Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Dec. 2, 2024 - Info Warrior - Jason Bermas

01:31:13

The Future Of Truth With TLAV

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Ladies and gentlemen, it's been too damn long.
	And when I say too damn long, we actually did a broadcast yesterday.
	And everybody can check that out.
	But that was a panel with Catherine Austin-Fitz, Steve from Slow Newsday.
	And that really revolved more around...
	The blockchain, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin in particular, artificial intelligence, and the incoming administration.
	I think it was a rather good discussion.
	There may be some overlap here.
	But I want to welcome Ryan Christian to the program of TheLastAmericanVagabond.com and really wanted to start in another direction, kind of what we were talking about off air.
	The future for independent media.
	Because there are so many people out there that think that we've had this kind of renaissance.
	And in a sense, I think we have.
	We have more people questioning things.
	More people no longer believing what the television and politicians are telling them.
	A lot less people willing to die on their shield for whatever the great narrative is of the day.
	You still have those people.
	But the problem is, and I think one of the reasons that The IMA, or Independent Media Alliance, has kind of risen out of this.
	There is not a real venue for most of us just to make a living and get our message out there in an egalitarian measure.
	measure.
	For all this talk about equity, et cetera, the algorithm is still against narratives that go outside of that right-left paradigm.
	I see it all the time.
	You can have commentary on either side, but as soon as you kind of step out of that boundary and you want to hold both sides to account, across all platforms, it is extremely difficult to make any kind of money or have any kind of lasting or it is extremely difficult to make any kind of money or have
	You can grow a little bit, but at some point, someone out there or some algorithm, some bot, some AI catches you, and all of a sudden, your growth is stifled, your ability to make a living is stifled, and then what do you have?
	Well, you have the last American vagabond.
	And Ryan has had his own platform.
	Now, it's got to be close to a decade, if not more.
	So tell us about that, Ryan, and where you think the future's going.
	Yeah, it's a broad topic, and I'll touch first on what you said there.
	We kind of touched on this in the panel, actually.
	We always come to these points, I view it like this, where we see growing awareness of certain problems, a call for change from the public, and the establishment, the power structure, doesn't ever want those things.
	They want to just keep us in place, whatever suits their interests, and eventually it comes to a point where they're ready for a change because we are becoming aware of certain problems, and that's when they use what we want To lull us into a step that they prepared, right?
	This is so classic.
	And you know, you've covered this your entire career, you know, some of the 9-11.
	We all know this is something that's happened well before the United States power structure, right?
	Like this is just a classic idea of problem, reaction, solution, manipulating people.
	And so we see this with a lot of different topics.
	Now, right now we see, from yesterday, the kind of decentralization point, like floating these ideas that we should, and we all want them.
	Most people falling for the trap from good intentions, but they've already set a trap.
	You get this small halfway measure that traps you into another power structure that goes on for another thousand years.
	And so I think right now we're seeing that.
	And so with your independent media point, I agree.
	And I've been saying this a lot, is that I see more people than ever Not necessarily, I would say, aware of what I think is the full picture, but asking those questions.
	And that's such a positive step, right?
	Where suddenly they're asking about all of vaccinology, they're asking about foreign policy, the foundation of Israel, they're asking about whether our government lied about Syria.
	Like, huge foundational topics that before...
	Whether they were skeptical, they were kind of like, well, I'm just going to leave that alone, right?
	For, you know, go along to get along, like whether it's subconscious or not.
	And so I agree, we're seeing this sort of renaissance in all of this.
	And that's what the point is, I do see that happening.
	I think we've seen that happening for the last decade or less, where suddenly people are asking these questions, more people are in the independent media.
	We both remember where like 30 seconds ago, YouTube and the rest were all like denigrating, laughing at all the YouTubers in their basements, and now they're desperate to take over that field or I think this is what you're pointing to.
	I think the mainstream alternative media apparatus was a reaction to that change.
	And so instead of just going, well, we lost, we'll let you guys dictate what we do.
	That's what we pretend we live in now.
	They'll circumvent that with the illusion of that change.
	And so we fall for that trap.
	And it's what Catherine was saying last night.
	It's like this cycle that never stops where we want to trap us right back in the system.
	And I think that's very clear.
	But to the positive end of it, as you're saying, we're still there.
	We have this rising awareness and we need to circumvent the trap that happens every so often and actually lean into what we can see.
	And that just comes back to being...
	Objective.
	Nonpartisan.
	Questioning these things.
	Like I keep saying about Trump or anybody else, whether you voted for Kamala or Trump, whoever would have ended up winning, I would hope that you would hold that person more accountable than anybody else because you believe in them.
	That just seems like it makes sense to me.
	And that's what's lacking, right?
	You do have too much of the cheerleader type behavior.
	Yes.
	And you also have this idea that you have to overlook certain things.
	And I don't think that you have to overlook them.
	I think that you have to point them out.
	And say, look, I like this.
	I think it's a positive thing all of a sudden that you have a president of the United States coming in, not just talking about regulating the Federal Reserve, but maybe abolishing it.
	Now, is that going to happen?
	No.
	I don't think the IRS is going anywhere.
	I don't think the Federal Reserve is going to be abolished.
	The fact that the person that's about to take office is even talking about that is just something I couldn't even think of, especially the way that Ron Paul was initially treated when he was running for president in 2008 and espousing those ideas.
	One of those things I was saying 15, 16 years ago when he was running, I said, you know, if the media just took...
	A couple minutes every single night to let you know that Ron Paul was going to get rid of the IRS and the Federal Reserve and you weren't going to have a federal income tax?
	How popular would this guy be?
	I mean, there would be no doubt that the American people's ears would perk up if they made that an issue.
	They purposely made that a non-issue, didn't discuss it, and tried to do the same thing that they continue to do.
	They called him a racist.
	A lot of people forget that.
	And it wasn't just the left, by the way, everybody.
	There were people on the right.
	They were calling people Paul Tards.
	They were playing into that.
	Remember that?
	They were playing into the racism angle.
	Now you have excitement around the fact that Ron Paul, God love his soul, that he's still around, is being discussed as part of this possible administration when it comes to government efficiency and financial policy.
	Now again, whether or not that comes into fruition, I don't know.
	But I think that is more realistic that at least he will do a white paper.
	There will be a press conference.
	Perhaps there will be some overarching plan to try to bring some of this into fruition.
	That's a positive thing.
	But as you said, we have to make sure that that positive thing actually comes into being.
	Right, right.
	You can't hang back on the rhetoric.
	Absolutely.
	And so many people want to hang back on that rhetoric.
	And so let's go into like the now alternative media.
	Can I comment real quick on that?
	What's that?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Just a good point because this is exactly what's so important about this is it's a good step no matter what.
	Like, so there are people out there, we both can see that are, would, they want the country to be destroyed so Trump looks bad, or rather they would not want it to succeed because they hate Trump.
	And that's just, that's childishly stupid.
	And so my point is, as you're saying, even the fact that they're being, whether they, let's just say they're talking about it because they genuinely want the change, that's obviously good.
	But even if they're talking about it because they, like we're saying, are trying to lull you into the next trap, it's still a good thing to see that they're being forced to acknowledge it.
	That shows you the, whether the Overton window changing, like we're forcing that.
	But so I don't want to say I know for sure where that is because I still hold out hope that maybe they are going to change it.
	That everyone that thinks he's going to change the world is right.
	I would love to see that.
	But see, the point that you're making there is important is that we need to capitalize on that change either way, but be skeptical.
	Never allow the, just to fall into that lulled situation to where we get pushed into the next trap.
	Be skeptical as it goes forward.
	Maybe we can even get this to happen, even if they didn't plan for it because we take advantage of that.
	Like there's so much opportunity here.
	So it is a positive time at the same time we're like on the edge of a knife where it could become one of the worst, you know?
	And I think that's where we are.
	By the way, that dovetails, and I'm going to be posting both this and our conversation on my platforms into what we talked about yesterday, right?
	Because if all of a sudden you do get rid of the Federal Reserve and the IRS and there is some kind of an economic calamity, that could push us more into the realm of digital blockchain technology, which they're already in.
	And we discussed a ton of the trappings of that and why that could be a very, very dangerous thing.
	And we've already got a lot of the beta test outlines of that with the debanking, the deplatforming.
	The fact there are certain digital currencies that you can't use.
	The fact that if you are going to even delve into the cryptocurrency business and you're not just doing peer-to-peer, you need some liquidity.
	Coinbase is like the only game in town.
	And that's another thing that people don't realize or don't discuss.
	Like when we're talking about actual cash you can spend and put in something that you can distribute everywhere, there's one place.
	It's centralized.
	It's not decentralized.
	And as you know, Coinbase can lock you out of their account.
	I... Exactly.
	I remember waking up one morning, maybe two, three months ago, and all of a sudden my Coinbase account, just for 24 hours, for whatever reason, was restricted.
	No explanation.
	Just said I was doing a little dick-a-dick-a-doo.
	Something funny was going on, and somebody else has access to my finances.
	That's with no oversight whatsoever.
	At least the bank.
	For instance, another thing that happened to me just recently...
	Overdrafted on my bank account from an annual bill I forgot about on one of my second or third ones.
	Put some money in to make sure that I wasn't going to get kicked out.
	And then I checked it the next day.
	Everything seemed to be fine.
	Then all of a sudden the ATM wasn't working.
	I couldn't figure it out for the longest time.
	I get on the phone.
	Dude, I'm on the phone for hours.
	Finally.
	And they want...
	This is a New York bank account.
	They were trying to get me to create another bank account so they could move my money over and then send me another card.
	And I'm like, this is insane.
	What is going on?
	So finally, after hours and hours of conversation...
	She got to admit – and the weird thing was it was a payment for my VPN service.
	So I kept mentioning IPVanish, right?
	So she comes back after all this and she goes, all right, if you can tell me – That you used a virtual private network to log in.
	I go, yeah, I used a virtual private network to log in.
	It said I was from Chicago, right?
	And she goes, yes, it did say you were from Chicago.
	And I go, can we stop now?
	I go, this whole conversation, I told you what the bill was, so I know what a VPN is and I used it.
	You're telling me you locked me out of my account because I used a VPN to log into my bank account.
	Where was that in the warnings?
	Right?
	Everybody in the world uses these things today.
	I mean, it's very prominent.
	But they don't like it, right?
	They don't like it.
	And I can understand where they would think that that's some fraud.
	But again, if I don't have that human being to communicate with, I'm still waiting for a new bank account.
	My money is locked out.
	And that's basically what you have with Coinbase, what you have with social media, which we're kind of discussing.
	The automated side of it is just ridiculous.
	There's no humans to deal with on that side with Coinbase and things like that.
	And think about how many billions, if not trillions in assets right now they're controlling.
	And this is the movement.
	Actually, I take that back.
	I think Coinbase does have a side of it, I think, but like PayPal and the others, but same point.
	So keep continuing.
	I mean, they have something where you have like, but it's not immediate.
	It's not like I can make a phone call or even I can go to a chat bot and get in a list.
	You know, you're on a customer service queue and then eventually someone might get at you.
	Same thing with PayPal, which is also now Venmo, etc., The consolidation of the monetary system is very, very much in line with the consolidation of these social media companies because it is all about narrative control.
	And when you want narrative control, you've got to control people.
	Again, something else we discussed yesterday.
	Rumble!
	It has become an alternative platform.
	And look, I haven't had many issues with Rumble, but at the same time, just like YouTube, they're outwardly picking winners and losers.
	They may not have an algorithm, but they're actually paying people for content, just like YouTube.
	And God love Jimmy Dore.
	I'm glad they gave him a show.
	And I'm glad they're paying for him.
	I think that's all great stuff.
	At the same time...
	You're not seeing anybody on the left side getting those payments.
	And I know Jimmy is supposed to be on the left, but if that's as left as they're going, come on.
	I mean, he's kind of come around to almost the libertarian perspective.
	And that's fine.
	Look, if you don't want to pay a Sank Uyghur, I get it.
	I don't want to pay a Sank Uyghur, right?
	But you are paying all these other people.
	And you don't necessarily have a fair point for a Ryan Christian or a Jason Bermas to have an even playing field on these platforms.
	They'll tell you right now there is no algorithm, right?
	I don't know if I believe that, but you're right.
	That's the statement.
	I do believe it because I know they place things right on the front page, right?
	I've had my stuff.
	Well, there's always the ability to do that, as you know, from the back end.
	So regardless of what you're...
	But I just find it really hard to believe from marketing...
	I'll leave it there.
	I find that really hard to believe, but it's certainly possible.
	I think that they are doing kind of the old school keyword searches, you know what I mean?
	Because they also give you a couple of tags, and the tags don't show up, but then they don't have a list of certain, you know, it's not like a list of tags, and they have those two categories, etc.
	I can take them at their word on that because it's not hard to shadow ban someone when you don't have an algorithm that'll promote something that's popular.
	But to my point, basically that means that you and I, if we want our stuff to be seen on Rumble, we have to access our already audience, right?
	Our email list.
	We have to send that link out and then they're going to click on that link and they've got to share that link, etc.
	It's not going to show up on another social media platform, right?
	If I put my link in Rumble on Facebook, no bueno.
	I'm so banned on Facebook, it doesn't even matter if I upload the video directly to Facebook or my fan page.
	Less than 100 views on a page that I have 5,000 friends.
	Right?
	So those avenues are kind of by the wayside.
	And we've had these alternative platforms pop up again and again and again, right?
	We've had the getters of the world.
	We've had the odysseys of the world.
	We've had the Rockfin's of the world.
	Many of them now are well over a half a decade old, right?
	Rockfin, you and I have probably been involved, what, since 2017, 18?
	Right, we started.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's going to be 10 years before we know it.
	It hasn't been able to grab a niche in popular culture.
	Rumble prior to its acquisition was not able to grab a niche in popular culture.
	And I would argue it still is on the peripheral.
	If you talk to your normal middle-aged, I'm watching CNN and MSNBC couple, my friends from high school or college that aren't involved in this arena, they don't even know what it is.
	Well, here's the interesting part, though, is I think that that is only—I mean, I would actually disagree.
	I mean, I'm sure there are people that don't know what any of these things are, but I would argue that it is as mainstream as it ultimately gets in the context that if you are even on, like, you'll see in the left of the paradigm are MSNBC, CNN, and whatever else, and then are aware of Rumble as a platform, but then that's more the right side of it, I would argue— That's the whole Elon, you are now the media kind of game that's being played, even though this has been something we've been saying for however long.
	I think that's how I see it.
	It's like that divide based on the paradigm.
	And so my point is that that is...
	I think you've talked about this as well.
	With where we are today...
	I don't think there's ever a place for organic viral content.
	I think that it's controlled.
	I think that's very easy to accomplish with the way it works today.
	And so I think that if it's allowed to that prominence, I think there's a reason for that.
	It doesn't have to always mean that the people involved are aware, but I think at some level there's a puppeteer game going on where these things are being allowed to rise up.
	And I think, you know, like you said, before that rumble or Aura Rockfin, which by the way was very prominent within the field of this being used, and yet you're right, still never kind of went over that line.
	I think that's that line.
	There's something artificial holding these things back.
	Or a lot of us in this field where, you know, we've been doing this very long.
	Within the actual industry, everybody seems to know what we're doing.
	You know, but yet there's a difference between, or even as you've seen, covering the exact same caliber and level of guests that you get on corporate media, but still being seen as something different.
	You know, which, that's not what we're in this for.
	But nonetheless, it's just an interesting thing to see.
	What is that?
	Where are the artificial lines and strings that we don't see?
	We all sense that today.
	I think that's obvious.
	Whether wrong is that or not is the question.
	Yeah.
	Just kind of discussing with people that are in that, I vote Democrat or I vote Republican.
	And it's just down the line.
	I'm not part of something like the Reawaken America Tour.
	I don't listen to podcasts very much.
	Or if I do, I'm listening to NPR. Those are the type of people.
	They have no idea what Rumble is.
	They're more in line with what is catching media flack.
	So they know that Twitter and X are the enemy now.
	That's the one.
	And that kind of brings me to my next point on X. That seems to be at least the only mainline platform that maybe a guy like me could make some money.
	And I hate to make it about money because I've never done this for money.
	I've never done this for a paycheck.
	But I've still got to pay the bills, Ryan.
	And I was very, very fortunate over the last year to not only have my Making Sense of the Madness show, but then TNT hired me.
	TNT. There's one that was around for almost three years.
	Trying to be very independent, by the way.
	You know what I mean?
	Allowing a guy like me that is even going against some of the narratives that are being pushed on that network via Elon Musk and kind of like these alt-right Conservative talking points.
	Never once told me what to say, you know, and booked some guests that I was pretty damn shocked that I got to, you know, I'm talking to Louie Gohmert, former congressman, that I think is horrible on foreign policy, but I think his domestic stuff is really good, right?
	And like you said, how is it that I can have these guests that are just as big as you'd see on Fox or MSNBC and I can get no traction?
	And that network can get no traction, etc.
	But now I'm in a position where it's one gig.
	I used to be able to make a little bit of money on YouTube through kind of live streaming, etc.
	I'd probably go back to that.
	It's not a lot.
	And it's been more and more difficult to even get 100 people on a stream where I have 70,000 subscribers.
	Right.
	Same point.
	Yeah, which is extremely – I mean that's – That's the same point.
	That's algorithm.
	We all know that there's a level of – you're never going to get all your subscribers, but there's a general number in there where you get generally this percentage based on whatever you have, and that's not what you see.
	If you're getting 100 followers, there should be at least so many thousand based on that kind of following as a general average, and they know that too, so it shows something.
	And you can also, with YouTube, at least they have the really good analytics.
	You can get analytics on your thumbnail on how many people are clicking.
	When you have a click-through rate of over 5, that's great, which I always do.
	Sometimes I'm in the double digits of a click-through rate.
	That video doesn't get 5,000 views.
	That's insane.
	And especially if you also look at the view time on a video of mine.
	I average, for something I put out for 50 minutes, almost 20 minutes of watch time.
	that is again if you've been in the analytics game they should be promoting you they're not so that's not a viable place i can make money for some reason there are others out there that do similar content and i think it is because they've gotten to a certain level that they can't be censored in the same way i think luke radowski is a great uh example of that and i and i love luke Well, I would just point out that I agree with you.
	I think there is a level of being prominent enough to where it's more difficult because obviously you can pull all your strings and people start emailing them.
	We see that.
	But, I mean, if you just make the comparison, I mean, between just you two in general.
	I mean, Luke Krodowski is a foundational part of a lot of independent media, but he's not the same thing he was back then.
	I'm just going to be real.
	Like he's doing very surface level social commentary stuff.
	And that's the, hey, I'm not gonna create it.
	That's your prerogative, right?
	But it's easy to not get censored when you're leaning aggressively into the partisan, you know, batting back and forth about who's stupider, libs or Democrat.
	Like that's easy to get, you know, when you get into the, and I'll give it to him.
	There are points where I phrased him not too long ago where he was pushing back with Tim Pool about Operation War Speed.
	I'm like, good on you, man.
	Like credit where it's due because that's a challenging thing to say right there to call it out.
	But overall, with his show, you watch it.
	It's pretty softball with what he used to do.
	And I think, hey, but, you know, again, I'm not...
	You guys out there make your own decision on what you think is the right way to go.
	I'm more of the mind that I will never self-censor or softball because I think it's important with the truth.
	But maybe it would go 100 years back or look back and he changed more than I did because he was maneuvering through it with soft...
	You know, I don't know.
	But I think it's about holding the truth.
	You know, I talked about my MSOM show.
	I talked about TNT. I didn't talk about RVM. There's another...
	Alternative media platform that came to me.
	You know, RVM. Well, that was Red Voice Media.
	And they gave me a job.
	And they never told me what to say.
	And once again...
	Pretty right-leaning, right?
	Now, that was something when we talk about self-censorship.
	I would do two hours, five days a week, and that first hour would be streamed across all platforms, including YouTube.
	So right there, I had to self-censor, and I was very open about that, right?
	You know, whether it was me talking about the hate and lie shots and doing the boopity-boop, or certain subjects that, again, you just couldn't talk about on YouTube, but...
	But still talking about them.
	Well, I would say, hey, first hour's over.
	Come over to these other platforms.
	This is what we're going to talk about.
	And these are the two hours.
	And it was one continuous thing.
	And you're bringing people over from an audience that you know you're being censored and hopefully people see this other stuff and realize, hey, wait, you know, he is streaming at RockfinRumbleX from the beginning.
	I don't even have to start at YouTube anymore.
	That's kind of the progression and the point.
	I'll never be able to just do something where...
	Off-limits, right?
	Where I'm just told, hey, you can't talk about this.
	You know, I'll give a great example.
	When I had Giuliani on a month ago, right?
	I get a text from my producer, and I found out less than 24 hours before I was going to...
	No idea, and you can imagine my face when I see that I'm getting him.
	And in the text, he's like, hey, you know, he's here to talk about the book.
	If you want to talk about 9-11, he goes, do it off the air.
	And I go, I can't do that.
	Ha!
	I go, there's no way that I'm going to be able to have this conversation with this guy and stay true to myself without bringing up 9-11 in some regards.
	And I got in.
	Giuliani ended up loving me, which is very bizarre.
	Yeah.
	He also called for the declassification of all 9-11 documents.
	Again, wasn't expected.
	Easy to do.
	To say that out loud is very easy.
	Let's see if it actually follows through.
	He's obviously one of the last people who wants that.
	Fox News brought that up once, and the only other time you've heard about it is in the alternative media.
	And that speaks to not only the mainstream, but the alternative as well.
	Just like the Assange situation.
	Speaks to the mainstream and the alternative as well.
	How many people talked about Assange after that decision with Biden?
	I mean, the Biden administration didn't touch it.
	The Trump administration didn't touch it.
	The mainstream media didn't touch it.
	The alternative media very, very lightly treaded on that.
	And I saw almost nobody cover the press conference that Assange put out, what, about two months ago?
	Which is extremely important, right?
	And...
	Once again, we should be calling for Trump on day one to pardon him and get rid of that horrible, horrible precedent-setting decision where you can successfully be charged with the Espionage Act for doing journalism.
	Well, just to be clear, even if he's pardoned, that precedent is still set, right?
	So that's important.
	Is that true?
	Yeah, well, because you're being pardoned from the accountability for the crime.
	The precedent was still the legal action that was taken.
	So can he overturn that?
	That's the next question because it's from the DOJ. It's international.
	No, that would be different.
	So if you overturn the ruling, that would change it.
	But see, what's interesting, though, is I doubt that'll happen.
	And the way I see this, as always, is that you get the—I'm sure your audience is familiar with my opinion, the two-party illusion, how this is sort of a, you know, each side bringing to the table one part of it, which ultimately comes together to achieve the agenda.
	And so in this case, you've got the Biden administration that ultimately gets him out of jail, as it were.
	And then you have the Trump administration, if it comes to pass, that comes in and then pardons him, essentially.
	So both of them sort of take the credit for we're the one that made it right when each of them point to the other side as being responsible.
	But to the point, it doesn't actually change the outcome of what that was about.
	That's what I would expect.
	And so, again, I'm not hiding that I'm a pessimist when it comes to government.
	I think we have history and precedent to show us that we should be erring on the side of, that probably won't happen, but I hope for it to happen.
	That's what they've shown us, you know?
	Being in place is extremely dangerous.
	Yes.
	I mean, that's any one of us, anybody across the world that simply reports on something they don't like.
	Make no mistake or bones about it.
	And that will expand.
	You want to talk about classified documents?
	Okay, whatever.
	That's a small portion of this.
	And I think that when you look at what's happening in Europe, it's very apparent that that's a small portion of this.
	And...
	One of the big things about Assange that you can always point to is the punishment is the process, right?
	Everybody knows he didn't do anything.
	He's in an embassy for years.
	He's getting dragged out by all fours.
	I wouldn't want anybody to see me like that, let alone in Belmarsh.
	Right.
	For several years, right?
	I got to tell you, one of the most heartwarming things that I saw all year and one of the things that made me smile the biggest, not only the day that I found out, oh my God, this guy's going to get out, but when he posted a picture of him and his family on the beach smiling, right?
	I was just like, this guy gets to be a human being again, which a lot of us...
	We're not sure whether that was going to happen.
	Now, look, let's move into the positivity, right?
	Because I think that you mentioned about a decade ago, things did start changing a little bit.
	Narratives started crumbling.
	More people did come over.
	And there was kind of almost that golden era for guys like you and me where the censorship wasn't there, where we could monetize on things like YouTube, etc., and still grow and get out there.
	Post-Trump getting in, I think that's really, ironically, where a lot of the censorship started taking the next level.
	Because again, like you said, a lot of people were being awakened because the guy was saying things, again, you've got to give him credit for.
	First president since Eisenhower to talk about the military-industrial complex, right?
	First guy to really say that he wasn't into the wars, right?
	He wasn't constantly talking about the war on terror, etc.
	And when he was talking about ISIS, he's like, we're going to get rid of him in a month, right?
	And a lot of people laughed at him about that.
	Or trying to shut down the internet because they're working with Bill Gates to shut the internet down because ISIS is manipulating.
	I think it's important to point out that these are, again, are statements, right?
	And I don't think that you can look at the record.
	So they didn't happen, right?
	So words are one thing.
	Actions are another.
	And I think we all need to base our engagement with politicians on what they actually do.
	And, you know, and some of it can be because the other side stopped him or because something shifted.
	Now it doesn't make sense anymore.
	But that's not the point.
	And another conversation it is.
	But in this conversation, it's about whether they actually come to fruition.
	And I think it's important to see.
	And I think we shouldn't skip past that point you made right there.
	I don't think it's ironic.
	I think it's interesting that when that began to come into earnest, it was under Trump's administration.
	Now, that doesn't mean it was him or even his administration.
	It could be because the other side, because the reaction to him.
	But again, from my perspective, those things are irrelevant to the point of it all, which is that it happened and that our government's responsible.
	You know, and so I think I honestly am.
	I'm just doing that to be objective.
	I personally think it's obvious what happened is that we can see the beginning of this.
	And it wasn't Trump.
	He's an idea in all this, right?
	This is the government using these different players, and I think at this point we see where Trump was put into place, and we saw this rapid shift.
	I think we talked about it at the time.
	It wasn't on a dime, but before it, at least you could have somewhat of an amicable conversation with most people.
	You are the other side.
	We have this respect for the fact that we're part of the same...
	We're America, and we're Americans, and we're on the same side, but we want to debate.
	We pretended that was...
	You know, honorable, which in a way it is to be able to have that cross aisle conversation, even though it was still an illusion then, in my opinion.
	Then, of course, you get the shift where it became, oh, well, you're the enemy then.
	You're going to murder my family.
	You're going to destroy the country.
	And we all saw that, like, really hard turn after Trump's administration.
	I, again, think that was a play.
	I think it was because the whole game is to use Trump as the kind of justification, like bring it down around his feet and blame him for what's going on.
	I mean, I'm still waiting for that shoe to drop from the Democrats to literally make that argument.
	That the only reason it was bad is because Trump's the one that did the vaccine.
	We'll make it right next time.
	Like, it's kind of already happened, but not, like, really leaned into.
	So that's kind of where I see it all playing out, is that I think it's kind of this game of back and forth.
	But the censorship started in earnest around that time frame, and I don't think we should ignore that.
	And I think right now we're going to see it...
	I almost go harder with the Israel overlap, and it's not just going to be about that, but I think we all sense this.
	It's getting alarming, and that whole overlap right there shows you some stuff that I think most Americans are uncomfortable acknowledging, but we really have to lean into that, like the AIPAC side of it, even with the immigration side of it.
	What is it?
	Paragon Solutions, an Israeli spyware entity working with their unit to intelligence group, the leading part of the industry.
	Are involved with, I think since October, a contract with ICE. You know, I'm going like, gosh darn it, like we can see these weird overlaps with this stuff and talking about the immigration dynamic.
	And it's like, anyway, I'm sorry, I'm going off on a tangent.
	No, no, I do want to get into the Israeli stuff and foreign policy because I do think that's really important.
	But I want to hit more on the censorship for a minute because I think that you're right that this kind of stuff barrels through administrations, you know, no matter what the rhetoric is.
	And, you know, you just mentioned I'm like, uh-oh!
	But I also think that speaks to the guy's ignorance, right?
	I know that there are so many people that think that, you know, he's the second coming.
	I mean, I've got my donor deck over there from...
	From Patriot.tv where you literally got Trump as like an evangelical swords cutting like democratic – like it's over the top.
	But like we discussed yesterday, Trump doesn't even understand the blockchain or Bitcoin.
	Like when he's saying things like – You made a good point.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Yeah, we're going to make all the Bitcoin.
	No, we're not, Trump.
	No matter what you did, that's not a possibility.
	That's not how it works.
	Or real quickly, he ended the conference by saying, have fun playing with your Bitcoin.
	He literally said that.
	Well, that's my...
	Look, that's my...
	I mean, even in the Joe Rogan interview, which I watched top...
	I was actually driving back from New York City to Iowa, so I got to watch it top to bottom.
	When he's sitting there even talking about fighters with him, you know?
	And he's in a lot of fights.
	You know, I'm an addict, you know?
	He was going to some of even the smaller ones that weren't UFC... Even that, which he's been involved with decade upon decade, kind of has a peripheral knowledge.
	Still baseline.
	And I think that's with so much of what he does.
	I think that his strong suit of the knowledge that he actually has is getting projects started, then finished.
	And somewhere in the middle, there's a lot of gray area.
	All the time, whether that was him building stuff in New York, his involvement in casinos and promotions, or his political career.
	Now, that's where we can kind of bring Israel into this.
	Because when you look at what's going on foreign policy-wise right now, yeah, Ukraine and Russia are largely concerned.
	Just as concerned with the Middle East.
	Right?
	I mean, when you're calling protesters on the left pro-Hamas because they're anti-genocide, I'm never going to be able to get down with that. - Right.
	When you're on the left and you're kind of even on the peripheral of that and you don't understand what the geopolitical reality is in this situation, I don't think that necessarily helps a lot.
	Like when I hear, for instance, you know, free Palestine, I'm not against that.
	But what does that mean?
	And people look at me and they go, well, that means the occupation ends.
	And I go, yeah, but how does that happen when Israel is so militarily and globally powerful, when they're part of our alliance?
	And when I'm not just talking about the United States, I'm talking about Five Eyes, right?
	So we have to look at that.
	Like, for instance, when you had Macron...
	And Xi Jinping come out and have that conference, probably about two, three months ago, and say, what Israel's doing is wrong, and they need to go back to the 1973 lines that we drew, that's never going to happen.
	Like, I wish it was.
	Hold on, let me address some of the things you said.
	So it definitely, I disagree with that.
	I think it's up for the conversation to be had that Israel has verifiably now been exposed for actively stopping that at every point since this has started for 76 years.
	Well, I think that's a good thing.
	I think the historical rhetoric is good.
	It's not even rhetoric, the historical precedent.
	Like, you have to show how it came into fruition, what was agreed upon.
	But I think that you also have to show the reality of the people in charge are saying there is no two-state solution.
	That's my point.
	What are we going to do?
	Like, how do you get those people out?
	Right, right.
	And this is something that the Israeli population is screaming about that both our Western media and journalists – media and politicians don't care about.
	In fact, they're blatantly lying about it.
	They're the ones in Israel looking at most of their Israeli media, screaming about their extremist, prophetic, Zionist leadership.
	They're the ones saying that.
	It's crazy where we are today.
	But the point is, interestingly, that you're talking about is that this is important to acknowledge.
	We have to start with the foundational lies.
	Israel has, the Israeli government has explicitly manipulated the dealings going back as far as you can look.
	And this has been admitted by Haaretz.
	It's admitted by human rights groups, the United Nations.
	It's very clear.
	And now one of the main ones that everybody sees today is Ihu Barak and former, I forget his name, leader of Shin Bet, openly telling you they gave $1.5 billion to Hamas and they pretend it was for humanitarian aid.
	Let's not forget, if you have to ship in aid because they can't, there's no aid to buy inside of Gaza.
	They gave them money for other things than aid because Israel controls the aid that comes in.
	The point is on top of that, in his own meeting from Haaretz quoting him in his Likud meeting, he says that we are doing this, funding them.
	It's our policy to keep them divided.
	So we shouldn't be debating those things for those that are out there.
	So that, to be clear, means that they've never been interested in this deal.
	So to your point, I agree, though, because right now, regardless of what either side wants, we're at a point where there are people on both sides that have been born into this, families that grew up.
	I mean there's a whole vein through Israel of Orthodox Jews that are very anti-Zionist, that do not agree with any of this.
	So why would they have to suffer?
	Why should we displace them?
	But to be real, the legal reality is this is an illegal occupation.
	That's under anybody outside of the political narratives, United Nations, international groups.
	It's very clear.
	So that means the legal reality would be to just give it back to Palestine.
	But I agree with you.
	We're so far past that now.
	So a two-state solution decided between equal parties is the way to go.
	But you're right.
	Not because of the elements that don't want that.
	There's some on both sides.
	It's very difficult.
	But that's not for the world to dictate.
	Now, so the interesting part, though, is you go back to The idea of...
	Gosh, shoot.
	There was a point you made earlier.
	I just lost it.
	Well, anyway, the interesting part, though, is that we can see that we're at a time where the powerful entities on both sides of our government, or rather just our government, are deeply invested with the Zionist government.
	And that's counter to what Americans want, to what Israelis want, by and large.
	And it's important to make sure we see that.
	There wasn't a point I was going to make, but go ahead.
	I lost it.
	I just want to point out to what you just said.
	You know, this is the Washington Post.
	The International Criminal Court is not the venue to hold Israel to account.
	The ICC is needed to help resolve war crimes in Russia, Sudan, Myanmar.
	Targeting Israel makes that harder.
	That's so crazy.
	It's totally nuts.
	And this is kind of my point, right?
	You just kind of talked about...
	We don't like.
	Well, there's two things you mentioned on there.
	It's important.
	We should all be on guard to the genuine reality of what globalism is.
	And I think what's important is that very much, I would not just include, I think a leading part of that is Israel and Zionism.
	So that is the full picture we need to address when we're talking about that.
	But so it's important, like the UN even, or ICC, ICJ, we should as Americans be very, very skeptical and resistant to anything outside of exactly what we're seeing right now.
	Because there's an easy way for these things to bleed into, like with the EU. You know, we realize how they basically lost control because of the dynamic there.
	But so the point, though, is that what we do see is the obvious reality of the international enforcement arm that was created for things just like this.
	And so I would argue this is the way it should be applied.
	But the point is that what you highlighted there is incredible because the ICC and the ICJ, it's about enforcing the international law.
	So the idea that they pretend first that they're not applicable, the important part in there is that Israel...
	Just like the United States in other contexts, just don't acknowledge this and act like they're somehow not, you know, able to be held accountable by it, which there's some level of truth to that, but then always point at it and use it when they want to go after Russia, let's say.
	But the secondary point is that Palestine, which is interesting because they love to pretend like it's not real, even though in many other Israeli arguments they sort of allude to the fact that it is the thing, the point is that They have been established in the eyes of the ICC and ICJ. They are a state that is part of this now.
	They're a legal part of it.
	So whether Israel wants to acknowledge it, Palestine is the one dealing with them, and then crimes Israel commits in Palestine, and read Gaza in this sense, are applicable.
	And they know this, right?
	So they're trying to kind of flounder their way out of it.
	And the third part that you pointed to there with the secondary writing, it's just so stupid.
	No, no, it's for Russia and Africa.
	Like, just go after the ones we don't like.
	Ignore everything else.
	It just...
	It's destroying the illusion of the rules-based order that there ever was one.
	It's pretty sad.
	Well, again, when you are talking about the ICC, and I like that you said the rule-based order, because a lot of people go to old man Bush as Mr. New World Order.
	He was certainly the spokesperson for it during that time period.
	That's why he gets a large chunk in Invisible Empire and New World Order defined.
	But when he is given that famous speech...
	Well, there's several of them, but the one that's close up, it's an address from the presidential office, he goes, a new world order, not ruled by the laws of the jungle, but led by a credible United Nations.
	He's always talking about the United Nations, and this has always kind of been the vehicle for globalism, but at the same time, like you said, it's always selective enforcement, and that's what I've always tried to point out.
	Look, when I talk about Palestine and Israel, I would like nothing more than there to be a real line, a real government for Palestine with a real infrastructure that people could travel not only from Palestine to other regions, but internationally.
	In other words, they need an airport, guys.
	People don't realize that.
	People on the peripheral don't realize that you've got We're good to go.
	So now you're looking at a place that has been totally devastated, right?
	I'm looking at Lebanon, which is another huge part of this.
	And now a lot of that has been totally devastated.
	You know, and Lebanon again, that's one of the places that was as close to a first world nation as you were going to get in the Middle East 70 years ago, post-World War II. Forget about now, you know, for a long time they've grown.
	And now...
	With this military operation, second world, if we keep bombing them and allowing this to...
	Third world.
	No doubt about it, right?
	But they also have a pretty decent military and I would argue Iran has a first world military.
	You know, whether that stacks up against the United States, stacks up with Russia, almost doesn't matter because we are talking about a Middle Eastern conflict.
	My big issue is I don't know...
	I want dead kids out of my feed, right?
	I'm even scrolling last night, Ryan.
	Can't sleep.
	Can't sleep.
	I've got to see a goddamn baby on the operating table bleeding out.
	It's tough for me to sleep when I see shit like that.
	And it should be for anybody out there.
	The fact that it isn't really bothers me.
	Well, I just want to put it out there.
	I don't want to displace 2 million people.
	I don't.
	Okay?
	Because I don't know where they go either.
	And I don't know how...
	Well, obviously.
	I mean, it would be along the same lines as the genocide that's occurring.
	But I also don't want another 2 million people dead.
	Right?
	I don't.
	So...
	And this is one of the reasons, look, love Trump or hate Trump.
	I just saw this going the same direction if the Harris administration got in.
	In other words, just kind of on the peripheral.
	Every once in a while, the media going out there and saying, oh, they're not helping enough.
	But no reality-based stuff, right?
	Nobody reporting on the genocide.
	Nobody saying it's time to stop it.
	Nobody saying it's time to stop U.S. military aid.
	You talked about aid, right?
	We know Delta Force came in as aid to Gaza.
	They thought they were getting aid.
	No, they were getting a military operation.
	So we're just as involved.
	We've talked about this.
	Special Forces on the ground.
	U.S. Special Forces on the ground October 7th.
	When that thing happened, more sent after the fact and continually sent.
	So when I talk about Trump, I have no illusions that he's going to go anti-Israel.
	But what I think that he might do is put a spectrum around it.
	In other words, this is as far as you can go.
	This is as long as the operation can take.
	What is your plan and what are you doing?
	Now, what that looks like after the fact, I don't know.
	But I'd love to get your take on it.
	Like, are the Palestinians even going to get a sliver of the land they once have?
	If they do, is it essentially the same situation where they're in an open-air prison that's driven by AI, by the way, folks?
	Like, those sharpshooter programs at the...
	At the checkpoints, you have automated weapon systems that kill targets.
	They have less lethal munitions, but listen, you get hit with a shotgun beanbag at 20 feet, you might not make it.
	And plus, the IDF sees you get shot by that sharpshooter.
	I don't think they're waiting.
	I also don't think that they're using beanbags.
	They say that they're less lethal munitions on the sharpshooter program.
	Actually, I think that it's the rubber bullets with them.
	I agree.
	Those things exist.
	My point is whether those are actually what are being used outside of the moment they point to it on some show is the question.
	Sure.
	To bring this back to a lot of points I want to address there.
	So you mentioned the dead children on your feet, right?
	So let's bring this back to the point that I was going to mention before that I forgot.
	And we say, who knows what they mean when they see free Palestine?
	I can tell you right now, that's what most people mean right there.
	They want that to stop.
	They want this country to stop being suppressed and occupied, living in an apartheid state where they are treated like second class, if citizens at all, right?
	This is the reality of free Palestine.
	Now, of course, I could say free Palestine.
	I could mean murder all the Jews.
	Certainly could be possible.
	I could also say free Syria and mean murder the U.S. government, but maybe not.
	Maybe I'm talking about free a country that's being oppressed, right?
	The reality is that this is the game that gets played.
	You can always open that door to who knows what they secretly, wink, wink, mean.
	But how about we address that?
	And I'm not saying this to you, but just anybody.
	The general point about whether, you know, from the river to the sea means genocide.
	Well, okay, well, if that's the case, then it means genocide when it's literally stated in the Lukud party charter, right?
	Like, which is Netanyahu's party, and it's still there to this very day.
	Like, it's a game of words.
	And we all actually know this.
	I think it comes down to choosing to blind ourselves to intentions or the reality around them when it comes to a political interest, right?
	So that's important to think about.
	There are always racists.
	There are always people out there that want to hurt people for whatever reason.
	Most people, which I think is objectively clear by just listening to what they say, want to see no subjugation of Palestinians.
	Simple as that.
	Now, what's important on top of that is the idea of the occupation, right?
	So Finkelstein, I forget his name all of a sudden on the top of the first part of his name, Finkelstein.
	Norman?
	Norman, thank you.
	I don't know why I just blanked on his first name.
	He was in an interview with Pierce recently and just made this great breakdown.
	And just to kind of paraphrase what he's saying, the point is that, again, the legal reality, whatever the political narrative is, Gaza's never stopped being occupied.
	As he says very well, they essentially repositioned their troops that were in to the peripheral.
	They still, to this very day, control the land, the air, the water, the telecommunications, everything.
	So it's an occupied territory, so that never stopped.
	That's important to recognize.
	That game where they play, oh well, they stopped being occupied after 2005. So that's important to think about, is that they have always maintained that.
	And so they've never lived in a free situation.
	They've always continued to suppress everything.
	98% undrinkable water are horrifying things.
	And of course, the displacement discussion.
	And this is important.
	I think this is where we are now, where we're talking about the...
	I think the thing you were hinting on, which is a fair question we should be asking, is okay, so we're in a situation where...
	2 million people are about to be displaced.
	But the alternative is they might die if they're left there, right?
	Now, the first thing to address in that is it's amazing the conversation skips past why that's the case.
	So we're just ignoring that they're going to commit genocide, and that's, like, the reason we want to move them out of the way.
	How about we stop them committing genocide, right?
	Like, there's an argument you made if they're like, we all see genocide, and the U.S. government and everybody else is going, that's genocide, and then they do it anyway, then maybe we should talk about moving them out of the way.
	But isn't that the global conversation?
	Because, like I said, when I talked about...
	I want leaders like Macron and Xi Jinping saying that.
	They're kind of acknowledging that, right?
	Well, no, but see, this is where I was going with it.
	The point is, where we're at right now, the US government and most of the European Union governments are actively ignoring the fact that it's a genocide.
	They're actually flat out saying it's not the case.
	They're lying about it.
	They're saying this is a right to defense.
	And so the problem is Israel continues because they're being armed and supported by the leading military powers for the most part from the West.
	That's a huge problem.
	So my point is, first, let's address the legal reality.
	Just like we said with the occupation, legally speaking, the right thing to do is give it all back to Palestine.
	Now, there's realities today that make that not likely, and I would agree the two-state solution makes more sense.
	But when we're talking about the displacement dynamic, Israel's stated objective, as even their own people are pointing out today, and former members of their government, even current members, they had intended to displace and ethnically cleanse Gaza.
	That was their plan.
	And that's been revealed.
	And more than that, too, Ryan, isn't the Greater Israel Project go even beyond Gaza?
	Most of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, I mean, Saudi Arabia, the Greater Israel Project, which is very prominent, they have patches.
	I think Smotrich just gave a speech in front of a podium that had that symbol on it, where that means they're planning to further illegally occupy territory they claim God gave them.
	So that's a terrifying thing.
	That's my point, though.
	So now we're talking about people being displaced.
	So the legal reality would be that they should not be removed because that's their territory, even if we're just talking about Gaza, right?
	And so that is an illegal thing to do.
	So then Israel steps in and says, no, we need to get them out of the way to go after bad guy Hamas.
	Well, so now we're back to 1946. The point is...
	The right of return.
	And we already see this with Gaza.
	They've already said, no, no, no, we promise, as Blinken said, they can go back to their homes.
	Well, now that's not the case.
	They've now for weeks been saying they will never go back to northern Gaza.
	We've now taken that.
	That's now ours.
	That's public, even though the West is ignoring that.
	So why would we then go, okay, let's take their word again and kick them out of the way, but don't worry, we'll let you back.
	They won't do that.
	Same thing with Lebanon.
	They're saying you can come back once you get rid of Hezbollah.
	The point is they're using the same narratives to continue to encroach, continue to legally occupy, and the process illegally bombing literally everybody.
	Bombing in the places they are, bombing in the places they're told to go to be safe, and bombing them along the way.
	This is reported by literally everybody in the conversation other than political manipulators.
	So this is the hardest part for me, is that I get the logic of wanting to save their lives, right?
	Because I agree that it seems pressing, but that's their choice to make.
	As Palestinians, if they want to stand by their home and get bombed as their – that's what they're saying.
	If you ask them, we're going to die here.
	This is our land and we're never going to give it up.
	That should be respected.
	That's honorable, right?
	And then hold the people accountable who are committing murder.
	But obviously if they want to flee, of course they have that right.
	But then in many cases you pointed out, Israel won't let them.
	It's a crazy dynamic.
	Well, the accountability thing is the problem, right?
	Because just like in the United States, none of these people are going to be held to account.
	And that's where my big problem is because, again, I'm trying to go into a realistic space.
	Like, I don't like the idea that it looks like Gaza is going to be beachfront property for Jared Kushner and his buddies.
	But it does.
	It looks that way, right?
	Like, as every day goes further, that does look like, you know, we talked about the Greater Israel Project.
	The way you get people behind that that aren't necessarily Zionist or geopolitically caring or, you know, anti-Muslim is, hey, you're going to make billions of dollars, right?
	Yeah.
	Hey, we're going to give you this strip.
	You're going to build hotels, etc.
	And that is certainly part of it.
	Now, when you talk about the Greater Israel Project, you talked about Saudi Arabia.
	Saudi Arabia has kind of aligned themselves in a lot of ways with Israeli policy, or at least kept quiet on what's going on in a lot of ways.
	And again, I think that, yes, Saudi Arabia is outside of the Five Eyes Alliance, but they are certainly involved in the Middle Eastern alliance and the war on terror with the United States and its allies, right?
	that dynamic.
	And just take a look at what they've done in the last 20 plus years.
	They've embraced a lot of westernized culture in Saudi Arabia.
	Yes, they still have the traditional garb.
	Yes, obviously it's still an Arabic nation.
	Yes, most of these people are Muslim, but they're investing in western sports, in western entertainment.
	They're trying to make Riyadh.
	In fact, my buddy who I made pizzas with for years, just went to Dubai with his wife.
	It's a new vacation spot, right?
	And I see Israel trying to do that in that region.
	It's not because that's the point, but that you'll get a lot of more economic backing from powerful people.
	And those same people have influence in the media.
	When we talk about United States politicians, I agree with you.
	We're few and far between with anybody speaking out on this, right?
	And most of them would be on the left, the squad, if you will.
	I mean, if you're going to get something right, I think that issue, they do have it right, right?
	I wouldn't say everywhere, but yeah.
	Well, no, not everywhere.
	Yeah, but at least they're talking about the genocide, right?
	I think that's important and that Palestine exists.
	Somebody like Massey, again, all these people are imperfect, but he won't even go when Netanyahu is speaking in Congress.
	I love them.
	That's great because he's not going when Zelensky's there.
	He's not going when anybody's there.
	That's a big deal to me.
	We need more people like that because if you don't have people like that, well, then how can you politically change these things?
	I guess my big question is what do you expect?
	Do you expect under the Trump administration, given if we can de-escalate the Putin stuff and the rhetoric of World War III and somehow get Ukraine under control where NATO, Russia, Ukraine aren't bombing all the time.
	Can we get something similar in the next 18 months in the Middle East where whatever it is, Israel is just not attacking everybody?
	Or do you think that this is going to end up being just kind of a four-year campaign on the peripheral where Trump sends them whatever weapons they want every once in a while?
	Maybe some special forces get involved.
	But just like you know and we've discussed before, privatized military groups are really where it's at in that region.
	And that's kind of an extension of U.S. policy anyway.
	I see a lot more of that.
	So I'd love to – because I'm going in this blind, right?
	I just saw what happened in the last four years with no accountability, a press that wasn't even going to press the administration on these conflicts.
	And kind of the same rhetoric that, you know, oh, they're not doing enough – Meanwhile, they're doing everything Israel wants.
	That was the most ludicrous thing.
	At least with Trump, they're not going to say he's not doing enough.
	And they'll press him on a plan to try to regulate this.
	Now, I don't know if that's a good plan.
	Like, that's the other thing I've tried to say to everybody.
	I'm not on this train like this is a great solution, but I don't know if there are great solutions.
	One of the biggest things, two of the biggest things, in my opinion, that Trump really got wrong in foreign policy was one, and he touts it to this day.
	He talked about it when I saw him in North Carolina at the evangelical thing.
	Israel's a big part for the evangelicals.
	What?
	He gave Jerusalem as the capital, not his to-do.
	And then he gave the Golan Heights, not his to give, to Israel.
	Now, he still talks about those as positive things.
	To me, those are negative things.
	And I think we have to address that.
	At the same time, I don't think he's got a bloodlust.
	I don't think he likes watching dead kids either.
	You know what I mean?
	And I think that...
	If you go back to, what is it, Cassandra?
	I think her last name is McDonald now.
	Her reporting on the Assange thing, she had been taping Rick Grinnell's subordinate, and he was told that I think?
	So I think they can be manipulated, obviously, with that type of thing.
	But I don't think he likes dead kids.
	So I ranted a little bit there.
	What do you expect?
	Do you think this is going to be a four-year run of the same thing, maybe even getting more out of control?
	Or can it get regulated to at least there's a solution, even if it's not a good one?
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, I think as always, my point would be that, you know, they can say a lot of stuff.
	I think our biggest problem in this country is that we tend to, for whatever reason, aggressively lean into what they promise or say they'll do and ignore what they've done.
	You know, and I think that's the reality.
	I mean, he can say a lot of good things and we can hope he doesn't feel this way or that way, but it's just about what he's done, what he supported, whether tricked into it or not.
	And that's, I think, the obvious reality.
	Now, what's interesting point about the...
	Basically, they won't say he's not doing enough for Israel.
	It's funny because remember what happened in his last administration.
	I actually think it could go either way.
	During his administration, what were they calling him?
	An anti-Semite.
	They literally were calling him a racist.
	They're calling him a, you know, and red hats were suddenly Nazis and Jew haters.
	And it's like, that's what my first point to Republicans is like, can you not see that 30 seconds ago, you were the ones being called anti-Semites for wearing a red hat.
	Now you're screaming at people calling for no genocide and saying you're anti-Semites.
	It's just this constant cycle of the partisanship using the same narratives.
	But to your question, you know, it's important.
	I'd like to hope I don't know where they're drawing some of these things from, but what they see Trump being and being capable of accomplishing in Ukraine or Israel, I hope you're right.
	I mean, we all should.
	The same point made before.
	The problem is that right now, it doesn't seem to be going in that direction.
	I don't know.
	why this even makes sense that Trump or Elon right now in any way are involved in this?
	Like, I'm not talking about as an individual, but like conducting actual discussions with foreign policy, nuclear armed leaders that are currently hostile to the US government.
	Like, technically, that's illegal right now.
	They're not in a position of power.
	It's a crazy thing.
	And my point is, why are the Democrats calling that out, if that's happening?
	It seems like Alex Jones is the one floating a lot of these ideas, and I can't verify that they're actually happening, so maybe they're not happening.
	It wouldn't surprise me.
	Like, for example, he just reported that Trump is talking about deploying U.S. military into Ukraine to help facilitate the peace process.
	And I'm going like...
	I'm just like, come on, guys!
	We can't be this stupid!
	Like, so...
	Joe Biden bringing troops to Ukraine is World War III. Trump bringing troops to Ukraine is the end of the war.
	It's like, I guess.
	All that comes down to is you believing that he has good intentions.
	This is the kind of childish partisan belief that I get so frustrated with.
	It's like, I hope you're right.
	But we need to realize that it still amounts to more U.S. presence in the middle of a war.
	You think Putin is going to be okay with having U.S. troops right along his border?
	That was the reason this all started.
	That was the red line that was crossed with Ukraine or the one before, the encroachment of NATO. You know, so it just kills me.
	Again, this is all up in the air.
	So we have to wait and see what he does, what actions actually happen, and then engage with them honestly.
	The problem is that so many people are willing to look at anything, even deploying troops, as a positive because Trump does it.
	And by the way, the same thing people do with partisan stuff on the left.
	This is the partisan mindset, is you choose to ignore facts to support not everybody, but the problem within it, and to support the candidate you choose.
	So I think, to answer, I guess, your specific question...
	I think what we're going to see, if I had to guess, it's my prediction, is that we're going to see some kind of maneuvering the situation to make it look as if there was some action taken and then either blaming Putin or somebody else or some false flag conducted by Israel to the justification for why the forlorn hero, we just, we have to keep going like Trump did with Syria.
	We're going to pull out of Syria, last administration, and then, oh!
	So I did something and we have to go back in.
	That happened twice, by the way, you know?
	And so that's what I predict is most likely.
	One thing I would argue is the second most likely is that they do find some way to de-escalate this, which wouldn't go in, which would seem to challenge everybody else's position on Ukraine, which would ultimately be conceding to Russia, right?
	So that's not what Zelensky wants or pretends is happening.
	Yet he argues Trump is going to end the war.
	I don't even know how he thinks that makes sense when he's saying we'll never give up, we're never going to fight.
	But so I think that might be the way it goes in order to bring this down and then everybody would, rightly so, point to that positive.
	The war's over, that happened.
	My worry is, like we talked about earlier, that that's a means to an end.
	To get you to lull into this belief that they are bringing you in a positive direction only to basically trap you in the next thing.
	Now that's just an opinion.
	And I get how you can look at that as sort of like being...
	You know, even the positives are negative.
	But nonetheless, be clear, that will be a positive.
	To end the war in Ukraine, no matter how that happens, is a positive thing because people will stop dying.
	I think we just need to be on guard about how these things can be used.
	And obviously with Israel, I mean, we see how clearly Israel has, in my opinion, is his cabinet.
	That would be a positive for them right now, to kind of distract away from what's currently happening with Lebanon and everything else.
	But again, positives we should engage with, but just be worried or be weary of how these things are used against us.
	So let's talk about some of those appointments.
	Now again, we're 50 days out or so from him being sworn in.
	Naming people as of yesterday.
	Obviously, Hegsworth is unproven, but at the same time, very hawkish.
	Ex-military guy, Fox News host.
	He said, listen, I've watched him.
	He said some common sense stuff out there, but...
	You know as well as I do, I don't necessarily trust somebody that's making their living in full makeup with a teleprompter on a national network five days a week, right?
	Like, that's a big issue with me.
	Mike Huckabee, as the Israeli ambassador, a lot of people kind of think that's not a big deal, but it really is a big deal because Huckabee has been in the game for a very, very long time.
	Not just in the political arena, but remember he also had his own show on Fox.
	He's very much on the speaking tour circuit.
	I know he was out here in Iowa just a couple months ago.
	Huge with the evangelicals.
	And bottom line, as Zionist as it gets, right?
	Like he's going to go with just about anything the Israeli leadership proposes, which is problematic.
	Now, look, his daughter, I thought she was a...
	An amazing press secretary, right?
	And she's now won her governorship.
	I actually like Sarah a lot.
	I think that she's pretty decent.
	I don't know that I'd want her in my foreign policy, but she's not in my foreign policy.
	Let's talk about somebody that kind of is in our foreign policy now.
	Tulsi Gabbard, DNI, right?
	I think that's a good appointment.
	But Tulsi has also been hawkish in the Middle East at times, which I'm not in love with.
	Really quickly, for saying with RFK, it's almost more problematic because of how contradictory that seems to the stance you've been taking.
	But I would agree Tulsi is one of the better choices.
	But that's a hard one for me when you go from this complete flip to being anti-war but will ignore the genocide.
	Well, again, that's where I think that RFK Jr. really lost a lot of people.
	And I think that even though his presidential campaign was never viable as a third party, it was much less viable after he went on and debated Max Blumenthal on Jimmy Dore.
	And look, Vivek Ramaswamy, same problem.
	I thought that guy was on a locomotive train.
	He got derailed on Jimmy Dore with the Israeli policy because this is a guy who's coming out of anti-war and then all of a sudden he's talking about smoking people out of their holes.
	And I often talk about this – And by the way, guys, I want to make it very, very clear.
	I don't like our own, when I say our, I say the United States' own policies that the same rhetoric has been used for the war of terror and everything else.
	So this isn't just poking at Israel because we're involved in all this.
	We have a stake in it.
	Our people die there too.
	Our companies benefit.
	Our government is involved.
	Go down the line.
	So when Ramaswamy came to Iowa...
	I'm sitting there and talking to his campaign director and I'm like, you know, I really like a lot of what this guy has to say.
	I want to think that he's for real, but he really just got dominated on the Jimmy Dore show.
	And he goes, oh, you're talking about the Israeli – he knew exactly what I was talking about right away, Palestinian talk.
	I go, yes.
	And he goes, well, this is a Republican primary.
	Right.
	And I'm just like, yeah, it's a Republican primary, but a lot of us that are voting this way aren't Republicans in the traditional sense.
	We don't like the neocon bullshit.
	We never liked that stuff.
	The implication there is that it's okay to lie because we're trying to address a certain audience.
	It's like, yes, guys, that's what he just said.
	Like, this is...
	That's politics for you, you know?
	I hate this.
	It's like a dirty concept that we dirty ourselves to argue that, well, that's just the way it works.
	That's like the lesser of evils dynamic in the election.
	All these high-minded partisans are out there going, that's what the adults in the room would do is choose the lesser of evils.
	Guys, you're being played.
	Like, that's compromising your principles, you know?
	And I'm not saying if you voted in that dynamic that that's what you did.
	It's your own personal choice.
	But this personal, like, this argument that if you don't do that, you're somehow hurting the law, you know...
	It's the game every time.
	Your vote matters no matter what until you get to the end race.
	And now it only matters if you do what we think.
	You know, Ben Carson actually had a pretty good line.
	He was at that Trump thing, the evangelical thing in North Carolina.
	And he goes, he brought up the lesser of two evils point.
	And he had a good line, I'm going to tell you.
	He goes, you know, for those of you That say that you're not voting Trump because he's simply the lesser of two evils and your Christian identity won't allow it.
	He's like, unless Jesus Christ is running, it's always going to be the lesser of two evils.
	And I go, all right, buddy!
	You know, I get it.
	I get it.
	Well, I would say this.
	The implication there is that everybody's evil.
	I don't agree with that.
	Well, I don't think that we've necessarily, I don't know if it exists, but we've never really had somebody super benevolent on the national stage.
	Fair enough.
	Benevolent and evil, there's a whole fucking lot of room in between those two things, right?
	And so the idea that we have to let game on the evil side of it and we only get to pick between the lesser of you.
	Guys, same point.
	Whether he meant that or not.
	And I find it hard to believe that you can.
	I think it's a logical fallacy.
	You know, the idea that it's always going to be...
	Now, you could argue that we'll always have to choose between who might be...
	I mean, even saying it like that, why aren't we in a position when we have the entire country to choose from where we're not picking up the top two people?
	And then you still may argue that this person has less faults, but that's not the same thing as saying lesser evils.
	You see what I'm saying?
	Like, that's such a problematic thing for me.
	And I think most people are starting to wake up to that, quite frankly.
	Well, you know, again, I'm hoping that people won't settle for the lesser of two evils arguments.
	I'll settle at all.
	Yeah, that's not an argument that I'm willing to settle on.
	I am pragmatic, right?
	I do realize everything is not going to go my way and that my vision of the world isn't the one that's necessarily going to be put out there.
	But like you said, we've got to hold everybody to account.
	And you fight for it, as you do.
	Well, you've got to do it, right?
	I think that, again, you talk about RFK Jr., and I think we discussed this yesterday, but I think he's the mea culpa with H.A., whether he gets...
	or not, that's a whole other thing.
	But as HHS, yeah, that's like, all right.
	Yeah, no, maybe I did screw up on Operation Warp Speed, right?
	That was a whole other thing.
	And since I am putting this on YouTube, I don't want to get too much into it.
	But I remember again on that Rogan podcast when Trump tried to make the point about what's the polio, right?
	And the bop, bada, bop, and we fixed everything there.
	And even Rogan, you could tell he was uncomfortable with that while he was talking to him because he knew about the oral boobity boops that caused outbreaks in Kong Everywhere.
	A lot of people only know the headline and they see Sudan.
	No, no, no.
	Big parts of Africa, big parts of the Middle East.
	Big deal.
	It's not eradicated and it's been spread.
	Now, he waited until the next day when he was doing that podcast.
	I think it was Theo Vaughn or someone like that where they discussed that.
	And he's like, yeah, no, I wanted to bring it up.
	But I only had so much time.
	And he's like, I wasn't trying to be the fact checker there, etc., etc., etc.
	Which, okay.
	I can respect that.
	I think he's going to get a second shot at him.
	But at the same time...
	We've got to get past these fallacies, especially in the medical-industrial complex, that are now 70-plus years old.
	70!
	Real quick, to push back on what he said, though.
	I mean, like with Joe Rogan, that's such a kind of wishy-washy sidestep.
	If it was anybody else on, like, let's say the left, the point would they be screaming him down for not holding them accountable, right?
	So it's just this blind spot to that.
	The point is, he knew that was false.
	He doesn't have to push back.
	It's his show.
	But don't walk it away later and go, well, I didn't have time.
	Hold an account.
	The point is, I don't think he thought that would be popular.
	It's Joe Rogan's show.
	I can do whatever he wants.
	The point is, if it's about trying to hold people accountable, and that's what you set the bar for in other contexts, then be consistent with it.
	Call them out and say, well, that's not true.
	To your point, what's interesting is even The Guardian and other mainstream platforms wrote, in the recent examples, these were Derived polio, like coming from that.
	So it's like, this is an ongoing problem.
	So this is public information.
	So to not use that point then, I, you know, that it's, I think that's insight.
	It shows you insight into where Joe's mind's at.
	You know, I think right now, one of the problems that we all fall into, I think there's a lot of good people that have been trapped by this, this ideological trap where we think that we almost have to downplay these problems because if you don't like that, that Trump has good intentions is the mindset.
	So even if these are problems, we don't point to them because it's going to help the other evil side.
	It's like, what?
	I mean, I guess so.
	I mean, that could be the reality, or you're just being tricked into not pointing out the problems of the power structure.
	You know, it's, I hope we can consider that.
	Well, let me just say this, you know, about my Giuliani interview, right?
	Like, I had brought up 9-11 in regards to Biden.
	had already gotten out of them that he said declassify all the documents.
	I get to the end of the 20 minute interview, right?
	And I know I want to extend it.
	And I want to ask about Building 7, right?
	Like that's, that's the big one for me, especially because his city corporation council, Michael Hess got blown up in Building 7 with Barry Jennings and he's never addressed it.
	No one's ever addressed it really.
	So that's what I did.
	I brought that up and Giuliani to his credit, you know, didn't avoid the question, did give a rather political answer, but said, yes, him and another gentleman were in that building.
	Um, When he was talking about getting out, he goes, no loss, or almost no loss of life.
	So he even corrects himself on the way out that, hey, maybe people did die there, hint, hint.
	But he also made it a point when I asked the question to bring up the Central Intelligence Agency and the Secret Service having big buildings there and the fact that a lot of the documents from the CIA had been in that area.
	And they actually, I had reported on this, they had snipers on buildings to recover those documents so nobody else would have there.
	So we get done with the interview.
	He's actually praising me on the way out of the interview.
	Oh, it was a great interview.
	I'm like, oh, well, this is interesting.
	So I stop it.
	And, you know, I'm a man of my word.
	I stop the recording.
	He's still on the thing.
	And I go, Rudy.
	I go, we're all fair.
	I'm not taping.
	You don't think they demoed that building?
	Like that's, I just had to see, you know, and look, to his credit, he answered my question.
	He said it was not off the record.
	And he said he would come back on and discuss it with me.
	Whether that happens or not, I don't know.
	But he goes, I don't think that they demoed the building because of all the documents that were in there.
	He goes, but if they wanted to destroy documents, they definitely could have blown that building up.
	And he goes, so many of the conspiracy theories have come true.
	I am more apt to listen to all of them, right?
	And so look, I think that that guy, like so many others I've met, has his blind spots.
	I don't know if he necessarily believes they didn't blow up Building 7. I think he has his suspicions.
	He didn't avoid my question about Michael Hess, who literally was his right-hand man.
	He talked about the operational emergency center that was in there.
	These are the steps we need to take, right?
	We need to hold these people to account.
	Now, remember, Giuliani came on Because he wrote about a book about prosecuting the Biden crime cartel.
	In very short order, I put a squash on that.
	Like, that's not real, Rudy.
	Like, I get it.
	You wrote a book.
	No one's going to jail.
	And I think those are the kind of conversations you have to have.
	If you're going to lead them away from something, let's lead them to reality, right?
	Because he also brought up Bill Barr out of nowhere, right?
	Like, he goes, well, you know, Bill Barr had the Hunter Biden laptop.
	And I go, you're making my point, right?
	That the head of the DOJ had all this stuff, didn't say anything, no one's getting prosecuted, and then went along with these 50 other intel officers that said it was phony.
	I go, you're making my point, man.
	And he's like, well, I guess I am.
	Here's the point, though, and I think this is interesting, is that I'm of the mind.
	I can't know for sure.
	It's his internal intention.
	Who knows what his decision-making process is.
	That these are being acknowledged, discussed, pointed to—I mean, you brought it up, but still being okay with that because we're at a point where I think a lot of these things are happening, where it's in the interest of the power structure to drip out certain things to justify radically changing things, like the idea of ending the Fed.
	Well, we all think that's—I mean, it's something we've been discussing for a very long time and something that I think we want, but— This conversation could have been had for a decade.
	Now I think it's being put forward because they're ready to roll out the CBDC conversation.
	Now, whether you think out there listening that Trump would ever do that, that's a personal opinion.
	The facts are, whether he knows it or not, I think that's already happening.
	And so I think there's some of that where he's OK talking about some of these things because the intention is to sort of use it to go after one part of the dynamic, that it was the Biden family that did it, that it was the Democrat that did it, that it was, you know, whatever it is, the deep state that we're not a part of.
	I think that's partly what that is.
	Like, I would say next time you have that conversation, ask about Israel's involvement with 9-11.
	Ask about being funded by the MEK and starving Iranians and having them.
	Not the public things that look bad no matter what the context, right?
	I doubt he would want to talk about those things.
	But the point, I think, is the worry, rather, is that these things are being touched on more, right?
	And I think things that you, more than any, you've been talking about this your entire career, right?
	Why now is it suddenly somehow acceptable, you know?
	I don't know.
	I always leave open the room for the possibility that we're just seeing positive change, but why would a criminal, a 9-11 suspect, as James Corbett would call it, Giuliani, be the one suddenly going, yeah, let's have a conversation about things that could lead back to my criminality.
	It doesn't make sense to me, but I think it's just be cautious as always.
	I think we're being played in a lot of ways.
	You know, I think if anything, maybe after the fact, I don't think that guy had any foreknowledge, right?
	But then again, you know, he was out there talking about 2,000 plus degree 10. We put it in loose change final cut, right?
	So on that level, I don't think he realizes what he's saying there that, hey, if I'm talking about these temperatures, that can't be from jet fuel and office fires, etc.
	Those are the kind of blind spots.
	To your point that it's become more okay to talk about these things, I think a lot of that, obviously, is the Alex Jones effect, love him or hate him.
	Now that he's kind of been absorbed by a lot of mainstream conservatives, that part of the conversation has to come in there, rightfully so, by the way.
	Well, can I say one thing real quick on that?
	I think that's important.
	There's credit due to his prominence in general for topics that I think I honestly have a different opinion about that, whether it's the obvious examples, the frogs, actorzine point.
	I frankly think that whether by design, whether he's aware of it or not, has been used in order to actually pacify conversations, to suppress and remove them from not people like us that would be willing to entertain any possibility or whether it looks from somebody who lies or not.
	We look into anything.
	We're due diligence, right?
	But the average grouping of people, it's been associated, well, he says it, then it must be false.
	And there's a Joe Rogan element to that, too, whether they do it intentionally or not, where the left primarily will say, oh, it's on Joe Rogan and fake news.
	Like, that's stupid, right?
	Well, you're not wrong.
	Listen, to that point.
	Hold on, hold on.
	Last point, real quick, is that ultimately I think the Alex Jones side of that is that there has been prominence in, like, the 9-11 conversation.
	But I would argue it's more people like yourself or people out there who are coming at this from a...
	More of an objective perspective and breaking down the facts that have gotten that attention.
	And people just tend to lob it back to this large person in the conversation.
	I think that he gets far too much credit for a lot of the breaking side of this just because he's screaming the loudest and honestly puts out a lot of stuff that I think are things that a lot of us are pointing to.
	And well after the fact that the people are out there carving down the weeds and he steps over them and points to something, it's like, well, I think it's a lot of it because you're prominent.
	But there are still points where he's broke things and done good work.
	That's very clear.
	But I don't see it the same way.
	I think it's more the average independent media.
	Just because you mentioned the Atrazine thing, right?
	You know, I'm a big thrift store guy.
	I'm a big pawn shop guy.
	I don't like paying full price for anything.
	I'm Mr. Deals.
	And, you know, just, I don't know, four or five months ago, I was in the pawn shop.
	And I think Daria called me up from Infowars to host the fourth hour.
	And I had it on speaker and, you know, he overheard the conversation or whatever.
	And the next time I came in there, he goes, you know, why is Infowars calling you?
	And I explain to him, oh, well, I actually host the fourth hour of the Alex Jones Show, et cetera, et cetera.
	And he's not an InfoWars fan.
	And the first thing out of his mouth is, turn on the frickin' frogs, gay.
	And I go, well, let's just stop for a second, you know, because he obviously thinks that's lunatic.
	I go, that's where he gets it right.
	I go, Atrazine is in the water.
	Well, that's the point I was making, though, is that that's the real story.
	I think you're right on that end, right?
	Again, there is that perception by those that are not in the weeds, if you will, that are still just click, click, click, read, read, read.
	There are certain places that I just don't go or I won't acknowledge.
	But somehow, someway, through memes, songifies or whatever, the frogs being gay...
	Has exploded.
	And I'm just like, well, it's not just the atrazine.
	Here in Iowa, we have one of the highest PFA counts, which is...
	I'm not happy about it.
	I can't even believe how many different things that are in our water supply here, right by the Mississippi.
	Very dangerous.
	And that's one of the things I've talked about with them.
	I go, well, you know...
	Let's say, you know, you don't know about atrazine and hormone disruptors.
	I go, one of the things that Jones did put me onto many, many years ago outside of that was BPA, bisphenol A, in the plastics.
	And, you know, at the time, this is around 2007...
	My girlfriend at the time, we were talking, and she was there before loose change, and as loose change exploded, she had her questions, but definitely went around the 9-11 stuff with me, and she's a Long Island girl and all those things, and I brought up the BPA. And the feminization, and she goes, Jason, that is just too much.
	She goes, I just, I can't go that far.
	I can't believe that my Campbell's Soup or, you know, my Awkwafina is doing that to people, etc.
	And now it's mainline, right?
	Like now we're even talking about fluoride in the water being banned in certain areas.
	So look, in a positive manner, the conversation has shifted.
	I think we have to capitalize on that as much as possible.
	At the same time, not bend the knee to the narratives that may be surrounding those true narratives, but are leading us down the wrong path and ultimately are false choices.
	Right.
	And I think that's what's so important about things like the Independent Media Alliance.
	And I think that's a good place to kind of wrap it up, and I want you to talk about it, because I am getting questions from people on that.
	Can I make one comment, though?
	Sure.
	This is really important, though.
	So I agree with you.
	We're talking about endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
	More than one peer-reviewed study clearly shows that they can lead to whatever you want to call it.
	Gender dysphoria.
	Manipulation of your hormones that cause that kind of confusion.
	And so the point is that this is something that is very real.
	When Alex Jones was talking about the atrazine frog dressing up like a frog and dancing around, the point is he was making a point that did have truth to it.
	Atrazine does have effects on hormones.
	But the point is, at that moment right there, we had an opportunity.
	We had a very important study that came out that showed it wasn't just frogs and it wasn't just...
	The point is it was endocrine-disrupting chemicals from a runoff causing hormonal manipulation in the environment.
	It's a huge and pivotal study now because it's the individual that allowed Alex Jones, whether intentional or not, to cause them to ignore this study.
	That's their fault.
	It's not Alex's fault, whether intentional or not.
	The point, nonetheless, is that because of the way that was covered, it caused an entire...
	I mean, we could have been talking about this a decade ago, right?
	The point is that it was there, it was easily seen, and that caused people to dismiss the reality of it, and it became a focal point of one small joking thing, turning them gay, as opposed to the reality of having a manipulation of their hormones, right?
	And that it's a much larger thing.
	We're talking about...
	You know, glyphosate.
	We're talking about dioxins.
	We're talking about PFAS, BPA. We're talking about the injection from COVID-19.
	All these things are endocrine-interrupting chemicals.
	You know, so I'm glad it's coming around, but to then say that that was...
	Not that that's what you're saying, but that that was because of Alex Jones is the point that I was making before.
	It's because of the people that were cutting that down, chopping down the forest to get to the truth through all of that BS that we forced this into the conversation, you know?
	And I think that's important to consider.
	Now, again, the point is whether...
	Maybe he just thought making it flamboyant would get more attention.
	Maybe he's right.
	I think the problem, though, is that we have to acknowledge that that could be more of a manipulation.
	That is honestly my opinion.
	I think that there was a very weird way that was played out.
	But either way, back to your point about independent media, I think that we are at a time where these things are having very clear impacts.
	And even if Alex Jones, whether manipulated or not, is reaching people to get them to ask these questions, that's a positive.
	But make sure that you're not just falling into the trap of kind of where the show goes with the camera of headlines, no source material, where it's just headline, headline, narrative, narrative, headline, headline, narrative, narrative.
	It's the same thing with Twitter files.
	I think it's about, you know, you need to do your due diligence.
	Look for the information, not just the headline or the article.
	What are they sourcing?
	Where's their data coming from?
	Do it yourself, as you know well.
	That's how we should be doing this.
	And that's what the IMA is all really about.
	It's a collection of people, no monetary incentive, no funding, which is just a collection of different platforms where we collect for panels.
	One of the things that I hope we're going to do next, and we will at some point, no matter what, is find some of the smaller people out there that are suppressed by all the algorithms that are doing good, objective, nonpartisan work, and give them a boost.
	that that's what it's about.
	In my opinion, predominantly nonpartisan objective work, or at least in this case, being able to, you know, I think, that's why I think your voice is important in this, Jason, is that, you know, obviously we have different opinions when it comes to certain things, but you strive to be as objective and nonpartisan as you can.
	I think that's important.
	And that's why I think we see in this dynamic that we are, it came down to three things, right?
	It was about COVID-19, the Trump administration, or rather two-party politics really as a general topic, but currently about the Trump administration coming in, and then Israel.
	And because there's such three central topics where there was so much like political bias to them.
	And it's more than that, but that's where the kind of premise was.
	And so right now, We've, I think, what is it, about 15, 16 people involved so far.
	We're hoping to grow it out.
	We have our website coming soon, which I'm really excited about.
	Odyssey decided to build us this kind of straddling, decentralized internet, Odyssey-based kind of website.
	It'll be just for the IMA. It'll be its own independent thing.
	And it will come with two addresses, one to the normal internet and to the coming, you know, the building a decentralized factor in that.
	I'm really excited about that.
	As far as I know, that's the first of its kind.
	So that's a pretty big deal, right?
	And so once we get that going, you're probably going to see an uptick in these where we're all just going to be doing our own panels and in conversations.
	And I'm really excited for it, man, because I think it's needed.
	And it really kind of rose in response to the lesser of evils pushback that we've more than we've ever seen.
	Yeah, and it's filled with a bunch of all-stars.
	I mean, yourself, obviously Steve, Richard Andrew Grove, Whitney Webb, Derek Brose.
	I mean, people that have been in this for a decade plus and proven for a decade plus that they're not bandwagoners, that if they get something wrong, they're willing to admit it.
	You know, I'm not perfect.
	Again, I'm going to get things wrong.
	I go back to the 2020 election, and I still can't believe that they ran Biden and successfully put him in there, and we're in a point where the guy is literally babbling and walking off into the Amazon jungle.
	You talk about the dark cartoon, we're living it.
	And the cool thing about the Independent Media Alliance is, although we don't necessarily have one platform, in other words, one of these social media platforms where any of us have a huge reach, on multiple platforms we do have our own reach.
	And we're going to be cross-posting many of these things as I'm going to cross-post our panel from yesterday.
	Steve will cross-post it.
	Catherine Austin Fitz will cross-post it.
	And hopefully we can reach outside of our little, you know, ecosystems into others and then go out into the full ecosystem.
	Right.
	Because, look, like you said, so many things are kind of shared in bits and bytes.
	If you look at the big alternative accounts, what are they doing?
	They're sharing other people's work.
	It's in two to eight minute increments.
	I mean, eight is actually a very, very long time.
	And we're long form folks.
	Let's be honest.
	This conversation's now gone on for almost 90 minutes, and time flies by.
	And look, I think there is a place for that, right?
	We want somebody to see the bit on Twitter.
	But then when you're on your commute, I want you to be on Apple Music, Spotify, wherever you can get this, FM, True Heart, whatever, and watch or listen to the whole thing.
	And then you don't necessarily have to gravitate to any of our opinions, but like you said, I hope you check out the source material.
	I had a debate yesterday on the Conor McGregor rape, and we were very civil to one another.
	I didn't change my position.
	He didn't change his position.
	But the one position that we could agree upon is the more source material, the better.
	I want to see the CCTV footage.
	I want to see the pictures of this woman after the fact.
	I would love to be able to actually see the testimony rather than having to read it transcribed or even be able to listen to the testimony rather than have it transcribed.
	So I think that push...
	To source material is one of the most important things that the Independent Media Alliance can do, is to say, look, I'm a talking head.
	This is a news article.
	This is a clip of a political or an economic figure.
	This is what they're saying.
	This is a white paper.
	Like yesterday when we were talking about the chief AI officers.
	Don't take my word for it on that program.
	Go read the presidential directives.
	Go listen to what they're telling you is this position and how it's going to be regulated.
	And then you can cross-reference me.
	And we need more of that.
	I know you do great first-hand work over at thelastamericanvagabond.com.
	Ryan, wrapping it up, what do you have going on there and what's coming up next?
	Well, today in general, I'm planning to do probably a pretty long show, just trying to wrap up.
	Coming off Thanksgiving and then the panel we did yesterday, there's like five days of content that I need to get wrapped up into one show apparently.
	But I'm going to be focusing today on interesting stuff.
	We didn't get to it today, but I was going to talk a bit about the ethics pledge conversation of Trump and this weird transition overlap that I think is interesting.
	I'll just say on the way out that what's fascinating to me is that the At least thus far, Trump resisting signing an ethics pledge, which is something that he wrote into law in 2020 or embellished or grew in 2020, which he did back then as well, it leaves this open gap where they can currently take...
	There's a $5,000 cap for donations within that that is inapplicable here.
	They don't have to divulge where their funding is coming from.
	And it's this weird overlap.
	And I think even the head of the ethics group involved with this openly said, that could mean they're being funded by a foreign government.
	We wouldn't know.
	And I think he said that for a reason.
	So I'm very weirded out by this overlap right now where they're about to take power, and it doesn't seem like Democrats are even pushing back on him not signing that ethics pledge, and the information, which technically is the law.
	I'm not a stickler to these.
	I think they're all unethical, frankly, so it's not about whether they have to sign it or not.
	It's about the legal realities of it, and whether that means that we see the Israel influence sort of like...
	Driving into the position.
	To put it at a simple point, whether China or Israel, we could literally be having a foreign government about to take power through this administration and we wouldn't even know it because of this lack of transparency.
	I just think there's some weirdness there.
	And I want to talk about a lot of these overlappings.
	I want to get into what's going on in Lebanon, the interesting developments in Syria.
	I'm sure you're seeing that as well.
	There's a lot of weird stuff going on.
	So I'm going to make sure I get into all that.
	Coming up in general, I know we've got some more...
	Panels planned, I think, might be one for the third for the IMA. And I was just talking to Taylor Hudak about some more work as well.
	Robert, a lot more coming your way.
	So always a pleasure talking with you, brother.
	Always.
	And, you know, just to kind of play onto the Trump administration and what they've put out in free speech, etc., I think it's extremely troubling.
	He's talked about hate speech laws, especially in regards to Israel.
	And one of the biggest criticisms I've had is when he outright said that they would make burning the flag in this country illegal.
	Look, you don't have to like someone burning the flag.
	I got a flag over there.
	I own it.
	I'll do what I damn well please with it.
	And that's not illegal.
	And even if I'm outside in public and doing a demonstration and I desecrate it or I burn it, if it doesn't cause any harm, any disruption, any physical property loss, that's not a crime.
	Ron Paul talked about this back when he was in Congress, remember?
	He was one of the adamant ones about this.
	Whether we like it or not, and I would think it's disrespectful, but it's constitutionally protected.
	It's cut and dry.
	It has to be constitutionally respected because if we do not defend speech we don't like, we don't have free speech.
	Folks!
	You know the drill.
	It's not about left or right to this guy.
	It is about right and wrong.
	The links are down below to support the broadcast.
	Thank you so much for joining us.

▲