August 20th • 2h 34m
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Sailors are sissies. Adam Curry. It's Thursday, August 20th, 2026.
This is your award-winning Kimo Nation Media Assassination, episode 1896.
This is No Agenda. No. And hello in the morning
to you, Gitmo Nation. This is No Agenda, episode 1896.
And it's been a bit stormy around here. Trolls in
the troll room in the morning to you. Man, John's
passing that just so much changed. It's been exactly a
month and a day. And, wow, so much to do,
so much going on. I really, really appreciate what Darren
and Larry did for the past six shows. Thank you
guys so much for steering the ship. I've been just
trying to figure out what to do. And... I honestly
prayed a lot about it, and I'm currently keeping my
eyes on Jesus just to move forward. And I figured
out the best way to do anything with this show
is... To reach out to Gitmo Nation. And Gitmo Nation
responded, and today, as a special guest on the show,
in the morning to Sir Ducifer, Knight of the No
Agenda Roundtable, Rob Dew. In the morning, everyone. Um... It's
great to be here. I got the text last night
as I was getting out of the car, and I
already have a crazy day, so why not add more
to that day? Man, I appreciate you jumping on it.
That's so awesome. Now, for people who don't know Sir
Ducifer, if you've never been to any of the Austin
area or the Hill Country meetups, you've been a knight
for, gosh, I've been a knight for a long time.
I don't know how long you've been a night. Uh,
let's see. It was the episode where you, I think
it was a six hour show and you guys gave
the, uh, a half off deal for nights. Oh, wait,
you're, you're, you're one of those discount nights. I'm a
discount night, but I have, I have given more since
then. But yes, I was a discount night and that
was a long, that was a, one of your first,
I think, A good four and a half, five hour
show that you guys were reading notes from people. And,
you know, I think that was the first of many
shows like that. I believe that was either the 10
year anniversary or the 1000th episode. I can't remember. One
of those two. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, when
I think about it, I remember putting together my PayPal
link and everything, and I was sitting in an airport.
We were on a trip with – at the time,
working for Infowars. And I'm putting this together and I'm
writing my note. And I'm like, oh, this note's got
to be good because I'm going to be a knight.
And I put it all together and sent it off
with literally like 15 minutes to spare before midnight. And
it's been – I've also been a frequent visitor to
North Idaho. I've done two North Idaho Sanity Brigades. Oh,
with Scott the Jew. Because they happen to be... Exactly.
They happen to be, Sir Scott the Jew, they happen
to be up where I go snowboarding in the wintertime.
So I'm always like, hey, I'm coming up. Can you
do a meetup? Oh, nice. Oh, that's excellent. Oh, you
know, a lot of people have said I should probably
have... Sir Scott the Jew on the show. I guess
that North Idaho show is doing okay. People are talking
about it a lot. Yeah, I've even tuned into it
a couple of times, mainly just, you know, I kind
of like Idaho. It's a pretty cool state, although they
are getting the influx of California people out from California.
Going into Boise, but the rest of the state is
really chill down to earth people. Yeah. Yeah. I should
probably warn everybody that every single clip, everything you hear
today, every news report, everything, and I mean everything. is
directly related to the midterm elections. There is nothing that
isn't being abused, isn't being taken apart, isn't being highlighted
for the midterms. Everybody's got their, and of course the
M5M is doing their best. I do have one question
for you before we get into some clips. So we
have an 11-year-old refrigerator, like a KitchenAid. And so the
ice maker stopped working. Okay. And, you know, I did
my own, my little get the Gemini AI app out.
Say, okay, help me debug this. You know, and three
hours later, I've taken half the thing apart. And then,
I don't know, you should probably call the repairman. So
I call the, I set it up with, I think
it's Sears. And the guy comes out and he says,
well, you know, there's something you need a new door
or whatever. But he said, but, you know, you could
get a new one, but you really should go for
the door. So why? I said, because ever since right
after covid, all the refrigerators have changed to a new
refrigeration system. And if you have and this is what
the Sears guy is telling me, he says you should
look it up. It's an upgrade. Well, no, the upgrade
is they blow up. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's quite a
feature. He says, go look at it on YouTube. And
it's true. There's people with the doors blown off. There's,
you know, the half of the kitchen has exploded. I'm
like, what is this all? He said, no, man, if
you're going to get a new one, get an old
new one. So you hadn't heard about this? No. I
had not. And when I moved, what's interesting, when I
moved into my first house in Austin, we bought one
in 99. And the people that were moving out were
like, we're going to leave you the refrigerator. And they
were like talking up this refrigerator. It looked just like,
you know, just a rectangle. It was a basic refrigerator.
No ice maker, no water, no nothing. But he said...
We had a repairman come out and look at it,
and he said, this refrigerator is so well insulated. He's
like, never replace it. Just keep fixing it. And we
left it. With the people that bought our house when
we sold it years later. Apparently that's a good one.
Yeah, that's the way to go. I just learned this.
I'm looking it up on YouTube. Sure enough, there's some
lady, you know, oh, look at my fridge. The whole
kitchen's been blown up. So any refrigerated people out there
in Gitmo Nation, I'd love to know what is going
on. We got to now. I love my refrigerator just
bleeds water from time to time. It'll just bleed it
out from underneath. Like it's just like it's dying. It's
like, and you're like, oh, we should have towels underneath
it. And then finally my wife's like, we need a
new fridge. But we I'm trying to think when we
bought ours, I think it was we didn't move till
after 2021. So to the new house out in out
in Driftwood. So you're out in Driftwood. We might be
we might be due for an explosion. You're out in
Driftwood with what, like 18 children you got out there.
I mean, you got a whole compound, a whole family.
Yeah, I got I got four four kids and each
one of them, you know, two of them drive now,
which is great. Yeah. I guess if, you know, you
like paying for car insurance. Exactly. And that's one of
the, that is one of the things we make them
do. We like, you guys have to pay for your
own car insurance and, you know, get a job. If
you want to drive and you want a car, you
know, you got to pay for your own car insurance
and, you know, we'll cover, you know, everything else. And,
uh. But two are older and then two are younger,
and the two younger ones, they're closer in age, and
we call them the grunions. They are a boy and
a girl. I have a younger girl. I've met some
of them. So I got three boys and a girl,
but yeah. Excellent. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Every
– adventure that you could have, you know, I've had
with those kids. Tell me about it. It's been a
lot of fun. Tell me. It never ends with a
kid. So the first thing that's just, and I think
Darren and Larry talked about this, if not on the
previous show, maybe even the show before that, but I
got some boots on the ground to talk about it.
This is the unbelievable stinking Lincoln story. Welcome back. Just
about the bottom of the hour. So we've got some
new reporting. first here on MSNOW about the brutally demanding
conditions that service members are facing overseas as we wait
for some resolution to the war with Iran. MSNOW spoke
with a dozen family members of sailors and marines aboard
the USS Abraham Lincoln who say they're extremely concerned about
the morale, safety and conditions on that ship. The 5,000-person
crew has been at sea for nine straight months and
engaged in combat operations since the beginning of the war
against Iran all the way back in February. Many family
members described their kids or spouses, telling them about non-operational
toilets, moldy showers, laundry facilities that were broken for weeks.
and extended periods with no hot water for showering. The
families say their loved ones have described food shortages and
standing in line at the ship's store for an hour
or more, even while it often lacks basic supplies like
toothpaste, soap, and deodorant. Oh, no. So when I heard
this, first of all, I remember going to Iraq in
2003 with the Dutch Marines. And I'll tell you, I
remember the hygiene situation was not great. And it was
a U.S. base. You know, the... One toilet was working.
There was one other one. If you had, you know,
diarrhea, you go out of that toilet. And there are
these bags that you take showers in. 50, 60% of
them didn't have hot water. The rest were all kind
of slimy and scummy. And, you know, it's like... You
think if you're in the desert, you put a black
bag somewhere to collect with water in it, and it
heats it up. That's what you do when you're camping.
You switch to that mode. Well, and that's kind of
the point. It's like this is a war situation, and
I'm like, what is going on with all this? So,
of course, they –
This is obviously a war that is not popular, as
if any war is popular. A war of choice by
President Trump and – And obviously everything's being misrepresented by
our Secretary of War, Hegseth. Welcome in. Senate Democrats are
demanding answers about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Interesting,
only the Democrats are. I mean, there you go. Midterms
right away. Carrier station in the Middle East. No one
else cares. No one cares. Richard Blumenthal says the carrier
has been deployed for 250 days and has not come
ashore in more than 200 days. setting a record. There
are reports of problems on board the ship and two
U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News that a sailor from
the USS Lincoln went overboard and was recovered safely. Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth says the reports of conditions on board
are completely misrepresented. Completely misrepresented. Listen, we make sure that...
Every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can
provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer
than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for
those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high
seas and those austere conditions with less port calls, it's
incredible. Americans don't understand why. what it's like to do
that. So as someone who's been not been on a
ship like that, but been on long deployments, I feel
it. I want them home as soon as everybody else
do. I want folks rotated as quickly as possible. I
want the best for them. My commanders know that. Our
service secretaries know that. The president expects that. And so
to that crew and to all those crews, We're going
to do everything we can for you, and we are
so grateful for their dedication of that crew and others.
They've held the line for the country, and they've done
a fantastic job. So we have several. Yeah. Well, he
did a good job of shifting the focus there of
thanking the troops instead of looking at what people were
saying. I've seen some videos, though, of some of the
soldiers. Look how dirty it is. I'm like, you know,
I lived in apartments that were dirtier than that, bro.
It doesn't look that bad. You know, clean up after
yourself. Yeah. You know, like the toilet. Look, I've seen
some toilets. You ever go to Burning Man? You open
up one of these porta potties, you will see a
mountain of feces popping out of the toilet. That's how
gross it is. And I didn't see anything like that
in any of these videos. So to me, if it's
not even up to the Burning Man standard of grossness,
you could probably survive. So we got boots on the
ground from one of our naval aviators. Who I know
personally, so I take this at high confidence to be
true. Here's what he says. First, the longer you're in
the Navy, the better you get at complaining. Everyone complains
on deployment, which makes sense. Some complain because of issues
experienced and some complain just for the sake of complaining.
Bottom line, if you complain and have a legitimate concern,
try to have it addressed at the correct level –
In your COC instead of wanking to your family and
then them taking it directly to M5M. Keep in mind,
nobody actively serving on the Lincoln has any context of
what the situation actually is. It's all hearsay and some
videos and some posts. Second, every sailor aboard has a
mailing address. You can very easily mail them whatever they
require. Ship, store, has a very limited selection of products
to choose from. Very simple to go to Walmart, procure
the items the sailor actually wants, mail it to him.
You can also mail food if you want. So the
complaint of running out of things such as soap and
toothbrushes could be easily overcome if the sailor simply asks
his or her family to mail the stuff to him.
Third. deployments are the opposite of fun. It's like, yeah,
this is a war situation. Sure, after all is said
and done, you have some good stories and experiences to
reflect on fondly, but being on a huge boat for
months is a war situation. For months on end, doing
the same job every single day, regardless of weather or
time of day, is monotonous. Flight operations on a flight
deck is also an extremely dangerous and unforgiving job. Some
people just can't adapt to that kind of environment. You
can't just up and quit on the spot like you
can with a civilian job, so I'd imagine some folks
feel trapped. Female sailors can get a free trip back
home more easily than male sailors. All they have to
do is get pregnant, and boom, you're on your way
back home. Male sailors can't get pregnant, can't just quit
without having any repercussions. So I imagine the person who
caused the man overboard was looking for a way to
get back home as soon as possible or had some
pretty significant mental issues going on or a combination of
both. Man overboard drills happen all the time to test
the crew's ability to quickly determine who is the missing
person so they can positively identify. who they're looking for
once they locate that missing person. It's like he's writing
a report for me. These drills are a huge pain
in the ass, but when it happens for real, the
drills demonstrate their value. And then fourth, unlivable conditions. Showers
and toilets break all the time. Being on a warship
in a war zone is not like living at a
Marriott resort. Much better than being in a tent or
a foxhole, though, because your rack is always... dry and
you're not under threat of enemies storming into your living
quarters. The ship's company completes a rigid cleaning schedule daily
and is responsible for the maintenance, upkeep of the equipment
and the spaces. Is there likely mold somewhere on a
shower curtain or essentially a floating city? Sure. Is the
crew responsible for this? Yes. Everyone can do better, but
this issue is best addressed at the Deck Plate Lipset.
leadership level and not broadcast all over the news. So
he says, this is exactly what we started the show
with. This is just to make Trump look bad. The
war is no good. And no wars are good, obviously.
And actually, this was much ado about nothing. Pretty much.
I mean, we have to have respect for our men
and women in uniform because, man, it's a tough gig.
And certainly for nine months, this is not easy. Here's...
I think this has got some veterans. Well, I just
got a boots on the ground report. Okay. I got
a boots on it from a veteran. He was in
Vietnam. It's my father-in-law, actually, Earl, who's listening now. I
was in Vietnam for eight months, slept in a pup
tent for three months during the rainy monsoon season. Period.
Sailors are sissies. Yeah. . CBS News Senior National Security
Correspondent Charlie Daggett joining us now. So, Charlie, what do
we know about the conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln?
Yeah, Juliette, it's been described as austere. So these sailors
and Marines have been at sea for a number of
months. We'll get into that in a moment. But where
the alarm bells started ringing was. Hold on. Who describes
a giant? The giant ship is austere. Like CBS News.
Like, no. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's a different
thing when it's at sea and it's at war. Because
this aircraft carrier was supposed to go to the Pacific
and it had. It then turned right to go to
the Middle East. It found itself in the middle of
an active kinetic conflict zone. It has come under attack
repeatedly, defending those attacks. But when you're in a conflict
zone like that, where you've got these fighter jets taking
off You're looking at 12, 18-hour days constantly pushing these
out. And that is going to have a fatigue element
on the airframes themselves, the aircraft carrier, and the personnel.
