PBD Podcast | EP 122 | Former United States Navy SEAL: Mike Ritland
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PBD Podcast Episode 122. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by former Navy Seal Mike Ritland and Adam Sosnick.
You can purchase his new book "UnF*ck America: A Respectful, Open-Minded Conversation" here:https://amzn.to/3HsdP3U
Check out Mike's online store: https://bit.ly/35OCRw7
Check out his YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/3gdlcQL
Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N
Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list
About Guests:
Michael B. Ritland born in Waterloo, Iowa is a former United States Navy SEAL, public speaker, and dog trainer. He created the Warrior Dog Foundation, to provide care to dogs that have ended their service in battle front, and the Team Dog Online Training Community. Connect with him on instagram here: https://bit.ly/33jIqi5
Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Follow Adam on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2PqllTj. You can also check out his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic
Connect with Patrick on social media: https://linktr.ee/patrickbetdavid
About the host:
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media, the #1 YouTube channel for entrepreneurship with more than 3 million subscribers. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Bet-David is passionate about shaping the next generation of leaders by teaching the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and personal development while inspiring people to break free from limiting beliefs to achieve their dreams.
Follow the guests in this episode:
Mike Ritland: https://bit.ly/33jIqi5
Adam Sosnick: https://bit.ly/2PqllTj
To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: info@valuetainment.com
Check out PBD's official website here: https://bit.ly/32tvEjH
0:00 - Start
7:26 - ISIS Leader Killed In Overnight Raid
16:17 - Was It A Good Thing To Assassinate The ISIS Leader?
22:51 - Is The White House Aware When We Assassinate Someone?
28:51 - Who are our allies in the Middle East?
35:26 - Will Iran Achieve A Nuclear Weapon?
41:56 - Does Iran Care About Their Relationship With The US?
50:13 - Should The US Get involved to overthrow the Iranian Regime
1:01:43 - Mike Ritland's New Political System
1:09:00 - Should Whoppi Be Canceled?
1:23:04 - Should Joe Rogan And Elon Musk Team Up?
1:40:18 - Why Your Attitude Is So Important
1:47:01 - Jeff Zucker Resigns From CNN
1:55:02 - Trump Hotel Supplies Product That Were Made In China
1:58:06 - Tom Brady Has Officially Retired
Okay, guys, Mike Ritland is going to pull out his new book that just came out that's selling at churches across the country.
Go ahead.
Can you tell us the title?
I believe it is called, Mike's new book is called Unfuck America, a respectful, open-minded conversation.
Seems very respectful, Mike.
Dichotomy there.
Yeah.
So when did you write this book?
When did this come out?
Well, so I wrote it actually during the, like when the COVID shutdowns kind of first took place, everything was closed.
Kids were home from school, and so I just used that as an opportunity for me to work on that.
I was approached by a publishing house to do a similar book, but immediately I thought my thoughts on it, coupled with their process of editing and things like that, it's probably not going to make for more than about a pamphlet's worth of material when it's done.
So I just did it myself and self-published.
So it's something that I've been thinking about for a while.
Thank you.
With a lot of the conversations I've had on my show with experts of all different varieties, whether it's border drugs, guns, child trafficking, you name it, is that I wanted to have kind of an all-encompassing book that kind of shed light on all of those topics through the eyes of the show, having had all these experts on.
By the way, we've had Mike on.
Mike, you've been on, is it once or twice?
We should be on twice, right?
You've been on the podcast.
And one time you made comments about women in Navy SEALs, which some loved, some didn't like, but a lot of people wanted to find out more about it.
And it was another comment video that we did that was on what?
It was on Mike.
I enrolled in Mike's class on how to understand guns and safety.
And that clip has pretty much gone viral, half a million views online.
And it's definitely opened my mind as to, you know, this is carrying right now, just so you can find a guy to carry.
Oh, that's me.
Yeah, that's Florida.
But at the same time, folks, if you don't know Mike Ritland, he's a former Navy SEAL, dog trainer, millions of views, and he's got a sense of humor.
I'm telling you, stick around.
The guy's got a sense of humor.
He's got a yogi barrel type of a sense of humor that you have to have.
I think you have to be witty enough and sarcastic enough to catch the sense of humor.
But it's there.
It's for sure going to come out.
Well, hopefully it's not too lowbrow.
Mike, hopefully it is.
By the way, I was looking at the clip that we did last time.
It performed very well.
A lot of people really enjoyed it, thousands of comments.
And then I happened to stumble across images of you online.
Naked.
You found a naked picture.
Like he said, he was performing well.
Are you on my OnlyFans?
That was happening.
I'm subscribed.
$9.99 a month.
It's a fantastic look for you.
Loyalty.
Tyler, but look at this guy.
It's either dogs or this guy looking chiseled.
Oh.
And it's...
That's implants in Photoshop.
I know what you're talking about.
But, I mean, look at the top right picture.
Dude, Mike, you kidding me?
Am I kidding you?
It's not a joke.
Is that you?
It is.
But that's me on the left, too, as a 22-year-old baby frog man in Hawaii.
Now, on the right, your chest kind of looks Middle Eastern.
It looks very hairy.
And you're going to be able to do it.
Well, I've spent some time there.
Yeah, I mean, that could happen.
You think that was rubs off.
It rubs off for sure.
It is very contagious.
Anyways, guys, we got a lot of topics to get into.
We're going to talk about the book as well.
Some things, folks, you got to know about.
So news just came in.
ISIS leader killed in U.S. special operations raid in Syria.
Biden says.
He didn't do it himself, but it is something that just came.
I want to make sure I put it out the picture.
I've been flying off the helicopter Rambo style and just started unloading.
Here's the part that's the most impressive one.
So this entire time, everybody's been trying to fix this COVID issue.
But President Biden, you've got to respect how aspirational he is.
He has taken up a different challenge.
He aims to reduce cancer death by 50% over the next 25 years.
So he is attacking cancer now.
They did such a good job with COVID.
Now they're going after cancer.
You tell me that's not impressive, though.
Hey, kill cancer.
Yeah, that's a good question.
But I'm okay with killing cancer.
What I'm not okay with is let's first kill COVID before you're aspirational enough to kill cancer.
You can't do two things at once, is what you're saying.
Well, you can't do it.
Two things on, but COVID's over here, but I was like, no, no, no, don't look here.
Let's look over here.
Let's look over here.
Gotcha.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Sight of hand kind of a so Brady made comments about retirement.
There's one thing he left out when he talked about retirement.
He didn't think Belichick.
He didn't think Brady.
He didn't think none of them Patriots fans.
Nothing.
But I want to read what Belichick said, which I really like Belichick's comments and what he said.
Zucker, I know you're heartbroken by this.
Jeff Zucker from CNN.
Yeah, I resigned.
I wasn't able to kill all night.
I didn't get it.
You know, I thought you were going to cancel today.
I was a little bit concerned.
I thought for sure.
If I wasn't here, I would have.
I was going to cancel.
Data came out showing the fact that Tucker Carlson, nearly 40% of his viewers, are Democrats.
Liberal leaders.
That's interesting stuff.
That's a very interesting stuff.
Whoopi made some comments.
I definitely want to get your commentary on that, on what you think about what she said.
SACI actually responded about Joe Rogan being censored.
And did you guys hear about how many COVID-related videos and podcasts Spotify took down in the last few weeks?
Did you guys hear that?
Dozens I heard.
Dozens.
20,000.
What?
20,000 clips?
20,000.
Anything related to COVID that could be misinformed.
Short clips.
Anything that was.
What episode?
No podcast episode.
Podcast episode.
Long form.
What?
20,000 were taken down by Syria.
Spotify made that decision.
So Spotify.
Recently?
Yes.
So they're saying now that Spotify is maybe caving in and it's kind of going a different direction.
Oh, boy, Daniel Elk.
Daniel Eck.
I know you're feeling like going to Casa to have some elk, but it's Daniel Eck.
So 20,000 of them.
AOC, heartbreaking.
She's dealing with anxiety because of her visiting Florida.
Tough out there.
And she got a lot of criticism for visiting Florida.
So she's not wanting to get on Twitter because she gets too much criticism.
And we have to kind of lower the criticism there.
So folks, just a disclaimer to everybody, next time if you see her video, please take it easy on her.
And then we got a few other things.
Vox did a story.
You ready for this Vox story?
When I saw this title, I almost thought it was a joke.
It said, remote work isn't the problem.
You know what's the problem?
Work is the problem.
What?
So let's not have to, let's not work anymore.
And let's get everybody to stay home.
And then, you know, we broke a record.
U.S. is officially in debt $30 trillion.
Congratulations, United States of America.
It's so bad that Babylon B wrote an article about it, a satire article about it saying the debt is so high that immigrants are turning back around and going back home.
Anyways, okay, so let's go into this.
So ISIS, this news just came up.
If you want to pull this up with the ISIS story, and let's kind of go through this, if you can make it a little bit bigger so the viewers can see it.
So here we go.
Biden, U.S. raid in Syria killed top ISIS leader.
Go a little lower so we can read it in a mic if you can give us some thoughts on this.
President Biden said on Thursday that the U.S. raid in northwestern Syria killed top ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi El-Khurashi.
What he's saying is last night at my direction, U.S. military forces, at my direction, very impressive, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our allies and make the world a safer place.
Biden said, thanks to the skill and bravery of our armed forces, we have taken off battlefield Abu Ibrahim, the leader of ISIS.
All Americans have returned safely from the operations, monitoring and other groups, as well as residents of the raided village, Atem, Atmeh, in the rebel-held Idlib prominence near the border with Turkey, reported multiple deaths, including civilians, British nine people, were killed in Thursday's strike, including two children and a woman.
Wow.
Okay.
So that's the part that's going to British monetary group, the Syrian observatory for human rights said at least nine people were killed in Thursday's strike, including two children and a woman.
The Syrian civil events first responders, also known as the White Helmet, said at least 13 people died, including six children in shelling and clashes that followed the raid.
So, Mike, former Navy SEAL, when you see something like this, what are you thinking and what do you know about it?
Well, in terms of detail that I know about it is basically zero with it being this new and me having been out as long as I have, I have no connections as to any pertinent details.
But what I will say is that stuff like this takes place pretty regularly.
From a timing standpoint, it's easy to look at it and say it's a shell game of, hey, things are going bad, so let me do something like this.
There's a potential for that, no two ways about it.
But I think it's always good when things like this happen as it relates to keeping terrorist groups accountable overseas and keeping the pressure on them there so that they feel the heat there and it's harder for them to execute things over here.
But I just don't like the timing of it, I guess.
It does seem a little convenient because we haven't done anything over there.
His debacle or botched abortion of a withdrawal from Afghanistan to me still stings and always will for most guys who have had any involvement in the war on terror in the last 20 years.
And so it's hard for me not to have some bias coming into a story like this just because of how badly he's fumbled military policy in the short year that he's been at the helm, if you can even call it that.
By the way, Tyler, can you go copy-paste his name and go on Google?
Copy-paste his name, Abu.
Yeah.
I've never even heard of her.
Go on Google and let's read the Wikipedia because I've been going through the Wikipedia.
Go a little lower.
Yeah.
Go a little lower, the main Wikipedia.
It's a little concerning because he's born in October.
Go a little lower.
There you go.
Okay, good.
Make it bigger.
Abu Ronzawi, let's see, he was born in Zero.
October 1976, February 3rd, 2022, was an Iraqi Islamist and the second leader.
Okay, so he was second in command of the Islamic State.
His appointment by a Shura council was announced by the Islamic State Media 31st of October 2019, less than a week after the death of previous leader, Abu Bakr.
Okay, so he got appointed after the U.S. rewards the justice program while it's offering $10 million in exchange for information leading to his apprehension.
So does Biden get the $10 million?
On February 3rd, 2022, he killed himselves.
By triggering an explosive device during a counterterrorism raid by U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.
Wait, so he killed himself.
He did the same thing that Baghdadi did, is he blew himself up when they were coming to get him.
Remember that they sent the dogs after Baghdad into the cave and he blew himself up.
Yeah, he's not going to give you the pride of killing him.
He's going to do it himself.
And his family, which is nice.
Okay, so explain that, by the way.
You'd rather be...
You'd rather kill yourself, set off an explosive, kill yourself and your family rather than being taken out by infidels?
I would.
Explain that.
But I wish I could.
From their mentality, you spent time over there.
How does that work?
Well, I mean, to me, it doesn't.
Again, trying to understand the mindset and the mentality of these guys, even though you know your enemy and you want to understand who you're fighting, is very, very difficult for that reason, is that there's such a disparity culturally between here and there and religious values and things of that nature that it makes it, I'll say for me, even not being a religious guy, really, really difficult to understand what the mentality is there.
I mean, I can't understand him doing what he does to begin with, let alone killing himself.
But it's such a backwards mentality as far as the way that hardline extremist guys in these networks and such, the way that they and their families view suicide bombers is of a very high regard.
Well, apparently, according to the Quran, if you blow yourself up in the name of Allah, you literally go to heaven, you get 72 virgins.
That's part of their mantra.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that it speaks to actual suicide in the Quran, but I know that from the twisted versions of a lot of the networks over there, and we'll even say Afghanistan,
I had Holly McKay on my show just a couple weeks ago, who was there during the withdrawal, and the viewpoint and stance that a lot of that culture kind of looks at as far as the suicide bomber mentality is that those, let's say there's a 17-year-old son and he blows himself up at a checkpoint and what have you, is that that family is now almost considered royalty.
Like they're paid, they're revered, they're held at a really high standard societally.
Because their son blew himself up.
Yeah, like now the family is revered.
Right.
And so other families see that and they encourage their kids to do it.
And their kids are their kids.
These are our sports figures, our actors.
That's wild.
There's going to be suicide bomber baseball cards here before too long.
I'll tell you one thing.
I actually had an Uber ride from Fort Lauderdale to Miami to Miami.
And in Miami, there's a 90% chance that your Uber driver is going to be of Latino descent, whether that's Cuban or Colombian or Venezuelan.
I mean, just that's the makeup of the DNA of South Florida.
This particular man was actually Palestinian.
And we got into a whole long conversation.
He's like, so where are you from?
Da, da, da, Miami.
You're Jewish.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love Jews.
I'm like, oh, you're Palestinian.
Yes, yes.
He's been in America for 30 plus years.
