The Muckrake Political Podcast - Terminally On Thin ICE
Aired: 2026-03-24
Duration: 45:25


=== Airport Security Chaos (15:21) ===

[00:00:01]  Hey, everybody.
[00:00:02]  Welcome to the McCraig podcast.
[00:00:03]  I'm Jared Hates text.
[00:00:04]  I'm here with Nick Hausman.
[00:00:05]  Nick, I don't mean to pull the curtain back too much.
[00:00:07]  I'm having technical difficulties today.
[00:00:10]  You know what?
[00:00:10]  You sound perfect, and that's all that matters to me.
[00:00:13]  Mercury in retrograde is supposed to be over.
[00:00:16]  I don't know what's happening here.
[00:00:18]  Oh, no.
[00:00:19]  Do you know what Mercury in retrograde is?
[00:00:22]  Is that Mercury the planet?
[00:00:25]  Yes, it is.
[00:00:27]  Have you never heard that phrase, Mercury in retrograde?
[00:00:29]  Familiar, but I never actually thought, okay, well, what does that, what does retrograde really mean?
[00:00:35]  It's where it looks like Mercury is moving backwards in its orbit.
[00:00:39]  And supposedly, you have all kinds of like technical difficulties and all kinds of frustrating stuff.
[00:00:45]  That explains everything.
[00:00:47]  It explains everything.
[00:00:49]  Wow.
[00:00:49]  Now, all those things, all those problems.
[00:00:52]  I'm not upset anymore.
[00:00:54]  That just solved it.
[00:00:54]  Thank you.
[00:00:55]  Congratulations.
[00:00:57]  You now have a new lease on life.
[00:01:00]  Every political podcast should have a moment discussing astrology.
[00:01:04]  I mean, like that, that's how it should happen, right?
[00:01:06]  I can't wait to figure out what the other problem, the other causes of all my other problems.
[00:01:10]  It's Erie.
[00:01:11]  It all works together and we're working together and you are working with us.
[00:01:16]  You are supporting the show and we need your support right now more than ever.
[00:01:20]  If you haven't already, please head over to patreon.com slash my craigpodcast and become a patron.
[00:01:24]  You'll gain access to the weekender episodes.
[00:01:26]  But also, everybody, we are independent media.
[00:01:29]  We do not have a corporate apparatus that takes care of us.
[00:01:32]  We've never intentionally ran an ad.
[00:01:34]  We've had weird things where all of a sudden an ad appeared that we didn't say okay to, but we need your support more than ever, patreon.com slash my craig podcast.
[00:01:43]  Nick, speaking of things falling apart and not working the way that they're supposed to, the continued government shutdown, that's right, Nick, it's still going.
[00:01:52]  The government still just isn't running, has led to problems at America's airports where TSA agents have either quit their jobs or they've been overwhelmed.
[00:02:01]  It has led in some places reportedly to six-hour lines heading into security.
[00:02:07]  Well, the good news, everybody, is that the Trump administration has a solution.
[00:02:11]  They are going to dispatch ICE, and we all know how good ICE is, to America's airports.
[00:02:17]  And as of the recording of this show, we're recording on Monday.
[00:02:20]  Those ICE agents have shown up at the airports.
[00:02:24]  Nick, here is a clip from Tom Homan, who is now in control of this apparatus because who can even keep track of who's doing what anymore?
[00:02:35]  Here he is on CNN, basically telling us how easy it'll be for ICE to handle everything at these airports.
[00:02:42]  With respect, if you're doing this in 24 hours, how well thought out could it possibly be?
[00:02:49]  Again, ICE has been at airports across the country for a long time.
[00:02:52]  It's just expanding those things.
[00:02:56]  How much of a plan does it mean to guard an exit to make sure no one comes through that exit?
[00:03:00]  And we're talking about security options.
[00:03:03]  And these officers are well trained in security and they're well trained in identification.
[00:03:09]  And we're going to do what we can to help TSA move those people through the line.
[00:03:13]  And that's.
[00:03:16]  How hard could it be, Nick?
[00:03:17]  How hard?
[00:03:18]  I mean, I've gone through the line several times.
[00:03:20]  So I must be qualified to do it as well.
[00:03:23]  Right.
[00:03:24]  I would trust you in charge of all this a lot better than these ads.
[00:03:27]  Can you imagine like, you know, they ask those questions like, did you pack these bag yourself?
[00:03:31]  And has your luggage been in your possession at all times?
[00:03:32]  And you're like, well, and then you're down on the ground and they're, you know, teasing you and the yelling gun.
[00:03:38]  Like, that's what's going to happen.
[00:03:40]  No, that's exactly right.
[00:03:41]  And I want to point out in the midst of all this, because there is a larger analysis here that we have to get into about why this is happening and what its effects are going to be, because it is actually very large.
[00:03:52]  But before we do, I thought that that comment from Tom Holman was so extraordinary because it reveals the inner mind kingdom of these assholes.
[00:04:01]  They literally think it's that easy.
[00:04:03]  And for people who don't know, because our media doesn't particularly talk about it, Nick, this idea, are you ready?
[00:04:09]  Because I intentionally did not tell you where this idea came from.
[00:04:13]  I know that a lot of people thought maybe Donald Trump just came up with it.
[00:04:16]  Are you prepared?
[00:04:18]  I know, but they hit me anyway.
[00:04:20]  On Friday's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, which, I mean, I never miss an episode of it.
[00:04:27]  It is just, it's astounding how good that show is.
[00:04:31]  A random caller, I believe her name was Linda from Connecticut, called into that show and said, I have an idea on how to fix the airports.
[00:04:40]  And Clay Travis and Buck Sexton thought it was a great idea.
[00:04:42]  And it ended up being reported elsewhere, including on Fox News and got in Donald Trump's ear.
[00:04:47]  And now all of a sudden, ICE is at America's airports after 24 hours of consideration.
[00:04:52]  And I'm putting giant scare quotes around the word consideration.
[00:04:56]  Let's raise a bloody married Linda in Connecticut, shall we?
[00:05:00]  Linda, you nailed it.
[00:05:02]  By the way, now that we're talking about it, are we sure that's not Linda McMahon?
[00:05:07]  Not Ed McMahon, of the WWE guy?
[00:05:10]  Of the WWE family and also a current member of the administration's cabinet.
[00:05:15]  Maybe that's the Linda from Connecticut.
[00:05:16]  I don't know where it's Connecticut is where she hails from, but yes, why not?
