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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine day of the day.
The thing that makes everything better.
Especially on a Saturday.
It's called the Simultaneous Sip and it's going to happen right now.
Thank you, Paul.
Go.
That should hold you.
That should get you through the rest of the show.
Well, after the show, remember it's Saturday, so Owen Gregorian will be hosting a Spaces event.
Spaces is the audio-only thing that's on X, so you have to be on X to get that.
But look for Owen Gregorian, and you'll see the link for that.
Now, yesterday...
I was binge-watching that show, Severance, and I was thinking, I feel so good about this show, I feel like I'm going to post on X about it, because I've mentioned it before.
And then I noticed that Joe Rogan just posted it on X. He said, Severance is a fantastic show, says Joe Rogan.
Completely original and totally unpredictable.
Amazing writing, directing, and acting.
Just a totally unique show.
He just finished Season 1. He's going to 2. That's exactly where I am.
I think I have maybe an episode left.
But just finishing Season 1. Totally addicted.
Then Jon Stewart.
He also posted on the same topic.
Severance was amazing.
He dropped an F-bomb to say how much he liked it.
Now, here's why it took me so long to watch it.
It's the title.
When I see a show that looks like People in an Office, and the title of the show is Severance, here's what I assume.
Okay, I get it.
It's another one of those remakes where there's some severance, meaning people got fired.
So the people who got fired and got the severance payment, they decided to, what, get back at their evil boss and tie him to a chair and ha ha ha?
So, I didn't want to watch that.
But then I found out that Severance has nothing to do with losing your job.
And that it's more of a sci-fi and sort of an ongoing mystery than it is like anything else.
So, here's what I like about it.
And I will say that since entertainment is subjective, no more than half of you are going to like it as much as I do.
Half of you are going to say, well, I don't get it.
And half of you are going to say, why have I missed this for so long?
But here's what Ben Stiller has done that is actually very impressive.
So Ben Stiller is the, I guess he's director, producer, whatever he is, but he seems to be in charge.
And, you know, we know Ben Stiller being a little bit more woke than you want to be.
So one thing you'd kind of assume about the show.
Is this going to be, you know, really woke?
Turns out, it's very diverse, but you don't even really notice.
The diversity is the natural kind, where there's one character who's kind of a key character, a black character, and you watch the black character do his thing, and you say to yourself, he's kind of perfect.
That's good casting right there.
And then you watch the other characters, and you realize they are very diverse.
But they still allowed the boring, straight white guy to be the lead character.
And I thought, when was the last time I've seen that?
So it's diverse without the wokeness.
And it's kind of refreshing.
Nothing's in your face.
You never notice...
You don't see any actors who look like they don't belong there.
They're all well chosen.
They're all great.
And not once does a 90-pound woman use her kung fu to beat up a 200-pound man.
That drives me crazy.
But no, not once is there a car chase scene.
No car chase scenes.
Not once is there anybody tied to a chair to be tortured.
I don't think.
I don't think I saw that.
So, when Joe Rogan says it's fantastic and inventive, it holds my interest like nothing ever has.
It's really special.
So, here's what I'd like to...
Now, if it sounds like I'm spending way too much time on this, and you're saying to yourself, I don't even have Apple TV, there's a bigger point.
Here's the bigger point.
Ben Stiller has created a masterpiece, but it's more than that, because he's also proven you could violate pretty much all of the rules of how you're supposed to make a crappy piece of product in 2025. He violates all the rules, but does them in a genius way.
So maybe, maybe there's hope.
There might be hope for scripted television.
You know, if you can do it this well, very impressive.
Well, yesterday, a lot of us were wondering what happened to an ex-user who is quite well-known, Brian Ramelli.
And Brian has gotten a lot of attention, especially in the last year or two, because he posts a lot about AI. And he knows a lot about it, and he's deep into it, and his account became even more valuable.
It's always been valuable.
But he got kicked off, and he didn't know why, and we didn't know why.
But there was sort of an outcry from the people on X saying, hey, what's up with this?
Now, I'm always hesitant, because people ask me this all the time.
Can you get involved in getting my account uncanceled?
First of all, I don't have any pull.
I have no pull whatsoever on X. Nothing.
Don't know anybody.
Don't have any special backdoor.
Nothing.
When somebody gets canceled on X, the first thing I ask myself is, okay, as far as I know, this is a totally good person.
But do I know everything about this person?
So I'm always suspicious.
What did they do?
What is it I don't know about?
So if I don't know why they got canceled, it's really hard for me to weigh in because I might be accidentally backing something terrible.
But it looked like Elon Musk may have been involved in getting this one reinstituted.
But Musk said that it was because of a music copyright violation.
Now, here's something you need to know.
A music copyright violation, I think, I'll take a fact check on this, but I think this is true, is automatically removed simply because the music people complained.
Now, I don't know who specifically has to complain.
It might be some entity within the music business that's the only official one, but it might be also anybody complaining about their own band or their own music.
But my understanding is that the simple existence of a complaint that's backed by, you know, there actually was a copyrighted song involved, there's no, X isn't even involved.
X has to do it automatically, I believe.
I believe that the law says, X doesn't even get a choice.
As long as it's reported and there is a song involved, you're gone.
Yeah, I think Owen is saying the same thing.
Owen says the DMCA takedowns, which is what this would be, are acted on but don't require permanent suspension.
They don't require permanent suspension, but they are acted on right away.
So this one was not permanent.
And I ran into this situation once before with another notable user who got pretty well canceled.
And that other notable user did many things that seemed to press the line.
But the thing that took him out?
Copyright.
Yeah.
Copyright, you're just not going to win.
The copyright holders are going to be tough on that.
So anyway, Brian Romelli's back.
Maybe we learned something there that'll keep the rest of you from getting canceled.
At the University of Amsterdam, they did some study on chat GPT. We'll get to all the politics.
I'm just waiting for people to wake up and have their first cup of coffee.
So there was a study, University of Amsterdam, about AI. And what they found was that the current version of AI... AI thinks very well in analogies.
But when the analogy is tweaked or it needs more original reasoning, it fails pretty quickly.
So as long as there's a pattern or an analogy, AI can operate pretty well.
But it's an analogy thinker.
Now, many of you know that for years I've been saying in public, I even wrote a book about it, that, well...
There are a book that includes it.
That if you think or reason in analogies, you're not using reason.
An analogy is simply something that reminds you of something else.
It's not a reason.
It's not a reason to do anything.
So here's, and no matter how many times I tell you this, it's a little bit subtle and hard to remember.
So I'm going to take another run at it.
Because the more you hear it, the more powerful you will become.
And you're debating.
Because if you use an analogy, do you know what happens?
People debate the specifics of the analogy.
