Trump and JD Vance Weigh in on the MAGA Civil War Over Tucker; Zelensky's Top Associates Embroiled in $100 Million Corruption Scandal; FBI's Ongoing Concealment About Trump Shooter
Pro-Israel Republicans continue to demand that GOP leaders, including JD Vance, denounce Tucker after he interviewed Nick Fuentes. Then: Prof. Marta Havryshko discusses the major corruption scandal unfolding in Ukraine involving Zelensky's top associates. Finally: why is the FBI still concealing critical information about Thomas Crooks? -------------------------------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update: Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook
Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern on the dot, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, the long overdue civil war inside MAGA over Israel, provoked by Tucker Carlson's interview of Nick Fuentes several weeks ago, shows no end in sight.
Quite the contrary, both President Trump and Vice President Vance weighed in over the weekend in their own ancillary yet very revealing ways.
We'll tell you all about it.
Then it has long been known, even as the U.S. has been shoveling tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to Kiev, that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet and the single most corrupt country in Europe.
For that reason, it was only a matter of time before major embezzlement and other corruption scandals exploded near or on top of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
And exactly that has happened.
All while U.S. security state officials, such as former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, seek like vultures to profit off of the fallout.
We'll talk to Marta Havcheko, the scholar of Eastern Europe and Ukraine and a visiting professor at the Strasser Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.
She is herself Ukrainian, an expert in Eastern Europe, and has a lot to say in terms of what is going on with this war that the United States is still funding.
And then finally, after 15 months, we finally learned meaningful facts about the behavior, the online life, and the belief system of Thomas Crooks, who shot President Trump last year in Butler, Pennsylvania.
But that information about him came not from the FBI, which continues for whatever reason to hide and conceal all relevant information about him.
It came instead from Tucker Carlson, who published a 30-minute documentary on Friday, followed up by the New York Post Miranda Devine today.
Why is the FBI of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino refusing to provide basic information about this Trump shooter, who they insist acted alone and therefore has no trial since he's dead?
Or even answer basic questions raised by all of this latest reporting?
We'll examine what this all reveals.
Before we get to all that, a couple of quick programming notes.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
Even before October 7th, it seemed very obvious to me that the so-called America First movement was on a direct collision course with decades-old bipartisan U.S. policy toward Israel.
After all, if you tell people, as Donald Trump and his most vocal followers did over and over, that the purpose of your movement is to place America first, to place the interest of Americans first, finally, and you start objecting to things like financing the war in Ukraine on the grounds that why are we sending billions of dollars to Ukraine when our communities are falling apart?
Why are we engaged in all these overseas wars when Americans at home need and deserve priority, America first?
At some point, people are going to start wondering about the billions we send to Israel.
Not just the billions we send to Israel, but the billions we spend in that region to prop up pro-Israel governments in places like Egypt and Jordan, to deploy our troops every time Israel has a new war to defend Israel, to support Israel, having our politicians make constant pilgrimage to Israel, pledge loyalty to Israel, censorship measures at home on behalf of Israel.
At some point, people are going to say, wait a minute, I thought it was America first.
This seems like Israel first.
And that is exactly what's happening.
Over the last few years, especially since October 7th, when Israel was moved to the front burner, huge numbers of people on the right who never focused much on Israel before, who never thought much about Israel, who never really questioned this bizarre relationship, started focusing a lot on it because Israel took front and center stage and there was no way to avoid it.
And over the last two years, public opinion polls make absolutely, no, absolutely no doubt that there's been a big sea change in public opinion when it comes to conservatives and Israel.
And this has all been boiling over.
It's all been bubbling over.
Charlie Kirk talked a lot about it before he was murdered.
It's consumed every major conservative media figure.
But all of this really exploded and became utterly impossible to avoid.
The real reckoning finally arrived.
It's only about a month ago now when Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes on his show.
And that too was only a matter of time.
There you see it on the screen, Tucker's interview with Nick Fuentes.
Tucker had only done what many other shows had concluded they had to do, including major podcasting shows like Patrick Van David's show, Alex Jones' show, many others, including ours, which is interview a person who, Nick Fuentes, who has, for whatever you think of him, whether you like it or not, the fact of the matter is that he's become immensely influential among young people in the United States, particularly young males, particularly young male conservatives.
And that influence is only growing.
It's only been growing and growing and growing.
And you can stick your head in the sand and decide that because you don't like it, you're going to pretend it doesn't exist.
Or you can look at it and analyze it and let people hear what he has to say and why he's becoming so popular.
And it's not just those independent media outlets.
The New York Times has run multiple profiles on him, conducted interviews with him, CNN and MSNBC, and basically every news outlet has had to cover the phenomenon of Nick Fuentes.
And Tucker decided he purports to speak to a large audience, which he does.
Obviously, a lot of young people listen to Tucker.
A lot of young men listen to Tucker.
And he wanted to understand why Nick Fuentes has developed the influence that he has.
And that was basically the crossing of the Rubicon for the conservative movement, for the MAGA movement, where Nick Fuentes had been elevated to the single most influential and popular conservative podcast in the country.
Tucker is somebody who has been around media for decades, has every mainstream credential, has worked with magazines and every major cable network.
Everybody knows Tucker.
And once he conducted an interview with Nick Fuentes, which as I said on Friday, people are lying about it and saying he didn't push back.
There was a lot of antagonism of ideas in that interview.
He didn't adopt a tone of anger or hostility, but there was a lot of back and forth about the best way to understand things and look at things, the dangers of certain views.
But whatever, Tucker conducted the interview that he wanted.
And since then, it has been nonstop immolation within the MAGA movement, demanding not that Nick Fuentes be canceled, not that Ic Fuentes be denounced, but that Tucker Carlson be denounced.
And not that he be denounced on the grounds that he interviewed Nick Fuentes or on the grounds that he Has been critical of Israel, but on the grounds that he's a racist, a bigot, an anti-Semite, somebody who doesn't belong in conservative circles of decency.
It consumed the Heritage Foundation, one of the oldest and most established right-wing think tanks, and is continuing to consume them to this day.
There's more resignations, more brouhaha, because the CEO of the Heritage Foundation defended Tucker Carlson originally, did some backtracking, but not enough for a lot of people.
This is going on now in every major conservative, Republican right-wing circle.
Ted Cruz is basically building his 28-20, 2028 presidential candidacy by going all in that Tucker is an anti-Semite, that he needs to be expelled from the conservative movement.
And by implication, this is also very much about JD Vance because JD Vance is closely aligned with Tucker.