[00:05:22]  It's been a proven method to get your ideas to Donald Trump, right, is to go on shows like that and just float these things and it'll get there.
[00:05:30]  Yeah, I mean, because this is a man who cannot distinguish from reality television and television and life.
[00:05:37]  He has a really hard time moving between those.
[00:05:39]  And by the way, how did this whole thing start, Nick?
[00:05:42]  It started because this guy watched TV, came up with opinions, and then would go on TV and tell people how easy it would be to solve the problems of the country.
[00:05:50]  Hey, good ideas can come from anywhere, Jared.
[00:05:53]  And you can't be too elitist to decide that somebody calling in on its show that's an ultra-right wing doesn't have a good idea.
[00:06:02]  I will say definitively that no good ideas have ever come from the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show.
[00:06:08]  I would not argue with that.
[00:06:10]  But let me ask you this.
[00:06:12]  TSA, it's an important job.
[00:06:14]  They're in charge of the security is a part of their job, I suppose, at airports.
[00:06:19]  Thank God that nothing is going on in the world that would cause us any concern.
[00:06:25]  Maybe we need a little heightened concern and really ultra-trained people to help us travel across this country.
[00:06:31]  Thank God it's home and there's no extra threats.
[00:06:34]  Well, that's the good news, everybody, in case you're worried about what's going on in the world, which we'll get to the Iran war here in a second, because of course we will.
[00:06:42]  Don't worry, Kash Patel's on the case.
[00:06:45]  If he's not at the local rodeo where his girlfriend's singing the national anthem and not solving any other crimes, obviously, we also have these fucking bozos who are handling all of this.
[00:06:56]  And it speaks to a larger problem.
[00:06:58]  And this is the actual analysis of it, regardless of where it came from.
[00:07:02]  Nick, fascism feeds off of the rot of liberal democracy.
[00:07:07]  That is how it has always been.
[00:07:08]  It doesn't just emerge amazing, you know, from nowhere and it suddenly exists.
[00:07:13]  It grows as corruption grows and as these systems that everybody depends on as they fail.
[00:07:19]  So here we have a situation where the government's not even working right now because of this shutdown.
[00:07:24]  A large part of it is that the resources that we give the government in the form of our tax dollars, don't forget to get your tax forms in on time, everybody.
[00:07:34]  But that money, which has been stolen from us, it has led to systems starting to decline and fall apart.
[00:07:40]  And what happens with fascism is that you start investing in paramilitary thugs and these structures that will take over governmental structures as they fail.
[00:07:51]  So this case, we can't get people through TSA.
[00:07:54]  We can't get people on their flights.
[00:07:55]  There is a problem where we don't know how we're going to make any of this work.
[00:07:59]  They are going to install their fascist paramilitary groups in order to make it work, which is exactly what happens with every authoritarian regime that has ever existed.
[00:08:08]  And this is an escalation of that very, very observable cycle.
[00:08:12]  So I suppose if we wanted to stop that, and we wanted to stop it before we ever got this far.
[00:08:19]  Corruption is really the key here, right?
[00:08:21]  That's the focus.
[00:08:22]  When you start seeing that corruption, you got to be able to nip it in the bud, I suppose, in the government, right?
[00:08:26]  Before it starts to grow.
[00:08:27]  Well, I would make the argument that that is maybe step number two or number three, because the first thing that you have to do is you have to address the narratives and stereotypes that allow corruption to happen.
[00:08:39]  Because if you just watch people stealing money, you would say, hey, don't steal that money.
[00:08:43]  But something like TSA, by the way, has always been security theater, right?
[00:08:47]  After 9-11, it was just sort of this thing that we put in and put a bunch of money into in order to terrorize people so they would feel safe getting on planes, as opposed to going, hey, the Bush administration missed all of these signals that there was a terrorist plot that was going to be taken advantage of.
[00:09:04]  It became an omnipresent threat.
[00:09:06]  And what did we all do, Nick?
[00:09:08]  Much like we talked about with cell phone surveillance and digital surveillance, we all said, hey, we'll give up some of our freedom for some safety.
[00:09:14]  And it planted the seed.
[00:09:16]  So what we have to do is to move beyond that so that we can start to address the corruption.
[00:09:20]  So you're saying I should never have taken off my shoes during the you should have never taken off a shoe, not once, no.
[00:09:27]  Okay.
[00:09:27]  Yeah.
[00:09:28]  I mean, I, you know what?
[00:09:29]  Again, now that retrograde and whatever have you destroyed my sense of safety going on these things, I thought for sure there must be doing other things that we can't know about in terms of making sure we're not bringing box cutters with us or whatever liquids that we can't have.
[00:09:44]  No?
[00:09:45]  Hey, on that subject, on that subject, you're a frequent flyer.
[00:09:48]  I'm not because I don't trust any of this shit.
[00:09:51]  How many times have you flown and when you've gotten to your location, you looked in your luggage and you realized that you brought something that should have been caught by security?
[00:10:00]  You know, just an occasional like large battery or something like that.
[00:10:04]  Right.
[00:10:04]  Or all of a sudden you're like, wow, I brought, how did I bring eight or nine pairs of scissors?
[00:10:08]  How did this happen?
[00:10:10]  You know, like it was a complete nutter facade from the very beginning.
[00:10:14]  You know, or it'll be a thing I get, I go somewhere and no problem on the way back, whatever was there is now this a big problem.
[00:10:20]  And I'm like, well, okay, it wasn't not even, no one said anything.
[00:10:23]  They're on the way here.
[00:10:24]  Why is it on the way back?
[00:10:25]  So, oh, okay, I hear you.
[00:10:27]  That's definitely, it's definitely happened.
[00:10:29]  I could, I can verify that.
[00:10:30]  So I don't know.
[00:10:31]  Either way, I guess we don't have to get into that because I don't want to get too more of it.
[00:10:37]  I do want to say, though, as we're talking about authoritarianism taking full bloom, part of the reason that ICE is doing what it is and why this is happening, and it's not like they got in the White House and they were like, we should put ICE in the airports in order to broaden our footprint.
[00:10:53]  It happens naturally because there are all these vacuums that then occur.
[00:10:57]  And they're like, yeah, we've got this paramilitary that is ranked among the top 20th percentile that like actually has as much funding as Spain has for its entire defense complex.
[00:11:08]  They can go ahead and take care of it.
[00:11:09]  And unconsciously, what happens is that we start seeing them everywhere, right?