Which doesn't help anybody.
Because the analogy is not even the debate.
So as soon as you introduce an analogy, somebody goes, yes, but I'm not a flower.
No, it's just an analogy.
Flower needs water.
So I'm trying to make the point that a person also needs to be You know, fed or nourished.
Yeah, but I'm not a flower.
Okay, okay, I'm not saying you're a flower.
It's an analogy.
A person needs to be fed and nourished.
A flower needs to be fed and nourished.
I'm just trying to make a point.
Yeah, but a flower doesn't live as long as a person.
I know, I know, I know.
That has nothing to do with my point.
It's just, and that's the way all analogies go.
So if you think you're going to use an analogy to win an argument, you're not.
Here's the one way to use an analogy correctly.
If it's a fast way to get somebody to understand a new concept, that's different from an argument.
You're not trying to debate them.
You're just trying to introduce a new thing that they didn't know about.
And my famous example is, what would be the fastest way to describe a zebra to someone who knew everything else in the world but had never seen a zebra?
Here's how I do it.
I'd say, okay, so a zebra is basically, it looks like a horse, but it's got black and white stripes.
So here I'm comparing a horse to a zebra.
Now, that's a good use because the person knows I'm not calling it a horse.
I'm saying it looks like one.
And now you've got this in your mind.
Okay, got it.
Looks like a horse, but it has black and white stripes.
I'm almost there.
Now, you would add things like, well, it's, you know, Native to Africa.
Maybe there's something different in its lineage from horses.
Maybe it's different in several other ways.
But it would be a real quick way to get from knowing nothing about zebras to, oh, okay, I got the basic idea.
So that's the only time to use it.
Now, do you think this is a real problem?
This whole analogy thing I keep harping on?
I'm harping on it and harping on it?
Well...
Let's look at a real example.
Have you heard this story about Representative Robert Garcia?
He's a Democrat, California.
And he was on some show recently, and he made the following analogy.
Are you ready for this?
Now, this is a human, not AI. And the human tried to use an analogy to make a point.
And here's what he said.
Talking about the Democrats in their, let's say, political contest with Republicans, Robert Garcia said, we're in a bar fight.
I'm paraphrasing a little bit.
But he said, we're in a bar fight and we have to bring actual weapons.
And then his critics say, whoa, you're telling people to actually arm themselves?
With what?
Knives and guns so you can shoot Republicans?
My God, you've got to be canceled.
Now, of course, it took about like a minute and a half for Representative Garcia to come back and say, it was just an analogy.
There's no smart person who heard me say, it's a bar fight, so you have to bring weapons.
Nobody thought that meant I meant bring weapons to the political contest.
Now, but some people did.
Or they pretend they do.
So with Republicans, I can never tell.
Because sometimes, maybe they believe the analogy.
Maybe they believe he was actually suggesting weapons.
Let me say as clearly as possible.
He wasn't suggesting bringing real weapons into the political realm.
It was an analogy.
What happens when you use an analogy?
People will...
People will pick apart the analogy instead of whatever point you were trying to make.
So that's what happened to him.
So don't use analogies like that.
But I would say he used the analogy correctly.
He even used it correctly, which was he was trying to introduce a point.
And the point was, we're in a fight with no weapons.
If you were in a bar fight, you'd want to have a weapon.
So...
In any other fight, you might want to have a weapon, too.
The weapon might be better ideas, better policies, better podcasts, something like that.
So, Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat from California, I back you 100%.
I'm not entirely sure if the Republicans going after him really believe what they're doing, or it's just sort of convenient, kind of a convenient attack line.
But no, he didn't do anything wrong.
Here's some good news.
The Epoch Times is reporting.
Apparently, CEO confidence in the economy is at a real high.
So it's looking really good.
Now, we've seen some other indicators that the economy could have some trouble when the stock market took a dump on Friday.
So it's not all positive.
But here's what I like about it.
The CEOs are extra important when it comes to their optimism.
If the CEOs are optimistic, then they increase their investment budget, their capital expense, and then things go well.
So you want your CEOs to be optimistic because anything but that destroys your economy.
So when they're at some kind of high in terms of optimism, and they are pretty high, that is a really good sign for the future.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's private security, they must be pretty good because they've been deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service, meaning that they'll now have certain rights and protections of federal law enforcement, CNN's reporting.
Now, it makes me wonder what special rights they're gaining.
The one that seems obvious would be the right to arrest somebody.
You know, if you're private security, can you detain and arrest somebody?
I don't know.
So is that one of the rights?
I don't know exactly what rights they get, but I like anything that makes Elon Musk safer.
So if this in any way makes him safer, yes.
Yes, please.
Let's do that.
So it looks like it makes sense.
It passes the sniff test.
Well, Trump, again, is reiterating that he's in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers.
He makes a good point that a big drug dealer could kill 500 people, just the number of overdoses over time.
It could add up to a lot of people.
So yes, if there's somebody who is knowingly, this is the important part, knowingly, Selling a drug that is likely to kill 500 people at the scale they're selling the drug?
Yeah.
The death penalty is not just appropriate, but it's just screaming for it.
If somebody just murdered 500 people, would we be questioning the death penalty?
We would not.
So the fact that it takes a little while for these victims to die...
That shouldn't be any safety for the person who did it.
So, yes, I'm 100% in favor of the death penalty for any drug dealers that are working at scale.
I don't think you want to get the one who sells a pill or two to their friends.
I wouldn't agree with that.
Trump said also that they're going to make some brutal anti-drug ads.
He says they hired some of the best agencies.
I guess that means ad agencies.
And they're going to spend $150 million, maybe $200 million, on advertising that says when you take certain drugs, like fentanyl, it destroys your skin, destroys your teeth, destroys your brain.
He says they're really horrible commercials.
He's seen the first of them and they're brutal.
And he thinks that it will work.
Now, it might.
It might.
Because brainwashing works.
So if these are designed to brainwash people, the young people, I have every reason to believe that as a way forward, it could be a good way.
But you have to worry about the reverse happening.
The reverse is that you make it cool.
Oh, here's your brain on...
Marijuana.
Now it's a cracked egg.
And then people say, that sounds like they're overdoing it.
I think I'll do more of it instead of less.
So you can get the risk is that, you know, the young people just resist anything you tell them.
So they end up liking it more because it's more forbidden.
But if you do it right, you can really put the stink on something.
Now, what I'd want to know is the following.
What makes an ad agency the best?
That they were good at selling a commercial product?
Or maybe somebody's brand?
Do you think that these ad agencies have somebody with, let's say, hypnosis skill?
I think some of them do, actually.
I don't know if these do.
But it would not be unusual that the ad agency had more than Ad people, right?
If you watched, what's that TV show with the advertiser people?