He's a good friend of Tucker's.
Tucker undoubtedly played a significant role, certainly not the only role, or even necessarily the dispositive role, but a significant role in why Donald Trump chose JD Vance to be his vice president.
And a lot of this is a proxy for demanding that either JD Vance renounce Tucker, renounce Nick Fuentes, renounce this entire movement that is questioning Israel and affirm his devotion and loyalty to Israel, or be threatened with destruction himself.
That's what the game really is: to make certain that the Republican Party stays under the thumb of Israel by forcing Republican leaders to denounce not just Nick Funtes, but Tucker.
And it's a direct threat to JD Vance from the pro-Israel faction saying, if you want a political future in the Republican Party, you best renounce Tucker and make clear that you love and support Israel and will fight for Israel, will fund Israel, will arm Israel.
That's what this is about: a fight over what the conservative movement is permitted to do and say and think in question when it comes to Israel.
It's unsurprising that both Donald Trump and JD Vance, not directly, but sort of on the margins of all of this, felt compelled to weigh in because there's just no ignoring this issue any longer, no matter who you are.
Here was Donald Trump being asked about Tucker's interview of Nick Fuentes, more or less a journalist doing what a journalist would do, which is demanding that Tucker Carlson repudiate Tucker, denounce him for the crime of having interviewed Nick Funtes.
Here's what Donald Trump instead did.
Mr. Frederick, Tucker Carlson recently had a friendly interview with anti-Semite Nick Fuentes.
Tucker Carlson, what role do you think Tucker Carlton could play in the Republican Party, the conservative movement?
Well, I found him to be good.
I mean, he said good things about now.
Let me just say here, note the question and the way it was framed.
Let's listen to that again.
This is why people hate these journalists.
They're incapable of just asking a question without lurting it up with all of their assumptions and political ideology and kind of trying to invoke an answer that they want for their political agenda rather than just simply asking the question, Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes.
How do you feel about that?
No, it can't be that.
Here's what it was instead.
I also recently had a friendly interview with anti-Semite Nick Fuentes.
Tucker Carlson, what role do you think Tucker Carlton could play in the Republican Party, the conservative movement?
Now, note there are several things.
Supposedly, we're told the reason why good, decent establishment Republicans are demanding Nick Funtes be repudiated and put to the side and never even be spoken to or associated with is not because of Israel, but because he has a whole range of racist views.
He hates black people.
He called JD Vance's wife, who's of Indian descent, a derogatory name.
He's spoken negatively about women.
This is all the pretense for why supposedly Nick Funtes is beyond the pale.
But as you see, the journalist didn't say, oh, he interviewed racist, misogynist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, Nick Funtes.
No, it was just one thing, one crime.
He interviewed anti-Semite Nick Funtes.
Make no mistake, that's all that this is about when it comes to Nick Funtes.
There are all kinds of people in the conservative movement in good standing, like Matt Walsh, for example, who says all the same things that Nick Funtes says about white nationalist identity that is construed by standard frameworks of being racist.
Nobody's calling for Matt Walsh to be jettisoned from the conservative movement.
That's because he worked for Ben Shapiro and treads very carefully when it comes to the question of Israel and Jews.
If Nick Fuentes said everything else that he says, but instead of being a critic of Israel, was a supporter of Israel, there'd be no issue with Nick Fuentes at all.
He'd fit perfectly within the conservative movement.
This is about Israel and the one group you're not permitted to speak derogatorily about.
It is commonplace in right-wing discourse to say the most foul, vile things about Muslims, including Muslim Americans.
There's no limit on what you can say about Muslims, and no one will call for your expulsion from conservative politics or about black people or anyone else except this one group.
And that reporter knows that.
That's why he said Tucker gave a friendly interview, which is a very opinionated assertion.
I found it civil and professional and respectful, but I don't think many parts of it were friendly in the sense that they were in agreement.
But of course, the journal was trying to make an argument, not ask a question, an ideological argument.
Tucker Carlson gave a friendly interview to this anti-Semite Nick Funtes.
What do you think Tucker's role in the conservative movement is?
And here's how Trump responded.
Hey, the Republican Party of the Conservative Movement, Book College.
Well, I found him to be good.
I mean, he said good things about me over the years.
At least he's, I think he's good.
We've had some good interviews.
I did an interview with him.
We had 300 million hits.
You know that.
Look, I can't tell him.
Well, you let me finish by saying, you are the worst.
You're with Bloomberg, right?
You are the worst.
I don't know why they even have you.
We've had some great interviews.
So classic Trump.
First of all, he immediately jumps to, well, I don't know.
Tucker says good things about me.
That's always the most important metric.
And then the second most important metric are ratings.
Oh, one of the interviews he did, we got 300 million clicks.
That's a lot.
Maybe.
I don't know.
And then he just, before he gets to his answer, he just stops and goes on a little stroll, heaping complete contempt and scorn on some reporter who interrupted him.
Anyway, here's now that he's done with that checklist, that very Trumpian checklist, here's his answer.
Great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him who to interview him.
And if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out.
Let him, you know, people have to decide.
Ultimately, people have to decide.
The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us and we'll work something out.
But he would like to come to Washington and meet and we'll work something out.
We want to see everything work out well for New York.
You yourself had dinner with Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago a few years ago.
What role should he play in the conservative movement?
Well, I didn't know he was coming, and he was with, as you know, somebody, Kanye.
And Kanye yesterday could have dinner, and he brought Nick.
I didn't know Nick at the time.
And he did.
He came along with a few other people.
He brought a few people with him.
Meeting people, talking to people, like for somebody like Tucker, that's what they do.
You know, people are controversial.
Some are, some aren't.
I'm not controversial, so I like it that way.
That's classic Trump.
That's the best of Trump.
Trump has been doing a lot of things that have angered a lot of people who are either supporters of his, rightly so, fighting to keep the Epstein files concealed, offering insulting excuses for why it's a hoax of the Democratic Party, talking about the need to have more foreign workers come into the United States because Americans don't have the talent.
One war after the next, now plotting one in Venezuela.
50-year mortgages, none of the economic pop.
But when Trump says something like this, that is the thing that he can contribute.
I can't think of another politician who would have answered that way.
And I used to go back and forth, like, when Trump is asked about people like Nick Funtes, is he really that ignorant?
I mean, after all, he's, you know, a boomer by definition.
He's 80.
How connected to internet culture is he really?
Why would he know Nick Funtes?
Nick Funtes isn't on Fox News, which he watches, or any of the networks.