[00:11:15]  They become part of our daily lives.
[00:11:17]  And a liberal democracy, we're supposed to go where we want, do what we want, think what we want, as long as we don't hurt other people.
[00:11:24]  But if we're seeing these people everywhere, in our mind, all of a sudden, we start thinking, wow, they're everywhere and they can do anything.
[00:11:33]  It installs sort of a dictatorial thought in our heads that like it's really hard to unlodge.
[00:11:39]  That makes a lot of sense.
[00:11:40]  And that's the worry because again, there's nefarious things going on in the background that we have to be concerned about.
[00:11:47]  And it's not just necessarily Trump behind all this.
[00:11:50]  So, yeah, that does resonate a lot.
[00:11:53]  And I think what you're probably getting towards is as we move towards some sort of elections, the more norm, the more normal it is to have all these people doing this, the less we're going to push back and say something or try and affect it.
[00:12:05]  I hear you.
[00:12:07]  The norms that were destroyed, it didn't seem like a big deal at the time.
[00:12:11]  Who cares if they don't wear ties when they're coaching or whatever?
[00:12:15]  That kind of shit on the politics side.
[00:12:18]  You can see the straight line through to get here now, where suddenly everything has been so lax that we don't have any control over anything.
[00:12:26]  Yeah, there's nothing to do.
[00:12:27]  This is a completely unaccountable group of people, and they can be dispatched at any given moment.
[00:12:32]  And they are also ideologically and financially loyal to Donald Trump, right?
[00:12:37]  It's a jobs program for Trump supporters.
[00:12:39]  So what happens is that each of these sort of components, everything from going where you want to go, saying what you want to say, having the freedom to travel and move to even going to the polling place, it makes sense that the dictatorial outreach continues.
[00:12:56]  And it just sort of takes over all of these different components.
[00:12:59]  And you're exactly right.
[00:13:00]  There is, it's not even a hop, skip, and a jump away from what ICE is doing in our streets and now into our airports, but also going into going and voting.
[00:13:09]  Because undoubtedly, they're going to be outside polling places and people are going to be absolutely terrified because we've seen them murder people.
[00:13:17]  And let me just make this clear.
[00:13:18]  The only reason why they're even willing to do this is for convenience, right?
[00:13:21]  They see some long lines at some airports because it's not staffed.
[00:13:24]  There's a huge percentage of the TSA is just not reporting because they're not getting paid.
[00:13:29]  And so they're trying to get the lines moving.
[00:13:32]  That's all this is really about, right?
[00:13:33]  But the next question would be is, okay, you're going to put, of all the people you're going to have trying and cover this is ICE.
[00:13:39]  What are the odds that we're going to have some violence in some of these airports?
[00:13:43]  We already have.
[00:13:44]  There's already videos of people being tackled and basically hogtied.
[00:13:48]  I think it was in San Francisco.
[00:13:49]  That video came out like immediately this morning.
[00:13:52]  Oh, okay.
[00:13:52]  I missed that one.
[00:13:53]  Now, and other things, are they going to racial profile in airports to do their ICE job as even though they're supposed to be TSA?
[00:14:01]  Like that will probably happen as well.
[00:14:03]  Or they'll start to do, yeah, the questions they'll ask won't be the typical ones.
[00:14:07]  They'll start to get into, they look a certain way and then they'll start asking for papers.
[00:14:12]  And that's that, yeah, that's Reimar Germany at that point.
[00:14:15]  Well, and it's also, Nick, to point out how stupid and dangerous all this is, again, let's go down the line.
[00:14:22]  This starts with a call-in show of a person who doesn't know shit who says, hey, they could take over the jobs of TSA.
[00:14:29]  In that caller's mind, and also in the people who are doing this, they probably thought that ICE would go in and do the actual functioning of TSA.
[00:14:37]  They can't.
[00:14:39]  They don't have that training.
[00:14:40]  They're not going to be like looking at like detectors and having people go through.
[00:14:45]  They're just going to be standing around in airport terminals, occasionally asking people for their papers.
[00:14:51]  That's it.
[00:14:52]  It's a form of armed intimidation and it just increases their sphere.
[00:14:57]  It doesn't even solve the problem.
[00:14:58]  In fact, the lines are going to get larger and the lines are going to get worse because these people are going to be keeping people from moving in the flow of things.
[00:15:07]  Okay.
[00:15:07]  Fair enough.
[00:15:08]  And, you know, to have, you know, it always makes me nervous when we have, when you see guns and you see that kind of stuff in the airports and you're going to suddenly flood that with even more with people who are not trained well with the use of guns as it is.

=== Europe's Nuclear Dilemma (14:16) ===

[00:15:22]  Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more of that too.
[00:15:25]  I got to check out this video, but you said, but certainly, yes, not surprising that it would be that quickly that they're going to start to cause havoc.
[00:15:32]  Well, and what happens in the streets of America?
[00:15:34]  They attack somebody that they consider to be an immigrant.
[00:15:38]  And as they attack him, people rush in and they say, hey, this is wrong.
[00:15:41]  Try and film him.
[00:15:41]  And then they rough those people up and eventually murder them.
[00:15:44]  Why would that not happen in an airport?
[00:15:49]  It would be ISA's discretion, you know, because these guys, they have wonderful self-control.
[00:15:55]  No, these things are now going to happen in more and more places.
[00:15:58]  That's the only thing that's going to happen from this.
[00:16:02]  Fucking sucks.
[00:16:03]  These fucking assholes.
[00:16:04]  By the way, Nick, we got to talk about Iran.
[00:16:06]  Speaking of things falling apart, this is great.
[00:16:08]  Trump gave a 40, uh, 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, or he was going to start attacking their larger energy facilities.
[00:16:17]  Those 48 hours have passed.
[00:16:19]  He did not strike those facilities.
[00:16:21]  And Nick, he started telling everybody who would listen that he was engaged in high-ranking talks with Iran's leadership in order to end the war.
[00:16:29]  Turns out that wasn't true.
[00:16:30]  And we know it's not true because Iran said that they haven't spoken to any of these people.
[00:16:34]  Luckily, the market, which was in free fall, heard this, bounced back up.
[00:16:39]  And then once it came out that it wasn't true and went back down, Nick, call me crazy.
[00:16:44]  I may just be a caveman lawyer who doesn't know anything about your crazy structures or this land of the future.