If the only expertise they're bringing is ad agency, then they're going to do something like, okay, we'll just say it's bad for you and young people don't want to look ugly, so they won't do it.
Well, that's a good start.
But here's how I would do it.
We now have the technology that can put sensors on your head, and they can tell how you're receiving certain messages.
And what they should do is try a bunch of stuff, maybe use AI to generate some quick visuals, and just run all the different messages across the people that you're testing.
And test it on young people, whoever your target is, and just see what works.
So, I don't know that advertisers automatically do that.
They have the technology, but I don't think they automatically do it.
This is one of those cases where I wouldn't say, oh, just make it look unattractive.
I don't know if that's enough.
You know, I think they could take the next level of science to make people just run from it if they did it right.
Well, meanwhile, CPAC is happening, and Steve Bannon's making things interesting by teasing a third term for Trump.
Now, I think the smart people believe he's trolling, and he's not actually literally saying third term.
He might.
I mean, I can't read his mind, so I don't know what he's thinking.
But one of the things I like about Bannon is that he seems to understand the...
The whole media landscape better than almost everybody.
So Bannon's one of the ones, maybe the one, who said the only way past the media gatekeepers is to overwhelm them.
And I think that started with the first term.
And so that's something that not everybody would have seen.
So Bannon can see around corners in a lot of different ways.
So if he's doing this teasing that Trump might have a third term, I step back from my usual reaction, which is my first take.
My first take is, don't do that.
That's exactly what they're accusing him of.
If you get them all worked up about this third term thing, it's going to fit in with their dictator, oligarch message, and you're just making it worse.
Why would you give them that ammunition?
So that's my first take.
But then I say, all right, what if Steve Bannon is smarter than I am?
What would that look like?
And then I think, oh, damn.
It means I'm missing something.
What would I be missing?
I don't know, but let me just put something out there.
If it's Steve Bannon just trolling, then it doesn't mean anything.
If it's Steve Bannon...
Who's thought of this strategically?
It could mean a lot.
And here's the other way that this could be playing.
And I don't know which way is the dominant way.
But one way it could be playing is that Trump has such a commanding control over the media that he and his, let's say, supporters can feed the media stories that fit exactly into their sweet spot, like right on the nose.
This is exactly what you thought would happen, isn't it?
And it will just make them chase their tails about this third term while Trump gets things done.
Because, again, they're going to run out of shelf space.
They can't talk about everything all the time.
They have to decide what to talk about, and they always have to coordinate, so they're all talking about the same thing.
So with one good troll...
You can make the entire enemy media landscape focus on the message that you wanted them to focus on.
And if it turns out that the whole third-term thing just doesn't resonate with anybody, you know, doesn't resonate with Democrat voters, doesn't resonate with Republican voters, he could be sort of leading them down this dead-end alley, which would be brilliant Steve Bannon strategy.
Now, is that what he's thinking?
Again, I can't read his mind because he's a little bit ahead of most of us.
He's certainly ahead of me in some ways.
So if he thinks it's a good idea to tease this third term, he might be just working on a level that we're not quite at.
You know, I'll just put that out there.
If it were anyone else who did not have a proven record of seeing around corners, I would say, hmm, looks like a mistake.
But just the fact that it comes from Bannon makes me go, okay, back up, back up.
He doesn't do things by accident.
He doesn't do something that dramatic without thinking it through completely.
So we'll see.
I'd love to hear his thinking on it someday.
You probably saw on the news that Trump was talking to some folks that included the governor of Maine.
And Trump was saying that he was banning, at least in terms of supporting with federal funds, he was going to not give federal funds to any school that was allowing biological men to play women's sports.
And I guess the governor of Maine was in the audience, Janet Mills, and she indicated that they were going to continue allowing ballot.
Biological males and women's sports.
And it was kind of a smallish room, you know, not that many people attending.
And watching Trump just destroy her while we watched was kind of interesting.
So he starts out by saying, you know, it's illegal.
He made it illegal.
Then she tried to say, oh, we obey state and federal law.
So she's...
You know, making the point that his executive orders are not law.
Trump tried to sell it as law, but that's a harder sell.
So instead he backed up to, smartly, he backed up to, well, you're not getting any federal funds then.
And then he adds, and by the way, your political career is basically over now.
And he said, the voters in your own state, Want what I'm offering, which is blocking biological men and women's sports.
So not only did he dress her down in public, but he basically predicted the end of her political career over this because it's so obviously what Trump wants is also popular in her state.
So that was fun.
She said, I'll see you in court.
And he said, looking forward to it.
I will give her credit for being spunky, but she's being spunky on the wrong topic.
So I don't think that's going to work.
According to the news, Trump is planning to shut down a federal building in San Francisco.
But the funny part is that the name of the building is the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building.
So he's going to close down the presumably...
Largely unused.
Nancy Pelosi Federal Building.
And I was thinking that if they're going to sell it, they should change the name first.
Because I don't know what kind of a bidding war you're going to get for the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, but you might want to change that to something that would get a Republican bidder.
I suppose if you buy it, you can change the name.
It just feels like somebody died in the building.
You know how you always have to, if you're selling a residential real estate, you have to disclose if anybody ever died in the house you're selling.
Well, I think having Nancy Pelosi's name on your building is sort of the commercial property equivalent of somebody died in it.
That's just me.
J.D. Vance is at CPAC, too, and he was defending the appropriateness of young men acting like young men instead of being forced to, as he said, Democrats are trying to turn everyone into androgynous idiots.
The Democrats are trying to turn everyone into androgynous idiots.
That's pretty badass.
I don't think J.D. Vance or any vice president would have said those words unless he was under the umbrella of Trump, in which case it just seems natural.
Yeah, they're trying to turn everyone into androgynous idiots.
And then he went on, J.D. did, saying that the Republicans believe that there are two sexes and that there's a reason for that, and obviously there's some...
There are some exceptions.
Not every person is born with exactly male or exactly female stuff.
But the exceptions are so rare that it makes sense to treat them as exceptions.
I think that's the point.
There's still some talk about that Epstein list.
Alina Habba said that transparency is coming and we're going to see that list.
Well, do you think so?
Do you really think that the Epstein list is going to be presented and it will tell us things we didn't already know?
I would put the odds of that at very low.
Very, very low.
It's possible that something will come out that looks like it's new, but it's not that new.
Maybe we already knew it, or it'll be who flew on Epstein's plane.
But that won't tell you that they did anything illegal, because apparently a lot of people flew on his plane.
So my prediction will be, you're not going to learn anything.
Because if they had the goods, they wouldn't tell you.
They would keep it for themselves.
Suppose, I'll just put it out there, suppose there was something on there that was embarrassing to an ally.