So thick accent.
And we had a very unique conversation.
A Jew, a Palestinian driver.
And we actually exchanged numbers.
And he drove, this was actually on New Year's.
He actually picked us up later.
Point is we had a great time.
And he said something, he goes, you have to understand one thing about these types of people.
He goes, I'm a Muslim, but I'm very moderate.
He goes, they value death more than we value life.
And I said, whoa, what?
And he goes, yeah, they value death more than we value life.
And we just discussed that, what that meant.
And I mean, kind of to your point here, Mike, is that their mentality, their values are totally different than any normal person would have.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's half of it, too, is the other half is that the economies and societies over there overwhelmingly so have a kind of a feeling of despair almost.
Unemployment rates must be just everything.
The lack of infrastructure, there's so many negatives in the societies there that there's not a lot to want to live for, frankly.
And so when you couple that with an isolated extremist conditioning from a religious standpoint and talking about the afterlife and basically brainwashing people, no different than some aspects of society here, frankly, but there it's just supercharged to a level where it's kind of a perfect storm of all these different elements that contribute to it making it very easy for them to manipulate young piss-broke families into sending their kids into those scenarios.
Let me ask you this.
Khassem Seleimani, when he was killed, did he get a lot of negative pushback from the opposing side on why would you take somebody out that powerful?
Like I remember when the Iranian tops is like the head of the CIA, FBI, even Zeller said, I don't know if that was the right move to make, why, to do something like that.
They're still talking about it.
They're still talking about it till today.
Oh, yeah.
And they're not going to forget about this guy because this guy had a very big upside.
He could have been the face of the country as a leader to keep pushing their agenda, their philosophies, right?
What happens with a situation like this?
What's the next could there be a possibility of a revenge or a pushback or the side effects of doing something like this?
Or is it more positive for ISIS to know, listen, if you do anything, we're going to constantly come and keep doing this to you.
So is it a positive move on what happened?
Is there any negative thing that could happen here?
To me, it's 100% positive.
I agree with you.
Is there going to be or is there a potential for blowback, revenge?
Of course there is.
But to me, you should never base decisions as to whether or not you do something based on how somebody might retaliate based on that if it's the right thing.
You have to anticipate it, though, right?
You have to be anticipating that something could happen.
Yeah, but I mean, I look at it as kind of a net reaction as far as if there's 5,000 capable guys with combat experience, with strategic value, with logistical expertise that are within these organizations, it's always better to remove as many of those people as possible, irrespective of what potential blowback might be.
I mean, no different than, say, your company here.
Like if somebody wanted to take out your company, does the thought of you hiring the next best guy or bringing somebody else in or replacing whoever, is that going to deter them from trying to crumble your company?
No.
They're just going to come at you harder.
Even if they know you're going to respond in kind or what have you.
No different than you've had a bunch of mob bosses on.
Similar mentality there is that they're going to take out who needs to be taken out and who's going to be value added to being lost by that organization.
Yeah, I got to tell you, I like this.
I like that this happened because for a minute we seem sloppy.
For a minute we seemed weak.
For a minute it was like, you know, these guys can't handle anything.
I love the fact that something like this happened.
Forget who's in the White House.
It's great that America is seen with something like this taking place.
Now, it's tragic when you read it and saying, because look how this one wrote it.
This one wrote it.
Stay right there on the article.
It says the Syrian civil defense first responders Olama said at least 13 people died, including six children and shelling and clashes that followed the raid, right?
So you read that and it doesn't look positive.
It looks negative.
British Monitoring grouped the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that at least nine people were killed in Thursday strike, but we don't, two children and a woman, but you don't know if he'd kill those kids.
We don't know who those two are those his kids, because on Wikipedia it says he killed himself, right?
He blew himself up.
I'd be curious as information comes in to see what that situation was like in Syria.
Mike, years ago, I mean a handful of years ago, all we would hear about was the Syrian civil war.
I remember when Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party, was running for president.
This was in 2016 when Trump won and obviously edged out Hillary Clinton.
He completely shit the bed because they said, what are your thoughts on what's going on with Aleppo?
Right?
And he's like, what's Alex?
He's like, what's Aleppo?
I was like, brother, you want to be president?
You don't know the capital of Syria?
What the hell are you talking about right now?
And that guy was done.
But what is going on in Syria these days?
We heard so much about Assad, chemical warfare on their citizens, ISIS.
It's so like you have ISIS and then you have the Taliban and Afghanistan and then you have Syria and the dictators and like the Shiites and the Sunnis and these people and then the Kurds up there.
We can't figure out who to kill who.
And then Syrian, the government is fighting ISIS, but we're fighting ISIS, but we're also against Assad.
We don't hear a lot about it these days, to Pat's point.
Just can you make some sense of it or is there no way to make sense of what to do over there?
Well, being a part-time janitor at the CIA, let me tell you what's going on.
I mean, the short answer is it's not as involved as it was four years ago.
Is it still a mess the same way a lot of places are still a mess over there?
Yes.
You know, to try to dissect it and understand the cause and effect and what is really going on.
I mean, to me, you really need to spend time there and try to evaluate it almost from a journalist standpoint of not taking sides and just there figuring out what that is.
Why there's not more attention paid to it, I think, just really stems from the fact that Afghanistan heated up with the drawdown and then the debacle of the withdrawal from there, as well as Iran getting nuclear material and things happening between Israel and Palestine the same way that it has for the last several years.
And so there's just so many different things going on there that are all kind of equally terrible.
I wouldn't say that it's necessarily any worse than seven other places over there.
It's just you're not hearing about it because there's no reason to hear about it.
There's not an election going on.
We have almost no involvement over there.
And so it's just not on the radar, especially with something like COVID here making such a big deal out of that.
It's a priority thing.
And is ISIS still as powerful or they're not anywhere near?
No, they're nowhere near as powerful.
Do they still exist?
Yes.
I mean, there's a faction, there's ISIS-K in Afghanistan that's caused a lot of problems.
But to me, they're smaller than they used to be quite a bit.
Mostly the four years that Trump was in office of really getting after it from an offensive standpoint as opposed to a reactive standpoint.
In what way?
Just, I mean, operations like this times a thousand.
You know, there was a lot more troop presence there.
You know, we took a lot of intelligence-based measures to execute missions like this and other ones to push them back and take territory back and get rid of high-value targets and things of that nature.
Mike, how much of this when an operation like this is taking place, the White House is aware of it a month, two months, three months, six months, a year prior to it happening?
Like, is this something that Biden knew about three, six months ago?
Or is it last minute, hey guys, here's where we are.
We found him.
Let's make the phone call, take him out, boom.
Yeah.
So generally speaking, there's kind of a pulse or tabs on guys in certain areas.
When something like this happens, it's generally to a degree with which there's very, very credible and corroborated through multiple sources, viable intelligence that this guy is right here and now we can go find him, which is why this is a big deal, is that to pinpoint a guy and actually be accurate as to his exact location, going and finding him, even though we didn't kill him, he blew himself up.
Fact is the result is the same, is that that's a big deal intelligence-wise, you know, as far as a victory.
So we knew about it.
For sure.
Now, did we?
He's been on the radar, is what you're saying.
And then when the opportunity arises, boom strike.
But what's not said, and what's very possible, I don't have any intimate knowledge of it.
How many times did we think he was somewhere, tried to go, and nothing happened?
Who knows?
It could have been a dozen.
That's the tricky part with this.
Like to your question, the different directors and people in different places of a high value in our government that know, okay, this guy's in this region, this guy's in that region, this outfit's operating here.
They have about this many troops.
You have a good idea of all those things.
I'm going to ask a crazy question.
And I just want you to be thinking about it, both of you guys.
Tyler, you think about it, see how you process this.
So, you know how sometimes somebody all of a sudden has a bad rep for something they did and they hire a publicist and the publicist comes and tries to rebrand the person, right?
Like A-Rod rebranded himself very well until the J-Lo situation.
It kind of went back to what it was, I think, a little bit, right?
He took a little bit of a step back.
But when A-Rod came back out, A-Rod was, this guy, listen, I did it.
Here's what I did.
This is what it is.
He's definitely transformed.
And then he was on, you know, a shark tank.
You're seeing him everywhere.
So you're like, dude, this guy's incredible on TV.
Great communicator, great, all this stuff.
Then some people were upset what happened with J-Lo.
No one knows the real story.
What happened there?
The J-Lo fans came out and they don't like him.
But A-Rod recreated his persona.
Would you guys both agree?
Who else would you put in that category that recreated their persona at that level?
I think musicians do it.
Rappers do it.
Kardashians did it.
Stars do it all the time, right?
And especially when you're getting older, you got to do it even more because if you don't, you're no longer 22.
You're now 53.
You don't look like you did at 22.
You got to kind of mix it up, right?
I wonder if there's meetings where you're sitting there saying, look, let's face it, man.
And by the way, I'm talking to any president.
Look, your score right now, your polls, you're good.
Your ratings suck right now.
You ain't looking good.
I'm talking about Biden.
I'm talking about Biden.
Midterms are coming up.
We got to kind of fix some things up.
So listen, five-step plan.
Here's what we're going to do.
No longer we're going to talk about COVID.
We're going to talk about cancer.
Number two, we need a strong position from your end to go take out somebody from ISIS.
Let's call this.
Number three, we need to do.
Do you think those types of conversations happen?
They have to.
Okay, I agree.
I mean, I agree.
There's no doubt that.
And I wonder if there's like a 30-point marker of things to do to recreate your reputation in these 30 markers.
Okay, which one of these do we want to do?
Let's take this, You've had a publicist before, right?
Sure.
I don't know your relationship.
Yeah.
It's their job to make you look better, to recreate you, give you better talking points.
All right.
Listen, you're going to get off the COVID thing.
You're going to start focusing on cancer.
Buddy, you just botched Afghanistan.
Let's kill some Mofos in Syria.
This is, I think this is, you know, PR 101.
Like, get your ratings back up.
And I think Biden needed that.
And to your point, Pat, I think it's important.
And I want to get Mike's thoughts on this as well.
Notice it was a raid, and they didn't send in a drone.
They didn't send in a Reaper because what happened last time we did that?
We killed the aid worker and what, seven children?
We droned Pat Tillman.
I mean, so where does that come from?
Is it situational where they decide to raid?
Yeah, it is.
I mean, so much of it is going to be driven by kind of the actionable intelligence on what's on target.
Now, speaking from personal experience, we did operations where our intelligence was spot on.
And there were times where we did operations where the intelligence was woefully inaccurate.
And that's kind of the dice roll that you take with any of these things is that it's always, from a collateral damage standpoint, I would say generally speaking, not always, it's a better mechanism to send human beings there to execute a mission because they're thinking on target.
Now, it doesn't mean that it can't go wrong where civilians are using or being used as shields or kids get blown up or things of that nature, but you at least have an interactive component on the ground that can make decisions.
Whereas, you know, once the trigger is pulled on a drone hellfire, that's it.
So, you know, when it comes to things like this, it's generally regarded as the better decision for the big picture to send people.
Now, the obvious drawback is that what if some of our guys get lost?
My perception of especially how this administration would view that is that that's not a huge consideration on their part.
It's 100% how is it going to make us look good or what is the PR going to be based on something like this happening?
Mike, sorry, the human capital.
Yeah.
It's a two-part question.
Well, first, let me give a retraction.
I believe I called Aleppo the capital of Syria.
It's Damascus, but it's a major city.
Either way, I don't want to get slammed in the comments.
This guy doesn't.
Don't read them.
Exactly.
Believe me, I don't.
My question to you is regarding our allies.
We know who our enemies are: the ISIS-K, the ISIS, the Taliban.
The list goes on and on and on.
Who are our biggest allies in the Middle East, right?
And where are they housed?
Where were these guys based out of?
Obviously, we know Israel.
Who else is on our list of allies?
We know the enemies.
Who are the allies?
So to me, it's kind of a tough question because it depends on what position you take and who you are, even within our government.
Having said that, Jordan historically has been what I would consider probably our biggest ally in the region outside of Israel.
I don't think Saudi for a number of reasons, which would be its own episode by itself, doesn't have any of our best interests in mind, 9-11 being a clear-cut example.
And all the rest of the countries, it's not that black and white as far as, just like with our country, right, is that you've got, even within our government, you've got people on polar opposite spectrums of, so there's no countries other than Israel or Jordan you would put on that list.
What about regions or types like the Kurds we'd always hear about?
The Kurds are great fighters and they were fighting against.
Yeah, the northern third of Iraq is is generally a considerable ally for us, but we've turned our back on them a few times and totally sold them out.
So you know to say that they're a staunch ally and we can depend on them.
I wouldn't say I remember Trump caught a lot of heat about pulling out and basically sent people don't recall as much heat as Biden took in Afghanistan for the sloppy withdrawal.
There was a brief period of time where Trump was taking a lot of heat from abandoning the Kurds not as big as Afghanistan, because people don't know that, but do you recall that?
Not really, you know, and maybe that's, maybe that's the media portion, I don't know.
You know, to me the the, the abandonment of them, happened well before he got in office.
I mean, it happened four years prior to that.
It happened, in my opinion, midway through Obama's term.
So to me, to pin pin that On Trump, I think, is disingenuous, because the rise of ISIS took place halfway through Obama's term, without question.
When he called them the JV.
Yeah, and he just, you know, he pulled basically all of the territory that we had, territory, all of the regions and areas in Iraq that we had fought so hard to secure, just like we did in Afghanistan, and basically just pulled everybody back, withdrew almost every troop from the region, and just let ISIS steamroll through there.
And just, I mean, the things that they did there was, I mean, hard to even wrap your mind around.
And that took place for years before Trump came out.
Does the United States always, always, always need to have a presence in the Middle East?
I don't think so.
No, I really.
I don't think so.
No, I mean, I take much more of a, I would say, bordering on isolationist viewpoint in terms of foreign policy at this point.
I mean, to me, I reduce, or I tend to reduce foreign policy all the way down to such a micro level, like a bar fight, right?
And to me, they're interchangeable that way.
Is that you're walking by your favorite club, right, and there's a huge fight going on.
Now, you can walk in there and you can help the guy that has four dudes penning him down and bashing his head in, or you can help the woman that's getting slapped around, you know, whatever it is.
Just by walking in there, you're going to piss somebody off.