[00:16:52]  I'm starting to suspect that this administration is engaging in some insider trading while carrying out a war that is disastrous and could bring us to the brink of just absolute disaster.
[00:17:04]  Well, okay, we got to get back before we address that, and the answer is yes.
[00:17:08]  Yes, you know, is there some sort of genius to announcing talks that never existed?
[00:17:16]  And I kind of think that they're, you know, but it's also just more of like the Trump's brain.
[00:17:21]  He just creates reality, right?
[00:17:23]  He creates whatever he wants it to be.
[00:17:25]  And then even though it doesn't match at all, what's really happening?
[00:17:29]  Who do we believe?
[00:17:31]  I guess is one big question.
[00:17:32]  Do you think that there have been any high-level talks between Americans and Iranians?
[00:17:38]  No, my guess is that they have used a go-between.
[00:17:41]  If I had to guess, it would probably be India.
[00:17:45]  They've probably used India as a mediator between the United States and Iran.
[00:17:49]  And Iran basically told us to go fuck ourselves.
[00:17:51]  That's what I would guess happened.
[00:17:53]  Yeah.
[00:17:53]  Or does some guy's talking out of his ass in India has no real connection, you know, isn't really hearing back from Iran at all.
[00:17:59]  And then they're like taking that, you know, it's like, oh, I mean, what likely happened was that Jared Kushner was getting maybe like a $10 billion sort of investment in a property or scheme of his, and he talked to somebody who talked to somebody in India who claimed to have talked to somebody in Iran.
[00:18:16]  That would be my guess.
[00:18:18]  Okay.
[00:18:18]  And so the threat of like, okay, because by the way, the Strait of Hormuz is open.
[00:18:25]  Oh, it's open for business.
[00:18:26]  All right.
[00:18:28]  You know, we could get in, you and I could get in a boat and we could, you know, we could make an attempt to try and get across.
[00:18:33]  And we might, we might actually make it.
[00:18:36]  We could.
[00:18:36]  And by the way, Nick, if we were to get on a boat, and by the way, I would love to sail the Strait of Hormuz with you.
[00:18:42]  I think that would be a good, I think that'd be a good, I mean, the side effects would probably be pretty bad.
[00:18:47]  But if you and I got on a tanker and we're going to go through the Strait of Hormuz, it would probably be good if we stopped and we cashed in our dollars for wands and then made a deal that basically that no one is talking about the fact that this is destroying the petro dollar.
[00:19:04]  So you can go through the straight of Hormuz, but you literally have to betray the American hegemonic petro dollar order in order to do it.
[00:19:13]  It would be an excursion for us, Jared.
[00:19:15]  It would be an excursion.
[00:19:18]  But yeah, I mean, listen, there's no mines in the Strait of Hormuz today yet.
[00:19:24]  You know, they haven't laid those mines yet, but they've laid those minds.
[00:19:27]  Yes.
[00:19:28]  You know, but again, it also just reminds me of the fact that I do, I think we did discuss this where Trump said we needed, we wanted some help from Europe as well.
[00:19:36]  Did we talk about that?
[00:19:37]  I don't remember because that came out as well.
[00:19:39]  Yeah, they all said no.
[00:19:41]  Not only do they not say no, I saw a French general on one of the talk shows basically, and he said it in French, but part of my French when he says, they asked us if we could help him after alienating us.
[00:19:51]  He says, go fuck yourself is their answer.
[00:19:54]  And that's exactly how I'm sure Europe feels about this.
[00:19:57]  I suppose the only little wrench in the plan would be that, you know, as they're demonstrating that they have the capability to fire missiles that could reach Europe.
[00:20:04]  Interestingly enough, that could get Europe to kind of want to get involved in some way.
[00:20:09]  Or it could be a leverage thing where Iran's like, listen to Europe, we're not going to do anything to you.
[00:20:15]  You stay out of this and we'll be fine.
[00:20:17]  No problems.
[00:20:17]  And Europe could be like, great.
[00:20:19]  We don't deal that asshole anyway.
[00:20:21]  Well, and Nick, what's fun about this?
[00:20:23]  And listen, again, I'm just an unfrozen caveman.
[00:20:26]  I don't know anything about geopolitics.
[00:20:29]  I haven't even studied any of this shit.
[00:20:31]  Let me tell you.
[00:20:32]  Nick, tell me if this is a good thing.
[00:20:34]  When you are the hegemonic world order and you're supposed to be able to control everything, is it a good idea when all of a sudden Germany's like, hey, we probably need to form an alliance with Japan because our alliance with the United States has disintegrated.
[00:20:50]  And then Japan is starting to have political talks about developing nuclear weaponry.
[00:20:55]  Then all of a sudden, France is looking to start an association with Saudi Arabia.
[00:21:01]  And you know why?
[00:21:02]  Because what have we shown Saudi Arabia?
[00:21:04]  We can't do shit.
[00:21:06]  We can't save them.
[00:21:07]  So they need to start looking for other allies.
[00:21:10]  Meanwhile, China's sitting over here and they're like, you know what?
[00:21:13]  This is going pretty well.
[00:21:15]  We're just going to start negotiating with all of these different countries so that they can see us as the hegemon and also move from the petrodollar into a bricks currency.
[00:21:24]  And what is the White House saying at this point?
[00:21:26]  Which they have no idea what the fuck's going on.
[00:21:29]  If you actually watch a presser or you follow any of this, their answer on everything changes literally every five to 10 seconds.
[00:21:36]  Nick, the major goal now is to reopen this trade of hormoose.
[00:21:41]  It's to fix the problem that we created.
[00:21:44]  And there is absolutely, absolutely zero incentive for Iran to do that because we can't make them do it.
[00:21:51]  And on top of it, they are gaining more power, more leverage, and more wealth because we've created this problem.
[00:21:58]  You beat me to the point I was going to ask.
[00:22:00]  I'm going to ask you the question though, anyway, because it still fits.
[00:22:02]  Do we, do the United States, does the United States have more power than Iran?
[00:22:08]  No, they've got us by the shorthairs now.
[00:22:11]  Right.
[00:22:11]  And you've been describing like the collapse of our, you know, American hegemony for all the a lot for a number of years now.
[00:22:18]  And you kind of like, well, that's ridiculous.
[00:22:20]  We have the most amazing army and this and that.
[00:22:22]  Now, we do.
[00:22:23]  We have a more powerful army than anybody else.
[00:22:26]  But what was keeping all the countries that you're describing forming those alliances up until now?
