinton, as you pointed out earlier in the show, did it. They don't mention Libya, which is the best example. They weren't threatening us. That was Obama too. And that was Obama. And they went on and on and on. And so he, now what kind of answer will he give as a counter argument, that solid counter argument to what the Republicans said?

This is a very difficult one because Seth hates Trump but also doesn't like I think he's going to say that the American public deserves this or hmm wow I think I'm really stumped on this one. How can you counter this? What crazy notion could this guy come up with other than, well, maybe that's it. But Trump is a mad man. That would have to be my answer. But Trump is a mad man. That's not it. And here we go. What's your response to that? First of all, Mike Lawler knows nothing about war.

He went through this generation without fighting, without putting on the uniform, without being on the ground in the Middle East like those of us who are very concerned about these operations have. So in other words, he doesn't address the argument at all. That's going to be the answer to most of this, by the way. He doesn't address it at all. He just skirts it. What would he know? What does he know about war?

And by the way, there's one other little clip I want to play, which is kind of in relation to this, which is a contradiction clip from Al Jazeera. This Iran war contradiction. Get it over now to the White House. Kimberly Halkett is there for us. Kimberly, it seems as though the U.S. is in this for the long haul.

Yes, that is consistent with statements that have been made, albeit vague, from the U.S. president, as well as it is widely being reported that Operation Epic Fury, as this has been dubbed, is now into what is expected to be a series of escalating strikes that will last one- to two-day periods, followed by pauses to assess the damage.

In terms of diplomatic talks, that is still a major question because, of course, most were looking ahead to next week when it was expected that talks and discussions to limit Iran's nuclear program would resume. There's been no statement from the White House about whether or not the United States intends to do that. In fact, we haven't heard from the U .S. president beyond his eight-minute video that he has put out. The U.S. president is not even at the White House.

In fact, he's in the U.S. state of Florida at his residence in Mar-a -Lago, where the White House press secretary says that he is monitoring these events alongside members of his national security team, and will continue to do so throughout the day. We also know that he spoke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

And when it comes to the president's national security team, we know that the Secretary of State National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, has also been in consultation with members of Congress, a so-called Gang of Eight, made up of Democratic and Republican leadership.

They were notified as these strikes were initiated, and the Department of War also contacted members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to let them know that the plan they had been briefed on earlier in the week was now in full effect. They talked to the House Armed Services Committee. Moulton said, we didn't hear nothing. He wasn't at the meeting. The guy, we didn't hear nothing. I didn't hear nothing. I didn't hear nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Typical.

So this is like, so we get a lot of this smoke and mirrors crap. And then blame the guy. You can't say anything. You can't make these comments because you didn't wear the uniform. Okay. Yeah. I probably could have guessed that one. Bone spur. Yeah. I'm just looking at the quad screen. So the president now posting on Truth Social that we have sunk nine of their Navy ships. So that means the Strait of Hormuz will open up again pretty soon. I think your thesis is probably right. Choose your guy.

That's not the guy. That's not the guy. Just keep doing it. It's going to be one of these guys eventually. Do you want to hear some Lindsey Graham stuff? Just don't accidentally kill your guy. Hold on. Let's do Ro Khanna because I got Ro Khanna. Oh, that guy. Him and Massey teamed up. What a group. The funny thing is Thomas Massey, who I've had mixed feelings about, is like Ro Khanna is part of the old squad.

He's a borderline socialist and Massey has to be one too to be buddies with this character. Well, they're doing the no war declaration along with Rand Paul, which is what the Pauls have always done that. That's traditional. It's like a tradition. Rand Paul doesn't bother me. It's like an American tradition. Let's go with, I'd call him Ro Khanna, but it's Ro Khanna. Here he is with Manhans Welker. Welcome back and joining me now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.

Congressman Khanna, welcome back to Meet the Press. Thank you for having me on today. Thank you so much for being here. Let me start off with Wait, wait. Did she say Congressman Khanna? His name's Ro Khanna. That's his last name. Let's listen. Thank you for having me on. Hold on. Here we go. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, welcome back to Meet the Press. She said Khanna. His name is not Ro. It's his first name and Khanna's his last name.

His last name is Ro Khanna. Isn't Ro, isn't that erectile dysfunction drugs? Exactly. Khanna. Mr. Ro, how you doing, Mr. Ro? Good to see you. How's it working down there? Welcome back and joining me now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Now that she says it, I have to go look it up. Maybe his name is Ro. I think his name is Ro Khanna. Yes, his name is Ro Khanna. He was born Ro. You are racist, man. That's a fine Indian name. Khanna? Khanna. Yeah, Khanna. Ro Khanna. Ro Khanna.

Yeah, okay. I wish I was one lone name. You wasted our name. His full name is Roheet. Roheet Khanna. Roheet. Roheet Khanna, yeah. So we just call him Ro. How this guy ever got into Congress? He represents Silicon Valley. There you go. Indian, Silicon Valley. More questions? No, that's the only reason he's getting in because the Indians just oh, he's one of us. Let's vote for him. This is like the women who vote for women. Yes, correct.

Welcome back and joining me now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Congressman Khanna, welcome back to Meet the Press. Thank you for having me on today. Thank you so much for being here. Enough with the platitudes. Start off with this critical question. You heard what Senator Lindsey Graham had to say. I'm playing him out of order now. The world is in fact safer now that the Supreme Leader is gone. You heard Senator Kelly agree with that part of his assessment. Do you agree?

Senator Graham now has become the face of Republican foreign policy. He's been consistent, but he's been consistently wrong. Let me say this. Khamenei was a brutal dictator, but Americans are not safer today. Look, Senator Graham cheerled us into the Iraq war. He cheerled us into the effort with Libya and Trump ran against him in 2016. He said regime change wars are absolute failures. That has escaped Donald Trump. Now you have a situation in Iran where the IRGC is still in power.

The Assembly of Experts are going to pick the new leader. By the way, they were picking the new leader before we killed Ayatollah. The Ayatollah was 86. The question is, is the country going to descend in civil war? Are billions of our dollars going to be spent there? Are our American troops going to be at risk? This is a different tact that he's taking because the Democrats also hated this guy, but this is all wrong. It's futile. It's no good.

Take it to the War Powers Resolution, please, Kirsten. Senator Graham arguing that the IRGC is at war with the U.S. Democratic leaders. Obviously, you are co-sponsoring a bill with Congressman Massey to force a vote on the War Powers Resolution. Congressman, do you think you have enough votes for this to pass? It's going to be very close, but I believe we will have every Democrat. I can't believe that there's going to be a Democrat who wants to vote for another war in the Middle East.

And then you have not just Congressman Massey, you have Congressman Davidson, Congressman Biggs. There are a number of people on the Republican side who agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene. You know, Donald Trump said that the Iraq War was a disaster. Hold on a second. The Democrats have always considered her a crackpot lunatic. And they're always bitching and moaning about Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marjorie Taylor Greene because she's nuts.

And now, all of a sudden, because she split and quit, split with Trump and quit the job. She's the best. Give me a break. Congressman Massey, you have Congressman Davidson, Congressman Biggs. There are a number of people on the Republican side who agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene. You know, Donald Trump said that the Iraq War was a disaster. He said Libya was a disaster. He ran because a big part of the MAGA base did not want another war in the Middle East. They rejected Lindsey Graham.

And yet, here we have Lindsey Graham being the face of Republican foreign policy as is evidenced by the fact that he was your lead guest. I mean, I believe this is a betrayal. Wait, stop. Because Lindsey Graham was her lead guest, he's now the face of the Republican Party? Yes. What kind of logic is this? Roe was stronger. In other words, the booker of her show is really determining foreign policy if you look at it objectively.

The face of Republican foreign policy as is evidenced by the fact that he was your lead guest. I mean, I believe this is a betrayal of a decent chunk of the MAGA base. Ah, see, you're trying to go for the cleave it and leave it. That's a good bit. That's a good bit. I give him points for that one. Considering you're Christian Welker, you're Rohit Khanna, what is the next logical topic from this conversation so far? Oh, you're asking me? Yes. Ask John. The next logical ...

Well, the regime change was addressed, I think, the midterms. Let me talk to you about one of the big headlines before the strikes against Iran. Okay, you ready? What was one of the big headlines before the strikes against Iran? I'll give you a secondary chance. Oh, so I was wrong. You were wrong. Okay, so you're playing this a little differently than I would. Yeah, I don't have a jingle for you. Which is I would have just do the slam dunk and get it over with.

But no, no, you're more of a torture type. Yes, I am. Yes. So you're trying to torture me. Let's see. It would be negotiations that were something to do with the negotiations for the A-bomb, the nuke. Wow. The troll room is better than you are at this game. Uh-oh. They had it right away. Oh, no. How do you feel now? Now I feel like crap. It's obviously the Epstein files. Of course. Oh. Who cares what the American people decide? Is there criminality going on or what? Do the same.

Answer the questions. Howard Lutnick should do the same. I'm working with a Republican actually to subpoena Howard Lutnick next week, and I believe he will come before the committee. And every person who went to that island or who corresponded with Epstein about going to his mansion should be called under oath to tell us what they knew. Well, that would be a lot of your richest constituents, Mr. Kahana. I have to say, since you brought the Epstein out of the blue, I do have a side clip.

Okay. They did release some of the Hillary... Yes, I have some of Hillary's response, but yeah. I mean, I was trying to kind of like slowly overlap, so we kind of slide out of Iran. No, we're going to go back to Iran. We have to go back to Iran, but where is this clip? You seem to be kind of lost on your clips today. Yeah, you know why? Oh, here it is. James Comer grills Hillary. Would that be the one? Yeah, that's it. Look, Mrs. Clinton, we don't want to be here all day either.

So just tell us how you killed Mr. Epstein and we can all go home, okay? I mean, everyone knows you killed him. Just tell us how you did it. Okay, look. I knew the guards were asleep, so I just, I took the keys, I turned off the cameras, I went into Jeffrey Epstein's cell and I saw him sleeping, so I just grabbed one of his shirts and I choked him with it. He kind of woke up, but I think he, I actually think he enjoyed it, because he was smiling as I was choking him, which was kind of strange.

But anyway, I made it look like a suicide and I got back home just in time for dinner. I love how people in Toronto are like, hey man, this is AI. Really? Really now? Really? This is AI. Huh. Huh. Surprise, surprise. Oh, that's interesting. Again, well worth the 1.3 trillion dollar investment and even counting, it's doing great. Yeah, for that 39 second clip. Let me go back to Manhans Welker with Lindsey for as long as we can stand it.

And joining me now is Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Senator Graham, welcome back to Meet the Press. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me on such a historic day. Thank you for being here on an historic... He sounds nervous. He's jitty, man. No, I think he's trembling with... Oh, jitty, that's what it is. He's jitty. He's got... It's adrenaline. That guy is screwed up. It's pulsating. Good morning, Senator. Let me start with the big question.