No matter who you help, you're going to piss somebody off and you're going to create enemies, right?
And so to me, I think World War II is the most clear-cut example on how to handle things at a geopolitical or international level where you don't get involved until you have to, but when you do, you take the fucking gloves off and you go over there until the job is done and you do whatever is necessary to come to Sherman style from the Civil War.
But isn't that what we did after 9-11?
For a long time, we were kind of out of Afghanistan.
We were in two months.
We were out of Afghanistan.
We had no involvement in Afghanistan.
And then we went.
No, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi.
I mean, exercises in Jordan, joint operations in Israel.
We've been heavily footprinted in the Middle East way more than we need to be for decades.
I mean, it started back in, honestly, when the first Persian Gulf war took place and we got bombed in Saudi Arabia for being there.
I mean, that's really when it really started, in my opinion, where the hardline groups, specifically al-Qaeda, that was born out of Saudi allowing us to have troops in the region to defend Kuwait.
That pissed Osama bin Laden off to the point where he created al-Qaeda because of that.
So, you know, to me, there's been a lot of involvement that we've had that's unnecessarily created problems that we're still paying for.
And probably people fear the United States military.
For sure, they do.
They do.
100%.
And even just as recent as seven months ago, the fact that we had 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and they still weren't doing anything until Biden was like, yeah, we're actually leaving and they closed down the airbase.
The fact that just 2,500 troops held the Taliban at bay, because you saw how fast they took the country over, right?
It was supposed to be months and then it literally was days.
It wasn't 2,500 troops.
It was the fact that we still had a presence there and they knew if they tried to do that while we still were taking the stance of we are here, that it would have been 2.0 Afghanistan.
We would have come back in and they would have paid for it.
I mean, you can see it in their operations with attacking certain bases and knowing how long they have before close air support is going to be there.
I mean, there's a healthy respect for it or they would have done what they did seven months ago, 18 years ago.
There's a reason they didn't do it that entire time.
Got it.
How worried should we be that we left behind, what was it, $80 billion of military equipment?
I mean, at this point, to be worried about it, I think, is fruitless.
But is it a kick in the gut?
Yes, absolutely.
Do I think that they're going to take those assets and now launch attacks into America?
No, I don't.
I think it sucks.
Is it going to turn them into an overnight success?
No, it isn't.
I mean, if you look at how much money we put into forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and doing foreign internal defense with a lot of other countries over there, we've spent, at this point, trillions of dollars on equipment and training.
I mean, I've worked with guys before.
To have the capabilities that the United States has takes a whole nother level of generational dedication that just isn't there.
So am I worried about it?
Ultimately, no.
Does it piss me off?
Yes, it does.
By the way, while this whole thing's going on, the story comes out from the Washington Free Beacon about Iran being weeks away from having full fuel to power atomic bomb.
State Department warns Iran will have enough fissile material enriched to weapon-grade capacity in weeks, not months.
A senator, a senior State Department official said Monday, following the conclusion of another round of indirect talks with Iran and world powers in Vienna.
Following 10 months of negotiations, the State Department says diplomacy will cease in the coming weeks whether Iran takes a deal or not.
This is because the Biden administration assesses that Iran's nuclear program will have become so advanced that re-entering the 2015 nuclear cord will provide no benefits to U.S. and global national security.
In the years since Trump withdrew from the deal, Iran has enriched uranium, the key component in a bomb, so extremely high levels of purity.
Negotiations are paused as Iranian diplomats travel back to Tehran to consult with the hardline ruling government.
If Iran takes the deal, virtually all U.S. sanctions imposed by Trump administration will evaporate, giving the regime access to billions of dollars of cash?
Is that a concern to you with what's going on there with Iran?
I mean, it is, but I also think, you know, this is kind of to Adam's question of involvement, is that you really have to decide, do we want them or are we okay with them having this or are we not?
If the answer is we're not and we need to stop it, then as a country, you have to decide we will do what is necessary to prevent that, whatever that is, right?
Is that if it's that red line, like, hey, Iran cannot have the capability to have any nuclear capacity whatsoever, if that means that we carpet bomb, you know, the facilities, you know, whatever it takes, intelligence-based, you know, wise, is that that's what you do?
You know, again, no different than Afghanistan, Iraq, World War II, whatever, is that, you know, to me, the cat and mouse aspect of the negotiations and the accords and the peace deals and the cash and all these other things are kind of a distraction in that you just have to ask yourself, are we going to sit on the sideline while they do it or not?
Now, whether or not we take action, that's a whole nother conversation.
But I think as a country, there needs to be a decision one way or another, and you just do whatever.
Here's my question.
How do we know?
How do we even know that this is taking place right now?
How do we know that Iran is weeks away from having fuel-to-fuel power atomic bomb?
How do we know that?
What insider information is Iran leaking to us?
They're not going to leak anything to the state.
I mean, so this is where, you know, I'll be careful in how I tread on what I say, but there are intelligence assets that provide the capabilities through a number of resources, and that's electronic, human, traditional spying, communications intelligence, et cetera, all kind of coupled together to make determinations and assessments like that.
But that's really all.
How deep are we as, and I'm going to go a little bit deeper to hear what you're going to say about this.
How deep is U.S., whether you want to put CIA or whatever you want to call it, in Iran to constantly gather intel and send it to us?
Are we pretty involved heavily there or it's mild?
I would say, again, not having maybe as intimate as knowledge as maybe you would assume.
But what I do know is just, again, from having a lot of friends that do things like that and having worked in that capacity is that there are always people involved in all of the kind of big actors, and that's in every one of those capacities that I just mentioned.
It's signal intelligence, it's communications, it's humans, it's all of those things.
And so, you know, the United States has this map of, okay, here are all the major concerns, and then they dedicate assets based on the same way, say, an ER doctor would triage an emergency room after an accident, is that this is the biggest threat.
And they're allocating resources based on that.
So without a doubt, there is moderate to heavy involvement in every capacity that we have the ability to be involved in in that country specifically.
And also, don't forget, I mean, our position keeps changing, whether it was Biden who led the charge on the Iran nuclear deal, Trump pulled out, now Biden is getting back in it, whatever it is.
But there's one thing that has not wavered, and that's Israel.
Our stance has changed here in the United States.
Israel is dead set on Iran not being a nuclear power.
So whether that's them taking out scientists, taking out plants, like they are not playing around.
They do not want Iran to have this nuclear power.
Yeah, I mean, it's a much bigger threat to them than it is to us.
100%.
I mean, yeah, they're right to the point.
Obviously, the Iranian rhetoric is we're going to wipe them off the map.
They don't want Israel to exist.
Yeah, I mean, no different than if, say, China built an Air Force base in Tijuana, right?
Like, we're going to be a lot more bent about that than Israel is because it's right there.
Or in Cuba, the Cuban crisis like that.
Or if Russia has an amphibious assault group or an aircraft carrier 30 miles off the coast of California, is Israel going to say, yeah, that's messed up and that we don't think they should do that or whatever?
Probably.
Are they going to be as worried about it as we are?
Absolutely not.
Geographically, the United States has to just be very lucky that we're not in the middle of all this nonsense in the Middle East, Eurasia, anything like that.
Yeah, I mean, geographically, it certainly is at our advantage.
I will say the more technologically advanced the human race becomes, the less that matters.
Whether it's cyber attacks or satellite stuff, shit coming, lasers from outer space type stuff, the more and more capable human beings become from a technology standpoint.
It's not going to matter as much.
It already doesn't.
I mean, China has the ability to do what they do as well as Russia.
I mean, they've made our lives pretty difficult over the last decade, both of them, without ever even having to come here.
So it still plays a role.
I'd still rather have a geographical advantage than not.
But that gap is shortening year after year.
You wonder when you think about this stuff, like even with Iran, because Iran signed the $25, $400 billion deal with China, right?
That's the deal that they signed when they said, hey, you want to do this, Trump?
We're going to go take advantage of this and get with China.
And China is the number one competitor to U.S. Do you think today's administration of Iran cares whether they have a good relationship with U.S. or not?
Like, do you think they wake up in the morning saying, okay, let's have a meeting?
Guys, let's figure out a way how we can be better with U.S. Do you think they give a shit at all?
I would say it's probably the opposite, is that they're trying to come up with ways to piss us off, get under our skin, and degrade the relationship with us.
I totally agree.
Okay, so if that's the case, and they're saying, well, we're going back to see 10 months of negotiations, State Department says diplomacy will cease with coming weeks after they're going to go back to Tehran.
You think they care?
Like, you think they're sitting there saying, hey, boss, we have to improve this relationship with the U.S. or else we're going to lose.
I don't think a personal question.
Go for it.
Being born in Iran.
Yeah.
And being a proud Iranian, born in Iran, made in America, serving in the military, being a world-class entrepreneur.
When you hear these types of stories or just Iran comes up, how does that make you feel just as a citizen?
Yeah.
All I think about is progress.
All I think about is I got kids that I'd like to show them that I was raised on a street called Hojat.
I want to take him to Bandar Pahlavi, port of Pahlavi, to show him Caspian Sea.
I want to take him to Jam Hospital where I was born.
I want to take him to the Kebab place we would go to, Ghuj.
I want to take him to the city, Gandhi.
I want to go show him those places.
I can't.
I want to take him to Esfahan, which is the only place we went on vacation with my mom and dad when they were married to each other.
I listened to the song by Moin, who's a famous Persian singer who sings a song saying, My heart wants me to return back to Esfahan.
It's the only vacation I ever went to.
It's a great song.
It's a very heartfelt song.
I love that song.
So I think about progress for me to go.
I want to go visit Iran tomorrow.
I want to go see what that place is at tomorrow.
I remember going to the Shah's castles and mansions and visiting it and touring and seeing all these pictures being upside down.
That's what I think about.
So for me, every time I hear stories like this, I think to myself, we're going backwards.
Because remember the Green Party, was it the Green Party in Iran that was trying to do a coup?
Do you remember the Green Party?
Can you pull up Iran Green Party?
It was something like that.
The Green Movement or Green Party, they had something that was going on.
Iran, Green Party of Iran, yeah, they were pushing back to get Iran to be free again.
You saw them at the embassy.
You were seeing them everywhere.
And they were making some progress.
Under Trump, there was a minute where the people of Iran could have revolted to change things.
But every time it happens, a president changes.
I think if Trump would have stayed president for eight years and he would have just kept going.
If you remember, gas prices at one point were so expensive, people just stood.
They're not even driving.
They're like, I can't afford to buy gas.
In Iran, you remember this like a year and a half ago?
It was so bad.
People just are walking.
They're like, I can't, how am I going to pay for this gas price?
The sanctions were out of control.
But the point is, as much as you're saying, well, the sanctions were out of control, if the current regime in Iran falls, somebody has to replace it.
And that somebody that replaces is hoping to be a different philosophy with the relationships with neighboring countries like Israel would be better, with U.S. would be better, and it would be back and forth.
But it's not been like that since 1978.
Yeah, I want to go to Iran tomorrow, but I can't go to Iran tomorrow.
So if my motives are a different motive than maybe the average person's motive that's worried about the fact that we kill Hassam Soleimani and hey, these guys are going to retaliate and do another 9-11 to U.S. I'm coming from a different state.
Where does, because you're a Christian, and I don't know what percentage of Iran are Christians.
I'm sure 1% is less than Jewish, less than 1%.
But they're the stronghold of Shiites in the Middle East.
And the rest of the Middle East is, for the most part, Sunni.
How does that weigh into their relationships with the rest of the Middle East, being the Shiite stronghold of the Middle East?
It's not going to be pretty.
It's not going to be easy because some people don't want the revolution to happen.
Some people want it to stay the way it is.
And the reality of it is, in order for a revolution to happen, it's going to cost a lot of people's lives.
It's not going to be pretty.
It's going to be very ugly for that to be taking place.
And as a parent, think about your mom, your dad, and you got kids, okay?
And you're sitting there, and you want a revolution to happen.
You want Iran to go.
Let's just say you're 70 years old.
You remember when Iran was amazing.
You're 50 years old.
You remember when Iran was great?
You wanted to go back to that, but at the same time, to go back to that, you encourage your kids too much to be radical and take a stand?
Do you really want to have some bad news of somebody giving you a call saying, hey, here's what happened to your kid?
Your fear is what they're going to do to your kid.
So you almost discourage your kids of wanting to revolt.
Remember, this guy who got erated from ISIS was willing to take a life of his wife and his kids and himself to not give you the victory.
That is so radical if you think about that.
I mean, to be willing to do something like that, I don't think the reasonable people on the opposing side are willing to risk their kids having to go out there protesting and God forbid somebody gets killed.
So they're like, listen, guys, not worth it.
Let's just be okay.
It's not a big deal.
So they're not pushing up.
What would a revolution even look like in Iran?
Because correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think the people have access to guns.
It's not like in the Second Amendment.
The only way it happens is with help.
You're not going to do it without help.
There has to be another country that's helping.
It's not going to happen just by the people.
What, providing ammunition, guns, military support?
It's involvement.
Yeah, it's heavy-duty involvement.
The people won't be able to do it.
Do you have relatives that are still there that you keep in contact with?
I do.
Yes.
From my mother's side, we have relatives there.
Is it difficult or like, does that come up at all where you talk about kind of the pulse of what's going on there?
We don't really talk about any of that stuff.
I suppose they can't, probably, right?
I mean, it's being monitored.
No, you don't want to put them at risk if you even think about having those types of conversations.
But here's what's interesting.
Like, today I'm talking about this, right?
I'm probably going to get 50 messages on Instagram or Twitter or some social media platform of Iranians that are listening to our podcast through a VPN underground system and they're sending messages.
Hey, keep talking about this stuff because we're listening.
Hey, keep talking about this stuff because we're listening.
But, you know, in order for that to happen, you need an administration that doesn't look at them and say, hey, you know, this is, let's just negotiate with them.
It's very hard to negotiate with reasonable people.
It's very, very unreasonable people.
Very hard.
When you're negotiating with unreasonable people, no progress is going to take place.
These guys are not reasonable people.
Well, this is where you need, to add him into Mike's point, this is where you need Israel to step up and the peace accords that have come through in the Middle East that Israel's making because everybody's biggest fear right now is Iran.
That's where you need these people to step up so we don't have to.
Well, Israel has done plenty of stuff.