Usually, if you're not on TV, Trump doesn't really pay much attention to you.
Nick Funtes isn't on TV.
And so when Trump used to say things like, I don't know Nick Funtes, I don't know this person.
I don't know that person.
I don't know what the Proud Boys are.
I used to wonder, is that true?
Trump is, whenever else you think of him, he's very politically connected and very shrewd.
And he doesn't want to lose the significant part of the right-wing movement that has turned on Israel and that has really believed in the America first agenda, even if Trump doesn't.
And he understands the difficulty he has with his space.
And this is him saying, yeah, I'm not going to denounce Tucker.
Tucker's talking about how he regularly speaks to Trump still, how he says the relationship is as good as ever.
He doesn't want to lose Tucker Carlson as somebody who's going to jump through a hoop and publicly denounce on command from some liberal journalist.
And he's saying, look, Tucker has to talk to people.
That's his job.
He has to talk to controversial people.
Now, there have been some disputes between Tucker and Trump in the past, particularly over Trump's, over Tucker's opposition to some of Trump's policies, including bombing Iran.
Here was Tucker talking to Steve Bannon in June of 2025.
They were talking about how if the United States under Trump got involved in Israel wars with Iran, it could destroy the MAGA movement in the Trump presidency.
And here you see the title, Tucker and Steve Bannon respond to Israel's war on Iran and how it could destroy MAGA forever.
So Tucker was very outspoken both before and after Trump's decision to enter the war by bombing Iran.
And finally, Trump had enough and went on through social June 16, 2025.
Somebody please explain to Kuki Tucker Carlson that, quote, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
And then he was asked about that and he gave a view about how, look, Tucker's not even on TV anymore, you know, kind of dismissing Tucker's importance.
I think he realized now Tucker remains not just as influential, but way more influential since he liberated himself from that graveyard known as Fox News and went into independent media where his reach is far greater and far more diverse and far younger than ever.
And it is true that Tucker, that rather, Trump met with Nick Funtes with Kanye West.
And afterwards, when Trump was criticized, he said, I have no idea who Nick Funtes was.
Kanye brought him.
But here was Nick Funtes explaining to Tucker what actually happened at that dinner.
I said, I think you're one of the greatest living Americans.
I said, I'm a young guy.
I said, I really have nothing to say other than thank you.
I have nothing but gratitude for what you've done for the country.
I said, it's really not my place, you know, to give you advice or correct you.
And he said, no, no, don't be bashful.
Tell me.
And the story that I brought up was, this was really what sent me.
In the first Fox News debate in 2015 in the Republican primary, Bret Baer, the first question, said, raise your hand if you will not pledge to support the eventual nominee.
Yes.
And Trump raised his hand because that's what he was saying.
He said, you know, if I don't win, I'll run independent and I'll make Republicans lose.
And so I brought that up and I told that story and I said, you know, I said, I feel like what was inspiring in 16 is that you were willing to let the Republican establishment lose.
Like you were serious about blowing them up, such that you were not going to say, like Pat Buchanan, who I respect, but Sam Francis acknowledged that was one of his great mistakes was ultimately endorsing Bush.
I said, you, it showed you were serious.
You were playing to win because you said, I will let this Republican Party crash and burn.
I want to run as the Republican, but if I can't, I'll run independent.
I said, and that's how I knew you were serious.
And that's how I knew you were the guy.
I said, and I feel like lately, this is right after Ronna McDaniel became the head of the RNC again.
I was like, I feel like lately, you're just behind all these people.
I said, we're not here for Kevin McCarthy.
We're not here for Ronna McDaniel or Mitch McConnell.
I said, we are here for you.
Like, we will die for you.
We are loyal to you.
I said, and when you did that, that showed you could win.
And we rallied.
I said, so I want to see more like that.
I want to see you hit DeSantis.
Now, you listen to that, and there's zero possibility that Trump doesn't remember that.
He sat across from dinner.
Trump is a people person.
He's a politician.
He, of course, understands who Nick Funtes is.
He understood exactly what the context of that question was.
And he refused to denounce Tucker for speaking to Nick Funtes and also, by extension, refused to denounce Nick Funtes.
Now, here is what happened with JD Vance.
I think JD Vance understands at least as well as Trump because JD Vance is infinitely more online than Trump or most politicians.
JD Vance is the vice president of the United States and frequently will get into kind of back and forth arguments with people without much power in Washington on X.
He goes to blue sky and trolls liberals.
He's two generations younger than Trump.
He's very connected to online discourse, very aware as somebody who wants to be president of what the right-wing discourse online is about Tucker, about Nick Fuentes.
And he knows that people are waiting for him to weigh in because all this is about JD Vance.
Trump's not running again.
JD Vance is going to run.
And you have liberals trying to leverage this against JD Vance because they're most afraid of him.
And you have conservatives who are in the pro-Israel neocon wing who are suspicious of JD Vance and want to force him either to take a loyalty oath to Israel and to neoconservatism or they want to start destroying him now.
And so they are going to do everything to force him to weigh in.
And he did weigh in, but not on the direct subject that is being discussed.
He didn't weigh in on the question of whether the U.S. should continue to support Israel, whether Tucker Carlson should be repudiated for having interviewed Nick Fuentes without screaming and yelling Nazi in his face over and over.
Instead, this is how JD Vance weighed in.
He weighed in about 10 days ago by saying this, quote, the infighting is stupid.
I care about my fellow citizens, particularly young Americans, being able to afford a decent life.
I care about immigration and our sovereignty.
And I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home.
If you care about those things too, let's work together.
Now, obviously, he's trying to play the leader saying, look, let's not be infighting.
But all of the language he used was very much coded in favor of the people who are saying, why are we sending our money to Israel?
We should use our money here at home.
The America First ideology, the one defended by Tucker Carlson.
And there were a lot of people who heard that in the Republican establishment and reacted with a lot of anger, including the Wall Street editorial page, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Ground Zero, the epicenter of Republican establishment thought.
Here is their headline: JD Vance, the Heritage Foundation, and the case for conservative, quote, infighting.
So it's directly disputing JD Vance's decree that we shouldn't be infighting.
And this is what they said: quote, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes promote noxious ideas that imperil the right.
Quote, Mr. Vance's breezy dismissal of the struggle to extirpate extremists from the right-wing coalition as infighting is a mistake.
What he belittles as intramural squabbling is the difficult and necessary work of moral and political hygiene for the conservative movement in the country.