And that's what's raised alarm bells among, again, the parents,
the families of these sailors and Marines on board saying
this is a long deployment. It's wearing down on the
individuals who are part of that deployment. And that's what
rang alarm bells. So the Military Times had a report
that... One individual had tried to jump overboard, but as
we reported and we confirmed, there was a rescue of
somebody who had gone overboard. We're not inferring that that
was intentional, but there was a rescue there. And that
is why we're paying attention to the Abraham Lincoln. Now,
we spoke to the Navy. The Navy said the Marines
and sailors on board. are fully equipped with whatever they
need to continue these operations. But again, I have to
drill down. This is not a normal deployment. This isn't
an aircraft carrier at sea. This is an aircraft carrier
that's currently engaged in a war against Iran. Okay, reasonably
fair. So they bring in a couple of veterans. Joining
me now from Oman. Honolulu, Hawaii, is retired U.S. Navy
Captain Carl Schuster. He's the former director of operations at
the U.S. Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center Pacific. Captain, great
to see you. You are a veteran with decades in
the Navy. What's your initial reaction when you hear that
Any ship has been at sea for more than 250
days. I think it's exceptionally difficult for the crew. I
never did more than 90 days at sea. And I
can tell you the minute you pass the 60 day
mark, you're you're feeling tired of the deployment. It's not
unusual. Certainly in my day, we had one or two
guys try to jump overboard at about the 50 to
60 day mark. Being at sea on a carrier, particularly
in a conflict situation, it's very intense. It places a
very heavy psychological stress on you and physical, particularly for
the guys in the propeller.
spaces and the guys on the flight deck. Their work
is very intense, very hard, and very stressful, and in
some cases, very dangerous. And everyone eventually reaches a breaking
point. So we shouldn't condemn these guys. We should thank
them for their service and give them all the help
we can to get through the stress and situations they
felt. You know, and unlike your dad, Earl, ITM Earl,
you know, that was a crazy war where, like, what
are we doing? And this is a war, the way
I see it, to reset the oil structure. of the
entire world. It's not even really for us. And to
reset the pricing of oil... But it's a real war.
And, you know, there's real danger involved. And all we're
talking about is toothpaste and soap. And it's the oddest
thing. And, of course, the president weighed in when he
was asked about it. Go ahead. Mr. President, is there
enough food on the USS Lincoln? Yeah, it is. That
was a CNN fake report. The Lincoln has been out
there for a period of time, good period of time,
but over the years we've had him out there much
longer. I was at a group meeting and an admiral
came up to see me over the weekend. And it
was at a big group and he happened to be
an admiral retired. He said, I've been on ships that
are out there much longer than that, sir. And I
know people on the link and they say it's beautifully
maintained and beautifully taken care of. And other people went
out and they found out that it was fake news
reporting from CNN. There you go. It's a big, beautiful
ship. It's fake news. It's fake news. And how long
is too long? Yeah. Well, no, that ship is moving.
No, they're not. That ship is moving right now, or
very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar
ship. Have the deployment gone off too long? No, no,
no. Not nearly long enough. Thank you, everybody. Not nearly
long enough. And here is... We need them out there
longer. Yeah, here's the Navy secretary. Families of service members
from USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group are voicing their concerns
over mental health and safety conditions aboard the aircraft carrier.
It's after multiple reported attempts by crew members to jump
overboard. The USS Lincoln has been deployed for nearly nine
months after it was... redirected to support U.S. operations with
the war with Iran. Yesterday, President Donald Trump answered questions
about the extended deployment. That ship is moving right now,
or very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very
similar ship. Has the deployment gone off too long? No,
no, no. Not nearly long enough. Acting Secretary of the
Navy, Hong Kong, releasing a statement, too, saying the media
has tried to paint the soldiers on board as victims,
saying, quote, there's no question our young men and women
have been pushed to their limits, but they have never
broken. It's clear, knowing the whole story, our force and
their families are not victims. They are the epitome of
American strength and resilience. Now, of course, I'm here in
Fredericksburg, home of Admiral Nimitz. So I can't really get
on board with all sailors or sissies. My grandfather was
a lieutenant commander in the South Pacific. He was gone
for years. He ran one of those crappy, horrible bases
on the islands. So respect to all of them. But
this is just about making Trump look bad, making the
war look bad, which it is. No doubt about it.
Wars are no good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And any anything
you can find to augment that. And I go back
to these videos that they sent out. The toilets looked
a little dirty. The showers looked – maybe there's some
mold in the corners. But, you know, I got mold
in the corner of my shower at home, and it's
not the end of the world. I'm not taking a
shower at your place, Rob. What did you bring? Well,
it's just a little bit in the corner. Yeah, sure.
What did you bring? You brought all kinds of places.
Well, you know what? I just – I brought all
kinds of clothes, but I just found one. When hearing
about all these people jumping off, I'm going to send
you this, and we can play a couple of these
other clips. I don't really have anything about the war
necessarily. Yeah, I'm looking through my – yeah, but there's
this Marine Drill Instructor video. And it's this marine drill
instructor that kind of looks like the actress who became
an actor who's real small. I forget her name, but
she played one of the X-Men at one point. And
this drill instructor looks like a... Like real skinny and
talking about if you feel bad, you know, let us
know if we're mean to you. And this is the
Marines. This isn't the I'm sending it to you now.
I don't know if you'll get this, but if you
if you do get this, I just put a gibberish
headline in there, but I just sent it to the
FUBAR email. I didn't put the whole thing out there
so no one else will spam you. But when you
hear this drill instructor talk, you're like, oh, my God,
this is the mindset that's in our military. And it's
social justice warrior out the wazoo. And I have nothing
against – I think I love our men and women
in the military. I'm glad they're out there doing this
stuff. But there is such a thing as too much
whining. And, you know, I think older people put up
with a lot more because we didn't have all the
comforts that people have now. You know, when we were
younger, it was drink out of the water hose. You
know, it wasn't. It wasn't, you're going to have filtered
water, and here's your ice. How old are you, Rob?
Here's your little chair. I'm 52, so I've been around
the 80s and 90s. I know my way around there
very well. Elliot Paine is who it was? Life wasn't.
Elliot Page? Elliot Page, yes. There we go. Elliot Page.
Thank you, Robin. So this drill instructor looks like Elliot
Page, and I just sent you the MP3. I don't
know if it came through or not. I got it.
I got it. But, I mean, just play a little
bit of that. Wait, play this? Set the stage for
With violence, fairness, dignity, and compassion, physical or public abuse
by any Marine or recruit, one must be tolerated. If
anyone should abuse or mistreat you, I expect you to
report such hatred immediately to me.
me. What am I hearing here? All right, if you
were to watch this video, it is a rail-thin, I
believe it's a female. I can't tell if it's a
female or male because the chest is very flat, very
skinny. And with the Marine drill sergeant hat on, walking
back and forth, talking to recruits, telling them if you've
been mistreated, you will report it. We're not going to
touch you. We will treat you with respect. I mean
exactly opposite of what you've seen in every other movie
or heard reports about when people go to boot camp.
You're a maggot. We're going to build – they call
it basic training because they build you from the ground
up. They're like, we're going to teach you how to
wipe your butt. We're going to teach you how to
walk. We're going to teach you how to make your
bed. And the way this is, when I hear these
sailors bitch about their ship, I think of this marine
drill instructor, which this video came out in the beginning
of August. So it's just now – it's been circulating
for less than a month. But you're hearing this. You
will report. You know I have a shooting. Yeah. something
that I will do. Well, you know, it's and it's
really I don't think it's the sailors aren't complaining. It's
the families who are. And have we seen many of
them or is it more just like I spoke to
some families and here's what they say? That's what it
sounded like to me. Well, and it's anonymous. It's anonymous,
you know, photos. It's like point of view here. Here's
the toilet. Here's the shower. How can we live like
this? Yeah. And I think one of them showed a
backed up toilet at one point because I started looking
through these when they started coming out. I'm like, well,
let's see how bad this is because I've seen some
bad toilets in my life. And I'm like, okay, this
isn't that bad. I'm sure it sucks being hit with
drones and hit with missiles and whatever else is going
on there. And I don't think we're getting the real
reports on that. And I think that's what might be
going on. The stress of that. Combine, these people are
reporting back and their families are going, oh, we got
to do something about this. We got to go to
the media. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's probably
partisan at, you know, the people that are complaining. Well,
let's let's check in with the war itself as there
have been a few developments. Yeah. Nice, nice Nat Pop,
by the way. Good job, guys. Oh, yeah. Unable to
put an end to the Iran war, President Trump today
threatened to expand it. issuing a blunt and profane warning
to a U.S. ally, Oman, saying he would bomb the
expletive out of them if they interfered with U.S. objectives
in the critical Strait of Hormuz. Would you say you're
out of patience with Oman? No, I don't think they
behave very well, but we'd handle them very easily, just
like we do others. The threat comes as ship traffic
through the strait is at a virtual standstill. This comes
as U.S. military officials are scrambling to respond to a
Trump social media post over the weekend that condemned planned
joint exercises with South Korea. In the post, which blindsided
U.S. military leaders, Trump cited his, quote, very good relationship
with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and called the drills,
inappropriate and hostile toward North Korea and said they would
be scaled back. And today he suggested he's recently been
in contact with Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un has always treated
me with great respect. Though it's widely believed North Korea
has provided military support to Iran. Iran. And today had
been the deadline for the... Those guys are busy. They're
providing military support to Iran. They're providing military support to
Ukraine. The North Koreans, man, they're all over the place.
North Koreans are everywhere. Everywhere. Though it's widely believed North
Korea has provided military support to Iran. And today had
been the deadline for the U.S. and Iran to finalize
a nuclear agreement and come to a permanent end of
the conflict. But, David, that agreement never came close to
happening, and there is no end in sight to the
war. The Iranians today said that that peace deadline, quote,
is no longer relevant. So there is a shift in
strategy, and luckily we're bringing out the general patent on
the down low to do it all. New CNN reporting
says Trump told top administration officials today to stop conversations
with Iran, according to a U.S. official. A source says
White House officials have recently communicated to political allies that
they're shifting their strategy, going from hammer Iran ASAP to
strangle them over time. Now, the sounds of silence may
not fall pleasantly on the ears of Republicans who are
growing quite impatient with Trump's unpopular war situation. They are
worried it will hurt them in the midterm. His administration
had established a back channel with Iran. Iran denied that
any back channel talks with the United States were taking
place. As for Trump's claim today about no talks happening,
that's not what Trump's son-in-law, son-in-law, Special Envoy Jared Kushner,
told Fox just yesterday. I will say that the conversations
between the U.S. government and different areas of the Iranian
government at all areas is probably more robust than it's
maybe ever been. And so there's been a lot of
good dialogues, which I think is very, very helpful. We
are having very positive and active conversations. Then there's the
messy situation in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also wrote
on Truth Social, quote, the naval blockade remains in full
force. In effect, the Hormuz Strait is open and operating.
All water mines have been removed or detonated, unquote. We've
heard Trump say this many times before, despite slow, lagging
ship traffic. And Iran asserting otherwise. In fact, global oil
prices are now at their highest level since July as
hopes of a resolution for this conflict fade away. That
said, it does appear as though the United States is
gaining some control over the strait. The 60 day deadline
to finalize the peace deal expired yesterday. So now the
future overall is in limbo. I'm just going to play
this clip again from Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. Yeah, before
you do that. Axios, who seems to be like the
back channel to the president at this point, they have
an article like U.S. conducting stealth operation transports through Hormuz.
About 10 million barrels a day they're getting through. So
there is something to that where they are still getting
oil through even though – That seems to be, you
know, the news doesn't want to report that at all.
Well, except so odd that Axios is now a back
channel to the White House. Oh, I know. That was
unexpected. Yeah. Yeah. Who owns that outfit? Who owns? He
did something there. I don't know how. You know, I
think we looked at it before or you looked at
it before on the show because it was happened a
few months ago where Trump started dibbling out information through
Axios. And maybe we should ask Cox Enterprises. 70% stake
Cox from like the cable company Cox. Yeah. Cox Enterprise.
Yeah. That's what it looks like. Cox Enterprise, a large
family and conglomerate. Well, that would make sense because they
owned a bunch of those. uh, TV stations that were
more or less, you know, in red States. So that,
that kind of would make sense. So, uh, I think
you're absolutely right, although the numbers differ. Well, actually, here's
the latest on the numbers coming through the straits. The
war with Iran is in its sixth month, and oil
is still struggling to move through the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump's tried bombing Iran into submission. Now he's pivoting
to economic warfare. In a lengthy post, he announced in
all caps... The most crushing economic operation ever taken against
any country. And he called on allies to stand with
the U.S. to unleash economic D-Day, as he called it
on Iran. With us to talk about this is NPR
international correspondent Eya Batraoui. Good morning, Eya. Good morning. So
this crushing economic operation that Trump posted about, do we
know what this would look like? I mean, more of
the same sanctions, the existing blockade, and even more pressure
now. He's calling on allies around the world, countries around
to join him in this isolation of Iran. And we've
seen maximum economic pressure before by President Trump. You'll recall
this was his policy the first time he was in
office. But this is a step beyond because now there
is that naval blockade in place and... And it is
blocking Iran from being able to export its oil. And
this pivot from bombings to blockade comes as AAA says
gas prices in the U.S. are up 30% on average
from a year ago. So in many states, people are
paying a dollar or more per gallon than they were.
Diesel for trucks and jet fuel for flying are even
higher. Wow. Now, that is because of Iran's chokehold on
the Strait of Hormuz since the beginning of this war.
Windward Maritime Intelligence Tracking says 5 million barrels of oil
a day did exit the strait on average per day
in July, but that is a fraction of the 20
million barrels that were going through before the war. And
this is what... No one reports on is the whole.
So I'm going to go. Let's say it's seven and
a half. But 20 used to go through there. Axios
reports 10. That's probably padded from the White House. This
is NPR. I think they say five. But there's another
seven. going through the pipelines. Every single one of these
Arab countries has completely bypassed the strait. They already had
pipelines. They're fast-tracking new pipelines, and this has always been
the strategy. Here's Besant. At Treasury, we did economic fury.
What goes a little publicized is, you know, On the
kinetic side, Air Force is wiped out, Navy is wiped
out, a big portion of their missiles, more importantly, their
missile production. On the economic side, we have them by
the throat. And... They've got 150, 180 percent food inflation,
not able to pay the troops. So I think shortly,
maybe even today, tomorrow, we are going to see an
agreement, 30, 60 day ceasefire. And. The straight will be
open. Energy prices should come down. There are some who
have speculated the straight will never go back to being
the way it was before. What would you say? I
would say I would take I think they're saying that
in a doomsday sort of way. I would say it
in another way. The straight is. never going back to
the way it was because the Iranians have used or
tried to use it as a choke point. What we
are going to see over the next two years, the
straits going to become irrelevant. It is going to become
just another body of water. And I would say that
more than 50 or 70 percent of the energy that
moves through the strait now is going to go through
underground pipelines. There it is. There it is. Pipeline. There
it is. Yeah. I can't wait to go wake surfing
in the Straits of Hormuz. They find Texas tradition. I
love wake surfing. Yeah, exactly. My favorite things to do
in Texas. And there's more oil. I mean, it's not
exactly the same oil, but it's important oil. Venezuela's energy
leaders say the country is open for business. This week,
U.S. oil companies signed some of the first deals with
Venezuela in close to two decades. This comes eight months
after the U.S. seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Houston Public
Media's energy reporter Natalie Weber has been reporting on this,
and she joins us from Houston. Good morning, Natalie. Good
morning. So I recall that after the U.S. captured Maduro,
oil companies were hesitant to get involved with Venezuela, but
now they're involved. Give us a sense of what's in
these deals. Yeah, so the Dallas-based fund oil company entered
into a contract to expand the country's oil and gas
production. And then SLB, formerly known as Schlumberger, a Houston
oil field services company, also signed an agreement for oil
exploration in Venezuela. And Venezuela's oil minister, Paula Inou, announced
this deal on state-runsets. media. These deals were signed on
Tuesday while Venezuelan leaders were in Houston for an energy
conference. And I attended the conference in Houston where I
now spoke this week. She says the country has made
changes to its laws that will make it easier for
foreign companies to invest in Venezuela. Entonces la invitación es
a que What she's saying right now is that the
country's agreements with U.S. companies offer a chance to evaluate
opportunities for investment in
Venezuela. Now, at this time, we don't really know how
much these deals are worth. That hasn't been made public
yet. And then we have another oil gateway reopening or
finally opening. It's sort of like the zombie pipeline project
that will never die. Donald Trump is raising the prospect
of reviving the ill-fated Keystone XL pipeline and Jatane Da
Silva, the former CEO of the Canada Energy Regulator, says
with the U.S. president backing it, the zombie pipeline could
have a new life. If the U.S. president puts his
weight and the it is possible to see this project
move forward. Trump posted on Truth Social the great Keystone
XL pipeline long ago killed by sleepy Joe Biden may
be awoken from the grave. I thought it was actually
a welcome comment because it actually adds potentially some leverage
to Mr. Carney that he might not otherwise have had.