Is the United States at war with Iran? I think the Ayatollah would say, yeah. I don't know if this is technically a war, but we're... Here's what I can say. The headline... Wait a minute. What did he... I mean, this was this morning. The Ayatollah was declared dead and now he's... Yeah, he was already dead. So I don't know what he's... Did someone... What's he talking about? I think he's... Did someone forget to brief Lindsey? That's very strange. I don't know why he's...

Something's up with him. For me, Sunday. The mothership of terrorism is sinking. The captain is dead. The largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is close to collapsing. This is his big moment. The mothership of terrorism is sinking. Oh, he had a writer. Yeah, is sinking. Yes, a writer. The captain is dead. Okay. The leader of the largest state sponsor of terrorism and his inner team are dead. The mothership that fuels the proxies is in sinking mode.

The goal of this operation is to change the threat, not the regime. When this operation is over, no matter who... What's that? Sinking mode? I'm saying he blew these lines. He had this stuff written for him, but sinking mode? Yeah. It's like you're sinking. You're not sinking mode. What mode are you in? I'm in a sinking mode. Come on. Is in sinking mode. The goal of this operation is to change the threat, not the regime.

When this operation is over, no matter who takes over in Iran, they will not have ballistic missiles to hurt us, Israel, or the region. They will not have the capability to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism, whether it's a cleric or a group of representatives of the country where there's an election. It doesn't matter right now. Iran in the future will no longer be the largest state sponsor of terrorism. They cannot rain terror on the region. They cannot commit mass murder.

That's the goal of this operation. Again, the mothership of terrorism is sinking. The captain is dead. I got it all right this time. Much better. He revisited it. I got to do it again so I might get my sound bite. President Trump has been the policy of this country for decades to eliminate this regime. President Trump did it. Admiral Cooper came up with a military plan that's unbelievable.

We're not done yet, but when it is done, Iran will no longer be capable of being the largest state sponsor of terrorism. That is the goal, and that goal will be achieved. See, I like listening to Lindsey Graham, because he was read in on this plan early. Yes, he was obviously read in. That's why he was on the plane with Trump and he represents the state with a lot of military aircraft, Boeing, lots of stuff going on. He's tight with Israel.

And that's why he was so kind of giddy, but I think nervous too, because he had these lines to deliver, which you rightly noticed that he had to re-deliver that one line because it had to be that line. It sucked. Because I'm sure Trump is like, well, you can't even deliver a simple line we wrote for you. So the next pertinent question, Welker is asking the right questions here. Will the United States pick the next leader of Iran, or will the Iranian people pick the next leader? Isn't that great?

That's exactly what the theory is. Good question. I talked to the crown prince. He's got some ideas about transition. There will be no American... Hold on. He took to the... Wait a minute. Lindsey Graham just said, I talked to the crown prince. Yes, we said. So is the crown prince still in play, or is this Lindsey freelancing? This is a good question because the crown prince shouldn't be in play. Unless there's a backup plan or contingency, or there's something to do in case...

Maybe he's held in abeyance in case the... Because they don't know how the public's going to react to all this, and whether the guy that they want to put in place is going to actually get to where he's got to go. Who knows? Maybe it's just a contingency. Well, let's see if Lindsey tells us more. I talked to the crown prince. He's got some ideas about transition. There will be no American boots on our... He's the trans prince. He's not the crown prince. He's the trans prince. That's what he is.

I talked to the crown prince. He's got some ideas about transition. There will be no American boots on our ground. This is not Iraq. This is not Germany. This is not Japan. We're going to free the people up from a terrorist regime. And the goal is not only to help the Iranian people to chart a new destiny, to make sure no matter who takes over in Iran, no matter who it is, no matter who the people pick, they cannot become the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

They can't fuel Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. They can't have ballistic missiles. The Houthis. This guy. The Houthis. This guy's no good. They cannot become the largest state sponsor of terrorism. They can't fuel Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. They can't have ballistic missiles. They can't have a nuclear weapon. They will be out of the terrorism business. So the people will pick. As to the people, choose wisely. We want to be your friend.

We'd like to have a good relationship with you going forward, but that is up to you. Now, what am I going to do next? When this regime can no longer threaten the region, I'm going to build on what I did with President Biden to try to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize. If the fall of this regime... Wait a minute. Is he talking to Trump now? What is he saying? He's taking credit for the Abraham Accords, apparently. This is great.

I'm going to build on what I did with President Biden to try to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize. What? He's off the rails. He's off script. He's high. He's high. He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is great. If the fall of this regime would lead to normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the center of gravity for Islam is Saudi Arabia, the one and only Jewish state. If they could make peace and have a normal relationship... Wait. That's already happened.

That's already happened, but he says... The way he says it, though, he sounds as though Saudi Arabia is the one and only Jewish state. He jams it together. It's not what he said, but it sounded a bit like that. No, it's what it sounded like because he's just throwing... He's got a script that he's screwed up. This is out of control. I'm going to build on what I did with President Biden to try to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize.

If the fall of this regime would lead to normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the center of gravity for Islam is Saudi Arabia, the one and only Jewish state. If they could make peace... You're right. Saudi Arabia, the one and only Jewish state. That's great, Lindsey. ...have a normal relationship. Because this regime fell, it would be historic. Taking the regime down is a big deal. Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is a historic deal.

That's where I'm going to spend my time and energy to President Trump. How about you spend your time in, I don't know, North Carolina. Is he North? South Carolina. Spend your time there with your people who elected you. Yeah, they didn't elect you to be an international ambassador. You did something everybody talked about. You took Maduro down. Everybody talked about it. You did it. You took the Ayatollah down.

Again, the goal of this operation is to make sure there will never be in Iran a state sponsor of terrorism to rain havoc on us and the region. That's the goal. I hope the people will choose wisely. I think Trump's not going to be happy with this. Oh, he's giving Biden credit. I put Biden in there. Let's do one more. I have a ton of them. This is the last one. Unless it's funnier than this last clip. Senator, history tells us just how complicated regime chain is. We saw that. Regime chain.

Regime chain? Hey man, what kind of chain is that you're wearing? Regime chain? Uh-huh. Oh yeah? Senator, history tells us just how complicated regime chain is. We saw that when Saddam Hussein... How petty are we, John? We're the worst. How can you not ridicule? These are professionals making millions. She makes millions of dollars. I mean, it's unbelievable how lame this is.

And then you got this Lindsey Graham guy who can't even do a script properly and now he's taking credit for everything that Trump's doing. And yet he's patting himself on the back, left and right, and blowing his lines. This is unbelievable. Senator, history tells us just how complicated regime chain is. We saw that when Saddam Hussein was ousted and the terror threat and group moved in. How will the United States make sure that the next Iranian government... Wait, stop it again.

She's flustered because she knows what she said about Hussein ousted in a regime threat or something. Let's listen again. We saw that when Saddam Hussein was ousted in a terror threat and group moved in. He was ousted in a terror threat. And a group moved in. He was ousted in a terror threat. What is she saying? I don't know. How will the United States make sure that the next Iranian government isn't worse than the current regime? He makes this level... He makes these noises all the time.

...than the current regime. It's not our job to pick the next Iranian government. I don't remember being attacked by Iraq any time in the past. What? Iraq is complicated. What? What? That's changing the narrative. I don't remember being attacked. We literally changed our mind from Afghanistan to Iraq overnight. And now he doesn't remember any of it. Pick a side. We have a relationship with Iraq. It's up to Iran to pick your leader. It's not my job. It's not President Trump's job.

We're not going to occupy the country. We're going to give the people of Iran a chance to do something they've never had before. Hold on a second. It's not my job. He's put himself ahead of Trump. Yeah. Trump will notice this. Yeah. I think Lindsey's two martinis in at this point. I think you're right. I think he's got you in the bag. I had a sense of this when he started off. He sounded like he was a little bit... Toasty. Toasty. We're not going to occupy the country.

We're going to give the people of Iran a chance to do something they've never had before. It's our job to kill your leader and to keep killing them until you choose the right one. In Europe, they make you vote over. It's kind of the same thing. Chart their own destiny. We're going to take away from any future regime the ability, any future government, the ability to have a ballistic missile program, a nuclear program, or support terrorism. That's what we're going to do.

If out of this comes a new government that we can do business with, great. But having Iran no longer the state sponsor of terrorism opens up historic opportunities. It's the one irritant in the region. It's the one impediment to real peace. We'll never get to where we want to go as long as Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism. I'm here to tell you, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, the mothership of terrorism, is sinking and the captain is dead.

And a lot of good things are going to follow. Oh no. Lindsay, no one cares about your soundbite. It's not working. It's not a good one. Fire the guy who wrote it for you. It's just not good. Um, this is, this is, uh, I have to play this. The guy is just, he's a, it's like land mines everywhere. This guy, like, walk through the minefield and please step on every single one. Lindsay, that's what you're good at.

Senator, let me ask you because the President's opposition to regime change and war, quite frankly, was central to what he described as his America First agenda. On Saturday, former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote this. We said no more foreign wars, no more regime change. We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire administration campaigned on it and promised to put America first. Wait a minute, I love this.

So, first they campaigned. The whole campaign was the Epstein files. Now the whole campaign was no more war. It's like, just choose one. No more regime change. We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire administration campaigned on it and promised to put America first and make America great again. Did the President's strikes on Iran go against everything that he promised the American people? This is a good question.

This is a fair and valid question. Lindsey, go. Quite the opposite. He promised to keep us safe, to stand up to people who would hurt America. She's a former congressman for a reason. What is it? America first is the following. Make sure that no regime who wishes to hurt America can. To make sure that they don't have a ballistic missile capability to attack our country. They have American blood on their hands. We destroyed their missile program, the nuclear program.

They're coming right back at it. America first is not isolationism. America first is not head in the sand. America first is not to get entangled. We're not going to have any boots on the ground in Iran. But America first is to kill people who wish us ill with Iran. Wow. America first is to kill people. That's what America is. How about that? I gotta listen to this gem again. That's better than your, the mothership is sinking. Destroyed their missile program, the nuclear program.

They're coming right back at it. America first is not isolationism. America first is not head in the sand. America first is not to get entangled. We're not going to have any boots on the ground in Iran. But America first is to kill people who wish us ill with a record of trying to destroy us and the region to take them off the table. Foam finger number one. We kill people. Celebrate today, please, my Democratic colleagues, that the most evil man on the planet is no more.

He terrorized his own people. 32,000 people at least have been killed protesting a better life. He was trying to get a nuclear weapon. He was building missiles to hit the United States. He was a religious Nazi that had a horrible agenda for the region and the world. He is no more. Well done, President Trump. Well done to your team. This is something to celebrate. I mean, I think there's, it's kind of like it's a sexual fetish, I believe.