I mean, Israel will go take out scientists.
Israel is not afraid.
Israel is the kind of place that they'll play the proxy, but they're not afraid to play the direct without a proxy.
I don't know if that makes sense.
They're not trying to use somebody.
They're still relying on us to take charge of the people.
They are, but they'll still come at you as well and say, I did it.
They'll do it alone if we don't.
Especially with this, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a legit, like you said, this is us and we're not trying to hide it, you know, attack on different, whether it's nuke sites or scientist locations or what have you.
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
All I know is I'd love to see Iran open up so we can go tour and show the entire place and see how beautiful of a country Iran is.
So you go to a lot of museums.
Here's like 100-year-old building, 200-euro building.
You go to Iran, like 3,000-euro building.
Yeah.
Studio.
I am curious, like, from kind of an investment standpoint here, like, do you think it's worth the United States getting involved at that level?
Not right now, because it's 25 years, $400 billion with China.
Is it worth paying more than $400 billion?
No.
The day Iran signed that 25-year $400 billion, we probably lost Iran for a few decades.
I guess, I mean, an investment from a blood and treasure standpoint, like the sacrifice that it would take for the United States to actually get involved and overthrow the regime.
It's not worth it because the only way to be worth it is in the following way.
So here's the only strategy.
Again, I'm not involved in any kind of, this is just, I'm thinking like a strategist, is you need a couple things in place.
You need a Trump-like personality that is hurting China first, okay?
Hurting China first.
China has to feel the pain.
Then U.S. has to say, if you don't pull out of this deal with Iran, we're going to increase the tariffs to 40%.
So then China says, the announcement comes out saying China pulled out of the Iran deal for $25, $400 billion.
That's progress.
Do you remember when Huawei, do you remember the company Huawei?
Do you remember when every day everything we talked about was Huawei, Huawei, Huawei?
5G, Huawei.
Do you remember that whole story?
Telecommunication.
Telecommunication.
And then one day, what does Trump do with Huawei?
Bans the phone.
You remember Huawei, we were one of their bigger markets.
They were growing here.
They were exploding.
And then do you remember the situation where the Huawei CFO, who happens to be the daughter of the owner, who in Canada got caught?
Do you remember that story in Canada she got caught?
And then she had dealings doing a deal with Iran.
Huawei was.
Do you remember this whole story or no?
Vaguely.
Type in Huawei, CFO, Canada, Iran.
Huawei, CFO, Canada, Iran.
And type in Iran as well.
Dealing.
Okay.
Mengzu can return to China, admits helping Huawei conceal dealings in Iran.
There you go.
This was a story.
Washington Poe, WAPO.
What date was this?
National Security go up a little bit?
Do you see the date?
September 24th.
Yeah, this is not that long ago.
This is five months ago.
This is six months ago.
But this has been going on for a while.
So the only way it would work is if Trump says, here's more tariffs, here's more tariffs, here's more tariffs.
And then China says, screw this guy.
You know what, Iran?
We're pulling out.
Then they pull out.
Then his next move would be tariffs to Iran.
Then him saying no other Middle Eastern banks can do business with Iran.
All the banks tighten up.
The people get pissed off with the regime.
Of course, they're going to blame the U.S. for it.
And then at that time, he's like, do we want this regime to be here?
Then they revolt.
It's like a five-step process of getting there, but it won't happen without China.
It won't happen without China.
So we get them.
Then we can do something with Iran.
And other than China, what other country from a business standpoint, dealing standpoint, are invested in Iran?
Or is Iran doing business with actively?
Let me ask you a question.
Who do you think is more reasonable?
This is a pretty weird question to ask.
Who's more reasonable, Putin or Xi?
Who's more reasonable?
I have an answer.
It's not even close.
Gut is telling me Putin.
It's not even close.
I'm telling you, it's not even close.
That you think Putin is more reasonable?
There is no way it's even close that Putin is more reasonable than Xi is.
There's no way.
You're saying Xi is the least reasonable person.
Let me ask you a question.
Are you more worried about visiting China or Russia?
China.
If I told you right now, let's go to Moscow or Leningrad for a week for vacation.
Would you at all be worried?
Yeah, I'd be a little worried.
What percentage?
I get your point.
I'm just saying.
Let's go to China for a week and do a vlog or do videos, do some interviews.
Yeah.
You probably, if I told you right now, hey, you know, the center of Houston Rockets invited us with NS Cantor to go to China to see how great the country is.
And then I say, how you doing?
You'd probably take vacation that week.
You know what I'm saying?
But the point being, I think Putin is more reasonable.
So who has incentives?
Putin has to be good with Iran.
Still not good, but it's right there.
So they're dealing there between Caspian Sea and them.
Everybody has to figure out a way to be okay with that neighbor because it ain't going away.
It's not like you're living in a gated community.
There's a terrible of a neighbor that is just a mess and you're hoping one day they move.
Iran's not going to move.
Countries in the EU deal with him?
Not to the levels of.
Because remember, EU, individual countries to deal with Iran have to be also held accountable to the other countries in EU.
So you're almost one major country.
So I think it's very different in EU.
I may be wrong than it would be in countries that are closer to Iran.
But again, I would tell you, I think Putin is 10 times more reasonable than she is in China.
Do you agree?
Yeah, I would agree.
I think, you know, from my standpoint, both countries have a level of national pride that kind of trumps everything else the way that the United States used to have.
And that's why they're emerging as, I think, countries that are going to eclipse us sooner than later.
You could argue that in a number of ways, China already has.
I think they're still dependent enough on us to where they couldn't execute certain things that they probably would once they get to that point.
But both of them, I think, are while they're hardline guys and the pride and success of their country is kind of the pinnacle of what they base all their decisions off of.
Both of them are also not dumb enough or so emotional about those principles that they have that they're not willing to look at it no different than you did with Iran.
Like you have a, I think, a natural bias to want to see the United States get involved, but your non-emotional side says, no, you need to do it this way first, you know, whereas most people wouldn't do that.
And I think from a leadership standpoint in those two countries, that's necessary, and that's why they do the business deals that they do and are as successful as they are in executing them.
But by the way, China compared to Russia, it's not even close.
I mean, China is 100x with what Russia is in every way.
Exactly.
And I don't even know what the, other than oil industry, what kind of industry does Russia have other than oligarchy and oil?
But Volta, the Voltko, gold industry.
But China is, in many respects, like you said, Mike, is going to surpass the United States.
Keep in mind, they have 1.3 billion people.
Russia, Putin is way more, has to be way more of a strategist, you know, ex-KGB than she has to be.
I think they're both very, very capable in that regard.
Yeah, but China is at least, like you used this analogy before, if there's a poker hand, China at least has a flush or a straight.
Putin's playing with like a pair of threes and he's like pretending that he's got pocket aces.
He doesn't have the hand you think he has.
The economy is one thing, which you're right.
If you want to show that real quick, Tyler, to validate Adam's point, David, if you can put that on the screen and zoom in even a little bit more, you see how big China is, Japan is, U.S. is, France is, Germany is, Italy is, U.K. is, Canada is.
Now find Russia.
I don't know if they're top 10, and if they are, they're number 10 or 11.
Bottom right.
You got to zoom in more at 4 o'clock.
Right.
Zoom in.
Look at right.
United States 24.
Russia all the way to the right.
1.65 trillion.
Four times bigger than Norway.
By the way, where's South Korea on this?
Tiny little South Korea.
I don't know if you can find it.
Yeah, top right.
1.82 trillion.
1.82 trillion.
Bigger than Russia.
Bigger than Russia.
Little ass South Korea.
Has a bigger GDP than Russia.
Now flip this.
Now go to world leaders with nuclear bombs.
World leaders with nuclear bombs.
They're top of the list.
No doubt.
But you got to realize, I mean, that's like say something.
You know, look at that.
Say something, China.
And I click on it too, so you see the rest.
Go a little lower to see the rest.
See if there's a leader's bulletin on there.
Okay, check that out.
So nuclear, what do you see?
U.S. is at the top.
I'm curious as to why they're at the top, because Russia's, both of Russia's numbers are higher.
Go to another chart, because this Wikipedia, go to another one, go back.
Go back.
There's another one that shows.
It's a site.
Go a little lower.
There's one that shows.
You can just go to images, I'm sure.
If you go to images, it'll give you a graph.
Click on that one right there, armscontrol.org.
Let's see what that is.
Go a little lower to see if they're ranking it.
Because there's a better site that shows.
There you go.
Russia, 6,257.
They're the only country that is anywhere near the United States.
No, no, no.
They're ahead.
No, they're ahead.
Look at U.S. Go a little, Tyler.
Zoom in even more.
U.S. is 5,550.
India is 156.
Look at China, 350.
They're third.
But Russia is 20 times more, 18 times more than what China is.
So Russia knows that they're decades ahead.
By the time China catches and nuclear warheads, you know, World War III may have taken place by the time they try to catch up.
You kind of have to ask yourself, though, I mean, at what point does it not even matter?
I mean, to me, 350 nuclear weapons is still enough to kill everybody on the planet.
It's who's the crazy enough guy that can pull the trigger.
Is this one of those things where the best defense is a good offense, or the best offense is a good defense, where it's like, Yeah, I mean the, the fact that you know that all these numbers even exist is is proof of that is that it's, it's a deterrent, You know.
I also find it interesting.
The United States is the only country that's actually used them, You know, but you know.
So for us to to meddle the way that we do, I think you know, is a little convenient or strange.
But, by the way, the the India-Pakistan situation that's going on I don't know if you have any strong things about it.
They said that's the most dangerous border in the world.
They're both armed nuclearly and they border each other and they are enemies.
Yeah no, I mean, I don't dispute that from from that standpoint, I mean, I guess the good news is it's, it's at least there, you know, as opposed to here.
Not that I'd want to see any any more nuclear weapons being used, but but you know, I think back to to Pat's point is that you know Russia has a bigger thorn in the side of the entire world.
That way, you know, like they're, they're more capable of causing bigger problems.
I think at the drop of a hat or in a in a in a heated exchange.
More so than probably China from a military perspective, for sure, from an economic perspective, they are below a tiny country like South Korea.
I mean, even militarily, outside of the, the nuke capacity, they're not that capable.
I mean they're nowhere near as capable as the United States or China.
You know, it's just, it's the, the nuclear stockpile, and that's kind of the great equalizer.
I mean nuclear weapons are kind of the, the firearms of, of of countries.
That way uh, if you kind of parallel it to say a 70 year old woman with a, with a revolver, I mean, like the, the nuclear weapons gives people a stage.
That's why Iran is so hell-bent on on getting them is Because it enters you into a realm of respect internationally that just doesn't exist in any other way.
Mike, do you have any aspirations of getting involved in politics?
Is this something you're interested even a little?
Not even a little bit.
Why not?
Well, for a couple of reasons.
I mean, one of the things I talk about in my book is the election process and my views on how I would change that, which I'm happy to share.
But to me, there's an element of even wanting to run for any higher office I think should automatically disqualify you for it.
How do you mean by that?
I think there's a level of arrogance and narcissism and bordering on there's got to be something wrong with you to want to put you and your family through the process that it takes to get elected and the things that you have to do in terms of getting in bed and getting donations and the deals that you have to strike.
By the time you get to that point, I think you're so far removed from the initial reasoning why you started it that is why you see the level of corruption and bribery and lobbying that exists in Washington, D.C. Talk about your election.
Which ideas would be in your book?
So within the three branches of government, well, let me take one step back: you've got, you know, we're so far gone to the point where a lot of people talk about revolution or these huge red flags as far as the NSA and CIA would be concerned or FBI.
You'd be labeled a domestic terrorist for even talking about it.
So to me, the happy medium is looking at the three branches of government and saying, well, which one is the most influential and from a checks and balances standpoint, the most powerful.
To me, it's the legislative branch.
The Supreme Court justices have to go through there.
They have the ability to put checks and balances on the president, veto power, executive order, et cetera.
But the problem is that those groups, the sub-500 number of people within the Congress, are so heavily influenced by that election process that nothing really gets done.
The fact that every one of them gets into office and are worth 10X four years later is a huge problem.
And so my take is no different than small county Texas of how they do grand jury selection, is that I think that you create a basic checklist of being a net positive member of society.
You're up to date on your taxes.
You're not a felon.
You've lived in that county or region for X number of years.
You're a net positive on society.
And every one of those people have to come up with, let's say, five names, three names, seven, whatever.
And then just like an election, the tally comes in, and your vote is on who you think is the best person in that county to represent that county on a national level.
And then so now at that point, whoever gets the most votes for that process now is the delegate for that region.
And you don't get a choice, just like with jury duty or being drafted in the military in Vietnam or whatever.
People may say, well, that's unfair.
Let's say it's a two-year term.
We drafted hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam, 50,000 of which didn't even come home.
They didn't get a choice on that.
Jury duty, some trials last six, eight months, and you don't get a choice.
You have to execute that.
And so I think to have less than 500 people that are so well liked by the net positive members of their community, there's no finances involved.
There's no, hey, you donated $2 million.
And so when I get in office, this transport deal that's running through our county is going to go to your brother's construction company.
There's none of that because none of that plays a role in the initial selection process.
Once everybody is decided, now you've got the most accurate, legitimate representation of your society in the legislative branch that's the entire representation of the entire nation.
At that point, you know, those people, hopefully, are good enough to where they didn't ask for it.
They were voted in.
They did it, you know, kind of almost unwillingly as a civic duty.
And so now they're the ones deciding which justices get in.
They're the ones deciding on how to check and balance the presidential powers.
Is there going to be concerns or road bumps with that?
I'm sure there would be.
But to me, shy of completely wiping the whole thing away, I think that that's the quickest and most efficient way to try to hit the reset button on how our country does its business.
So if that was the case, who would have been the president of the United States?
So it can't work for the president, right?
It can only work for local and even statewide, we'll say, even at a national level.
The presidential thing, because of the size of how that works, would still have to be, at least from my perspective, still done essentially how it's done.
There's probably a hybrid system, people much smarter than me, that could come up with a way to maybe even funnel it through the legislative branch at that point is that maybe it's somebody that gets selected from there as, or let's say your potential candidates get selected from the legislative branch so that now on a national level, it's at least one of those people that has cleared through the check and balance of the local populace.