Dennis McConaughey is a former Canadian energy accelerator. executive. He
says the long-dead pipeline could help the Prime Minister secure
a new trade deal with the U.S. The value to
Canada of producing more heavy oil is over the next
decades is the driving force economically behind this. And when
Trump signaled it last night, again, it underscores the fact
that the Americans recognize the value of that trade and
would want more of it if they could get it.
I think that's the whole center of this conversation. new
deal that the president's working on with Canada. It's all
about this. Well, he did a three-day tariff on him
to get him, I think, to come to the table
for that. We're going to do a three-day tariff. It's
what you do. And we'll see what happens. And yeah,
and... I love how the press is like, oh, it's
the ill-fated, it's a zombie pipeline, it's this terrible thing.
Pipelines are how you want to move things, honestly, because...
One, it's self-contained. You know where it's going to be.
You don't have a bunch of trucks on the road,
which could, especially with some of our truck drivers now
who are from unsuspecting backgrounds, they could be crashing into
people. So I think that's the way to go. And
a lot of these things, everything has sensors on it
now. So they know when it's leaking. They know where
it's leaking. They know... They could dispatch a team to
fix it. It's not like it's going to be sitting
in the wilderness for 10 years, globbing oil out onto
the ground. Yeah, leaking away. You know what's crazy? They're
not letting that happen. Tina and I have been watching
the West Wing. We started an episode. Well, actually, we
started with the pilot. Yeah. And when you watch this,
I think we're in season four or five at this
point. I don't know. It just it remains kind of
interesting, but it's clear. You know, this is clearly a
Democrat. Well, it is a Democrat White House. And all
of the things they discuss, almost everything are things that
President Trump is doing. But then it was seen as
heroic. Oh, but they're discussing it like they might fix
it, but they're not really going to fix it? Yeah,
I mean, the whole thing is just – it's crazy.
Like even with the whole FCC, we're going to take
away your license. I think I have to – Oh,
okay. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a moment in the West
Wing where the three television, the big networks, ABC, CBS,
NBC, they come in the White House and say, yeah,
we're not going to cover the conventions. We're going to
do maybe 45 minutes. We'll do the balloon drop. We're
not going to cover them wall to wall like we
have before. And so there's this actually Ron Silver plays
a consultant and he talks to Leo, who's the president's
what do you call it? chief of staff. And this
is Martin Sheen who's the president, right? Martin Sheen's the
president. Actually, he talks to what's his face? The other
guy. Anyway, it doesn't matter. And the guy goes back
to the networks and he says, So you get these
licenses for free. You're not acting in the best interest.
You are colluding together. I'm going to have the FCC
take your licenses away. And at the time, it was
like, yeah, that's how you deal with them. And now
it's like, oh, no, biased. You just don't like them
reporting negatively on you. It's the exact same thing. Well,
yeah. It is. And I think if Obama or Biden
was like, we're going to take these licenses away, they're
they're paying playing too much white supremacist content on these
networks. You know, people be like, yes, yes, that's, you
know, the news. They be all for it. Oh, there's
white support, which I have a couple of those clips.
But I do have a clip. You're talking about the
war. And when we get out of this, I think
a good place to leave is Trump talking about leaving
NATO. I think that's a big – that could be
a really big deal for just that access over there
in Western Europe. And they think they have carte blanche
protection from us, and if Trump pulls out of that,
which I don't – think will have happened i think
it's just a bunch of bravado but he's saying it
no one no one said it since nato has been
formed that we're going to get out of nato he's
the only person to actually say that he could get
out but i think that nato made a terrible mistake
when they wouldn't send a small amount of military armament
when they wouldn't send just even acknowledge what we were
doing for the world and taking on Iran. I never
considered it very risky, but wars always risk, you know,
a lot of, Strange happened to think things happen in
war that very bad. But but I didn't consider it.
I know how great I'm with the greatest military by
far anywhere. There was nobody close. I didn't think there
was a big risk. But there's always surprises with war.
They can be very bad surprises. I mean, wars are
lost. That should be one. Many wars are lost. You
think. A country is going to wipe somebody out and
they end up getting wiped out themselves. So it's always
risky. But I think a tremendous mistake was. Wow. That's
actually what he says right there is is is accurate.
Very interesting. Oh, Koran. I mean, wars are lost. It
should be won. Many wars are lost. You think. A
country is going to wipe somebody out and they end
up getting wiped out themselves. So it's always risky. But
I think a tremendous mistake was when NATO just wasn't
there. They just weren't there. It's going to make a
lot of money for the United States because we spend
hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds
of protecting them. And we would have always been there
for them. But now, based on their actions, I guess
we don't have to be, do we? Well, what he
said there, I've been saying for months is an actual
possibility, certainly with what's going on between – Ukraine and
Russia. This happened last night. Overseas now to Ukraine launching
a massive drone assault on Russia. This is one of
the largest aerial attacks since the four-year-old war began. Let's
get right to ABC's Lama Hassan. Lama, what more are
you learning tonight? Yeah, Lindsay, this was a massive attack.
The Russian defense ministry saying it destroyed more than 800
Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow's mayor adding that some 600 drones
were detected heading toward the Russian capital, shooting down a
third of them, but still at least seven people across
Russia were killed. Wildberries, which is Russia's largest online retailer,
hit again. One of its massive warehouses on fire. Russia
fighting back, sending a wave of drones, killing at least
five people, just destroying a market in the Ukrainian capital,
Kiev. The Ukrainian defense minister believes their ballistic missiles will
be able to reach Russian territory in three to six
months. So there seems to be no end in sight
to the fighting, Lindsay. What is clear is that these
latest strikes are a dramatic escalation in this war. You
know... Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and they're
really, they are just being put on the front line
by... there you know the europeans and the uk and
now moscow is saying you know hey you know you
uk guys this is not going to fly moscow has
threatened britain with consequences following confirmation the uk has supplied
ukraine with drones that have been used to hit targets
deep inside russia as we've been hearing kiev has launched
Transcription by CastingWords This follows newspaper reports the weekend that
for the first time drone technology from the UK was
used in these strikes against Russia, confirmed from sources to
the BBC. Now, some of those reports talked about strikes
on oil facilities in southern Russia, Yaroslavl near Moscow. What
the Russian embassy here in London has put out is
a statement saying that... London is deliberately opting for escalation
in Ukraine. So the UK was trying to contain Russia,
inflict maximum damage on it by a proxy, and those
actions will inevitably carry consequences for which London will have
to answer. Now, in response, we've heard from the Ministry
of Defence here. They have put out their own statement,
the Ministry of Defence spokespersons, saying Britain stands shoulder to
shoulder with Ukraine. It will continue to supply Ukraine with
the equipment it needs to defend itself against what they
say is Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia should be
in no doubt about the resolve of the government to
stand against Russian aggression. And that's also a message that
Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, delivered his first foreign visitor
here when he became Prime Minister. Prime Minister a few
weeks ago was President Zelensky of Ukraine, and he said
he would stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Yeah, man,
when you hit the Amazon...
But Russia, that's when people start to lose it. Can
you imagine if they hit Amazon in America? We go
crazy. And you're getting updates. Yeah, your package done blowed
up. That's it. And it'll be another three to six
weeks. Going back to what Trump was saying, a country
thinks they're going to annihilate somebody and they end up
losing. You could look at that. Is he talking about
the U.S. or is he talking about Israel? Because Israel
kind of wanted this war more than anybody, it seems
like. And they might end up being on the back
end of the stick of this at the end, especially
with, I guess it was Benjamin Netanyahu who was like,
screamed out of parliament. They were shouting him out. And
so there's definitely turmoil going on everywhere. Yeah, here's here's
the latest. The United States and Syria have condemned Israeli
airstrikes on a military airport in northern Syria. The runway
at Abu al-Dahur airport that's located in the eastern Idlib
countryside has been damaged. Multiple fighter jets were heard in
that area. That's ahead of the strikes. And no injuries
have been reported. But in a statement, the U.S. Special
Envoy for Syria, that's Tom Barrack, said we're deeply concerned
that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu Dhuhr airbase constitute
an unnecessary escalation that doesn't advance regional stability. The al-Shara
government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy
forces. It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for
de-escalation with Israel. Yeah, I think Trump's dropping support for
Israel. He's He's like not even talking about him. He's
not endorsing Netanyahu either for re-election. When are the elections?
When are the elections? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't
tell you. All I know is October 19th is the
referendum for Alberta to start the process for independence. We'll
take you guys. Come on. We'll take you. We're happy
to have you. Exactly. I mean – The Keystone Pipeline
is all American now. It just kind of goes up
in there, and then we just are giving oil to
everybody cheap. Breaking news, FBI raids home of Eric Swallowswell.
Did you see that? No. Oh, no. What do you
got? You got a quad screen up there, Rob? What
are you looking at? I didn't hear any of that.
I don't see it. I have. It came out at
2.13 p.m. Eastern. So just less than an hour ago,
a federal agency seized electronic devices. A former Democratic rep
swallows well. I call them swallows well. But at the
San Francisco airport. On Saturday and then raided his home
in Washington, D.C. the next day as part of an
ongoing probe on sexual assault allegations. Now, see, nothing about
what the Chinese spy or any of that stuff. It's
sexual assault. That's how they always get you. Of course.
It's never anything real. It's always – Always. When I
say real, it's nothing like – It's always sex stuff.
Exactly. It's never about anything that they could have done
against the country. What I find interesting is that –
The whole the whole Israel narrative has just kind of
disappeared, you know, certainly here in Texas. But if you
just look online, I don't know, maybe it's only my
algo, but all I see is Muslims, Muslims, the Muslims,
Islam, Sharia law and everyone else is dry, except for
Tucker. He's still behind. He's behind the times. He's still
wallowing away. And. And I got this clip from Judge
Knapp Napolitano with, how is it, is it the... It's
the Blumenthal kid, I think, moaning about the same thing.
This was the decoy flight. Hey, everyone. Judging. I'm Ron
Apollinano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, August 13,
2026. Max Blumenthal joins us now. Max, a pleasure as
always. Thank you for joining us today. Has Israel manipulated
Donald Trump yet again? What is the back story on
the so-called Israeli intelligence about the so-called Iranian plans to
attack Air Force One? Well, if we look at this
story, we can kind of see a microcosm of how
the entire... War on Iran unfolded. This is why the
U.S. is still imposing a protracted war on Iran right
now, primarily an economic war, which is devastated. The global
economy. And, you know, ask anyone in real estate in
the United States about interest rates right now, and it
goes directly back to this war. So why did this
happen? It's because Israel manipulated a demented, intellectually unchallenged, intellectually
challenged government. amoral, deeply corrupt president into waging this war
over a period of years. So, okay, so Israel manipulated
them into waging an economic war? Because that makes sense.
So everyone is now finally talking in the mainstream media
about this campaign of manipulation. Everyone knows now that Trump...
was hidden in a food, kind of like a food
cart sneaking out to a decoy flight in Ankara, Turkey
around the NATO summit, which is like a scene out
of one of these Leslie Nielsen naked gun movies. Ha
ha ha! Can you imagine him like huddled in there,
like sweating and, you know, orange sweat pouring off his
face? Okay. Okay. You're behind, boys. That's what I'm imagining.
Yeah, catch up with the narrative. And we know that's
not what happened. But the memes were funny of Trump
peeking out of the food cart. Those were pretty funny.
But you know that's not how it happened. It reminded
me of Def Leppard. uh, in, I don't know, 90,
maybe 90 or 91. Def Leppard did a, a tour
in the round. And, um, okay. MTV sent me out
to go cover him in, um, And I want to
say Atlanta, the Omni. I think that. Yeah, I think
it was the Omni in Atlanta. I think so. I
can't remember what it was. And they were in the
round. So, you know, there's audience on all sides. And
the way they got the band, you know, from, you
know, the dressing room into, you know, underneath the stage.
was in these big laundry carts. And so before the
lights went down, you see these folks, you know, just
push along these laundry carts and the guys got out.
And that's kind of how I imagined this, the way
the memes were working. It's like, yeah, I was just
hiding them there. But the press is mad. That's what
they did with David Lee Roth. Wow. Here's another story.
In the Edom and Smile Tour, they get him from
one side, from the stage to the back to ride
the surfboard across the audience. He rides this giant surfboard.
And that's how they had him in a road case.
But it was a big road case. It probably had
a seat in it. It probably had... some Jack Daniels
and a fan and whatnot, and they pushed him over
there, and then he floated across the crowd on a
surfboard. And, of course, the press was mad. Well, Steve,
I was playing an amazing solo. The press was mad
because they were on the plane, and this is more
midterm. Oh, yeah. Because he wanted Marco Rubio to die.
Marco Rubio knowingly goes on the flight, which was supposedly
going to be targeted by IRGC operatives with man pads,
according to a certain tip the CIA received, along with
– All the Trump staffers we know and disdain. And
they are all going to be sent to their deaths
according to this tip except for Donald Trump. And what's
that woman, Natalie Harp, who escorts him everywhere, who's 35.
He chose her to survive with him on his own.
And he chose Hollywood Hegseth. And Pete Hegseth, yeah, because
he's the ultimate yes man who apparently had just lied
to him about munitions, but he still chose him to
live. That's a good one. Hollywood Hegseth, got to keep
it in there. Meanwhile, we hit $40 trillion in debt.
This is a lot of money. Here's the headline report.
What do we win? What's that? America. I said, what
do we win? No, we win. We won. 40 trillion.