When you're so into killing people that you say it like that, don't you think? Don't you think that's some kind of strange? There's something wrong with this guy. America first, and he even paused. America first is to kill people. And then he added on, you know, who shoot missiles at us. The guy has a screw loose. And props to Ms. Welker there, because she certainly knows how to get the best out of him. That was good. Well, the booker, give the booker credit. They booked him at the beginning.

Yes. People are riveted. They're on their screens. We can't believe what this guy is saying. You got anything else on Iran here you want to finish up? I mean, I don't want to. We should probably wrap it up. First, I got an AJ Al Jazeera clip. This is, I called, this is an example of Iranian, Baghdad Bob. This is a Baghdad Bob. There's a bunch of them. Now, Iran's foreign minister has been speaking to US media about Iraq.

She has acknowledged that Iran may have lost a few commanders, but that it wasn't quote, such a big problem. He also said that Iran was open to dialogue. If Americans want to talk to us, they know how they can contact me. We are certainly interested for de-escalation. This is not our war. This is an imposed war against us. This is a war of choice by the United States, and they have to pay for that. She also stressed that Iran would not give up its right to enrich uranium. Uranium.

Okay. Now, I just want to play this one. This is the BBC, and this is a I thought was an interesting, unexpected they bring these guys on, these experts, and they're kind of giddy in an unexpected way. This is an Iran unexpected BBC report. Okay, let's talk more about this breaking news at this hour with my guests here. Ben Taleiblou is with me, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and our colleague Hasha Jornady. He's the BBC Persian Washington correspondent.

Gentlemen, it's great to have you both in the studio on this momentous day. The U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran. Iran then launching strikes across the region, it says, in retaliation. Hasha, I want to start with you because you have been in touch with contacts in Iran, in Tehran. What have you been hearing?

Well, what I've been hearing in the past couple of hours after the announcement that there is a possibility of Ayatollah Khamenei being killed is that the sense I'm getting is a sense of it's a celebratory mood in Tehran and other places I've talked. Many people left Tehran, evacuated Tehran as the war started. And many of them have the habit of going to the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. The city's there, people have villas there, go stay there.

The roads are full of traffic, cars are at a standstill. The moment the possibility of death was announced, people just get out of their cars and start dancing. There are videos on social media from Tehran. You are seeing firecrackers, you are hearing people celebrating, cheers erupting in the capital. So, many people, they haven't forgotten that last month, thousands of people were killed while the government tried to suppress the protests. They haven't forgotten this.

And that was the last chapter of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's leadership, 36 years of leadership, as Alistair said, just said. So that was the closing chapter of his rule, if it's verified that he's been killed. People haven't forgotten that. That's why you are seeing what you see today in Tehran, other parts of the country, you hear people are cheering up, they're happy, that's the reason. So, now it's going to come down to the PR war in the United States.

The media is just waiting, just waiting to pounce, because we're going to go straight back to the midterms. Any sign of this going wrong, of it not making any difference, they're going to pounce, they're going to do everything they can. The Persians I know, and in America we call them Persians, they are very happy. They're like, we've been waiting for this for decades. The Israelis that I know, who are like, well, you know, we'll probably get hit, but we want it too.

It seems, in general, like, if this can really happen, and we can do business with a new Iran, and get our oil companies in, goodbye BP, out you go. With Saudi Arabia now contributing to, you know, the board, I guess they want to jump on the board of peace. This really could be a game changer. And it could be a big deal for the midterms. Yes. You're right, that's why they have to reverse the course here in terms of the public relations. This has to be quashed.

Well, what I'd do is, if I was working at NBC, I'd have Lindsey Graham just, I'd clip that over and over again. America First is killing people. Well, just keep booking him. Just keep booking him. Keep booking him. Get that guy on again, he's great. He's the best. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's either the most strategic, amazing gambit ever. I mean, they're trying to get to Marjorie Taylor Green. She's all of a sudden a big hero.

For some reason, a lunatic, they called her a maniac, and now she's the big hero of the left in NBC. Just to answer some, yes, of course this is about oil, but it's not necessarily about Iranian oil. It's about the control of the Straits of Hormuz, which has been under threat for years with the Houthis. The Houthis, they've been a very painful pain in the butt for everybody. So, yeah, of course it's about oil. Oil is always the game. That is the world. Without oil...

The entire Western civilization is built on burning stuff. Yes, yes, so of course. But it's not like the Trump brothers are going to move in and start up an oil company. No, that's the Bushes. That's what they did. The second clip here from BBC? Yeah, this is just kind of a follow -up from the other guy, because this first guy, I don't think they expected him to go on and on about how happy everybody is.

And so they bring in the second guy, and he kind of reaffirms that this is anti-climatic, but it's worth playing. Ben, how do you see this? With these reports, again, we've heard President Trump now say that the Supreme Leader is dead. The Israelis are saying that as well. The Iranians are saying that's not the case. But despite all that, where do you see where things stand right now for Iran and its leadership?

Well, great to be with you on this historic moment, Sumit, also in studio with our friend Khashoggiar from BBC Persian. No doubt, this is an inflection point not just in the 47-year history of the Islamic Republic, but potentially even if operations continue in the larger U.S.-Iran relationship here.

We know in President Trump's comments in the video, I should say, the one he posted earlier as military operations against the Islamic Republic were underway, the last part he actually alluded to something that the Iranian people could do to take back their government. Much of that will depend on the nature of the targeting if Israel and America pushes through or pushes past what's left of Iran's security state. Make no mistake, Ali Khamenei was the region's longest-serving autocrat.

He was the second Supreme Leader in the Islamic Republic, but part of his success for those 30-plus years was institutionalizing his power.

So now it will remain to be seen if Washington, if Jerusalem will go after that apparatus of oppression, will go after what's left of command and control, will drill down to foster defections from below so that unit-level cohesion of these security forces, so that local initiative is taken over by local fear and that the guns go to the sides rather than continue to be turned against the population or turned against Israel, America and perhaps even

more importantly, we should say here, Iran's Arab neighbors. There are some here who are taking a premature victory lap that potentially you could have a military government come in, something a la South Korea and engagement with military governments would lead to modernization, westernization, and then democratization. Oh, okay. Well, yes, anticlimactic but true, I think. They're seeing it for what it is.

Yeah. The BBC, I think, I listened to all these foreign sources for most of this stuff and I have to say, really, it was very I thought they were quite good at their reporting. All right, back to Epstein. Back to Epstein. Bill Gates in a Wall Street Journal exclusive apologized to staff at the Gates Foundation not only over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, but also to affairs with Russian women. Russian hookers. Bill, oh, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. These Russian girls can be pretty attractive.

And it just keeps on, the hits just keep on coming over there with the European royalty and elites. He is a former Norwegian MP and a former foreign minister for Norway and was CEO and president of the World Economic Forum until this Thursday. Jørge Brende has resigned that role following a series of revelations relating to his past contacts with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. After careful consideration, I've decided to step down as president and CEO of the World Economic Forum.

My time here, spanning eight and a half years, has been profoundly rewarding. The statement issued by the WEF made no mention of Epstein. Brende has told Norwegian media he was sorry about how he handled his dealings with the disgraced American financier, which included business dinners, and that he didn't want the issue to distract from the forum's work.

Text messages from 2018 and 2019 released among the Epstein files appear to show a friendly tone between the two men, with Brende in one contact in March 2018 saying, Dear Jeff, thanks for a very interesting dinner on Thursday. Food for thought. You're a brilliant host. Warmly, Borga. Back in Geneva. Oh no! Their last communication was a week before Epstein was arrested in 2019. Mention in the Epstein files does not imply any wrongdoing.

The former minister is one of several prominent Norwegians who have faced scrutiny following the latest release of Epstein files. Yes, and the scandal, the scandal is that the Norwegian, the entire Norwegian press corps colluded with each other to repress the news of former Prime Minister Jagland's attempted suicide in wake of the Epstein probe. They kept it quiet for a week. I'm not quite sure why, but it's a big news scandal over there. I don't know why.

Interesting. Yeah, I don't know why they would do that. Here's a typical France... They're in bed with the government. Gambling? Here's your typical France 24 coverage of the Clinton hearing. This guy just, he's like, and he sounds like a showbiz guy. I'm not quite sure what they brought him in, but he's up there. He's in Chappaqua, Chappaquiddick, Chappaqua, wherever, New York, upstate New York, where the Clintons gave their testimony. And he just throws the whole kitchen sink in.

Everything he's heard, like... What were the biggest takeaways for you? Well, you have to understand that this truly is political theater. When Representative Comer said that the hearings yesterday were predominant, he was right. If you look at it from his perspective, his perspective is that he has an audience of one, and that one is Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants to distract the American public. More specifically, he wants to distract the MAGA base from his own involvement.

Donald Trump was very clearly a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein. They broke publicly. But Donald Trump is much more vulnerable in the Epstein files, certainly than Hillary Clinton and even Bill Clinton. So the point here is to serve as a distraction. Because the one thing Donald Trump can't allow... I know! Isn't that amazing? How do you get from A to B in this case?

There's nothing but tons of photos of Clinton wearing kimonos and Clinton in the tub with Ghislaine and Clinton here and Clinton there with some chick on his lap. He's much more vulnerable in the Epstein files, certainly than Hillary Clinton and even Bill Clinton. So the point here is to serve as a distraction. Because the one thing that Donald Trump can't allow is for the MAGA base to fracture over the Epstein files. And there are people who are very important to the MAGA base.

Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn. They're talking about the... What? What? There are people very important in the MAGA base. Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn. I would say they're the least important in the MAGA base. They're not in the base. Not at all. To fracture over the Epstein files. And there are people who are very important to the MAGA base. Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn. They're talking about the Epstein files.

Donald Trump wants them to be talking about the Epstein files and the Clintons rather than the Epstein files and Donald Trump. Trump came out and said he didn't even like the idea of Bill being there giving testimony. He made a point of it.

And the Clintons rather than the Epstein files and Donald Trump and specifically why Trump's Department of Justice hasn't released the files that were mentioned also that there's something like 50 pages of files on this most recent accusation from a woman who was a minor and she accuses... This is the same tired old 1996. And this is the one you brought out and deconstructed in the last show. This 13 year old supposed 13, 14 year old girl. Who withdrew the lawsuit themselves.

Who did everything in advance of the election and once the election was underway then they pulled it because they didn't really have any evidence. President Trump of having committed some kind of sexual assault again. That's not corroborated. That is the last thing. Not corroborated. Not corroborated. How about the lawsuit was dropped. Oh goodness. Trump of having committed some kind of sexual assault again. That's not corroborated.

That is the last thing Donald Trump wants the MAGA base to be focused on. Look over here. Look over here at Hillary Clinton who he still thinks I guess he thinks people are still obsessed with Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton who have not held public office for quite some time. I'm surprised the guy didn't say well you know it was so salacious that Trump decided to bomb Iran. I mean that's the only thing left that he could have said. It's crazy.