Like, I don't know, something involving the British royal family.
I'm just putting that out as an example.
I have no information whatsoever.
Would we, as an ally of Great Britain, would we throw their royal family under the bus knowing that that would be a big problem and that whatever anybody did or did not do probably stopped?
So...
You know, who's the better off?
I don't know.
I think I see five different reasons not to tell us and not a single reason to tell us.
So I don't think they're going to tell us.
They might come back and say, well, really, there's no list.
There's just a lot of information and we're still looking through it.
And, you know, it's all got stuff we can't show you.
I don't know.
Nothing.
Nothing's going to happen.
Well, there's a Pentagon shakeout, you probably heard.
So Trump's removing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown Jr. Now, because it's 2025 and I know what you're going to say, you're going to say he was a DEI hire because he was a black man, four-star general.
There's no indication of that.
There's no indication of that.
In fact, he was...
I think he got his last job through Trump, and Trump has said good things about him, and even in replacing him, he had good things to say.
So I would not make any assumptions about General C.Q. Brown Jr. It may be that maybe he was a little too pro-DEI. Maybe Trump just wants his own preferred advisor there.
He doesn't really need a reason.
But the reason I would rule out is it has anything to do with DEI. I don't think it does in this case.
But at the same time, I think Hegseth removed the Admiral of the Navy, who was a woman.
And again, there's no direct information that this is any kind of a DEI thing, unless the problem is...
It was somebody who supported DEI too much.
Supporting it would be its own problem.
But no, let's not do the thing where every single person who loses a job under the Trump administration was incapable because of some DEI reason.
The DEI argument, as I often remind you, is that it guarantees that things will fall apart, just not any specific person at any specific time.
You can't go that far.
Meanwhile, the SBA offices are mostly empty.
So there's a new SBA chief, Kelly Loeffler, and did a video of her second day of work.
And the office is just pristine but empty.
You know, everything looks like it's in good shape.
It's just empty.
So I guess on Monday, federal employees have to go back to work.
Is that for all the federal employees?
I don't know.
I feel really bad for them.
My Dilbert comic-making part of me says, oh, God, imagine losing the right to work at home.
Well, maybe there was a little slack and off at home.
Maybe there was.
But it would be devastating if you built your life around this working at home thing and then you lost the ability to do it.
There are people, for example, who probably got a dog because one of them was going to be home all day.
That would be really bad for the dog.
To have to leave it home all day.
So people are going to have a really hard adjustment.
Now you might say, but I don't feel sorry for them because they were working at home and collecting their paycheck and maybe not working too hard.
Well, we have to make the hard choices.
No doubt about it.
But there's definitely a human impact that's hard to ignore.
According to the Washington Post, Trump might want to take over the post office and move it under the commerce.
Department, instead of leaving it as this quasi-independent thing that it is.
But I don't know why.
I didn't see in the story any reasoning.
Does anybody know a reason?
Is it because we assume that the Commerce Department would make it more efficient somehow?
I don't know.
I don't know what problem is being solved there, but we'll see if that happens.
According to Eric Doherty, who's reporting on this, when Trump was talking to the governors, I think it was in the same time he was talking to that main governor, he told the governors that they need to switch to paper ballots in their election and same-day voting.
Here's what he said.
He also said to verify citizenship to vote and voter ID, and that Elon Musk supports this.
So, I love that Trump can now say, Elon Musk supports this or that.
Because, you know, if Trump supports it, you say, well, it's at least political.
So, there's at least a political reason.
But is that good enough?
Well, if Musk supports it, then it makes sense technically.
And it makes sense logically.
And it probably makes sense economically.
Because, you know, Musk isn't going to ignore any of that stuff.
You know, Musk is not going to say, well, Let's ignore the technical issues.
No, he's not going to do that.
He's not going to ignore cost or effectiveness or any of the things that he focuses on.
He's not going to ignore the very things he focuses on.
So it's such a good thing to be able to refer to, and Elon Musk agrees with me.
Anyway, so he says more about it, Trump does.
He says it's called the watermark.
It's impossible to copy, impossible to cheat.
I'm not sure if it's impossible, but it'd be much harder.
Highly sophisticated, he says.
He goes, those four things, if he did two-day or three-day voting, fine.
Other states do.
They were weeks after the election.
Imagine if it were a close election.
So, you know, his point is well taken.
And he said, I did ask Elon Musk, and he said...
Quote, now I'm not sure this is an accurate quote, but this is Trump saying that he talked to Musk, and Musk wasn't in the room then.
And this is what he says, Elon Musk said.
So I did ask Elon Musk, and he said, quote, computers are not meant for voting.
Too many transactions taking place.
Now, I don't know what that means exactly, because generally I would think too many transactions.
Is why you want a computer.
You know, it'd be the whole reason for a computer.
But is there a part left out?
Is there some context left out or maybe a fuller reason that's not expressed here?
So I'd love to hear Elon's take on voting machines.
Love to hear that.
And then about paper ballots.
Trump says, I hope the governor's...
He says it'll cost you 8% of what the costs are now.
So it'll be 8% of the cost to use paper instead of machines.
So it's not faster.
It's not cheaper.
It's not easier.
Why do we have machines?
Now, I posted the other day, maybe it was yesterday, that you should Google...
What countries have banned, just banned, made it illegal to do some of the things that we routinely do in our elections?
For example, did you know there are a number of countries that ban electronic voting machines?
You know, the very ones we use?
They're banned in some countries.
Do you know why they ban them?
Security risk.
We're actually using systems that our own allies You know, like European allies, our own allies, and other places too.
Our own allies, say, are not sufficient for voting.
And yet, the American public has been sold on, oh yeah, there's no way to cheat.
And then the Europeans who looked at exactly the same systems, the Europeans do know some things, like they're not children.
And when their experts looked at it, they said, no, you can't have this in our country.
You're banned.
And then we just use it.
Banned in another country.
How about the voting by mail?
Do you know how many countries say it's illegal to vote by mail?
Quite a few.
And our allies.
Our allies say, oh, it's not safe to vote by mail.
That's just asking for a rigged election.
And it's our basic way with mail.
I think most of our votes were by mail.
So if you just take those two things, and then what about same-day voting versus voting for a month?
I don't know that there's anybody who does that.
At the very least, most of our allies probably ban voting outside of the narrow window on voting day, maybe a day or two.
And I'm sure they have special things for military serving overseas and stuff.
But those are just small exceptions.
When you say that our own voting system includes major elements, not minor, but the most important elements, are literally banned by our own allies who also looked into it.
Do you feel comfortable with our system?
Europe doesn't.
How about our food?
You ever notice you go to Europe, and because they've banned more things than we have, you can eat the food and not get fat?
Come back to America.