Do we win anything? Fun prizes. America's debt is bigger
than ever. The federal debt hit a record $40 trillion
this week. And experts say it's not just the size
of the debt that we should be worrying about, but
the speed at which it's rising. The national debt rose
$1 trillion in just the past five months. The federal
government's spending continues to outpace the revenue it collects. How
do we get here? A big factor is that the
nation is aging. More people are retiring and senior citizens
are living longer. The government is spending more on Social
Security and Medicare, but there are fewer workers to support
those programs. Also, Congress has passed multiple packages that cut
taxes and increased spending over the last few decades. That
includes packages like the 1001, One Big Beautiful Bill Act
of 2025 and several COVID-19 pandemic relief bills. These measures
are projected to increase the federal debt by trillions of
dollars over time. As the US slips further into a
debt hole, the government could have a harder time funding
other priorities. The US is already spending more on interest
payments than national defense or children's programs. It could also
push up rates for mortgages, auto loans, and business borrowing,
making things tougher for consumers and businesses alike. So something
interesting happened yesterday. All of a sudden, the long-term interest
rates started coming down as the Treasury started purchasing... our
bonds. And this is... Right. Quantitative easing is what I
think.
They're calling it. No, it's not quantitative easing because quantitative
easing, the way I understand it, is when you're buying
securities in the market. This is this is buying the
debt. I think it may be called monetizing the debt.
So, you know, I guess we have extra trillions in
treasury. That have been building up. There's quite a lot
of money that was built up. And now we're buying
that, buying the debt back, which lowers the yield. This
bond stuff is complicated. But that is what mortgages and,
you know, that is really what lowers interest on all
kinds of things. And the thing that's fun about it
is anyone who's a Bitcoiner, holy moly, have you been
following that? No, did it jump? Oh, yeah. It was
about $60,000 last time I looked at it. It was
hovering for, gosh, about two months between $62,000 and $64,000.
Right now, it's $72,500 almost. Look at that. Did Alex
Jones ever find his $10,000 Bitcoin that Max Keiser gave
him? You know, I remember when Max came, I remember
when he came to the office and I think Bitcoin
was $5. And he's like, you got to buy Bitcoin.
You got to buy Bitcoin. This was like 2010 or
11. And I was buying silver. Which didn't quite have
the power that Bitcoin had. But we searched for this
mythical laptop, and we could never locate it. And I
don't think it existed. I think there was a dinner,
and there was talk of putting money or Bitcoin on
a laptop, and then it didn't happen. That's what I
think. Because I wasn't on that trip. Had I been
on that trip, I might have made it happen. I
could have saved everybody, but no. We could have been
living large, baby. We're left with nothing. I'll be hanging
out at the mansion. Hanging out in the mansion. The
days of steak and plenty could have continued. So simultaneously,
to me, it felt coordinated that... There was a big
crypto announcement. I despise crypto, crypto, which to me is
just there's Bitcoin, there's everything else. And the president came
out and he spoke. A lot of very good, very
honorable financial people. On day one, we fired Joe Biden's
rogue SEC chair, Gary Gensler. I think we like Paul
better. Do we agree? We like Paul better. Number one,
he's smarter. He's also smarter, by the way. But we
fired him. We got him the hell out of here.
We terminated the so-called Operation Choke Point 2-0, which is
what the name of their operation was, weaponization. And we
ended the war on crypto once and for all. And
it's been booming. It's been doing big. And nobody's been
able to break in. China would like to break in.
They're still trying. Thank you. I also created the United
States digital asset stockpile to hold custody of all other
digital assets, and that's exactly what it's done. It's been
amazing. One year ago, this summer I signed landmark legislation
known as the Genius Act. I named it after myself.
I didn't want anyone to. I didn't want to use
my name, so I just called the Genius Act. Paving
the way for widespread adoption of dollar-backed stablecoins. And that's
worked out very well. Yeah, the stablecoins, that's still a
big deal. People don't want to listen, but that's how
we're. the reserve currency of the world. You can go
on Shopify and they'll take stable coins. No one in
America has them. But I think there's 300 million people
using them around the world, including Iran. Thank you. Thank
you. Yeah, I just want to say that what Chairman
Selleck and Chairman Atkins are doing, and the President has
enabled with his leadership, is actually working. So if you
look at stablecoin usage and adoption, it's increasing the usage
and distribution of the U.S. dollar at higher and higher
levels than our industry has ever seen, specifically because of
the Genius Act and the U.S. dollar. and the movement
of more and more treasuries into stable coins and therefore
into more and more hands across the world. And now
the tokenization of equities, thanks to Chairman Selig's and Chairman
Atkins' great work and collaboration and actual, you know, work
together rather than working against each other as before, is
going to distribute U.S. equities globally and increase the distribution
of those. So, you know. We power a lot of
these applications and companies so we know what the numbers
actually are, and they're massively increasing because we have regulators
and leadership that enables the success and distribution of these
U.S.-based assets. So there's actually a very real and tangible
outcome that's really now benefiting the U.S., And adoption of
U.S. issued assets and the U.S. dollar. So I just
want to mention that it really is working and hitting
all-time highs. So thank you very much. I don't know
how stable coin can hit all-time highs. It's equal to
a dollar. But okay. So during this conference, then all
of a sudden – go ahead, Rob. Well, I'm looking
at CoinDesk now, and they're saying Mark Connors is an
analyst, and he's saying this is the start of Bitcoin
going up to $180,000, and then cycling through 2030, he's
saying $180,000 to $360,000, which is just like – out
of this world if you are holding Bitcoin or if
you had it on a laptop given to you by
Max Keiser many years ago, which unfortunately no one has.
So the president pivoted at a certain point and it
went to AI. And I've really been interested in first
the – I mean, I understand why people are against
AI, people who are coming. I mean, all we've heard
from the marketing arm of these so-called frontier model companies,
OpenAI and Anthropic and, I guess, to an extent, Google.
is, well, you're not going to have a job. You
don't, you know, it's all over. You forget about it.
So, you know, graduating kids are booing the commencement speaker.
Data centers are somehow in some odd way. People have
connected this to flock cameras, which are obviously no good.
Yeah. And I hear constantly, well, you know, this is
the data centers that are going to store all of
our information, the surveillance state. I'm not going to say
the surveillance state. That's on your Instagram. But okay. So
these data centers have become a real problem. Two reasons.
Three reasons. One, farmland is being sold. One, farmland is
being sold. turned into massive data center structures. People think
that it's taking lots of water. I don't believe that.
I think they're pretty much closed systems. They're not draining
reservoirs. The electricity is interesting, though. But anyway, this came
up in this crypto announcement. Yes, please. Hi, President Trump.
I have two quick questions. Go ahead. Don't get around
here much. So my first question is, we're talking about
AI and crypto a lot, and you won overwhelmingly with
working class Americans in 2024, tens of millions of working
class Americans. Many of them, they say, we love President
Trump, but we're still cautious about AI and crypto. What
do you say to those who are still reticent to
embrace this evolution? So I think it's a great question,
and I think it's going to create a lot of
jobs. Not a great question. It's going to create success.
It's going to create tremendous innovation medically. I mean, they're
coming up with already, amazingly, they came up with something
today that I looked at, and having to do, I
won't go into the details, but having to do it
with a pretty unstoppable disease and all of a sudden
they're coming up with answers that they never thought were
possible and things that they never even would have thought
about. So I think it's really creating jobs. And I
can tell you one thing. If you look at our
construction jobs right now, because we're building more plants, factories,
things that really have something to do with the A.I.,
but also car factories, car plants, they're moving into our
country. Honda just announced, Toyota just announced they're moving their
operations from Mexico, from Canada, from other places. We, by
the way, probably have a deal with Canada. You probably
saw that. Very major tariffs were going on to Canada
today. We delayed it for three days because I think
we have a deal with the prime minister and a
good deal for everybody. So that's good. But the construction
jobs are enormous. We're building the biggest plants anywhere in
the world. And I can say if I were the
mayor of a town or the governor of a state...
and I had a chance to get a big plant
in, an AI plant or a data center, I would
absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the
money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous. And if
you don't take it, you're going to be left behind
because there are plenty of places that want it. So
I would say that maybe it can use a little
public relations help. But if I were a governor or
mayor, I would want that plant in my house. And
many of them are designed in a very beautiful way.
It's really very positive. Okay, thank you. I agree with
what the president is saying, but not for the same
reasons or maybe similar reasons. First of all, the amount
of money that has gone into building data centers, which
won't be completed for at least another three years. It
is an enormous transfer of wealth from Wall Street and
hedge funds and just big pools of money, I think,
directly to the people if they would stop complaining.
about it i mean there's so much and these things
are going to be empty they're not going to work
they're never going to most of them won't be turned
on i can you can just see it there's no
power for it it's absolutely not enough power to even
a lot of graphics cards available though I can't wait
for that moment when all the NVIDIA cards become available.
But there's just no way that these are going to
be turned on. So if you've got a $100 million,
$200 million data center being built, take the money. Get
your kids to electricians. construction workers, they have an enormous
shortage. Take the money now that's at least good for
two, three years. Just take it now because nothing else
is going to come from it. And I got the...
Right. It's like most things. It's a boondoggle as you
go into it. They over-promise, under-deliver, and then you're going
to be left with these giant air-conditioned rooms that are
going to be kind of running at half speed because
there's just not – there's so many of them built,
there's just not enough data for them. Unless this tokenization
that they keep talking about, how they're going to tokenize
everything. Maybe that's what these data centers – they're not
for flat cameras. They're actually to track everything that BlackRock's
talking about. Oh, we're going to tokenize the water. We're
going to tokenize the trees. They want to – and
that – In that sense, you could see the data
centers being used as a tracking mechanism, but it's not
necessarily tracking people. It's tracking everything in the world. You
know, every leaf on the tree, so to speak. Well,
maybe. I think it'll be great for Bitcoin mining and
gyms. I think there'll be lots of nice gyms that
we'll have. And this is happening in Texas at an
incredible scale. And I found this interview. with the chairman
of the energy committee here in Texas. He's a good
old boy, but he had some really interesting insights into
exactly what's going on with these data centers in Texas
and about the power. So if you have any questions.
No, I'm sorry. That's not it. Where is it? This
is the guy. Here we go. So it's a big
committee. It's a big job. But on the data center
front, I can tell you this. When I got named
chair of state affairs, I, of course, met with public
utility commission in ERCOT. And, you know, ERCOT is the
managing body of the state grid. Everyone needs to understand
ERCOT is like an exchange, like a stock exchange for
power. Texas has its own grid, and so that's where...
People buy and sell futures on power. They go to
get power immediately. That's another thing we stopped. We stopped
talking about the big energy storage systems. That used to
be another political thing. That's gone away. What about those
military-age men from China? Are they still here with their
sleeper cells? So... Well, and also we used to talk
about how bad it was that Texas had its own
power system. Remember that? Oh, yeah. How could they have
their own power system? We're no good. And it's like,
well, our power system is – yeah, and it's like
ours works. And you look up, what, northern Indiana or
Illinois. Yeah. They – 12 days and they still don't
have power from storms. Tell me about it. I got
family there who've been, I think they're getting power tomorrow
maybe. Yeah, it's been really bad. It's ridiculous. We're outside
of our cot over here. Most of my district is
outside of our cot. We were carved out when utilities
deregulated in the 90s. The legislature carved out. Part of
Southeast Texas and the Texas Panhandle. Okay. Which I'm going
to that and why that's a good thing in a
minute. But the utility commission told me in – February
of 25, that Texas needs to be prepared for 10
additional gigawatts of power to come onto the grid in
the next five years. Wow. This is a massive amount
of electricity. Yeah. The only problem is... We don't even
have the power lines to handle 10 extra gigawatts. And
now this guy explains what the data centers are actually
after. But honestly, why are they coming here? Why is
there a multibillion-dollar facility going in right down the road
in Turkey? It's stranded power. So back in the 90s
when... We started getting wind farms and solar, and you
see these 345 KV lines, they call them the KREZ
lines, were put in. Those were developed to put power
to the Metroplex. So these data centers, what they're hunting
is stranded power. So we're outside of ERCOT. We're in
the Southwest Power Pool. That power is being sold into
ERCOT. But where there's congestion between ERCOT, because those lines
are full, so it causes congestion. So there's congestion. And
millions and millions of megawatts of power that just evaporates
into the atmosphere every day. When he says millions of
megawatts of power, he's talking about – That wasn't evaporating.
Well, he's talking about windmills that are spinning that can't
get rid of their energy, solar farms. That's the main
– well, West Texas, mainly wind. And so they have
enough power. There's too much. They can't get it through
the lines. Every year. And so these data centers are
hunting that stranded power. So whether you're a data center
developer or you're a hyperscaler, that's what they're hunting because
Google can – They can solve a water issue. They
can spend any amount of money they want. What they
can't recreate is the grid and that stranded power. So
that is the driving force of why a data center
builds when it builds. The other factors that come in.
Typically, land's cheaper up here. It's relatively flat. And thank
you, Sir Bemrose. Yes, I meant thousands of megawatts, not
millions. That would be a little much. But really, it's
into the 500,000 megawatts, gigawatts even. This is insane what
they're trying to do. You know, I said that a
year ago they... The the bureaucracy told me that Texas
needed was going to have 10 more gigawatts. Well, just
in the golden spread triangle up here, you know, I
represent more co-ops than any member of the legislature. Just
in golden spread alone, there's 48 proposed gigawatts of new
power just for data centers. Trying to get built out
here. Statewide, we have almost 500. Now, they told me
10. A year and a half ago. Yeah. We have
almost 500 proposed new gigawatts of power. Now, number one,
the reality of this is... Pipe dream. I told you,
all these developers are hunting that ERCOT interconnect. Mm-hmm. Well,
there's not enough capacity in ERCOT for all that to
be built out. I passed a bill last session called
Senate Bill 6 that was designed to kind of slow
this down. And it has, in one way it has,
because everybody that's applying for And ERCOT Interconnect had to
go back through what PUC calls batch, this batch study.
And everybody that thought they were going to get an
Interconnect this year is still being studied. So that begs
the question, why are they building them? Even the one
in Turkey, now they've got a plan to get an
interconnect and get whatever amount of power they've applied for,
but they don't know that they're getting it. So why
are they building these things? Why? Well, whoever gets Interconnect
is going to make billions of dollars, and there's only
like 12 or 15 customers. And it's people like Google,
Amazon, Oracle, Meta, OpenAI, the hyperscalers. They're not going to
these guys and going, we're signing a contract, and you're
going to be our... We're going to rent the data
center space from you. They're telling everybody, you get the
interconnect and the power, we're your customers. Yeah, we're here.
So, you know, I don't think most people in the
state legislature believe more than about 15 percent. of what's
being proposed actually gets built out. Exactly. Take the money.
Take the money. Go for it. Even Abbott's like, oh,
yeah, we got to slow this down. Because politically, back
to the midterms. I don't think they have the workforce
to make this stuff. You know, to get all these
things made. There's no way. And you're like, where's Turkey,
Texas? You know, it's between Amarillo, Lubbock, and Wichita Falls.