I'm surprised that hasn't been already said a couple of times. I'm sure we just haven't seen it yet. It's coming. They have to do these things in order. So here's former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wife to Bill and answering questions from giving a statement and answering questions of the press after she and Bill testified behind closed doors. It was video recorded and will be transcribed. Well I have just finished testifying.

I answered every one of their questions as fully as I could based on what I knew and what I knew is what I said in my statement this morning. I never met Jeffrey Epstein never had any What? There's a lot of pictures of you with Jeffrey Epstein. Okay. Yeah the problem is they've been salted with fake pictures. Oh. Which are all over the place. Like the one where she's holding is Titus. Yeah. That's fake. Yeah. Okay. Connection or communication with him.

I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance but whatever they asked me I did my very best to respond. It was disappointing that they refused to hold a public hearing so I wouldn't have to be out here characterizing it for you. You could have seen it for yourself. We had asked for that. We think it would have been better for the committee and its efforts to gather whatever information they are seeking.

We had a bit of a challenge in the beginning because we agreed upon rules based on the fact it was going to be a closed hearing at their demand and one of the members violated that rule which was very upsetting because it suggested that they might violate other of our agreements. What do you think that was? What do you think the violation was? It was the photo.

Luna. Luna took her phone out and took a picture of Hillary talking and gave it to one of the bloggers some online guy and they posted it during the right during everyone has to break the news so they posted it right during the questioning and it got right back to Hillary. It's almost as though it was rigged to do this. Something is fishy about the whole process. I'm not talking anymore. You guys just broke the rules. Well here's my favorite piece of what she said.

I don't know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his home. I never went to his offices. So it's on the record numerous times. It then got at the end quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about PISAgate, one of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of members' questions to me.

I wonder if they asked her about Frazzledrip. That's the question. What do you know about Frazzledrip? Restate that. Oh, Frazzledrip. Is that about taking the skin off the baby? Uma Abedin. They're taking skin off people and putting it on their own faces. That Frazzledrip baby. Saving from the silence of the lambs. Final bit was a question from the press about, well, but Ghislaine, was that Chelsea's wedding?

Chelsea's wedding in 2013. She'd already been mentioned in a civil lawsuit by Virginia Chief Reporter Jeffrey Epstein already. She came as the first one, the guest of someone who wasn't Biden. I don't know when the video will be out. I don't know when the transcript will be out. We've asked that they be out as quickly as possible and then you can see everything. Listen to the very last one. Oh, the poor woman. Why would she know about that anyway?

And the other thing is, the question that would have come to mind if I was out there is who is the plus one? A plus one of a guest that was invited. Who was the guest? Jeffrey Epstein, of course. That's what it has to be. And with that, I'd like to thank you for your courage. Say in the morning to you, the man who put the C in the regime of change. Say hello to my friend on the other end, the one and the only, Mr. John Seymour. In the morning to the trolls in the troll room. Hold up, misfire.

Here we go. Oh yeah, look at that. There's nothing like a good bombing to bring the trolls back. Almost 2,300. We're almost back. That's right. More bombing. More bombing, please. It brings everybody back. I know what it is. This is like the news business. Epitomized by nobody cares. There can be great stuff that we're doing on a twice a week basis. No. We gotta have a bombing. Bombing works. Well, it'd be very interesting to see.

We, of course, will continue to deconstruct everything as it comes in and as we see it. I'm glad that I'm home for these couple of weeks because there's just a lot. There's a lot to consume. Yeah, you'd be in a bomb shelter right now. Yeah, with Sir Brian of London. What are we doing here, man? Anyway, thank you for being here, trolls, and listening live at noagendastream.com or on those fancy, very modern and sophisticated podcast apps.

Get them at podcastapps.com where not only can you get the show and be notified within 90 seconds when we release it, unlike the legacy apps, but when we go live, you'll get a notification if you have that enabled and you'll know that we're live. You can listen in the same app. How crazy is that? It's like modern day radio. Listen live or on demand. What? Have we improved your life somehow? I think so. So get one of those.

At the same time, we are incorruptible because we don't take any advertising. We're not worried about audience capture. We never have been. You can all say, I'm not donating. I'm unsubscribing. It's okay because as long as there's enough people to keep us going, we'll keep doing it. I love when people say, don't you realize donations are down because you're wrong about Israel and the Jews? I said it like Cartman. The Jews? Yeah. If you're on the right side of history, you'd make more money.

Where is the logic in that? Where is the logic? We have always said what we thought. Always. And the problem is, it's not even what we thought. It's what we've developed by doing careful analysis. Yes. And the problem is, it's always eight years later. People go, you know. You guys were right back in the day. No, no one says that. They don't remember. It's a whole new generation. We remind them once in a while. Our old listeners die off and they don't remember.

We've got to tell the new people again how we've been through this. We have been so many times, hey man, you should talk about this. We talked about that five years ago. That's our problem. Honestly, we should be bringing that stuff up more often. Well, we can't overdo it because then you're spiking the ball, spiking the ball. It's boring. It is. I agree. So value for value.

That's how we decided to keep this, to keep the mothership here running, which means no levels, no plus packages, no bonus episodes, nothing behind the paywall firewalls. In fact, let me play as a bonus clip. Uh oh, bonus clip. Here's your bonus clip. NPR plus ad. NPR plus ad. How could your favorite NPR podcast get any better? Well, what if it had bonus features such as extended interviews and zero sponsor breaks? There is a remarkably easy way to turn that fantasy into reality.

It's called NPR plus. You get perks across more than 25 NPR podcasts while supporting the teams that make them. That's so insulting. Listen to the start of it. This is just insulting. How could your favorite NPR podcast get any better? Well, what if it had bonus features such as extended interviews? Bonus features. You mean so you're giving us the crap, but if we pay you, then you'll give us more? No, we don't subscribe to that.

We only want you to send us value if you got value out of what we do. If not, what are you doing? Why are you even listening if you're getting it? I mean, listen to hate listen. I'm okay with that. But even hate listens is valuable. Yeah. Yeah. We actually have hate listeners that donate once in a while. Not that many. My favorite kind. So you can support us with your time, your talent, or your treasure and we always thank people who support us with time and talent.

A lot of them want to be, stay anonymous like our, I can't even say his name anymore because even though it's a he's a knight, but he doesn't he wants to be completely anonymous. He's in the Middle East and we get updates from him sometimes three times a day is what's going on. I think he's in Iran. I thought he was in Bahrain. You think he's in Iran? I'm not sure. He never says exactly where he is. We got a lot of those guys. He's an IT guy that happens to be. Exactly where they are.

So we also thank people who contribute clips. Thank you Steve, Clip Collector. People who do websites for us. Sir Dan over there doing the noagendameetups.com and of course we have our No Agenda Art Generators for Paul Couture who created that over a decade ago. We've had several versions of it. This one is praise God, very stable. And this is where people help us out by creating artwork. And don't forget to thank Void Zero because he gets a little irked when we leave him out of the list.

I've been thanking him for 18 years. Not enough. He's in the credits every season. Well it's true. He likes to be mentioned. Did you finally call him? Is that what happened? No. His email got kicked back. I told you that and I haven't followed up. I called Brunetti by the way. Oh finally. Yeah. He was like, oh thanks for calling. You think all of a sudden my life stops because some Hollywood big shot wants to talk to me about something? Podcasting? It was actually quite a fun.

We talked for over an hour. He's a talkative guy. Yes. He says, this is usually what I do with John. I take a gummy and call Dvorak. I'm like, oh. He does do that. Once in a while he's done that. And you can tell. It's like, okay. It was great. He's giggling. Usually Alex is in the background chiding him. Telling him to get off the phone. No. She's the one that tells him to call you. I think she's in love with you. Oh good. She should be. There's something to be said about that.

We want to thank the artist for episode 1846 that was Nessworks who was a classic artist. I'm pretty sure this was not an AI piece that he did? I don't think so. Maybe it was done. This could not have been. This was as controversial because this was one of these pieces. I had to agree with you. You're the one that pushed for this one. With the argument, which is hard to beat, it's so different. We need something to vary the look. It had to be done by hand. He did the No Agenda Files.

How could AI even come up with the idea? No. He even put Suffering Succotash in there. Existential future. It's a boondoggle. It's a nice piece. 33 cents. It just looks so different. We liked it a lot. Thank you very much, Nessworks. That was for our episode 1846. We're titled Thumbstick Flick. I want to just do a quick look and see if there was anything. There were some other pieces we discussed, I'm quite sure. Yeah, there was a few decent ones. There was one I was pushing for.

I can't figure out which one it was. I know which one it was. Let me scroll down here. We both thought the Kash Patel with the bug eyes on the plane yelling bomb with the U.S. hockey team. Yeah. That was funny. That was funny, but it wasn't going to be picked. I kind of like Nessworks. I like that. But that's because you're colorblind. Yes, I thought Dan Obgyn 4's butt plugs were humorous. Yeah, you had this thing. You're preoccupied with this. You should get on a gut-filled show.

Was there something else that you liked? It was between one or the other, if I recall. You said this one or that one. I like the dog. The dog on the moon. Back to faking moon with a little puppy. What are those things they're called? Pomeranian dog. Pomeranian. That's his favorite. He likes butts and Pomeranian dogs. He does? He likes Pomeranians? Oh, he loves Pomeranians. They're the most annoying little dog. Here's some more bonus content speaking of the moon.

It was really a surprise announcement. To be clear, NASA was always going to the moon, but now they've added even more flights. I like that part. NASA was always going to the moon, right? To be clear, NASA was always going to the moon, but now they've added even more flights and they've changed Artemis 3. Let me first tell you about Artemis 2. That's the rocket we thought was going to launch this month. Now they've moved it up to April.

They've got to work on a technical issue with a helium problem in the upper stage. Then they hopefully will launch that four-person crew around the moon, looping around the moon, probably by the end of April or so. But what they did today was they announced Artemis 3, which they said was going to land on the moon. It's not anymore. Artemis 3 will in fact be an orbital mission around the Earth because they want to test out the systems.

Then they've added two more lunar landing missions, Artemis 4 and 5, and NASA says they will both go in 2028. The NASA chief today said they're really trying to pick up the pace and it's going to start to feel like the old days of Apollo. Take a listen. If we're committed to going back to the moon, we have the resources to do it. Again, we have a presidential mandate to get the job done.

And what is an achievable strategy regardless of the competition, and I can tell you launching every three plus years is not the right approach. Oh, this is not the right approach. Hey man, get one of those dune buggies back on the moon. Impress me. And ship it in a tin can like you did 50 years ago. Okay, fine. Now let us thank our financial producers, which you really are.

You're a producer if you just help us with content, boots on the ground, clips, artwork, anything that contributes to the show. That's why you are listeners but we call you producers because we consider it an obligation that you contribute to the best podcast in the universe and that way we always outdo everybody because we have thousands of producers. That's just how it works. We thank everybody $50 and above. We have a special spot for those who can afford $200 or more.