What we saw at Heritage last week wasn't some distraction from more important work.
It was the latest episode in the struggle of good versus evil.
Good being the people who want to keep sending money to Israel and fight wars for Israel, evil being the people who are questioning it.
The free press also understood where subtly and with some code, but nonetheless pretty clearly JD Vance was trying to side.
This is Barry Weiss's rag, which is basically an arm of Israeli state media.
And they ran the title JD Vance versus the Groipers question mark, quote, conservatives in Washington, D.C. have been saying to me that the influence of neo-Nazi Holocaust denying live streamer Nick Fuentes has taken off among Gen Z congressional administration staffers.
One older insider put the number of Fuentes fans and fellow travelers, so-called Groipers, in these Washington circles at quote 30 to 40%.
I ran the 30-40% claim past the conservative Zoomers I spoke to in D.C. Every one of them affirmed it.
Christian faith, they explained, has not inoculated young men against anti-Semitism.
Vance is still figuring out how best to respond to Fuentes' supporters.
The sharp criticism of the vice president after he failed to push back with sufficient force when the Groipers came after him recently at Old Miss are not helping.
He should be less indulgent to the podcast host and the two online right, but remember, Tucker was an early supporter of Vance and they developed a close friendship.
But at a certain point, this virtue becomes a vice.
Vance must be careful.
A warning to JD Vance, you better be careful when you talk about Israel and Tucker and all of this happening on the right, says Barry Weiss's rag.
A woman named Tali Goldsheft reported today on a meeting that calls itself the Jewish Leadership Conference, at which people like Ben Shapiro and Barry Weiss appeared.
Not a surprise.
And what she said is the following, quote, a common theme throughout today's talks at the Jewish Leadership Conference in New York City, the importance of repudiating Tucker Carlson, Nick Funtes, and Candace Owens, especially by those in the conservative movement.
Noteworthy of during this same session featuring Barry Weiss, Dan Senser, and Ben Shapiro, Barry made a point of stating that JD Vance has yet to distance himself from Tucker Carlson, which remains quite disconcerting, to say the least.
Now it's a ritualistic hoop JD Vance has to jump through, says the Jewish Leadership Conference, Ben Shapiro, Barry Weiss, the free press.
Not just that he hasn't denounced Nick Funtes, which he's done before, JD Vance has, but now he has to denounce Tucker Carlson, his friend, his political ally.
This is the litmus test that's being set up.
And it's all about pinning down JD Vance and forcing anyone who wants to be the nominee in 2028 to pledge loyalty to Israel.
Here's part of the video of Ben Shapiro's appearance at this Jewish leadership conference where they issued these instructions to JD Vance.
Ben Shapiro devoted an entire show to explaining why, in video clip after video clip, Tucker Carlson is, in Ben's words, and I can quote you to yourself, the most virulent super spreader of vile ideas in America.
You know, it is really bizarre, and that was Dan Central talking about Ben Shapiro's words about Tucker, that two years ago, nobody in the conservative movement criticized Tucker Carlson publicly.
I've talked about that before.
The only thing that has changed between then and now is one thing.
Tucker began raising criticisms of Israel, of U.S. financing of Israel, and like exactly what conservatives say the left did, which is scream racist and bigoted everybody to destroy the reputation of their political opponents and shut down debate.
This is the only tactic.
Tucker is the greatest, worst, most destructive anti-Semite in America, says Ben Shapiro.
Because everybody knows, although they'll deny it, that the minute you effectively or vocally criticize Israel, you will stand accused of anti-Semitism.
It is automatic.
Here's what precipitated JD Vance's intervention into this dispute.
A woman named Sloan Rachmuth, who's a Jewish woman, absolutely insane, fanatical supporter of Israel, has said some of the most repulsive things you will ever see anyone say, way worse than anything Nick Fuentes has said, decided she was going to go after not Tucker Carlson or not Tucker Carlson's adult brother, but Tucker Carlson's son, who's in his 20s and he works as a deputy press secretary for JD Vance, even though Tucker Carlson's son, Buckley Carlson, has not weighed in on any of this at all.
Tuck Carlson's brother, Buckley Carlson, over the last few days has weighed in in favor of the Tucker faction and even going further than Tucker has about Nick Fuentez.
That's Tuck Carlson's brother.
There's nothing to do with Tucker Carlson's son.
And this woman, Sloane Rachmuth, who has had a restraining order against her, and as I said, has said some of the most vile things, including about Charlie Kirk.
We're all supposed to forget that the pro-Israel faction was starting to really hate and denounce Charlie Kirk.
Everybody agreed just to ignore that, but that is, she was one of the people leading that over Israel, of course.
This is what she said, quote, today we learned that Tucker Carlson's brother idolizes Nick Fuentes.
Racism and anti-Semitism is a Carlson family trait.
By the way, why didn't anybody, any conservatives notice this for the last 40 years of Tucker's media career?
Why was that only something that emerged in the last two years when he began questioning Israel?
That's all this is about.
She goes on, is Tucker's son Buckley, who serves as JD Vance's top aide, also a vile bigot?
America deserves to know how deep the Carlson family ethnic and religious hatred runs.
She posted a picture of Tucker Carlson's son working for JD Vance.
There you see him on the left.
It's an old picture.
And there's JD Vance linking the two.
It is so contrary to Western values.
We don't hold people responsible for the acts or the opinions of their parents.
Nobody's forced to speak out about the political opinions of your parents.
If your parent says something that is controversial, you're not duty bound upon pain of having your career threatened to come out and denounce your own father.
It's like setting up the litmus test for every person who works in conservative politics.
You say whether or not you like Tucker Carlson or you recognize him as an anti-Semite.
You have to say that, including his son.
And JD Vance responded with what I think is very valid disgust.
This is what he said, quote, Sloane Rachmuth is a, quote, journalist who has decided to obsessively attack a staffer in his 20s because she doesn't like the views of his father.
Every time I see a public attack on Buckley, it's a complete lie.
And yes, I notice every person with an agenda who unfairly attacks a good guy who does a great job for me.
Sloane describes herself as a defender of, quote, Judeo-Christian values.
Is it a Judeo-Christian value to lie about someone you don't know?
Not in any church I've ever spent time in.
I have an extraordinary tolerance for disagreements and criticisms from the various people in our coalition, but I am a very loyal person.
I have zero tolerance for scumbags attacking my staff.
And yes, everyone who I've seen attack Buckley with lies is a scumbag.
So that's JD Vance weighing in, not on the dispute itself, but clearly on the side of Tucker Carlson's son and protecting Carlson's son from these disgusting attacks.