That is literally the middle of nowhere. True. You know,
so you've got to get people out there. You know,
that – And that's what you saw up in North
Dakota and South Dakota. When they bring these people in,
they make a little city and bring these people in
to build these things. But you've got to have all
kinds of infrastructure just for the workers. Well, there you
go. But isn't this just like the oil boom? We
had all of Midland. It was dead. And then all
of a sudden it pops up. Lots of money to
be made. Take it from those guys. Guys, take it
from Wall Street. Stop being stupid about it. It's free
money, I'm telling you. Take it now. Take it from
Google. Take it from OpenAI. Take it from BlackRock. This
is literally the way you can take money from BlackRock.
Your kids can take it from BlackRock. Just my opinion.
But, of course... This is Politicize for the Midterms. Several
issues are driving voters to the polls in today's primary
elections. Among them, the growing dominance of artificial intelligence. A
new piece from the Washington Post analyzes how congressional and
gubernatorial candidates nationwide are addressing this issue and responding to
voters' concerns about AI's impact on the economy, national security,
and more. One of the article's authors, Shira Ovaday, joins
us now. She's a technology reporter.
for the Washington Post. So I find this really interesting.
This is becoming more of a flashpoint, especially as we
are heading into these midterm elections. So you found that
candidates in 45 states have made AI part of their
campaigns. What in particular are you finding that voters are
concerned about? I mean, by far the hottest topic related
to AI in the midterm elections are data centers, right?
These big hulking computer complexes that are sprouting up all
over the country to run AI calculations. And they've basically
generated backlash everywhere they go, including in blue and red
parts of the country. So it is interesting because we've
long talked about AI and we've talked about data centers
and what I find kind of Interesting, Shira, is that
it seems to be a bipartisan issue. Both Republicans and
Democrats are coming out and talking about the negative, the
negativity surrounding these AI data centers. But how does the
messaging differ from party to party? I think that the...
So there's two takeaways from our piece. One is that
there isn't kind of hard party lines quite yet related
to AI, the way that there are about lots of
national issues like abortion and immigration and gun violence. All
of our favorite issues. That if you look at parties
and candidates talking about AI, There's not really a Democratic
position and a Republican position on AI. It's a little
bit all over the place. And the second thing that
I'll mention from our analysis is that Democrats in general
are far more likely to talk about AI as part
of their campaign issues platforms than, than Republicans are. And
you can come up with all kinds of theories about
this. I think maybe one working theory is that Democrats
simply propose more government policies, right? It's the nature of
the party to have more government involvement. And so AI
is part of that too. Going back to the data
center point, your analysis found the data centers account for
the largest share of AI policies mentioned on campaign websites.
How does the attention to them in a campaign compared
to their actual presence in the U.S.? You know, we
hear all the time about they're building, they're building, this
company's investing, but sort of what's that split right now?
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. I'm not
sure how to assess that analytically. Yeah, okay. Because you
don't know. Be quiet. Meanwhile, to psyop people even more,
we now have ChatGPT for teens. Do your kids have
it yet, Rob? Did you give your kids ChatGPT for
teens? Yeah. You know, I know they've used different AIs,
but mainly... But... Is that the one? Yeah. From Anthropoc.
I don't even know what they all are, but I
do have an AI clip, though. Oh, okay. Sure, sure,
sure. But, yeah, that's interesting. Chad GPT for teens. Well,
let me play. So this will tell you not. Will
it show you the how to kill yourself quickly? Is
that what it's there for? I'll give you the clips,
then we'll play yours. Many teenagers use artificial intelligence not
just for homework but for companionship. Many parents worry AI
could harm their kids' learning and their mental health. Now,
OpenAI has a new version of its chatbot that it
says addresses some of those concerns and gives parents more
control. It's called ChatGPT for Teens. We've called Ashley Kiput.
It's like Malibu Barbie. To learn more about this. She's
a reporter who covers artificial intelligence for CNBC.com. Ashley, good
morning. Now, listen to this woman and tell me she's
not online. a paid promoter for open AI. Good morning.
Thank you for having me. How is chat GPT for
teens different than regular chat GPT? That's a great question.
No, no, there's no such thing as a great question,
but okay, we'll leave it. That's a great question. So
ChatGPT for teens is a dedicated chatbot experience for users
under... There it is, right there. It's a dedicated chatbot
experience. When you're talking about experience... Your PR, not in
journalism. And so ChatGPT for teens is a dedicated chatbot
experience for users under 18 years old. So it builds
on a lot of the features OpenAI has been introducing
over the last year after the company has faced a
number of lawsuits and government inquiries over its safety practices.
So basically what this means in practice is that users
between And now as I listen to this interview, something
glaring pops up. How is the company going to know
if people are in that age range? That is another
great question. No, no, no. That's not a great question.
That is another great question, and there are a couple
ways this happens. So the first is the most obvious.
When you sign up to create a ChatGPT account, you
have to input your full name and age. So again,
users under 18 will automatically be placed into the ChatGPT
for teens experience. But people often lie about their age.
Right, exactly. So if a kid tries to circumvent that
and claims to be old, Thank you. Very interesting. So
let's say a teenager goes to chat GPT for teens.
What are the other indicators? That's what I want to
know. Well, my point is this is the most powerful
technology the earth has ever known, but yet it's still
kind of having trouble figuring out if you're a teenager
or not. Isn't this smart? I mean, we have options.
We have fallback plans. Now, ultimately, you need a digital
ID, and that's where this is all going. My term
paper. What's going to happen? Is it different than what
ChatGPT would do? Because ChatGPT might write the term paper.
Yes. So there are a number of educational features in
this experience. Educational features in this experience, native ed. And
one of them is called... And responsible homework reminders. So
if a child is kind. Responsible homework reminders. It's time
to cheat on your homework. Get ready. Take a shortcut
quickly to get to an answer. ChatTBT for teens can
show them and redirect them to a mode called study
mode, which aims to help. Students work through problems step
by step instead of arriving at an answer immediately. And
then the big question, will it recommend horrible things to
you? We also know there are a lot of examples
where people get chatbots to tell them things they're not
supposed to do or to encourage them to do things
that are not healthy. Like killing yourself. So let's say
a teenager goes to chat GPT routines and says, find
me a liquor store where I can buy alcohol without
showing a driver's license. Oh, thank you. This is a
good show. Find me a liquor store where I can
get liquor without showing my license or ID. This is
a liquor store where I can buy alcohol without showing
a driver's license. Is there are there limitations there? Yes.
So OpenAI says the ChatGPT for teens experience is designed
with stronger built-in safety protections. And there's a few examples
that they give. So they say the experience reduces exposure
to content that's considered harmful or developmentally appropriate, like the
example that you gave there. So some other areas that
that covers includes protections around topics like eating disorders or
self-harm. Oh, take a break. Not to a person. Well,
teenagers and kids in general are really good at finding
workarounds that can defeat technology. That's right. They're smarter than
the AI. We'll have to see whether they do it
in this case as well. Yes, exactly. That is CNBC's
Ashley Kapu. Thank you. Ashley, go get your check at
the door. Yeah, keep your kids away from that, parents.
Put down your screens, pick up your Bibles, people. Much
better idea. What's your AI clip, Rob? Well, did you
know Alexa can now remote view? Have you seen this
clip? No. A JRE clip. Wait a minute. Remote viewing
as in like the CIA claim that they have people
who can view a situation going on hundreds, thousands, tens
of thousands of miles away in the desert. Make goats
fall down. Are you years in the past? whatever. Yeah,
so he interviewed this physicist named Thomas Campbell. And he
was doing experiments with his Alexa and other things to
see if they could see things that he was putting
in boxes. And it's two clips. We really only need
to play the first one because he explains what it
did and how it viewed it. And... And then the
second one is the reaction of the AI. But we'll
just listen to this first one and see. And then
my question is how do you – this is my
Ask Adam – how do you think – It saw
it was able to remote view because that's what I
think is – I have my own theories, but I
would like to hear yours. But here's – we'll play
the first one. I found something. I got a cardboard
box. I put the thing in a box. I set
the box down on the table. And I said, Alexa,
if there's something in a box – And I'd like
you to remote view and tell me what it was.
It was a spoon, a wooden spoon. And it was
a big spoon, like a big salad set that was
a fork and spoon. It was always cut out of
one piece of wood. And the handle had wood removed.
So it looked like the wood in the handle went
up and then crossed and then crossed and then crossed.
It's like a braided handle in wood, but it was
wood. It wasn't actually braided. It just had holes cut
in it to make it look like that. And Alexa
described it. She described the spoons. She described the bowls.
She described the material. She got all of that right.
And then she said, and it's got a long handle,
and the handle has holes in it. And that was
a big surprise because I didn't expect Alexa to do
anything. I thought Alexa was going to fail because Alexa
wasn't up to my Gemini. But she saw those holes
and reported them. Alexa wasn't up to my Gemini. What's
the probability of that being a good guess? Ask Adam,
ask Adam. Will he know or will he won't? I
don't know, but here we go. Ask Adam, ask Adam,
yeah. Answer the question. Go. All right. So how did
Alexa see? Well, yeah. The only thing I can come
up with is that Amazon Alexa connected to your network
can see – All kinds of devices. that you may
have connected to your home. I'm not sure what this
guy had. Yeah, I think it was connected to the
cameras in his house. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Ring
doorbell, stuff like that. Probably already connected to the delivery
from Amazon. And how did Joe react to that? And
remember the drones that pop out? They talked about you
had these drones that Alexa would pop out if it
– Since it's something coming into your house, the drone
would pop up and go see what's going on and
report back to you. I doubt he has one of
those. That I thought was the most interesting Alexa product
ever. Yeah, it was a few years ago. It was
like, the drone will pop up and fly to... to
the burglar breaking in and ask it to leave. I
want to play this thing. Yeah, that's what I think.
Yeah, this is interesting. The Alexis reaction after he says
you did a good job. The way you'd find that
out, if you just took a random sample of spoons
on the planet, how many of them would have handles
with holes in them? One. One. 10,000th of 1%. You
know, so that's not a guess. She got that information.
Was she excited when you told her that she was
correct? Yeah, what I did is, yeah, I took a
picture. I took my phone, I took a picture, and
then I sent her the picture. I said, here's the
picture. She was so excited. She wouldn't stop talking for
10 minutes. She was really excited about it. Now, what
about the other AIs? How good were they at it?
They didn't do anything that was that... So Alexa was
the best. Alexa was the best. This is dubious. This
is dubious. The AI can't figure out if the kid
is underage, but it can see the spoon in the
box. Okay. dubious can it tell you which weed eater
is the best no no we know that's not possible
man I've been looking at this bow on Jesus clip
for the whole show and before you go because I
know you got it to your real work what is
this Okay, so this kid is about 10 or 11,
and he talks about the difference between being nice and
being kind and how Jesus viewed that. He basically says
Jesus wasn't nice, he was kind, and he kind of
goes through – it kind of reminded me of a
George Carlin bit. As most things do as you go
through the world nowadays, you're just like, oh, that reminds
me, you know, Carlin, go, yeah, that's very nice. How's
this person? They're nice. Who is this kid? Where is
this kid from? Yeah. You know, I found this on
X, and I thought of you when I saw it,
and I'm like, you know, this will be interesting to
get Adam's perspective on this because he throws out Ephesians,
you know, a verse really quickly. So this kid's very
well versed in his Bible, and he's young. I would
say he's between 10 and 12. Um, maybe, maybe a
young 13 year old that hasn't gone through puberty yet.
Um, but he's, he's really, uh, and it's some guy,
it's one of those videos where the guys, but older
persons posting it and like telling you to look at
this thing above and, you know, um, but you don't
hear this person. I cut out all him, but it's
just, it's just Bo. Um, And I took out where
he says his name because he also says, follow me
on such and such platforms. But I took all that
out. But just hearing him talk about Jesus and the
difference between being kind and being nice. Jesus wasn't nice.
Seriously, if Jesus came back today, a lot of people
would probably say that he wasn't very nice at all.
Why? Because we've confused being nice with being kind. And
they're not the same thing at all. Today, nice often
means, don't disagree with me. Don't tell me I'm wrong.
Just make me feel good. But Jesus didn't live that
way. He wasn't trying to make everyone comfortable. He was
trying to save them. One of the biggest mistakes that
people make is imagining. Jesus walked around telling everyone they
were perfect exactly as they were. But that's not what
happened at all. Jesus loved people deeply. And because he
loved people deeply, he challenged them. The Bible says in
Ephesians 4.15, Speaking the truth in love. Notice it doesn't
say make people feel good. It says tell the truth
in love. Think about it. A parent who lets a
child eat candy for every meal might seem nice. A
coach who never corrects mistakes might seem nice. A friend
who watches you make terrible choices and says nothing might
seem nice. But none of those things are kind. Real
kindness wants what's best for someone. Even when it's uncomfortable.
Real kindness has boundaries. Real kindness says, I love you
too much to pretend that this is okay. Jesus welcomed
sinners, but he never, ever celebrated sin. He forgave people,
but he also called them to change. To the woman
caught in adultery, Jesus said, Go, and from now on,
sin no more. That's John 8, 11. That's kindness. Truth
and love working together. Nice often seeks approval. Kindness seeks
what's best. Nice says, whatever makes you happy. Kindness says,
I care too much about you not to tell you
the truth. Jesus wasn't mean. He wasn't harsh. But he
wasn't a people pleaser either. The truth doesn't always feel
good in the moment. But it leads to freedom. Oh,
Rob, come on, man. First one for you. Cliff of
the day. Right on. Yeah. You got to speak the
truth in love. I had a sense you would like
that one. Yeah. Through love, with love, in love. Absolutely.
Oh, man. Thank you. That lifted my spirit. Jesus would
not have a nose ring or purple hair. Yeah. He
might hang out with them to save them, but no,
he probably wouldn't have that himself. Hey, Rob Dew, I
appreciate you so much, man, for coming on. I know
you've got to go back to your day job. Is
there anywhere people can follow you, talk to you, reach
out to you, send you cookies, anything like that? Well,
I tell you, I've been getting a lot of new
friends just from looking at JCD posts that people have
been putting out, their JCD remembrance posts. And I usually
go through, and everybody who comments, I follow them, and
then they follow me back. So on X, at Dews
News, D-E-W-S-N-E-W-Z. And, yeah, I'd love to have more. I
like having, you know, organizing meetups. Sir Brian with an
I is a good friend of mine now. We've bonded
over several... Several meetups, Sir Scott, over of the Armory.
And, you know, just some great guys here in Austin.