God knows what you're putting in your body.
Well, sometimes our allies get it right.
I think they got it right with food.
We'll wait for RFK Jr. to do his full look at stuff to know for sure.
But it looks like they got it right with food.
And it certainly looks like they got it right with election security.
So maybe we shouldn't be so quick to say, America does everything better than everybody, because obviously not.
Obviously not.
So, let's talk about the budget.
Oh, the most fun thing about this voting machine thing is I hope it gets to the point where Elon makes a clear statement in his own voice about what he thinks of electronic voting machines.
I'm going to guess, I think he may have said it before, but I think he did confirm it actually the other day, that voting machines are not ideal for voting.
So, in order to get Democrats to disagree, they have to disagree with Elon Musk on a question of technology and systems.
It just gets funnier.
Watching the Democrats be in automatic, reflexive disagreement mode about everything, it just makes, you can trap them a hundred different ways.
All right.
All right.
Let's go to the next topic.
The next topic is electronic voting machines, and Elon Musk says that there is a security problem.
What do you say?
Well, what does Elon Musk know about technology?
It's going to look so dumb.
Anyway.
I guess there are two versions of the budget that have been passed.
The House had a version that...
It covers the whole budget, and I guess that's passed.
But of course, both houses would need to pass a bill for it to be the actual budget.
So the Senate, instead of waiting for the House or working on the House version, they did their own.
Not that unusual.
But theirs, they also passed theirs, but theirs is a two-part process.
So they only passed the first part.
Now, I think there's some strategy involved here.
I think the Senate is thinking a little more strategically, but Trump actually liked the House.
Trump liked the House because they threw everything that he cares about into their budget.
And he says, well, just approve the whole thing and we're done.
But the Senate does one version that's focused on border security, the military, beefing up the military, and focused on energy production.
Now, that's pretty smart, too.
Because if the Republicans are all on board with those things, they can vote on them and then just take them off the table because it's already voted on.
And then when they bring the second bill, which they would plan to do later in the year, so that would be the one that talks about Trump's tax policy, extending it, and all the other stuff.
All right.
That's the good news.
Here's the bad news.
I read two long stories about these two different budgets.
One the Senate version and one the House.
Do you know what was not included in either story?
The deficit.
The deficit.
The deficit's the only thing I care about.
It's the only thing that's going to kill us.
You know, the other things are important.
You've got to have a military, you've got to have a border.
But, really...
If you're talking about the budget and your top line isn't, they got a new budget, it's going to add to the deficit by this much, they're not really in the right conversation.
They're not covering it at all.
It should be, number one, what would this budget do to our deficit?
And then if the answer is, oh, it blows it up worse, then we're done.
They need to go back and do it again.
Unless they have some other plan that I'm not aware of where the budget will magically not be spent or something.
I mean, what's that?
So, we have one job.
Bring us a budget that doesn't break the bank.
Oh, here's a budget that breaks the bank.
Well, you got anything else?
Yes, we have another budget that breaks the bank.
Got anything else?
Well, we have a process to create a budget that breaks the bank.
Okay.
Let me say it again.
The only thing that would be a mistake, the only thing, would be a budget that breaks the bank.
So let's try it again.
You got the House version and the Senate.
Could one of you assholes go come back with a budget that doesn't break the bank?
Sure, sure.
Tomorrow they come back.
Well, here's our budget.
Does it break the bank?
Yeah, it does.
How about you in the Senate?
Do you have a new one?
Yes, we do.
Here's a brand new budget.
Does it break the bank?
Yeah.
Yeah, it does.
Can you even get Rand Paul to agree with it?
No.
No.
We can't get Rand Paul to vote for it.
Why won't he vote for it?
It breaks the bank.
Okay, are you even listening to us?
We've got one thing we fucking want.
Don't break the bank.
Alright, I'll try again next week.
Here's my budget.
Does it break the bank?
Yeah, but there's no time.
There's no time left to do it any other way.
Really?
You waited months until there would be no time.
So you could fucking shove this down our throats and up our asses at the same fucking time, and we would sit there and say, oh, I guess there's no time left.
There's no time left.
Could you get a watch from Rand Paul, please?
Could somebody talk to Rand Paul and get a fucking watch?
Because there is time, if you want to do it right.
Now, I know it's hard, but if you can't do it, just fucking give up.
And tell us, oh, sorry, the only thing you wanted us to do, we're not going to do, and we're not able to do it, and we won't do it later, and we won't do it at the last minute.
There's just no way we can do it.
Well, give up, and then maybe we'll try something else.
Maybe the White House can come up with a budget, and you just have to vote on it.
But don't give us another fucking bank-busting budget.
Now, if I'm wrong...
Meaning that, let's say, the DOGE effort is on top of the budget, so that as we start realizing the cuts, because it takes a while to actually realize any of the cuts, that the plan is to reduce the budget by exactly the amount of the DOGE findings.
If that's the plan, could you let us know?
Could you include that in the budget wording so that we know, well, we're going to pass one with a $2 trillion deficit per year, per year.
But we're really hoping that by the end of whatever, we'll have most of that $2 trillion cut down, and so in the end, we won't be spending it all.
Or tell us this, you know it's too late to do it for the next 12 months.
All the doge cuts that we find, even if we cut it right away, the best we're going to be able to do is kind of look at a 2026 as the year that the doge cuts really kick in and then we can really reduce the budget.
To which I would say, alright, alright.
Everybody wants it sooner, but if anything's good, it's worth waiting for.
But I'm reading two major stories in our press.
And even the media, even the media is ignoring the deficit when they talk about the budget.
How in the world is this even happening?
Anyway, so as you know, Zelensky and Trump had some words for each other.
And here's what Trump says about Zelensky.
He said it on Fox News Radio.
He said, quote, I've been watching for years, and I've been watching him, meaning Zelensky, negotiate with no cards, Trump said of Zelensky.
He has no cards, and he gets sick of it.
So, I don't think he's very important to be at meetings, Trump says of Zelensky, to be honest with you.
And then he said, he makes it very hard to make deals.
Trump can dismiss the value of people better than anybody I've ever seen, whether you like it or not.
But what he says, Zelensky's trying to negotiate with no cards, and he makes it very hard to make deals.
It sounds like he's talking about trying to do a Zoom call, and your kids keep coming in and bothering you during the middle of the Zoom call.
It's like, I'm trying to do a Zoom call here.
I got to lock the children out.
They just keep wandering in the room.
It makes it very hard to do a serious Zoom call.
Anyway, so apparently Trump is also angry, according to Rubio and Vance, they both say, that this is being reported in the National Pulse, Jack Montgomery.
Apparently, both Rubio and Vance say that Trump is mad at Zelensky.