[00:22:32]  They didn't want to piss us off.
[00:22:34]  Right.
[00:22:34]  It was the soft power that we had and the influence that we now have.
[00:22:37]  We used to have.
[00:22:39]  I think it's pretty damn clear that influence, not only is it waned, it is gone completely, right?
[00:22:45]  There is no influence.
[00:22:46]  They don't consider Trump a real serious person and he's completely off the rails.
[00:22:54]  So yes, I think that they destroyed any amount of soft power that we have ever had.
[00:22:58]  And when you combine that with like, you know, the army that they do have and the missiles that they do have, yeah, it's a serious debate, if not a debate about Iran, like having more power in this dynamic to have whatever, have it resolved the way they want it to resolve.
[00:23:13]  Why would any country in the world at this point trust us?
[00:23:17]  And it's not just because of Trump.
[00:23:20]  Like we have literally shown them, we will make a deal with you.
[00:23:23]  And that deal can absolutely evaporate in four years and be gone.
[00:23:28]  And you have a madman who comes around and starts using it as leverage in order to try and enrich himself.
[00:23:33]  There's no way to gain that trust back.
[00:23:35]  In fact, Nick, I will liken this.
[00:23:38]  I mentioned this on social media during the NCAA tournament.
[00:23:41]  I've told you this before.
[00:23:42]  My favorite kind of ad is when a fast food place comes out and they're like, hey, our food has been shit for a long time.
[00:23:48]  It's so bad, it's made people sick.
[00:23:51]  This is pig slop, and you have been eating pig slop.
[00:23:53]  We're going to do better.
[00:23:55]  We can't even do that.
[00:23:57]  And in fact, we've already had that, Nick.
[00:24:01]  We had that in 2009 when Barack Obama went around the world and said, we're sorry.
[00:24:06]  So not only is it that we've shown that we can't be trusted, we've shown that the apology doesn't mean shit.
[00:24:13]  So what are people supposed to do at this point?
[00:24:15]  And I'll say this as an observer: the smartest thing that anybody in the world can do right now, if they don't have a nuclear weapon, they need to get a nuclear weapon.
[00:24:26]  That's the only thing at this point that keeps the American death machine at your borders.
[00:24:33]  That's it.
[00:24:34]  And quite frankly, I'm going to say this, Nick.
[00:24:36]  I would not be shocked if this actually leads to Iran developing nuclear weapons and/or being given nuclear weapons by Russia or China or some other entity, North Korea.
[00:24:47]  Like, I would not be shocked if this goes ahead and like starts off like a complete destabilization of not just the liberal world order, but the PAX Americana that has existed now since the end of World War II.
[00:24:59]  I would not be shocked if this isn't the starter pistol for that.
[00:25:02]  So you're saying that these negotiations that didn't exist anyway that Trump is talking about will ultimately yield some sort of pro-Western government in Iran that's friendly to Israel as well.
[00:25:13]  That's not going to happen.
[00:25:14]  That's not going to be very unlikely at this point.
[00:25:18]  Yes.
[00:25:19]  But that's what they expect or that's what they're hoping to have happen.
[00:25:24]  You know, actually, I think that's a great question.
[00:25:27]  I think they thought that it could happen, but I keep saying it, Nick.
[00:25:33]  I think that you and I have considered this thing a lot more than the people carrying it out have.
[00:25:38]  Well, let me ask you this.
[00:25:40]  Is it possible that because of Trump's megalomania, he, of course, he would think, well, if you took me out, then, you know, the United States, like the whole thing is just going to fall apart.
[00:25:49]  So if we take the equivalent in Iran out, then it's just going to fall aspire the same way.
[00:25:53]  Like it's, could it possibly be possible that's that's the crux of the matter here?
[00:25:58]  Because, you know, obviously they have people in succession in line and they have a great deal of control with the with their elite guard corps.
[00:26:05]  Like, you know, because again, think about what would have had to have happened to like all of a sudden the people come out in the streets who were protesting and then like go into the government.
[00:26:13]  I mean, I'm trying to picture, remember what happened in Ukraine when they got rid of Yanukovych?
[00:26:18]  Yanukovych, I think, you know, they were marching through his house and his office and seeing all the opulence they were, they were, you know, the corruption.
[00:26:26]  Like, what would it take for that to happen where like that would happen in Iran, where they're like storming through the palaces and taking over the country?
[00:26:34]  I can't even fathom what that's like.
[00:26:36]  No, I can't, I can't either because the regime is so deeply ingrained.
[00:26:40]  And I think, again, Nick, these are the conversations that actually took place in our intelligence agencies and in our military.
[00:26:47]  Like, that's the type of thing that they were talking about.
[00:26:49]  And they told the White House this wouldn't work.
[00:26:51]  They were so high off of the kidnapping of Maduro.
[00:26:54]  They were so high because it's what I said all along.
[00:26:57]  When MAGA discovers the American military, all bets are off.
[00:27:02]  And that's what happened.
[00:27:03]  Like they, they, it basically, it's the equivalent, you know, Nick, it's the equivalent of someone who is desperate pulling off like a bank robbery and being like, this shit's easy.
[00:27:13]  You can just rob a bank whenever you want.
[00:27:15]  And eventually they got put in this unwinnable situation because they didn't think about it and they didn't actually plan for long-term sort of consequences.
[00:27:22]  But now, Nick, going back to the market, I think they've figured out that they can make millions of dollars every single day just because Trump says one thing and the market wants to fix itself.
[00:27:34]  And meanwhile, we haven't even talked about the fact.
[00:27:37]  Nick, Europe is starting to tell people to prepare for four-day work weeks because they won't be able to commute because of fuel shortages.
[00:27:46]  They're starting to tell people to prepare for, you know, working online because of fuel shortages.
[00:27:53]  They're starting to think European countries are starting to talk about lowering their speed limits so that people won't drive as fast and use as much gas.
[00:28:03]  On top of that, Nick, we haven't talked about fertilizer, which last time I checked is pretty necessary in terms of making food.
[00:28:11]  We haven't even gotten to the summer or the winter in terms of what fueling costs are going to be like.
[00:28:16]  You add to that, again, these Gulf countries, the petrodollar is what has made our Ponzi scheme of an economy run.
[00:28:23]  They're just fucking lighting matches left and right, but the Trump family and the people around them are getting rich because Trump is telegraphing all of this.
[00:28:33]  They're not thinking about the long-term effects that you and I are talking about.
[00:28:36]  They were so far away from that.