Here's the kind of thing that Sloan Rachmuth, who's setting herself up as the paragon of virtue and morality in the Republican Party, here's the sort of thing she says.
Here she is looking at an image of Gaza completely leveled and turned into rubble.
And she wrote, not paying to rebuild this shithole.
Leave it in, bitches.
And then a pro-Israel ex-user replied, it's the very definition of FAFO, fuck around and find out.
And they did this with Biden holding them back.
Trump will pour gas on this fire if Hamas and Irwin don't get in line.
And she replied, gosh, this excites me.
Finally, justice arrives.
She's aroused by seeing a place turn into complete and total rubble, mocking them, saying, more bitches.
This is the paragon of virality who wants to say, we need rural lintness tests in the Republican Party, and you have to denounce Tucker Carlson as a anti-Semite if you want to be able to stay in good standing.
Now, as I said, this is part of the liberal move as well to try and demonize JD Vance.
Here in the New York Times today, an opinion writer named Jamal Bowie, who's people on the left consider some sort of radical leftist.
All he is is just an operative and apparatchic for the Democratic Party.
JD Vance is idling at the edges of American politics.
The whole point of it is to basically depict JD Vance as what he calls Groyper adjacent and a white nationalist.
It's kind of odd to consider JD Vance Groyper adjacent, given that Nick Flintes despises JD Vance, that JD Vance has married and built his life around not a white nationalist, but a woman of Indian descent, an American woman of Indian descent.
His children are half white, half Indian.
But this is what Democrats in the media do, and they are working hand in hand with the neocons and the Republican Party to basically depict JD Vance as a white nationalist, as a Nazi.
And what you're going to see, mark my words, this is coming.
I've talked about this before.
Now that they don't need to beat Trump anymore at the ballot box, you're going to see Trump start to get almost rehabilitated in order to say JD Vance is worse.
They're going to start saying, okay, look, Donald Trump, I had my disagreements with him.
I thought he was a threat sometimes, but he really kept these racists, these hardcore races at bay.
It's JD Vance that's the real danger.
This is the real white nationalist, the real Nazi.
Just like Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were Nazis and election thieves in 2000, and by the time of 2015 came around when they were both old and out of office and against Trump, suddenly like, you know what, I had my disagreements with George Bush and Dick Cheney, but they love democracy.
They upheld democracy and decency, unlike Donald Trump.
And now you're going to say this, look, I have my disagreements with Donald Trump, but JD Vance, that's the real Nazi.
And you're going to see media Democrats working hand in hand with the pro-Israel fanatics in the Republican Party to offer JD Vance two choices.
Either we destroy your reputation and call you a Nazi and make it extremely difficult for you to have any Republican establishment support when you're running, or you turn around and you denounce Tucker Carlson as the racist that he is and say there's no room in the Republican Party for people who oppose Israel.
Those are your two choices.
And that's how Ted Cruz is planning to run for president.
I personally don't think it's going to work.
This is a party that is repeatedly identified as America first.
And I don't think the Republican Party, certainly not most of it, is right for being told that to stay in good standing in Republican politics, you have to proclaim your love and support for Israel and scream racist at anybody who doesn't.
But I guess we'll see how that plays out.
BUT THAT IS, MAKE NO MISTAKE, WHAT ALL OF THIS IS ABOUT.
BEFORE WE CONTINUE, I WANT TO PAUSE ON SOMETHING THAT FITS DIRECTLY INTO THE THEMES WE COVER HERE.
We are living in a moment where powerful institutions continue asking for public trust, even as their actions slowly show very little accountability or foresight.
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Here's what stands out.
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Goldman Sachs is warning of a 10 to 20% market decline.
Morgan Stanley has moved away from the long-standing 60-40 portfolio approach and now recommends that investors hold roughly 20% in gold and silver.
This is not a small tweak.
It tells you that confidence in policymakers and centralized monetary decisions is weakening.
Earlier this year, gold broke above $4,300, not because of speculation, but because real assets do not rely on political promises or carefully crafted press statements.
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THE SYSTEM IS NOT PREPARED TO PROTECT YOUR FUTURE, THEN THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT IT FALLS ON YOU.
REASONS WHY MANY PEOPLE OPPOSE U.S. FINANCING OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE.
There were geopolitical reasons and reasons of propaganda and who exactly were arming in Ukraine and the futility of it and the dangers of it.
But one major reason was that Kiev was always known for being assessful of extreme corruption.
This has been something that has been talked about and known for many years in European politics and American politics.
And the question of sending tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars to Kiev with no controls seemed almost certain to result in major siphoning off of the money of American taxpayers, ostensibly to help Ukraine defend itself in the war against Ukraine, but actually go against Russia, but actually going into the pockets and secret bank accounts of Ukrainian officials.
And we've seen stories along the way that has suggested exactly that is happening.
None as big as the recent corruption scandal that exploded from the BBC November 12th.
Major corruption scandal engulfs top Zelensky allies.
It details how two key Zelensky ministers of health and energy have been accused of embezzling $100 million roughly from the funds that the United States and others sends to Ukraine in order to fortify infrastructure against Russian attacks.
It's disappeared and embezzled.
There's now a major investigation.
These are close allies of President Zelensky.
We've seen efforts to put some controls on it.
In March of 2022, Rand Paul single-handedly held up $40 million to Ukraine.
All he wanted was an inspector general appointed to trace the money to where this money was going and how it was being used.
Democrats and Republicans united to reject that.
Here was Rand Paul on X when a major Ukrainian corruption scandal erupted in the end of 2022.
He said, quote, didn't someone try to legislatively mandate a special inspector general to scrutinize Ukrainian spending?
Oh, that's right.
It was my amendment.
And most Democrats and Republicans opposed any semblance of oversight.
Here's a chart that just shows you how much money the U.S. has sent in cash, not just military aid.
You see, it's about $44.2 million.
Much of it goes straight to Ukrainian coffers for things like anti-corruption programs, pursuing justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians, and repairs to damaged energy and agriculture infrastructure, which is exactly the kinds of programs where this embezzlement took place.
And on top of all that, AP this morning reported that Mike Pompeo, Trump's director of the CIA and also the former State Department secretary, has now become an advisor to a very scrutinized Ukrainian defense company that's looking to boost missiles.
There's billions and millions of dollars at stake.
That Mike Pompeo is now there, big proponent of financing the war in Ukraine.
Now he will directly profit this company that's paying him.
Here's a kind of story, BBC, January 2025, Ukraine's chief army psychiatrist arrested on $1 million corruption charge.
We've seen smaller stories.
And then here from the Independent, November, just a couple days ago, Ukraine's justice and energy ministers resigned amid a $100 million corruption scandal as they stepped down in reaction to a major scandal involving the state nuclear power company.
All right, to help us sort through all that, we have Dr. Marta Havryshko, who is a visiting professor at Clark University with the Strasser Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Her research explores 20 and 21st century Ukrainian history, the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, and nationalism.
Originally from Ukraine, she received her doctorate in leave and has in recent years become a prominent voice opposing the far-right elements of Ukrainian government.
And she's been on our show before, although not when I was here, but I really loved her episode.
It was super informative.
And I want to welcome her back to the show.
Professor, it's great to see you.
Thank you so much for rejoining our show.
And I get to be here this time to talk to you.
Thanks for having me, Glenn.
Absolutely.
All right, so let's just jump right into this.
People for a long time have suspected that one of the things that would happen if we just sent huge amounts of money to Kiev was that Zelensky and people close to him, Ukrainian oligarchs who helped build his career, would end up just taking a lot of it.
It would just be embezzled, wasted money.
We've seen some stories over the years, as I just reviewed, that suggested that was happening in part.
None as big as this latest one.
What can you tell us about it?
So I must say that I feel personal responsibility actually for this corruption scandal because I was among those people who believed actually in this fairy tale created by Zelensky PR team that he is dedicated to the fight against corruption.
And it was his main promise to Ukraine's citizens to fight corruption.
He presented himself as a person that is outside the system.
And we believed him.
And you know, but it turns out that nowadays he is a chief of this new corruption scheme.
And when, when Ukraine is bleeding, when every single day we see funerals of soldiers, we see stories of wounded soldiers, we see working class people and peasants kidnapped by draft officers and sent right to the front line.
Some of them are trying to commit suicide.
Some of them pay enormous bribe to avoid military service because nobody believes anymore in this victory plan and this fairy tale that Ukraine can regain the lost territories from Russia.
And in the mid of this very, very difficult situation in Ukraine, the biggest, the biggest corruption scandal in Ukraine modern history actually erupted.
And who is in charge?
It seems that Zelensky and his vice president, as we call him, Yermak, are in charge of this corruption scheme.
Why many critics say that they are directly involved?
Because the main craft man behind the scene, Timur Mingic, is a close friend of Zelensky and the former business partner who is the owner of Kvartaldev95, this studio, that created this servant of the people TV show, political TV show that made Zelensky very popular.
So they knew each other very well.
And Mingic, without official office, without any official seats in the power, he created this enormous structure.
And recently, it's almost a week when the main anti-corruption body of Ukraine released some part of these Mindich tapes where they discussed all corruption schemes,
not only in Energo Atom, it means state-run company, major state-run company that is responsible for the nuclear energy in Ukraine, but also for defense sector.
And nowadays we have names like Umerov on these tapes, like Justice Minister Haushenko, like energy minister Svetlana Renchuk and others.
So far, seven people have been formally charged with corruption, but only five of them now are detained.
Two main organizers somehow disappeared from Ukraine and Mingic escaped Ukraine during night when this curfew four hours before search in his apartment in Kyiv, where actually this intellectual club held its meetings.
And it's very strange why ordinary men who are trying to cross the border and flee this forced mobilization, they can easily do that.
But an ordinary citizen, not a diplomat, not a parliamentary member, not a member of any state body, easily just crossed the border.
And by miracle, after crossing the border, he became only the citizen of Israel.
And the sanctions were imposed not on the citizen of Ukraine, Timur Mingic, but on the citizen of Israel, Timur Mingic.
But citizen of Israel has nothing in Ukraine.
All his property belongs to the citizen of Ukraine.
That's why people are outraged.
And today, many people, they refuse to donate to the army.
They are desperate because the leadership in such a difficult time for the country is stealing the money of taxpayers and also stealing, obviously, the Western aid.
I must say that among these proofs that were released by Nabu, the main anti-corruption body, there were bundles of U.S. dollars with U.S. Federal Reserve Branch marking.
That's why now some journalists claim that it became the subject of FBI interest, because the main question, how does money appeared in Ukraine and why they were not directed to build some constructions to protect energy plants, to build some roads,
to help some children who are suffering from war, but ended up in the bags.
And so far, $4 million in cash were basically grabbed by anti-corruption body officials.
An investigation is still ongoing.
And what is very interesting.
Let me ask you, I mean, you know, it's interesting.
When this war broke out, this kind of stage of the war in 2022, even those of us who were opposed to American involvement, I think empathized with and understood the spirit, the nationalistic spirit of Ukrainians who wanted to fight against this foreign invader, who wanted to fight for the preservation of their sovereignty and independence.
It was hard not to, you know, to understand and in some sense admire the spirit of people who were going to go to war against a much more powerful country.
Here we are, though, now, we're about to enter the fifth full year of the war.
In February, it'll be four full years going to the fifth.
I don't know of anybody anymore who believes that Ukraine, no matter what the West does, will be able to expel Russian troops from any part of Ukraine that they're currently occupying.
The more the war goes on, the more there's likely to be deaths, the more there's likely to be more Russian incursions and more Russian occupation of Ukrainian land.
And I guess I would have to believe, and I've seen a lot of evidence to suggest this is true, that as you say, a lot of Ukrainians who are very eager to fight, now the sense is this is feudal.
And when you see your leaders stealing, it kind of makes it clear that they think so too.
The question I have, though, is elections have been suspended.
Zelensky has cracked down on civil liberties and media outlets.
He's removed the mayor of Odessa.
He's cracking down on political opponents.
How free is discourse in Ukraine for people to raise these questions and express this dissatisfaction?
It's a very tricky question.
Ordinary citizens in Ukraine, they feel not very secure to talk openly about this.
Many of them impose self-censorship.
Why?
Because first, Zelensky imposed very tricky mechanism to fight his dissidents.
No one before him imposed this mechanism.
And I mean personal sanctions.
They are against prosecution.
They are against Ukraine law and basically how it looks.
Zelensky created this Security Council, which is advising body, and they together decide who is the Russian agent, who is spreading Russian narratives, who is undermined Russian defense, and they impose personal sanctions on 10 years.
And those people, their property is stripped, they're taken away from them, they are persecuted, they can be jailed in Ukraine.
And guess what?
When Zelensky imitated his big concern over Mingich gate, he imposed sanctions on Mingich only for three years.
But most of those who were subjected to sanctions face 10-year restrictions.
So even in this small case, we see some real disparity.
And another mechanism, how people are basically, how policy of free speech in Ukraine looks like is the draft.
In Ukraine nowadays, the draft is an instrument of suppressing free speech.
Many journalists, female journalists, they also afraid they are not subjected to the draft, but their husbands, their sons, their men are subjected to the draft.
And we already have cases when investigative journalists, those who fight for human rights, for free speech, and so on and so forth, their husbands are sent to the front line.
And they actually can be sent not in drawn units, in units far from the front lines, but they are sent to, could be sent to the infantry.
And the mortality rate in infantry is just enormous.
So nowadays, we don't have free speech in Ukraine.
We don't have free media in Ukraine.
Those who are capable to speak up actually are only those who have a protection from the West.
I mean, anti-corruption NGO, which are sponsored by the West and are direct instrument of Western political actors to influence, actually, and the main anti-corruption body in Ukraine, like Nabu and Saab, they also were created by the West and by US in particular.
That's why in the main building of Nabum, main anti-corruption body, we have the office of FBI agent.
And he is actually or she, so this agent is responsible for supervising the whole investigation.
That's why this investigation was possible in the first place.
And that's why some journalists who are sponsored and supported directly by some Western actors, they can speak up.
But most of people are not allowed to do that.
Basically, war for Zelensky is a very good opportunity to monopolize his power and to and to just, I believe that Zelensky and his bodies are really interested in continuing this war because they want to keep this power and they want to profit from this war.
Because FirePoint, for example, which Mike Pompeo now became an advisor to this state manufacturer, armed manufacturer, is a very good business.
How can you have business without war?
It's so obvious for many people.
That's why many people are so desperate.
And recent polls, they were closed polls, but we know about them from some members of Ukraine parliament, for example, Yaroslav Zhelesnyak, that the approval of Zelensky dropped up to 40%.
So now it's less than 20%.
Less than 20% people actually believe that Zelensky is doing great job.
Because nowadays, because of this corruption, because he's people from his inner circle, his very close friends, very close to his family, to his, you know, to his wife, who attends family gatherings, they are involved in this scandal.
And Zelensky is trying to whitewash himself.
You know, his PR team is putting blame on Kremlin, that, you know, it's all Kremlin false, or maybe it's a Kolomanski fault, or maybe those bad journalists who, you know, just reveal this information to the public, maybe it's their fault.
But the main question, who is stealing the Western aid during existential war?
They claim that war is existential.
They demand that Ukrainians will sacrifice their life, that they will suffer constant lack of electricity, of gas, of water because of Russian attack.
And they don't build sufficient protection because they say it's not good business to build this.
And at the same time, they build the villas in luxury parts of Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine.
Their sons are abroad.
They study at fancy universities.
The level of outrage in Ukraine nowadays is enormous because many people believe that this war is a war of poor people.
While those in power are just profiting from this war and try to keep this war going and shield this by, you know, these speeches about existential war, about patriotism.
They put, you know, Ukraine was Shivankas on them, you know, and do all this stuff.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like, you know, I mean, it's one of the reasons why there's a crackdown, of course, because if you allow public opinion to be heard, I think a lot of people inside Ukraine would be joining and organizing around the frustration that you're expressing.
You know, it's interesting.
I'm so glad we were able to have you on because this war is still ongoing.
The U.S. is still financing it.
The Europeans are financing it.
And it basically has become something that just sort of buzzes along in the background.
And I think it's just important to check in, you know, periodically to understand exactly where this money is going, exactly what's happening in this war.
The idea that we're defending democracy in Ukraine is becoming increasingly untenable as Ukraine has become less and less a democracy over time.
We'd love to have you back on and keep making sure that attention is paid to what's going on there.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
It was great to see you.
Thank you, Glenn.
All right.
Have a good evening.
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There aren't very many events more momentous in American politics than when a president of the United States is shot by somebody who's trying to kill him.
That, of course, is what happened last year in 2024 during the 2024 presidential campaign to President Trump.
It actually happened twice where two people tried to kill him, but the one in Butler, Pennsylvania, the first one, is where somebody actually shot him.
And there are very few instances in American history where presidents of the United States were shot.
The time before that was Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, which was 45 years earlier.
And of course, the time when a president was killed, the one before that was when John F. Kennedy had his head blown off by a person or people that were responsible for that.
And many, many Americans continue to this day to believe that the true story of what happened with John F. Kennedy and his assassination has never been revealed, in part because the government acted in very deceitful ways, in ways to obfuscate the facts in order to hide the true reality from emerging.
And what the FBI has done in the case of the attempted assassination on President Trump's life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, one that came extremely close to killing him.
It was just a matter of pure luck, a matter of a couple inches.
It actually did kill one of his supporters who were seated behind him.
It wounded pretty seriously two others.
We have learned almost nothing, nothing about the person who was the shooter and who was killed on that day.
So we were never able to hear from him.
He was killed by Secret Service on that day.
The FBI, under President Biden, said virtually nothing about what we know about the killer.
His name is Thomas Crooks.
And when the Trump administration was inaugurated, President Trump said he had directed FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi to find out everything they could about this killer.
And they've been in office now for 10 months and they have told us basically nothing more than what we were told during the Biden administration, which is basically nothing.
This person was 20 years old and we were told, oh, there's very minimal online footprint.
What 20-year-old has a very minimal to non-existent online footprint?
And what footprint there was, we weren't told much about at all, let alone any of the other facts about what the investigation revealed.
And what makes it so notable is that there are times when the FBI is justified in withholding facts about an investigation, such as the investigation that is currently taking place into the murder of Charlie Kirk, for example.
And that's because the alleged accused killer, Tyler Robinson, is not dead.
He's very much alive.
He's in police custody.
He'll presumably have a trial.
There's still an ongoing investigation about whether he had accomplices or people who were in some way involved who could be criminally charged and disclosing facts and information before that happens could jeopardize the investigation.
But in the case of Thomas Crooks, none of that is true.
Thomas Crooks is dead.
He died on the day that he shot President Trump.
And according to the FBI, this is something that Kash Patel said only recently, Thomas Crooks acted alone.
There are no conspirators.
He didn't work with any other individuals.
He didn't work with any other groups.
He didn't work with any other countries.
He was just a lone wolf, somebody who just completely on his own decided to go and kill President Trump and came very close to succeeding in what looked like a pretty professional effort.