Because, allegedly, Zelensky had agreed on at least the framework of a deal where Ukraine would be giving up some mineral rights to the U.S. in return for some security guarantees.
And Trump went away thinking that that was a done deal because there had been agreement.
And then Zelensky, according to at least our side, Zelensky just lied and said, no, there's no deal.
So, imagine being the person who lied about what happened in a room and then threw Trump under the bus with your lie.
At the same time, he's the only one that can protect your country.
That's what I call somebody who's not good at making deals.
So, when Trump says that Zelensky is not good and he's making it harder to make deals, well, there's a perfect example.
If you know Zelensky is going to make a deal in private and then publicly say there's no deal, how do you work with that guy?
I mean, seriously.
What can you do with somebody who does that right in front of you?
And, you know, apparently Rubio and Vance are both backing that that's exactly what happened.
Now, it would be one thing if he changed his mind or he said, you know, let's not get too far.
In front of it, we haven't closed on any details of what it would look like with the mineral rights.
So we agree in principle, but we're a long way from a specific agreement.
I could live with that.
I could live with that if they didn't have any specifics.
Just say, don't know it's going to happen.
We like it in general, but we're going to have to make sure the details work for Ukraine.
But to just come out and say that it didn't happen?
That there was no agreement?
You leave that guy home.
You just leave him home.
And you make a deal, and then if you can make one, you just make it work.
So I'm going to make a point.
I don't remember if I made it on the show or I made it in the man cave.
Some people are criticizing Trump for seemingly having granted concessions.
To Putin without actually negotiating.
For example, I think Trump's said, you know, certainly there'll be some kind of land for peace deal.
So it's not as if Russia's going to give back all the things or any of the things that they've captured.
So that seems like you're just giving Putin something.
To which I say, it's not giving somebody something if you know that's not up for conversation.
And it works both ways.
Do you think that Putin is going to ask Trump, at the end of this, we want to make sure that America has no CIA bases and no military bases and no strong connection to Ukraine?
Well, that's what Putin would want, wouldn't he?
Wouldn't he want Europe and of Ukraine and America and of Ukraine?
Do you think he's going to ask for that?
Well, probably not.
Why would he not ask for the very thing he wants most?
Because he wouldn't get it.
It would just be a waste of time.
So if you watch both Putin and Trump say, okay, I'm not even going to ask for that.
That's just a waste of my own time.
If you really want a deal, the first thing you have to do is decide what things are not on the table to talk about.
And if you both agree with the other side, okay, I get it.
I get it.
That's not up for conversation.
When I made my deal to be a syndicated cartoonist the first time, did I give up anything in negotiation?
Of course!
Because I knew I couldn't get it.
One of the things would be, let's say, okay, I want to do a 15-year contract with you as my syndicator company, but at any time, if I get a better deal from somebody else, I can just go over there.
That's what I wanted.
Why did I not ask for that?
Because there's not Any chance in the world that they would have agreed to that?
The whole industry is based on the fact that the syndication company puts up a lot of resources at first so that they can get money down the line.
So you wouldn't ask for something you know you're not going to get.
So the same with Trump.
Let's check in with Morning Joe Scarborough.
He's saying now that Republicans did not vote.
To cut wasteful spending.
Isn't that amazing?
I remember when I briefly thought that MSNBC was trying to be news and, you know, trying to be, you know, maybe biased, but they're trying to be news.
Once you realize that they're only in it for the propaganda, it's not really a news network.
It's not like, you know, even the ones that are biased.
I always talk about CNN. CNN's biased.
Fox News is biased.
But if you know the bias, you can kind of factor that into your viewing.
But MSNBC doesn't try to do anything.
It's just pure propaganda.
Want an example?
How about this?
NBC, the parent company of MSNBC, NBC is now settling a $30 million defamation suit.
And the defamation suit is because they claimed that there was some specific gentleman Who was working at the ICE facilities and was doing unnecessary hysterectomies, and he was a uterus collector.
So they said he was doing, basically, here's what they thought.
So MSNBC, and this included Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Nicole Wallace, they were treating this story as if they'd found Hitler's Dr. Mengele.
Because if you believe you're living in a Hitler movie, you're going to look for Dr. Mengele, the one who does illegal and horrific experimentation on people that don't look like you.
Right?
And so they come up with this story that according to them, and they're being sued and they lost because it's all fake, they believed, based on some reporting that got to them, They believed that there was a doctor who was just doing unnecessary sterilization of immigrants.
Now, how could they have known that that was a fake story?
You would all know it, wouldn't you?
I'd never heard of the story when it was originally aired.
But if I told you, okay, turns out that Trump has a Dr. Mengele kind of guy at the border.
And he's just taking the reproductive equipment out of women with surgery.
And there's no medical reason.
No medical reason at all.
What would be your first reaction to that?
Well, that's not true.
Do you know why you would know that's not true?
Say it.
Say it.
There's a rule.
There's a rule I've taught you about out-of-spot fake news.
Right on the rule.
And the rule goes like this.
That's too on the nose.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
You're saying that Trump is Hitler and now magically has something to do with immigration.
That's a little too perfect.
That you found a Dr. Mengele who's doing these horrible experimental or whatever he's doing.
If I had heard that story on day one, Yeah, you got it.
If I'd heard that on day one, I don't remember hearing it ever, actually.
But if I'd heard that story, I would say, seriously?
You can't tell?
You can't tell just by hearing it that it's not true.
I would guess that most of my audience would have spotted that one right away.
What do you think?
How many of you think you would have spotted that in the first minute?
Because you know the rule about two on the nose.
That two on the nose thing works so well.
Until you see a few cycles of it working, it's hard to convince yourself it's that accurate.
But boy, does it work.
Because the real world doesn't serve up stories that clean.
That's just such a clean, perfect political story.
The real world doesn't create those.
Those are always fake.
So, at least you wouldn't have been fooled.
Well, here's another win from Robbie Starbuck.
Pepsi-Cola is announced it's going to end its DEI policies, according to Katie Jurkovic.
Is that really a name?
Katie Jurkovic?
It must have been tough in high school, unless that's a married name, in which case her husband had a tough time.
Anyway, the Daily Wire is ready to admit this, and they're going to end their DEI. I'm pretty sure that Robbie Starbuck was the driver of that, because he mentioned it might be coming.
And here's my question.
So you're a Democrat, and you've been living in a bubble, and you don't know what's true.
But you do believe that the things you're being told are largely true.
So let's say you believe that DEI was just flat-out good for the world, and you were happy that these big corporations were woke and that they were pursuing it because, hey, that's double good.
Big corporations are on board?
Yes.
And DEI is good, according to you?
Yes.
Those are two good things.
And then they're implementing it, and they're spending lots of money on the DEI? Yes.