And it's not just some asshole that had aspirations to be president from the time he was four and doctor eviled his way all the way through it.
That would be an interesting way.
I do know, like I did a whole video on how it would change the voting system.
My voting system would be slightly different.
You would have 10 votes.
No, my voting system is contribution to society.
That would be my vote.
Yesterday, Bernie Sanders sent out a tweet, and he said something about, call me radical.
Done.
He said something about, call me radical, but I believe that.
Let me just pull it up and read it to you.
Call me radical, but I happen to believe that a job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it.
A job should lift people out of poverty, not keep them in it.
It depends on the job.
Exactly.
It depends on the job.
So I turned around and I said something different, and you can call me radical.
And I said, call me radical, but I happen to believe that America owes me nothing.
The system of capitalism attracts good talent.
40 million immigrants had 200 other countries to choose from, and they chose America for a reason.
No one forced immigrants to come here.
They chose.
America works, right?
So for me, I think anybody that gets elected should have the most contribution to society.
And the way you contribute to society is in many different ways.
The more you contribute, the more you, you know, the same way how in school somebody wanted to be a president and you had to go do, you know, what do you call it, volunteer work.
You had to do this, you had to do that.
Same thing that he's talking about.
Who is liked?
Who's contributing?
You contribute to get a bigger vote.
You don't contribute, you don't get as big of a vote.
Now, this may sound a little bit like, well, how about the person that's going to be taken advantage of?
There's exceptions to the rule.
But anyways, that's a completely different sense.
We talked on the podcast before.
I want to transition to a different topic.
Whoopi Goldberg.
Let's go to Whoopi Goldberg.
Whoopee Goldberg, suspended from the view for Holocaust remarks.
This is a variety story.
This is a variety story.
Whoopee Goldberg has been suspended from the view for two weeks after facing white criticism for her remarks that the Holocaust was not about race.
Goldberg suspensions.
Suspension was announced in statement released by ABC News, Public Relations Tuesday night.
Effectively, immediately, I'm suspending Whoopee Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments.
Read the statement attributed to Kim Godwin, present at ABC.
While Whoopee has apologized, I've asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.
The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family, and communities.
Goldberg's remarks emerged during a conversation on Monday's broadcast at the View in which co-hosts discussed a Tennessee school board's bands of mouse, a non-fiction graphic novel about cartoonist Art Spiegelman's father's experience surviving the Holocaust.
Let's be truthful about it because the Holocaust isn't about race, said Goldberg.
This is white people doing it to other white people.
The Holoskoloca isn't about race.
It's about a man's inhumanity to man.
Adam, I'm assuming you've seen her comments and the banter back and forth.
What are your thoughts?
Yeah, I um, well, this might shock you.
I don't watch the view, so it's not like I know, I know.
I do like Jedediah.
You don't have to lie.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of Whoopi or Joy Behar.
But is there any person who's more confused than Whoopi Goldberg?
Her last name is Goldberg.
That's pretty Jewy, if you ask me.
But yet she's not Jewish, but she kind of hijacked the Jewish name to kind of be more palatable to Hollywood.
I guess I don't understand, but she's black, but not saying that you can't be black, can't be Jewish.
But then I don't, she, I think she's not a lesbian, but she kind of looks like one.
I don't know.
I don't want to get canceled, but I don't know what she's got going on.
But the naivete of her and the comments, and then her co-host just kind of sitting back and letting her go deeper and deeper and not being like, hey, Whoopi, do you want to just kind of back up a second?
They just let her kind of hang herself and they gave her the rope.
Then she went on Colbert and doubled down on the comments.
I don't know if you saw that.
And Colbert just kind of sat there, was like, okay, coming up on Bring.
Anything else you want to say?
Anything else?
And then I think someone ultimately got to her and they're like, Whoopi, I don't know what the hell you're doing or what you're thinking.
But just shut up and read this script.
And then she came up and she's like, I, Whoopee Goldberg, I do understand that racism exists.
And, you know, these are my words that I'm scripted.
So, again, not a fan of the view.
I don't watch this show.
This is sort of the trickle-down effect of hearing it by hearsay.
But what I will say about Hitler is he looked at the Jews as not human.
That was his whole thing.
And as a Jew, it's funny because I don't know many Jews who just consider themselves to be just white.
Again, Jews in general, there's Ashkenazi Jews who are basically out of Eastern Europe, Poland, Russia, Finland, Germany, that area of the country.
Then there's Sephardic Jews out of Morocco, the Middle East, Iran, for an example.
And then there's Ethiopian Jews.
They're basically, you know, just south of Israel in the Middle East.
So to be Jewish is not just a religion, it's a culture, it's an ethnicity.
It's sort of all-encompassing.
I don't know many Jews that, even if they're white, are like, yeah, I'm just a white guy.
There is something unique about being Jewish.
And her comments were what exactly?
The Holocaust isn't about race.
It's about all that.
It's about inhumanity.
It's about race.
It's about ethnicity.
It's about white power, white supremacy, Judaism, Aryanism.
It's never good to start making these types of comments.
And this is an example why.
Now, I'm glad that she's not canceled for good.
She's what, suspended for two weeks?
Should she be canceled?
I do not think she should be canceled.
Should she be fired?
I do not think she should be fired.
What did Roseanne Barr say when she got fired?
What did Roseanne say when she got fired?
I'm curious.
Oh, when she said what did Roseanne say?
She obviously made some comment when she got fired.
Go right there.
Tweet, Roseanne Barr, right there.
Shows being canceled.
She talked about Valerie Jarrett and looking kind of like a monkey or something, like an ape.
Is that what it was?
Can you figure out a way to find that the tweet?
Just go to images.
Just go to images.
It'll show the tweet.
Is this what it's like when he drives as you guys bark in order?
Listen, man, you know what it is.
This is like go left.
No, no, go right.
So it's probably just as frustrating on Tyler as it is on us.
Think about it.
Just from before we find this tweet.
Click on that.
Oh, you got it?
Yeah, let's see.
I apologize to Valerie.
No, no, I don't know.
No, that's not a problem.
The main one.
Look at the Muslim Brotherhood, Planet Apes.
Muslim Brotherhood, Planet of the Apes had a baby because Valerie Jared.
Exactly.
Okay, what do you think about?
Is that fireball offense?
Look, man, I think we're so.
A comedian saying that.
Would you say Roseanne's a comedian?
I don't, yes.
A non-funny one, but yeah, she agree.
But she's a comedian, right?
So she made a comment like that, which, by the way, that's a stupid comment to make.
Well, she was also on the sleeping pills.
I forget what they're called.
Whatever you're on, though.
But that's a dumb comment to make, okay?
There's nothing about this that to me it's funny.
That's not funny to me when I hear that, right?
Now, if somebody thinks it's funny, it is what it is.
And what Whoopee said, obviously she wasn't trying to be funny.
She was just, she talked like she believed what she was talking about.
What's funny is Whippy used to be a comedian.
I don't know if anyone would define her as a comedian.
Not today.
She's too serious.
She's too bitter.
Yeah.
She's bitter.
I don't know what's going on with her.
But think about this for a second.
Here's the reason that we talk about Joe Rogan being canceled.
I think more than anything, the First Amendment, it's not there for the speech you want to hear.
It's for the speech that you don't want to hear.
And that's the whole point of the First Amendment.
And just the knee-jerk reaction to cancel somebody.
At the very least, now you can learn and people around you can learn.
You know, like this is off topic, but remember when Michael Vick was basically removed from the NFL?
By the way, that's another one for changing your reputation.
He's actually shown back in the media.
That's my point.
Is that you can learn and get smarter and better and improve.
That's what Sharon Stone said.
And now he's really.
And now he's an advocate for dogs.
I mean, I'm sure this is something that probably hits close to home for you and not dog fighting.
By the way, can you do me a favor?
Type in Sharon Stone cancel culture.
She may have explained cancel culture better than anybody else I've heard.
Sharon Stone out of everybody.
Okay, click on that so we can read it.
Make it, see if you can find her comments.
According to Anjou, she believes if someone says something or behaves in a way that you are displeased with, you can always try and understand each other.
You can learn to respect each other's opinion on different matters.
She further explained that people have struggled and done so much for you to cancel the person all because they did something you are not happy with.
Go lower.
Go lower.
Go lower to read the rest of it.
Yeah, no, no.
She didn't just express her opinions on the sake of internet validation for the sake of going against Montita.
Once a profound reaction comes, anyways, she keeps continuing to go and saying, how are we supposed to learn of each other if we don't argue?
How are we supposed to learn more about each other where you say something I'm offended with?
I got to go do the research, right?
The part that here becomes the concern is the following.
I got a question.
I'm curious to know what you're going to say.
So what is a bigger crime?
Okay.
What is a bigger crime?
What is more offensive?
Is it a bigger crime to ask tough questions everyone's thinking about?
Or is it a bigger crime to make dumb statements?
What's a bigger crime?
Is it a bigger crime for me to ask Someone, a direct question, you're dating, and you're sitting there, you're getting to the point that you're thinking about, you know, maybe I'm going to call this guy my, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend.
Is it dumber to say, hey, let me ask you a question.
Last two relationships, how come they didn't work out?
Looks like both of them left you.
Why did they leave you?
Okay.
That's a tough question.
Or is it worse to say, you're such a dog?
Okay.
What's worse?
Well, to me, it's neither.
To me, it's honestly neither as it relates to both that question and these is that I think we're the majority of society who gets up in arms on either side of the table on stuff like this can't differentiate between something that they don't like and something that legitimately harms them.
And I think that that's the benchmark that everybody should try to adhere to when it comes to stuff like this.
I don't think anybody should be canceled or fired or whatever for stuff like this, especially when it's somebody who is in the media.
You know, if you're a comedian, you're an entertainer, you're a big personality on social media, whether it's Twitter or you have your own radio show or whatever it is, is that you are out there in the public expressing your opinions and views and people have the ability to just not fucking watch you if they don't like it.
I mean, to me, the NFL is the same way.
You know, taking a knee or some of the other controversies that they've had is that I don't think it should be outlawed.
Does it piss me off?
It does.
But I have the choice to either watch the NFL or not watch the NFL.
And I think it's the same with The View.
I think it's the same with comedians.
I think it's the same with listening to Joe Rogan.
To me, with all this stuff, it's really that black and white is that it's either all or nothing.
You know, you either decide we're going to dictate what everybody can say and then we don't have a democracy of freedom, freedom of speech, anything, or you don't and you let people do what they're going to do and you choose to listen or not.
I'll take a different angle with this one.
Okay, I'll take a different angle with this one toward Whoopi.
Okay.
I think Whoopee is so necessary for media.
I think she is so necessary.
I think a lot of people don't like her, but I think Whoopi needs to be there because Whoopi is pushing buttons to get others to sit there and say, what the hell is she talking about?
I think she needs to stay.
I think Whoopee, the way she handled Mel Gibson, when Mel Gibson made the comments, this wasn't 2010 or 2011 when The View, that's a long time ago.
Type in Mel Gibson, The View, Whoopee, and see what your comes up.
It could have been 2010, 2011.
And she said, look, I don't know what happened there, but here's what I can tell.
2010, when she made that, right, that Whoopi defends Goldberg 2010, go to the bottom one, CBS News.
Yeah, when she defended, Whoopi Goldberg defends Mel Gibson on The View.
Okay, so go up.
And if you guys remember, this was not like a, she says, I don't like what he did here, but I know Mel and I know he's not racist.
The view on the Monday, he may be a bonehead.
I can't sit and say that he's a racist.
Having spent time with him in my house with my kids, if someone's kicking you behind and punching you while you're holding your kid, you don't go to the cops first.
You go to Raider Online, Goldberg said.
Anyway, so, you know, Mel made a few comments and she defended him.
Okay, she just kind of came out and said, I don't know.
And by the way, there was another guy who was a very big actor.
He was on there as well, full-on Republican.
He was on the view.
And he disagrees with Whoopee.
So I think Whoopee has friends on the opposing side.
But I just think she made a very bonehead mistake with the comments you're making.
And you have to realize that Hollywood is ran by Jews.
So you're making a comment to the point where a lot of these executives, you know, the whole history of Hollywood started by who?
So you just got to be very careful with some of the comments you're making, but I don't think she needs to be canceled.
I think she needs to stay on the view.
But knowing what's going on today, if I'm a betting man, I'm leaning more towards her getting fired than her not getting fired.
You're shaking your head.
For a minute, we didn't think Cuomo was going to get fired.
He did.
For a minute, we didn't think Zucker would ever get fired.
He did.
For a moment, we thought Chris Cuomo would never get fired.
He did.
These are all people on the left, by the way.
So to have your own selective hearing conservative side to say they would never fire her, they would keep her.
I think they're probably leaning towards firing her.
I hope they don't.
But what's the benefit of firing Whoopi?
We did it.
We got rid of her.
Dumb comments will no longer happen.
You're never going to create a safe space.
That you're never going to create this echo chamber that everybody gets to hear everything that they want and no disagreement and no arguments.
That's the whole point of what we're doing here in America is that we're never going to always get along.
But talk it out, figure it out.
And if everyone just doesn't feel safe to say what's on their mind, now we're not basically living under the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
And now it's like you're walking on eggshells.
I don't want to say that.
Hear my thoughts.
And then it just becomes a China thing or an Iran thing where you can't even say what's on your fucking mind.
And that's crazy.
And the best thing that'll come after this Whoopi thing, just like the Michael Vick thing, is that she'll learn from it.
And that people will be like, Whoopi, you got to understand that this, and she'll, and only progress will happen from this.
Not saying what's on your mind, no progress will happen.
Do you know the Jewish Holocaust Museum reached out to her to say, we'd like to invite you to.
The Simon Wiesenthal said that?
They invited me.
We would love to invite you to come here.
Let us share with you the history.
I think if Whoopee goes there and she shows the effort, I think that's a great example for Americans.
I wonder if they addressed it as dear Mrs. Goldberg.
Would you like to?
The irony here.
Oh, my gosh.
Okay, so let's go to the story with, this leads me to the next story.
There's this guy, I don't know if you follow his content.
His name is Joe Rogan.
I never heard of him.
Yeah, he does.
He talks and he asks questions.
And some people follow his content.
Not that many.
He's a big deal.
11 million to 50 million people.
I don't know if you know that he's kind of a big deal.
And he kind of beats everybody in mainstream media and by a lot.
And they're not happy about it.
Stelter, what's his name?
Brian Stelter, who cannot stand Rogan.
But let me kind of give you an idea of what's going on with SACI yesterday, okay?
So first I'll read the Spotify story, then I'll go to the SACI story.
Spotify responds to Joe Rogan uproar and growing trend and controversial content.
This is a polygon story.
If you want to go to page four, page four.
So last week, after a series of open letters to Spotify imploring the stream and audio side to cut host Joe Rogan loose from its podcast roster over vaccinated related misinformation, legendary music legend, musician Neil Young voluntarily removed his music from the platform.
The uproar caused by Young's protest prompted Spotify to finally issue a statement on Sunday on January 30 in a blog post credited to Spotify founder Danny Olek.
Spotify announced that it was working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion of COVID-19, which when implemented, direct listeners to a COVID hub where they can find updates from BBC Political CNN and other mainstream news outsources.
Look at the names they took.
BBC Political CNN, all left-leaning.
A decade ago, we created Spotify to enable the work of creators around the world to be heard and enjoyed by listeners around the world.
To our very core, we believe that listening is everything.
Pick almost any issue, you will find most people's opinions on either side.
Personally, there are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly.
We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users.
If that critical, if that in that role, it is important to me that we don't take any position of being content censors while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.
Okay, so now here's a kicker, Adam.
This is the one that I was telling you about earlier.
Spotify initially announced in response in Young that the company had great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom of creators and had removed 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic.
But after the episode purge, Spotify left up GRE 1757 with Dr. Robert Malone, whose claims of mass suicidal hypnosis and comparisons of the pandemic response to Holocaust prompted over 200 medical professionals, et cetera, et cetera.
So that's Spotify's position.
Then Sacy comes out and I'll get your thoughts.
Jan Sackey cheers Spotify warning on COVID podcasts says more should be done.
New York Post story.
White House Press Secretary Jen Sackey applauded Spotify Tuesday for adding a disclaimer to podcast episodes of COVID-19 before adding, there's more that can be done.
The new Spotify warning will link to da-da-da-da-da-da.
We talked about that.
This disclaimer is a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out mis and disinformation while also uplifting accurate information.
Our view is it's a good step.
It's a positive step, and there's more that can be done.
Thoughts?
I think the White House should stay out of it.
I don't think they should have a position on it, and I think that they should let companies run their business, how they run their business, especially when it has to deal with censorship in the First Amendment.
I think if anything, they should champion and applaud companies for allowing platforms that let people say what they want to say.
You know that Rogan has a point or he stands on fertile ground when you have left-leaning people saying, yeah, I don't agree with this guy, but do not cancel this dude, i.e., Howard Stern, i.e., Joy Behar from The View.
They have all come out and basically said, look, like, I think Joy Behar basically called him a moron, which believe me, I think everyone would agree that of the two, we know which one is the moron, and it's not Rogan.
But Howard Stern, who for whatever reason has sprinted left.
But if there's anybody that's an advocate for freedom of speech, it's freaking Howard Stern.
That guy has been, people don't understand these days, as big as Rogan is now, Howard Stern was 10 times bigger for a decade.
Yeah.
Okay?
Now Rogan clearly is the king of all media.
I think Howard Stern labeled himself the king of all media.
But even Howard Stern came out and said, I don't agree with Rogan.
I don't agree with some of the stuff he talks about in his podcast, specifically the COVID stuff, but do not cancel this man.
And this goes back to our first point, is just because people are saying the things that make you uncomfortable or may not even be true, is that grounds for dismissal and cancel?
No, I mean, again, I think this whole canceling thing is a snowball off the rails turning into an avalanche.
Anytime you cancel anybody, it takes a notch of liberty out of the country, in my opinion.
You just got to let people do what they're going to do.
And again, I'll beat the dead horse and say you have to differentiate between not liking something and legitimately being hurt by it.
And there's a huge difference.
Right.
And Pat, I mean, we've talked about this numerous times.
You were on Rogan.
You've had a great experience there.
You have your own podcast right now.
We have aspirations of being as big as Rogan one day.
How does this make you feel with everything that's happening with him right now?
He's the most necessary voice in the world today, in America today, period.
Rogan is the most necessary voice in America today.
Listen, let me put it to you this way.
Everybody better protect this guy.
Everybody better protect this guy.
Because if he, you know, some people are saying, well, he's kind of also being bullied to not talk about it.
Where it's like, hey, he's going to go back to only talking about hallucinogen, you know, mushrooms and aliens and all that.
And he's going away from COVID, right?
They're kind of bullying him for him to be silenced in a way.
You have to know that is a very, very necessary guy.
But here's the big but this is the big butt.
And it's what I said to Rogan when I went on the podcast with him.
And I was doing my best to get him to think about this.
And I think it's actually going to happen, to be honest with you.
I think it's going to happen.
I think, here's what I'm convinced.
Say Spotify, they went from a $70 billion company a year and a half ago.
The market hasn't tanked.
They've lost.
They went from a $60 billion company to a $36 billion company.
They've lost $24 billion.
Almost cut in half.
Since signing Rogan.
Okay.
Now, this is not a Rogan thing.
They've just lost that much during that time.
Neil Young alone, they lost $4 billion on this one guy.
And if all these other guys show up, they lose money.
Now, let me give you a completely different aspect, perspective on this.
Let's say Spotify, what do you think are the chances of Spotify dropping Rogan?
Give me a percentage.
No, I don't.
Zero.
No, it's not zero.
You can't say zero.
I think there would be...
You cannot say zero.
Such insane backlash.
Give me a number.
Give me the number.
Less than 2%.
You think it's less than 2%?
What do you think?
Canceling Rogan?
To me, I'm going to put it at 50% if they're losing that amount of money.
So here we go.
I think it's 10%.
I don't think it's 50%, but I'm 10%.
Okay.
2, 50%, 40%, 10%.
Fine.
Here's the thing.
Let's say they do it.
Let's go there.
Spotify, if you're listening to this, let's say you go there.
Okay?
No, no.
Actually, go there.
I'm there.
I'm there.
Because you're going to see if this happens.
What happens?
Go ahead and cancel Rogan.
Who's the first person that's going to call Rogan?
Give me the first person that's going to call Rogan.
Apple Music?
Nope.
Nope.
No way.
Any major media company.
One person's going to call Rogan.
It's the first phone call if Rogan gets canceled.
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk is going to call Rogan.
Elon Musk is going to call Rogan and saying, here's $20 billion.
Let's go whoop everyone's ass.
Then Elon's going to say we're hiring for engineers.
Me and Rogan have teamed up with Peter Thiel.
We're hiring engineers.
We're hiring developers.
We're giving big-ass bonuses and equity.
Come on down.
Let's whoop everyone's ass.
And that's going to be Elon, Rogan, and Thiel.
Who do you think is going to go on that website?
And Elon Musk.
They just called him JV of EV.
Biden said JV of EV.
They're not even inviting him to the White House again.
And Elon Musk, if you see Elon Musk, what he said about Biden this last week, I don't know if you saw what Elon Musk said about Biden this last week.
That's not favorable.
No, no, of course it's not favorable because you're talking about Tesla.
When you think about EV, you know, when you think about EV, you think about like Musk only Tesla.
What other name do you think about?
You don't agree.
You don't think about nobody else.
No, and by the way, somebody said, Jimenez said Donald Trump.
I disagree.
That's not the right guy to bring behind it because that would not help the cause.
I think it's Elon Musk, Rogan, Peter Thiel.
If Spotify drops him, so here's the thing.
Why would Elon Musk need a Peter Thiel?
Yo, Peter Thiel.
Oh my gosh, you must not know who Peter Thiel is.
I know who he is, but why would an Elon need him?
You don't need him, but you need him.
Okay, because Peter Thiel is a true believer.
And again, here's a guy that's a gay libertarian who has strong beliefs, but has everything in Silicon Valley.
All roads lead to Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel is a Phil Mafia, everything.
Oh, he's an underground, tough guy, brilliant guy.
You don't mess with that guy.
That guy's a genius.
You put those three together, then guess what?
Everybody's doing.
Everyone's shivering.
Everybody is shaking if those three guys back up.
So to me, I do think, like right now, how old is Rogan today?
Rogan's how old?
He's early 50s.
He's 50, 53.
Okay, how old is Stern?
Rogan is what?
He's got to be late.
He's 54.
Okay, how does Stern go Stern age?
I'm guessing 66.
Oh, his age is what?
68.
Okay, by the way, he just signed like a 10-year contract, and he's 68.
So he's going to go to 78.
Okay, would you say Rogan's a young 54-year-old?
Can we say Rogan's a young 54-year-old?
Okay, so watch this.
Watch this.
Watch this.
So Rogan.
Musk is what, 50?
Yes.
Musk is also around the same age.
So if these guys teamed up and they started recruiting people, it would be game over.
So there is a side, there is a side that I dare Spotify to do something.
I dare, I double dare you.
Elon would make it a mission of his to go out there and do this.
It would be bad news for a lot of people in Silicon Valley and Spotify.
It would be great news for free thinkers, for entrepreneurs, for those that just want to sit there and say, I disagree with you.
Can we sit down and have a conversation, have some banter?
That's what I think.
So the concern about if Joe, you know, by himself, wife's not around, girls are not around, daughters are not around, friends are not around, Joey is not around, all these other people are not around that he talks to regularly.
He's by himself.
You're in the car by yourself driving.
You're secure.
Nobody's around you.
He's sitting there and he's like, man, what if Spotify drops me?
Okay.
I would say, I dare drop me.
It would be more from that perspective because then right now he's got a lot of followers.
Now you're going to go into, you know, legendary underload.
No, no, no.
It's game over type of let you talking about now you have a world type of influence at the next level because now you dictate.
Now Elon, now Joe's going to be like, okay, let me get a handful of these guys that I like their strategies.
Let's go recruit.
What do you think that phone call sounds like?
Hey, I'm Joe Rogan.
I notice you have a podcast.
We'd like to have you come to XYZ Company with me, Elon Musk, and Peterfield.
What a sound on my website.
So, so yeah, I imagine that.
Yeah, by the way, I don't know why I want to see that.
So do I.
I want to see that.
You know how that idea starts, by the way?
How?
It's just them two on a podcast.
One big fat ass joint.
Elon Musk taking a hit.
Rogan encouraging him.
And then boom, wow.
I feel like that's happening.
We are recruiting people.
If you want to be in, text us at this number.
Here's a link.
Go subscribe.
Let's start.
So I don't know.
So to me, you know, people have to protect Joe.
And I think Elon, in a way, is a protector of ideas.
I think Elon and a handful of other people who are very powerful in their own way, boom, let's go.
And they're going to be able to do that.
Do you think Elon actually has those types of aspirations to putting together technology to him?
The guy wants to go marry aliens according to what you want to say.
He wants to live on Mars.
So if he wants to go on Mars, what's harder?
Living on Mars or kicking everyone's ass on Silicon Valley?
I'm sorry.
It's living on Mars.
This is nothing to him.
It's chump change.
I think that they could do that or that that's a possibility that's not going to influence whether or not Spotify drops him.
I think they're going to look at it purely as a business move is that if it gets to the point where enough people say, if you don't drop him, we leave and their bottom line gets to a certain number, then they'll get rid of him just based on that, kind of irrespective of what they think.
But is their number hemorrhaging because of Rogan?
That can't be the reason.
I mean, I'm sure it's impossible to quantify.
I have no doubt that there's a lot of factors to it.
But, you know, to me, again, like at some point, if they just continue to lose and lose.
And I mean, I'm still sitting here a little bit reeling from the fact that Neil Young cost him $4 billion by leaving.
How the fuck is that even possible?
Spotify lost $4 billion from him later.
You type it in.
Put Neil Young, $4 billion on Spotify.
To me, that's surprising, I guess.
I'd be shocked if people under 30 even knew who Neil Young was.
I mean, but and that's the thing, right?
Spotify, like if you look at a lot of older musicians, like they have very small followings on there, most of them.
Look at that right there.
Spotify loses $4 billion of market value after Neil Young controversy.
That's crazy.
Yeah, so you think it's not an impact.
It's an impact.
So I guarantee the board.
The board has got so much pressure.
Listen, listen, I'm telling you right now, Joe, Elon, Peter, I'm telling you, two of the three have plenty of experience running companies going up against bigger enemies.
I mean, Tesla went up against, who's a bigger mafia than Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota.
Tell me who's a bigger mafia.
Who is a bigger mafia?
You go take their lunch?
Are you kidding me?
This guy took their lunch.
This is no joke.
This is not an easy industry to take their lunch.
You're talking about that guy.
He didn't say, let me create a new website called Facebook and let's go create something new.
He said, what does everybody use, a car?
Let me go make cars.
What?
And beat everybody.
That's hard.
This is not hard.
That's hard.
So yeah, so if this keeps happening, stuff like this, let me make your job easier for you, Spotify.
I resign.
Okay.
You pay me $100 million.
No problem.
Elon's willing to pay me a billion dollars.
Elon will sign a $1 billion, 20-year contract with Joe Rogan.
That's what he would do in a heartbeat.
Hey, Joe, 50 million a year for 20 years.
Do the podcast on my show.
That's what Elon would do.
And 50 million a year to Elon Musk is what?
It's like you going to Starbucks.
He ain't even going to feel it.
He's going to say, Joe, don't worry about it.
Drop Spotify.
Send a letter of resignation.
It's become too much of a frustration.
Let's go whoop some ass together.
Everybody would be shedding bricks.
Everybody would be calling their mommy saying, mommy, you will not believe Joe.
Oh my gosh, what do we do?
Everybody would be in tears saying, this is the one guy crazy enough that can pull it off.
That is the one guy.
Because when you push, when you push true believers who are the best at what they do, who are number one, not complainers that quit and then they say, I'm Joe.
You ain't Joe, bro.
You're like number, you know, when somebody leaves a company and I'm going to go do it.
I'm going to be the next Joe.
No, no, no.
There's only one Joe in the world.
There's only one Elon Musk in the world.
If that happens, game over.
Oh, my God.
You know what that's like?
Frazier against Ali, forget about it.
Trump Hillary, forget about it.
I mean, who do you want to put in there?
Magic against Jordan, 1990, 1991?
Forget about it.
You know, Jordan against Pistons, forget about it.
This is going to be the underdogs against the bullies.
Let's go bully the hell out of the bullies.
These are the guys that are the ragtag people that are showing up.
Let's go.
It would be freaking entertainment at the highest level.
Now, maybe I'm just dreaming.
Pat just went.
You went somewhere with that, by the way.
You're on fire right now.
Oh, but I tell you.
And I don't want you to stop.
But I tell you, but I tell you, I'm telling you right now, I fully tell you right now, the biggest insurance policy is being a worker, is being fair, is being a chill guy that people like.
It's being humble, yet competitive, and deliver on the product, willing to constantly improve.
You attract the right people in your life.
This morning, I did a video about talking about the biggest currency to invest into more than Bitcoin, more than Ethereum, more than any stock, more than gold, more than anything.
There's nothing more valuable than Bitcoin.
Everybody wants to get some more Bitcoin in their wallet or whatever it is.
Yeah, there is no currency more valuable than your attitude.
There is no currency more valuable than your attitude.
No currency more valuable than your attitude.
Your attitude is why you're here.
You and I met at an insurance event for eight years.
We didn't do nothing.
Every year I saw your attitude.
I'm like, what?
I can't wait to meet that guy.
What's the guy?
I don't know his name, but I like meeting this guy.
I'm like, Adam, what's up?
And hey, this is Adam.
Hey, let me tell you Adam.
You got to do content.
Your attitude is the most expensive currency.
You have money.
That's fine.
You have crypto.
That's fine.
Your attitude is worth 20 times more than all the money you got in the world.
Look at Joe's attitude.
It's freaking attractive.
Look at Elon's attitude.
It's attractive.
And some people don't like attractive attitude.
That attitude. is worth billions.
Forget the $100 million contract.
You can't teach Joe's attitude.
That attitude is very, very attractive.
And the attitude, you know what's the best thing about a great attitude?
You know what's the great thing about a big attitude?
What business are you and I earn?
What industry are we in?
We're in insurance, financial services.
There is not a bigger insurance policy than a great attitude.
Because you protect it for the rest of your life.
Because your attitude, who can take your attitude away from you?
It's yours.
Every organization, every company, every city, every state, every country wants people with better attitudes.
It goes back to your voting system and your book that you talk about.
Where the 500 people and the people that have done most for that, it's what?
It's a form of an attitude.
You want to contribute to your society.
Yeah.
To the society you live in.
Yeah, I mean, they're not going to nominate people with shitty attitudes.
No, they're not.
They're just not going to do it.
And by the way, we're not going to bring somebody back on our podcast with a shitty attitude three times.
Your attitude is freaking awesome.
You know, it goes to you.
You know, your attitude is sick.
Every time you come here, it's attractive.
There's something, here's a Navy SEAL that if you wanted to, could go out there and do a lot of harm to people.
Just the chill guy you're talking to, laughing, chopping it up, different kind of conversations.
So I don't know, more and more I'm getting excited about this.
More and more, I kind of want to see this happen.
As you went there, you started.
10% or are you bumping it up?
No, no, I'm 10% that Spotify will drop them.
But I tell you, the biggest badass move would be.
So you're 10% on Spotify dropping Rogan.
But where are you at on Rogan saying, like you said, I don't know.
Rogan sees it.
I'm going to send a message to my mom.
Just watch this.
And just please consider it.
Joe, just please consider it.
Okay.
Just please consider it.
I'm telling you.
And Elon, you're watching this.
Sign a billion-dollar contract with Joe for 20 years.
You can do it.
I bet he'd do it for free.
By the way, no, no, Joe wouldn't do it.
Joe doesn't need to do it for free because Joe's attitude and the way he does things is worth a billion dollars, minimum.
If I was running a media company, Joe's a billion-dollar 20-year contract.
Joe's a minimum.
I'm not even telling you high.
That's a minimum.
Joe's a $50 million year guy for 20 years.
And by the way, this isn't like I'm trying to get on Rogan.
This isn't like some people are like, oh, people say good things about Joe because they want to get on Rogan.
I was on the Rogan Joe.
We had a great time.
Yeah, no, I'm saying this because I'm telling you, Joe's a billion-dollar net worth attitude.
And Elon needs to come out and say, I'm signing a $20 or $1 billion contract with Joe for Joe to do his podcast on the network that I'm creating.
I think that's what needs to happen.
And that is the biggest power move.
Oh my, people would be, by the way, check this out.
Watch this now.
Watch this now.
This Friday, I'm having a meeting with a very powerful CEO of a major social media company that you all know about.
He's coming here.
We're going to have dinner together.
Today's Wednesday.
What is today?
Today's night.
It's Thursday.
It's tomorrow night.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll go to dinner as well.
So it's tomorrow night, right?
Trump starts the truth network.
Who's going to join the network?
Who?
Do you think Alex Jones tells us that?
Do you think AOC is going to be on that network?
No.
No, but she needs to be.
Okay.
If she wants to do a debate, but not really.
But watch this.
If Elon and Joe and Peter Thiel start a network, who would be on that?
Everybody, left, right, center, up, down.
I don't think AOC would be, but here's who would be.
If this is Alex Jones, if this is AOC and young Turks and who else you want to put here, Bernie?
Yeah.
I think if this is center, these guys would be on.
80% of America, yeah.
I think these guys will be on.
The people that matter would be on.
100%.
But I think if Trump does it, I think only these guys will be on.
But what's crazy is they're painting Joe Rogan to be out some like right and like far-right match.
He said he would vote for Bernie.
He on camera said he would vote for Bernie.
I mean, to me, that's just grasping at straws, trying to discredit him because they don't have anything else to do it with.
The dumbest thing that CNN and these people on the left can do is try to go after Rogan.
Yeah, I agree.
Sanjay Gupta, to his respect, went on Rogan and answered some tough questions.
He's delayed.
But respect to him for going on.
For sure.
Agreed.
I mean, that's how it needs to happen.
And again, that's why my take on Saki and the White House having a position on it, I think, is a mistake.
It just makes them look bad.
I mean, historically, look at any government that tried to censor its citizens has always been the fucking bad guy.
Always.
That's never a good thing, ever.
So for them to do that, I think, is a huge misstep.
And I just don't get it.
I mean, that the same PR guy or whoever is trying to advise the president on actions to take to pull his head out of his ass, image-wise, needs to do the same thing with their mouths.
I remember there was a very famous clip.
This was during the George W. Bush years when I believe the press secretary was Ari Fleischer.
And he was talking about Bill Maher.
And he goes, Bill Maher needs to be very careful what he's saying these days.
Nobody appreciates, you know, the thing.
Now Bill Maher, other than Rogan, one and more necessary voices in America.
And where's Ari Fleischer these days?
To your point, Mike Ritland, and the government goes after people to silence them, never good look.
Can I throw one other thing in there?
Yeah.
Well, yes, sir.
So who just resigned?
Who just resigned?
CNN.
Jeff Zucker just resigned, which let me first say CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker, the influential news executive who reshaped the iconic network.
CNN wrote this article about.
So I'm reading a CNN.
So the way they wrote it, who reshaped the iconic network, abruptly announced Wednesday morning that he has resigned from his position.
In fact, immediately as part of the investigation to Chris Cuomo's tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship, my closest colleague, someone I had worked with for more than 20 years.
I acknowledge the relationship evolved in recent years.
I was required to disclose it when it began, but I didn't.
I was wrong.
As a result, I'm resigning today.
That's not lie.
Yeah, Zucker did not name his colleague in the memo, but the relationship is with Allison Golas, the chief marketing officer for CNN.
She is still staying with CNN.
So watch this.
Okay, let's throw.
So you know how you go to a restaurant, you first order your drink.
I'd like to have a, you know, Arnold Palmer.
They bring the army.
Sorry, we're out of lemonade.
Every time.
Would you like some salad?
I'll take some Brotto cheese salad with some balsamic glaze on the side.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Would you like to go to some appetizers?
Yes, I'll have some fried zucchini flowers and some steak tartare, some oysters and faux raw and some bone marrow.
No problem.
No boneless buffalo strips.
That's coming, Medicare Channel.
Now you know where Mike eats and we're patty.
I'm at Fridays.
Exactly.
I guess we got potato wedges.
These folk grasp potato wedges.
Can we get some mesquite chicken?
All right, so I'm going to go that route.
Yes, anyway.
Would you like some dessert?
Yes, I'll take some whatever dessert, Sunday or sorbet or whatever they bring.
Dessert here, you know what the dessert would be here?
If Elon went and bought CNN.
Oh my God.
My God.
If Elon says I'm going to buy CNN, that would be amazing if something like that were to happen.
If you were to say, I'm going to cut a check and buy CNN, people would lose it.
Okay?
And by the way, if they bought CNN overnight, you would see all the airports.
It would no longer show CNN.
It would be MSNBC.
Yeah.
For sure.
Why do you think the airports?
They're not going to let Elon have control to show.
That would scare the crap out of him.
That scared the crap out of him if he did something like that.
Do the airports have some sort of arrangement with CNN?
Is that their – the airports show CNN.
That's – Right?
I mean, is that just the airports I fly?
The majority of airports show CNN.
If you go to Texas, they'll have CNN and Fox.
What's the story behind that?
In Florida, they show Nickelodeon is what they show.
But in New York, I don't even want to tell you what New York shows you.
New York shows you a whole different perspective.
But yeah, it's mainly a lot of CNN.
What are your thoughts on what happened here with Zucker?
What was the real story here?
Oh, I think Cuomo got him fired.
Specifically, Cuomo.
I absolutely believe Cuomo got him fired.
Why?
Why?
Because Zucker threw Cuomo under the bus.
You don't remember when it first came out?
It's like, Zucker, yeah, we have to let Cuomo go.
And then Cuomo's like, wait a minute.
No, no, no.
You ain't going to make me look like an idiot.
My father's Mario Cuomo.
We don't let the bully bully us.
No, here's what we're going to be doing.
This is exactly what you did as well.
And then Zucker got fired.
So Zucker got fired by the person he fired, Chris Cuomo.
Well, can I read a quote?
Yeah.
As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo's tenure here at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I've worked with for more than 20 years.
Zucker told employees in a memo, I acknowledge the relationship evolved in recent years.
I was required to disclose it when it began, but I didn't.
I was wrong.
As a result, I'm resigning today.
Zucker did not name his colleague in the memo, but relationship with Allison Golest, the chief marketing officer for CNN, is remaining at CNN.
So it's just apparently inappropriate work relationships or not even inappropriate, not disclosing it.
I mean, there's no way that that took place for 20 years and everybody didn't know about it.
Everybody had to know that he was banging Allison.
Yeah, to me, there's just got to be more to it.
I mean, how about the fact that they've lost 90% of their viewers?
How does that not play some role in this?
Has to be.
Well, you know, look.
But by the way, just think about it.
Think about it.
What network did Trump call fake news?
CNN.
Did you see Trump's comment about CNN?
Did you see Trump's comment about Zucker?
Did you read it or no?
Why don't you pull out what Trump said about Zucker getting fired?
And he wrote out a memo.
While you're pulling it up, I have it here, so I'll just read it.
Jeff Zucker, Jeff Zucker, a world-class sleazeback who has had ratings and real news challenged CNN for too long, for far too long, has been terminated for numerous reasons, but predominantly because CNN has lost its way with viewers and everybody else.
Now it's a chance to put fake news in the backseat because there may not be anything more important than straightening out the horrendous lamestream media in our country and in this case of CNN throughout the world.
Jeff Zucker is gone.
Congratulations to all.
Okay?
That's your guy saying that.
But you were at his place yesterday, right?
I was at Trump.
I brought you some gifts.
If Kai's listening, I would love him to bring in the gifts that I brought for Pat.
But by the way, I don't know if this is a left or right thing because this is just a power thing.
There's two things going on here.
CNN's ratings are in the tank.
I'm sure you want to transition to maybe the Tunker story, which is applicable here.
But this is a powerful thing.
This happened to Roger Ailes.
This happened to Bill O'Reilly.
This happened to Charlie Rose.
This happened to Matt Lauer.
This happened to Chris Cuomo.
Whether it's Harvey Weinstein even, this is a power move.
If you're the head of a network or the face of a network, you've got the power.
You've got the money.
Everything that happened with Roger Ailes is applicable here to Jeff Zucker.
And when you're the guy in charge and you see a pretty little marketing lady over there, you're going to step into my office, do a little twirl.
Let's see the outcome.
Is that how it goes?
Allegedly.
I don't know.
I mean, to me, I'm sure that there's more of the story.
I think to your point with it being Cuomo, there's probably going to be more to come out of it, too.
Like, he's not, he's obviously pissed and taking the ship with him, or at least trying.
I would bet that you'll see more.
more backlash and maybe even more people either quitting or getting fired.
You fire your best guy and then you trash him?
No.
No, man, you can do that.
Do you remember when we talked about CNN thinking about their bringing in Chris Wallace?
It's because they're getting bought out by this guy, John Malone.
And he can't stand CNN.
He's a serious person with serious goals who, and he said, quote, he wants to bring it back to actual journalism.
Can you show this picture, by the way, what Tyler Salman?
Discovery board member John Malone lauds Fox News before saying he wants CNN to evolve back to actual journalism.
And I don't want to say I called this a couple months ago, but it's because of this new owner.
He wants actual journalism.
He understands that CNN is a joke.
And as you guys say, it's ratings.
Now, why they're going with...
But ratings sucks.
So their strategy is not working.
That's why he wants to switch it.
And he's kicking out Jeff Zucker.
Why they went with that for the excuse is that he's not a good person.
Do you mean to tell me Cuomo didn't fire Zucker?
Because you're saying the backlash from Cuomo.
Oh, here's what happened with Cuomo.
Cuomo probably made a phone call and he said, listen, here's what you guys want to do to me.
You want to ruin my reputation and hurt my family?
Just know, that's not the right move.
And I don't appreciate that.
And then boom, it led to a conversation together with them.
And obviously the rest is history.
I mean, because that article was from mid-November.
This is two hours ago from Insider.
CNN Insider suspect Chris Cuomo flag Jeff Zucker's workplace relationship as revenge.
There you go.
And I don't even, this is when?
This is when we just went live on the podcast.
This is two hours ago.
Yeah.
So get out of here.
No, inside.
Oh, here's Kai with the gifts that I brought you from.
How was it spending time with Trump?
How was it for you?
He's a huge fan of the podcast.
Okay, good.
He's a huge fan.
You know, what he basically said was like, listen, it's possible for us to disagree without being disagreeable.
I said, thanks, Don.
I really appreciate that.
I missed my invitation to Mar-a-Lago, but I appreciate all the goodie bags and gifts that you gave me.
And this is what I wanted to give to you.
Thank you.
Wow.
So, by the way, I feel this is a good idea.
I want to get you.
This is a Trump Hotel's bag right here.
Here we go.
Laundry bag.
Now, obviously, save that money.
I didn't spend money on this.
I took it from my hotel room, but I noticed something.
And I wanted to get your take on this.
So here are a lot of goodies from the Trump hotel room.
Now, what I wanted to get your opinion on was this.
Now, these are just a ton.
These are shampoo.
These are conditioners.
These are lotions.
These are Q-tips.
These are hand lotions.
This is everything.
This is everything.
And ironically, I wanted to bring you this anyway.
This was not the point of this.
I was like, all right, let me get some Trump stuff.
But here's what I was like, holy shit.
I need to get Pat's opinion on.
Look on the bottom.
Made in China.
Every single one of these things, it says made in China.
Every single one of these things, read that right there.
What's it say on the top right there?
Made in China.
I'm thinking, how is this possible?
I'm at Trump property, Doral, Miami, his amazing golf course, and I'm showering.
I'm getting ready.
I'm stealing gifts to give to Pat.
And they all say made on China, made in China.
How is that possible?
How is that possible?
For everything he's done against China and respect for him from calling them out, this is not a good look.
I'm surprised it's not more popular or like more people don't know about it.
Are you surprised?
Are you offering it?
I'm a little surprised.
I'm a little bit of all the above.
Okay, I got you.
I was genuinely looking at yourself.
I was genuinely looking at this and expecting Donald J. Trump to have Made in America conditioners, shampoos, all that kind of good stuff.
But let me ask you, is he still operating this place?
Does he still own this place?
Is this still his, like, operated by him?
Yes.
I don't think it's a good look.
I think he needs to contact a CMO that's running this and saying, why are we having stuff that we're producing that's made in China?
I don't think it's a good look, to be honest with you.
I agree.
And I'm actually like, this is obviously some of a little joke, whatever, whatever.
But I would want and expect someone like Donald Trump to only have Made in America property, Made in America material.
Sure, it's not made in Chinatown.
Let me just see.
Made in Chinatown.
Made in Chinatown in San Francisco.
That's what it is, made in Chinatown.
Anyway, but you do travel a lot, and I want you to look good.
You do spend $72 on a haircut.
So I want you to have the best of the best of the best.
Only the best products for you.
You are so amazing.
You're always looking out for me.
I genuinely was.
Final thoughts about Brady.
Final thoughts about Brady.
Brady retired.
Were you surprised when he retired?
Not really.
Yeah.
But, you know, to me, I think it's good that he did when he did.
I hate to see when guys, even switching teams, I mean, obviously he won another one, but when they just kind of fade off because they suck, I think that's a shitty way to go for a guy like that.
Same with Joe Montana or Favre or whatever.
It's like when you see guys who are that good for that long, and he's, I think, the epitome of that, I think it's better that he left when he was kind of still on top.
Yeah.
Charlemagne the Got called him the greatest athlete of all time.
Charlemagne the Gott, called him the great, like meaning better than Michael.
Yeah, I wouldn't call him the greatest athlete of all time.
He's definitely the greatest 202.
I would say he's the most successful football player.
The greatest football player of all time.
But here's what makes me a little upset here.
Imagine if Michael Jordan retired, which he did briefly, but then he did it again.
And then he came back to the Washington Wizards.
Let's just say he won a championship with the Wizards.
Let's just say Michael Jordan after everything he did with the Bulls.
And then he retired.
And all he did was thank the Wizards and the great organization they had.
He was there for two years.
He was there to the other team, Patriots, for 20 years.
And all he did was thank the Wizards.
You'd be saying, dude, what are you talking about?
You were a Chicago bull through and through.
Legend.
And that's the way I look at Tom Brady.
Dude, congratulations.
You're the man.
You took Tampa Bay that was nothing franchise for decades, and then you took him super awesome.
But let's not forget you're a patriot.
So obviously, he's a little salty from his exit, whether that's Bob Kraft, whether that's a Belichick thing.
He's a little salty about that.
But I do think that Bill Belichick had a very classy tweet or a memo that he cut out about Brady.
I have a perspective.
Yeah, what's that?
Here's what my perspective is.
So let me ask you a question.
So imagine you're Brady, okay?
And you are making your mind whether you're going to retire or not.
You talk to your wife, you talk to your kids, and you say, you know what?
I wake up in the morning, I'm retiring, okay?
Tell me the first five phone calls you make before you're going to go public.
Give me the first five phone calls you make.
Other than your family or something?
No, not even family, you can't tell everybody.
It's wife and immediate.
What's the five phone calls?
I know where you're going with this.
It needs to be the organization you're retiring from first.
Okay, so perfect.
So can we say he probably is going to talk to Bruce?
Bruce.
Yeah.
And then after coach, Malcolm Gladwell, isn't that the owner?
Not Malcolm Gladwell.
Malcolm Gladwell.
He doesn't have that kind of money.
The Gladwell family.
I believe they own the Gladwell family.
So you got the coach.
You got the coach.
Who else is going to call?
Do you think he's going to call anybody from the Patriots organization?
No, no, he's not going to alert them at all.
So you don't think he calls anybody?
You don't think he has a good relationship with Krauss where he calls him and says, hey, Jerry, listen, I was with you for 20 years.
I'm not Jerry Cross.
I'm talking about Robert Kraft.
You don't think he's going to call Robert Kraft and say, hey, you know, here's where I'm at.
You don't think he's going to make a phone call like that?
He's definitely not going to call the relationship.
We know he's not going to call Bill.
He's not going to call.
Well, isn't it Bob Kraft that decided not to resign him two years ago in 2019?
I don't know who it was, but is that Belichick?
I think he called a few people.
And I'm thinking one of the people he called is from New England Patriots.
Somebody leaked the information to the news.
Everybody he called and he says, tell me you didn't say it.
He believed four people.
The one person that did say it, he was so annoyed that he says, I'm going to snub you for my recognition.
Screw you guys.
I think people like that are so sensitive to respecting them sharing private information with you that if you cross it, they cross you.
I think it was that simple.
I don't think it was simple.
I don't disagree with you.
Yeah, I don't think that's it.
Something happened.
Whether it was.
He didn't like the fact that people leaked it.
He wanted to be the one to do it.
It wasn't official for like 72 hours.
But I guarantee you it was official.
I guarantee you it was official for 96 hours.
Didn't he put something on social media about it before his team knew?
He said in the interview, no, he never did.
He never did.
He said in the interview, I'm going to talk about it and see what I'm going to be doing, and I'll get back to you guys after he lost.
But put up Belichick's deal.
Is Belichick's deal here for me to read, or is it up there?
Is it what I'm here?
He did in his Instagram post, he thinked the obviously Tampa Bay, everything we just said, he had one reference to the Patriots.
Did you see it?
He had one reference to the Patriots.
What was that?
He had a picture of him beating the Patriots.
Yeah.
Beating the Patriots as a Tampa Bay buck this year.
So there was a subtle hand right there.
Don't joke.
Go down to the Patriots.
I want to read, here's what Belichick said.
Can you make it a little bigger so I can see it?
I am privileged to have drafted.
I am privileged to have drafted.
That's a statement, meaning I picked you.
I am privileged to have drafted.
And coach Tom Brady, the ultimate competitor and winner.
Tom's humble beginning in professional football ultimately ended with him becoming the best player in NFL history.
Tom consistently performed at the highest level against competition.
That always made him to number one player to stop.
His pursuit of excellence was inspirational.
Tom was professional on and off the field and carried himself with some class with class integrity and kindness.
I thank Tom.
What a powerful word.
I thank Tom for his relentless pursuit of excellence and positive impact on me.
That's a pretty humble statement right there.
I thank Tom for his relentless pursuit of excellence and positive impact on me and the New England Patriots for 20 years.
Good for you.
How do you process that, though?
Because you sounded a little sarcastic about Belichick.
No, no, when I said I drafted, meaning, don't forget I risked everything on you because I believed in you 199.
198 people did not.
I picked you.
I believed in you.
Never forget that when you were nobody and I chose when Drew Bledsoe, when you got a hit and your knee was gone and you were dropped and we benched you second half, Drew Bledsoe came and won that game and took us to the Super Bowl.
And I had two weeks to decide.
And everybody from Willie McGinnis, everybody said Belichick's going to choose Drew Blitzo as a starting quarterback after having signed a $100 million contract.
I made the announcement publicly and I said, Tom Brady will start the Super Bowl.
And Beletso, in an interview, was devastated.
And he says every player quarterback looks for this position to be in to go into the Super Bowl.
But it is what it is.
And you can see the interview with Bledsoe, how tough it was for him.
Belichick chose Brady.
Now imagine if he doesn't.
You just can't, you know, there's you can't, you have to know that there is some value there, man.
That's the only thing I'm saying.
Belichick is trying to say, listen, I took a chance on you, okay?
And listen, without your drive, there's no way we won six.
But still, somebody had to pick you, even though nobody believed in you at that time.
And I picked you as a starter.
I think it's a beautiful thing.
Listen, to me, I think Brady, when people talk about Brady versus Jordan, greatest athlete, it makes no sense.
I mean, the guy's got a vertical leap of a six-year-old.
He's not going to be able to jump that high.
He runs the zero to 40-yard rush in like five seconds, right?
So not a good look.
But it's not an athlete.
But I'm going to tell you something here.
When they took the heart of the one horse that Nazi biscuit, no, it's one of the recent ones.
They took the heart and they saw he was in the 99.6 percentile.
Right, the horse.
He wasn't the biggest, he wasn't the fastest.
With a P, the name is with a P horse.
Just go to the top Kentucky Derby winners.
Secretariat.
Not Secretariat.
No, it's another one.
What's the horse's name, Kai?
Go to horse-winning, not secretariat, go to horse-winning Kentucky Derby, winning Kentucky Derby at the names.
I'll tell you exactly what it is.
Somebody probably putting it down here right now what the name is.
But anyways, when they talked about this horse, they said the guy had a heart, a massive heart that was going to win.
Just go to all of them, buddy.
I don't know why you're, yeah, just go to all of them.
We'll figure out what the name is in a minute here.
Anyways, the point is, this guy's got a heart of a champion.
American Pharaoh is who it is.
American Pharaoh.
He was not the biggest.
He was not the fastest, not the strongest, not the biggest.
He didn't look impressive.
But when they measured his heart, you know, they bought him for like $5,000?
You know, that horse was bought for like $5,000 or $15,000?
You know, his stud fee alone is $300,000 per stud fee.
Okay, so, you know, that was on Brady, but somebody believed in him.
And credit goes to both of them.
And the league will miss him.
Although I think the NFL is right now stacked with a lot of great talent that's going to take this league for sure.
Make it exciting for another league.
I just hope that he does not go away.
Meaning, I hope he does what Peyton Manning has done, and even Drew Brees and the Legends and just still be a part of the game.
But he'll do it his way.
He'll do it his way.
As he should.
He's not going to do it like the other guys.
To me, I don't see him playing as big a role as those guys.
Just his personality isn't really that type of commentator, you know, analyst.
Like, he's just not that dude, you know.
But I agree.
I hope he does.
Is there a bigger stud in the world than Tom Brady?
I was going to say, I didn't make my point.
I'd say he's the greatest athlete of all time.
He's the greatest winner of all time.
He's the greatest winner of all time.
Listen, when you play against somebody else, Michael Jordan, you play finals.
You could have a bad day.
The Knicks could beat you first game when he played against the Knicks in the playoffs.
That means he would have been out of the playoffs if it's only one game.
But this guy, you have one game and you win seven out of 10.
What is it?
Seven out of 10.
Seven out of 10.
That's insane to do that.
And the argument is always from the Giants fans.
Eli beat him twice?
Yeah.
Did you see what Eli said?
Eli said, I just want to sit there and say, I think I'm uniquely qualified because I watched you win when I was in college in Super Bowl.
Then I played against you and I watched you win when I was in the league.
Then I watched you win a Super Bowl after I retired.
And he used the words.
He says, you were gracious enough to let me win two.
Yeah, no doubt.
His biggest foils were the Manning guys.
He had to go through Peyton Manning every year, and Peyton Manning had to go through him.
And the two Super Bowls that he lost, other than Philly, was to Eli Manning.
And people had to literally catch balls on top of their helmet in order to beat Tom Brady.
He had me at the catch for you, Adam.
You had me at catch balls.
Yeah.
Well, listen, do you want to make it public that you are subscribed to his OnlyFans?
Because he did say that.
Yeah, Mike.
Everyone, by the way, Mike Ritland has an OnlyFans.
It's him and Dogs, both.
Not at the same time.
Skimpy.
Put up this website, Mike Ritland's book.
If you want to tell everybody the book, Adam, again, How to Unfuck America?
Is that what it is?
It is how to unfuck America.
It's an illustrated manual.
Can you put a picture of it open-minded on Amazon and put the link below for people to be able to go buy it?
If there's anything we could say about the legendary Mike Ritland over here, is that we always have a respectful, open-minded conversation, and we are doing our part to unfuck America.
Three times on a podcast, man.
Mike, you to my baby.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mike.
Take care, buddy.
Yes.
Bye-bye, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
By the way, tomorrow, what are we doing tomorrow?
Tomorrow we're doing Jordan Peterson.
It's going to be in the house for a few hours.
And I think it's going to be on the other channel for three hours, but it's going to be on the other channel instead of this channel.
Or is it on PVD podcast?
I still don't know which one it is.
I think we're doing PVD podcasts, and it's at 12 o'clock.
It's at 12 o'clock tomorrow.
All right.
It's 12 o'clock tomorrow.
Whatever the time is on YouTube, that's what the time will be.
We'll see you guys tomorrow.
If you've got questions you want to ask Joe Rogan, send me, not Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, send me a tweet.