We have learned some about Thomas Crooks over the last week, but not because the FBI deigned to tell us anything.
We learned about it, and I talked about this on Friday because Tucker Carlson on November 14th published a 30-minute documentary entitled Who Is Thomas Crooks? Where a source that Tucker worked with, who's an expert in online forensics, was able to investigate, find multiple social media accounts that clearly were used by Thomas Crooks, and was able to trace the trajectory of what seemed like he started as,
which is a very virulent, violence-oriented, far-right extremist talking about murdering Elon Yomar and Rashida Tlaib and killing immigrants and murdering Democrats.
Lots of overt racism and anti-Semitism.
And then it kind of morphed in 2020 into an anti-Trump, you could say more progressive orientation, was very critical of Trump for not doing more on COVID, and then kind of evolved politically.
Why did we need Tucker Carlson to find that out?
Why didn't the FBI tell us that?
And then earlier today, Miranda Devine in the New York Post published a similar type of investigation.
Didn't, I believe, oddly, didn't mention Tuck Carlson's investigation at all, even though a lot of it overlapped.
But she also added a lot of facts that weren't in Tucker's report based on a very similar kind of forensic investigation online.
There you see the headline, Miranda Devine, FBI Secret Service butchered the Thomas Crookes case and invited conspiracies.
We deserve the truth.
And some of what she traced suggests that Thomas Crooks became involved in trans online culture or gender questioning.
But we don't know.
We should know.
The FBI knows.
The FBI has a lot of facts.
And there are questions about this case that independent of that, the FBI should answer.
One of the questions Tucker raised was Thomas Crooks was online all the time threatening violence against all sorts of politicians, against all sort of elected leaders.
The FBI has programs that they paid for that are supposed to trace and identify people who are threatening violence online to monitor them, to investigate them.
Was Thomas Crooks known to the FBI or known to local law enforcement prior to his decision to go and try and murder President Trump and come very close?
Did anyone try and recruit him after seeing the kinds of things he was saying online?
Why can't we know whether the FBI knew of Thomas Crooks before that day or was known to local law enforcement?
If he was, what did they do about it?
If he wasn't, why didn't they?
And I should add too, and I was on Megan Kelly's show today for about two hours, and we spent maybe half the time discussing this, so I'm not going to go over all that.
If you want to watch the whole thing, I encourage you to watch it.
We also talked about the MAGA Civil War involving Tucker and Megan and Nick Fuentez and other related issues like that in Israel.
But I think it's very important to remember that throughout 2024, there were leaks in the media suggesting in general that Iran, the Iranian government, was trying to assassinate President Trump and that Iran specifically was likely behind one or both of these assassination attempts.
And we know from recent history that when neocons and others inside the government are trying to lure the United States into a foreign war or provoke an American president to believe they have to enter the war, one of the things they do is they pin things on the country they want to attack.
That's what was done with the anthrax attacks after 9-11.
John McCain immediately went on.
David Letterman, when Stavele Letterman came back after 9-11, and he asked him about the anthrax attacks, and he said, we're pretty sure Saddam Hussein is behind that.
That was leaked all over the place.
When Americans were petrified of anthrax, oh, this is, don't worry, this is clearly Saddam Hussein.
This is the type of anthrax he uses.
This is how he weaponizes anthrax.
And it turned out Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with that anthrax attack.
It actually came from a U.S. military lab by a U.S. military scientist who was working on defensive research into anthrax.
And we were told he weaponized it and sent it because he wanted to scare Americans about anthrax to fund his research more.
He killed himself conveniently, so he never got to being questioned or put on trial.
Lots of things got blamed on Iraq and then got blamed on Libya and got blamed on Assad.
Some of which was true, much of which was true.
So then also the question is, who leaked that this was something that Iran was behind?
Now that Caspatel and Dan Bagino are saying, oh no, there was no one who had anything to do with it.
Was any of that true?
Who?
Did anyone work with him?
Republican senators have been asking these questions for a year now.
They want to know.
It's not just Democrats.
It's Trump supporters who want to know who was.
And obviously there's questions as well about people thought it was rather bizarre that there was no coverage of the Secret Service on this building.
Apparently, one of the things Tucker reported is that Thomas Crooks flew a drone for 11 minutes over the site that morning to engage in surveillance and it just so happened to be at a time when the FBI's surveillance detection and drone detection programs were down, out of service.
The more the FBI refuses to answer these questions, the more they refuse to tell us what they know.
That is the soil in which conspiracy theories rightfully grow.
Because when the FBI does this, when they refuse to give basic information to the American public about things we have a right to know, like who tried to kill Donald Trump and came very close to doing so, who did he work with?
Did the FBI know about him beforehand?
What was this Iran attempt to blame Iran?
When they refuse to answer those kind of questions and information just drips out in little pieces, here's a Tucker video, here's some things he found, here's what Randall Devine found in the New York Post, people are going to start to wonder, it seems like the FBI is covering this up.
And again, they don't have the excuse here that there's an ongoing investigation they don't want to impede or jeopardize because the shooter is dead and the FBI itself says there are no conspirators.
So they're not investigating any conspirators.
They know there were none, they said.
So what excuse is there for not showing us all the things they have about Thomas Crookes, his political evolution, his motivations, his ideology, how he trained, whether anyone tried to recruit him, was he known to law enforcement beforehand?
These are totally basic and obvious questions that we have the right to know.
And for some reason, someone inside the U.S. government, either Dan Bongino and Kash Patel or someone above them, although the only people really above them are Pam Bondi, theoretically, and Donald Trump.
Someone has decided that the public is not going to have any of this information about what this investigation reveals.
Not just the public, but Republican senators who have been asking and who have been getting stonewalled.
And when you combine that with other things the FBI has done, declaring, oh, there's nothing in the FBI in the Epstein files to see.
He killed himself.
There's no client list.
There's no blackmail.
And even the lack of information about the Tyler Robinson shooting of Charlie Kirk, allegedly, which as I said, at least there they have the excuse if there's an ongoing investigation they don't want to jeopardize.
I think a lot of questions are very urgent about the FBI and the Thomas Crookes case and why there's so much stonewalling.
And congratulations to both of these journalists for doing the job to the extent they could do it.
But the real story has to be told by the FBI with evidence, with testimony.
We shouldn't tolerate any more of this refusal to answer, this lack of cooperation, this concealment.
It's very strange why Donald Trump's own officials would have an interest in preventing the American public from learning about the person who tried to kill him and came very close to doing so.
