December 7th • 3h 10m
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And right now she's cheap.
Adam Curry, John C.
Dvorak.
It's Sunday, December 7th, 2025.
This is your award-winning Gilmore Nation media
assassination episode 1823.
This is no agenda.
We got blue checks.
And we're broadcasting live from the heart of
the Texas hill country here in FEMA region
number six in the morning, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from Northern Silicon Valley, where we've been
determined to be the most affordable podcast in
the universe.
I'm John C.
Dvorak.
Well, what prestigious award was this?
We're affordable.
Because it basically costs you nothing until you
get value and then you send something.
Is that why we're affordable?
Because you feel like it.
Yeah, well, that's nice.
They don't feel like it much recently, but
eventually they'll be back.
Hey, man, did you see the Kennedy Center
Honors?
I only saw Trump giving awards to people.
Well, I didn't get to see his.
Did he go?
Did he do his bit?
He's going to be the host.
He's going to be like the host.
It's like a comedy show where you got
to host the guy at the beginning telling
jokes.
What was nice about it is it was,
I don't know if people really understand this,
but it was a huge middle finger to
establishment entertainment business.
Because if you ever notice, if you look
at the Grammys, if you look at the
Academy Awards, the people who make the movies
that are loved most by the audience never
get an award, ever.
Ever.
On record.
No, it happens by accident.
Well, sometimes by accident, but usually it doesn't
happen.
And I have a quick...
The way they see it is that, look,
all the money you made is an award
in itself.
That's exactly right.
It's like the inverse of the No Agenda
show.
You don't need any more accolades, man.
So I just want to highlight the three
awards.
Here they are in quick succession.
We have the Disco Queen, and she was
indeed.
And nobody did it like Gloria Gaynor.
Gloria, thank you very much.
Gay icon, Gloria Gaynor.
Yes, very good.
That's a good head of hair.
So he says to the lady with the
wig, that's a good head of hair.
That was pretty funny.
All right, next.
A friend of mine, a wonderful person, a
really spectacular person, one of the true great
movie stars.
There aren't many.
There used to be a lot.
There aren't many now.
But he's one of the great legends and
had some of the greatest movies ever, including
the top grossing movies ever.
Sylvester Sly Salone.
Never received an Academy Award, ever.
And then the final guy.
I thought he got it for Best Screenplay.
What's that?
I thought he won it for Best Screenplay
for Rocky.
I looked it up.
According to what I could find, it was
nothing.
And then, of course, these guys never got
a Grammy.
Sure, they deserved it.
But in my heart, they did.
And the members of the incredible rock band
KISS.
That's good.
Give those guys an award.
And you know, they didn't win any Grammys
because their material was such.
But I've always felt, you know, they are
iconic.
They had a singular act.
Nobody really ever copied it.
Well, Gwar kind of did a little bit.
It was super entertaining.
I saw a tribute band.
I actually believe I've seen KISS because I
was in Seattle once in the square area.
Well, you either remember it or you don't.
How could you think you saw KISS?
Well, because it was supposed to be a
tribute band, but it could have been KISS
because it was exactly the same.
And I went there with a friend of
mine, PC Magazine publisher.
We went in there and all of a
sudden, we go into this bar in Pioneer
Square and there's this KISS is playing.
Yeah.
And we stuck around and watched them.
They're throwing fire in the air.
And these guys, they sounded like KISS.
It looked like KISS.
I believed I might as well have seen
KISS.
The tribute band was so good.
But nobody else did anything like that.
So I just liked it.
I thought that was fun, you know, for
people who have huge commercial success or at
least recognized success.
I don't think everybody in KISS made all
the money, to be honest.
I think Gene Simmons probably has it all.
Good friend of the present.
My good friend.
Long time.
Long time.
Be a good friend for a long time.
Go ahead, trolls.
Say it.
He's a Jew.
Yeah, there you go.
He's a Jew.
But the entertainment...
Wow.
He is.
These guys never let up.
Here is the entertainment news of the week.
This is only the third largest such deal
in the history of the entertainment industry.
However, it is arguably the most influential.
This deal sets Netflix up to be the
king of content, old and new.
Netflix's co-CEO says, our mission has always
been to entertain the world.
Together, we can give audiences more of what
they love and help define the next century
of storytelling.
In Canada, this would certainly attract attention from
the federal regulators.
Under normal circumstances, a deal this massive invites
regulatory scrutiny, raises antitrust concerns.
But analysts say this administration isn't likely to
stand in the way.
The Trump administration doesn't seem to be putting
forth any pushback towards consolidation within the media
industry.
Though that green light may come with strings
attached.
The quiet part of loud deals like this
is this is an administration that does not
like having stories told about it that it
does not approve.
Shares of Netflix sold off on the news
while shares of Warner Brothers jumped.
Investors aren't sure this will pay off for
the streaming giant, but consumers will be rewarded
with more content at a cost.
I suspect the initial reaction will be to
increase subscription prices.
But the diversity of content in the future
may suffer.
Smaller scale directors are probably huddling in dark
rooms having these conversations now about how they
survive in this scary new world.
This acquisition is expected to close in 12
to 18 months.
Analysts expect more mega deals in the U
.S. media industry.
Comcast and Paramount were also bidding on Warner's
legacy assets.
Paramount was one of those two interested buyers
that got rebuffed.
They're going to lick their wounds and they're
going to come back and they're going to
look for something else.
So the responses to this were kind of
baffling.
On the America First MAGA side, let's see,
we have Laura Loomer.
I told you this is going to happen.
This is bad.
Get ready for the Obama News Network.
What?
Somehow, because the Obamas had some deal with
Netflix, now Obama is going to be running
the Obama News Network.
Jack Prosebic.
Susan Rice is on the board of Netflix.
This is about the Obamas taking over media.
Matt Gaetz.
Trump must stop this.
Well, I'm surprised.
I didn't think this was a story because
I don't believe this merger is ever going
to occur.
And I think the best analysts have said
so.
And it's an idea is to put Warner
in a ban so Paramount doesn't grab them
and they want to keep them that way
for years.
So whether this deal is consummated is the
issue.
But the fact that anyone reacted to it,
they had the same thing at the dinner
table that came up with this.
Kind of weirdness.
I mean, this is, I don't know what
the deal is.
I guess the way I understand it, if
they got a hold of it, they'd spin
off CNN anyway.
Oh, CNN is not part of the deal.
CNN is not even part of the deal.
But the thing that gets me is, even
from an antitrust perspective, streaming is wide open.
Anybody can create a streaming app.
Anybody can stream whatever they want to.
Anybody and everybody is creating content.
Who cares?
I'll tell you who cares.
The movie theater owners are finally going to
realize, oh, that's it.
Time to pack it in.
Time to turn it into a roller rink.
And the actors and other people who get
residuals, they're the ones that are going to
be crying about it because that is over
now.
I think it's until 2029.
That's the proposal.
They'll continue everything.
But once it's on Netflix, I don't think
residuals count anymore.
And certainly not for new stuff going forward.
And what really have they done for us?
Who really cares?
TikTok is funnier than most movies.
Even your TikTok clips.
Well, you should know since you've been poaching
them.
Yeah, please.
No, it's just, I mean, I don't want
to see, I don't even see why there
would be a problem with Netflix acquiring us.
Who cares?
Okay, so they got that.
Well, the element, yeah.
They got Bugs Bunny.
They got Batman.
So they have a great catalog of stuff.
Stuff I might want to watch.
I might not.
But is that, is it really anti-competitive?
I definitely don't see Obama's hook into this
deal.
And by the way, these companies have been
bought and sold by technology companies throughout my
entire life.
Well, Warner's been owned by AT&T.
It's been owned by one company after another.
We had Sony owning Columbia.
Sony still owns Columbia.
AOL owned them for a while if you
remember those days.
I think, didn't Coca-Cola own a studio
at one point?
Didn't they own MGM at some point?
I don't remember Coca-Cola.
I think so.
Let me see.
I'm pretty sure.
It's just like, who cares?
Gulf and Western, an oil company owned a
studio.
Yes, Gulf and Western.
I've owned them for a long time.
I think they owned Paramount too, didn't they?
Gulf and Western.
Yes, they did.
It was a G&W company.
Yeah.
Let me see if they owned a movie
studio.
I'm pretty sure they did.
Almost like the hotel business.
Exactly the same.
You know, what do you want?
I'll tell you what.
I'll give you two of my hotels in
London for one of yours in Dubai.
Yeah, Coca-Cola.
Okay, well, you got to sweeten the deal.
Okay, well, we'll do the signage for free.
Coca-Cola owned the movie studio Columbia Pictures
from 82 to 89.
Acquired it for $750 million in 82.
Sold it to Sony for $3.4 billion.
Good job.
That was good.
Good deal.
No one was losing their mind over that.
Whoa, they won't sell Pepsi in the theaters.
Whoa, it's horrible.
No, I don't see any.
I don't see.
My other idea was selling to the Japanese.
I don't see.
Yes, I don't see any problem with this.
This is fine.
This is good.
And just for whatever reason, we're on the
show Business News.
The biggest news out of Europe.
Who cares about immigration?
Wait, I'm sorry.
I know you were building it up, but
I had to say this.
Everybody who's bought and sold Warner in particular
have not done well after they came and
went.
And remember Bronfman?
Seagram's, an alcohol company.
Like what happened to AOL, for example?
Well, AOL was tragic.
They bought Time Warner, got the whole kit
and caboodle.
It was tragic.
And the Bronfman's, I guess the Bronfman's are
still doing okay.
Seagram's, they're still around.
Didn't they buy it?
Booze.
Didn't they buy the studio?
I don't know.
But now that you bring it up the
way you do with all this discrepant bunch
of who knows why they own the studio
in the first place, I guess they want
to get laid.
But they got some executives in love with
the starlet.
I mean, it makes no sense to me.
So that's the only thing I can think
of.
You just nailed it.
That's the entire idea behind it.
Of course.
All these ugly billionaires, they don't want to
get involved in show business.
We hang out with some beautiful people.
Yeah, Seagram's bought MCA in 1995 with Universal
Studios.
So yeah, that's exactly right.
I'm surprised you don't know some of these
people.
You hang out with these billionaires.
When I was on the yacht.
When I was on the yacht sipping a
mojito.
All right, here's the big news out of
Europe.
At least four countries have announced they are
pulling out of next year's Eurovision song contest
after organizers decided to allow Israel to compete.
The participating broadcasters from the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland
and Slovenia each withdrew from the song contest
after the European Broadcasting Union held its twice
yearly General Assembly.
The countries called for Israel to be excluded
over alleged interference in voting and its conduct
in the war on Gaza.
Well, what I'm pleased is the membership have
had a full opportunity to debate it.
And I can tell you it was a
full, frank, honest and quite moving debate.
But as we can see from the emphatic
result, what they really came together on is
a belief that Eurovision song contest shouldn't be
used as a political theater.
It must retain some sense of neutrality.
The EBU voted to adopt tougher voting rules
in response to the allegations that Israel manipulated
the vote in favor of their contestant.
The contest of musical acts from dozens of
countries strives to remain apolitical, but has repeatedly
been embroiled in world events.
Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full
scale invasion of Ukraine.
Over the past two years, pro-Palestinian protesters
demonstrated against Israel outside the Eurovision contest venues
in Switzerland and in Sweden.
How embarrassing for the Dutch.
What an embarrassment.
This is your pathetic virtue signal.
Goodness gracious.
I know a lot of people at the
national song contest level.
Now, it's just embarrassing.
We're taking a stand.
OK, you make music, gay music.
Well, anyway, this does this.
You had to throw that in.
Well, because, well, and the lead into this
opens up the opportunity for America to create,
host, and produce the gayest song contest in
the world competition.
Everyone will come.
It'll be great.
I see that as what an opportunity.
If the president wasn't the president, he would
do it.
No, he wouldn't call it World Vision, not
Eurovision.
Global Vision.
The World Vision Song Contest.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, so everyone's got their panties in a
bunch.
They just go over what?
Over everything.
Over everything.
They got their panties in a bunch over
a hex, Seth.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, goodness gracious.
Oh, because this is this is the attack
vector, as you called it.
Now, you say when the Democrats win the
midterm, I have no crystal ball.
But if they do, this will be the
impeachment terms.
It'll be about killing innocent people clinging to
wood.
Well, here's the thing.
This is interesting.
Play this BBC set.
This is a tease from yesterday, the BBC
World Service.
Because coming up, we're going to hear from
a former senior lawyer from the Pentagon on
the controversial military strikes by the United States
against alleged narcotics boats from Venezuela.
If the orders that have been given by
senior civilian leadership are unlawful, which we believe
they are, then everyone who executes those orders
from the admiral down to the person who
pulls the trigger faces legal liability.
Is that really true, though?
I don't know.
Is it true or not?
Do you want to hear the clip where
this guy is on the BBC making his
commentary?
Of course, because this set the tax BBC
one.
Pete Hegseth, the American secretary of defense, hit
back Saturday at critics of the killings in
the Caribbean of people the Trump.
Ooh, ooh, I like that alliteration.
Killings in the Caribbean.
Killings in the Caribbean.
Hit back Saturday at critics of the killings
in the Caribbean of people the Trump administration
says are drug smugglers, which it's linked to
Venezuela and the government in Caracas.
At least 83 people have been killed and
21 have been injured in the last three
months in U.S. raids and an incident
on the second.
Hold on a second.
I have no knowledge of this.
I thought everybody got got blown to bits.
21 have been injured.
I don't know that either.
That's kind of news to me.
I'd like to know more about that.
Venezuela and the government in Caracas.
Well, they were injured.
They had to rescue him.
They're just sitting in the middle of the
ocean.
They're not going to last long.
No, I think they get rescued.
But I only knew of two.
And now it turns out 21.
OK, well, there you go.
That's actually strengthening the case here.
People have been killed and 21 have been
injured in the last three months in U
.S. raids.
In an incident on the 2nd of September,
two survivors of a U.S. airstrike that
destroyed a boat said to be carrying narcotics
was subsequently killed when the admiral in charge,
Frank Bradley, who leads Special Operations Command, ordered
a second strike after they were spotted clinging
onto the wreckage.
Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in
the last couple of hours, Hegseth was defiant,
saying the U.S. will continue killing those
he labeled narco-terrorists.
Major General Stephen Lepper served as judge advocate
general in the U.S. Air Force.
That's the second most senior lawyer in uniform
at the Pentagon until his retirement.
He's a member of JAGS, a group of
former military lawyers set up in February in
response to the firing of other judge advocate
generals.
Speaking to me earlier before Mr. Hegseth's appearance
at the forum, I asked him why the
anti-narcotics operations are so troubling.
Well, I'm very concerned.
My colleagues, first of all, believe that even
the first strikes of these vessels are unlawful
because the legal justification upon which the entire
operation is based, first of all, is still
secret because the Office of Legal Counsel opinion
justifying them has not been released.
But even more importantly, it does not constitute
a non-international armed conflict, which is the
rationale that the Trump administration has given for
the strikes in the first place.
OK, this character that this is part of
an overall scheme, the BBC's part of it.
Oh, clearly.
And this guy is actually a banker.
Well, that that makes it extra fun.
Of course, he is.
This is all against the North Sea Nexus.
You say, hey, we can't launder any money.
We can't launder any money.
The money's not coming through.
Stop blowing up our boats.
The military bank.
He's also he went he was a JAG
guy in the Air Force for a while.
And then he if you look at his
he's on LinkedIn.
So I follow I looked at his education.
He went immediately got certificated, which is the
only way I can pronounce that.
I think it's pronounced certificate.
I think it's right.
He got certificated for this, that all money
management, personal wealth management, banking, banking, banking.
And now he runs a ransom banks and
he's running a bank now.
And so he's a banker.
So this guy's a banker.
So it makes nothing but sense.
Your thesis.
Yes.
It falls into place with this banker.
And here and then we see the confluence
of one scheme and another in clip two
that is just obvious.
And what that means in the law is
that not only should we not be talking
about these things in terms of war crimes,
we should be talking about these things as
simple murder.
Right.
I mean, that will surprise a lot of
people who might think you can argue over
over the definitions.
The military kill people who they regard as
enemies and therefore the standard would be war
crimes.
But you think actually it's a civilian one.
I do.
I mean, narco trafficking has traditionally by all
the nations in the world been considered a
law enforcement issue.
These are criminals who are bringing drugs to
our shores.
They are civilians who are bringing drugs to
our shores.
And one of the ways in which this
administration has tried to sidestep the law, which
basically says you can't kill civilians, is to
suggest that this is somehow an armed conflict.
There are no arms involved in this.
And so the narco trafficker vessels do not
qualify as combatants under the under international law.
Would military commanders who made an order like
the one Admiral Bradley said to have made
have some protection if those orders came as
a result of instructions from the leadership in
the Pentagon, in other words, from the secretary
of defense?
Well, no, there is a duty among military
members, no matter what rank or position you
hold, to disobey unlawful orders.
He's in the pocket.
Nice.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, nice.
Very nice.
I told you that that was about these
drug boats.
That's the first.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
It was obviously about the drug bus.
But it's all part of a giant scheme
and a set up for the impeachment.
Yep.
That will take place in twenty twenty seven.
Amen.
We're going to quit if we I can't
do another impeachment.
Well, the impeachment.
I can't do enough.
I'm sick of these impeachments.
I'm quitting.
I quit.
I give up.
If you just keep impeaching, I don't understand
what the Republicans put up with it.
OK, let's this is the end of it.
OK, here we go.
And if the orders that have been given
by the senior civilian leadership are unlawful, which
we believe they are, then everyone who executes
those orders from the admiral down to the
person who pulls the trigger faces legal liability.
That's retired U.S. Judge Advocate General Major
General Stephen Lepper.
Yeah.
By the way, this has got zero play.
But what's this guy's name?
Paul Campo.
Paul Campo, who oversaw the FBI's money laundering
operations and resigned in 2016, just got busted
for laundering drug money.
It didn't get played.
Cartel money.
I should mention something else to the BBC
report for the before those journalists wannabes out
there.
Where's the balance in this reporting?
You could easily bring somebody in with the
other point of view and have them express
themselves.
No, you have a one sided, lopsided presentation
that only goes in one direction because you're
part of a scheme.
The BBC is just deteriorated to an extreme.
Well, the same can be said for the
United States.
M5M.
I do have the morning show.
I think that's all we've been saying for
18 years.
The morning shows from this morning, Sunday, are
doing the rounds.
This is what it was all about.
Oh, I got to talk about drug boasts.
Here is George Stephanopoulos with Adam Smith.
I'm pretty sure he's a Democrat.
Is he not?
Yeah, he must be a Democrat.
At least the way he talks.
Otherwise, I'd be surprised.
Here he is.
We're joined now by Congressman Adam Smith, the
top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Congressman, thank you.
Armed Services Committee.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
You've seen these videos.
You were briefed by Admiral Bradley and others.
Can you just describe what you saw and
what you heard?
Well, I think Jim Himes described it really
well.
There were two survivors on an overturned boat.
And Senator Cotton's description of it is simply
not accurate.
When they were finally taken out, they were
trying to flip the boat over.
The boat was clearly incapacitated.
A tiny portion of it remained, capsized the
bow of the boat.
They had no communications device.
Certainly, they were unarmed.
Any claim that the drugs had somehow survived
that attack is hard to really square with
what we saw.
So it was deeply disturbing.
It did not appear that these two survivors
were in any position to continue the fight.
And then you get into the larger issue,
which you previewed of, what is the fight
exactly?
They were trying to bring drugs, and not
even to the United States, by the way.
There is no evidence.
I mean, the drugs were going to some
other point where they were going to be
trans-shipped from there.
And again, no congressional authorization for this.
If it is a war, then there should
be either congressional authorization or compliance with the
War Powers Resolution.
So this seems to go directly against Donald
Trump's pledge to keep us out of wars.
He seems to be dragging us into one
without legal authorization.
So let's hear what Cotton had to say,
who did show up on the morning shows.
This is him with Manhans Welker on NBC.
Let me ask you about the aftermath of
that first fight.
The Pentagon's Law of War manual, which you're
familiar with, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
says, quote, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked
would be clearly illegal.
Given that, how was that follow-on strike
of two survivors legal, Senator?
Well, again, Kristen, they were not incapacitated.
They were not in the water surviving only
because they had a life jacket or hanging
to a plank of wood.
They were sitting on that boat.
They were clearly moving around on it.
That is in contrast, for instance, to another
strike that Secretary Hexeth described just yesterday in
October, in which you had two survivors who
were in that state.
They were essentially just dog paddling in the
water.
And what happened on that strike?
A US vessel went and picked those survivors
up and took them back to their home
country.
That's just an example of how our military
makes these decisions based on the facts and
circumstances of each particular case, consistent with laws
and with the directive you just stated.
Wait a minute.
So were they helpless or not?
It looks like everybody watched the video and
walked away with different opinions.
Oh, this is so strange.
Here's Jim.
By the way, just to stop you for
a second, that the mention that you caught
on the BBC where they said they captured
or 21 people survived, meaning those are 21
people that were rescued.
So the modus operandi is not to kill
those.
That's right.
That survived.
And so that I think the fact that
they let that slip.
Yeah, it's a mistake.
Was a mistake.
Yes.
In there, you know, considering the plan.
The only modus operandi is impeach Trump as
quickly as possible.
Democrat.
This is Jim Himes.
House Intelligence Committee.
Congressman Jim Himes.
He joins us this morning from Connecticut.
Welcome back to Face the Nation.
Thanks for having me, Margaret.
You are one of the few lawmakers shown
the classified version of this September 2nd video
of the US strikes an alleged drug boat
near Venezuela.
Four strikes in total, we've learned.
You met with Admiral Bradley, who commands special
operations as well.
The president says he's open to this video
being made public.
Do you think it is essential that it
become public?
And are you confident it will be?
I think it's really important that this video
be made public.
It's not lost on anyone, of course, that
the interpretation of the video, which, you know,
six or seven of us had an opportunity
to see last week, broke down precisely on
party lines.
And so this is an instance in which
I think the American public needs to judge
for itself.
I know how the public is going to
react because I felt my own reaction.
You know, I've spent years looking at videos
of lethal action taken, often in the terrorism
context.
And this video was profoundly shaken.
And I think it's important for Americans to
see it because, look, there's a certain amount
of sympathy out there for going after drug
runners.
But I think it's really important that people
see what it looks like when the full
force of the United States military is turned
on two guys who are clinging to a
piece of wood and about to go under,
just so that they have sort of a
visceral feel for what it is that we're
doing.
He saw a different video clinging to a
piece of wood.
Tom Cotton said they were not clinging to
a piece of wood.
And if we're going to if we're going
to broadcast that video, please, please broadcast the
video of the double and triple tap in
Iraq, please.
Yeah, or and he did it in Pakistan,
I think Afghanistan.
Yeah.
Nobody brings up what we're going to, of
course, I'm never going to stop doing this
because until the media at least comes back
at somebody with the commentary that Obama did,
did this.
He and he blew up.
In fact, so did Bush.
In fact, it blew up weddings.
They literally blew up weddings, documented blowing up
wedding people off.
It was like 100 grand.
Oh, I'm sorry.
We killed one of your wedding, wedding party
guests.
He's $100,000.
It was then they would do a double
tap when people came to rescue the injured.
They blow them up again.
And this is the real killer.
The second double tap that Obama specialized in
and nobody brings it up.
Let's be honest.
When it comes to killing people, we are
foam finger number one.
So what's this?
So Obama gets to the top of the
list, though, and his kill list, a Tuesday
kill list, whatever it was.
Yeah, the whole thing is ridiculous that they
just, you know, this is just a set
up so they can impeach Trump again.
Well, let's go set the record.
We're number one at impeaching and getting nowhere
with it.
Let's go back to Tom Cotton.
I hear you saying they weren't incapacitated and
yet Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington, the
ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee,
saw this very differently.
You see that even though I'm playing from
three different news networks, it's all the same
thing.
Everybody went to say the same thing.
And it's different from the other guy.
It's amazing.
He said, quote, It looks like two classically
shipwrecked people.
Other lawmakers who saw the video said the
two men appeared to raise their arms potentially
to signal that they were trying to surrender.
Senator, why did Admiral Bradley interpret those actions
as anything other than these two men trying
to seek help and survive?
Well, again, they were sitting or standing on
top of a capsized boat.
They weren't floating helplessly in the water.
And, Kristen, I don't think it matters all
that much what they were trying to do.
It looked at one point like they were
trying to flip the boat back over, presumably
to rescue its cargo and continue their mission.
Or to stay afloat, potentially?
Maybe they were signaling to other airplanes or
drug cartel boats.
That sounds pretty flimsy.
The radios, they were doing flags, semaphore signals
to the other boats, airplanes, satellites.
They're in waters that are just off drug
cartel areas.
At one point, the guy takes off his
T-shirt.
Maybe he's trying to get a suntan.
It doesn't really matter what they were trying
to do.
What matters is they were not in a
shipwreck state, distressed, dog paddling in the water
at all.
And therefore, that boat, its cargo, and those
drug traffickers remained valid targets.
I think what the Democrats object to here
is not the second strike.
It's the first strike and every other strike.
Now, let's go back to Adam Smith with
Stephanopoulos.
What is this really about?
On the release of the video, President Trump
has said he's fine with having a release.
But Secretary Hedges also said yesterday that's still
being reviewed.
He raised the possibility that they can't release
it because they don't want to compromise sources
and methods.
Yeah, that's ridiculous.
I mean, how many videos have they released
to date?
I'm not sure.
It's like 15 or 20.
They've showed the strike.
It's not very hard to make sure that
nothing in that video shows anything.
If they showed us just the portion that
we saw of those two on the boat,
it's no different than any of the dozen
plus videos they've already released.
It seems pretty clear they don't want to
release this video because they don't want people
to see it because it's very, very difficult
to justify.
And again, big issue here is President Trump's
dragging us into a foreign conflict when we
have domestic issues that we're supposed to be
paying attention to, that we need to be
paying attention to.
It's directly contrary to the campaign that President
Trump ran.
And is this really about drugs?
Or is it about regime change in Venezuela?
Are we about to go to war with
Venezuela?
The president has alluded to that repeatedly over
the course of the last several weeks, couple
of months now.
And that, too, I think would be very,
very bad for the national security interests of
our country.
What?
Well, how's it got anything to do with
national security?
Well, we don't want to be dragged into
war, man.
America first.
Well, obviously, Stepanopoulos asked him immediately when he
made that statement.
What are you talking about?
No.
No?
No.
No, of course not.
Last clip in the series.
This is back to Manhans Walker with Tom
Cotton.
How is a boat that's not heading to
the United States an imminent threat to this
country, Senator?
Well, that's one possibility based on the tactics
and techniques that we've observed of these drug
cartels.
They send smaller boats to sea and then
they link up with a larger boat before
they continue their mission.
I didn't hear that specifically from Admiral Bradley
in my briefing.
But what we know is that these drug
cartels, which are designated foreign terrorist organizations, are
trafficking drugs to our shores.
And when we have an opportunity to strike
one of these boats where the intelligence gives
us high confidence that everyone on the boat
is a valid target because they are associated
with these cartels, then I think we need
to strike it.
But there's other cases when we don't have
that high confidence, when there might be, for
instance, young girls that are being human trafficked.
And obviously, our military wouldn't take that strike.
I think it's much more likely that we're
missing some opportunities to strike these boats and
protect Americans because we don't.
We're missing an opportunity to blow up some
chicks.
Crap, man, we missed it.
We blew it.
Oh, heck, Seth, I can't believe it.
I think it's much more likely that we're
missing some opportunities to strike these boats and
protect Americans because we don't have the same
high level of confidence.
Senator, is there any hard evidence that shows
that this particular boat was headed to the
United States?
That didn't come up in my briefing.
But again, there's very reliable multiple sources of
intelligence that tells us that this boat had
drugs on it, that everyone on that boat
was associated with these designated foreign terrorist organizations
that are trying to kill American children.
But are you comfortable having the United States
target a boat?
So she's been co-opted by your nexus
because she knows somebody told her she listens
to our show, which I don't think so.
She knows that this is all about Europe
and screwing them over by stopping the flow
of drugs from Venezuela to Europe.
And she's trying to get him to admit
it or to say something or to hint
at it.
She knows the way she's asking the question.
Are you sure?
How come the boat was headed east?
Dude, it doesn't sound like it's coming our
way.
And she's acting coy about it.
But in fact, she knows what the deal
is.
And he does, too.
But he's not doing a good job answering.
No, he's not.
Well, he's not a talented, really that talented.
No.
No, he will not get a Kennedy honor
for his acting capabilities.
No, definitely not.
This boat had drugs on it, that everyone
on that boat was associated with these designated
foreign terrorist organizations that are trying to kill
American children.
But are you comfortable having the United States
target a boat in which you have not
seen evidence that it's actually heading to the
United States, that it's an imminent threat?
Any boat loaded with drugs that is crewed
by associates and members of foreign terrorist organizations
that are trying to kill American kids, I
think is a valid target.
I'm not just comfortable with it.
I want to continue it.
Yeah, I want to continue it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this kind of rolls into the National
Security Strategy document that was released, which I
had a chance to review.
All 33 pages.
Ah, of course.
And it's actually, here's a little intro to
it, and then we'll talk about what's in
it.
And then the responses around the world is
pretty funny.
Shy of a year into his second term,
President Trump details in this newly released national
security memo how he wants to change America's
relationships and responsibilities in every region of the
globe.
The president's top priority is connected to his
months of strikes on alleged drug boats.
Very soon, we're going to start doing it
on land, too.
Trump's memo states, after years of neglect, the
United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe
Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western
Hemisphere.
If you're focused on America and America first,
you start with your own hemisphere where we
live.
A big part of this is creating a
larger U.S. military presence in the Western
Hemisphere, particularly the Navy and Coast Guard, to
control sea lanes to thwart illegal and other
unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking,
and to control key transit routes in a
crisis.
Another tactic, tariffs.
The president says he's prioritizing what he calls
commercial diplomacy to boost American commerce while making
it harder for non-hemispheric competitors to increase
their influence in the region.
And the White House says we should make
every effort to push out foreign companies that
build infrastructure in the region.
The Trump administration says all of this is
part of their America first strategy, but even
some of the president's own supporters argue he's
too focused on foreign affairs.
America first should mean America first and only
Americans first.
By the way, this is very interesting what
they did here.
That bit from Marjorie Taylor Greene is from
her resignation video from, what, four weeks ago,
three weeks ago?
So they say this.
This is part of their America first strategy,
but even some of the president's own supporters
argue he's too focused on foreign affairs.
America first.
So she's not responding to this document.
That's still from three weeks ago.
They make it sound like, oh, some of
the president's supporters don't like it.
Yeah, this is a good example of this
sort of editing.
Now, this is on what show?
This is NBC.
NBC morning show?
I don't know what show it was.
It's just a report.
It's a classic what's been going on.
This is like the BBC edit of the
Trump speech.
Yes.
It takes something discrepant and throw it in.
It's got the same volume.
You know, it sounds reasonable.
Makes sense.
Makes the report sing.
Yeah.
The region.
The Trump administration says all of this is
part of their America first strategy, but even
some of the president's own supporters argue he's
too focused on foreign affairs.
America first should mean America first.
She's not a supporter.
How can you even say that?
She disavowed the president.
Well, she does now, but she was a
supporter.
I think that if you're in the editorial
meeting and you got into this discussion because
you'd be the guy there, that would be
this dick that says stuff like that.
And they had her to say, well, yeah,
but basically.
Shut up.
But basically, basically, Curry, get back to the
city.
She was a supporter traditionally, and she represents
supporters in in in essence.
OK, get back to the city desk and
shut up.
I will.
Americans first.
Where the Trump administration wants America to shoulder
less responsibility is Europe, claiming the continent is
in decline, in part due to migration.
They also accuse European leaders of having unrealistic
expectations for peace in Ukraine and argue NATO
should stop expanding.
This memo has much in it that should
encourage Russia, which also wants to stop NATO
from expanding and rejects Europe's expectations for the
end of its war.
Now, unlike national security memos from past administrations,
President Trump says it's in America's core interest
to reestablish strategic stability with Russia.
Oh, what a horrible thing.
My fellow Americans.
He started.
He's right.
Yeah, of course he is.
Over the past nine months, we have brought
our nation and the world back from the
brink of catastrophe and disaster.
Please, as it says in the hearings in
the report.
Yeah, it starts off.
This is that's how it starts.
Yes, this is his letter introducing the strategy
document.
Uh, no administration in history has achieved so
dramatic a turnaround in so short a time.
Wow.
Yes.
And then he goes into some wins here.
And then in everything we do, we are
putting America first.
Better, better recapture that.
Yeah, he's trying.
Yeah, he's trying to recapture that.
So it's actually a pretty interesting document.
It starts with, you know, what is American
strategy?
I've highlighted a few things.
Our elites, our elites badly miscalculated America's willingness
to shoulder forever global burdens to which the
American people saw no connection to the national
interest.
They overestimated America's ability to fund simultaneously a
massive welfare regulatory administrative state alongside a massive
military diplomatic intelligence and foreign aid complex.
I wonder who wrote this.
It's unclear.
I mean, I'm trying to hear you as
you're reading.
I'm trying to hear a voice, but definitely
not Trump.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
The beginning, maybe the first couple of sentences.
There's two pages that opens it up and
that's signed by him.
That's his introductory.
This is now the strategy document.
They placed hugely misguided, destructive bets on globalism
and so-called free trade that hollowed out
the very middle class and industrial base on
which American economic and military preeminence depend.
They allowed allies.
Yes, this sounds a little like Scott Besant.
Yeah, yeah, that's possible.
I think he's definitely in the mix.
They allowed allies and partners to offload the
cost of their defense onto the American people
and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and
controversies central to their interests, but peripheral or
irrelevant to our own.
So, you know, the whole thing is basically
we really don't want any intervention or any
business in these foreign wars.
But that's not how it's being played in
the news.
This is Canada's global news outfit.
They decided to make sure that you understand
that this is all about America killing everybody.
We're going to put Nat Pops throughout the
whole thing.
Donald Trump made it clear the United States
foreign policy would change.
On Friday, the White House unveiled its new
national security strategy.
For decades, the U.S. was- Why?
Why do we have this?
It's his strategy.
Build its new national security strategy.
For decades, the U.S. was the hub
in the wheel of international security and trade.
The new strategy says the days of the
U.S. propping up the entire world order
like Atlas are over, that the affairs of
other countries are U.S. concerns only if
their activities directly threaten American interests, and the
U.S. will enforce the Monroe Doctrine to
restore its preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.
A really popular line of argumentation is that
the administration wants to go back to a
more 19th century style of diplomacy with spheres
of influence.
President James Monroe's 1823 policy is receiving an
update focusing on immigration and alleged narco-terrorism.
French President Emmanuel Macron says unity between the
U.S. and Europe on Ukraine is essential.
A day earlier, a German publication leaked a
transcript of a call where Macron told Germany's
chancellor the U.S. could betray Ukraine.
Macron denied saying that.
The new U.S. strategy states it wants
the Ukraine-Russia war to quickly end.
This document makes it pretty clear that there
will be no security guarantees for Ukraine.
NATO watcher Andreas Kampner says the new strategy
puts allies at risk.
They're much more likely to get involved in
conflict because competitive powers are going to take
advantage.
It looks like allies will have to adapt,
aware the U.S. focus on security could
invite more instability.
Yeah, war is coming.
Trump's to blame.
I would like to mention something, just as
an aside.
James Monroe, who made the Monroe Doctrine, was
portrayed by, which is a funny way of
saying it, by Gilbert Stuart.
And he is an oil painting.
And it's in, and I saw this painting
at the National Gallery.
And Stuart was able to capture probably, he's,
I don't know, this guy was so talented
as an artist.
He had a, the ability to, really, you
looked at the person, you swore you were
looking at the guy.
No.
And James Monroe, the picture of James Monroe
by Gilbert Stuart, James Monroe is an obvious
prick, a real asshole.
Just by looking at him.
Yeah.
And it came through the painting.
It was obvious that Stuart was painting him
as such.
And when you look at James Monroe, this
guy was a prick.
And it's so, anyone who's ever seen this,
this painting, I would agree with me.
I guarantee it.
We all know those kinds of people.
You look at him at a party, you
go like, you're a prick.
You guys are a prick.
And James Monroe had to be a big
prick.
And, you know, he's with the Monroe Doctrine.
I can see it.
What is, if you were to summarize the
Monroe Doctrine, what would you say?
We have preeminence over all the affairs of
the entire hemisphere, the entire Western hemisphere is
ours.
That's basically it.
That is, that's pretty much in the documents.
It does.
It not, doesn't say it's ours, but it
does.
But what I like about it.
It's ours.
It's ours, at least influentially.
And for all practical purposes, it's ours.
And people can't mess around in this area
without permission.
Get off my turf.
Exactly.
What I like about this document is, first
of all, it's very readable.
Everybody should grab a copy.
It's on the whitehouse.gov website.
It's very readable.
The second section, what should the United States
want?
What do we want overall?
Well, that's if you were to say, if
you were to answer that question, what would
you say?
What do you want?
We want to be left alone.
That's pretty much what it says.
First and foremost, we want the continued survival
and safety of the United States as an
independent sovereign republic whose government secures the God
-given natural rights of its citizens and prioritizes
their well-being and interests.
We want to protect this country, its people,
its territory, its economy, and its way of
life from military attack and hostile foreign influence,
Britain.
Summarizing, we want full control over our borders.
We want a resilient national infrastructure that can
withstand natural disasters, resist and thwart foreign threats.
We want to recruit, train, equip, and field
the world's most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced
military to protect our interests, deter wars, and
if necessary, win them quickly and decisively.
We want the world's most robust, credible, and
modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses,
including a golden dome for the American homeland.
And we want the world's strongest, most dynamic,
most innovative, and most advanced economy.
We want the world's most...
I'm skipping over parts here.
We want the world's most robust industrial base
so we can meet peacetime and wartime production
demands, cultivating American industrial strength, highest priority, and
national economic policy, robust, productive, innovative energy sector.
We want to remain the world's most scientifically
and technologically advanced and innovative country, protect our
intellectual property from foreign theft.
We want to maintain our unrivaled soft power.
This is interesting.
Which we exercise positive influence throughout the world
that furthers our interests.
We will be unapologetic about our country's past
and present while respectful of other countries' differing
religions, cultures, and governing systems.
It's very clear in this document.
It's like, hey, everybody should just be what
they want to be.
You do you, and we'll do us.
And for sure, there's no, we're going to
go spread democracy.
There's none of that.
That's got to end.
Finally, we want the restoration and reinvigoration of
American spiritual and cultural health.
We want an America that cherishes its past
glories and its heroes and looks forward to
a new golden age with a golden dome.
We want people who are proud, happy, and
optimistic.
Well, that's not the troll room.
We want a gainfully employed citizenry with no
one sitting on the sidelines, but none of
this can be accomplished without growing numbers of
strong traditional families that raise healthy children.
You really can't argue with this document.
But yes, what do we want from the
world?
We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere
remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to
prevent and discourage mass migration to the United
States.
So it's all about the Western Hemisphere.
I highlighted everything, but we don't need to
go through all of it.
But it really is production.
We want a strong middle class.
The soft power comes back, returning economic freedom
to our citizens by historic tax cuts to
regulatory efforts, making the United States a superior
place to do business, investing in emerging technologies,
and basic science.
Science.
Science.
Let's see.
Oh, yeah.
The strategy.
President Trump's foreign policy is pragmatic without being
pragmatist.
Pragmatic without being pragmatist.
What does that even mean?
Can you decipher that?
I know.
Oh, it goes on.
Realistic without being realist.
Principled without being idealistic.
Muscular without being hawkish.
And restrained without being dovish.
Oh, somebody got cute.
That's a chat GPT.
No, that's not chat GPT.
That's somebody that whoever's the poet or considers
themselves to be a poet.
And there's one of them in the cabinet.
Who is that?
I don't know.
But I guarantee there's always one.
You take 10 people.
One of them is always a poet.
I bet you it's Miller.
Stephen Miller is probably a closet poet.
Oh, that's, you know, that's a good out
of the blue.
Out of the blue guess.
Yeah, not bad.
Stephen Miller with the tick.
Well, here it is.
This kind of gives it away.
It is not grounded in traditional political ideology.
It is motivated above all by what works
for America or in two words, America first.
Do you get it?
We're America first, people.
Tucker, we're America first.
Candace, we're America first.
What's the weenie boy's name?
Fuentes.
Fuentes, we're America first.
Fuentes has got the hats.
He's got the hats.
Yeah, he's got the hats.
Fairness, pro-American worker.
Era of mass migration is over.
These are just the bullet points.
Protection of core rights and liberties.
Burden sharing and burden shifting.
This is the NATO stuff.
President Trump has set a new global standard
with the Hague Commitment, which pledges NATO countries
to spend 5% of GDP.
We already got that.
The model will be targeted partnerships that use
economic tools to align incentives, share burdens and
like-minded allies and insist on reforms that
anchor long-term stability.
Balanced trade, securing access to critical supply chains.
Is that in the document?
It says Raspberry here.
Reviving our defense industrial base.
Energy dominance.
Western Hemisphere.
The Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Corollary?
What is corollary?
It means it's a policy that runs parallel.
They could have said parallel.
Well, no, it wouldn't work in that sense.
And it's a nice word.
We will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability
to position forces or other threatening capabilities or
to own or control strategically vital assets in
our hemisphere.
You're right.
Don't mess with the West.
Our goals for the Western Hemisphere can be
summarized as enlist and expand.
We will enlist established friends.
You hear that, Britain?
You could be enlisted.
Right now you're on the outs in the
hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows and
strengthen stability and security on land and sea.
Let's see.
We must reconsider our military presence.
Yes, a readjustment of our global military presence.
It's all going towards the South China Sea.
Europe, you can go pound sand if you
can't figure out Russia.
We're moving out.
OK, let's see what else is there.
It's easier said than done.
Possibly.
So they definitely want to work with China,
but it has to be fair, fair and
balanced.
Let me see.
What else do we have?
There's a lot of blah, blah, blah in
here.
Oh, yeah.
A favorable conventional military balance reminds an essential
component of strategic competition.
There is rightly much focus on Taiwan, partly
because of Taiwan's dominance of semiconductor production, but
mostly, mostly because Taiwan provides direct access to
the second island chain and splits Northeast and
Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters.
Finally, someone's just set it straight up.
That's what it's about.
Given the one third of global shipping passes
through the South China Sea, this has major
implications for the U.S. economy.
Hence, a deterring conflict over Taiwan, ideally by
preserving military overmatch, is priority.
We will also maintain a longstanding declaratory policy
on Taiwan, meaning the United States does not
support any unilateral change to the status quo
in the Taiwan Strait.
It's never been about Taiwan.
It's about the shipping lanes.
And that's why we're spending a lot of
money on ships.
Big, beautiful ships.
It's the first...
There's a little bit about Taiwan because that
TMS, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, those guys,
that's a valuable asset.
Yes.
But the first island chain, that's really what
we will harden and strengthen our military presence
in the Western Pacific.
While in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia,
we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defense
spending, which means we're not giving you anything.
It's just rhetoric.
That's funny.
Then it goes into Europe.
Europe, you suck.
Without us, you're lost.
Stop letting immigrants in.
Ukraine, horrible idea.
The administration finds itself at odds with European
officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war
perched in unstable minority governments, many of which
trample on basic principles of democracy to oppress
opposition.
It really is.
If anyone else had written it up, if
Fuentes had written up this document, I'd vote
for him as president.
It truly is an America first document.
It's good.
And it's a very easy read.
Let's hear how CBS took this.
Okay.
The president now says he's concerned about, civilizational
erasure in Europe.
I don't think he's concerned.
He's predicting it in the document.
He's not saying, gee, I'm really worried about
that.
He said, no, if you guys don't shape
up, you're going to be done in 20
years.
He made the claim in a document titled,
National Security Strategy of the United States of
America.
The president added, should present trends continue, the
continent, meaning Europe, will be unrecognizable in 20
years or less.
As such, it is far from obvious whether
certain European countries will have economies and military
strong enough to remain reliable allies.
What was the impetus for this?
And what do we know about what some
are saying in reaction to this story, including
maybe what we've heard from our European allies?
Yeah.
Good morning, Vlad.
Well, to start, this is a document that
the president typically puts out during the first
year of a term outlining the administration's national
security priorities.
But if you read the document and you
just read a portion of it, you might
remember that speech that the president gave back
in September before the UN General Assembly.
It sounds some of the information language in
this document a lot like that in criticizing
European countries for migration policies.
It also accuses the European Union and other
transnational bodies of undermining political liberty and sovereignty.
And the document goes on to say that
the U.S. goal should be to help
Europe correct its current trajectory.
Now, the BBC reports that European politicians have
already begun to react to this, with Germany's
foreign minister saying his country does not need
outside advice.
OK, so let's listen to the report from
the European Union reacting to this document.
European leaders are choosing calm over confrontation.
Even as the U.S. strategy paper delivers
one of the sharpest critiques of the EU
in years, most officials seem intent on keeping
tensions with Washington contained.
The bloc's top diplomat even downplaying some of
the criticism.
Europe has been underestimating its own power towards
Russia, for example.
I mean, we should be more self-confident.
That's that's for sure.
And, you know, this, by the way, was
the Doha conference, which just popped up out
of the blue.
Guess who was sitting second row in the
Doha conference?
Who?
Tucker.
Tucker was there?
Yeah.
The Qatar Doha conference.
Yeah.
Well, you know, there was a big one
of the right wing talk show radio talk
show hosts, and I can't remember which one
it was, was going on and on and
on about how Tucker.
Oh, no, it was.
I know it was.
Mark Levin.
It was Mark Levin, ladies and gentlemen.
And he went on and on and on
and on because they have a feud that
Tucker was his number one financiers are the
Qataris.
And the whole Tucker News Network or Tucker
Carlson Network, whatever he calls gold, his network
of is all controlled by the Qataris who
will control.
And Savage actually, the way he went on
and on about this was as if he
was a little jealous at all this money's
flying around from the Qataris.
Don't throw it at anybody that wants it.
Well, there's him.
He refuses to take it.
I refuse to take it.
We'll take it.
Yeah, we'll take it.
Where's our Qatari money?
Where's our Doha dough, people?
Where's our Doha dough?
Also, the agency's not pointing up recently.
So just to say, but there's no evidence
of and he in fact, he says quite
the opposite.
He says that's ridiculous on his face.
But I do find it interesting that he
pops up there.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, it makes more sense
that he's sponsored by Qatar.
I think there's the same, you know, the
Amy Goodman show has got some Eastern, some
Middle East money.
I think it's Bahrain's.
I understand.
I can't remember.
But yeah, it makes sense that Qatar would
be bought and paid for Tucker.
Might be.
But again, no evidence.
But no evidence.
But there he is.
I mean, we should be more self-confident.
That's that's for sure.
And, you know, U.S. is still still
our biggest ally.
And there I read it as well that
we are still the biggest ally.
In Germany, the response was slightly firmer.
The country's foreign minister making it clear he
didn't need external input on policy.
Of course, our alliance is based on shared
values.
But I believe that issues such as freedom
of expression or the organization of free societies
here, at least in Germany, do not belong
in this context.
The people who literally arrest you if you
say something negative about a politician on your
on on on Facebook.
Oh, yeah.
OK.
Nor do we believe that anyone needs to
give us advice on these matters.
But no prominent leaders have slammed Trump for
the scathing 30.
They have no one has slammed him.
What kind of reporting is that?
No prominent leaders have slammed him.
What kind of reporting is that?
That's what I just said.
It's not reporting.
It's really bizarre to say it that way.
No one has slammed him.
This is France 24.
Or do we believe that anyone needs to
give us advice on these matters?
But no prominent leaders have slammed Trump for
the scathing 33 page document that accuses European
countries of a so-called civilizational erasure.
Preserving the transatlantic alliance appears to be top
priority, and most likely fear hitting back won't
play in their favor.
Analysts say the lack of outcry comes down
to the fact that these criticisms aren't new.
Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a blistering
attack on European governments in Munich earlier this
year.
Their impacts will be tested as crucial elections
loom across the continent.
So the one thing that you might have
caught in that in that earlier clip is
this leaked phone call between Zelensky and pretty
much all the big muckety mucks of the
EU.
Queen Ursula, Macron, Ritter was in there.
Mr. Peepers from Germany.
All of these people are on the call
with Zelensky.
Merz.
Yeah, Peepers, Mr. Peepers.
And I defy anyone, find a report about
this.
I saw some vloggers and some YouTubers talking
about it.
But I couldn't, the only, so I went,
you know, what I do is go to
YouTube and I say leaked phone call and
you get a whole list of which the
first 15 are AI only with words on
the screen.
Stop hitting the drum.
Sorry, I'm just emphasizing your points.
No, it sounds random.
If you could, if you could emphasize them.
Oh, by the way, Tina showed me these
drumsticks.
Yeah.
And it's just drumsticks.
But the drumsticks that make noise.
Yes.
And you can, you can hit a cymbal
and in the air it'll hit a cymbal.
I got to get it.
Oh, you can do it in the air.
Yeah, you don't have to hit anything.
No, you just like, you know, I guess
it has the position of the hi-hat
and the snare and then you can go
over, you can hit the cymbals.
Where's the sound?
But where's the sound come from?
Oh, USB.
Separate speakers?
USB.
You plug, you plug it into something.
Yeah.
Sounds like a perfect pair.
Me too.
It's going to be on the show to
annoy you.
We'll be drumming the whole time.
It'll be a drum battle.
Okay.
So had you heard about this call that
got leaked?
I sounds like Russia.
Well, yeah, it's total tit for tat.
Oh, you're going to release this call with,
what was the one we had recently?
With Witkoff?
Oh, yeah, the Witkoff call.
Oh, so it might, it might be us.
Oh, it could be.
It could, well, it's either us or Russia
or him.
I mean, who else does this?
Well, the reason that I say it's us
is because the networks wouldn't touch it.
Us as in this was Trump's guys.
No one touched it.
I couldn't find a single report.
Times of India.
That's all I got.
And I'm pretty sure it's an AI voice
to boot.
But at least this is the story.
French President Emmanuel Macron has reportedly raised alarm
over Ukraine, warning that US President Donald Trump
might be on the verge of betraying Kiev.
This comes from a leaked transcript of a
private call between European leaders published by Der
Spiegel.
The call held on Monday included leaders such
as Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President
Alexander Stubbe, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others.
They discussed US-led peace negotiations with both
Kiev and Moscow as tensions remain high in
the ongoing war.
According to Der Spiegel, Macron said there was
a real risk that the US could make
decisions on Ukraine's territory without clear security guarantees,
warning of a great danger for Zelensky.
Macron's office later clarified that he did not
use the word betray, but the concerns over
Ukraine's security were clear.
German Chancellor Merz also weighed in, reportedly telling
the group that Zelensky must be extremely careful
in the coming days.
He appeared to be referring to US envoys
Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, who had spent
five hours in talks with Russian President Vladimir
Putin the day before.
The two envoys are scheduled to meet Ukraine's
lead negotiator Rustam Umarov in Miami on Thursday.
Finland's President Stubbe agreed, saying Ukraine could not
be left alone with these US negotiators, a
point echoed by NATO Secretary General Rutte, who
stressed the need to protect Zelensky.
The call came after the Trump administration circulated
a 28-point peace plan, reportedly drafted with
input from Russia.
Der Spiegel says the plan was criticized for
being too favorable to Moscow, prompting updated talks
in Geneva and a revised 19-point plan.
Russia has not agreed to this plan and
continues to demand that Ukraine give up large
parts of its eastern territory, limit its military,
and hold new elections.
The way I hear this, it's almost like,
let's say we have a $100 million budget
movie, and it's not working out.
Our main guy, our main actor, he's attached
to the project.
It's not working out.
He's an alcoholic.
Cokehead.
And so all of the producers get on
the phone with him, say, hey, we can't,
hey, you can't go to that meeting alone.
You can't go.
No, we have to have people there.
This whole thing, it's, they're just dripping in
weakness.
And they just want continued war.
It's unconscionable what these people are doing.
That's why I like the McGregor clips I
played in the last show, where he said
these guys are through when this war is
over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're not popular.
Germany's going to go AFD eventually.
They have to.
There's no question about it.
The British are screwed over.
They can't say anything on social media without
getting thrown in jail.
The French are completely out of touch with
everybody and out of control, and they're a
bunch of communists, to be honest about it.
At least they have nuclear power.
I'll give them that.
They still have that.
Yeah.
Well, so do the Brits.
Well, they haven't started up a reactor since
the 60s, I think.
Oh, you're talking about power.
Yeah.
Oh, no, I'm talking about nuclear power.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Power reactors.
Yeah, they do.
And they haven't freaked out and shut them
all down like idiots.
Final clip.
Although they've wanted to, and I think there's
been discussion about it.
In France, yes.
Yeah.
Final clip in this series.
This is another salvo.
The message is clear.
Washington wants Europe to shoulder more of its
own defense.
A Reuters report says the Pentagon told European
diplomats that nations have until 2027 to take
over most of NATO's defense capabilities.
That's everything from intelligence to missiles and troop
deployments, roles the U.S. has dominated for
decades.
If they don't, the U.S. could decide
to stop participating in some NATO defense coordination
mechanisms.
The Trump administration's pressure on NATO allies is
nothing new.
In March, Trump had already questioned whether he'd
defend countries that don't spend enough.
Well, I've said that to them.
I said, if you're not going to pay,
we're not going to defend.
I said that seven years ago.
And because of that, they paid hundreds of
billions of dollars.
I said, if you're not going to pay
your bills, we're not going to defend you.
The Pentagon staff who set the deadline haven't
laid out how the U.S. would measure
Europe's progress.
But European officials say 2027 is unrealistic.
Even the EU's own 2030 target for military
self-reliance is seen as ambitious, and many
key U.S. capabilities can't be replaced quickly.
Washington's relationship with NATO runs hot and cold.
Back in June, Trump was applauding European leaders
for backing a plan to raise defense spending
to 5 percent of GDP.
But in the months since, he's shown a
willingness to negotiate with Russia over the war
in Ukraine.
And his deputy secretary of state told NATO
foreign ministers this week it was obvious Europe
should take primary responsibility for its own security.
Well, there you go.
Another salvo.
Careful.
We're going to pull out again.
Well, yeah, this is going to be up
to Lockheed Martin.
Yeah, Lockheed Martin, you know, the money stops
coming in and they have to rethink.
Lockheed just got their biggest missile defense contract
ever.
Yeah, it's good for them.
That's for the Golden Dome.
Yeah, it is.
I'm sure they can find other ways to
waste money.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
You know, did you know that Liz Trust,
we had her on the previous episode, do
you know that she has started a podcast?
Oh, God.
Yeah.
Who hasn't?
Yeah.
But it's interesting because she is going against
the nexus.
And I'll have the promo.
She probably should be because she got screwed.
That's exactly what she says in her promo
for the Liz Trust show.
In 2022, I was deposed from the office
of prime minister of Great Britain.
I tried to save our country from the
doom loop it is now in.
We set out a vision for a low
tax, high growth economy that would take advantage
of the freedoms of Brexit.
I was blamed for a market crisis.
It was not my fault.
The deep state and their allies in the
media and politics tried to destroy me because
I challenged their decades long failure.
Now I'm back.
I will expose the people who brought me
down.
I will take on the deep state.
I will tell the truth about what is
happening in our country and across the West.
Tune in to the Liz Trust show every
Friday.
Tune in to the counterrevolution.
The counterrevolution.
It starts here.
I'll get a hold of Orlowski and find
out what the deal is here.
He'll know.
Yeah.
You keep saying you keep threatening to call
him, but you can't.
I call him about once a year.
I'll call him.
This is too good to be.
This is too good.
It's going to be great.
Exactly what's going on.
He was a, I think, I believe he
was a trust fan.
A trust fan.
Well, she's welcome into the podverse.
Could be fun.
She could be fun.
Talking about the podverse, I've got a clip
here that is for you specifically.
Oh boy.
It's a little sidestep here.
This is a way for you to save
face.
Save face in what way?
Well, if you play this clip, you'll know
what I'm talking about and you will, and
you will bring up the point that somebody
keeps making with you.
And here we go with the clip is
mispronounced from NPR.
Oh, let me guess.
Does this have anything to do with an
air force base?
Well, the clip doesn't.
It's just a basic clip about mispronouncing words.
Anyone who has been embarrassed about mispronouncing a
word or worse, a name can rest assured
that they're in good company.
Newscasters, politicians, and other public figures tripped over
plenty of words this year.
In fact, there's a list thanks to the
language teachers at Babbel and the people at
the captioning group who add closed captions to
screens.
At the top of their list of the
most mispronounced words is a very common painkiller.
Acetaminophen.
Well, let's see how we say that.
Acetaminophen.
Acetaminophen.
President Trump isn't alone in stumbling over all
those mushy vowels.
Watching us all get tripped up this year
is Esteban Douma, a linguist and cultural expert
at Babbel.
And just to note, Babbel is one of
our sponsors.
Welcome.
And first, I mean, did I get your
name right?
Well, that sounds like the perfect pronunciation in
Spanish, but I'll let you know, my last
name is from Palestine, so it's actually pronounced
Douma.
Douma, Esteban Douma.
Esteban, now it's your turn.
Why don't you read the list for us?
Well, I will start by telling you I'm
not a native speaker of English myself.
And so keep that in mind as I
pronounce these words.
And the disclaimer from me, Esteban, because English
is also my second language.
So we're in the same boat.
You know the struggle, you know how it
feels.
So we have Acetaminophen, Alec Murdoch, Denzel Washington,
Louvre, Monjaro, the Swedish Hollywood actor Alexander Skarsgård,
and of course, Zoran Mamdani.
And Zoran Mamdani's name tripped people up all
year long as he ran for mayor of
New York City.
And sometimes he got testy about it.
The name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D
-A-N-I.
You should learn how to say it.
It's hard to imagine, right, that we're going
to collectively get Mamdani right next year.
I mean, people still mispronounce Vladimir Putin all
the time.
Putin, Vladimir.
Yes.
Putin.
Putin's my favorite.
It's my not.
My not.
I got it, people.
By the way, I have no qualms.
I make mistakes all the time.
And then people are like, I can't believe
that you mispronounced my not.
This is the note you got, yep.
I can hear that voice too.
Not everybody.
Some were very kind about it.
No.
Yes.
I haven't seen any.
Some were kind about it, but some were
like, ugh, I'm not donating anymore.
Because you can't pronounce my not.
It's all good.
Yeah, it's my second language.
What can I tell you?
Yeah.
Well, that's pretty good.
You're pretty good for a second language speaker.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm waiting for you to pick up one
of your stories here.
Well, I got the immigration crackdown analysis.
I got the South African shooting.
I kind of like it.
It's only two clips.
But I like it because it's thematic.
There's a big shooting that took place in
South Africa.
And the thematic part, I'll give it away
right away.
I'm not even going to have to make
anybody guess.
South Africa has the strictest gun control in
the world.
Police in South Africa are investigating a mass
shooting overnight at a shabine, an illegal bar
in a hostel in Soulsville, a township west
of the capital, Pretoria.
In all, 25 people were shot.
The fatalities included children.
The BBC Southern Africa correspondent Shingai Nyoka described
to me what happened.
What police say is that unidentified gunmen, three
of them, stormed into an illegal bar in
a hostel just west of the capital, Pretoria,
at about 4.30 a.m. and opened
fire, randomly shooting everybody that was in this
illegal bar.
Ten people died on the scene.
One died in hospital earlier on.
And we've just been notified that a twelfth
person has died.
So all in all, a dozen people have
died.
Fourteen people were injured.
But I think the tragedy is that amongst
the fatalities, there was a three-year-old,
a 12-year-old and a 16-year
-old.
At this point, police say that they don't
know what the motive might have been, and
they haven't identified the gunmen or carried out
any arrests.
Do we know anything about the people who
were living in the hostel?
No, but these hostels are colonial-era built
structures.
So they're typically single rooms that are overcrowded,
squalid.
A lot of people are people that are
economically disadvantaged.
It's not clear who exactly they were, whether
they were South Africans or whether they were
foreigners.
But one eyewitness account said that around about
4.30 in the morning, they just heard
a volley of rounds that were fired and
that the shooting went on for a long
period of time and that the children had
to scramble under the beds as they waited
for all of this to end.
Yeah, sounds pretty bad, actually.
Yeah, it's not covered very much by any
of our media.
Our media doesn't even cover this.
It's noted that the mainstream media here has
not even covered the Somali scandal in Minnesota,
the billions of dollars being scammed.
Well, that's not true.
I have clips from...
From ABC, NBC or CBS?
Yes, CBS.
Well, let's play the second part of this
clip and you can go to that.
Yeah, I mean, shocking for people in South
Africa to hear this, although shootings in illegal
bars are not unusual, I gather.
No, and the police had actually launched a
crackdown on these shabins between April and September.
This year, they shut down 12,000 and
arrested 18,000 people across the country.
But these are set up to help people
make ends meet.
And so as soon as they closed, they
reopened again.
And this is, as you say, is not
the first shooting.
In 2022, about 16 people were killed in
Soweto in a similar type mass shooting.
Last year, 18 people, including 15 women, were
shot in the Eastern Cape.
It's really what a government official in South
Africa has described as part of a broader
crime emergency.
And a broader crime emergency that involves a
high murder rate in global terms.
Absolutely.
South Africa has one of the highest murder
rates in the world.
On average, 60 people are killed every day.
A lot of them are killed by illegal
guns, even though South Africa does have very
strict gun controls.
It's something that the government has grappled with.
And as we're witnessing here today, has really
failed to bring under control.
Well, that was some Africa news.
We lost half the audience.
Yeah, well, it was a lot of murder
and violence.
I think that would help keep them.
No, no, no.
By the way, I'm copying the troll room
transcript.
I'm going to make a song out of
it.
We need that.
Oh, you're going to use the...
Yeah, the...
AI to make a song from the transcript
of the chat room?
Yeah, it'll be unsuitable for air, but at
least I'll have it.
Yeah, and it will be suitable for our
air.
Regarding the Minnesota massive, massive fraud, Margaret Brennan
from CBS this morning in...
Oh, I'm just saying that the news broadcast
didn't carry it.
Margaret Brennan doesn't count.
Well, she brought on Ilhan Omar to just...
Oh, well, good.
She could be the apologist for the whole
thing.
It's pretty interesting.
And we're joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman
Ilhan Omar.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Margaret.
We have a lot to get to with
you, but I want to pick up on
where the Treasury Secretary just left off.
He alleged that people who were tied to
you were your campaign.
Hold on a second.
I actually have that clip.
Let's play Besant here talking about the Somalis
here.
The president told you, though, this week to
look into Somalis who, quote, ripped off that
state for billions of dollars.
Ripped them off.
He said they contribute nothing.
What exactly are you investigating?
Well, Margaret, to be clear, the initial fraud
that was discovered by the IRS, for which
I'm the acting commissioner, is discovered by IRS
Criminal Investigations Unit.
This was not an endogenous thing that the
state of Minnesota does.
Endogenous?
Did he say endogenous?
That's what I heard.
Indigenous, I think, is what he means to
say.
But he says...
Well, I don't know.
Is there a word such as endogenous?
Well, look it up.
Criminal Investigations Unit.
This was not an endogenous thing that the
state of Minnesota decided we had to go
in and clean up the mess for them.
And this is part of the continued cleanup.
A lot of money has been transferred from
the individuals who committed this fraud, including those
who donated to the government.
Governor donated to Representative Omar and donated to
A.G. Ellison.
But they've been transferred to something called MBSs.
And those are...
Mortgage-backed security?
Sorry?
Transferred to what?
These are money, the bureau services.
And they are wire transfer organizations that are
outside the regulated banking system.
And that money has gone overseas.
And we are tracking that both to the
Middle East and Somalia to see what the
uses of that have been.
Okay.
But you have no evidence of that money
being used to fuel terrorism at this point,
which is what some conservative writers are alleging.
That's why it's an...
Moving the goalposts, Margaret Brennan.
But it's not going to terrorists, right?
They stole it from the American taxpayer.
No, but it's not going to terrorists, is
it?
By the way, I think he said endogenous.
Endogenous refers to something that originates or is
produced from within a system, organism, or entity,
rather than being introduced from an external source.
So once again...
Endogenous, which is similar to indigenous.
Yes.
So what's the difference between those two words
then?
Well, indigenous is a people's and endogenous is
a thing.
Institutions.
Yeah.
But you have no evidence of that money.
I've never...
You know what?
I've never heard that word in my life.
Scott Besant is a...
Maybe he's the poet.
That's what I'm...
Well, maybe.
There you go.
Yeah, he could be the poet.
Being used to fuel terrorism at this point,
which is what some conservative writers are alleging.
That's why it's an investigation.
We started it last week.
We'll see where it goes.
But I can tell you that it's terrible.
You know, Representative Omar tried to downplay it,
said, oh, it was very tough to know
how this money should be used.
Hold on a second.
Is this guy a nervous wreck over this
issue or what?
He does not sound himself.
Well, whenever he...
Is he choking because Margaret's a powerful woman?
Yes.
Yes, that's the issue.
She was gaslighting the American people.
Well, we'll talk to her.
Yeah.
You know, when you come to this country,
you got to learn which side of the
road to drive on.
You got to learn to stop the stop
signs.
And you got to learn not to defraud
the American people.
Welcome to America.
Welcome to America.
This sign means stop.
This is a red light, means stop.
And don't steal from us.
Welcome to America.
Okay, now we go to Ilan Omar.
And we're joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman
Ilhan Omar.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Margaret.
We have a lot to get to with
you, but I want to pick up on
where the Treasury Secretary just left off.
Can you start that over?
Can you start the clip over?
Because she said, thank you, my good friend.
Oh, did she say that?
I don't know.
That's what I wanted to hear it again.
Ilhan Omar, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Margaret.
We have a lot to get to with
you, but I want to pick up on
where the Treasury Secretary just left off.
He alleged that people who were tied to
you or your campaign were involved in this
broad brazen scheme to rip off the Minnesota
state welfare system.
Do you want to respond to that?
Do you know what he is referring to?
I really don't.
And I don't think the Secretary himself understands
what he's referring to.
We obviously had people who were able to
donate to our campaign that were involved.
We send that money back a couple years
ago.
And actually, I was one of the first
members of Congress to send a letter to
the Secretary of AG asking them to look
into what I thought was a reprehensible fraud
that was occurring within the program.
Yeah, so we got busted and I sent
the money back.
It should be done.
This was all, stop it, Besson.
Besson knows more.
Besson is very involved in all these things.
Let's see how this continues.
So this was, just for our audience, the
Binary Justice Department called it the largest COVID
fraud scheme in the country.
And this was pocketing COVID-era welfare funds,
more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money
that was stolen.
It was pretty, pretty shocking.
Shocking, which we knew about this.
Everybody knew about this.
The partosphere knew about this.
This was during Biden.
We were talking about it.
Nothing happened.
So now things are happening.
That's kind of good.
Of the 87 people charged, all but eight
are of Somali descent.
Garbage.
And that has added to the spotlight being
put specifically on your community.
Community.
Why do you think this fraud was allowed
to get so widespread?
Because I allowed it to.
I want to say, this also has-
Oh, let's not answer the question.
Wow, that's a good step aside.
Let's hear the question again.
Why do you think this fraud was allowed
to get so widespread?
I want to say, this also has an
impact on Somalis.
Because we are also taxpayers in Minnesota.
We also could have benefited from the program
and the money that was stolen.
And so it's been really frustrating for people
to not acknowledge the fact that we're also,
as Minnesotans, as taxpayers, really upset and angry
about the fraud that has occurred.
We're victims.
What are you talking about, Margaret?
We're the victim here.
You're getting it all wrong in this brazen
scheme.
Do you think, though, that there was a
failure by the Democratic state?
Hold on a second again.
What you just said, she could have actually
pulled that off by saying, we're being tarnished
by a few bad apples.
There are over 100,000 Somalis.
We've got 80 people.
So what is this a spit in the
bucket?
And who are these other eight people that
weren't Somalians?
You're making us look bad.
I mean, she could have gone that way.
Yeah, she didn't.
No, she didn't.
She's not that bright.
So do you think, though, that there was
a failure by the Democratic state government to
police itself?
This is a brazen, fraudulent activity here.
Yeah, and that is what I alluded to
in my letter that I'd sent to the
Secretary of AG.
Who is the Secretary of AG?
This is Secretary of AG.
He's a chicken farmer.
He lives in the middle of Minnesota.
I think it's a show title.
Secretary of AG.
All right.
Was to see where things were going wrong.
How can this amount of money disappear fraudulently
without there being alarms being set?
Oh, it's your fault for not noticing it.
Oh, OK.
And it is something that we have to
continue to investigate.
We have to continue to ask those questions.
Yes, we have to.
She's I have to say, I give her
an eight, an eight plus, maybe even how
she's she's dealing with this.
Hey, you should have caught this.
This is not our fault.
Because, as you know, one of the initial
defenses by the organization at the heart of
the fraud feeding our future was to claim
the probe was due to racism.
Do you think that this was all about
negligence or that it was like political fear
of alienating the Somali community?
Trump.
So you have to remember that the woman
who led the program is a Caucasian woman.
And that was her way of making sure
that this would continue to happen by using
whatever rhetoric that was available to her.
We do know that when the money was
stopped, they did sue the AG Attorney General
Keith Ellison defended the department in that lawsuit.
It was a judge that said it should
continue that money should continue to go out.
And so this wasn't something that people were
not looking at.
There was always those those alarms.
And we will continue to understand where things
might have gone wrong as these investigations continue
and as these fraudsters are prosecuted and sent
to jail.
And then the final clip, which has some
nice laughter tells in it.
It's going to have impact for your community
because we've already heard that the head of
Medicare and Medicaid say they're going to have
a new policy that applies to Minnesota.
You heard the Treasury secretary say they're investigating.
But there's another threat here because House Republicans
and the Treasury secretary just now talked about
a link to terrorism, a possible link.
He said they're just now beginning to look
into it.
How confident are you that that's a false
claim?
I'm pretty confident at the moment because I'm
pretty confident at the moment because there are
people who have been prosecuted and who have
been sentenced.
If there was a linkage in that the
money that they had stolen going to terrorism,
then that is a failure of the FBI
and our court system.
In not figuring that out and basically charging
them with with these with these charges.
And so I do know that for many
years, this sort of like alarm that there
is money being transferred through the airport in
bags and going to terrorism has all that
accusation has always existed.
There has never been here and there in
those accusations.
Never been here and there.
But if that is the case, if money
from U.S. tax dollars is being sent
to help with terrorism in Somalia, we want
to know.
And we want those people prosecuted.
And we want to make sure that that
doesn't ever happen again.
Yeah, we'll see.
I think she's a bit on the ropes.
She comes across very confidently, though.
She does that pretty well.
Huh?
Yeah, it's her style.
Yeah.
There's another big thing going on.
The big deal.
I think there's probably top of the top
of the news is the hepatitis B.
Ah, can I can I set it up
with a with a positioning clip here?
Yes, absolutely.
OK, hold on a second.
Yes, this this is a big deal.
Hold on a second.
I have two.
Yeah, two.
We start with the yeah, this is the
actually because they had the hearing and they,
you know, they're talking to people on Capitol
Hill.
I'll start with this clip.
This is Aaron Seery.
He's a lawyer who testified.
Initially, this was about this also involves the
1986 immunity clause for pharmaceutical companies.
So they cannot get sued if their product
hurts you or kills you.
And right.
Coincidentally, that's in 1986 is when the hepatitis
V vaccine got when it was invented.
It was from 81, I believe.
But in 86, they started pushing it out
there.
I went to see my doctor about it
back in the day.
And he said, if he looks at me,
he says, why?
Why do you want this vaccine?
Are you working with blood?
Here's the lawyer.
Why do we need the 1986 act?
The vaccines are so safe, too.
Why does a product need immunity if it
doesn't cause harm?
And why does products that have been on
the market for day?
Why do products have been on the market
for decades like the hepatitis V vaccine still
need that immunity?
Do we still not know they're safe enough
to lift the immunity on those products?
Look, drug products that are very limited markets,
tiny markets that are given to very few
people that have really bad adverse event profiles
can still be sold profitably.
Why?
Pharma companies typically need to do two things.
Number one, they need to make the product
as safe and technologically feasible.
And by doing so, they avoid design defect
claims, which is the primary way you hold
a company accountable for harms from their product,
the type of claim you can never bring
for a childhood vaccine.
The second way is they disclose the risks
that product can cause.
And hence, they avoid failure to warn claims.
Those are the two primary claims that would
be levied against a pharmaceutical company.
I do not understand.
Well, I shouldn't say that.
It's not true.
There's probably a reason that this immunity still
needs to continue for these products.
And pretending that that reason doesn't exist is
not going to make the problem any better.
And it's not going to safeguard the kids
that are injured by these products.
It's really so simple.
It's almost as simple as, why do I
need to stay away from you if you've
been vaccinated against COVID?
Aren't you protected?
Safe and effective.
Well, if it's safe and effective, why don't
you stand by your product?
It's very simple what he's saying.
Here's ABC to lead into your analysis clips.
Today, a major reversal from the CDC.
An advisory committee voting to no longer recommend
the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns of moms
that test negative.
The reversal putting an end to a recommendation
that has been in place for over 30
years.
It was voted on by a panel put
in place by HHS Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., who has long pushed vaccine conspiracies.
Sad that there are people on this committee
who didn't bring up any of the real
world benefits.
Former CDC chief of vaccines, Dmitry Daskalakis, resigned
from the committee earlier this year.
I think that what you're seeing is ideology
supplanting science, conspiracy supplanting process.
He slammed the move, saying it will create
confusion.
Access remains the same, but creates doubt, confusion,
and will result in more children getting hepatitis
B.
And ultimately, then, getting chronic hepatitis B, 90
% of them will if they're infected, and
25% of them will die early.
They'll die.
Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to confirm Kennedy,
also rebuking the decision, writing,
What?
So, what has changed?
What's changed is instead of demanding or just
putting it on a schedule, you have to
take it.
Apparently not true.
Apparently not true.
I know, but that's the image that you
have.
Yes, yes.
It's on the schedule, you get the shot,
no questions asked.
They've changed that to, well, what do you
think?
Ask a question.
What do you think?
The doctor, of course, said, I think you
should get it.
Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Because I get a piece of the action,
and you don't need the extra money.
You're not going to listen to an anti
-vaxxer, are you?
He's been spreading conspiracies about vaccines for decades.
You're not going to listen to him.
You want to listen to him?
Or your doctor?
So, there's the same kind of reporting, only
the NPR, they made it longer, and they
brought in a bunch of people to bitch
and moan.
But the question on my mind, which is
the other three clips I've got here, are
from the BBC.
What is the BBC, World Service, concentrating on
this for?
Because it's obviously part of a world thing.
This hepatitis B vaccine isn't from British pharmaceutical
company?
There's one guy it's attributed to, one person.
No, but I mean, who manufactures it?
Well, I don't know, I'd have to look.
Why don't you look it up?
I'll look it up, yeah.
Vax Hep B Horror.
To the United States now, where President Trump
has ordered officials to review all childhood vaccination
recommendations.
The committee which advises the health secretary, Robert
F.
Kennedy Jr., was reconstituted in the summer.
Critics have accused Mr. Kennedy, who has a
record of vaccine skepticism, of removing scientists who
disagree.
He insists he's just trying to challenge groupthink
in public health policy.
I love the, has a record.
He has a record of vaccine skepticism.
Makes it sound like, you know, he's been
arrested for it or something.
He's got a...
That's a good boy.
He's got a record.
The advisory committee has now recommended that newborns
should no longer be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
It should be a matter of choice for
individual parents.
Well, Jason Schwartz is Associate Professor of Health
Policy at the Yale School of Public Health
and an expert on vaccination.
Professor Schwartz, thank you for being with us
on NewsHour.
Let's start with this recommendation.
What does it actually amount to?
Hold on a second again.
Notice the way he, if you back it
up just a little bit, notice the way
he says recommendation with unbelievable British disdain.
Yes.
On NewsHour.
Let's start with this recommendation.
Recommendation.
What does it actually amount to?
What difference does it potentially make to the
approach that's been recommended thus far?
It's great to be with you.
These recommendations that come from this advisory committee
have set the standard for how vaccines have
been used in the United States for the
60 years that this committee has been in
effect.
So it really shapes the ways in which
physicians and other healthcare providers, and most importantly,
parents think about how to use vaccines.
So now that we're seeing in this newly
constituted committee a retreat, really, from the traditional
ways in which parents have been advised to
actively receive vaccines to a more decide for
yourselves in conversation with your provider sort of
mindset most recently with hepatitis B creates a
lot of confusion, creates a lot of uncertainty.
And that means that fewer kids are going
to get vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth.
Contrary to how we've been using this vaccine
in the United States for over 30 years.
It's not going to happen.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
The parents are going to actually have some
input.
They're going to, it's going to, it's too
confusing.
They're dumb.
They're dumb.
We have a bunch of dummies out there
and then we just have to tell them
what to do.
We can't let them even make a decision
to nix anything.
Okay.
Part two.
They're still recommending it's used though for high
risk.
Is that something it's simple to determine or
not?
There are some populations that are at higher
risk of hepatitis B, especially in the newborn
population.
Most notably, if the child's mother is a
chronic carrier of the virus.
But hepatitis experts have noted that there are
lots of ways in which this virus can
be transmitted in the first few years of
life.
And the idea of using this time-tested
safe and effective, safe and effective, safe, safe
and effective and effective vaccine at the earliest
opportunity provides the, the, the best protection against
those exposures.
That can be something that a child could
suffer with both immediately and for the rest
of their lives.
So it's not as easy as it sounds,
despite thinking about this high risk idea as
an alternative.
Is this an illustration of the debates between
individual freedom and, and the desire for, and
it never sounds very attractive when you say
it like this, but we know what it
means, herd immunity.
In other words, the more people get vaccinated,
the less the risk to everybody as a
whole.
On the one hand that it is, but
it's always worth remembering that while much of
the United States debate around vaccines relates to
the mandates that exist often at the school
level and are controlled by states, that's not
what's being discussed here.
These are only recommendations.
Now they're influential recommendations to be sure, but
they're just recommendations for the best practices, for
what the evidence suggests, for how the hepatitis
B vaccine and increasingly other vaccines could be
used.
But I think you're right that even that
idea of the federal public health infrastructure, trying
to actively encourage parents and healthcare providers to
use vaccines, even that has been tied up
in this broader debate about individual rights and
parental freedom and these broader anxieties around vaccine
safety that are so pervasive in our federal
health administration.
It's so pervasive.
It's just horrible.
We're talking about safety.
I believe, yes.
And they should just get rid of that
liability thing.
That would take care of this issue.
That's what this is ultimately about, of course.
Well, let's hope so.
But the point is that the code word
safe and effective, I believe after hearing it
from this guy on the BBC, that is
a code.
I almost can be convinced that somebody gets
a check in the mail for a thousand
dollars for saying the words safe and effective
in regards to any vaccine whatsoever.
So the FDA in the United States has
approved a couple of different hepatitis B vaccines,
Engerix B and Twinrix.
Twinrix is hepatitis A and hepatitis B recombinant.
Both of those and the runners up are
produced by GlaxoSmithKline, a fine British company.
So that would kind of explain this.
That would explain why the BBC gives a
shit.
Yeah.
And we've got about...
Sorry?
Nothing.
Oh, I thought you said something.
We've got about 45 seconds or so left
on this topic, and I just want to
ask you one quick last thought.
Might this help to do something to rebuild
confidence and trust among those who have become
sceptical as a result of what happened in
the pandemic?
You know, I'm concerned.
I think that's certainly the argument that's being
made by these health officials for how they're
reframing our vaccine policy really wholesale.
But I think what it's doing is creating
even more confusion, more uncertainty, more lack of
clarity regarding who can be trusted from public
health officials, public health agencies, health care providers.
And ultimately, that doesn't serve public health well.
It doesn't serve kids well who need to
be vaccinated.
So I think there's a lot of uncertainty
ahead.
And I think it's only going to get
worse, unfortunately, with our vaccine program here in
the US.
That's Jason Schwartz, Associate Professor of Health Policy
at the Yale School of Public Health.
Jason, thanks so much for joining us.
I don't know where you are, buddy, but
there you are.
So I have from this morning, I have
our buddy, Scott Gottlieb, industry insider.
That guy's still in the air.
They bring him back.
You know, he is a correspondent for CBS,
I believe.
Well, before you play it, let me just
get these NPR clips, but I'm not going
to play them because I think the CBS
clip you played was good enough.
But I do have this little short 22
second WTF clip, which is part of the
series of the NPRs talking about pretty much
what the BBC did.
But this little snippet here, I put aside.
And what's been the reaction to this change?
Most public health experts are horrified, horrified, horrified,
horrified, horrified, frankly.
They say there's overwhelming evidence that the vaccine
is safe for newborns and babies can catch
the virus even if their mothers aren't infected.
Here's Dr. Joseph Hibblen, another member of the
committee who voted against the change.
Oh, he can catch it.
You can catch it.
Well, I didn't have to play anymore because
this guy, they brought a guy in who
bitched and moaned about this decision.
But he's on the committee.
Now, this is after everybody moans and groans
that Kennedy stacked the committee.
Well, how come they have a naysayer on
the committee, if that's true?
Well, I'm flummoxed.
Hello?
I'm flummoxed.
So you should be flummoxed because the whole
thing flies in the face of the basic
thesis that Kennedy stacked to stack the deck
with the conspiracy theorists, the anti-vaccine nutcases.
That's right.
But there's this guy.
OK, let's bring in Scott Gottlieb.
He was on with Margaret.
We're joined now by former FDA Commissioner Dr.
Scott Gottlieb.
Doctor.
He also serves on the boards of Pfizer
and United Healthcare.
Welcome back.
United Healthcare.
There's a target on his back.
He has a new gig.
Yeah, target on your back.
Wow.
Thank you.
You know, there was some pretty big news
on Friday.
And the American Academy of Pediatrics said they
are deeply alarmed that the CDC's vaccine advisory
panel, ACIP, voted in this 8-3 decision.
So there were three.
Three against, not just three.
There's three of these guys.
All right.
Changed this 30-year-long policy regarding hepatitis
B in newborns.
I like the emphasis on 30 years.
This has been going on.
This has been great for years.
I think the American people here.
Wow, this could have been going on for
30 years.
They just can't.
They can't get away from their overlords and
pharma.
They are now recommending delaying the dose until
a child is two months old instead of
within 24 hours of birth.
What does this decision mean for families in
newborns?
Holy crap.
That's what this is about?
A two-month delay?
Yeah.
Is that the whole recommendation or is that
just part of it?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
No, it's part of it.
Wow.
Consultation is also part of it.
Heaven forbid you don't want to do consulting.
You don't want to tell the parents their
options.
Hell with that.
Just tell them what to do.
No, let's not do that.
I think we first need to understand why
we give that birth dose of the vaccine.
Because the idea of giving a vaccine to
a newborn to a lot of parents sounds
discomforting.
That the first thing a child's going to
face when they're born is going to be
a vaccine within the first 24 hours.
For a child over the age of five,
if they develop hepatitis B infection, if they're
exposed to it, they're going to have a
95% chance of clearing that infection and
they'll go on to develop lifelong immunity.
What?
What?
What?
What?
So if you develop it, if you're five
and you get hepatitis B, you'll be okay
and you'll have lifelong immunity.
This is nuts.
Wait, who's, who's paying this guy?
That doesn't sound like part of the script.
Well, maybe he's got some, some agenda.
Let's find out.
For children between the ages of one and
five, they only have about a 25 to
50% chance of clearing the infection.
So about 25 to 50% of kids
will develop chronic infection and about a quarter
of them will go on to die from
hepatitis B if they're between the ages of
one and five.
Wait a minute, stop.
So if you don't, if you don't make
it to five.
You're dead.
And you get it.
This is bullcrap.
This makes no logical sense.
Well, it's the same thing the guy in
the BBC said.
He said 25% will die.
Will die.
Yeah, I know.
But I didn't know about the five.
If you're five years or whatever, by the
time you get to five, if you get
it, you're good to go.
Well, I said, because I think what Besson,
Besson, what Gottlieb is doing here, same guy,
same guy.
I don't think he's here to defend the
hepatitis B.
He's here for other reasons.
In fact, I'll jump straight to the next
clip.
This is really about the advisory committee because
he is in the vaccine game.
He, he's on the board of Pfizer.
So this is not, it's like, all right,
it's those guys today, but it could be
us tomorrow.
And this decision now is to wait two
months before giving that dose.
The president of the United States came out
and said this was very good because Hep
B is only.
I'm sorry, I want to play this one.
We look at this because there is this
broader scrutiny of vaccines right now.
So literally she's saying it, Scott, you're here
because we're looking at this in the broader
scope of policy that may affect your products.
That's what this is about.
It's not about him talking.
No one cares about hepatitis B.
They're worried their drug is next.
We look at this because there is this
broader scrutiny of vaccines right now by the
Trump administration.
And that could really screw up our advertising
rates.
In this board decision from those who voted
against the decision to delay.
One of them who you heard at the
top of the show said the CDC is
doing harm.
Harm.
Another said no rational.
To our bottom line.
Science has been presented and the committee must
accept responsibility when harm is caused.
Those are pretty extraordinary statements.
If the.
Oh, this is great.
So there's shift.
If you are harmed by not taking the
vaccine, you're going to blame this committee.
But if you're harmed by taking the vaccine,
sorry, there's nowhere to go.
If the group making a decision that has
such high consequences for the most vulnerable Americans
isn't basing it on science.
Science.
No rational science.
Oh, no, sorry, it's not science.
It's rational science.
You see, there's science and then there's rational
science.
This is literally what CBS is telling you.
The group making a decision that has such
high consequences for the most vulnerable Americans isn't
basing it on science.
No rational science.
What does that indicate about what comes next?
Rational science is a new category.
Well, look, this is the ACIP by and
large, except for a handful of members, our
anti-vax activists who were put there to
carry out a specific agenda.
And look, the secretary, to his credit, has
been very honest about what his intentions are
here.
He's the most prominent anti-vaxxer in the
country prior to coming into this position.
No, that would be us.
Hey, stop stealing our valor.
He is not.
He's pro safe vaccines.
And you're just afraid for your products.
And he stated that his goal is to
eliminate childhood immunization or many of these childhood
immunizations.
No, he didn't say that at all.
That's his goal.
We're worried.
Oh, no, I'm working with Pfizer.
They're going to take a methodical approach and
slowly chip away at this.
This is a big unforced error insofar as
ACIP was a esteemed body that a lot
of states tied their own decision making to.
And what we're seeing right now is, as
a group, it's being degraded.
And I don't think it will ever be
restored.
I don't think you can just flip the
switch and restore this, where people are going
to suddenly respect its decisions again.
There's about 600 state laws that were tied
to decisions ACIP made.
About 17 states have already passed new legislation
saying they will no longer respect the decisions
of ACIP.
The insurers came out and said they're going
to tie their own coverage decisions to the
professional bodies like the American Academy of Pediatrics
and not ACIP.
Oh, those guys are the worst.
It's going to be fully degraded as a
decision making body.
And it's going to be more symbolic.
There'll be certain states that adhere to it.
They'll be more symbolic.
This is actually great.
So what they're doing here, the way I
see it, is they're going to discredit this
entire board, which has always been kind of
a pain in the butt because you've got
to pay these guys off, you've got to
take them out to dinner, you've got to
give them hookers, all this stuff.
It's annoying.
We've got all the states under control.
We've got the states, you know, completely opaque.
The states will just listen to the American
Board of Pediatrics.
Well, that's good.
I think this is actually the death knell
of the whole system.
They have to get this liability thing straightened
out.
It's got to be removed.
The indemnification, there's no reason for it.
No, certainly not for vaccinations that have been
safe and effective.
You might as well put cat poop in
a shot because you're indemnified.
Who cares what you give to kids?
OK, so now we get down to his
business, which is mRNA.
And this is, you know, it's a problem,
it's a problem because we want to have
the immunity for our products.
So you, this week, we saw a big
sell-off in biotech stocks following these reports
that the FDA, which you used to run
at the first part of the Trump administration,
is now going to require one study to
clinch approval of vaccines.
You were one of the former commissioners who
put out this really extraordinary editorial in the
New England Journal of Medicine arguing that the
FDA and top vaccine regulator Dr. Vinay Prasad
are changing policies in a way that's going
to slow down new and better vaccines.
Yeah, because we're going to ask you to
actually prove that they don't harm people.
That's what is being asked.
What specifically is the problem you see?
Because this isn't just, this is the vaccines
of the future, you're saying, just won't be
created.
Right, so Vinay Prasad, who is the head
of the Biologic Center, also oversees the vaccine
division.
He also has been appointed the head of
biostatistics, the chief medical officer of the agency
and chief scientific officer.
So he occupies a lot of positions.
Put out a memo saying that they're going
to do away with or move away from
what they call immunobridging studies.
These are studies that allow you for well
-validated vaccines like the flu vaccine to be
able to demonstrate each year that the vaccine,
the new vaccine that's formulated against the circulating
strain can elicit antibodies that are effective against
that particular strain.
And that could be the basis of approval,
rather than requiring new outcome studies every year
to prove that the vaccine actually reduces the
incidence of influenza.
For established vaccines, where we know that antibody
production is a good correlate for immunity, this
has been a longstanding practice.
We do it for flu vaccine.
We do it in COVID, certainly.
We do it for things like pneumococcal vaccine,
the vaccine for pneumococcal disease, where we look
at serotypes, circulating bacterial serotypes.
This allows us to update vaccines as these
viral and bacterial strains change and as the
composition of the strains change in time to
provide protection for the fall respiratory season.
If they move away from this, which is
what he said they plan to do, we're
just not going to be able to update
vaccines each season as we've done historically to
accommodate whatever the circulating strain is.
Which is a big moneymaker.
New COVID, new flu.
Especially the flu.
Every year.
How come they haven't eliminated the flu from
the human species?
They've been giving this shot out for 35
years, 40, 50 years.
I don't know how long it's been going
on, the flu shot.
Well, the final clip is, I think, a
good question, particularly in light of the new
summary, the new study that was just published
in Germany.
And 12 former FDA commissioners came out saying
they're deeply concerned about what is happening.
That memo that made clear the changes that
are happening within the FDA from Dr. Prasad
was obtained by CBS.
And it claimed that career FDA staff are
making changes in part because they found at
least 10 children have died after and because
of receiving the COVID vaccine.
Referred to it as a profound revelation and
said and asked, did it kill more healthy
kids than it saved?
The administration to date has not backed up
information to back up these claims.
But what questions do you have for the
FDA commissioner?
Because they're arguing they're doing this to help
people.
Do you like boys or girls?
Is the question I have for the commissioner.
First of all, one thing doesn't flow from
the next.
So the idea, if in fact they found
cases where the COVID vaccine was linked to
tragic deaths, it doesn't then follow that you
make these policy changes.
In fact, the policy changes wouldn't address what
their concerns are related to the COVID vaccine
itself.
Every case needs to be carefully adjudicated.
It's tragic to see any suspected case that
could be linked to a vaccine.
And these were looked at previously by the
FDA.
And that's indemnified.
Yep, that's exactly it.
Believe that the new FDA had access to
the case level data.
Analysis of cases, individual cases that get filed
with the agency where there is a death
in proximity to vaccination.
And some of these are filed by the
manufacturers themselves are very subjective and require the
goodwill of the people involved in that.
And so I think that they should make
that analysis public so it could be scrutinized
and people can get comforted.
They've already backed away from the 10.
There's reporting from endpoints that now they're saying
it's eight or nine.
So they're already backing away from it.
Oh, it's only eight or nine.
Okay, and AJ just said they will eventually
make that data public.
We'll look for it when it comes out.
Dr. Gottlieb, thank you for your analysis today.
So the NIH on the NIH.gov website
have a study, regional patterns of excess mortality
in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic, a
state level analysis.
And I'll just read this first line.
The study used a rigorous actuarial approach to
estimate excess mortality across German federal states during
the first three years of the COVID-19
pandemic.
So we'll just shuttle ahead to the conclusion.
What's the most fun?
Based on the state of the art actuarial
methods, the present study demonstrates that Germany experienced
moderate average excess mortality during the first two
years of the pandemic with substantial and temporarily
stable regional variation across federal states.
In the third pandemic year, excess mortality rose
sharply, regional variation diminished, and the pattern of
the most affected federal states shifted markedly.
The strong correlation between excess mortality and reported
COVID-19 deaths and infections during the first
two pandemic years suggests that regional differences in
COVID-19 burden may account for much of
the observed variation.
However, the increase in excess mortality during the
second year, despite a decrease in reported COVID
-19 deaths, indicates that COVID-19 alone cannot
fully explain excess mortality.
And then they just go ahead and say
it, that the correlation is to the vaccination
rate of 91%.
They're just saying it.
The only thing we can find is that
91%, in some states, 97% of the
population were fully vaccinated, and that's why we
had excess mortality.
Which means more dead people than we usually
have.
Yeah, and this has been determined in South
Korea.
It's been determined in Japan.
These same studies show up everywhere.
Nobody wants to talk about it.
And to, I didn't clip it, but and
to add insult to injury, Saturday Night Live
last night had a whole sketch about COVID
-19.
Oh, I got COVID, I want to stay
home.
Oh, COVID.
Yeah, you know what?
It felt just like having the flu for
three days.
The very people who were masked up and
telling you to get vaccinated, now they're making
jokes about it.
What a world, what a time to be
alive.
I'll tell you, around here, it still amuses
me when I go to the hippy-dippy
vegetable place.
They're still wearing masks, aren't they?
Not everybody, but you can kind of see,
they're dragging their, usually they've gotten febilized because
they're breathing so much CO2 because the masks
don't really work in terms of exhaling.
You can't get the bad air out of
there.
And it's just like, and they're wearing these
masks and they're all covered up and everything
except the screen, that clear shield, they don't
have that on.
And they're wearing these masks and they're just
wearing masks all the time.
I don't get it.
Check the calendar.
I mean, this is years after the thing.
This is five years later.
They have PTSD, this is trauma.
You should take pity on them and give
them a hug.
You know, they should slap them.
A reminder that we have a lot more
show coming up.
We will be thanking some people, specifically our
executive and associate executive producers, as I thank
you, John C.
Dvorak, the man who put the C, or
snuck a C, into the secretary of egg.
Here he is, everybody.
Say hello to my friend on the other
end, the one, the only, Mr. John C.
Dvorak.
Yeah.
Well, good morning, Mr. Adam Currie.
Good morning, Mr. Steve Lucidography.
The air subs are wired.
Dave's nice out there.
In the morning to the trolls.
And the trolls, let me count them for
a second.
We're creeping back up.
They're 1909 max troll peakage count who are
listening live.
At noagendastream.com or on one of the
modern podcast apps, which you should check out
at podcastapps, plural, dot com.
And it's good to have the trolls here.
I mean, they haven't really, they haven't written
any good lines for me, as you always
think they do.
No, you're the one that tells me that.
Well, when they do, when they do, when
they do, but it's, no, it's, it's all
just- They're not contributing today.
No, they're not.
They're not being productive citizens of troll land.
Not really.
But you can find them at trollroom.io
or noagendastream.com.
This is a value for value podcast, which
we've been doing for well over 18 years.
So take that everybody.
We're still here and we'll be here up
until the next impeachment.
I'm quitting.
Until his third impeachment.
I'm quitting.
If there's a third impeachment, I'm out.
I can't do it.
I can't do it anymore.
It's too much.
I'm going to say, I just stick around
for the fourth impeachment.
They have time to get two more in.
It'll be easy to do that.
Hey, you can contribute your time, talent, and
treasure to the show.
And we love the talent part and the
time that people put into it, which is
increasingly diminishing because it's so easy to create
artwork.
If you're wondering, just go ahead and ask
Darren O'Neill.
It didn't take him long to create the
artwork for episode 1822.
Probably took him longer to upload it to
noagendaartgenerator.com, which is our ongoing episodic contest
for who can create the best artwork that
we use on the show.
And no doubt, he actually uploaded two and
we had a little conversation about which one
was better, but we both had to laugh
about No Agenda large wieners, the packaged wieners,
now 33% larger.
Uh, which, what was that from?
Oh, it was from our end of show
ISO.
Yeah, that's what it was.
But it was good.
We thought it was, I thought there were
a number of things that we looked at.
noagendaartgenerator.com if you want to look along
with us, take a look at- Yeah,
let's see what we had.
There was a couple of things we liked.
So we had two packages of wieners and
we talked about, you liked the yellow one
initially, but I said, no, it has to
be a package.
And so- Well, it was not, it
was just a box.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is actually- I like the coloring
better.
The color, the color was better.
All right.
Yes, we got a huge AI blunder.
Darren uploaded a matchbook which said Gen Zed
proof, as we learned that some Gen Zedders
have issues striking matches.
But this was a huge blunder because it
didn't have a striking surface on it.
Now the one, yes.
Which could of course be a meta joke
that they're Gen Zed proof.
It could have been a meta joke, we
don't know.
We also had the one you liked the
most, but we weren't going to use, was
Bombs Away by Nick the Rat.
With the two guys in the boat waving
and hoping- Looking at the missile.
Coming in.
We also like Blue Acorns brought receipts.
Yeah, except the cross-eyed guy, it looks
like a cross-eyed stereotype of a Shakespearean
Jew.
It was, no, that was not happening.
That was a little too much.
It was more than we could even put
up with.
Yeah, what else?
A lot of dental jokes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dental jokes.
I love my dentist.
I ended up using the little dog, the
Blue Acorn dog in the chair sipping a
cup of hot chocolate.
I thought that was the cutest picture of
the whole group.
Yeah, it was cute for sure.
It was cute.
So I used it as their newsletter.
That's the term, yeah.
I kind of like the no agenda aggression
meter, but it was pretty bland.
It was all Darren.
Darren, he's just figured this out.
If anybody wants to hire a spot artist,
just hire Darren.
Yeah.
I mean, he knows how to do it.
He'll crank it out too.
It'll come fast.
Yeah, you'll get it right away.
NoahGenerator.com.
Thank you very much, Darren O'Neill, for
bringing us the artwork for episode 18.
What was it?
1822.
And we titled that one Kohana, which is
the new name for Rohana, but we just
call him Kohana.
We always thank all of our producers who
support us financially, which is the only way
the show keeps on going, which is our
full-time day job and sometimes night job.
Weekend job and vacation job.
Because we work usually during most of the
important holidays, whenever we can, because stuff is
still going on.
And we assign a special credit for those
who are fortunate enough to give us more
than $200.
$200 and above.
We will read your note and some of
them do get a little bit extensive.
And we also give you a credit, which
is Associate Executive Producer for this episode, which
is good anywhere Hollywood credits are recognized, including
imdb.com.
$300 or above.
Executive Producer, you can display that proudly as
Bob Dietrich can, who starts us off, Executive
Producer with a mega boob, big boob, 8
-0-0-0-8.
So $800 and 8 cents.
And he says, in fond tribute to the
movie Total Recall, get your ass to Mars.
Enclosed is a mutant hooker boobs check for
$800 and 8 cents.
Please de-douche me.
You've been de-douched.
Value for value, he says.
My daughter, a struggling college student, is jumping
in to support your value tainment goals.
She is studying fashion merchandising and designs and
sews her own fashions.
Every quality clothing item or bag sold gets
a 10% discount for the producer and
an additional 10% kicked up to the
podfather.
Forget about it.
Go to katedietrich.net, that's K-A-T
-E-D-I-E-T-R-I-C
-H, katedietrich.net, and use promo code NOAGENDA.
A sample bag, overnight bag, is enclosed.
The shaving soaps are from me.
Did you get said sample bag?
Yes.
In fact, it was in a makeup bag
of her design, which she doesn't have on
her website, and she should, because it's a
really killer and Jay glommed onto it immediately,
grabbed the makeup bag, because it's a beauty,
and her stuff is in it.
If you go to her website, she's not
only a talented designer and you can tell
she has kind of the- Oh, these
are nice.
These are very nice.
She could go a long ways, and right
now she's cheap.
Her stuff is dirt cheap.
Get it now while she's still cheap.
Get it now while she's cheap, because this,
she could easily have to raise prices, it
seems to me.
She's very reasonable, and yeah, I would definitely,
if you have any women out there listening,
should go to her website and check it
out, and she should be a little more
aggressive with her makeup bag, because the one
that she sent me with the shaving supplies
in it is better looking than the one
she's showing on her website.
It's just a killer.
What color is it?
Because they look very girly here.
It's a pattern.
It's not a color.
It's just a dark pattern with all kinds
of images on it.
It's dynamite.
I love it.
She's got the chops, it's obvious.
I love anything that's made in America.
I love it.
Thank you very much.
Handmade in America by her, I guess.
Yes.
That's what I love about it.
Anything made in America is good with the
No Agenda Show.
And thanks in advance, y'all, is Bob's
parting words.
Thank you.
Dame Mellivation, Mellivation, one of the two in
Colorado Springs.
I think it's Mellivation, I think.
She's in Colorado Springs, 350 bucks.
And she also sent in a check in
a note.
And the note says, if I can get
to the top of it.
She has very legible handwriting.
Yeah, it's a printing.
It's a printing that is stylish in an
awkward way.
I wouldn't call it advanced.
Dear Crack and Buzz, 350 bucks, I've been
a miss in sending in some value for
all the entertainment you provide on your comedy
podcast.
Woo, baby!
Comedy.
Please accept this bit of value from me
so you can keep going, making us laugh
and keeping us centered.
That's it.
That's all I want to hear.
May I suggest a sub stack, Coffee and
COVID, Jeff Childess.
Okay, check it out.
I think Gitmo Nation will find it a
complete, a complimentary analysis and no agenda show.
Plus the guy's a hoot.
Peace and blessings on you and your family's
day.
Mellivation, Colorado Springs.
Melanie is a real name.
Jingle Obama, no, no, no chicken dance.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no.
Which leaves me with a rather long note
from Sir Adam of the Coke Empire in
Milton, Florida.
$343 and 75 cents.
Oh, boy.
He says, to me, Donald Trump must have
been a big fan of Tom Clancy movies
and or books because he seems to be
living out the events of clear and present
danger with his war on the Narcos.
I'd have to go watch that again.
Do you recall the plot of?
That's the one where they had the missile
that blew up the guy's house.
Remember that?
Yeah.
From a satellite or something.
I wonder if he will send covert troops
in like the movie and then get impeached
for lying to the Senate Oversight Committee about
sending troops in like the movie.
Anyway, Adam, your homework is to go watch
that movie.
I have seen it, but I will watch
it again.
AI update.
He's in the business.
Seems as though Microsoft has deployed CoPilot on
an enterprise level to customers like me with
the expectation that we, the company, create agents
slash bots to use in our businesses that
they can take credit for.
There's a divide between software tech bros and
industry manufacturers where nobody on the tech side
knows diddly squat about how equipment operates or
anything in the manufacturing process works to be
able to use AI to create bots that
matter to get things done at the plant
level.
I think without significant automation results with AI
over the next six months, large companies that
matter like the conglomerate I'm in will start
to turn the page on AI and the
fees that AWS, Microsoft, and Microsoft are charging
to use their software suite.
I don't see any rabbits being pulled out
of hats very soon to justify the spend
from our side of the equation.
Well, that's a pretty damning testimony.
I'd say.
Yeah, and he's probably right.
Yeah, he probably is.
I gave in to my German wife over
the weekend and bought overly priced tickets to
the World Cup for Germany's match against some
nobody country, Curaçao in Houston.
Oh, that should be a one-sided slaughter.
Yeah, who wants to be a part of
it?
And you know what those tickets go for?
Oh, thousands probably.
Well, the basic ticket's 1,500 bucks.
Jeez.
Well, to see their Mannschaft play is always,
is a treat.
They are very good, the Germans.
I guess I'll do my part for the
new world order games.
The tickets are only available to be sent
to you via the FIFA World Cup app
and are tied to a digital ID system
of some sort.
Speaking of digital ID, check out the company
Ping ID.
I think you'll like it.
Yes, Adam, another inside hint.
Oh, okay.
John, back when you played that New York
mayor victory speech, I noticed he told Cuomo
he wished him well on his return to
private life.
The Soviet-era Bolsheviks referred to freedom as
the private life.
So anyway, that just proved to me that
the guy is a Marxist, diehard, Lenin-worshiping
douchebag.
Sorry, NYC, you're screwed.
Now it will probably smell like piss year
-round instead of just in the summer months.
Jingles, Coke Brothers and Two to the Head.
Well, we can do that.
We have both of those for you.
Coke Brothers!
And thank you very much, Mr. Adam of
the Coke Empire.
Christopher Graves is up.
He's in Mount Occam, California.
He comes in as associate executive producer, $242,
and says, let's start with a quick shout
out to John from Auburn, California, who drove
to the candy shop today to say ITM.
Oh, how cool is that?
Thank you for your courage.
At Little John's, we use four basic ingredients.
It's Little John's.
Little John's candies.
And I just hit a key and I,
there we go.
At Little John's, we use four basic ingredients
to make our world-famous toffee addictive.
What could be better than milk chocolate and
almonds?
We don't need a bunch of food scientists
to tell us that when you take more
butter than sugar, cook it to perfection, most
luxurious milk chocolate with fresh ground California almonds,
you end up with an addictive treat.
So trying to keep this note short and
sweet, which you already haven't done, but it's
okay.
Go to littlejohnscandies.com, littlejohnscandies.com, and use
the code ITM plus 10 and save 10
% and donate 10%, we will, to Adam
and John, or they will via them.
No jingles, no karma, just four more years.
So I'm presuming that if people keep buying,
they'll just keep donating.
And it's like the circularity is in effect.
I hope so.
Yeah, me too.
And it's an excellent product.
We're keeping it for when Tina and Kevin
are coming this year for Christmas.
So we're keeping, we already ate the turkeys.
Tina?
Christina.
Yeah, Christina and Kevin are coming.
Hey, there's William Swenson in Bentonville, Arkansas.
No.
Yeah, Arkansas.
AR is Arkansas.
Yes, Arkansas.
Doesn't sound right.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, what do you think it is?
I don't know.
It's $233.99. ITM gents, and I use
that term loosely.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Please.
Let me ISO that.
That was kind of funny.
Please send birthday wishes to my fantastic mother
-in-law, Edie, in Bentonville, Arkansas, on her
December 7th birthday on your December 7th show.
Happy birthday, Edie.
She punched me in the mouth a little
over a year ago, and I've been getting
my amygdala shrunk a few hours at a
time ever since.
Edie is an avid listener and has availed
herself and our little family of many of
John's tips of the day, and she continues
to be loving and supporting of us as
well as an amazing grandmother to our three
teens.
Happy born-iversary, mom.
So Adam and John, please accept my row
of ducks.
Oh, I guess that was a two, two,
two.
And de-douche me.
You've been de-douched.
He also...
Hold on a second.
I seem to have lost my pad there.
He also wants the Trump jobs clip from
my business, William the Window Washer, in northwest
Arkansas, and the not-so-good Rev. Al
Spell respect for Edie.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
and he winds it up with a good
old Jew donation.
Shalom, y'all.
Jobs, jobs, jobs.
Boom.
Sir, 23's Night of the Electric something.
He's in Derbyshire, UK, Buxton, actually.
Yes, yes.
$230.23, and he says, ITM, gentlemen, and
thank you for your outstanding product.
You're welcome.
These 23's on show 1823 will bring me
to Baronet.
Please upgrade me accordingly, as I'm not sure
whether Baronet replaces Sir or Knight.
In my name, do whatever you want.
Sir Baronet is fine.
Adam.
Adam.
Is there any chance you could include some
old jingles at the end of the show
whenever there aren't, you know, aren't enough things
to play?
No, just request them in your donation segment.
That's where they belong.
We don't, we don't leave them there for
other shows to steal.
On that note, can I please get a
Pelosi shut up for AI songs and a
little girl, yay, and karma for all the
producers, particularly Carl with a K, from Who
Are These Podcasts?
Ah, our buddies.
As he fights stuttering John's $850,000 LOL
suit against him.
I never heard of that.
LOL suit.
I didn't hear about that.
LOL suit.
Oh, we need details.
What's going on with that?
I need details.
I'd love to hear you back on that
show, John.
Thank you for your courage.
Four more years, Sir 23's, Knight of the
Electric Sea, High Peak, UK.
Shut up.
You've got karma.
I wonder what this lawsuit was about, if
there is one.
I don't know.
222.23 from Gary Marcy in Renton, Washington.
All he says is USA, USA, USA.
Thank you.
Followed by Eli the Coffee Guy.
Comes in 212.07. Last show you covered
pardon of the, you covered the pardon of
the Honduran president.
It lined up a little, it lined up
a little too neatly.
With a new asylum deal that Honduras is
taking claimants who allegedly filed in the U
.S. Already filed, already filed in the U
.S. Not allegedly, already.
So there is a suspicious activity he's pointing
out.
Yes.
Administration is now deporting folks from Central and
South America off to Honduras en masse.
Funny how these things tend to sync up.
I hear the weather's nice.
Hey, the weather's nice there.
I'm sure it is.
Plus, plus the probable, probably had a good
info about the drug money as well.
Thanks to you two for cutting through the
noise while the rest of the media chases
distractions.
Honduras also grows my drugs.
What?
My drug of choice.
Oh, his drug of choice.
Okay.
Coffee, ah, and our enduring organic is the
good stuff, man.
The Honduran, which I think I have had,
is quite good.
So visit gigawidecoffeeroasters.com and use code ITM20
for 20% off your order.
You'll be hooked.
Stay caffeinated, Eli the coffee guy.
William Wild is in Baltimore, Maryland, almost winding
out the list here.
$210.60. He says, Merry Christmas to you
both.
Thanks for all the good insight and laughs
this year.
Yes, we are accepting early Christmas gifts.
Thank you.
Boom, Linda Lou Patkins.
She's now in Castle Rock, Colorado.
You know, she's changed her location.
Yeah, we need some info about that.
Yeah, what happened?
$200, Jobs Karma.
Give the gift of a resume that gets
results.
Go to imagemakersinc.com for all your executive
resume and job search needs.
That's Image Makers Inc with a K and
work with Linda Lou, Duchess of Jobs and
writer of winning resumes.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Let's vote for Jobs.
Karma.
I gave her a goat.
Added a goat for you, Linda.
Catherine J.
McCloskey is in Brookline, Massachusetts.
$200, Associate Executive Producer title for you.
And she says, Merry Christmas.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas to you.
And then we come to Sean Brennan in
Avon, Indiana.
$200.
And that came in as a check.
So there's a note attached and it's on
a piece of paper and it says, John
and Adam, this is back at ya.
Switcheroo for Jeff Holman.
There's a switcheroo, Jeff Holman in Roanoke.
Sadly, our professional journey together is at an
end.
Hopefully, our no agenda journey will continue for
years.
And this, of course, is a pun because
he spells it F-O-U-R.
Sean Brennan donation, $200.
So, but it's Jeff Holman.
Yeah, it's for Jeff Holman.
Jeff Holman.
Okay.
All right.
Got it.
Hey, that's it.
That locks it up for our executive and
associate executive producers for episode 1823.
1,823 episodes of the best podcast in
the universe produced so far.
With many more to come up until that
impeachment.
Again, all of you receive these very exclusive
executive and associate executive producership titles.
They're good at imdb.com.
Support us any amount, anytime, whenever you feel
like it.
If you get value out of the show,
send back that amount of value you got
to noagendadonations.com.
noagendadonations.com.
Our formula is this.
We hit people in the mouth.
Got a boots on the ground note regarding
the Airbus computer issue.
You remember they grounded almost all of the
Airbus.
Yes, I'm a computer engineer who specializes in
embedded firmware development.
Are we the best podcast in the universe
or what?
We got somebody who has an expertise for
everything.
It's amazing.
And it is your obligation as a producer
of the no agenda show to always let
us know.
If you have expertise, report back.
Don't see if they go.
No, you send it to us.
While I don't work in aviation, I can
tell you that solar radiation flipping a bit
in flight control systems is not something that
should be getting fixed via a software update
or downgrade as it was in this case.
To be clear, this phenomenon is very real
and has been known about for airplanes, satellites,
et cetera, for a very long time.
The way it is avoided is with something
called a lockstep processor, where two or more
processors conduct the same calculations and operations at
the same time and are checked against each
other before the code executes.
This makes me think that someone is being
negligent in implementation.
You don't think the only way that ECC
memory or lockstep computation should fail is if
you get two bits flipped, one on each
processor in the exact same place, or if
the error correction codes on the ECC are
crap and have collisions where flipped a bit
inappropriately evaluates another valid number.
Ultra rare and software won't save you here.
This does not pass the smell test.
Very suspicious that a bad update would break
these fundamental checks against solar radiation.
So there you go.
They lying.
But at least interesting.
Oh, yeah.
Well, probably, I guess that's why you revert
because the reversion had this covered properly and
the update was incompetent.
Exactly.
But it shouldn't have.
He's kind of saying it shouldn't have even
happened at all.
No, I don't think he said that.
He says it.
Well, that's what he said.
But the software fix, it could be that
this system is in place, but the software
fix bypassed it in some way.
Somehow.
The new software.
It didn't know.
The guy who was putting it and implementing
it didn't know what he was doing.
How to make that work.
What is this code?
Let me comment that out.
It's annoying.
It's bit flipping code.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Just have a little story.
So George Morrow was making all this.
Wait, who's George Morrow?
George Morrow is a guy who did the
micro.
So he did a bunch of computers back
in the eight bit era.
And he did a couple of fantastic laptops
and including a couple.
I think he designed for Zenith.
Zenith was a big laptop provider back in
the day.
Yeah.
And he put together a laptop, a super
thin laptop that they sent to Korea for
production.
And it was all set up.
Everything was working fine.
It came back.
It wouldn't run for crap.
It was a piece of junk.
They were slow.
And he had to go into the code
base.
And he found that they had bypassed an
algorithm that was put in there specifically to
keep this thing running at a high clip.
Because some software designers looked at it and
said, I don't get what this is for.
Why it's here?
Why don't we just go around it?
Yeah, that happens.
Hey, that's what people do.
So I also got to talk about best
producers in the universe.
One of our producers is very close to
the company that does the detection of music
rights in these AI music companies.
And we were wondering how they do that.
How can they detect who owns what in
these songs that are created on Suno, etc.
And I'd like to share this, the relevant
paragraphs here from his email.
Because this is really fascinating.
So what they do is they run a
very small and targeted model for each of
the rights holders with agents that focus on
notes, text, and tone.
They sit in the middle of the queries
from the AI companies, like Suno, OpenAI, etc.
And send an agent to probe a model
that identifies the result of the prompt before
it's delivered back to the user.
So Darren O'Neill, if you're typing in
something, then there's a little agent there that's
going to check it.
Then it sends it over to the mini
license model.
So if Sony owns the IP or John
Denver estate, etc.
Then the agent will run an engine that
puts together an algo that assigns a percentage
of likelihood and probability against the content.
So they don't even know for sure.
For example, the user asked for a song
in the style of John Denver with lyrics
about a cat.
Some percent of the lyrics will be taken
from other John Denver songs.
Like if the verse starts with, take me
home, silly cat.
Then to take me home part would go
towards that percentage.
Oh my goodness.
They add up the percentages from the review
and come up with a figure that is
then applied to the licensing fee.
So if the estate says we're going to
charge one cent for each time an AI
model presents a user with one of our
songs, the system looks at what the AI
spits out, decides that the result is 75
% based on John Denver IP, and sends
a bill to OpenAI for $0.0075. So
three quarters of a penny.
This is crazy.
They can also take multiple IP owners and
do the same thing.
So if the result to the user is
10% from ACDC, 25% from Stephen
Sondheim, and 60% from the Warner Music
Group, they can take that amount, bill OpenAI,
then distribute it to the rights holders.
They take a small percentage of the exchange,
of course.
And when you take a small percentage of
billions of queries a day, it adds up
to a lot of money.
So they're taking...
So I get from this, they're just guessing.
They've got likelihood, probability, and similarity as their
model.
This thing is nuts.
But...
I don't think anyone's going to push back
on it.
Who?
I'm sorry?
I don't think that the companies will push
back on it.
No, not at all.
No, they'll take it.
This is okay.
You guys do the calculation.
We'll send you your 45 cents.
Yeah, we'll send you your money.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll send you the money.
So there you go.
The more you know.
That is a more you know story.
I've got a...
I've got an interesting couple of clips here.
Okay.
This doesn't cover by anybody.
This is one of my wow clips.
This is the new army.
You know about the new army command?
We kind of discussed a part of the
Monroe Doctrine.
The new army command is all part of
this.
And this is only covered by NPR.
The Pentagon has created a new army command
at Fort Bragg.
As Jay Price reports, it's part of the
Trump administration's increasing foreign policy focus on the
Americas and border security.
It's called the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere
Command.
During the ceremony marking its creation, its first
commander, General Joseph Ryan, said building it the
right way was crucial for the nation.
When we succeed, we will be proud to
serve in a theater army that is ready
for the myriad tasks that our nation's priority
theater requires.
Creating the command is in line with the
new national security strategy the White House released
this week.
It says the United States will prioritize dominance
in the security and economics of the Western
Hemisphere.
For NPR News, I'm Jay Price at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina.
Space Force.
Wow, new army.
New army command.
Yeah, that's a big deal.
That means they get sent wherever they need
to go?
Is that what I understand?
In the Western Hemisphere.
Oh, yeah, because that's ours.
Yeah, it's ours.
That's ours.
Pay attention, people.
Do you live in the Western Hemisphere?
That's ours.
You do what we say.
Foam finger number one.
My neighbor actually had a bombshell.
Dropped a bombshell.
We've always been wondering who they are.
Yeah, who is they?
Well, Laura Logan.
She interviewed a guy, very long interview.
But then she did a short little insta
for the insta and tells us exactly who
they are.
We've been waiting for this for ages.
But there's always this question of who's behind
it all?
What's the they?
Because when you learn, you know, when you
learn about warfare, you learn about genocide, you
learn about all these things.
You begin to recognize that there are systems
of command and control that have to be
running these things for them to work.
Like, how do you get all these different
agencies to work together to suppress the truth?
Well, you need a command and control system
because the command and control system that has
been shutting down all of these things that
we have seen, whether it's Fast and Furious
under Eric Holder or it's the IRS persecuting
Christian and conservative organizations or it's the Russia
collusion investigation that goes nowhere or it's the
Ukraine impeachment trial.
These operations are being run out of an
organization called the Council for the Inspectors General
on Integrity and Efficiency that was created under
Barack Obama in 2008.
And by the way, his partner in creating
that, in having this brought into law, was
none other than Chuck Grassley on the other
side of the aisle.
And then it was supported by people on
both sides of the aisle.
So they created this council, which is in
charge of the inspectors general.
So what has been happening, you know, a
lot of us are asking ourselves, why is
there no one that's willing to stand up
in the federal government?
We do hear about whistleblowers from time to
time, but by and large, these people have
been able to weaponize these agencies and walk
all over the American people and commit crimes
against the American people and get away with
it.
Council for the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency.
It sounds like a beauty.
Yeah.
And did you check into it?
Obviously you did.
Yes.
Well, it is what she says.
And she takes it a little further.
They operate kind of like the mob.
They do things like they have an annual
gathering every year.
Who do they have as their guest of
honor?
Not so long ago, they had Anthony Fauci.
Well, what are they doing there?
They're sending a message to all of the
inspector generals in the National Institutes of Health,
for example, and beyond, don't touch this guy.
He's a made man.
He belongs to us.
And so what they do is they investigate
what they want to, such as when they
went after Donald Trump for Russia collusion, right?
So when they want to do an investigation
to reinforce an operation or a false narrative
or to take out their political rivals, they
have the power to do that.
And when they don't want something to be
investigated or they want that investigation to die
on the vine, they're able to do that
too.
And then when you have people who are
retaliated against, whistleblowers who have legal protections against
them, well, where do they go?
It all ends up in this clearinghouse of
the inspectors general where they have the ability
to control whatever they want.
Yeah, you can find it at ignet.gov.
We'll have to keep our eye on this
outfit.
They are the command and control.
Oversight and action.
Yeah, it's peculiar.
Yeah, well, when she says something, I pay
attention.
She does put a lot of work into
it.
She does.
This, this, by the way, this clip that
I have here, there's something here that I
hadn't even thought about.
And I think it's worthwhile.
You know, I'm an avid vapor, but of
course, I buy American cotton.
I have organic nicotine juice that I put
in.
I wind my own coil.
So I know what I'm vaping.
But in Belgium, the Belgian drug chief warns
of something very concerning, which could also be
happening here.
And, you know, I'm, I don't like the
vape wars, but this is, this is worth
noting.
Belgium's first ever drug commissioner, Ine van Weemers,
has told Euronews that 80% of the
illegal refill vape capsules seized by Belgian customs
contain dangerous synthetic opioids.
She warns of a real risk to children
who could get hooked on these hidden opioids.
The risk is that they will be addicted
on a very young age, that their brain
will not develop the way it should be.
These are serious health risks, and we need
to protect them from that by taking measures
against all these logistic chain issues that are
abused for synthetic drugs.
Aside from breaking logistic chains, van Weemers said,
tackling the business model is also key, especially
to prevent gangs from recruiting within the authorities.
Recent court cases highlighted that Belgium's legal world,
including the judicial system and police, was corrupted
by organized crime.
There is a lot of money going on
in this criminal world, and it's with this
money that people are convinced to work with
criminals.
And that is when we don't tackle the
business model, then we are having a serious
risk to develop towards a narco state.
Van Weemers took on her role in 2023
after Belgium's main port in Antwerp became the
major gateway to cocaine entering Europe.
One side effect of drugs flooding European markets
is heightened gun violence and gangs fighting for
turf, forming a public security threat.
A lot in this report.
I mean, yes, of course, Belgium is a
narco state.
The Netherlands is a narco state.
They have ports, the port of Rotterdam and
the port of Antwerp.
They're huge for bringing the drugs in, but
I don't know why all of a sudden
she gets this vape thing.
And I'd like a little bit of evidence
that they all come from China, that they're
putting opioids in the refillable vapes.
What a brilliant idea, by the way, if
that's true.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good idea.
It's a great, it's a great idea.
But still, wow.
Anyway.
I have to play this and get it
out of here, which is I'm actually highly
amused by the Homeland Security undersecretary or whatever
she is.
She's been in the first.
Chrissy Noem.
Noem.
No, the undersecretary, the Tricia.
Oh, I don't know who the undersecretary is.
When you hear her voice, you're going to
hear it because I'm fascinated with her voice.
She's got this just interesting sorority girl voice
and she's been in the government forever.
She used to be the chief of staff
for some, the nuclear disarmament department or something
in Trump's first administration.
And now she's just kind of a spokeswoman.
She comes out, she looks like she's 16.
And she's now, I'm just fascinated with her
voice.
And here she is.
Cataloola Crunch, which we were launching today down
in New Orleans, were first and foremost, really
focusing on those worst of the worst criminals.
The Department of Homeland Security launches the latest
federal immigration enforcement operation in the city of
New Orleans.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin says that ICE
is specifically prioritizing illegal immigrants who were previously
in local jails.
Because New Orleans functions as a sanctuary city,
those individuals were not released to ICE.
They were instead released back onto New Orleans
streets.
McLaughlin says that the operation will continue, whether
it be 5,000 arrests or more.
The DHS released information on some of the
people they are targeting, saying sanctuary policies endanger
American communities by releasing illegal criminal aliens and
forcing DHS law enforcement to risk their lives
to remove criminal illegal aliens that should have
never been put back on the streets.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says that Operation Cataloa
Crunch will remove the worst of the worst
from New Orleans, Louisiana, after the city's sanctuary
politicians have ignored the rule of law.
Yeah, you know, the result of these, this
immigration policy and deportations is pretty drastic.