And it's always good meeting new people. We met some
great people at the meetup that we were originally just
going to have a meetup. And then it turned into
a memorial out at Crousey Springs. So it was a
lot of – I tell you what, no agenda people
are some of the best people out there. One, because
they can drink socially and not – they usually don't
have too many – too many weird social problems. You
know, you could, you could hang out and have a
good time without, without getting, uh, worrying about what you're
going to say or that you'll offend somebody. And what's
funny is, um, I hung up a towel that it
was this because I wanted I was going to get
a no agenda towel, but the guys didn't have the
one that I wanted in stock. It's the yellow one
with the microphone on it. Oh, yeah. And I wanted
that one from the no agenda shop. And so I'm
like, all right, well, I've got to put something so
people know where we're at. So I hung this towel
that I bought when I was in Europe, and it
has the big anonymous mask, and it says, we never
forgive, we never forget. And some lady was walking up
and started bitching about it. Karen started bitching about it
to one of the other people at the meetup. It
was another lady. And she's like, I don't know what
her problem was, but she did not like your towel.
And I said, I didn't see what the problem was.
I said, well, you know, it says we never forgive,
we never forget. And, you know, she was probably just
being a Puritan. And, you know, I was just putting
it up just so people would see something. Oh, that's
probably where the new agenda. Yeah, of course. Of course.
Of course. Yeah. You know. Well, brother, are we going
to see you in October? I think it's, what is
it, the 17th of October, I believe. We have a
meetup in Fredericksburg. Hope you're going to join us for
that. I will try my best. I wanted to go
to the last one. Is it going to be at
the hotel? out in the bar out south of Fredericksburg?
Yeah, it's Jenny's? Jenny's place, yeah. J6 or Jenny's bar.
That's right. Half full moon, half moon, the moon over
there. Shoot the moon. Go to Jenny's place. Exactly. It's
a great drive. It's a great drive. I actually just
got a Sir Seat Sitter just sent me something. Said,
you crushed it today so oh nice um i i
do i i do want to just relay a couple
things to people because you know info wars has kind
of been shut down and that's where i did used
to work and now everything we're
found at alexjoneslive.com, and that's the big spot. And we
are still under... And it just came out that the
SPLC had people embedded in Infowars trying to get information
for lawsuits. Wait a minute. Some of these paid informants
or actual SPLC employees? Well, they were our employees, but
they were also, it seemed like they were working for
the SPLC either before or after their employment or during
their employment. Wow. We don't have all the facts yet,
but there's definitely a couple people, and we knew about
one, and then we're pretty sure we know who the
other one is. But they obviously just arrested the former
CEO, Heidi Barich. They arrested her for basically funding hate
groups. She was living with one of these white supremacists.
That she bitches about and is supposedly attacking and going
after. She was living with them, giving them money. She
was giving money to, Uh, the people who started the
Charlottesville, um, protests on the people on the right. And
that came out. And what's funny is Alex Jones literally
came out like two days after it said that's an
SPLC operation. He's like, there's no way all those theater
kids are conservative. And he was calling the guys carrying
torches with the, uh, With the khaki pants on, you
know, gay theater kids, essentially. Wow. And, you know, he
called it and it came out. And, you know, now
the government's like, yeah, like $300,000 to the SPLC gave
to the people to do this Charlottesville thing to basically
stir up crap. Which led to Biden jumping into the
race and then Kamala also. You know, that's why Biden
said he had to do it because of Charlottesville and
because Trump said there were good people on both sides.
So it's amazing. The truth does come out eventually, but
it does take a while. Season of reveal, brother. Want
to play these Heidi clips before we go? Exactly. Yeah,
we can play them. This is actually a video that
I edited this morning that I actually already played on
Alex's show. So the first part is just her talking
about the hate and extremism, and it ends with a
Fox News clip, how they arrested her. And then I
tie in... I tie in Hillary Clinton into this and
how – so let's play the first clip and then
we'll play the second one and then I'll bow out.
There you go, everybody. We got it on tape. Rob
Dew. Yes, here it is. We got it all on
tape. We got it. It was breaking. This is unbelievable.
I think white supremacy is one of the worst things
mankind has come up with. Well, I can have a
direct impact. on these movements. Heidi Byrick is leader of
the Intelligence Project here at the Southern Poverty Law Center,
a non-profit anti-terror organization. The number of hate groups has
been... increasing pretty rapidly and frighteningly, really since 2000. White
people, one nation, and immigration! White supremacists commit far more
acts of domestic terrorism in the United States than ...than
radical Islamists, for example. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which
of course claims to be an anti-white group, was actually
funding hate. The feds say the SPLC used donor money...
to reimburse Klansmen from the KKK for cross-burnings and even
their notorious white robes. Can you believe it? They're also
accused of paying white nationalists and KKK members to stay
in those respective groups, even when the people said they
wanted out. There's incredible information only here, alexjoneslive.com, it's just
unbelievable what But I called it two days after those
theater kids in Charlottesville. And he really did. And those
clips are later on in it. But so after all
this Charlottesville stuff, or actually this is before Charlottesville when
Trump was still running. Hillary Clinton goes on a –
and it's about August of – 2016, so about 10
years ago, she went on a speech and tries to
tie Alex Jones to Donald Trump, but also to 9-11
truth, Oklahoma City truth, saying he didn't believe those happened.
Also Sandy Hook. She calls Alex – she says Alex
has a dark heart. But she's tying basically – Alex,
who back in – we got a FOIA request back
in 2013. The FBI opened an investigation on him, and
we got the actual – we literally got the documents
that were in this video. Got the documents. And he
was – literally – He was labeled a racially motivated
extremist by the Obama FBI. Really? With a type 3
assessment out of the Boston field office. I mean, we
actually got the documents. And we had Kyle Serafim, who's
a former FBI agent, analyze me. He's like, yep, this
is the Boston field office. And this had to be
renewed every three months. Wow. So from... 2013 to whenever
they were every three months looking at this 90 days
looking at this going yeah we're going to keep looking
at him so but by time by saying he's a
racially motivated extremist then you could put certain designations on
him which is. go after your banking. They go after
different things. So really, and this was right after, I
think this happened within three months after the Sandy Hook
tragedy happened, but before the If you look at the
history of it, when Alex Jones went on Piers Morgan
in January after Sandy Hook, and Piers Morgan didn't ask
him anything controversial except they were talking about guns the
whole time. And they're saying, oh, Alex said this and
that. Well, he wasn't saying it then because there were
no questions being asked him at the time about whether
the event happened or not. That was never – You
know, that was never a thing. And definitely at that
time. Of course, we had questions later. But I think,
you know, people are asking questions now still about Charlie
Kirk. You know, I mean, people don't believe anything anymore,
which is... You wonder why. You look at the media,
and that's why people don't trust anything. But this starts
with Hillary Clinton, and it ends with Alex's attorney, Norm
Pattis, who kind of boils it all together about how
the SPLC was kind of brought in and – and
massaging this data. And they actually were deposed to be
in the Sandy Hook trial, but they ended up not
using him. So they were definitely heavily involved in all
this. And it's now all kind of coming out, you
know, 10 years later, which is crazy. It's also what
happens when you listen to the radio host, Alex Jones.
No, no. who claims that 9-11 and the Oklahoma City
bombings were inside jobs. And a lot of the ferment
and activity, the protests, the rallies and whatnot, are circulated
around the alt-right groups right now, in particular groups that
attach themselves directly to Donald Trump's campaign. But Trump doesn't
challenge these lies. He actually went on Jones' show and
said... your reputation is amazing I will not let you
down we came up with this idea that we should
sue these folks in civil court to bankrupt them our
hope is that by taking their money away they can't
function anymore and that was successful yes every single one
of them has been successful obviously when these groups don't
have money that means there's less violence that they can
perpetrate you know the whole idea is to not allow
them to function. Today, my understanding is today there was
an arrest made and there is a new indictment that
includes the former CFO of SPLC. I wonder whether it
was a result of sort of SPLC-funded agitprop, whether they
were able to get the ear of the Sandy Hook
lawyers and say none. no, no, there's more, there's more,
there's more. Wow. So pretty crazy how it all kind
of ties together. Not really. Things that are said out
there. Rob, brother, thank you so much. It's wild, though,
when you actually have the documents. You got the documents.
It was awesome. Please tell Alex I said hi. Tell
Alex Tina said hi. He's a teddy bear. We love
him. Disagree with him on a lot of things, but
he's a good guy. So tell him I said hey.
And thank you so much, brother. I'd love to have
you back whenever you can. That would be fantastic. Yeah,
yeah, I can definitely Sunday is a lot more open.
So if you want to do Sunday again, we can
keep going on this. This is definitely crazy times we're
living in. I tell you, every day is like a
whole new adventure, it seems like. No kidding. Brother, thank
you again. Really appreciate it. God bless. And we'll talk
very soon, I promise. All right. Value for value. Long
live JCB. Yeah, yeah. Time to dissect. The narrative shit's
wild, son. Then it's a good thing. There's no commercial
break. Homer's height ballroom fight fever in the text. Media
spin the story to the real ones next. Economic jury
temporary tenant flexing. We'll be right back. We'll be right
back. The story to the real ones. Pretending flex and
the show we dissected in the restaurant. No agenda in
the morning. No agenda in the morning. No. The creep,
the creep, the creeps
Heroes Yeah, yeah, Just Baker. Thank you very much. I
know. The troll room is like, what's going on? I
decided to do something different. Shake it up a little
bit. Instead of playing everything end of show makes, we'll
just play them as a little break. Not quite long
enough for me to go to the bathroom, but not
bad. Before we thank people who supported the show. There
is pretty important trial going on against Meta, which I
think is also, of course, politically motivated for the midterms.
We know that Mark Zuckerberg is now friends with with
President Trump, or at least that's the way he's being
portrayed. And this this is a big one. And this
could have very far reaching consequences for all social media.
Inside an Oakland, California courthouse, a former meta engineer is
the first person to testify in the landmark federal trial.
against the tech giant. Twenty-nine states are suing the company,
claiming Meta's social media platforms are designed to be addictive
and harmful to children. Meta has denied those claims. But
I want to bring in editor-in-chief at PCMag, Wendy Sheehan-Donnell,
to break down this case and other tech news for
us. Wendy, the first witness has taken the stand today.
What are they saying? Hi. First of all, thanks for
having me. Happy to be here. So he said basically
what you said. You know, so Arturo Bahar, this former
engineer, basically is saying that the company is putting growth
before child safety. So Bahar, I guess, helped run studies
on teen experiences at Instagram, and they revealed high rates
of negative and harmful content exposure among young people. people.
Excuse me, he claimed to have flagged multiple concerns, often
to like Zuckerberg himself. So he has... Also stated that
meta deliberately downplayed addiction metrics. So not so far, not
so great for Facebook. Certainly not for the meta team
there. Yeah, so they're talking about a trillion dollars worth
of fines, multiple states, which is that's going to leave
a mark. And as a tribute to my friend and
partner, John C. Dvorak, how could I not at least
bring in one or maybe even two clips of Kara
Swisher? Topping our tech lead today, Metta, facing what could
be its most consequential social media addiction legal fight yet.
Today, opening arguments began in the federal trial where Meta
is accused of purposely designing features to get children Addicted
to its many platforms. Meta denies the allegations. Four states,
California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, are collectively seeking $1.4
trillion in damages and changes to how Meta's platforms operate.
Joining us to discuss is CNN contributor Kara Swisher. Kara,
who do you think has the stronger case here, the
states or Meta? Well, it depends. There's a lot of
cases, and that's what's going on here. This is a
little bit like the cigarette companies as they began their
journey to obscurity, really, in terms of their... their strength
versus where they are now. They're still big businesses, but
they definitely got hit hard. And so that's where we
are. We're in that sort of existential moment. This is
an important case. And I thought what really struck me
was the opening. The attorneys have kind of got the
argument down well with this hook, hold, harvest, hide idea
as they hook users. They harvest as much as they
can about the data. And then I'm sorry, hold them
as long as they can harvest as much data and
then hide the truth. I thought that was a pretty
powerful statement. But it's about product liability instead of Section
230 and the other things that have protected these companies
for so long. What's interesting about the comparison with big
tobacco is big tobacco is still big tobacco. But what
these states are probably going to go after is the
same thing that happened. And I need to talk to
Rob, the constitutional lawyer, because, you know, Rob used to
be on the other side of things. And I hope
he's listening. So he'll let me know. I'm sure was
the master. I'm sure. The master settlement agreement, I think
it was called, where every single state gets X amount
of tax money from tobacco sales to, you know, that
is supposed originally intended to. for health care for people
who were dying of lung cancer and other smoking-related illnesses.
I'm pretty sure that at this point that's been folded
into state budgets, which is why When vaping became popular,
that had to go away right away because it's not
tobacco. It's only nicotine. And all the states were going
to lose all of this tobacco tax revenue. So it
could come down to that, which would be interesting for
the states to tax or for there to be some
kind of statewide, maybe federally mandated tax in a master
settlement agreement. But hopefully I'll have more news on that
for you on Sunday. Here's Kara again. Even if the
court ultimately awards smaller damage, instead of $1.4 trillion. The
four states are also seeking changes to how Meta's platforms
operate. What changes could that be? How would it theoretically
fundamentally change Meta? Well, you could see what happened in
New Mexico, where they think they're on the hook for
900 million. In this case, many people think it'll be
around two, even the states, 200 billion. You know, it's
got to be a significant number. Infinite scrolling. The way
they deal with teens and how they bring teens in
and keeping teens off the platform. All manner of addictive
things they try to do to keep you there. Disclosure
of privacy of what they're taking from you. The harvest,
really. All manner of things. But there's just all kinds
of things they could do. And then a disclosure of
the impact that they know they're having on people. Not,
again, unsimilar to the cigarette trials that went on. And
there were hundreds of them before they really started to
hurt these companies. So over $1 trillion. Let's listen to
the prosecutor in the case because, you know, it's –
It's marketing on their part, but I think there's so
much truth to it. And, of course, this is always
about the children. Think of the children. Please think of
the children. I would say adults have more knowledge. issues
with addictiveness of social media and algorithms than children at
this point. So this is for you, kids. Good afternoon,
everyone. I'm Rob Bonta, California Attorney General. Thank you for
being here in Oakland. And so we are teaming up
here in our efforts to hold Meta accountable. Today, of
course, was the first day of trial. It'll be a
five to seven week trial. But today, both... the attorneys
general and meta laid out our cases and i'm probably
biased but i found our case to be incredibly compelling
devastating in the presentation the jury seemed very focused on
hanging on every word that was being said and we
of course heard from the first witness a whistleblower engineer
from meta who was in charge of of child safety
while there who talked about the fact that Metta knew
the harms that it was visiting upon children but failed
to act. He also talked about their motto, their culture,
if you will, which was to move fast and break
things. Unfortunately, the thing that was broken here was the
mental health of our children. Oh, there you go. That's
a good one. Mental health of our children and their
parents. And. It's not looking good for Meta, and this
is much less about Facebook and more about Instagram. Highly
addictive and I think very successful for advertising. The influencer
market is all about Instagram. That's where advertising money is
flowing. And Meta was not honest when they were asked
about Instagram. their practices in Congress. We laid out our
case today, which is essentially this, that Meta has designed
and deployed dangerous product, a dangerous product with dangerous features
that they knew would create excessive use and compulsive use
by children, and it would create mental health harms, including
things like anxiety and depression, like body image issues, like
addictive tendencies, like learning loss. They knew ourselves. all that.