[00:28:38]  It's just, it's basically an ATM that they go up and press a button and take the cash out of.
[00:28:42]  They don't think about the consequences of it.
[00:28:44]  Not to mention that they've deported and harassed and scared so many people who would be working like in the fields to harvest the crops of the food.
[00:28:52]  And so I, you know, we've seen the prices going up at the grocery store to some degree, but like I have to imagine at some point when whoever they're hiring now to pick those crops to be causing the prices for that food will have to just skyrocket at some point.
[00:29:11]  Well, the good news, speaking of the griff, Nick, the good news is that because the government has created a system of concentration camps, they've also created a work release program where the government will sell those workers.
[00:29:24]  So they've caused the problem.
[00:29:25]  They're going to make money out of it over here.
[00:29:28]  And surely it's going to happen over here and over here.
[00:29:30]  The only thing that they prepare for is the ability to proffer a profit off of the destruction that they're causing.
[00:29:36]  That's the only thing they're actually good at.

=== Democratic Party Shifts (07:10) ===

[00:29:38]  Right.
[00:29:39]  And then by the way, it's not limited to just our country.
[00:29:42]  It's any other country as well, which just reminds me really quickly, you know, in terms of solving that issue of like what would happen to Iran?
[00:29:49]  How would you flip that the government out of there?
[00:29:52]  You know, you'd probably think in the movie version, it's okay, they're going to supply all the arms and the guns to the rebels in Iran to like take over, right?
[00:29:59]  Well, guess what?
[00:30:00]  We've seen that one before.
[00:30:02]  I've seen that movie before and not too far from that area.
[00:30:06]  Nick, it's actually gotten dumber than that this time because the deal that they've made is that the war that they're fighting, the country that they're fighting the war with, they're going to start buying the oil from the country they're fighting the war with.
[00:30:20]  Right.
[00:30:21]  So they're, they've cut out the middleman of the Contras.
[00:30:26]  They've cut out the rebels and now they're going to deal directly with the group that they're fighting.
[00:30:31]  Like it's, it's, it's stupid on a whole other level.
[00:30:34]  Oh, yeah.
[00:30:34]  I mean, when it comes to oil like that, yeah, there are no, there really are no sides in reality.
[00:30:39]  You know, it's like you'll deal with anybody you have to.
[00:30:41]  And we'll take the sanctions off of Russia.
[00:30:43]  It's really, yeah, I mean, hey, remember the war in Ukraine?
[00:30:47]  Like, whatever happened to that?
[00:30:48]  Well, they've even said, and this is, I'm so glad you brought this up, Nick, because this just sort of float.
[00:30:54]  We'll talk about Russia in a minute.
[00:30:55]  This will be fun.
[00:30:56]  It just floated under the radar.
[00:30:58]  Russia is offering intelligence and targeting information for Iran, and they just got the sanctions taken off of their oil.
[00:31:06]  Putin put a little sweetener in there and he's like, hey, if you give us a victory in Ukraine, maybe we'll stop giving information to Iran.
[00:31:15]  We are so we're so overleveraged on everything.
[00:31:22]  We're just, we're fucked in that regard.
[00:31:24]  Like I keep saying there's no way to get out of this with anything intact.
[00:31:28]  The American empire is fucked.
[00:31:30]  I'm sure Marco Rubio will help us with this.
[00:31:33]  He's in charge of this, isn't he?
[00:31:35]  Oh, Jesus, God almighty.
[00:31:37]  Speaking of the people who are supposed to be in charge, Nick, the Wall Street Journal has reported that there is a group of senators within the Democratic caucus, including Elizabeth Warren, Tina Smith, and Chris Murphy.
[00:31:48]  They are calling themselves, by the way, the Fight Club, who are coming together to form an anti-Chuck Schumer caucus that is trying to move Chuck Schumer from his position of leadership with the Democrats.
[00:32:00]  They have started to use an endorsement tool of candidates that they consider anti-Schumer candidates to kick that off.
[00:32:08]  Chris Murphy has been reported, he's told people that they're taking vote counts to see if they have the numbers.
[00:32:14]  They do not yet.
[00:32:15]  What do you make of this development?
[00:32:17]  I feel like this is something I've been waiting for for a while, but it's taking a form that I wasn't really necessarily ready for.
[00:32:24]  Well, I mean, he's just doing business as usual.
[00:32:25]  He's going to try and say, let's pass a clean TSA bill so we can get, you know, we can kind of get things back to status quo and then we'll deal with like, you know, all the hard stuff later.
[00:32:35]  And again, you're giving up all the leverage, right?
[00:32:38]  If you wanted this classic clean bill so the TSA starts working, though, you need to hold that over them and be, you know, tough with that.
[00:32:46]  That will get you the other concessions we need to do for DHS as a whole.
[00:32:50]  So, um, yeah, it just reeks of what he's always been-the milquetoast guy who doesn't know how to fight, he doesn't amount willing to do it and probably benefits from all this as it is.
[00:33:00]  So, that's a real big issue.
[00:33:02]  He has opened up such a flank that can be taken advantage of.
[00:33:08]  I mean, first of all, Nick, I think we both know that if this like Democratic coup takes place within the party, Elizabeth Warren would be the head senator in the party.
[00:33:18]  Like, she, she, she wants it, she needs it, she would get it.
[00:33:22]  There's such an opening for it.
[00:33:24]  People are so tired of Chuck Schumer.
[00:33:25]  They're so tired of this faux resistance bullshit.
[00:33:28]  He obviously does not have what it takes.
[00:33:30]  But, where has this brought us to, Nick?
[00:33:32]  It's I talked about the demolition derby civil war situation that would take place within the Democratic Party in 26 as we head intoward the midterms.
[00:33:40]  This is the first rumbling of it.
[00:33:43]  I will say, as a person who follows this, this is pretty late in the calendar.
[00:33:48]  I thought that this would have taken place immediately after the 24 election or moving into late 25 at the latest.
[00:33:55]  This is not where I thought it was going to be.
[00:33:58]  And if we're talking about going into the midterms and picking candidates, like Elizabeth Warren went out and endorsed Graham Plattner in Maine, that is a pretty wild reach.
[00:34:09]  If you are going to base the takeover of the Democratic Party and the movement of it towards the left, away from Chuck Schumer on Graham Plattner, I think you're probably mistaken.
[00:34:19]  And that shows to me that this is much more, it's almost a Hail Mary.