I mean, you don't really hear about it
because the mainstream media won't, doesn't really want
you to know how many people were let
in, certainly by the Biden administration.
But I got a note from George from
Austin, and he delivers sodas out of the
Austin area, and part of that is delivering
to HEB.
He says, as part of the job delivering
to stores, some out in the heavily Hispanic
areas outside of Austin, let alone the rise
in price of aluminum and sugar, add in
the ICE raids, our business has dropped well
over 50% in the past few months,
mainly from Hispanic workers not going into stores
before or after work.
Even beer guys I talk to, I guess
delivering beer, say the same thing.
Some of the stores coming out of these
places, some of the stories coming out of
these places are outright wild.
ICE mainly only rounding up the males, leaving
women to fend for their households for themselves.
There have been car chases, some that end
with shots fired, raids going on in the
middle of the night, supposedly some firefights involved.
I go to Mexican grocery stores that are
the size of smaller HEBs and they're ghost
towns compared to last year.
None of this makes it onto the news.
And also being in the trucking world, the
freight economy is on a huge downward shift.
Part of the ICE movement, truckers are now
being targeted to check their legal status.
Recently, there was over 4,000 commercial driver's
license schools shut down nationwide, due in part
to the slowdown and from passing laws that
people who don't speak or read English, trucking
companies are now starting layoffs and some even
shutting down due to high costs and lack
of freight.
And I'll just add one thing, because I've
always tried to help people get legal in
America because I've done it with several, I've
done it with family members.
And there's a really bad scam going on,
which I noticed recently as I was helping
someone out who has a legal right to
stay here under the Violence Against Women Act,
VAWA, as it's known.
And there's these law firms located mainly in
Washington, D.C., and they have satellite offices
everywhere, a lot of them in Texas.
And so this woman, her paperwork could be
processed in six weeks.
She has been paying $300 a month to
this outfit for two years.
And when you call, you just get an
answering machine, starts in Spanish, and you don't
get any, they're just stringing these people along.
And how do I know that is because
I called and I had her case number
and I had her name and everything.
And I said, hi, this is Adam Curry.
I'm calling about this person, this case.
First thing, what do you want?
I said, well, I want to talk to
her lawyer.
Well, are you with immigration?
I said, no, but you can look me
up.
It's certainly, you know, I'm the podfather.
Who do you think is calling you?
Guess what?
Within 24 hours, her paperwork is being processed.
This is, these are a-hole companies.
Is it because you're with the media?
I said, look me up.
You know?
Do you know who I am?
Did you say that?
No, I said, look me up.
I think it's, I think it's cooler to
say, look me up, look me up, dude.
So which just proves that they're just stringing
people along, soaking them, even though she has
a valid and legal right to be here.
So, you know.
So you're telling me there's a scam afoot?
Yeah.
But it's sad.
I don't like it.
Well, it is totally sad, but most scams
are.
Yeah.
Well, anyway.
So there are lawyers who did a good
deed.
You're, you're a good guy.
Well, that's not why I say it.
I say it because I was surprised by
this nationwide law firm that just strings people
along and they don't follow up.
They don't send you emails.
They don't send you any documentation, you know,
because they want, they want scared people.
That's no good.
Douchebags.
Look me up.
Look me up.
Look.
Hey, hey, buddy.
Stop button in line.
Hey, man, look me up.
All right.
All right.
Last clip for you, John.
Well, let's see.
I've got a few things that are possible.
Let's just play this little, this is a
tease for a podcast, but I want to
actually know.
Let's play read a book within.
Now this is a, they have a segment.
They do it once every month or so.
It's called read a book.
And then they, they said, we should all
be reading more books.
And then they have different people come on
and describe books from the staffers, from the
NPR, because they got nothing better to do
than to talk about books.
They read because they're reading books all the
time.
And I just thought this one was funny.
Here's some unsolicited advice.
Skip all the holiday parties this winter and
read a book instead.
And great news.
NPR's books we love has tons of recommendations,
including these fiction reads from some of our
coworkers.
Hi, my name is Rachel Treisman and I'm
a general assignment reporter.
One of my favorite books this year was
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey.
A dad and his three teen and preteen
kids are the last people on a rapidly
sinking research island off of Antarctica.
They're getting ready to evacuate when a mysterious
woman washes ashore in a storm.
As the family nurses her back to health,
relationships form, dynamics shift, and before long, everyone
is suspicious of each other.
Wild Dark Shore is a mystery thriller packed
with plot twists and turns that make it
really hard to put down.
But when you finally do, you'll keep thinking
about it and the bigger questions that it
tackles so beautifully about love and loss and
resilience in the face of climate change.
I'm gonna show my support by donating to
No Agenda.
Imagine all the people who could do that.
Oh yeah, that'd be fab.
In the face of climate change, we do
have a few people to thank that gave
us $50 and above and Adam will read
them off one at a time.
Yes, I will.
And we start with Anon in Marietta, Ohio.
Anon supports us with $133.32 and we
thank you very much for that, Anon.
Ash in Texas, 12345.
We see what you did there.
We love those sequentials.
And he says, newsletter made it to me
fine.
I said newsletter made it to me fine.
Donation, God bless you both.
Did you get the note from Void Zero?
Yeah, I did.
Okay, did you read it?
It's on my list of things to do.
Okay, let's see.
Buy mushrooms.
Get wine from Costco.
Read note from Void Zero.
Binger Newman, Yankton, South Dakota.
A row of sticks, 1111.
And says happy belated birthday to Kyle Tack
from Binger Newman.
The perfect birthday gift for Kyle.
We'd have John absolutely butcher his name.
Well, no, because I'm reading it.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
And there with 8008.
How do you butcher the name Binger Newman?
I don't know.
Coming in with the boob donation, Kev McLaughlin,
Concord, North Carolina.
And he says, well, you know, yes, we
do.
He is the Archduke of Luna, lover of
America and boobs.
William Kidwell, Dover, Delaware, 7777.
Holy, holy donation.
Stephen Sobieski, Kettering, Ohio, 67.
David Cox in Austin, 6325.
Teresa Andrews in Camarillo, California, 6161.
Grayson Insurance in Aurora, Colorado.
With a small boob, 606.
Also small boob from Les Tarkowski in Kingman,
Arizona.
Andrew Garland, Muncie, Indiana, 5623.
David Wicker, there he is.
That is our sir by his grace.
Jacksonville, Florida, 5622.
Troy Funderburk, Missoula, Montana, 55.
Sarah Linkswiller in Bessemer, Alabama, 5283.
Kelly Hubbard, Plymouth, Minnesota, 5272.
Eric Ortega in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 525.
Josiah Thomas from Ankeny, Iowa, 51.
And here's our 50s.
There's Sir Alex Zavala from Kyle, Texas.
Of course, he is from the Nick U
Dad podcast.
M.
Todd Allen in Harriman, Utah.
Edward Mazurek in Memphis, Tennessee.
Jacob Rotrummel in Decatur, Illinois.
Stephen Ray in Spokane, Washington.
And we have Antonio Martinez, Greenlee, Colorado, with
a birthday and a first-time donation.
You've been de-douched.
That's a birthday shout out for his brother,
Martin Martinez, who was born on the 7th
of December in the year of our Lord
1989, who hit him in the mouth.
And Rick Lindquist in Squim, Washington, 50.
Jay Worthy from Shefford, Shefford in the UK.
He wants us to keep going.
Kerry Jackson, Watertown, Tennessee.
And our final $50 supporter, Jason Deluzio in
Miami Beach, Florida.
Thank you all to these supporters, these donors.
Value for value, whatever value you get out
of the show, please send that back to
us in the amount that it is worth
to you.
And only you can determine what value you
get out of the show and what you
want to put back into it.
Value for value, noagendadonations.com.
Thank you, and again, congratulations to our executive
and associate executive producers for episode 1823.
noagendadonations.com.
We've got William Swenson wishing his fantastic mother
-in-law, Edie, a happy birthday.
It is her birthday today.
Antonio Martinez, you just heard him, his brother,
Martin Martinez, Martinez, A is the accident there,
also today, December 7th.
Ryan Newman says happy birthday to Kyle Tack.
And Sir Bias Grace David Wicker says, please
join Jules, Hope, Greta and I in praising
our Lord for Aspen's 13th birthday party today.
Where's my invitation?
And we've got our buddy Parker from right
here in Fredericksburg, Geistweit.
He is celebrating his birthday on the 18th.
I may be early.
Parker, we'll do it again if you need
it.
Happy birthday for everybody here at the best
podcast in the universe.
We have a title change and that is
Sir 23's Knight of the Electric Sea.
In accordance with his additional support of $1
,000 or more, he becomes a baronet today.
Congratulations and welcome to your new spot in
the No Agenda peerage.
We've got some meetups to talk about.
Just a couple as we wind everything down
for this year.
We have a meetup taking place today.
It's the I Must Be High number 17.
That is actually, I think, underway at McSorley's
wonderful saloon and grill in Toronto.
And on Thursday, our next show day, we
have the great Rochester, Minnesota Big Pharma City
meetup at five o'clock at Little Thistle
Brewing Company in Rochester, Minnesota.
Let's see what else is before the year
ends.
The 13th, Eagle, Idaho and Indianapolis, Indiana.
The 18th, Charlotte, North Carolina.
The 20th, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The 20th, also Anaheim, California.
And on December 26, Clovis, California.
And then we'll start a brand new year.
You can find all of these No Agenda
meetups where you will find connection that gives
you ultimate protection.
Your first responders in any emergency, you will
meet them at a No Agenda meetup.
Go to noagendameetups.com.
Find one near you.
If you can't, no problem.
Set it up, set one yourself, and list
it right there on noagendameetups.com.
♪ Sometimes you wanna go hang out ♪
♪ With all the nights and days ♪
♪ You wanna be where you want to
be ♪ ♪ Drink it all, hail the
flame ♪ ♪ You wanna be where everybody
feels the same ♪ ♪ It's like a
party ♪ Yeah, baby, we got John's tip
of the day coming up.
We have some AI slop for our end
of show mixes.
And of course we always like to find
our end of show ISO at this spot
in the show.
I have four actually today.
Shall I go first?
Oh, yeah.
This is amazing.
This is awesome.
Yeah, we had this one.
This is a sciop.
I like this one.
That was a banger.
And I think this is my favorite.
Oh my God, these guys are so hot.
Come on, that's an ISO.
Did you make that one?
No.
No.
You actually clipped that from somewhere.
No, someone clipped it for me.
It's Elisha Cross.
Elisha Cross.
Oh my God, these guys are so hot.
That's an ISO.
Okay, I'm not playing mine.
I'm pushing them off.
You can have it.
Because that one was so good.
Yes, he wins once again.
But before we do anything, here's John's tip
of the day.
♪ Great advice for you and me ♪
♪ Just a tip with JCD and sometimes
Adam.
♪ And we know what we've been waiting
for it.
Yeah, knives, knives, knives.
Knives, knives.
Luckily, there's a...
Okay, the best knife...
The knife market has changed so much over
the years.
The Germans dominating the scene.
But the Japanese own the place now.
And I have to say right now, the
knife...
If I was going to buy a knife,
I'd go to Amazon and get the Shanzhou
8-inch chef knife, the one that's on
sale.
44% off, it's 49 bucks, which is
cheap.
Because this is a 67-layer Damascus knife.
In other words, it's been folded 67 times.
Wow.
And it's 49 bucks.
It's a steel.
Now, I have another knife.
Wow, that's a pretty knife.
Yeah, it'll be...
I'm adding it to my cart right away.
I think you buy it now while they
still have them.
Yep.
So, because it's the sale price.
Because a couple of things you should note.
One...
I'm buying it right now.
This sort of knife is not sharp.
You can't use a device I recommended recently
to sharpen a knife like this.
This is carbon.
You have to...
This is carbon.
You can't even sharpen that, can you?
No, you can sharpen it, but you need
a stone.
You need a real good Japanese sharpening stone.
So this is problem number one with this
knife.
That's why I have a second knife.
But I already bought it.
Good.
Well, you should have this knife.
It won't go dull right away, but get
a stone.
Once you learn how to use a stone
to sharpen knives, it's unbelievable.
A whetting stone?
A whetting stone.
Yes.
So you'd have it now with knives like
this.
I have to say I recommend to the
highest degree a pair of chainmail gloves.
These aren't really knives as much as they
are razor blades.
Chainmail gloves?
So you can go to...
Amazon has them, but they're all over the
place.
They look up chainmail gloves.
These are gloves you can wear.
They're usually made out of a weavable stainless
steel, and I have a pair.
It's like chainmail, so you can't cut your
finger off.
You can't cut your finger off.
I use the chainmail gloves a lot when
I'm using the real French mandolin that I
have.
I have a real big giant one, not
the little Japanese wimpy mandolin, but a big
one.
A big boy, all steel.
And you have to have some protection when
you're using these things.
You're going to kill yourself.
So...
You hear that, Tina?
She's lefty.
Whenever I see her cutting something, it's the
oddest thing.
It just makes me so uncomfortable.
Well, with this knife here, you're going to
get really uncomfortable when you cut it for
the first...
This is the kind of knife that you
could hold up kind of in the air
and throw a tomato at it and go
right through it.
Whoa.
That's the kind of knife it is.
Okay, now...
I'm keeping it under lock and key.
I'm not letting my wife touch it.
It's one of those knives.
It's one of those things.
Now, that said, I have a second...
One other thing to note.
With Japanese products, without exception, pretty much, price
equals quality.
And that's why this knife at 49 bucks
is actually ridiculously cheap, because it's been discounted,
which is unusual.
But the more you spend for a Damascus
knife, the better they are.
Okay, so here's the secondary recommendation.
I don't want to kill all the time,
but this is a knife block set with
14 pieces.
Wow.
What's it called?
This is a $62 deal.
It's not even marked down that much.
I have one of these knives from this
company.
This is the knife block set from Thickshot,
F-I-K-S-H-O-T.
And they're a one-piece knife.
They're very light.
And you can use the sharpening device on
these knives, and you get a whole set
for 62 bucks of six steak knives, a
chef's knife, a bunch of knives, a paring
knife.
You get a bunch of knives.
And I think that knowing the quality of
these knives...
And they give you scissors.
And you get the scissors, and you get
a block.
Unfortunately, the block's a piece of crap.
But except for the block that holds the
knives, you got some nice, cheap knives that
would make a terrific gift.
I wouldn't gift anybody a Damascus knife.
It's a stocking stuffer.
Well, if you have a big stocking.
So those are the nice things that you
should know about.
But a stone, you need a stone.
Get yourself a stone, people.
And that is the long-awaited John C.
Dvorak knife tip of the day.
Get them all a tip of the day.
Dot net.
Aren't you glad you stuck around for that?
I am.
I've been waiting for it for weeks, if
not months.
Oh, please.
Tip of the day dot net.
Someone said, hey, man, you can make money
by having an Amazon affiliate code.
I said, no.
That would ruin the whole concept of our
show.
Don't make money off your affiliate sales.
I want to give you tips for good
things.
Cheap products that are great.
Like a knife that could slice your finger
off.
Children use with caution.
End of show mixes.
We've got MVP sandwiching a Bonald Crabtree mix.
And of course, this will be the opening
number, the first mix you'll hear, to our
Broadway musical.
So be on the lookout for that in
the original soundtrack in stores soon.
And I'm coming to you from the heart
of the Texas Hill Country.
Yesterday, we lit the Christmas tree.
We had our Christmas concert here on Mark
Plotz.
We are Christmas Central for America, everybody.
In the morning, I'm Adam Curry.
And from Northern Silicon Valley, I'm John C.
Dvorak.
We'll be back here on Thursday.
Please do join us.
And if you plan on coming, visit noagendadonations
.com first to keep the value for value
going.
Until then, adios, mofos, hui, hui, and such.
Let's start the show.
We don't report.
We don't condemn.
But peel the layers back.
We deconstruct the roots and stem right off
the beaten track.
We seek the story underneath the motives high
and deep.
With a hope that truth will fade.
We don't report.
We don't condemn.
But peel the layers back.
We deconstruct the roots and stem right off
the beaten track.
We seek the story underneath the motives high
and deep.
With original research beneath the secrets that they
keep.
No politics to hold our hand.
Just facts we aim to show.
For a realistic, objective understanding.
This is our producer's pay.
The freight, the value for value way.
We keep the mission strong and straight to
fight the slant.
Each day, we use the humor and the
jest to pierce the foggy haze.
So step inside and put the news to
the O.T. The headlines lie.
The media bends.
But knowledge sets you free.
Welcome, dear producer.
The deconstruction never ends.
Because now inside the melting pot.
India, Pakistan, we run and break.
Solve it, let's do it.
Gather up a little might.
And sense the giant hands to wield.
Future solutions for modern times.
Saving people money and cutting down on crime.
And like, look, I mean, I.
I'm a huge fan of nuts.
He loves his nuts.
I love my nuts and what like all,
all different kinds of nuts.
Big ones, little ones, lumpy ones with flavoring
on them.
Like, I, I have, I.
It's one of the staples of my diet.
And, um, but I've always liked pecans and
walnuts.
Yeah, I know, exactly.
I think maybe we should just stop for
a second.
I've had a request from the boardroom.
I need to play it.
Just go for it, John.
Tell us your pet peeve about the fisting
method of eating peanuts on the plane.
I see this on the airplane and it's
very annoying.
And I think it will resolve in.
In fights breaking out.
Because it's just so annoying to watch.
Guy takes his bag of peanuts and throws
a pile of them into his palm of
his hand.
And then he makes a fist around the
nuts.
And then he shakes his fist to try
to bring a nut.
To the little hole.
And then he throws a nut in his
mouth from his fist.
Then he does it again.
He shakes and throws and shakes and throws.
He shakes and throws.
It is annoying as hell to watch.
Ohhhhh.
The best podcast in the universe.
Adios, mofo.
Dvorak.org slash N-A Oh my god,
these guys are so hot.