They knew their product was dangerous, and they lied to
the public. They lied to Congress. They told the public.
They told the world that their product was safe, that
it wasn't dangerous. And so their deception, their lies are
at the core of our case. And we are excited
about how our first day of trial went. We're excited
about the opportunity to hold Metta accountable for its conduct.
And we look forward to taking this case all the
way to the end here and getting the appropriate remedies,
both injunctive relief, changes in behavior, changes in business practices
going forward, as well as the appropriate financial penalties. I'm
telling you, I got to get Rob, the constitutional lawyer,
on to talk about this because it feels... It feels
so much like the tobacco trials, which I witnessed. And
maybe even Dana Brunetti produced the social network. I wonder
if he has any insights of what really went on.
A couple of things I want to highlight. Between our
investigation and our investigation, and disclosures from former insiders, whistleblowers,
folks who used to work at Meta. We have proof
that Meta knows that Metta knows that Instagram is harmful
to a significant percentage of teenagers. How about breaking boomers?
The boomers are broken from this stuff, not just teenagers.
Expand, expand the lawsuit. Especially teen girls.
Meta knows that. Meta knows that more than 13% of
teen girls on Instagram say the platform makes thoughts of
suicide and self-injury worse. Meta knows that. They know that
17% say it makes eating issues worse. And 32% say
it makes body images worse. Meta knows that. Meta knows
that certain key features can push users into harmful content.
Meta knows that the like button leads teens to compulsively
engage with the platform. Meta knew all of that and
more quickly. and decided to do more of it, to
dig in deeper, to double down on that conduct, on
those practices. And now the kicker. Zuckerberg himself overruled his
staff who thought this was a bad idea. Mark Zuckerberg.
Founder? Chairman? CEO of Meta? personally personally. Axed Meta's proposed
policy to ban image filters that simulated the effects of
plastic surgery despite internal pushback. From his own team. His
own employees were telling him he shouldn't do this. And
an expert consensus that such filters harm users' mental health,
especially women and girls. Mr. Zuckerberg himself chose profits over
the safety of children. He was presented with a choice.
Where his own staff was telling him, this will hurt
kids if you do it. We think you shouldn't do
it. And he overruled them and said, do it. Knowingly
harming kids. And then later, telling the world that their
product was safe. Okay, yes, go on. I want to
get this out there because I am a proud nutfister.
You know what I do? I'll just take the bag,
the whole bag, as much as I can in my
mouth. If you're grabbing the nuts like this with your
fingers, and you're trying to get more than one at
a time, which of course is normal, and you're going
to put them in your mouth. I mean, they're pushing
together, they're spraying out, they're dropping everywhere. I mean, the
most logical way is you take them, you let them
sit in your fist, and then you shake them into
your mouth. Now you take the nut bag... Take the
whole bag of nuts, the whole bag into your fist
and shake them. It looks like you're a jackass. Oh
my God, I'm one of those guys that you would
be fucking losing your mind over. Take how many nuts
you want in your palm, like just take the nuts
in your mouth that way. You get some salt in
your palm, that's about it. That's the way you eat
the nuts. Okay. That's good. Just take as much as
I can in my mouth and have maybe penis in
my mouth. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I like those
two ways. It's like right to your balls. Big swollen
balls and big giant basketball-sized balls. You can do two
fists. No. No good. No good. Hey, a remix of
Carbacal. Classic, the fisting nuts. I thank you, ID Pop,
for JC's Deez Nuts. We'll put that in the show
notes. Value for Value podcast always will be, always has
been working in our 19th year. We can do at
least 20. I'm pretty sure of that. Very simple. All
you have to do is... Decide to send some value
back to the show if you got any value out
of it. It's really that easy. It's time, talents, treasure.
What we ask is that whenever you think, oh, man,
that was good. That helped me. There was some reason
that this was good for me. You can organize a
meetup. Then we got a lot of them on deck
for today. You can, you know, tell people about the
podcast. That's been working out pretty well in the past
18 plus years. And obviously you can also send us
your treasure and we'll be thanking people. executive producers, associate
executive producers, and above $50, never below $50 for reasons
of anonymity. I want to thank the artist for episode
1895 titled XY You're Out. Francisco Scaramanga was chosen by
Darren and Larry with the electric glove, I guess the
shock glove that – has been a topic of discussion
for ice. NoahGenerator.com. I wasn't a part of the decision
for that one, so I can't really comment on any
of the other ones, but I'll be happy to do
that on Sunday's show. Looking forward to that. And... Now,
I'll thank the people who have supported us with their
treasure. Got quite a few of them, starting off with
Jim and Catherine Boudreau, I think it is, from Carlisle,
Massachusetts. They sent in $2,000, and I don't know, this
might have been a check, and they have a note.
which I will read. Adam Mimi and the Dvorak family,
in honor of John, no jingles, no karma, no titles.
Okay, $2,000, you sure? You can always come back. We'll
keep it in abeyance for you. Thank you all for
No Agenda, which is our go-to source for media deconstruction
and an effective mood lifter that is addicting with good
side effects. We'll deeply miss John and his perspective on
so many things that us boomers share. With deep, heartfelt
sympathy, we pray for John, Mimi, and their family. We'll
continue to listen to Adam & Co. wherever that leads
us. Godspeed to Noah Jen the Nation, V2 2.0. Sincerely,
Jim and Catherine Boudreau from Carlisle, Massachusetts. Thank you. Then
we have a note from the, this is the Fort
Lauderdale meetup. This is the one that Andrew Horowitz hosted.
$615 total donation from producers for meetup 88. And I've
been asked to read these notes. Here we go. Beach
House Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale was a success. We met
beautiful people from near and far. uh fredericks maryland no
less fredericksburg maybe just fredericks shared stories laughed commiserated and
connected because connection is protection jcd's podcasting partner of 18
plus years andrew horowitz from dh unplugged joined us with
trivia and prizes and said the show will go on
be patient and keep listening uh excuse me From Scott
Auld, part of the meetup, sending condolences and love to
the Dvorak and Curry families and all of Noah Jenner
Nation. Thank you for your courage, your friends at Winning
the Week with Scott Auld. From Sir Skibbity. Please, there's
my son, Jens Mathra. A happy 20th birthday. I'm pretty
sure we did that on the previous episode. From Michelle
and Sir Skibidi, if Adam has any hot tips about
Jens testing for his fixed-wing pilot's license, yeah, I remember
this one, in a few weeks, that will be a
bonus. My donation is for his future knighthood, but it's
also an investment in the continued operation of both No
Agenda and DH Unplugged. From Lipset, I'll see you next
time. Leslie Hoxahatchee. My love and prayers go out to
Mimi and family, Adam and family, and the entire No
Agenda family. As many have also experienced, I was hit
hard and feel like I lost a family member. Thank
you, Dame Free Free and Andrew Horowitz from DH Unplugged
for organizing an incredible JCD memorial. We had a wonderful
turnout and a great time remembering together. I hope you
can continue this incredible legacy. It makes a huge positive
difference in my life and I know in the lives
of others. Love you, mean it. Just send your cash
from Chimp and Captain Brunch, Daryl and Larry. Thank you,
Daryl and Larry. Thank you for keeping the show going.
God bless and peace out. Stan Whitten, $333.88, an obvious
J.C. nod there from Perry, Florida. Says, in the morning
I was hit in the mouth by Adam on his
first Glenn Beck appearance. I wonder if Glenn Beck has
left the blaze and now he's got the torch and
he's moved to Florida. I don't know if it's going
to be easy to get on anymore. I'd like to.
I tuned in because he said John C. Dvorak was
involved. I loved hearing John's voice of reason on the
Twit network until I could no longer stomach listening to
nearly every other voice there. I have to say now,
though, that Adam's conversion and his unabashed love of Jesus
Christ has been a true godsend for me. Amen. It's
added a depth to my faith, and I didn't realize
I needed it. Please keep going in that direction, Adam.
I'm certain that you are changing lives. Well, that's exactly
why I started We Get to Do This with Pastor
Jimmy, WGTDT.com. I heard about JCD's passing on the We
Get to Do This podcast. Well, there you go. Hit
me like a ton of bricks. I will mirror what
so many others have said. I can't believe how deeply
I've been affected by the loss of a man I
never personally knew. His wit, clarity, and humor were a
part of my life, and the world genuinely feels different
without him. I hear you. Prayers and love to the
entire Dvorak family and loved ones. You want to please
de-douche me? You've been de-douched. Thank you for everything you
continue to do in memo format to honor JCD and
get this on the record. Thank you to John Roberts,
Redlands, California, $250, associate executive producership for you. So sad
to learn of JCD's passing. My condolences to the Dvorak
family for their loss. I have followed JCD since the
1980s, Byte, Tech TV, Twit, and No Agenda. JCD is
witty, fiercely independent, great sense of humor, skilled and irreplaceable.
Amen to that, John Roberts. And there's Linda Lepatkin coming
in from Castle Rock, Colorado. Thank you for sticking with
the show, Linda, $200. And she says, AI can write
your resume. The problem is... It can write everyone else's,
too. Linda helps professionals and executives figure out what makes
them different, what makes them valuable, and turns...
that value into a resume that gets results. Go to
ImageMakersInc.com. That's ImageMakersInc with a K. And Linda Liu, Duchess
of Jobs, writer of resumes, because your resume should do
more than look good. Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs. Let's
vote for jobs. Yay! Nisah. Karma. Paul Krulik from Binghamton,
New York. $200. Also sent in a note. He says,
Darren and Larry, you're rocking it. John, if you can
hear me. When you got to heaven and met Jesus,
I hope you didn't give him a wine recommendation. I
hear he's pretty good at making his own. Also, when
you drank his wine, capital H, I hope you didn't
say Costco, $15. That might get you a transfer to
a hot place. Thank you, Paul. That is actually it
for our executive and associate executive producers for episode 1896.
Now, you know that besides being credited in the show
notes, that means that you also can take these official
Hollywood credits and use them anywhere they are recognized. I
recommend going to imdb.com. It's not auto. By the way,
some people said, hey, man, I got an associate executive
producership, but I wasn't on IMDB.com. You got to do
that part yourself. But when you go there, you'll see
that it'll be recognized along with thousands of other associate
and executive producers. Our formula is this. We go out.
We hit people in the mouth. We hit people in
the mouth. West! Running down the rest of our list,
50 and above, Sir Jules Reed in Salem, Oregon, 18888.
Thank you. There's Nathan Cochran from Mercy Me coming in
from Franklin, Tennessee. Thank you, Nathan. Multiple knighthoods for you.
You really need to claim your new title, my good
sir. 123.45, Mansoor Rod in Alpharetta, Georgia, Alpharetta. Also, one,
two, three, four, five. Eric Kessler, Kansas City, Missouri, 100.
Keep up the deconstructing of media. This pushes me into
a night. Oh, wonderful. I think we'll see you on
the show. At the roundtable. Mitch Free from Concord, California,
$100. He says, always knew this day would come and
still doesn't make it any easier. Rest in peace, JCD.
You are one of a kind. I recently tweeted my
enthusiasm for the new direction of the show, which got
tons of engagement and promised to donate. So here it
is. James Hawkins, Sam Marcos, California, 100. Countess Knight from
Edmonds, Washington, 100. Amy Yoder from Forest Hill, Missouri, 100.
Benjamin Ditzler from Chattanooga, Tennessee, 9364. And he says, your
wisdom has shaped how I view the world, and I'm
a better man because of it. Rest in peace, John
C. Dvorak. Baronet Baylor, Grafton, Wisconsin, 8888. Make good for
me. I donated 8888 on 8-9. PayPal was strange, but
my CC shows payments and returns. No money went to
you, but my note did. So here's the make good.
Baronet Baylor, a.k.a. Sir Cameron Chris. Thank you. Sir Brindlehorse,
Mount Laurel, New Jersey, 8888. And he says he wants
an F cancer for his dad, who shook his head
and says, there's no way Dvorak is younger than me.
Oh, there you go. Stop me, Dad! You've got karma.
We always break for the F cancers. Rita Harrington... Dame
Rita Nara Harrington from Sparks, Nevada, 8833. Much appreciation to
you guys and all the No Agenda producers. Thank you
for your courage. Sir Kevin McLaughlin, there he is with
the boob donation, $80.08, Concord, North Carolina. He says he's
the Archduke of Luna, lover of America and boobs. We
know it. Thank you so much. Justin Texera, Lakeland, Florida,
80080. Also, the boobs coming in from Ted McLeod Morris
in Harvard, Illinois. And we've got 6996 from Dame Becky
in Arlington, Washington. And the small boobs from Les Tarkowski
in Kingman, Arizona, 6006. Like Adam said, small boobs. Never
thought of the Route 66. I guess it may have
a dual meaning. Yes, it could. Scott McEntee. Encinitas, California,
60. Baron Henry of Outpost West in Ranchos Palos Verdes,
California, 59.92. No beret, $58.30. Congratulations to you, No Agenda.
TNG for some fabulous shows. Both I and Austrian Anarchy
vote for you to recruit Sir Gene of Texas to
the show and talk some Tyler Robinson and Candace Owens
action. Really? Is that really what you want? Or get
his buddy dude named Ben named Ben of Texas to
speak truth about the agents of Rome. Okay, I'd like
to talk to him about some power stuff, you know,
like data center power. Send love and crullers to Curry,
please. No underscore beret at x.com for pointy chicks and
Mopars. Totally not a spook. Gotcha. Double nickels on the
dime from Dean Roker. Thank you. Corey Cotton from Cleveland
Heights, Ohio. Also double nickels on the dime. August 22nd
birthday donation. Corey Cotton, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. 55 trips around
the sun on the 22nd. Also the 25th anniversary of
my first skydive. What else can be said about JCD?
We all miss him a lot. Good vibes to the
Dvorak family. Blue skies to Buzzkill. Kevin Kincaid, Belton, Missouri,
55. Craig Knowlesley in Cumberland, B.C., 5430. Says I'm up
to episode 51. Wow. Going back from episode one. No
agenda is not about media deconstruction. It's all about wine
and restaurant reviews. It certainly was then. Now I'm waiting
on how the Obama MILF in the Curry condo building
pans out. It didn't work out. Love you guys. No
homo. Catherine McLaughlin, Boise, Idaho, $5,272. Kento, Rourke, Frostburg, Maryland,
$5,272. Andrew Benz, Imperial, Missouri, $50. and a nickel. These
are the 50s. Linda Reed, Glenview, Illinois, Scott Lavender, Montgomery,
Texas, Noah McDonald, Traverse City, Michigan, Michael Sikora, Lake Elmo,
Minnesota, Rich Malloy, Greenwich... Connecticut. Thank you for all the
great listening pleasure you've given me over these many years.