[00:34:24]  It's like I watched the NCAA tournament all weekend.
[00:34:26]  It's a half court shot, right?
[00:34:28]  It's a heave, hoping that something will land.
[00:34:31]  The structure is not in place for the Democratic Party to have a major turn by the midterms unless the people have it.
[00:34:38]  And this group is not going to be the one that brings it over the finish line.
[00:34:42]  Interesting.
[00:34:43]  Interesting.
[00:34:43]  I mean, listen, I have a little bit of hope.
[00:34:45]  I like Elizabeth Warren and we'll have to find out if she does have that kind of influence.
[00:34:49]  But what does it say about me that I'm willing to wholeheartedly and is with as much gusto as I can back a candidate that has some slight Nazi ties with a tattoo over Susan Collins?
[00:35:05]  Like, I hate Susan Collins that much that I don't almost don't care who is going to be on the other side that can potentially take her out of that seat.
[00:35:13]  I don't even know what to say to that totally, because I think in a way, people ask me about Graham Plattner, and everybody wants me because I'm the fucking blue-collar leftist, right?
[00:35:26]  I'm supposed to be like overjoyed about Graham Plattner because yes, he is a talented communicator and he is the type of candidate that can actually speak to working class voters.
[00:35:36]  I think he's very good at that.
[00:35:38]  I reject the choice of saying I either accept him or deny him.
[00:35:42]  I instead offer a third thing, which is his position going into November is more indicative of how badly the Democratic Party is at talking to working class people.
[00:35:56]  Because if you have to look past these things, because he's one of the only people who can actually speak to class politics, something has gone awry somewhere, right?
[00:36:04]  That's the issue is you should have an entire slate of candidates who do this.
[00:36:08]  And what we're seeing in the sort of developing quote unquote blue wave going into November is that the vast majority of them are centrists.
[00:36:17]  They're still moderates.
[00:36:18]  And maybe they're a little less moderate than the current Democratic leadership, but that's still the ideological line that they're towing.
[00:36:25]  So someone like a Graham Plattner, who can stand out so much that you're exactly right, hit a Nazi tattoo that only recently, and by the way, said a bunch of shit online that was really misogynistic and problematic.
[00:36:37]  The fact that we have to sit here and say, well, maybe it's worth backing him anyway.
[00:36:42]  It's not about Plattner.
[00:36:43]  It's not about Maine.
[00:36:44]  It's more about the failures of the Democratic Party that become more obvious every day.

=== Unusual Political Tactics (08:13) ===

[00:36:48]  Yeah.
[00:36:49]  I mean, listen, who wants to get involved in politics anyway?
[00:36:52]  I mean, that's the other problem.
[00:36:53]  It's like their, you know, Democratic Party writ large is hoping that people will step into this void and join, you know, and, but who is that going to be?
[00:37:00]  Who's willing to get doxxed and threatened and have to move?
[00:37:03]  I mean, like, like I was just, there's a guy who was covering the Phoenix Suns who just said something about Charlie Kirk.
[00:37:09]  It wasn't even that inflammatory.
[00:37:10]  He had to take his family and move states because he was doxxed and threatened.
[00:37:14]  Like, who do they imagine what that turns into when you become again the politics?
[00:37:18]  And Trump mentions you once on a tweet or on a post.
[00:37:22]  So that's the other kind of problem here.
[00:37:24]  It's like, I don't know how you're filling that void because it's like, you know, the current climate is awful.
[00:37:29]  It's awful.
[00:37:30]  And I will also say that just as a person who talks about the signals that I see and what I'm watching, I think it's a good thing that we're now hearing in public that there is a group of Democratic senators who are moving against Schumer.
[00:37:41]  I think that is a good preview of where this thing is going.
[00:37:44]  Okay, Nick, here's the thing.
[00:37:46]  We were good boys.
[00:37:48]  We ate our vegetables.
[00:37:50]  We played by the rules.
[00:37:51]  We had a serious broadcast for a while.
[00:37:54]  What does that mean?
[00:37:55]  That means that you and me and the people listening, we get a little bit of dessert, Nick.
[00:38:00]  This is the type of story that would usually be on the weekender and it would completely sidetrack every conversation we were having.
[00:38:06]  And guess what?
[00:38:07]  People who are listening to this and don't aren't patrons, this is what you're missing in on the weekenders.
[00:38:12]  I'm just telling you.
[00:38:14]  So the Washington Port, Washington Port.
[00:38:17]  I'm so excited I'm misspeaking.
[00:38:19]  The Washington Post is reporting that U.S. intelligence has found that Russian intelligence was planning what they called, quote, Operation Game Changer in Hungary, in which Russia would help right-wing elements in Hungary carry out a fake assassination plot against Victor Orban in order to try and sway the upcoming elections in April.
[00:38:42]  Nick, I give you the floor.
[00:38:44]  I'm excited, but I can wait for a second to give you my analysis.
[00:38:48]  What do you make of Operation Game Changer?
[00:38:52]  Listen, whatever it takes to win an election, right?
[00:38:54]  And it sounds familiar.
[00:38:56]  How in the world?
[00:38:58]  I can't even imagine a world in which a political candidate on the right, there was a fake assassination that could possibly affect a future election.
[00:39:05]  I can't even imagine.
[00:39:07]  Are we allowed to say it though?
[00:39:08]  Can we finally say that?
[00:39:10]  Okay, okay, okay.
[00:39:10]  Okay.
[00:39:11]  I'm glad you asked.
[00:39:12]  So here's a little check-in.
[00:39:13]  You and I, friends, we keep each other honest.
[00:39:16]  We can only say that developing information tends to give you a different viewpoint on things and discuss that changing viewpoint and perspectives.
[00:39:28]  Listen, let's unleash it.
[00:39:30]  I'll have no problem saying that that ear thing is bullshit, right?
[00:39:33]  And it doesn't make any sense.
[00:39:35]  But, you know, okay.
[00:39:37]  So, and by the way, what that leads you to believe, okay, how did this all work?
[00:39:40]  So in the middle of the summer, you know, obviously Putin and Trump are talking all the time.
[00:39:45]  And they're like, yeah, hey, you know, it would be great.
[00:39:47]  He's just fake the assassination.
[00:39:49]  They'll get your poll numbers up.
[00:39:50]  You'll get, you'll galvanize everybody.
[00:39:52]  You can say fight, fight, fight, and then it'll be great.
[00:39:54]  Like, yeah, I would like to believe that the kind of people that would come up with these ideas would be like someone like Putin and not anybody else in America, right?
[00:40:03]  Like I would hope that that idea wasn't generated from somewhere on American soil.
[00:40:07]  Who knows?
[00:40:08]  But certainly, you know, it's not hard to draw a connection there and figure out how that all works.
[00:40:13]  Well, just to bring multiple lines in and tie them together before I get into the deeper waters.
[00:40:18]  First things first, Putin learned whenever he was trying to gain power in Russia that the best thing you can have is a false flag attack that gives the authoritarian power.
[00:40:26]  That's how Vladimir Putin was able to gain the power that he was.
[00:40:30]  The second thing I'll say, Victor Werbon can go fuck himself.
[00:40:34]  And I hope like hell that he loses power, but I don't trust that Hungary is going to have free and fair elections.
[00:40:40]  So we'll have to see how that plays out.
[00:40:42]  Third, finally, let's get to the actual dessert, the pudding of this story.
[00:40:48]  Nick, this is the kind of shit that authoritarians do.
[00:40:52]  They do not play by normal rules.
[00:40:54]  And on top of that, you know, when I'm always like looking at intelligence, you're doing this, you're doing that, you're doing that.
[00:41:00]  I find it very interesting that this was leaked the way that it was, that this was necessarily found.
[00:41:06]  I think particularly in a modern era in which intelligence is constantly going to the press and saying, we told Trump not to do this.
[00:41:12]  Meanwhile, the military is leaking that maybe the USS Gerald Ford was sabotaged over and over and set in flames by its own military.
[00:41:20]  I have questions about that.
[00:41:22]  And I will also say that if you came back from the future and you said, hey, Jared, in about a year from now, we're going to find out that Butler, Pennsylvania didn't happen the way that we were told it happened.
[00:41:35]  I would not be so shocked that like my hair would turn white or that I would pass out.
[00:41:40]  Like there, there are so many things when it comes to authoritarians and the altered reality that they create and they control.
[00:41:48]  I wouldn't be surprised.
[00:41:50]  And I do think the other signals that are here, not just that they planned this or thought about doing it, but operators are already on the ground in Hungary trying to overthrow this election.
[00:41:59]  They're also doing all the other things, which include online bots and influence campaigns.
[00:42:04]  This is what Russia does because they are playing a different game.
[00:42:09]  You know, we just talked about the Democrats trying to get control and do this and midterms or whatever.
[00:42:13]  Nick, they're not worried about that shit.
[00:42:15]  They're worried about a completely different war on liberal democracy and the American or the human spirit in general.
[00:42:23]  Like they, they don't, they wouldn't lose a moment of sleep doing this.
[00:42:27]  I mean, I'm trying to play this out because at some point with repetition, like it loses its impact, right?
[00:42:32]  So like they'll end up having assassination attempts for every candidate, right?
[00:42:36]  Like to do this.
[00:42:37]  And it's, and then I can picture a future where no one even cares anymore.
[00:42:41]  It's like, oh, there, you know, it's like on the news and for like a split second, another, another assassination attempt.
[00:42:45]  Oh, well, didn't work.
[00:42:47]  I'm not going to vote for him.
[00:42:48]  I don't know.
[00:42:49]  That happened with Trump here.
[00:42:51]  That happened here.
[00:42:52]  I mean, Butler, Pennsylvania, because of the nature of it and the optics of it, it was very shocking.
[00:42:58]  You know, it really was like watching it play out.
[00:43:01]  But after that, like there were supposed other attempts on Trump's life and no one talked about them.
[00:43:06]  You know, no one really cared.
[00:43:08]  And if something like that happened today, like if you and I logged off and it turned out that someone had taken a shot at him, and even if they hit, I don't think people would respond the way that like they would have in the past.
[00:43:20]  You know what I mean?
[00:43:21]  Like I really don't, I really don't think that it would play out the way that it has.
[00:43:26]  So it's almost like we evolve with it.
[00:43:28]  You know, it's almost like culture and politics change as these tactics are being taken.
[00:43:34]  And you're just referring to the deep state and how they'll get involved in our politics in the name of something.
[00:43:39]  Like Nixon was certainly a good example of that, which I think was a good thing, right?
[00:43:43]  Like, I think we were lucky that Mark Felt decided to be a deep throat and give Woodward and Brunner.
[00:43:51]  Mark Felt was upset about a promotion.
[00:43:54]  Yeah, right, right.
[00:43:55]  Whatever it takes to be a hero is the, I'm all for, you know, whatever it takes.
[00:43:59]  Well, you know, it's, it's funny, actually, because, you know, like, let's say theoretically that all this information comes out that changes everything.
[00:44:06]  Most of the time, that's what it is, is it's stewards of the deep state who are pissed off that they got passed over or their project got defunded.
[00:44:13]  Like that's that we and we have to hope that that's the type of shit that would take place.
[00:44:18]  I mean, the military, Nick, the military wouldn't be doing this if this operation was working.
[00:44:23]  Right.
[00:44:23]  You know, if war with Iran was working, you wouldn't be getting all these leaks.
[00:44:28]  Like you, it would be a completely different thing.
[00:44:30]  So yeah, we have to hope that those kinds of things like somehow or another fill in the gap of actual sort of reality.
[00:44:37]  And the military had better pray that they don't get sent in Iran.
[00:44:42]  Well, if it gets closer and closer, and I still think there's a very real possibility that we see an operation like that.
[00:44:48]  Again, the USS Gerald Ford, they stopped up the toilets and then it seems like they set fire to the ship.
[00:44:53]  So if people are going to be sent to certain death in Iran, I would be shocked if we didn't see some like really fucked up things that happened around it.

=== Military Operation Leaks (00:23) ===

[00:45:02]  Really wouldn't.
[00:45:03]  I agree.
[00:45:04]  All right, everybody, that's going to do it for this episode of the Mutt Craig Podcast.
[00:45:07]  We will be back with the Weekender Edition on Friday.
[00:45:10]  Again, head over to patreon.com slash Mutt Craig podcast.
[00:45:13]  We are independent in terms of our content.
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[00:45:17]  We need your support.
[00:45:18]  Patreon.com slash Mutt Craig podcast.
[00:45:20]  In the meantime, you can find us over on Blue Sky.
[00:45:22]  Nick is at Nick Houseman.
[00:45:23]  I'm in JY Saxton.
[00:45:24]  Be safe, everyone.