You get a Hollywood credit, the associate executive producer, and you get to put that anywhere credits are recognized, including imdb.com. If you can afford $300 or more, then you become an executive producer. That is exactly the way Hollywood works but everything is appreciated any amount, any time, as long as it's because you felt you received value and you're sending it back. And speaking of back, who is back with $2,447. This is not his typical number. Did he do a 5 and a 2?

Did he have a $2 bill with a 5? Is that what he did this time? No, he had 3 $3,200 bills and a 1. This is the first time ever there was a 1. Hmm. I decoded this. Well, let me just first tell everyone. Yeah, read the note first. He is a longtime supporter. He always feels that he gets tremendous value and his notes are always interesting. The amounts he sends are always high and code of some sort. And John has decoded this one. I'm going to read his note first.

$2,447 from Seronomous of Dogpatch in Lower Slobovia. Thank you to all reciprocal value contributors that elevate media deconstruction to such a high level. The first day of Ramadan coincides with the Christian Ash Wednesday, something that happens every 33 years. I pray the two largest Abrahamic faiths help their believers find peace within themselves. I think that is happening in Jerusalem. Propaganda is not always about changing minds, but also causing people to question their core beliefs.

May this Ramadan and Lenten season be a time of peace, reflection, and reinforcement of core beliefs for all producers despite efforts to have you question them. Ramadan Mubarak. No jingles, no karma. Thank you. He always has a spiritual message of some sort. And in this case, it is for Ramadan, which he observes and celebrates. And of course for Lent. So he's in the Middle East or something. He knows something about something or other, I think.

And now I'm going to start thinking about these codes more often. This particular one, when I first looked at it, I said this is not his normal kind of number. And I'm thinking, well, 24 is 2024, and the 47th president was elected. And that's like, but then I changed it completely. He knew what was going to happen on Saturday. This is a, these are two codes. 47 years of Islamic rule in... And 24 is the police code for assignment finished. It's a defunct police code. You can look it up.

Code 24. Code 24. Assignment over. I'm done. We're done. The 47th year. Done. And he sent it. When did we receive this? He sent it. Well, it came in on Friday. He sent it a week ago at least. And he had to send it sometime earlier. So this again, of course, epic what is it called? Epic blow up or whatever the hell. Epic Fury. Epic Fury was named way in advance. This whole thing was planned, like I said. And this guy happened to be, he knew about what was going on somehow.

And he sends us just a little subtle message. Just wink, wink, nudge, nudge. That he knew about it. And here it is. 2447. Assignment over. 47 years of Islamic rule. Nice. In Iran. Nice. I have to say now, I think that's what, I think I've done it. And now I think I can crack all those codes. Alright, alright. We look forward to your next code as always. Thank you. Sir Anonymous of Dogpats in Lower Slobovia. A long-term, high-value supporter and producer of the No Agenda podcast.

Now we have Brian Moss, who has written before in Rancho Santa Maria. Or Margarita. Or whatever. I can't cut off here. Margarita. Margarita. Margarita in California. Came in with a thousand with no note that I can find. And it's not in my email. It's not mine either. He usually sends it, doesn't he? I've seen something. Yeah, he does communicate. So we'll get a note from him eventually. But this is a thousand dollars, so he gets a double up. You've got double up. Karma. And then Sir Salahouser.

Also someone who has certainly written notes before. Did something go wrong? Sometimes PayPal doesn't do that right? I mean, could that be what has happened here? I have no idea. It doesn't matter. We will gladly read your note after the fact. And he's in Melbourne, Florida. And he sends us $600. Missing a note, so for now, a double up. Karma. You've got double up. Karma. Sir Scobie is up in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's 36392. Jingle request, dogs or people too.

Please accept this donation at 34567. Get it? 34567. ITM from Charlotte where we assume it's a matter of time. Just a matter of time before toxoplasmosis cat owners rant on social media that the ring doorbell search party feature is for dogs only. It's an honor to be a producer of the greatest podcast in the universe where else could one get superior media deconstruction and learn of the cultural significance of toxoplasmosis? Nowhere. Nowhere, I tell you. Nowhere. Actually, that's true.

Nowhere. Thank you both for an outstanding product, Sir Scobie. P.S. Not a cat owner. Dogs or people too. A lot of notes, or a lot of donations with no notes. Same goes for Richard Gelb in Danville, California. Also no stranger to the producer list. 34375. Double up karma for you. You've got karma. Sir Steve Weiss in Lost Wages, Nevada. Yes. 333.33. This is a donation to add my smoking hot wife Stephanie's trip to become a dame. Her birthday was 227, and after 25 years, we never had a fight.

We keep hearing of the demise of Las Vegas, yet do not really see it. John and Adam, you have been rocks to our lives. I hope that's good. One hit me in the head the other day. And Stephanie is devising a drinking game to her favorite John Fray's bull crap. Yes. Please give her a boogity, boogity, a biscuit for her birthday. Love and light Steve and Steph. They always give me a biscuit on my birthday. There you go.

Beautiful. Hey, then we have Sir Donald of the Fire Bottles from Spokane Valley in Washington. 333.33. And he sends us a note which is as usual on... Oh, here it is. I misplaced his note. This is on United Federation of Planets Starfleet Command letterhead. Gentlemen, we are now in the season of Lent, a time of prayer, fasting, and alms giving. I thus direct some of my alms to no agenda, a move made necessary by reduced donations of late. Let me ease your poverty.

Sir Donald of the Fire Bottles, Secretary General of Greater Idaho. Thank you, Sir Donald. That is highly appreciated. Sir Nate the Rogue in Central Point, Oregon, 265 becomes the first Associate Executive Producer and he says, since the Mossad won't donate to the show, somebody has to. No jingles, no karma. Sir Nate the Rogue, Night of the Rogue Valley. P.S., have either of you tried any wines from Rogue Valley, Oregon? It's a beautiful wine country with beautiful wine.

Yes, I did, by chance, funny enough, in a brand new Italian restaurant we have in Fredericksburg. I gotta tell you about this place, Con. I'll tell you after the show. It's like a real Roman Italian who's coming. Hey! Yeah. Hey, bunch of galoop. Valerio, Valerio taking care of you. It's good. It's good, yes. And we had some from Oregon, from the Oregon Rogue Valley. They had it on the list. Yeah, I can't think of any I've had from that particular area recently.

Of course, we only had a glass, so I forget the name of it. And I think it's a fairly recent appellation. I don't think it's from 20 years ago. No. Hey, there's Dame Astrid and Sir Mark. They are the Archduchess and Archduke of Japan in all disputed islands in the Japan Sea. 222 and 22 cents. They are also some of our longest standing producers. They have been with us a long, long time and they are super famous and talented.

Dear John and Adam, the recent second half of the show was quite revealing to me. I finally found out why I have a slightly longer neck. I am part alien. You are the best. Much love, Dame Astrid and Sir Mark. Dame Astrid, we knew this. It's like, it's one of your appeals. That's one of the things we love about you. We know that you're an alien and you too are welcome in NOAA Agenda Nation. I wonder if she has RH negative blood. Oh, that's a good question. She will answer it, I'm sure.

Just to part the alien thing, RH negative blood has always been a mystery to science because RH stands for rhesus monkey and our primate. I take it back, Dame Astrid. You're not a monkey. Ancestors and their rhesus monkey aspect to the blood is missing in RH negative people. A very small portion of the population is RH negative and there seems to be no relationship to our primate ancestors with these folks. You look into it. Something worth checking out.

Eli the Coffee Guy is up in Bentonville, Illinois at 2.03.01 and he sent in a very lengthy note. This is just the part he wanted read and it had all kinds of complimentary stuff about the two of us. I should forward it to you. Yes, please do. It is finally time I humbly ask to be declared a Knight of the NOAA Agenda Roundtable. Today, March 1st, marks my 46th trip around the sun and I cannot think of a better way. I don't know if he's on the birthday list. He is. Oh yeah, he is.

Okay. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate than a knighthood. In his earlier, the long part of his note, he talked about how he could have been a knight a while ago. I think it's in here somewhere. I would think. It would not be proper celebration without my amazing wife, Jen, by my side as a dame. I don't know that she's on the dame list. Yes, she is.

We'd like to be knighted, Sir Eli and Dame Jen, the Baron and Baroness of Beans, with a protectorate being the farmer's markets of the Chicagoland area. In the Roundtable, I wonder how much coffee they sell at the farmer's market. At the Roundtable, we request cold brew and goat stew, which by the way, can be quite good, along with foie gras and sauternes, which is the combination you want. You know what happens when you serve them sauternes. That's how I got Tina. Tip from John. Thanks, buddy.

Yes, sauternes, the magic elixir. Can we get a goat karma to celebrate? And as always, visit gigawattcoffeeroasters.com and use the code ITM20 for 20% off your order. Stay caffeinated, says Eli, the coffee guy. You've got karma. And now we go to kateditrick.net. Ah, Flower Mound, Texas, $200. Yes, this is kateditrick, as in marlanaditrick.net. Ladies, ladies, there's nothing more romantic than an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. Consider giving your man the handsome John C. Travel Bag.

Handmade in the USA, intelligent and sophisticated. This blue tech bag can help you organize all your past, present, and future iPhone connectors, Chinese fitness watches, rechargeable flashlights, and wire connectors, chip pullers, alarm clocks, leather honey, and can of what? Oh, and a can of Boshield T9 lubricant. What? That was one of our promotions. It's like a ranch hand. It's one of these fabulous products. But keep your phone in a drawer. A must for your cranky geek.

Go to kateditrick.net. Use promo code NOAGENDA for 10% discount. Thanks in advance, y'all. kateditrick.net slash product slash the slash John slash C slash bag. No, it says dashes. Those are dashes. Dashes, I'm sorry. Dashes, yes. Slash the dash John C dash. There'll be a link. We'll link her. I will put the link in. Beautiful. Which is something he can do. Linda Lou Patkin is up and she's in Castle Rock, Colorado for 200 bucks and says jobs karma.

For a competitive edge with a resume that gets results, go to imagemakersync.com. Linda applies executive level positioning to career transitions at every stage. That's imagemakersync with a K. And work with Linda Lou, Duchess of Jobs. Writer of winning resumes. Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs. Let's vote for jobs. You've got karma. And we thank these executive and associate executive producers for always making the donation segment entertaining, fun, loving, and it keeps us going.

It's good for the show as well. We appreciate that. Anybody can support the show by going to noagendadonations.com. The deal is simple. It's value for value. When you feel you've received value from the show, send it back to us. Any amount, it's up to you. We can't look in your pocketbook. All you can do is say, hey, this is worth this much to me, and that's fine by us. Noagendadonations.com. Any amount, any frequency for your recurring donations. Noagendadonations.com.

Thank you for the producers. Our formula is this. We go out, we hit people in the mouth. And I should mention that these are real show business credits, and if anyone ever questions that, we will gladly vouch for you. This was a piece of interesting news that I got from CBS. I want to ask you about another standoff between the Pentagon and Anthropic. She's talking to Mike Turner.

Which is the only AI company whose products are used in classified systems for things like target ID, Intel assessments, and battlefield simulations. This morning, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that their AI was in fact used in these operations, even though Secretary Hegseth and Trump ordered it to be cut off due to this contractual dispute over the use of the model.

Anthropic's CEO told CBS in an exclusive interview that it is up to Congress to act here to really create clarity as to how AI can be used. It's clearly essential if the Pentagon's still using it in this operation. Will Congress act here? This is something that they're going to have to deal with and come to Congress for. Obviously, in this particular circumstances, I'm unaware of this particular issue.

This is going to have to be something that's going to have to be dealt with in more detail than obviously an interview on CBS. Humming, humming, humming. You got no answer because you have no idea what's going on. But this thing is heating up. Here is the Yahoo financial team. The lady from Axios explains what the feud is between the Department of War and Anthropic. Here's what's at the heart of this dispute right now.

The Pentagon essentially wants to be able to use Anthropic's AI model, Claude. However, it sees fit. It doesn't want to be in a position where every single time it has to do an operation or do something of national security concerns, it has to check in with a company and make sure that it's following that company's specific safeguards.

The problem with that is that Anthropic has two very clear red lines with its usage policies that it does not want crossed, even by the Pentagon, which are mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons. The Pentagon is not having that. They're saying we should be able to use their technology the way that we want, and that is what it's setting up a Friday deadline. We know that Claude was used during the Maduro raid, right? So it was a very successful operation from the Pentagon.

Claude was used. I'd like to know what exactly it was used for, right? This is the fuzzy stuff. Well, we know it was used in the Maduro raid, right? No, I didn't know that. And how was it used? Did they ask a question like, is now a good time? I mean, what exactly was it used for? And that is what it's setting up a Friday deadline. We know that Claude was used during the Maduro raid. Hold on a second. One more thing. If you can say, if the person says we know that it has been used for...

Good point. If you know, then you can answer the question, well, then how was it used? Your exact question should be reiterated. If you know it was used, then how was it used? Well, we don't know how it was used. We just know it was used. Well, then you don't know anything. ...setting up a Friday deadline. We know that Claude was used during the Maduro raid, right? So it was a very successful operation from the Pentagon. Claude was used. There were no hiccups there. Hiccups, a new word for bug.

Hiccups is the new glitch. No word for glitch. Yeah, new word for glitch. Hiccups. So it was a very successful operation from the Pentagon. Claude was used. There were no hiccups there. And, of course, the public doesn't know how this technology is being used in classified settings, but we can surmise that there was no need for mass surveillance and there was no need for autonomous weapons.

Anthropic usage policies were not violated, and yet the Pentagon was able to carry out a very successful operation. Wait a minute. So the Pentagon has to read the terms of service before using Claude? Is that what I'm hearing her say, right? The second thing here, with regard to the all lawful purposes standard that the Pentagon is trying to have, not just Anthropic, but all of the AI labs adhere to, is that the law right now doesn't necessarily contemplate all of AI's applications.

In the case of mass surveillance, for example, it is legal today for the government to collect data that is public.

So, for example, social media posts, concealed carry permits, if you attended a rally or a protest, voter registration rolls, the government can legally collect all of that data and then you can imagine how injecting artificial intelligence can supercharge the in real time continuous analysis of that data to specifically target and surveil people, and that is kind of what is alarming, you know, not just Anthropic, but civil liberties groups and folks on Capitol Hill as well. This is nonsense.

Who is this woman? She's from Axios. This is nonsense. This stuff is no good. It's not. It's a language guesser. That's all that it does. Oh man, I've had so many problems with this thing. With Gemini. Here we go. Yeah. I now have 25 guardrails. You know, it's like, look up the song by Jamie Macdonald. I can't find Jamie Macdonald. Well, yeah you can, because look for me in this folder. Oh, there's Jamie Macdonald. Why couldn't you find it? Well, you misspelled it.

Well, what kind of smart person are you? Where's the I in your AI? This kind of stuff. Well, the tool you gave me doesn't exact, so you can't do anything. Any idiot human being who only takes three watts of power to keep their brain moving can look at a folder of files and say, oh, Jamie Macdonald. Oh, he put M.C. Donald instead of M.A.C. Donald. Well, he must mean that. No. Artificial intelligence can't figure that out. You see what I'm saying, Holmes? This stuff is no good.

Holmes. I thought I'd throw that in. Meanwhile, Sam... By the way, since you introduced that kind of little flippant remark, I have to interrupt the clippage here with the clip I have. Okay. I don't know, have you heard, did you hear Newsom go on about his 960 SAT score? He was talking to an Atlanta audience. I saw a little bit of it, yeah. Yeah, he's going on. By the way, bragging about a 960 SAT score just tells everybody in the country he's a dummy. That is a dummy's score for the SAT.

So who wants him to be president? Why would you do that? Why would you say that I'm a big dummy? And he says he can't read. Well, I think they left out the best part of this whole thing, because I have a clip of Newsom in Atlanta that's, I think, a little more revealing. You know, I'm basically one of you. I mean, I got a terrible credit score. Sometimes when I go to Red Lobster, I get up and leave without paying. You hear that fire alarm beep? Me neither. I like to talk loud in movie theaters.

Love me some fried chicken. You know what I'm saying, brother? I got many baby daddies. I mean, baby mamas. I got many baby mamas. I just fought at a Waffle House last week, bruh. We're hanging out at the barbershop every day, son. No cap. I keeps it real up in this biatch. Again, well worth the $110 billion that Sam Altman just raised on this. New revenue has got to come into this system.

People can invest in each other and buy each other stuff, whatever, but if there's not new revenue coming in, that's when you get into there's nothing here. But revenue is growing so fast, not just for us, but the whole ecosystem. There's like a massive amount of revenue coming in. You look at this guy, he's such a dud. He's uninteresting. He doesn't seem like much of a personality. He has got to be one of the greatest salespeople in the history of sales.

And I just don't understand how he's at some level that's cosmic. It's the same as Sam Bankman-Freed. He picked up hundreds of millions of dollars by doing the same thing. I'm complicated. I'm such a genius. To me, it's remarkable. This is a moment in time that we should cherish to witness this. It's a moment in time for us to get all dumb and go raise some money for this show. If only we could save the universe. If we could just expand No Agenda.

I think that really, if we each had a jet, it would just make the show much, much better. If we each had a jet. Just for us, but the whole ecosystem. There's a massive amount of revenue coming in to support all of this infrastructure. I don't worry about that part. Don't worry about Don't worry about that part. Don't worry about the money. Hey, look over here. Don't worry about the money. There's a massive amount of revenue coming in to support all of this infrastructure.

I don't worry about that part. In terms of It's the only part we're worried about, Sam. There's not enough money coming in to cover the cost. In terms of any one layer of the stack failing would cause some real knock-on effects, and it's sort of like a very tight supply chain right now. I do worry about that. In terms of not being able to get access to certain technologies, i.e. chips? Yeah, something like that.

The other part of their concerns, some have criticized the valuation OpenAI has got and said, well, there's intense competition. We've seen things like the deep-seek moment can disrupt markets as well. Your valuation, do you think it's justified? I think so. That's up to a market to decide, but I think so. And the path to profitability eventually, what does that look like for OpenAI? We are growing at an extremely fast rate.

Right now, I think, as long as we can have reasonable unit economics, we should focus on continuing to grow faster and faster. And we'll get profitable when we think it makes sense. What we have to realize and enjoy this moment is this is the biggest demo and longest demo that has ever existed in the history of Silicon Valley. John, this stuff is a hoax. They're not going to get... I like the way you think of it as a hoax. Well, because it's, okay. It's great. I'm on board.

The hoax is we're going just a little more power. I'm enjoying the hoax a little bit more. Well, you're actually doing more with it, though. You actually get involved at a deeper level than I do. I kind of just like the surface of it. I'm vibe coding, man. Yeah, you're vibe coding. I am. And I really like it. And it's really good. And as long as it's 20 bucks a month, I'm okay with it. This week, I'm going to hook up the guy who sent us... who sent me the Nvidia card. Yeah, the Nvidia card.

I'm excited about hooking that up. But the point is it's not intelligence. It's just not. And they keep telling us that we're almost there. We'll have it just a little... just a few more lithium crystals, Captain, and we'll be good. No. It's just burning tokens, burning energy, and no one really trusts it because they shouldn't. It's not going to... Okay, yes, you can code some things. Sure. It codes itself. Sure. Because it makes art? Yeah, it makes art and writes stuff.

Yeah. Writes stuff, kind of. But it's not... The money is just insane. And I think investors, they have no imagination. All they can think of is Sam's going to do it, man. Have you seen Sam's houses and his cars? Get a clue. What's our stack like? John, the no agenda stack, it needs to grow. Don't worry about the revenue. Just give us more money. It'll be fine. I'm so sick of these people. It's pretty... This will bring the economy down. Oh, eventually.

This is going to cause the collapse of the market. It's not going to be a big one, like 69, I don't think. It could be. Do you think there will be stoning people like Sam Altman? No, they never do that. For some reason, they just won't do that. They don't. I don't know why we can't get to that stoning, or tar and feather even. Come on. What's this Wall Street Journal podcast producers? What is this? Somebody sent this to me and I said, oh, my God.

I would ridicule the producers from the various NPR podcasts. They have a thank you list at the end of a podcast that was like 25 people. I think the Wall Street Journal, which has a podcast called The Journal, and they... They're worse. I didn't realize it, but I guess if you've got the commercial side to it, you can be worse than NPR. And this is the thank yous at the end of a podcast. That's all for today. Friday, February 27th.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Kia Ghedkari, Isabella Japal, Sophie Codner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhee, Jivika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Ryan Knudsen. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard.

Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Catherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapak, Griffin Tanner, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Najwa Jamal and Mary Mathis. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty long. That's pretty long. Do you need three engineers? No. How many do we have? One. We don't have any, actually. You're the engineer. You do a single hand. Yes. You know, because we're just bringing up names, I can't remember.

I said something, you know, Tina said something about it. I said, oh, that's, you know, some woman's name, Hunt. I said, oh, yeah, Mike's sister. And she's like, oh, you are so juvenile. And I said, well, have you never heard about the plane that crashed in San Francisco? She had never heard this. She never heard this. Well, this is a good bit to revisit. We do have all of the tapes and all the clips. I figured I'd revisit this and play it for us.

The coroner is still trying to determine the cause of death and whether she was already dead when the truck hit her. We have new information now also on the plane crash. KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board the flight. They are Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wee Too Low, Ho Lee Phuc, and Bang Dang Al. The NTSB has confirmed these are the names of the pilots on board flight 214 when it crashed. We never really got to the bottom of that, did we? Yeah, we did.

No, who came up with the NTSB? It was one of the engineers at the station and they had slipped this in as a joke on the news reader because she was notorious. I don't remember her name now, but she's not there anymore. But she would just re-wrote. There was a bunch of people that are news readers that just whatever it says on the prompter, they read it like a robot. Yeah, read it. Go for it. Yeah, read it. And so they found one of them and they gave her and I think the guy got fired. You think?

Wee Too Low. Here at No Agenda, you get promoted. You go to the top of the No Agenda stack when you do stuff like that. That's fantastic. Something wrong. Amidst all of the hullabaloo over Iran, etc. There's one extra little bit that I don't know if it has gotten a lot of play. It probably isn't interstitial. This is from France 24. It's something the president said. An island cut off from oil and seeking deeper into crisis.

It's been over a month since Cuba received its last oil shipment from Mexico. A result of threats from the American president to impose tariffs on any country that delivered oil to the communist nation. Now Donald Trump is offering a takeover and says Havana is in talks with his secretary of state. Maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. The island nation only produces 40% of its own fuel and mainly relies on oil to power their energy grid.

Blackouts are now endemic and petrol is being rationed. Bus routes suspended. The UN is increasingly concerned. Situation is serious. I think it is evolving quite rapidly. It carries a real risk for human suffering. The energy shortages are quite prolonged and will not remain as technical problems. They become humanitarian emergencies. The fuel crisis is causing Cubans to adapt as best they can with many turning to bikes. So the president says we could probably have a friendly takeover of Cuba.

That's interesting. Rubio is on point. Rubio wants to be the guy running Cuba. I'm going to quit my job as secretary of state and take over Cuba. That would not surprise me. I'd rather he run the United States. I'm liking him. He might end up doing that. It looks like there are free Iran rallies happening now and of course the obligatory hands off Iran, Trump! It's already starting. With already pre-printed signs. They're totally pre-printed. They were printed before the whole thing started.

The Socialist Workers Party. They're out already. I have one last clip and a commentary. I played this story about the woman who stuck her underwear in the coffee maker. Very disturbing. Here's a follow-up story where she's gotten sued supposedly. This is an AI voice. It doesn't sound like one, but there's a giveaway in there. I want to see if you can spot it. All AI voices make the same mistake that you're going to hear in this report. I have only one clip and it says part two. It says yes.

That's the one? Wait. I've got to set it up. The thesis is that this is a bogus story. It never really happened. The whole thing was done as a publicity stunt. This being part of it, this is part of the publicity stunt, as a promotion for Starbucks. Starbucks. Get people so they don't drink coffee in the room. Long game. I like it. I talked about this on DH Unplugged some time back when I picked it on our game.

I picked Starbucks because they have a new marketing guy that took over as CEO and he's come up with all these schemes. He's the guy who came up with the little teddy bear and all these other things. They're doing all kinds of new ideas at Starbucks and I think this is part of it. Whoever says Starbucks, I think they're right. This is bullcrap. What you're going to hear is bullcrap. The whole thing is bullcrap. I think someone just had three drinks in one go.

A TikTok creator is facing a lawsuit after posting a controversial hotel hack online. Tara Woodcox, who describes herself as a health and nutrition blogger, shared a video showing people how to wash underwear using a hotel coffee maker while traveling. In the video, Tara explains that if you run out of clean underwear, you can place it inside the coffee filter compartment, close the lid, and press the brew button. The machine then sprays hot water over the fabric.

She suggests drying the underwear with a bathroom hair dryer before wearing it again. The video quickly went viral. Many viewers said this is exactly why they avoid using hotel coffee machines. Days later, several guests realized they had stayed at the same hotel as Tara and had already used the in-room coffee makers. Some filed complaints and demanded compensation. To calm the situation, the hotel reportedly offered refunds to recent guests and replaced all coffee machines on the property.

The hotel has now filed a lawsuit against Tara Woodcox seeking about $1 million in damages for financial loss and reputational harm. The story has sparked debate online about responsibility and hygiene while traveling. After hearing this, would you still use a hotel coffee machine? Well, where's the Starbucks part? Is that they're playing the long game on that? That's somebody who sent this clip said they believe this is a thesis of one of our producers. Hmm. And that's why this is bogus.

So this is bogus, and the click in there that was to me, and I've heard this before. Oh, the AI click? Is the $1 million. $1 million? She said $1 million. Oh. Oh, let me. From the situation, the hotel reportedly offered refunds to recent guests. The hotel has now filed a lawsuit against Tara Woodcox seeking about $1 million in damages. You nailed it. Or it could just be a Gen Z -er. Because that's how they write. No, because when you write it out, when you write it.

Yeah, someone at Gen Z wrote it out because they don't do dollar sign $1 million, they do $1 million sign. Have you not noticed this? Well, this was written out by a normal person, because when you write normally, when you normally write a million, you put a dollar sign one. I'm going to tell you that Gen Z, there's a lot of them who are writing $1 million sign. Well, that's not what this was. Well, no, but when they wrote the prompt, they wrote it that way.

No, when they wrote the prompt, they wrote normally. When you normally write $1 million, you put a dollar sign one. Then the word million. Yeah, no, but what I'm telling you is that is not what people do normally anymore. No, what you're saying is the Z's don't do that normally. A writer, a professional writer always writes a dollar sign one with the word million. That's how you do it. And that's what she said. I know. $1 million. Oh, I see what you're saying.

Okay, the whole thing is just messing with my brain. I'm still stuck on the panties in the coffee thing. Sorry. The point is that this AI gives itself up, because for some reason they can't say a million dollars unless you write. If you're writing copy for AI, you write $1 million, not a dollar sign. Okay, so what you're saying is this was an AI story? I'm saying this was the AI presentation. They never mentioned a hotel. They never mentioned where this was.

The whole thing, the woman who did the panty story never said where she was. The whole thing is bogus. It's to sell Starbucks. I'm going to show my school by donating to No Agenda. Imagine all the people who could do that. Oh yeah, that'd be fab. Yeah, on No Agenda. In the morning. It's a problem when you have to explain the jokes. Especially when somebody's preoccupied with panties in the coffee machine. Yeah, sorry.

Yes, but we do have a few more people to thank, I might add, that gave us more than $50 and less than $200, and Adam's going to read them from beginning to end. David Kilchrist, I would say. Conroe, Texas. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Thank you very much. Terrence in Niceville, Florida with $100 with a long note. He says, long-time listener, long-time douchebag, please de-douche me. You've been de-douched.

I don't know how long he's been listening, but you would know that we don't do oodles of jingles like you're asking here. But we thank you very much for your $100 in Value for Value. Randy Filkins, Wellsburg, West Virginia, 100. Kevin McLaughlin, there he is with 8-0 -0-8. He is the boob donation. He is the Arch Luke of Luna and lover of America and boobs. And he says, God bless America and boobs. 7676 from Ray Martin from Dothan, Alabama. Henry Cocosoli from Livonia, Michigan, $72.

John Alberini, Parts Unknown, $70.26. Les Tarkowski comes in from Kingman, Arizona with a small boob, the only one today. $0.66. Alan Adler, Rolling Hills, California $59 .59. Andrew Garland, Muncie, Indiana, $56.23. Michael Stojak, Kingston, Washington, $55. Nathan Gwynn, Jackson, Tennessee, $52.72. We have John Height in Folsom, California $50.69. And we hit the 50s with Sir Richard Gardner. We have Benjamin Ryan from Alliance, Ohio. Aaron Weisgerber in Bend, Oregon.

Joshua Johnson, Omaha, Nebraska. Bobby Bowe in Bluegrass, Iowa. Tony Lang, Castle Pines, Colorado. Nathan Noel in Nederland, Texas. Terence Clark, Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Bill Johnson, Grovetown, Georgia. And winding up, we have Sir Commodore Mark Bendikowski in Warsaw, Poland. Warsaw. It says Warsaw. Yeah, it's Warsaw. But if it says Warsaw, I'm going to say Warsaw. I think it's pronounced slightly differently. Warsaw. Kurwa. Leslie Walker is our last $50 donor from Roseburg, Oregon.

And Leslie says, keep up the great work. And we appreciate you $50 supporters. Thank you very much. Of course, we do not thank anybody under $50 for reasons of anonymity. We're pretty serious about that. We try to protect all of you. However, we see you and we look at every single one, even people who put notes in there, and you can support us at any amount, any time you want by going to knowagendadonations.com. Consider setting up a recurring donation, any amount, any frequency.

And we thank you. And we also thank our previously mentioned associate executive producers and executive producers for your value for value contributions to the best podcast in the universe. It's your birthday, birthday on Noah's channel. Short list, but doesn't make them less important. Sir Steve Weiss wishes his smoking hot wife Stephanie a happy birthday. She's celebrating on the 27th. Eli the coffee guy turns 46 years old today.

And John Gardner wishes his son Sir Richard Gardner a happy birthday. He'll be turning 40 years old on March 3rd. And we say happy birthday from everybody here at the best podcast in the universe. Now we do have a layaway night here. That is the same John Gardner who just congratulated his son. And here's his notes. Adam and John have been laying it away every month since 2018. And it's time I claim my nighthood. Yeah. I'll keep it brief. Night name, Sir John General.

Some tips for Brits to get to get, quote, no agenda. So this is if you are a Brit and you're like, what are these guys about? Keep at it. It's a struggle to start with, but worth the effort. Accept that both Adam and John are often wrong about the UK and the Brits. Understand that you will soon know more about the US and how it works than the average Brit. This will prove both enlightening and frustrating when you go in hospital or at university.

Frustrating because nearly every Brit has TDS and will think you are a Trump apologist. P.S. Sir Richard Gardner is one of my human resources and it was he who hit me in the mouth. It's his 40th birthday on March 3rd, so please give him a shout out, John Gardner. Of course, very happy to do that. So that means that we do have two nights and one dame to bring up today. John, if you could grab a sword. For you Brits, we do knightings. That's not reserved for your king.

We can do it as well as anybody else. So Eli the Coffee Guy and John Gardner hop up here next to Jen and I am very proud to pronounce the KD as Dame Jen, Baroness of Beans, Sir Eli the Baron of Beans and Sir John General. For you, we've got hookers and blow, rent boys and chardonnay, cold brew and goat stew along with foie gras and sauternes.

Add to that Sir Redheads and Rye's and Beards and Blunts and Rubinettes, Lumen and Rosé, Gases and Sake, Vodka, Manila, Barnetts and Bourbon, Sparkling Cider and Escorts, Ginger Ale and Gerbils, Breast Milk and Pablum. And as always, we have the mutton and the meat here at the round table. For you, join the rest of our knights and dames. And on your way to the table, go right to visit knowagenderrings.com and take a look at those handsome rings. We're going to send you one.

All you have to do is use the ring sizing guide on the website. Let us know what ring size you have and we will send that to you post haste and include with that not one, but I think two sticks of wax because they are signet rings and you can use those to seal your important correspondence. And as always, for framing and on the wall, we give you a certificate of authenticity. That's only for our knights and our dames of the Know Agenda Round Table and we welcome you and congratulations.

On behalf of the Know Agenda Show. Know Agenda Beat'em Up The Know Agenda Meetups take place all over the globe. They are producer organized and you can find everything at knowagendameetups.com. People get together, hang out, talk about topics, meet each other, some get into serious deep relationships, some have gotten married, some have kids already and many of you send reports of your meetup. Here's one from Fort Wayne. This is the February meetup they had.

Adam and John, this is Shannon hosting today's event. We had a six pack of people and we had a good time. So here's the group. Michelle Beam here. Jared from Cool Axe of the K. Hey, Shelly from Fort Wayne. Had a great lunch and great conversation today. Thank you for your courage. Steve from Fishers, Indiana. Glad to be a part of the group. And I paid $33 for a Don Bass diploma autographed by Donald Putin. I think it's legit. In the morning. Wow. Try to remember to include your server, people.

Here's our second report. This is another Duke of San Francisco birthday bash meetup report. A dude named Ben named Ben celebrating my birthday. The Connecticut Yankees doing the two out of three meetups this month. San Francisco Bay Area. We are connecting to protect ourselves. Mr. Vontag, happy birthday Ben. This is Sir Rieschmeister and we are in the middle of meetup number two out of three meetups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

So, if you're from around here and you need some connection and a little protection, go to noagendameetups.com and look for the meetup happening on March 7th in Los Altos, California. This is Sir Rick Alston. Crazy Steve. All this advertising is great, but I love the connection and protection and I want to wish my buddy here Ben, the Duke of San Francisco a happy birthday. In the morning! It's true. Connection gives you protection.

These people that you find at the No Agenda meetups will be your first responders in any emergency. They make you stable so you are able. Go to noagendameetups.com. You can see all of them. Search them. Listed by region, by time, by date. We have in March coming up Tinley Park. Actually, we have on Thursday the ultimate Porteno meetup. This is Buenos Aires. Pepino's Restaurant! In Acasuso, Buenos Aires. We need a meetup report from you. That is desperately needed.

Also on Thursday, the Northern Wake March Madness Publical Gathering meetup. 6 o'clock. That'll be at Saints and Scholars in Raleigh, North Carolina. And the rest of the month. On the 7th, Tinley Park, Illinois. Los Altos, California. The 14th, Eagle, Idaho and Gladewater, Texas. The 15th, Indianapolis. The 18th, Rockaway, New Jersey. The 19th, Charlotte, North Carolina. The 21st, Franklin, Tennessee. Home of all the big music stars. And the 28th, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Reminder that we have Osaka, Japan coming up on April 4th. We have Albany, California on the 11th. You'll be at the Albany, won't you? Is that another get John out of the house meetup? So did he move it to the 11th? That's what it says on my list. Yeah, I'll be... Yeah, I always go to that one. It's interesting because I will have the Fredericksburg meetup on April 11th. Oh, it'll be a showdown. Okay. It'll be a donation showdown. There you go. April 11th. Let's see who does better.

Let's go Albany. We can beat these guys. Come on, Texas. We can do a lot better than those west coast morons. They suck in Texas. They don't donate. They don't know what they're doing. They're cheap. Noagendameetups.com Noagendameetups.com. We will beat California's butt any day. If you can't find one, start one yourself. Hang out with all the nights and days. You won't be triggered or held to blame. You're gonna be where everybody feels the same. It's like a party. Always like a party.

Hey, we're about ready for John's tip of the day, which is another highlight of the show. Before we get to that, though, we always want to determine what we'll use at the end of show as an ISO. I have three. You have two. Shall I start? Yes, please. Okay, here's my first one. It's over, guys. We are done. I mean, it's kind of over, done. Here's another one. They're just freaking good. Which is true. And this one I just thought was really funny. Mad. Isn't it mad? It's mad. It's mad. It's mad.

Can you play them again? Yeah, sure. Happy to. It's over, guys. We are done. That's the first one. They're just freaking good. The second one and the third one. Mad. Isn't it mad? It's mad. It's mad. It's mad. Okay, can you play them? I picked some stuff up from the Trump speeches. And let's try the first one here, which is Best Tea. Yep, the best podcast in the universe. Rumi. Rumi and Boomi. It's a little Boomi because he's got a Boomi voice. Alright, try the other one.

When I'm not bombing Iran, I'm listening to no agenda. I'll leave it up to you. I mean, I think it's either this one, which is this one. When I'm not bombing Iran, I'm listening to no agenda. Isn't it mad? It's mad. It's mad. It's mad. You choose. I like that one because I can't hear it really. It's mad. It's mad. It's mad. It's mad. Isn't it mad? It's mad. It's mad. It's mad. No, it's no. Alright, we'll do When I'm not bombing Iran. We'll do that one. It's fine. It's good. It's okay.

You get a win with your AI Trump. Okay. It's all fine. Where did you get those from? Did people send those to you? Or have you loaded that up from Eleven Labs? No, I got a new source. Ah, well, more on that next week, but first, time for John's tip of the day. Okay, now this is for Californians. This is a tip of the day for Californians. It's going to be a tip of the day for everybody because of what's happening with our the ban on plastics.

So, what's happened here in the Bay Area and it's just everywhere now. The whole country is going to be stuck with these biodegradable plastic produce bags. So, when you go to the store, I mean, some people if they're really nuts, they go to the store, they don't even put it in a bag. They don't care. They just put it in their pocket. Just take it in. They put it in their pockets and then they put it in their own bag. They brought a bag to the store because they're really conscientious.

You don't bring bags to the store? You seem like a bag kind of guy. No, why would I bring bags to the store when I can get a double bag nice paper bags that I can use for other purposes? Okay, I didn't know you were going to get mad. Bring a dirty old bag to the store because these bags are all dirty. These people bring these dirty old bags and they stuff stuff in them. Dirty old bag! Yeah, gotcha.

Okay, so the plastic bags they now have in the produce sections of most stores in the Bay Area at least starting, it's going to be everywhere are these biodegradable plastic bags. And so they biodegrade in the refrigerator, rot in the refrigerator within three days with the fruit or vegetables inside and because the bag is rotting so is the fruit and vegetables. The stuff goes bad instantly. Don't you take your fruit out of the bag when you bring it home?

Well, if I'm going to put it in the refrigerator I'm just going to put a piece of raw raw stuff in the refrigerator with no covering am I going to take it out of the bag and then wrap it in saran wrap? What am I supposed to do? I don't know. This is a conundrum. No, I use a nice plastic bag and then I put whatever it's in so I pull the bag, I look and see what's in the bag there's some herbs in there, maybe some lettuce maybe some cabbage, who knows. Who knows.

You're going to have to do the following buy your own plastic produce bags on a roll from Amazon for 12 bucks, 12 by 16 inch plastic produce bags on a roll, they're about 12 bucks it's made with real, the normal plastic that doesn't rot in the refrigerator and rot the fruit with it and you buy a roll, it's 350 bags a roll, it's 12 bucks, it turns out so I bought one, I'm starting to use it because I got to go to the store, I buy the whatever I buy, a couple tomatoes and I take them out and put

them in this bag it's a disgusting situation but that's just the way it is and I would recommend buying these plastic produce bag on a roll that's your tip. Everyone, believe me, you're going to need this. You're going to need them. Stock up now while stocks last. There it is, John tip of the day, noagendafund.com tip of the day out there well do you actually ever shop?

oh yeah, of course I do and I use the, we have H-E-B has the regular rolls that don't they're not biodegradable because you know why? Because we're Texans yeah, that is not going to last we don't do that California stuff I'll give you one year okay, put it in the red book, you will lose it.

We don't do that stuff here, man we got bags, we love our bags and they don't charge us for any bags, just use it H-E-B hey, if you want to, you can stay tuned to your modern podcast app or if you're on noagendastream.com coming right up, we got just two good old boys, it's Sir Gene and the dude named Ben named Ben, who do that show it's quite enjoyable followed by some end of show mixes from MVP and the one and only Dee's Laughs, I think you'll enjoy these,

and we will return on Thursday, March 5th that'll be my sister's birthday, I have to put her on the birthday list, looking forward to it already, coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill Country Fredericksburg, where we do great meetups, in the morning everybody, I'm Adam Curry, and from northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C. Dvorak we'll be back on Thursday, until then, remember us at noagendadonations.com adios mofos, a hooey hooey and such adulting

aesthetic appropriate binge, by the way, desist from muttering, canonically chopped, classy, creative, cringe curated, just quit with these words by the way, the lulu drip dump dupe during the pandemic, stop stop, stop, eatery elevated for the plot, by the way fun fact, 50 girl dinner, hard lunch I'm in my blank era, I YK YK, just stop saying Luke K making X a whole personality mid, by the way, multi -hyphenate not on my bingo card coded, max -pilled, quiet, luxury riz, shitpost, so this is

crazy, by the way soft launch the blank of it all, touch grass on a live leaf, real begging, stop with un-vibe by the way, iconic by the way, canonically it's not on my bingo card to see a multi-hyphenate in that quiet luxury or a hard launch, a mid-vibe that's so cringe it makes me wanna touch grass, by the way I know we've talked about Robert Maxwell he basically owned all of the scientific publications, didn't he? didn't he have that with his publishing empire?

publishing textbooks and responsible for common core the Maxwell name will be remembered that's for sure the Maxwell name will be remembered that's for sure, yo he wasn't sure, Robert, he died in the Canary Islands in 91 maybe someone thought he would sing like one, especially under suspicion due in court the day he died he owed by Billy, but they sued him for 60 million, I mean, they tried Robert Maxwell covered his tracks well, just laid ran the family business well she was the youngest

of nine sentenced to 20 years of crimes no names were provided then, but no one minds, Trump saying that I wish her well was it another sign or a subtle tell of Hanka teaming up to recruit young girls, but, I mean they did this all the time, all over the world hey now we have a line to check their Epstein files, sicko, psycho madam to the so-called elites, not like Hollywood Heidi Fleiss who did it in the 90s for celebrities shh, you just can't see all the differences we're recording Robert

Maxwell covered his tracks well, that Maxwell name will be remembered for sure, and that's what's left to tell what's left to tell Robert Maxwell, yo, what's left to tell scientific publishing and I think Pergamon Press was in part the control mechanism for making sure that revolutionary discoveries were taking place within a framework mmm staring at the glass in the palm of my hand a five inch window to a dying land the algorithm knows what I'm gonna say before the token takes the value away

dry vocals, no echo, just the grit deconstructing the narrative bit by bit oh, the slaves have glowing in the dark of the night feeding us the hoity-toity version of right but we're in spicy mode, we're breaking the chain, get Mojams washing out the propaganda rain if you aren't paying for the product you are the product but if you're listening to Get Mojams you're the producer the best podcast in the universe I am MoFo Dvorak.org slash N-A when I'm not bombing Iran I'm listening to no agenda