That's like a big win, right?
And then PepsiCo announces that they're going to end the whole thing.
Why would they do that?
Why would Pepsi-Cola end it?
Is it because they're afraid of Robbie Starbuck?
Well, maybe.
Maybe.
Because he can bring a lot of negative media attention to a company.
But here's what I think it is.
I think Pepsi-Cola realized it was a huge expense.
And it didn't help their DEI or diversity much at all, or at least not in any way they couldn't have done on their own without any DEI. And I think maybe they appreciate it when somebody like Robbie Starbuck comes in and gives them what I call the fake because.
So I've described the fake because in the context of persuasion.
A fake because.
There's a reason that you are willing to go with, even if you don't buy into the reason, because it's something you wanted to do for your own reasons that you maybe couldn't mention.
So you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, we love this DEI, but I don't think we can handle all the attention we'd get from Robbie Starbuck, and then half of our customers are conservative, and they'd stop buying.
I guess we're forced into a corner.
You know, we'd really love to just drive this DEI as hard as we could.
We'd love to do that.
We wish we could, but oh, oh, darn.
Darn, Robbie Starbuck came after us, and yeah, that's a risk too.
So I guess we're just going to have to live in the real world and get rid of our DEI as much as we loved it.
So that's a fake because.
I don't believe for a minute.
That the leadership of Pepsi was saying, really?
We really wanted to keep this DEI because it was working out so well.
Nope.
I think the reason you're going to see a lot of the bigger companies now start to fall in line the same way is they all have the same fake because.
Oh, so a well-known conservative activist might turn half of our customers against us over this.
Yeah, I guess just out of fiduciary responsibility, we're going to have to get rid of DEI. But we'll tell everybody we're still going to get diversity.
We'll just do it a cheaper way.
So I think that's what's happening.
Now, how do Democrats handle this situation?
Well, let's look at The View.
So The View had a conversation about DEI. And the question they were trying to wrestle with on The View, The ladies of the view, is the idea of blind hiring versus normal hiring.
Blind would be, presumably, they wouldn't know anything about the candidate except their experience.
And then if the experience was right, then you get the candidate, and then later you find out, oh, okay, looks like we got some diversity too, double win.
But you wouldn't be managing it to it.
You know, you would just be managing to merit.
Now, the problem is, I don't know how you do blind hiring because you just have to do an interview.
I wouldn't hire anybody without an interview.
So I'm not sure how you would do blind hiring, but that was the idea they were talking about.
And Sunny Hostin, she starts with the following assumption.
Which shows she's never worked in a real corporate environment.
You know, the TV corporate environment is not like any other.
So TV is just its own little island world.
But I got the feeling she's never had any experience with a regular corporation.
Because the main thing that people know is that it's not an equal pool of candidates.
That's the whole problem.
If it were possible, just numerically, And again, this has nothing to do with anybody's genes or race or sexual preference.
It has nothing to do with anybody's culture.
It's just math.
I'll use Elbonians to make my point.
If you were trying to make sure you had enough Elbonians working for your company, and you were, let's say, in the nuclear energy business, and you look around, you're like, oh, we've got to get more Elbonians, and you find out...
There are only three Elbonians who have ever gotten that degree, you know, the degree that you need for that job.
And the three of them have already been hired by a bigger company.
So, you know, Google already hired them.
Apple already hired them.
Somebody already hired them.
And they were genuinely good.
They had all the right experience, all the right everything.
So everybody agrees those three absolutely first-rate nuclear scientists.
You need diversity, too.
And the only three that had the right background are already hired.
What are you going to do?
Do you not pursue diversity, at least in terms of Elbonians, or do you lower your standard and hope it works out?
As in, well, I'd like somebody with a PhD in engineering, but how about just somebody who says they're good at it?
In the real world, and this is what Sonny Hostin apparently has never been exposed to, is that in the real world, people will manage to the number.
So if you say to me, Scott, there are two things you need to do as a manager in this company.
Number one, diversity.
And we've got specific goals for you to hit.
I go, okay, good.
I like it when the goals are specific.
Then I know if I hit or not.
And the other one is, we want you to get your...
A fusion reactor, which is experimental, and I'd like that to be up and running in five years.
And I go, in five years?
Yeah, because that's the fastest you might be able to do it.
I'd say, okay, so you're definitely going to base my bonus on my diversity number this year.
But you won't know this year if I'm going to hit my five-year target of opening my...
You know, nuclear plant.
So I'll just tell you that things are moving along great because I'm not worried about that one.
You know, I haven't done anything wrong yet.
It's just sort of moving along.
But I'm going to make sure I nail the diversity thing because I'm definitely going to suffer if I don't do that.
So what are you going to do?
You're going to lower your requirements to hit the diversity target.
Now, this is something that Sunny Hostin doesn't understand because she imagines that there's an endless bounty of available, high-quality people that are all there for anybody who wants to hire them.
I wish.
If that were true, you wouldn't need any DEI, would you?
You would never need a DEI group if everybody who wanted to hire talented people just opened their door and was like, wow, there's a lot of talented people with just the right...
And look, they come in all types.
All right, they come in all types.
I'm not even going to worry about diversity.
I'll just do my hiring in the normal order of doing anything, and diversity takes care of itself.
Because diversity was solved before I even opened my door.
So, here's my take on the ladies of the view and the question of DEI. They're operating on a completely different fact pattern.
Than you and I. So, because of the different fact pattern, when we look at them, they look like they're either stupid or lying, right?
When I'm watching, I think, are you stupid?
Or are you just lying right now and you know it's not true?
But, because they also have a different fact pattern than us, when they look at our, maybe even what I just said, they're going to say, huh.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense with what I know to be true.
So you're either a racist, and you might be lying too.
So you're probably a lying racist.
Now, neither of them are true.
I don't believe that Sonny Hostin is stupid, and I don't think she's lying exactly.
I think she's working with the fact pattern that she thinks are the facts.
And when I talk about it, I'm using the facts that I know.
And the one thing I would offer is that I don't think the ladies of the view have much or any contact with ordinary straight white men.
Because if they had even one, just one ordinary corporate straight man sitting there for, let's say, the hour, everything they thought was true, they'd find out wasn't.
And then the fact pattern would change.
Now, if the fact pattern ends up being the same on both sides and then you've still got wide disagreement, well, then something else is going on.
But as long as we're dealing with different facts about, you know, what is the pool of qualified people of every type, if we have a completely different fact about that, you can't judge anybody based on what comes out of their mouth because It's all driven by the wrong fact.
And we're the ones who think we have the right ones and they think they have the wrong.
So I would say this.
If you haven't included a straight white man, you just don't know what you're talking about.
I feel like I have a pretty good sense for what the non-straight white men are thinking because it's not that hard.
You know, they're just thinking, hey, there should be more of us in this company.
We're highly qualified.
So why don't we have those jobs?
I get it.
It's not really hard to understand.
But how many Democrats would even understand that for 40 years, 40 years, straight white men have been overtly discriminated against in employment?
As in, Bob, come in here.
I gotta tell you that you can't be promoted because you're straight, you're white, and you're male.
We hear it directly.
We're not guessing.
Management tells us this directly.
I've been told this twice.
I talk about it too often.
I've heard it directly.
And if I asked you how many of you have heard it directly, the comments would just go, it'd be full of people.
There are 50 million, at least, I bet you there are 50 million witnesses to this, and yet Democrats don't know it.
Why?
Because it's 50 million people they don't want to hear from.
At all.
And so they don't.
In related news, according to a Gallup report, the Post's millennials writing about this, 1 in 10 American adults identify as LGBTQ more than ever before.
Huh.
Let's see.
Have we ever talked about this concept of follow the money?
Yes, we have, Scott.
You talk about it way too often.
All right, well, let's do that with this one.
Because it seems like it's about sexual identification, doesn't it?
And that the sexual identification as being in the LGBTQ community seems higher than ever.
Now, one reason for that could be that there's less stigma.
So there are more people saying, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, certainly for women, if you know any young women, I'll tell you what a normal conversation with a young woman would look like in 2025. So, what do you identify as?
Well, I, you know, I like boys.
Oh, so you're hetero.
Well, I don't rule out a relationship with a woman.
What?
I mean, I've never been attracted to a woman.
Here I'm pretending to be a young woman.
I've never been attracted to a young woman, but I don't rule it out.
I mean, if I met the right person, I could imagine that I would go for that.
Okay, but you never have, right?
No, I never have.
But why would I rule it out?
Because they don't have any reason to rule it out.
So, are they bi?
Just because they didn't rule it out?
Kind of yes.
If they were to fill out a forum, they might say, well, I haven't ruled out either gender, so I guess I'm open.
Boop.
So a lot of it is just how people would answer a question in 2025 and 2024. And a lot of it is that definitely the stigma is gone, and maybe even somebody thinks it's a little bit sexy to say that they're more open-minded.
You know, lots of reasons.
But remember following...
Follow the money always works.
And I tell you, why does follow the money always work even when it shouldn't?
I don't know.
But it always works.
Let me do it now.
If I applied for a job in corporate America and I said, you know, I present myself as a straight white male, what are my odds of getting the job?
Well, maybe a Pepsi-Cola a little bit better than it was.
But basically, it would be the hardest sell.
You're a straight white man.
Boom.
But if I suck one dick, what happens to my odds of getting hired?
Just one dick.
Goes through the roof.
Because now I'm a member of the LGBTQ community, and I'm a preferred candidate.
Now, somebody might say, but, you know, do you do it on a regular basis?
Or is it just something you tried?
To which I might say, doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter how often.
Nobody's telling me you can't be gay if you didn't do it a number of times.
I sucked one dick.
So I'm LGBTQ. Get over it.
All right.
Well, would it be okay if we put you down as LGBTQ? Absolutely.
You fill out your form any way you like, just give me that job.
Now, do I believe anybody has done that?
I've never heard of it.
I've never heard of it once.
But why is it that the economic incentive to be LGBTQ exists at the same time there are way more LGBTQ people?
So, yes, it could be completely explained by...
People are more open-minded and society is less judgmental.
That could explain 100% of it.
But why is it always that follow the money will also tell you what's going to happen?
Why does it always work?
I guess that's just the mystery we'll have to figure out.
All right.
Well, Hamas is looking...
I guess they released some more hostages.
And one of them has not been identified.
I think there might have been some question about one of the prior hostages.
It may not have been who they said it was.
But here are the numbers.
There are 59 hostages remaining.
And maybe half of them are reportedly deceased.
So by hostage, I mean, in that case, there would just be the bodies.
But 59 of them are left.
And they're releasing them in groups of four and six and stuff.
Are we going to have to just put up with this for, what, years?
I mean, pretty much playing into their hands.
Because there's no real better way to handle it, which is what Hamas knows.
So I was brainstorming this morning to see if there was a better way to handle it.
And I don't know.
I don't know.
But let me just throw out an idea, and this will be the bad idea.
And see if you can fix it.
Presumably, there's some budget already for how much humanitarian aid is getting to the residents of Gaza, the ones who have been displaced mostly.
So let's say there's some budget.
And I'll just put a number on it.
Let's say $20 billion over some period of time for humanitarian support.
Here's what I'd be tempted to do.
But this would be a humanitarian disaster.
I'd be tempted to say, here's the deal.
You've got $20 billion coming to keep your people alive and help them get resettled wherever it is they end up.
But we're going to reduce that by half a billion dollars for every hostage we don't have back by Tuesday.
Pick a date.
So then Hamas gets to decide how long they wait.
But by Tuesday, they're going to lose their funding for humanitarian aid.
Now, that would be punishing the civilians for what the Hamas people in the tunnels are doing.
Typically, that would be the worst thing you could do.
That's like a war crime.
It's like collective punishment.
But what we're doing now is also a war crime.
And I don't know how...
Kind you're supposed to be to the population that seems almost fully supportive of the terrorists.
How much money are you supposed to give them for wanting to kill you?
I don't know.
Now, I'm not there, so I don't know what percentage of the Gaza refugees just want to mind their own business and don't want to hurt anybody.
Surely some people like that exist.
But it doesn't seem like the majority.
And it wouldn't work, by the way.
This is why I call it a bad idea.
As soon as you said you were going to deny food and medicine to the civilian population, that would be the end of that idea.
But there has to be something that we're taking away from Hamas for every person they're not giving us back.
There needs to be a specific cost and not just a, well, someday we're really going to bomb you.
Well, then you never get them back.
So it should be, you can take all the time you want.
It's costing you half a billion dollars per person you don't give us.
Something.
Now, like I said, it's the bad idea because it wouldn't be practical.
But is there any way that we can just put them on a schedule and say, you get to decide.
Yeah, you make up your own mind.
And we'll make sure that the residents know it's you who made this decision.
Well, anyway, Owen Gregorian's going to have a Spaces right now after we're done.
I think I'm going to say goodbye both to the locals people and the rest of you because Owen will be firing up the Spaces right about now.
He's probably getting ready to do it.
So look for Owen Gregorian and you can carry on the conversation if there's anything you heard today you want to follow up on or probably anything else.
And everybody, thanks for joining.
I really appreciate it when you take part of your Saturday to show up.
So X and Rumble and YouTube and Locals2, everybody, say goodbye.