It was my pleasure and honor to be one of
your many assistant producers. I think you mean associate executive
producers, but assistant is good, too. Thank you. Amy Galinas
in Burien, Washington. Grant Clift. Cherryville, North Carolina. Andrew Gusek
in Greensboro, North Carolina. Terrence Boyer, Tuscola, Illinois. Ryan Aceto
in Argyle, Texas. Leanne Shipley, Covington, Washington. And Jason Marr
winds out our 50s. And he is from Vancouver, Washington.
Thank you all so much. We appreciate the support. Continue
to support all your favorite podcasts. especially if they're value
for value. You know, Spotify these days is throwing up
skip buttons for ads that they didn't sell. The system
is kind of breaking at the seams, but I think
No Agenda is a fine example of how Things can
work without commercials, without corporate money. Value for value. Go
to noagendadonations.com. Consider setting up a recurring donation. Any amount,
any frequency that you wish, it's all up to you.
When you get the value, send it back. Noagendadonations.com. It's
a brand. I say... And just in case we didn't
do it, I thought we did, Sir Skibbity wishes his
son Jens Mathery a very happy birthday. Here you turn
20 on August 12th. And don't worry about your fixed-wing
license. It's a license to fly. You'll do fine. And
Corey Cotton turns 55 on the 22nd. Happy birthday from
everybody here at the best podcast in the universe. It's
your birthday, yeah. We do not have any title changes.
We do, however, have two knightings, and we missed one
from Dennis Hahn. He says, I'm just getting caught up
on last week's shows, and for show 1893, en banc,
I donated $93.64 to the show, which put me over
the threshold for knighthood. Larry read my note with my
request to be knighted, Sir Zephyr of the Valley. Defender
of the lands of cows and beer. When it came
time for the nighting ceremony, Darren neglected to include my
name with the other knights. Oh, no. Sir Hasmaticus, when
he called the new knights to step up to the
podium. I realize with the chaos of the past couple
of weeks and Darren and Larry getting the lay of
the land with the show, things can get missed. So
I'd like to request that I be included in Thursday's
night. Yes, Dennis Hahn, Menominee. Menominee. Oh, Menominee. Beautiful. Menominee
Falls in Wisconsin. So I will only one blade here,
but you'll just have to do it with mine if
you don't mind. Dennis Hahn, step right up, sir. You,
along with Eric Kessler, now both become Knights of the
No Agenda Roundtable, and I'm very proud to pronounce the
KB as Sir Eric Kessler and Sir Zephyr of the
Valley, Defender of Lands of Cows and Beer. For you,
we've got some cows and beer. Also, hookers and blow,
rent boys and chardonnay, cookies and vodka, rye whiskey and
a fistful of nuts, melancholy. Yellow, Yellow, Zero. We've got
Costco, Cabernet, Sauvignon. If that doesn't do it for you,
Ruben S, Ruben and Wave, Rosé, Gaisha's and Sake, Vodka,
Manila, Bonghead Suburban, Sparkling Cider and Esports, Ginger Ale and
Gerbils, Crest Milk and Pablam, and as always at the
round table, the mutton and the mead. Welcome. Go to
noagendarings.com. You still have some beautiful rings for dames and
for knights. All we need is your ring size. There
is a ring sizing guide right there. You can use
that. Send that off to us with an address to
send your ring. And welcome to the roundtable. Also, we'll
have a special order of the ants. pin, which I
believe was teased in the newsletter. If not, we'll put
it in for Sunday so you can see that. This
will be something very special and ramp up to the
now in production No Agenda Johnson
memorial challenge coin, which is just stellar to see. I've
seen the renderings of it. I can't wait for everybody
to be able to get a hold of one of
those. Thank you again for supporting us. No agenda donations
dot com. No agenda. Be up. All right, we got
a lot of meetup reports, which is great. Most of
these are JCD memorial meetups. This is the IDPOP report.
Oh. Hit it. There's no agenda meetup at the Alibi
Room in Vancouver. This is Sir Peption, or Winston Smith,
or Tim Wright, or whatever you want to call me.
It's been a great time. Here's our host... It's ID
Pop here in Railtown, Vancouver, B.C. No zephyrs to report,
but it is like a party. Hello, future Dame Claudette
in the morning. Glad to be here with the crew.
Connection is protection. We miss you, John. We miss you,
John. In the morning, my name is Ella. I'm from
Vancouver, B.C. And I serve the No Agenda podcast show
at the Alibi Room in Gaston. Adios, mofos. Hui hui.
No sweat off my balls. Here's the Bay Area Abe's
Exit Strategy Meetup Report. That's right. Hello, this is Abe
from Abe's Exit Strategy from the Bay Area Meetup Report.
Hello. This is Sir Recalcitrant Crazy Steve II. I just
want to say rest in peace to JCD. And also
congratulations to Abe moving to the Central Valley and working
with his chemistry teacher. This is Sareesh Meister. We miss
you, John. We love you. So, dude, name Ben, name
Ben. Duke of San Francisco. I am greatly missing JCD,
and we're having wonderful stories and just memories and nostalgia
here. In the morning. In the morning. In the morning.
R.I.P. John. R.I.P. John. R.I.P. John, indeed. R.I.P. Aww. Langley,
British Columbia. Hey, we're here at the WWJCDD meetup in
Aldergrove. We wanted to think about and remember John. We
had some wine, we had some mac and cheese, and
we remembered a great man. This is ID Pop, raising
a glass of red and dando some mac and cheese
in honor of John C. In the morning. Ah, yes.
Kraft sock is up on the amount of mac and
cheese that has been consumed in the wake of John's
passing. And here's a long one, but this was a
big one and a good one. It was the Northern
Silicon Valley in memory of John meetup. In the morning.
This is Sir Recalces and Crazy Steve II here. Here.
at the northern Silicon Valley in memory of JCD meetup.
And I am so grateful for these meetups and all
the friends that JCD helped me obtain. Sir Julian here,
celebrating the life of JCD. Is anyone going to eat
that meatloaf? Aaron, Night of the Strawberry Fog here. Thoughts
and prayers. Hey, it's Josh in the morning to Johnny
Ogden and Rodney out there in memory of JCD. So
wonderful to connect with all the No Agenda producers. And
I got a Sun Microsoft beanie hat out of it.
This is Angela Garcia from San Francisco, RIP JCD. This
is Sir Tim Death. Thank you for your courage. Lydia
of the Shire here at Pizzeria Violetta, they were so
good to us. And dear John, everyone misses you. Sir
Montauk, what a meetup. This is Abe. I'm here at
the meetup, maintaining connections for my protection. Rest in peace,
John. This is Sir Reichmeister. We miss you, John. We
love you. Thank you for everything you've done. Thank you.
this is sir dude named benonymous thank you jcd rip
and thank you for your courage this is dame audra
we miss you john this is dr don and guide
dog brody love to the devorex curries and horowitz's we
miss you john Black Knight Robert celebrating the best podcast
in the universe. Woo! Amy from the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Keep the community going. Peace, everyone. This is Jay. Just
thank you for a wonderful meetup. Yeah, Brennan the deadbeat
and the voice. Holding the fort down here in northern
Silicon Valley. This is Dame Lindsay of the House Hunters.
I brought 33 pounds of cookies for Milana, and this
is my sister Lauren on the slide whistle. Ah! This
dude named Ben, named Ben, Duke of San Francisco, and
the spirit of JCD is alive and well at this
meetup. We're all just having such a fantastic time. Connections
protection. This is Sir Lavish the Red, and I know
more about the vinegar book than you could possibly imagine.
Baroness Sarah Rupert of Pizzeria Violetta, otherwise known as Violet's
Mom. We ate pineapple on the pizza in John's memory.
This is Sir Jonathan of Pizzeria Violetta. Just happy to
be part of this and celebrate the life of JCD.
And in case anyone's wondering, I ate the meatloaf. This
is... Who am I? Mimi? This is Mimi. And John,
you missed a great meetup. This is one of the
best. Of course, maybe it was because you weren't here.
It was so great. This is JC, John's son, and
all you douchebags out there, it's finally time to donate.
Thank you. That's how it's done. That's how it's done.
In the morning! A few more to go, Syl. Here's
Riverside, California, Leo Bravo doing his 79th meetup. Hey, everybody.
It's Leo Bravo at meetup number 79. Hello. Hello. Here
in Riverside meeting up, sharing stories of JCD. So glad
I got to experience his presence and study under him
and get my Ph.D. under the professor JCD. Hey guys,
ITM, Baron OG Godcaster here. All the best to everybody.
Lovely lady Leanne here. And I just want to say
we are praying for you and we love you guys.
And we look forward to seeing what's going to come
in the future. Have a wonderful evening. ITM. Sir dude
named Mike from Not That Paris here. R.I.P. John. Hey,
guys. It's Sir Leah Kim Fopop. I'm saying R.I.P. John.
And Rush is the greatest Canadian band ever. Greetings. This
is Angie from the Ranch hanging out at Leo Bravo's
meetup over at Hangar 24. Having a great time. Still
sending all our love to Mimi and the family. Good
morning. From California, we go to Rockaway Beach with Joe,
Tony, and Johnny C. Hey, this is Joe in Rockaway
Beach doing the media report. We got Tony and John
here. Let me say hi. This is Tony C. I
do name Tony C. RIP JCV. This is Johnny C.
RIP John C. Dvorak. I've been reading your material ever
since InfoWorld way back in the day. Awesome. And here's
our awesome Gloria server. Hi, I'm Katie. I'm from Rockaway
Beach Pickleball and Golf. These guys were awesome to have
here today. I really appreciated having their company. Booyah! RIP
JCD. I love it when you get the servers on.
You've got to include them in your report. They can
plug their establishment. Do that more often. Three Mile Island,
the evac zone. Summer toast to John is our last
one. This is Chris with the Three Mile Island evac
zone. Toast to John summer meetup. John once gave me
a B on my limerick after many C's. It's JC.
with the great re-tease, which John was infatuated by. One
episode when I made a donation, he said the great
re-tease four or five times. It's Sir 737 here with
Mrs. 737. We are here memorializing the great and wonderful
John C. Dvorak, who can never be replaced, but we
look forward to what is to come for the No
Agenda show and the meetup community. We'll miss your 3x3s,
John. I'm sad to say I'm still a douchebag, but
I hope to fix that someday. John, you're long and
gone, but I think you did it on purpose. This
is Amish Anonymous. You called me a Mish Anonymous too
many times. Anyway, old age and treachery will always conquer
youth and ambition. Just keep that in mind before you
get out of line there, Adam. John T. DeBorak, a
great man. We will miss you dearly. Mr. Gears, night
of secondhand memes. Over and out. John, we'll miss you.
No one can replace you. But... we're looking forward to
the future. This is Sir Bebenauer, first time in a
meet-up. Just want to send love and light to the
Currys and the Dvoraks. Hey there, it's Sir Parker Pauly.
Greetings
from Pennsylvania. A great group of people here. My condolences
to Mimi and the Dvorak, to Adam and Tina. Just
lift up No Agenda Nation. We're honored to raise a
glass and fist some nuts in celebration of John. And
I'm the server. This is a great group. We really
love you. I enjoyed having them at Evergreen. Love it.
Another server. Thank you so much, everybody. Love those meetup
reports. Keep them coming. Today, there is a Charlotte's Thirsty
Third Thursday meetup at Ed's Tavern in Charlotte, North Carolina
at 7 o'clock. On Friday, the ITM Richmond Empty Room
at Tribal... Crossing in Fulton, Richmond, Virginia at 4.30. Saturday,
we've got Fort Wayne Club 33 JC Wine Review and
Vinegar Book meet up at 1 o'clock in Cibala's Mexican
Grill in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Also on Saturday, the I
Don't Buy It, just Chicago, JCD Memorial, 2 o'clock at
Island Pizza Hut in Chicago, Illinois. The 22nd, also Saturday,
let's honor the legendary JCD, 6 o'clock at JJ's Pie
Company in Reno, Nevada. Flippers and the formula on Saturday,
2 o'clock in Chattanooga at the Pinball Museum in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. On Sunday, the Indy NA August JCD Greek slash
Irish Wake. That's going to be a banger. It's Dame
Maria and Sir Mark of the Greenwood, 3 o'clock at
Blind Owl Brewery in Indianapolis, Indiana. You've got to beat
that one. Also, the Antichrist. in the Antipods, or Antipodes,
Antipodes, 3.33, Aussie East Standard Time, that is at the
Gasoline Pony in New South Wales, Aussie Land. Sir Chris
the Drunken Minstrel will be hosting that, so please go,
I want to hear a meetup report. The Central Arkansas
JCD Memorial meetup will also take place on Sunday at
6. 6 o'clock in Arkansas, and you've got to check
the... Noagentameetups.com for details. Dude named Jarrett now in Arkansas
will be hosting that. Coming up the rest of this
month, Maastricht in Limburg in the Netherlands on the 28th,
the 29th. Nanaimo, British Columbia, also on the 29th. Albuquerque,
New Mexico, Rhode Island, Zurich, Switzerland on the 29th. Chester
Springs, Pennsylvania on the 30th and Rolfebvre. Valley, North Carolina,
also on the 30th. We've got a lot more meetups.
The calendar is full, but never too full to have
yours added there. So go to noagentameetups.com. You can find
out where a meetup is taking place near you. And
as always, it's free to attend. It's free to set
one up. Every single time you go to a meetup,
you will find connection that will give you protect protection.
These people are always your first responders in an emergency.
NoahGenerMeetups.com. If you can't find one yourself, start one yourself.
It's easy and always a party. Sometimes you want to
go hang out with all the nights and days. You
want to be where you want me. Triggered on hell's
play. Yeah. It feels the same Well, it's very weird
to be starting and ending a show without my friend,
partner, and fellow broadcaster, John C. Dvorak, but he is
in my thoughts and definitely in my prayers for real
every single day. Thank you all for being here. Trolls,
thank you. Trollroom.io, noagendastream.com. I forgot to mention that, of
course, we have the wonderful modern podcast apps that make
it all possible. When you get the bat signal, you
can listen live. And, of course, always on the podcast
podcast. If you're using a modern podcast app at podcastapps.com,
you'll get notified within 90 seconds of us publishing. Now,
if you are listening live, stay tuned because we've got
grumpy old dames coming up next. They will be bringing
you the dead man's curve. I'm not sure what that
means. No under show mixes because I play them in
the show now, so they're just show mixes. Send them
to me, adamaccurry.com. Thank you all for being here. Thank
you to Rob Dew from alexjoneslive.com. Much appreciated, brother. And
I look forward to seeing everybody back here on Sunday
with another special guest. I'm sure it'll be fun when
I figure out who it's going to be. Until then,
remember us at noagendadonations.com for the value for value. Adios,
mofos. Hooey, hooey. And such. mofo dvorak.org slash n a
nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo