True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 508: Southern Strategy
Aired: 2025-12-11
Duration: 02:11:08


=== Strange Modern Warfare (09:29) ===

[00:00:00]  My fingers slowly slide down his back, touching the ridges of his spine.
[00:00:07]  I play little bongos with my fingies on them.
[00:00:11]  His pulse quickens under my tongue as I laugh at his.
[00:00:16]  What's the bump on the side of your neck?
[00:00:18]  No, no, what's the bump on the side of your neck?
[00:00:19]  Chug your lymph node.
[00:00:21]  Lymph node.
[00:00:21]  As I laugh at his lymph node like a thirsty dog on a hot day.
[00:00:28]  Suddenly, my lips tighten and my teeth start to suck in really well, like a crazy whistler from the ancient times.
[00:00:38]  His lymph node pops through the skin moistly, sexily, and down my throat where I swallow it like a yolk.
[00:00:48]  Why'd you stop?
[00:01:14]  People are going to get so mad about that.
[00:01:17]  People are gonna like, this is a free episode, right?
[00:01:19]  Yeah.
[00:01:19]  Unfortunately, this is an 18-plus episode, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:01:24]  This is an 18-plus episode.
[00:01:27]  And we're discussing extreme adult topics.
[00:01:30]  We're talking about war.
[00:01:32]  Yeah, and war fighters.
[00:01:34]  Warfight or warfighters.
[00:01:36]  We're talking about Jag and Jack.
[00:01:39]  We're talking about Jag.
[00:01:40]  We're talking about American things and cocaine.
[00:01:44]  SOCOM.
[00:01:46]  And yeah, SOCOM is crazy.
[00:01:49]  The rules of engagement.
[00:01:50]  I'm not going with a bunch of dudes to SOCOM.
[00:01:53]  No.
[00:01:54]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:01:55]  But I would go to AFRICOM.
[00:01:58]  Okay.
[00:01:59]  You would?
[00:02:00]  After everything that the imperialism has done to that continent?
[00:02:04]  I would because I do feel like now those guys are getting.
[00:02:11]  You think you get some trigger time?
[00:02:14]  No, I think that I was going to say they're getting like, you know, streamlined.
[00:02:19]  Getting cut down.
[00:02:20]  The staff is getting cold.
[00:02:22]  So you would go to AFRICOM so you could get fired?
[00:02:26]  No.
[00:02:26]  What rank would you have, Liz?
[00:02:29]  Lieutenant.
[00:02:30]  You don't have clearance to know.
[00:02:31]  Lieutenant Liz.
[00:02:33]  I love it.
[00:02:34]  Lieutenant.
[00:02:34]  Lieutenant Liz.
[00:02:36]  Come on.
[00:02:37]  You think higher?
[00:02:39]  Of course I think higher.
[00:02:41]  Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's give it a Zeek Heil.
[00:02:45]  My name is Bray Spelden.
[00:02:47]  I'm just playing.
[00:02:48]  That's not.
[00:02:49]  I don't mean that.
[00:02:50]  First of all, I don't mean that.
[00:02:52]  That is what they said to Hitler, which is.
[00:02:56]  You learned so much on this podcast.
[00:02:58]  People are.
[00:02:59]  Could you imagine?
[00:03:00]  It's like, you know, I don't.
[00:03:01]  Podcasts are terrible.
[00:03:03]  In fact, I think this is something that you've said, Brace Belden.
[00:03:06]  Podcasts are a terrible medium to learn from.
[00:03:10]  And yet, look at all this knowledge that you impart on our listeners.
[00:03:14]  But could you imagine 1933?
[00:03:16]  You've like you're it's like no, it's not even it's 1930.
[00:03:20]  You're just coming out of like it is still kind of the it is the depression in Germany.
[00:03:23]  You've eaten like a piece of meat once.
[00:03:25]  You're never any protein.
[00:03:27]  You're so frail and shit, but you hate the jewels.
[00:03:31]  Somehow like still bloated.
[00:03:33]  Yeah, you're still, well, no, you're like, yeah, well, it's like your corpulent father is still bloated somehow.
[00:03:41]  Who's like, he's like a sausage dealer, but like you are like a street urchin and you only eat a little, like you live like a Dickensian existence, but you love Adolf Hitler.
[00:03:50]  And you hit the rally, right?
[00:03:52]  You're like, maybe I'll, maybe there'll be some females at this motherfucker.
[00:03:55]  And you go there and you have to Zeke Heil, but you're like, I haven't had enough protein to do that too much.
[00:04:00]  You're saying, yeah.
[00:04:02]  You're physically too weak to Heil.
[00:04:04]  I didn't want to.
[00:04:06]  Oh, what?
[00:04:06]  What?
[00:04:07]  No, what do I say?
[00:04:08]  So, what do Polish?
[00:04:09]  What does a Polish person have to say to a Jewish person about this?
[00:04:11]  Hello, everyone.
[00:04:12]  I'm Liz.
[00:04:13]  My name is Brace.
[00:04:16]  I'm producer Young Chomsky.
[00:04:18]  And this is Trinan.
[00:04:19]  And the reason we're Zeke Hiling is because we're talking about the American military today.
[00:04:25]  Man, can you tell our listeners the tweet that you sent me today?
[00:04:30]  Oh, my God.
[00:04:31]  It was crazy.
[00:04:32]  Let me look at it again.
[00:04:33]  The social media of this administration is out of control.
[00:04:38]  There needs to be like no, I've already been too anti-woke this episode.
[00:04:46]  There needs to be a homophobic Nuremberg after this, where we just get all of these little fucking social media administrators for the fucking Trump regime and we lock them up because I don't actually, yeah, well, something worse should happen, but I won't say.
[00:05:02]  I hate these fucking people.
[00:05:04]  I hate this corny bullet.
[00:05:05]  This, this is almost like, where did I put it?
[00:05:07]  I guess I put it in the True Anon group chat.
[00:05:09]  I gotta find it.
[00:05:10]  No, you sent it to me.
[00:05:11]  I sent it to you.
[00:05:12]  I must have texted you so much since then.
[00:05:16]  This isn't as bad as the memes that like DHS does or whatever that are like, you know, fight for a Christian future and then the photo of like Arnold Schwarzenegger, whatever the fuck they're doing.
[00:05:26]  But this is Hegsethian for sure.
[00:05:28]  It is, but it's at least in the tradition, the like lame tradition of American military trying to do like video game style.
[00:05:38]  Yeah.
[00:05:39]  Yeah.
[00:05:39]  This is very modern warfare too.
[00:05:41]  Yeah.
[00:05:42]  I don't know why.
[00:05:42]  But it's just like an image.
[00:05:43]  It says Southern Spear.
[00:05:46]  U.S. military forces are deployed to the hashtag Southcom.
[00:05:50]  That's what we also say.
[00:05:51]  We have to call it hashtag SouthCom.
[00:05:53]  Our hashtag SouthCom air responsibility.
[00:05:55]  In support of hashtag op southern spear at Department of War directed operations and at POTUS priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland.
[00:06:08]  But the image is like let me describe it.
[00:06:11]  Okay.
[00:06:12]  Because obviously, like, Liz, I'm a vet.
[00:06:15]  And so, like, some of this shit to me.
[00:06:17]  Like, night ops, day ops, you know, any kind of like that kind of stuff.
[00:06:21]  In between ops, afternoon ops.
[00:06:24]  Yeah.
[00:06:24]  And the ops that have, because it's all about the ops that you don't go on.
[00:06:28]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:06:29]  That's what pre-ops, post-ops.
[00:06:31]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:06:32]  Those are illegal now.
[00:06:34]  No, no, not when we're on leave, my man.
[00:06:37]  I don't know why I'm saying that to you.
[00:06:39]  Not when we're on leave.
[00:06:41]  It is an image of a warfighter with one of them helmets.
[00:06:46]  I don't understand how they do all this shit.
[00:06:48]  He's got one of them helmets with a million wires hanging off.
[00:06:51]  So many wires.
[00:06:53]  He's got night vision goggles on.
[00:06:54]  He's got his nods.
[00:06:56]  He's got his nods on.
[00:06:58]  But also, someone.
[00:06:59]  And just little earmuffs.
[00:07:01]  No, so yeah.
[00:07:01]  Oh, because this is the thing that makes American warfighters so intensely pussy.
[00:07:08]  For all of human history, one of the coolest things about being in battle was how loud it was.
[00:07:13]  Because you're just like, wow.
[00:07:15]  It's like, you know.
[00:07:16]  Yeah.
[00:07:17]  Hans Zumma or whatever.
[00:07:21]  Go back to your boy in 1930, his pops.
[00:07:25]  Adolf Hitler?
[00:07:26]  No, his pops, you know, years before in the Great War, he lost his hearing.
[00:07:33]  He lost his hearing because of the shelling.
[00:07:34]  Sure.
[00:07:35]  And because of the shelling, yeah.
[00:07:37]  But it's loud.
[00:07:39]  And so when I was at war, you know what we did if it was really loud sometimes?
[00:07:43]  Lost our hearing.
[00:07:44]  That's what we did.
[00:07:45]  We had this one gun that was so loud, you just lost your hearing for a few minutes.
[00:07:49]  It's just, that's what it was.
[00:07:52]  And you couldn't do anything about it.
[00:07:53]  Sometimes you put cigarette butts in your ears.
[00:07:55]  And now, look at them.
[00:07:56]  Now they got them.
[00:07:57]  He's got his Drake's on.
[00:07:59]  Not Drake's, excuse me.
[00:08:00]  He's got his beats by Dreon.
[00:08:03]  He's got his beats by Dreon.
[00:08:05]  He's got his Peltors actually have.
[00:08:07]  And strangely, his Antifa mask.
[00:08:09]  He does.
[00:08:09]  No, they love dressing.
[00:08:11]  Like he's in his Sicario uniform.
[00:08:13]  So he's got a helmet on.
[00:08:16]  And we'll finish the helmet in a moment.
[00:08:18]  His nods, his Peltors, his fucking stupid little sunglasses, his little ranchero mask.
[00:08:26]  But on the helmet, he has a Crusader cross.
[00:08:29]  Yeah.
[00:08:30]  The same tattoo that Pete Hegseth has over his heart, I believe.
[00:08:34]  Yeah.
[00:08:35]  Interesting.
[00:08:36]  We usually do the flag, the American flag.
[00:08:38]  In fact, are you allowed to put?
[00:08:40]  I don't know.
[00:08:41]  And I don't give a fuck because I don't like that's like what that's like a like one of the things that liberals are like the flag should actually be displayed at all time.
[00:08:48]  I think the American flag should be displayed.
[00:08:50]  The American flag is the same as put the Israeli flag on it.
[00:08:52]  But like this is some shit that like ISIS propaganda would have.
[00:08:56]  Like the Crusaders are coming.
[00:08:58]  It's the Crusader crosses.
[00:09:00]  It's a different kind of crusade.
[00:09:01]  No, no, no.
[00:09:02]  That was it.
[00:09:02]  That was, they would be like, they're the crusaders.
[00:09:04]  We're going to fight them in the big battle, whatever.
[00:09:06]  But out of his titty is emitted a soldier repelling down.
[00:09:12]  From a heli.
[00:09:13]  From a heli.
[00:09:15]  And then a bunch of soldiers waiting around probably to go, you know, we got to kill a farmer.
[00:09:22]  It's just sort of a strange thing.
[00:09:23]  Are they doing a lot of repelling out there?
[00:09:25]  I think that they're mostly killing.
[00:09:27]  They're certainly repelling me.
[00:09:28]  Fishermen.

=== Patient Patriots (03:11) ===

[00:09:29]  No?
[00:09:30]  That's like what Operation Southern Spear is doing.
[00:09:32]  Yeah.
[00:09:32]  Mostly murdering fishermen.
[00:09:33]  We'll talk about that.
[00:09:34]  Southern Spear might be expanding, but.
[00:09:37]  And before we get into this episode more, we're patriots.
[00:09:42]  Absolutely.
[00:09:43]  We're the patient patriots.
[00:09:45]  We wait.
[00:09:46]  We wait and we observe.
[00:09:47]  The patient patriots.
[00:09:49]  Patient patrons graffiti actually around Brooklyn.
[00:09:51]  Yeah.
[00:09:52]  Yeah.
[00:09:52]  Oh, well, that's that's been me.
[00:09:54]  That's been me.
[00:09:55]  I'm depeting with the Persian poet and Seven Souls Deep.
[00:09:58]  And it's me, the patient patriot.
[00:10:00]  With my slow.
[00:10:02]  It gets better.
[00:10:05]  That's terrible.
[00:10:07]  But it is.
[00:10:09]  Everyone knows it only gets bitter.
[00:10:10]  It does.
[00:10:11]  You know, actually, let's be real.
[00:10:13]  It gets worse.
[00:10:14]  It gets worse.
[00:10:15]  What has ever gotten better?
[00:10:17]  Wi-Fi speed?
[00:10:21]  Actually, yeah, it has.
[00:10:22]  That's pretty much it.
[00:10:23]  I guess some cancer stuff, but more stuff gives us cancer now, right?
[00:10:28]  I'm a little bit maha with that, maybe.
[00:10:31]  I don't know if it more stuff gives us or we've real, we've done, you know, more research into what gives us cancer.
[00:10:38]  Yeah, but here's the thing: hair bugs.
[00:10:41]  Hair bugs.
[00:10:42]  What do we, I have a question.
[00:10:44]  Let's pull the men on this podcast.
[00:10:47]  Asked and answered.
[00:10:49]  What do you think about this supposed cure for baldness?
[00:10:54]  None of my business.
[00:10:56]  Yet.
[00:10:58]  Well, we'll see.
[00:10:59]  Liz, I want you to take one look right now and ask yourself if that will ever be a problem.
[00:11:05]  No, This is not about your own.
[00:11:08]  I'm not talking about you as individuals.
[00:11:11]  Where's your solidarity with the male community?
[00:11:14]  To me.
[00:11:14]  It takes all kinds, and many of your brothers are bald.
[00:11:18]  In the past two weeks, I've become much more religious.
[00:11:23]  Which religion?
[00:11:25]  Just more in general.
[00:11:27]  I haven't really picked warfighter style?
[00:11:29]  I can tell that my faith has grown stronger, but I haven't yet allocated it to one of our many beautiful religions in this world.
[00:11:36]  I love that.
[00:11:37]  God has a plan for everybody, which is exactly like what you tell your kids right before you abandon them.
[00:11:44]  God has a plan for everybody.
[00:11:47]  But I don't have a plan for you.
[00:11:48]  I don't have a plan for you.
[00:11:49]  No, no, no, yeah, but you know what?
[00:11:51]  And he'll figure it out for you.
[00:11:53]  It's out of my hands.
[00:11:54]  You're out of my hands now.
[00:11:55]  But if God wants you to be bald, he's allowing, he's actually giving you an opportunity to be bald.
[00:12:02]  Wait, because you think it's a crime against God.
[00:12:05]  Yeah, I do.
[00:12:06]  I think it's a crime against God.
[00:12:07]  Curing baldness?
[00:12:08]  Yes, but then I'm immediately hypocritical because I'm like, fake titties, who cares?
[00:12:14]  I don't know if I think fake titties are the same as curing baldness, but you're curing small titty.
[00:12:23]  I don't think either is a disease.
[00:12:25]  I don't view, and I don't view baldness as a disease.
[00:12:27]  I don't have that's an antiquated way of feeling things.
[00:12:30]  I don't think you can catch baldness.
[00:12:31]  I don't think that baldness will rump off on me.
[00:12:33]  I'm not your grandmother.
[00:12:35]  You can.
[00:12:36]  That's true.
[00:12:36]  You can.
[00:12:38]  But I will never be bald.

=== Talking About MAGA (04:40) ===

[00:12:41]  Clip that.
[00:12:41]  I will never, never, never, never be bald.
[00:12:45]  And, but God has cursed me with a lot of shit, right?
[00:12:48]  Like, God has really done a number on me genetically.
[00:12:51]  But why is I'm telling you?
[00:12:52]  I'm not talking about you.
[00:12:54]  I'm talking about, I would like your opinion on this for the male community.
[00:13:00]  Liz, I am a narcissist.
[00:13:02]  I understand that you're not talking about me.
[00:13:05]  I can only talk about it.
[00:13:07]  No, I think it's, I think they need to do something equivalent for girls.
[00:13:11]  I'm worried what it's going to do to the Turkish economy.
[00:13:15]  It's not been.
[00:13:16]  Yeah.
[00:13:18]  Erdogan, if you're listening to this again, you need to start killing the scientists that are inventing the bald care.
[00:13:23]  You need to start assassinating the scientists that are doing that.
[00:13:27]  Because I'm telling you, the lira is not strong.
[00:13:30]  It will become weaker.
[00:13:31]  There is, you think that Turkey can't get worse.
[00:13:34]  I know that you think this.
[00:13:35]  I know, Recep.
[00:13:36]  Sometimes you look at the window, you're like, how could this be any worse?
[00:13:39]  It can get worse.
[00:13:40]  It can get worse.
[00:13:42]  You know who's all over that?
[00:13:44]  What?
[00:13:45]  LeBald.
[00:13:47]  Oh, LeBron.
[00:13:49]  Don't call him that.
[00:13:52]  Don't call him that.
[00:13:53]  He is the goat of being bald.
[00:13:55]  We are talking, and you know what?
[00:13:56]  And today we're talking about the goat of no, there's no goats here.
[00:14:02]  We're talking about the woats.
[00:14:04]  We're talking about what?
[00:14:06]  Why do you look at the worst of all times?
[00:14:12]  So as somebody who is now fully MAGA, I went to that MAGA thing the other night.
[00:14:19]  I was with my tell them what the magazine is.
[00:14:23]  I went to a MAGA art show at the America First Warehouse in Ron Konkama, which will be old stomping grounds.
[00:14:30]  And ladies and gentlemen, I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear my views on this.
[00:14:36]  Unfortunately, I'm very bad at technology, and the video will be coming out on our Patreon later this week, probably tomorrow.
[00:14:44]  Actually, probably yesterday.
[00:14:45]  Was it you just talking about it?
[00:14:47]  I'm just rapping.
[00:14:47]  Yeah.
[00:14:48]  Well, I'm showing video.
[00:14:49]  I'm showing pictures and stuff.
[00:14:50]  It's sort of like a slideshow.
[00:14:51]  I've just, there's been some technological hurdles, Liz.
[00:14:55]  I've been trying to figure out.
[00:14:56]  But Trump, we love, but I went to this warehouse and I realized that all these people, there was nothing about politics there.
[00:15:01]  There was nothing about immigration.
[00:15:02]  There was nothing about or remigration now is the word.
[00:15:07]  And I realized that there's a dividing line in many respects between like the young Nazi MAGA and then old Jimmy Buffett Christian MAGA.
[00:15:15]  Sure.
[00:15:20]  And like I was with Jimmy Buffett Christians.
[00:15:23]  Yeah.
[00:15:23]  And I'm like, I'm not really even sure that they knew that we were going to invade Venezuela.
[00:15:27]  I'm not sure that they knew what Venezuela was.
[00:15:29]  Yeah, that's not surprising.
[00:15:30]  It was that kind of scene.
[00:15:31]  But there was just, it was infinite sort of most of the art revolved around pictures of Trump in much better physical shape than he actually is.
[00:15:42]  So either Trump is Thor, Trump fighting with a lion, Trump just more muscular.
[00:15:49]  Trump is Marlon Brando in the wild ones.
[00:15:51]  That's a good one.
[00:15:52]  And it was actually one of the worst pains ever.
[00:15:54]  I frankly, like, she should have done like Trump as more as Brando, like super fat.
[00:15:59]  Trump is fat.
[00:16:01]  The thing is, Trump is Fat Brando is like some shit you would make in like 2016.
[00:16:05]  I know.
[00:16:05]  You know what I mean?
[00:16:06]  You'd be like, look.
[00:16:06]  But you could do Trump as all the different Elvises, and that would be cool.
[00:16:12]  Damn, you should be.
[00:16:13]  That would be good.
[00:16:14]  I would go to, I would go to imagine that as a calendar.
[00:16:17]  Trump is Elvis year by year or month by month.
[00:16:19]  Month by month.
[00:16:20]  And then you get to, you know, fat Elvis like as the year progresses.
[00:16:23]  And then Dead Elvis, obviously.
[00:16:26]  But they were like, I realized they were just Trump stands.
[00:16:29]  Like it wasn't really, it was obviously political in some respect, but it was mostly about fandom of Trump.
[00:16:35]  And obviously, like, I mean, you and I are like, fuck it.
[00:16:41]  We can say it now.
[00:16:42]  Like, we're longtime Republicans.
[00:16:43]  Sure.
[00:16:44]  Like, or short, we're, no, we've left the left and become longtime Republicans.
[00:16:50]  And honestly, like, a new lore drop from the Trump camp really fucking shook me in my.
[00:16:57]  I'm trying to do Gen Z slang.
[00:16:59]  It shook, it boots the house down for me this week.
[00:17:02]  And his new national security strategy document.
[00:17:05]  Oh, look at that pivot there.
[00:17:07]  Well, no, check this out.
[00:17:09]  It left no crumbs.
[00:17:13]  Are they still talking like that?
[00:17:15]  I don't know, man.
[00:17:16]  I can't deal with that shit anymore.
[00:17:18]  I feel like the Ron Konkama guys are now talking like that.

=== Ladies and Septogenarians (02:15) ===

[00:17:21]  Yeah, they kind of, I was the youngest person there by like 25 years.
[00:17:25]  Except there was one.
[00:17:26]  We've talked a lot about the art.
[00:17:29]  Now I'd like for you to tell me about the ladies.
[00:17:33]  As you know, I love MAGA women.
[00:17:35]  And this was, and so I felt a bit like a, like a, like a hammerhead in the kiddie pool.
[00:17:41]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:17:45]  But, but, and I'm walking in there with a kind of white boy Brooklyn fucking artie, um, like artie indie rock.
[00:17:52]  Yeah, sure.
[00:17:53]  You're swagged up.
[00:17:53]  You know, I'm wearing like, like, I got my little mustache on my finger and I've got uh you're like, what's up coming from the waterfront?
[00:18:01]  Yep, yep.
[00:18:02]  Uh, yeah, I'm here to report for Vice Media, but you know, I was like, maybe I could like show these females something different, which is something I've said so many times in my life, and I've never quite been able to.
[00:18:12]  And the women there were mostly Septogenarian, save for a few of the artists.
[00:18:19]  And I say, not that there's anything wrong with that.
[00:18:22]  Well, I said, young female artists, time to mentor.
[00:18:26]  And unfortunately, they were the only young women in the place.
[00:18:30]  So they were constantly surrounded by large crowds of old men.
[00:18:33]  And so it was a bit difficult for me to co-speak with them.
[00:18:37]  But I did buy a print.
[00:18:39]  And actually, Josh bought a book from one of the women there.
[00:18:45]  And it had something in the book.
[00:18:46]  It was a book of her art.
[00:18:47]  And it was like Joe Rogan, but looking like he's Polynesian.
[00:18:51]  And like, yeah, it was because they were trying to do something funky with race or because they were not good at representation of Joe Rogan.
[00:18:59]  Well, why not both, you know?
[00:19:02]  And, but he certainly has an Eastern cast to him.
[00:19:06]  And in the book was not only the picture, it was like the print, but there was a view count or like count next to it.
[00:19:16]  And it said original caption.
[00:19:17]  And if the caption had been edited, it said edited caption underneath that and had that caption.
[00:19:22]  And we realized it was her Instagram, but printed as a book, including view counts and like counts.
[00:19:29]  I've never quite seen that before, but I think.
[00:19:32]  And not to be like this, it did say a lot.
[00:19:35]  That does say a lot.

=== Maintaining U.S. Primacy (15:01) ===

[00:19:36]  It says a lot of things.
[00:19:39]  A lot of things.
[00:19:40]  If only old Walter, Walter Benjamin, which is how we pronounce it in this household, had been there to see that, he would have flipped his little wig.
[00:19:50]  I do like the idea of just like printing an Instagram feed and being like, here, here's my art book.
[00:19:58]  That's like some shit they would have sold you in a sharper image catalog in like 2016.
[00:20:02]  I feel like they do sell that like through, they're like, oh, would you just, you want an easier way to print photos of your baby?
[00:20:10]  Just send us your Instagram and we'll put it in a book.
[00:20:13]  Yeah.
[00:20:13]  Yeah.
[00:20:14]  But this was, it was, it was really extraordinary, but it was, yeah, there was a lot of, there was, there was what I found the most disturbing, and this is, I'm going to speak at length, probably, about this in the video, was a series of images painted by the artist Magelangelo.
[00:20:29]  And one of those was of the late dear departed Charlie Kirk, who perished for unknown reasons and by unknown, unknown characters.
[00:20:38]  And underneath it, it said master debater.
[00:20:45]  Oh, that's unfortunate.
[00:20:47]  Now, Liz, if I ever get my pimple popped on fucking live live stream, or I'm not going to say that he was on live television because that was not on television, but on my live stream in front of thousands of people and cause an uproar that is unfortunately two months later, almost entirely forgotten.
[00:21:05]  Don't be fucking letting Magelangelo put master debater under my picture, Liz.
[00:21:12]  That's not okay.
[00:21:14]  It was disrespectful.
[00:21:15]  You know what?
[00:21:16]  I'm going to fucking put that.
[00:21:18]  I'm a Christian almost.
[00:21:20]  Or Jewish.
[00:21:21]  Or I haven't decided yet.
[00:21:24]  You know what, though?
[00:21:25]  The grand reveal will be soon.
[00:21:27]  It will be soon because a big holiday.
[00:21:30]  Which one is coming up?
[00:21:31]  They're all coming at.
[00:21:33]  Not all of them.
[00:21:35]  Ramadan is not coming up.
[00:21:37]  Or unless it is.
[00:21:38]  It is if you're thinking way in the future.
[00:21:41]  Well, yeah, we think Adzenja is here.
[00:21:43]  So there's actually a lot of Ramadans coming up.
[00:21:46]  We got to talk about Trump.
[00:21:47]  Liz, we got to talk about Trump.
[00:21:49]  People, people want to hear, if people want to hear about Magalangelo, we're going to have a whole other thing on that in the Crackpots newsletter section.
[00:21:57]  Trump's national security document came out.
[00:22:00]  Who do you think wrote this?
[00:22:02]  Grok.
[00:22:03]  No, Grok, I know a lot about how Grok writes now.
[00:22:06]  It's not Grock.
[00:22:06]  Grock is way sexier than this now.
[00:22:08]  I will say it does sound like Grok.
[00:22:11]  I feel like JD.
[00:22:13]  I don't think oversaw it.
[00:22:16]  Maybe.
[00:22:17]  I don't know.
[00:22:17]  Who knows?
[00:22:18]  But it is, there's a plain spokenness to it that really, I really hate the way this is written.
[00:22:29]  Yeah.
[00:22:30]  I'm not going to lie.
[00:22:31]  I do appreciate, though, the honesty that comes with it, though.
[00:22:34]  And I'm not even being sarcastic there.
[00:22:36]  I actually do.
[00:22:36]  I think it is.
[00:22:37]  I think it spells things out in pretty plain language.
[00:22:40]  Well, that's what's so funny, right?
[00:22:41]  Is that it's like, you know, in the past, like NSS documents like from other, like even like the Biden administration, but I'm really thinking about Obama.
[00:22:52]  Like they're so over designed and branded and these like, you know, big PDFs that, you know, have look super official or whatever.
[00:23:03]  This is like literally a word document in Times New Roman.
[00:23:07]  It is the most basic of basic.
[00:23:09]  And then it's also like says things super, super plainly.
[00:23:14]  Like there's like a whole, you know, it says over and over again that like diplomatic interests must align with corporate interests.
[00:23:20]  Like it just says shit like straight up where like savvier administrations would at least try to kind of like sand that down or like, you know, couch that in polite foreign policy kind of rhetoric or whatever.
[00:23:33]  And that's like something that's like one of the perversely great things about the Trump administration is that it's just like always speaking empire plainly.
[00:23:43]  Yeah.
[00:23:43]  I, yeah, I think that like I really did.
[00:23:45]  And it actually, especially in the second term, it's much more, because at the first term, we still had a lot of, and obviously they've sort of reconfigured themselves or reconstituted themselves.
[00:23:54]  But like, there was so many like older kind of just neocon people that it was, they still use this kind of like classic like U.S. government language.
[00:24:05]  And here it's much more like YouTube commenter style.
[00:24:09]  Yeah.
[00:24:10]  I want to read a section.
[00:24:11]  Yeah.
[00:24:11]  And there's, you know, it's like a, it's what, like a 28-page document.
[00:24:14]  It's not very long.
[00:24:14]  You should read it if you get a chance, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:24:16]  I mean, I think it is.
[00:24:17]  It is giving Google Doc.
[00:24:19]  Yes.
[00:24:20]  But there's a section that just says flexible realism.
[00:24:22]  U.S. policy will be realistic about what is possible and desirable to seek in its dealing with the other nations.
[00:24:27]  We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.
[00:24:36]  So that's like, we're not going to do what they're not going to do the neocon shit and try to change the government.
[00:24:42]  We recognize and affirm that there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical in acting according to such a realistic assessment or in maintaining good relations with countries whose governing systems and societies differ from ours, even as we push like-minded friends to uphold our shared norms, furthering our interests as we do so.
[00:24:58]  Which is, I love the, I love the last little section there, furthering our interests as we do so.
[00:25:05]  But I think it is finally at least someone saying like, we don't care that Saudi Arabia is not a democracy.
[00:25:11]  I was just going to say, we don't care about women driving in Saudi Arabia as much as their film industry is making Dakota Johnson feel hopeful about the future.
[00:25:20]  And even in the less than 24 hours that I've been here, I have a renewed faith in cinema.
[00:25:27]  That's what amazing to me.
[00:25:29]  Do you think she was wearing a wig in that video?
[00:25:32]  I mean, something was certainly snatched.
[00:25:36]  Jesus Christ, Liz.
[00:25:41]  Well, true now, number one, Gen Z podcast.
[00:25:45]  But I think that is a good, I think it's a good little paragraph because you have like, it was like, finally, we don't have to like speak out of both sides of our mouth.
[00:25:54]  You know what I mean?
[00:25:55]  And by us, I mean us and our friends on the administration.
[00:25:58]  It's just one side of our mouth.
[00:26:00]  It's just one mouth.
[00:26:01]  It's just one mouth we're speaking out of.
[00:26:03]  But like, we don't care that Saudi Arabia is like a monarchy or whatever.
[00:26:08]  But if you're Europe, you got to stop being woke is kind of what that's saying.
[00:26:13]  And don't get us started on the Chinese.
[00:26:15]  And don't get us started on the Chinese.
[00:26:16]  But like, okay, you might be like, okay, well, okay, that's like that is realistic.
[00:26:20]  And like, that is generally the U.S. government's like, not generally, but in when it has suited us in the past, that has been what we've done.
[00:26:31]  And obviously there's USAID and NED stuff that has like gone to democracy promotion in many places.
[00:26:36]  I have a feeling that is not stopping because obviously it's not real democracy promotion.
[00:26:41]  It is actually like some very shit.
[00:26:44]  It's got covert ops, as we'll get to in this episode.
[00:26:48]  But a lot of that many has been cut, as we know.
[00:26:53]  There's this other section that I just want to pull one.
[00:26:59]  I mean, we're going to kind of go through some of this.
[00:27:01]  I just want to pull one line out that I think is important where they say no adversary or danger should be able to hold America at risk.
[00:27:10]  And this is kind of a little flag for me that key language there, I think, hold at risk, which is basically like a polite foreign policy way.
[00:27:17]  Like when I say foreign policy, I mean like the way like big time foreign policy circles speak.
[00:27:25]  That language, it's like a way of saying like to threaten like America cannot and will not exist with competitors.
[00:27:31]  And so it will neutralize and eliminate them, which is, you know, for all this sort of like Quasi-paleo-con signaling from the administration, or like, like, you know, with JD kind of being that guy, that figure, and Trump sort of dabbling in some of that too.
[00:27:49]  Um, that's like a super Cheney-esque like kind of vision for America.
[00:27:56]  And like, what's funny is that, like, later in the document, they do try to counter that by scolding like previous administrations for aiming for what they call permanent American domination of the entire world.
[00:28:07]  Like, they do kind of try to go at it both ways.
[00:28:12]  But this is kind of informed policy language, what's called primacy.
[00:28:18]  Oh, like, slap basey.
[00:28:22]  But no, it's a strategy aimed at kind of like maintaining such overwhelming power that no other state can seriously challenge it.
[00:28:30]  Yeah.
[00:28:31]  And it's like a constant active pursuit of staying at the top, which means using force to go after like even hypothetical threats to U.S. supremacy.
[00:28:43]  And like, obviously, that can be really widely defined and then can justify a lot of military excursions, even as they're sort of like giving these kind of nods that, oh, this isn't kind of neocon.
[00:29:01]  This is like this new sort of way, you know?
[00:29:03]  And I think like for all of the talk of like peace and retreat and re-strategizing, like they do start off the document being like, as everyone knows, Donald Trump is the peace president.
[00:29:16]  But this is like in no way a dovish document at all.
[00:29:19]  No, no, you know, and it's funny because I think that like, I feel like foreign policy realism has gotten really big literally, because I think there's been like John Mearsheimer viral YouTube videos that like a lot of people, I'm not even joking, because like you never really used to hear people like, I'm not to some extent you did, but like to couch it specifically in those terms as like realism, I think is has definitely become in vogue in the past few years.
[00:29:48]  Yeah.
[00:29:48]  I do think that there is like, and again, like, that's sort of why I appreciate this document in some ways, because it does say in plain language, and it, you know, exactly what the U.S. wants to do.
[00:29:58]  Because listen, if you're Joe Biden, and there is something I think a lot of these people are kind of sick of this like liberal, I guess, how do I say this?
[00:30:12]  Like a liberal alignment in terms of foreign policy, where like, obviously, the goal is to keep the U.S. at number one, but we're doing all these kind of like a liberal internationalism.
[00:30:24]  Exactly.
[00:30:24]  I think like that's not working.
[00:30:26]  It didn't really, it didn't really work if you're these guys.
[00:30:29]  You're like, this shit sucks.
[00:30:30]  Like we ended up just like, we ended up supporting a bunch of third worlders.
[00:30:35]  Exactly.
[00:30:36]  We ended up third worlders.
[00:30:38]  We try to make George Floyd in Afghanistan or whatever.
[00:30:40]  They have their sort of like memes that they reproduce and they talk about this stuff.
[00:30:44]  But the reality is, I think a lot of liberal internationalism did complicate The actual project, which is American primacy.
[00:30:53]  And I think that this is a reassessment and a reevaluation of that in a major way.
[00:30:58]  Like, I think the actual project is the same, but this is probably just like a more, it's a little bit more of a you can just do things kind of attitude of looking at the world.
[00:31:09]  Yeah.
[00:31:10]  And there is a sort of to kind of like distinguish between primacy and like hegemony, maybe.
[00:31:18]  Like there is this sort of sense of we are in relentless pursuit of maintaining and dict and like, you know, maintaining and remaining or getting back on, depending on what you think of the U.S. stature right now, of the U.S. at the top.
[00:31:37]  Yes.
[00:31:38]  Like to the expense of anything else.
[00:31:40]  And there's no kind of responsibility or reciprocity toward like public goods for the world.
[00:31:48]  Yes.
[00:31:49]  Which is maybe what you could say like a hegemonic state has that regardless of how when I say public goods, like I don't necessarily, I'm not ascribing a kind of like moral judgment with that.
[00:32:07]  But the idea is that a hegemonic power does sort of like have a kind of reciprocal relationship with other states as part of its way of maintaining hegemony, right?
[00:32:20]  It has to like kind of like, you know, provide things for the world, which could just be fucking Hollywood movies, right?
[00:32:28]  There's like many ways that that could be.
[00:32:30]  Or NATO.
[00:32:31]  Or NATO or, you know, USAID programs for, you know, scientific research in Africa, whatever, that, you know, maintain its like hegemonic project.
[00:32:43]  Or, you know, we could go back to the British Empire and there's, you know, all sorts of like those had a colonial relationship or whatever, but it's the same sort of sense.
[00:32:51]  This is not that.
[00:32:53]  No.
[00:32:53]  And I think, I think, I think it is actually this recognition that that wasn't working.
[00:32:58]  Like a lot of those institutions and a lot of those things that we were doing were sort of in their, they were either decadent or decaying or both.
[00:33:06]  I mean, and specifically even like NATO here, right?
[00:33:08]  Like NATO had become very, like this sort of like bloated, but also hollow kind of institution.
[00:33:15]  And I think Trump really does recognize that.
[00:33:18]  And he's like, you guys got to start paying more.
[00:33:20]  Like, and we're kind of like withdrawing from like taking full, like we're in charge and you do all have to do what we say, but this like reciprocal shit is not happening.
[00:33:30]  Well, yeah.
[00:33:30]  Now NATO is like, you're on your own, Europe, 2027.
[00:33:35]  Yeah.
[00:33:35]  Yes.
[00:33:38]  So it, this document, you know, it goes on to discuss kind of like America's core foreign policy interests.
[00:33:45]  And, you know, here's just a, you know, this is a good quote that'll kind of lead us into what we're talking about for the rest of the episode.
[00:33:52]  We want to ensure that the Western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.
[00:34:01]  So there's a ton of stuff in here about, you know, oh, no more narco-terrorists, no more cartels and so forth.
[00:34:09]  A hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets.
[00:34:14]  So that means no more Chinese.
[00:34:17]  And that supports critical supply chains.
[00:34:20]  Yes.
[00:34:21]  And it goes on.
[00:34:22]  In other words, we will assert and enforce a Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine.
[00:34:28]  Now, the New York Times, I do want to say they've tried to call this the Dondreu doctrine.
[00:34:36]  I don't think you could.
[00:34:36]  Come on, man.

=== Monroe Doctrine Parody (11:44) ===

[00:34:38]  No, that does not work.
[00:34:39]  Dondre.
[00:34:39]  Dondrea?
[00:34:42]  Because it's putting it.
[00:34:43]  It's like someone who's like, can't remember madmen.
[00:34:45]  The Dondre doctor.
[00:34:46]  Sounds like someone you, someone making fun of you for invoking the Monroe Doctrine.
[00:34:51]  You know, you're like, yeah, but like the U.S., like, you know, the Monroe Doctrine in the 20th century, oh, the Don Joe Doctrine.
[00:34:57]  You're like, oh, come on.
[00:34:58]  Oh, sorry, man.
[00:35:00]  So, for those of you who don't know, as in our many listeners outside of the United States, although you probably also know because baby listeners who haven't been, yeah, or our baby listeners whose parents are putting the big stethoscope blastiness inside of their bellies.
[00:35:18]  The Mondrondro Monto Doctrine, the Monroe Doctrine was a doctrine put forth, and you're never going to believe this by President Monroe.
[00:35:32]  Me like treading water because I can't remember what it is.
[00:35:34]  No, back in 1823, which said basically, and it's a little more complicated than this, but it's like Europe, fuck off from America, the Americas, like the whole thing.
[00:35:43]  Yeah.
[00:35:43]  Like, no more European fucking incursions here.
[00:35:48]  It's funny because the U.S. at the time, like, couldn't really do shit about Europe coming or European countries coming here.
[00:35:53]  Like, I think, like, didn't Spain invade Mexico at some point during like hella, like, people kept coming here.
[00:35:59]  Like, it was not, this did not work.
[00:36:00]  The Monroe Doctrine was basically like kind of a fake thing until like the 20th century.
[00:36:05]  And really, if we want to talk about facts here, and this is a facts-based podcast, this is a podcast that is rooted in facts, if not always, well, it's rooted in fact.
[00:36:17]  And fiction.
[00:36:18]  Simone Bolivar was really the only guy who was like doing shit about it.
[00:36:23]  What do you mean?
[00:36:24]  Like, Simone Bolivar, he was like actually fighting people and being like, Europe, fuck off.
[00:36:29]  You know what I mean?
[00:36:30]  The Americans were like, The Trump corollary reminds one of the Roosevelt, and that's Theodore Roosevelt corollary from Corollary from 1904, which came about as a result of, and you'll never guess this, European gunboats blockading Venezuela.
[00:36:50]  Venezuela.
[00:36:53]  1902 after Venezuela defaulted on debts.
[00:36:56]  And this is actually what Roosevelt said.
[00:36:58]  I believe he said this in a speech to Congress.
[00:37:00]  He said, it is not true.
[00:37:01]  I'm just going to read the whole thing because I think this is.
[00:37:04]  Because you're a big Teddy fan.
[00:37:05]  I'm a big, I love Teddy because he was an outdoorsman, right?
[00:37:09]  I would have loved, I would have loved to fuck Teddy Roosevelt in a gunny sack, like on some vista overlooking some beautiful plains.
[00:37:18]  What?
[00:37:18]  No, because we're the only guys out there because the native women flee from us because of our stench.
[00:37:24]  It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western hemisphere, save such as are for their welfare.
[00:37:36]  All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous.
[00:37:43]  Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship.
[00:37:47]  If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps orders and pays its obligation, it need fear no interference in the United States.
[00:38:00]  Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence, okay, we don't gotta go there, which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America as elsewhere ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation.
[00:38:14]  And in the Western hemisphere, the adherence to the United States, the Monroe Doctrine, may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence to the exercise of international police power.
[00:38:26]  So I think really that's what Trump's drawing from right there.
[00:38:29]  Being like, if you don't have your shit in line, we can do whatever we want to you.
[00:38:33]  Or basically, which we define.
[00:38:36]  Exactly.
[00:38:37]  If every country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization, which with the aid of the Platt Amendment, Cuba has shown since our troops left the island.
[00:38:46]  Shout out the Platt Amendment.
[00:38:47]  Shout out the Blatt Amendment, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all question of interference by this nation with their affairs would be at an end.
[00:38:56]  Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical.
[00:39:00]  Not true.
[00:39:02]  They have great natural riches, and if within their borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to come to them.
[00:39:07]  While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized society, they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy.
[00:39:15]  We would interfere with them only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.
[00:39:30]  It is a mere truism to say that every other nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence cannot be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.
[00:39:43]  So I think that is actually like a pretty important that the Roosevelt corollary, which is obviously where he's drawing the Trump corollary from.
[00:39:51]  What is Roosevelt saying there?
[00:39:53]  We can do whatever we want with you if we think that you aren't running your country in a way that we find acceptable.
[00:39:59]  Yeah.
[00:40:00]  So he makes that.
[00:40:02]  Yeah.
[00:40:02]  He makes that speech at the dawning of the 20th century.
[00:40:07]  Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, Dominican Republic again, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Granada, Panama.
[00:40:15]  I think actually the technically the U.S. has either overthrown the government of or directly invaded or at very least supported a military coup in the majority of countries in the Americas.
[00:40:29]  Now, there's too many islands in the Caribbean for that to technically count, and too many of them are foreign possessions, but we have interfered with the 20th century.
[00:40:38]  That's the story of the U.S. presence in Central and South America has just been one of intervention and doing whatever we want.
[00:40:45]  Yeah.
[00:40:46]  So there's a great history here.
[00:40:48]  Yes.
[00:40:49]  In the Trump document, you know, they call this out.
[00:40:54]  They say after years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.
[00:41:06]  And over and over again, you know, they really emphasize the strengthening of critical supply chains.
[00:41:14]  I think everyone can kind of read, you know, between the lines what that means, shoring up strategic resources, aka kicking out the Chinese.
[00:41:24]  And also, you know, and also reducing our reliance on the Chinese.
[00:41:30]  Yeah, I mean, think of one of the Trump administration's first things they did when they got into office, which was basically to threaten to invade Panama.
[00:41:38]  Well, no, and that basically, which was just to threaten to invade Panama if they didn't break a lease with Chinese-owned companies that operated ports on either side of the Panama Canal.
[00:41:51]  Yeah, Panama's like, again.
[00:41:52]  Yeah, I mean, and this is, I think, I think with Greenland, we can just view this as like they view it as in the Americas, basically, you know, like this is part of the Monroe Doctrine shit with us trying to take over Greenland.
[00:42:05]  So this is again from the document.
[00:42:06]  Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse, given the political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors.
[00:42:16]  I love the like, but we're not going to say who.
[00:42:19]  It's certain foreign actors.
[00:42:22]  These Colombians and the Chinese.
[00:42:23]  It was a Chinese foreign actor.
[00:42:25]  It's a Chinese foreign actor.
[00:42:27]  However, Jackie Chan, many governments are not ideologically aligned with foreign powers, but are instead attracted to doing business with them for other reasons, including low costs and fewer regulatory hurdles.
[00:42:41]  It's all those goddamn regulations that we're always imposing that they it's just, you know, the Latin Americans are like it's too many regulations for us.
[00:42:50]  Um, and this is one of my favorite lines, I gotta say, All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts.
[00:43:03]  Every U.S. government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.
[00:43:13]  Incredible.
[00:43:16]  It's good they're saying it.
[00:43:17]  No, but it's just, yeah, no, of course.
[00:43:21]  It is so funny to compare that to like Obama-era Samantha Power.
[00:43:29]  Yeah.
[00:43:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:43:31]  Like it is just a complete and total like, okay, all of our diplomats, you are representing U.S. companies.
[00:43:41]  Yes.
[00:43:42]  I mean, that is always, I mean, there's always economic attaches and stuff like that.
[00:43:46]  But like, it is really funny to just say it.
[00:43:48]  I mean, but that's, again, what I appreciate so much about this document is like, I think this is there.
[00:43:53]  I mean, they talk directly about this at some point.
[00:43:55]  I don't think we put it in our notes, but like they're talking about like, you know, American, we can still realign Americans' like foreign policy with like what needs to get done.
[00:44:04]  It's like, it's not too late.
[00:44:05]  But like, it is funny, like liberal internationalism did seek to basically disguise a lot of this behind like various veneers of human rights and fair trade and all this stuff.
[00:44:15]  And this is like polite salon speak.
[00:44:18]  Exactly.
[00:44:18]  And like, you know, good-minded liberal internationalism.
[00:44:21]  And this is just like, no, you go down there and you get that fucking paladin.
[00:44:25]  You're a motherfucker.
[00:44:26]  You are a salesman for Chevron.
[00:44:28]  Yes.
[00:44:28]  Yes.
[00:44:30]  Yeah.
[00:44:30]  I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it is worth saying as, you know, because we're going to talk about this now, speaking of Chevron in context of what's going on down south in the Caribbean as we speak.
[00:44:46]  But, you know, Latin America has kind of always been the place where the U.S. has gone when it needs to sort of like flex its muscle on the world stage.
[00:44:59]  Like it just has always kind of like, you know, during the, you know, I think that happened in the 19th century is certainly true during the Cold War and especially true, you know, after we got our ass handed to us by the Vietnamese.
[00:45:13]  We went down there and showed who's boss.
[00:45:16]  Yeah.
[00:45:17]  You know, but it is the kind of place where we go to manufacture, I think, the appearance of great power confidence.
[00:45:25]  And boy, oh boy, is the Trump administration trying to do that now.
[00:45:31]  Yeah.
[00:45:31]  And one thing before we move on down south, I think a lot of people have made note that the document does not mention Russia or China much.
[00:45:41]  No, there's a lot of Asia.
[00:45:43]  I know, but like it compared to like the last Trump NASA security strategy document and the Biden one, it like it is sort of like a realignment, right?
[00:45:56]  Like it's, it's like, it's, and the thing is, I, and I don't want to say like the Americas, we're not pivoting from China.
[00:46:03]  Um, I think it actually is, and I hate to say this, a realistic assessment of like, all right, what we actually need to do is get our ducks in a row in the Americas and make sure that like we have this under total control because eventually there might be a conflict with China that we want.

=== Nobel Prize Speculations (09:58) ===

[00:46:22]  And we can't have anybody.
[00:46:24]  We can't have any Venezuelas or any fucking, even any two-time Lulas or Petros down there that is going to, that's, or, or have these Chinese ports or whatever.
[00:46:34]  They're like, we need to shore up like this Fortress Americas if we're going to do.
[00:46:39]  Because even with Taiwan, they're like, Taiwan's got to pay more for defense.
[00:46:42]  But I think they also just recognize that we're not in a state to fight China right now.
[00:46:46]  We need to get our shit in order in order to fight China.
[00:46:50]  That is kind of what I get from it.
[00:46:58]  So obviously, like as a lot of people know, Liz is sponsored by Kalshi.
[00:47:03]  I'm sponsored by Polly.
[00:47:05]  And it is like kind of the great divide in the show.
[00:47:11]  But one of the things that we bet a lot of money on is the Nobel Prize.
[00:47:16]  A lot of people know who read about me in business sort of magazines know that I made my first billion from betting on Bob Dylan, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
[00:47:25]  Can you talk about what you found out?
[00:47:27]  That I guess, I guess this was a huge scandal that everyone knew about, but I didn't know about this.
[00:47:32]  Bob Dylan, I guess his like acceptance speech.
[00:47:34]  I was just reading this on the Bob Dylan because I do think about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in literature a lot, but I guess in his acceptance speech, he just plagiarized it from a Sparks Notes thing on Moby Dick.
[00:47:48]  It's like crazy.
[00:47:50]  But I think what I don't really, Sparks Notes is just like.
[00:47:54]  Why does it have to do with Moby Dick?
[00:47:56]  Like, he just wanted to talk about Moby Dick in his speech.
[00:47:58]  He talks about Moby Dick and some songs.
[00:47:59]  Somebody's like, remember when I was saying about Moby Dick?
[00:48:05]  I love your Bob Dylan.
[00:48:06]  I think it's really good.
[00:48:07]  Yeah.
[00:48:08]  Send me a noble picture from the front.
[00:48:11]  But yeah, I love Bob.
[00:48:14]  And I love Moby.
[00:48:15]  And I love Moby's dick.
[00:48:16]  Maybe Timmy could have learned a thing or two from you, from Bracey.
[00:48:19]  Chalamay?
[00:48:21]  I taught him.
[00:48:22]  I taught Timothy Chalamet, as I'm want to say, every single thing he knows.
[00:48:27]  Including the soldier boy dance.
[00:48:30]  There's absolutely no way I was ever going to see the Dylan Chalame movie.
[00:48:35]  I have a complicated relationship with Bob Dylan.
[00:48:37]  I have a complicated relationship with Chalamet.
[00:48:40]  Yes, yes.
[00:48:42]  But I wonder if Bob saw it.
[00:48:45]  I bet he didn't.
[00:48:47]  Yeah.
[00:48:48]  He probably watches like Coco Melon.
[00:48:52]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:48:53]  I don't know if he watches things.
[00:48:55]  I think he watches Coco Melon on an iPad like baby.
[00:48:58]  Like, genuinely, look at Bob Dylan and picture him with overall headphones at a restaurant with a fucking iPad with a crazy rubber table.
[00:49:05]  It's not Coco Melon.
[00:49:06]  It's fucking Candy Crush.
[00:49:07]  That dude is a gig to Candy Crush.
[00:49:10]  Yes.
[00:49:10]  Because Bob Dylan is way dumber than people think.
[00:49:12]  And so, like, it's, I think that people.
[00:49:15]  I didn't even know Sparks Notes was a thing still.
[00:49:18]  I don't know either.
[00:49:19]  I was unfortunately, my school career did not coincide with the internet being good enough for me to cheat at school on.
[00:49:26]  And so.
[00:49:27]  That's so wholesome.
[00:49:28]  I know.
[00:49:29]  Well, actually, I kind of went to stupid person school, so it wasn't much to cheat on, anyways.
[00:49:33]  Anyways, the Nobel Peace Prizes.
[00:49:36]  And this is, and Liz, you and I were obviously, we watched the Nobel Ball drop.
[00:49:40]  We watched the Nobel ceremonies.
[00:49:42]  We were at my house.
[00:49:42]  We did out all our Nobel popcorn prizes and things like this.
[00:49:46]  Some people throw an Oscar party.
[00:49:47]  We throw the Nobel Prize.
[00:49:48]  We're going to Nobel Party because we do that.
[00:49:50]  We do things a little more intellectually here at Truanon.
[00:49:53]  And we were like, you know what?
[00:49:54]  I fucking hate the Cheeto in the White House, but I think he's going to win the Nobel Peace Prize because as much as I hate to say it, going by what Trump says, he did technically oversee some peace negotiations between some countries.
[00:50:09]  His whole thing in this time, for some reason, has been like, I'm the peace president.
[00:50:13]  And so he's like kind of doing these fake peace, like the Azerbaijan Armenia thing, the DRC thing.
[00:50:18]  And the DRC thing, which I'm like, not even sure that that actually happened.
[00:50:21]  He might have just said it happened.
[00:50:23]  Didn't he take credit for like India-Pakistan stuff too?
[00:50:27]  Yeah, but they didn't really say that he didn't do it.
[00:50:29]  So it's like, but yeah, I forgot about it.
[00:50:31]  I actually forgot about the India-Pakistan war entirely.
[00:50:35]  But we lasted about three hours.
[00:50:38]  But yeah.
[00:50:40]  He took credit.
[00:50:40]  The India-Pakistan idea.
[00:50:42]  I think he says he's like six or seven.
[00:50:44]  Fuck.
[00:50:45]  I think he says that.
[00:50:46]  I'm not even joking.
[00:50:47]  I think it's seven.
[00:50:48]  Fine, seven or eight.
[00:50:49]  I think it says there's, I didn't do that on purpose.
[00:50:51]  I think there's seven or eight wars that he says he's ended, which I think he's including the Iran one in.
[00:50:57]  But I'm like, you started the war.
[00:50:59]  You don't get credit for making peace.
[00:51:01]  Okay, whatever.
[00:51:02]  Actually, that is such a good workaround for being the peace president is just starting as many wars as possible, but then ending them really quickly.
[00:51:11]  And you're like, see, look at that.
[00:51:12]  Look how fast I ended all these wars.
[00:51:14]  But it's clear he's been gunning for the Nobel Nobel Peace Prize.
[00:51:20]  Yeah.
[00:51:21]  Barack.
[00:51:21]  Because of Barack.
[00:51:22]  And it is funny.
[00:51:24]  Barack did get the Nobel Peace Prize 12 days.
[00:51:26]  He was nominated 12 days into his presidency.
[00:51:28]  Yeah, just for like not being Bush.
[00:51:30]  Yes, which is so, I mean, and even Barack was like, I don't know about this one, guys.
[00:51:36]  He's like, I guess I have to accept it.
[00:51:38]  I think you can't be like, no, thank you.
[00:51:42]  Bob Dylan absolutely should have been like, no, thank you.
[00:51:45]  He should have been like, Nobel, didn't he invent dynamine?
[00:51:50]  Like some shit like that.
[00:51:53]  You messes.
[00:51:55]  His peace songs are so.
[00:51:57]  They should have sent Bob Dylan to Vietnam.
[00:52:00]  If I was in charge back then, I'm like, no, Bobby's going.
[00:52:03]  No, I wasn't going to Nam.
[00:52:05]  That'd be crazy.
[00:52:06]  Fat Elvis in Vietnam.
[00:52:08]  Could you imagine?
[00:52:10]  He's the guy at the PM.
[00:52:11]  He should have done that.
[00:52:12]  Sent Fat Elvis to Nam in like 67.
[00:52:16]  Elvis, you can't, you die during the Ted Offensive because Elvis gets stuck in the doorway after the Vietnamese set fire to your fucking horrible point.
[00:52:25]  I'm not going to let Fat Elvis find those tunnels.
[00:52:27]  Yes.
[00:52:29]  Elvis is a tunnel rat and he's stuck in the tunnels.
[00:52:31]  You just see his butt with his little.
[00:52:33]  O mama, he's shaking his butt.
[00:52:34]  It's coming out.
[00:52:35]  He's like, oh, mama.
[00:52:36]  And the old mama's echoing through there.
[00:52:39]  Oh, mama.
[00:52:42]  You find, he gets killed and you find his letters and they all just say, oh, mama.
[00:52:49]  Anyways.
[00:52:52]  You get it.
[00:52:53]  I was like, thank you.
[00:52:54]  Thank you very much.
[00:52:57]  I thought it was either going to be, I knew it was going to be Trump, but I was like, all right, they're going to pick some like two-state cocksucker, you know, like some random, like, whatever NGO guy that we've never heard from from either Israel or Palestine.
[00:53:09]  Somehow they picked Machado.
[00:53:12]  She's been on the list for so long.
[00:53:14]  You know what?
[00:53:15]  She's on the list.
[00:53:16]  It's her turn.
[00:53:17]  It's her turn.
[00:53:18]  Maria Corina Machado.
[00:53:21]  She wrote, and this is kind of gives you a hint for this, because I think a lot of people were like, who is this strange looking lip-fillered woman?
[00:53:29]  Because he does have lip fillers.
[00:53:30]  Let's be honest.
[00:53:31]  Let's be real.
[00:53:32]  Let's be real.
[00:53:33]  She wrote on Twitter after she won, the recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task.
[00:53:40]  Okay, run that one maybe by a translator.
[00:53:44]  To conquer freedom.
[00:53:45]  Okay, definitely run that by a translator.
[00:53:48]  The recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task to conquer freedom.
[00:53:52]  We are on the threshold of victory.
[00:53:53]  And today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the Democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve freedom and democracy.
[00:54:02]  I dedicate this prize to the suffering of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause.
[00:54:08]  Exclamation point.
[00:54:09]  Well, it was a very, yeah, exclamation point.
[00:54:11]  And it was a very, and she mentioned Trump in like everything after that because I think she was afraid that he would pull support for her effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government if because she got the Nobel Prize instead of him.
[00:54:21]  I'm not even joking.
[00:54:22]  You know what?
[00:54:23]  And she's been working her whole life on that.
[00:54:25]  Her whole life.
[00:54:26]  But, but I will, I do want to mention that Trump did get the first ever FIFA peace prize last week.
[00:54:35]  Did you see this?
[00:54:36]  Yes.
[00:54:36]  It's like how the Lakers won the first ever quote NBA Cup.
[00:54:40]  Was there another one?
[00:54:41]  There's an NBA comp.
[00:54:42]  I don't want to talk about it.
[00:54:45]  He also said during that speech, which I think this is worse than any Obama apology to or bullshit.
[00:54:52]  He said that American football should change its name because there's only one football.
[00:54:57]  This is the, you know what, though?
[00:54:59]  This is the like, I do think the Libtards are right about this, where like you get Trump in a room, someone convinces him of something and he's like, oh, okay, you're right.
[00:55:10]  Like, can you imagine, like, he doesn't actually think that he would never say that if Goodell was in the room.
[00:55:17]  You know what I mean?
[00:55:18]  But he probably was like, they gave me this.
[00:55:20]  Look, these FIFA guys, they're so nice.
[00:55:22]  You know what?
[00:55:22]  They're right.
[00:55:23]  They are.
[00:55:24]  He also just loves FIFA.
[00:55:26]  Like, wasn't the FIFA guy there?
[00:55:29]  Game-recognized game.
[00:55:30]  Well, no, but what was it?
[00:55:31]  Like, there was some important diplomatic thing where the FIFA president was just also there.
[00:55:36]  Yeah, because the fucking World Cup is coming to America next year.
[00:55:39]  I know, but it had nothing to do with the World Cup.
[00:55:41]  Like, he was like hosting, like, I can't remember who, but it's like just FIFA guys are just in the White House now.
[00:55:47]  So, well, worldwide criminal syndicates love worldwide criminal syndicates.
[00:55:51]  Who is Maria Karina Machado?
[00:55:54]  Why is she dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump?
[00:55:57]  Why is she going on Bloomberg podcasts and begging Donald Trump to bomb her country?
[00:56:04]  I love it.
[00:56:04]  Publishing in the Washington Post multiple things, including a manifesto, which you know the rule about that, and asking Pete Hagset's military to bomb the country she's from.
[00:56:18]  But we got to talk about her history a little bit.

=== Venezuela's Troubled History (16:02) ===

[00:56:20]  Yeah.
[00:56:20]  But before that, we actually have to talk about Venezuela history a little bit.
[00:56:23]  We can't get into all of it, obviously.
[00:56:25]  And we've talked about Venezuela before.
[00:56:27]  Venezuela discovers oil.
[00:56:28]  This is the thing you really got to know.
[00:56:30]  Venezuela discovers oil in 1914.
[00:56:32]  Maybe a little before that, but that's like when the big oil starts coming through.
[00:56:35]  Everything changes.
[00:56:37]  Everything is amazing after that.
[00:56:40]  It builds an economy based on social justice, based on welfare for all people.
[00:56:46]  All the little campesinos are moved out into the cities and there's a big industrial just plan.
[00:56:52]  It is more cadillo, latifundio bullshit with oil all done under foreign concessions and money going to western or northern big business.
[00:57:04]  It is the world's largest exporter of oil until 1935.
[00:57:08]  And eventually the hydrocarbons law of 1943, which saw a 50-50 profit split, led to the expansion of the oil industry and some social welfare and eventually large infrastructure spending.
[00:57:20]  And in fact, Venezuela in the 1970s, as you are constantly hear people say, was one of the richest countries in the hemisphere, the very large middle class, rather.
[00:57:28]  And the Venezuelan oil industry was nationalized in 1976.
[00:57:32]  I know.
[00:57:34]  I know, but 76 was a pretty good year for oil.
[00:57:36]  So I think they were like, fuck it.
[00:57:37]  Let's do it.
[00:57:40]  Under Petavesa or PDVSA, a technically private company, but with the Venezuelan state as the sole shareholder.
[00:57:49]  By the end of the 1970s, with a collapse in oil prices, just a couple years later, and rampant corruption in the two-party political system, the economy tanks, unemployment rises, and there is a big liberalization of the economy, which does not work.
[00:58:03]  Shocking.
[00:58:05]  Shocking.
[00:58:05]  And you'll be surprised that one of the guys, Ricardo Hausman, his daughter, remember she was making like woke Venezuela videos?
[00:58:13]  No.
[00:58:14]  Like five or six years ago?
[00:58:15]  No, I don't remember this at all.
[00:58:16]  He was one of the guys that did that liberalization stuff.
[00:58:19]  So part of this liberalization was reintroducing foreign concessions into the oil industry.
[00:58:25]  There's a big urban poor at this point.
[00:58:27]  Like the country is not doing great.
[00:58:29]  Hugo Chavez. leads a coup in 1992.
[00:58:34]  It does not work.
[00:58:35]  They throw him in the clink.
[00:58:36]  And this is true and on rule.
[00:58:38]  And I say this as a Chavez fan.
[00:58:42]  Just kill him.
[00:58:44]  You know what I mean?
[00:58:47]  If someone leads a coup, kill him.
[00:58:50]  No, you can't throw him in prison where he is one.
[00:58:53]  And I, you know, this isn't about Chavez specifically, but this is just sort of about what happens to coup plotters in prison.
[00:59:00]  One, they're educating themselves more.
[00:59:03]  You're learning a lot.
[00:59:05]  They're reading the 12 laws of power.
[00:59:06]  They're reading all of the primary texts and some of the secondary ones.
[00:59:11]  And then also gaining followers through aura farming.
[00:59:18]  Yes, aura.
[00:59:19]  And that's a really big thing you can do in prison.
[00:59:21]  That's one of the biggest prison industries.
[00:59:22]  And also getting working out.
[00:59:25]  It all goes hand in hand.
[00:59:27]  If you do throw the guy in prison, never let him out.
[00:59:31]  Yeah, well, they, they, so there's a couple mistakes here.
[00:59:33]  They let Hugo Chavez out of prison.
[00:59:35]  He's like, thank you.
[00:59:37]  I'm going to run for president.
[00:59:38]  And guess what?
[00:59:39]  He wins.
[00:59:40]  Yeah.
[00:59:40]  He wins in 1998, takes office in 99 on a Bolivarian line that was not yet explicitly socialist.
[00:59:47]  In 2001, he enacts a new hydrocarbons law, which forces foreign companies into mixed arrangements with Pete Vesa, where Petevesa has majority control.
[00:59:56]  And again, I'm not an expert on the Venezuelan economy or anything like this, but obviously the big thing that everybody knows is like they funnel a lot of that money into Misiones to, you know, for social welfare and housing and literacy and all this kind of stuff.
[01:00:13]  He is couped in 2002 by the military in one of the worst coups of all time.
[01:00:19]  Really bad coup, like really, really bad coup and very shortly lived.
[01:00:24]  It is one of the pussiest coups ever done because they win.
[01:00:28]  They get him.
[01:00:29]  They take him to a prison.
[01:00:30]  And yet they don't.
[01:00:32]  Or to a military base.
[01:00:32]  And then they're like, oh, fuck.
[01:00:35]  Nobody wants this.
[01:00:37]  The U.S. knew about the coup, obviously, or probably helped, but we know that the U.S. knew about it was going to happen.
[01:00:43]  It's supported by a bunch of NED, USAID-funded groups.
[01:00:48]  The coup plotters sign the Komorna decree, which legally is like, that's like the, was the thing that like took out Chavez.
[01:00:55]  Like they're like, we're signing this new document.
[01:00:57]  Chavez is no longer the president, but it also dissolved the entire government and legislature, annulled the constitution, and then they put a businessman into the presidency.
[01:01:07]  I think the coup lasts like, what, two days?
[01:01:09]  Yeah, it was really short, something like that.
[01:01:11]  Great.
[01:01:11]  There's great.
[01:01:12]  And Hugo Chavez is one of the greatest.
[01:01:14]  And I will allow this Gen Z slang into this, one of the greatest aura farmers of all time.
[01:01:18]  He does well on TV here.
[01:01:21]  Everyone's like, fuck.
[01:01:22]  Actually, we shouldn't do this coup anymore.
[01:01:25]  Our bad.
[01:01:26]  Like, because all the people.
[01:01:28]  Massive amounts of people in the streets.
[01:01:30]  Massive amounts of people in the streets.
[01:01:31]  A bunch of army units switch back.
[01:01:34]  They're like, oh, fuck, this isn't going to work.
[01:01:37]  He's put back into power.
[01:01:39]  But in 2003, there's an oil strike that is essentially the work of internal sabotage by white-collar Petavesa employees backed by the opposition and with the knowledge of the CIA.
[01:01:50]  In fact, this is from an April 2002, that strike is in 2003, April 2002 senior executive intelligence brief.
[01:01:57]  Would you read this, Liz?
[01:01:59]  Yeah, it says to provoke military action, the plotters may try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstration slated for later this month or ongoing strikes at the state-owned oil company Petavesa.
[01:02:11]  White-collar oil workers began striking on Thursday at facilities in 11 of 23 states as part of an escalating protest against Chavez's efforts to politicize Peta Vesa.
[01:02:22]  Protracted strikes, particularly if they have the support, the blue-collar oil workers union could trigger a confrontation.
[01:02:29]  Redacted, redacted.
[01:02:32]  Yes.
[01:02:32]  So CIA knew this was happening.
[01:02:34]  Blah, blah, blah.
[01:02:35]  I'm sure they were helping it.
[01:02:36]  That's what they did in Chile against Allende.
[01:02:39]  In 2004, the oil strike, it causes like a huge amount of economic chaos.
[01:02:44]  It is eventually resolved.
[01:02:45]  But in 2004, the NED, National Endowment for Democracy, funded Sumate, probably pronouncing that wrong, but subjective down.
[01:02:53]  You can say it any way you'd like, tries to recall Chavez.
[01:02:57]  They lose the recall.
[01:02:58]  They're like, they do a recall petition, California style.
[01:03:01]  They lose it.
[01:03:02]  And then they try to bring all these international groups in to be like, Chavez has got to get out of there.
[01:03:06]  And they're put on trial.
[01:03:08]  No one is a recall like California.
[01:03:10]  The reality is a lot of the people involved in this were involved in a fucking coup against the government.
[01:03:15]  I'm sorry.
[01:03:16]  They should have been put on trial then, but this is, I mean, Chavez's project here is a social democratic one, and he's really trying.
[01:03:24]  And they're not making it easy for him.
[01:03:26]  By 2006, he becomes more explicitly socialist.
[01:03:29]  The opposition ramps up.
[01:03:31]  They just, and then we talk about this in our Silver Core episode, but just all these different ways they try to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
[01:03:38]  The U.S. does this maximum pressure strategy starting in 2018.
[01:03:43]  Yeah, that continues for a while, too.
[01:03:45]  Yes.
[01:03:46]  It's still basically continuing.
[01:03:47]  Yeah.
[01:03:48]  Well, they foment a bunch of riots.
[01:03:50]  There's a live aid concert put on by Richard Branson on the border.
[01:03:53]  Do you remember that?
[01:03:55]  Where they burn the aid.
[01:03:56]  The opposition burns the aid.
[01:03:59]  And people were like, why isn't Chavez taking in this aid?
[01:04:02]  They should have burned Richard Branson.
[01:04:03]  I know.
[01:04:04]  Well, and we say that in a metaphorical way.
[01:04:10]  Or like an effigy.
[01:04:12]  But, well, the opposition should have been like, Richard, thank you.
[01:04:16]  We love you, Richard Branton.
[01:04:18]  Who do you think?
[01:04:18]  Who'd have performed at that?
[01:04:20]  I don't know.
[01:04:20]  Who performed it?
[01:04:21]  Let's look at that.
[01:04:22]  Colombian border live aid.
[01:04:26]  Venezuela Aid Live.
[01:04:29]  We had, oh, I don't know.
[01:04:31]  Most of these are like Colombian and Venezuelan performers.
[01:04:35]  Oh, they all are.
[01:04:37]  Maui Ricky?
[01:04:38]  No.
[01:04:39]  Maui Ricky, why'd you do that?
[01:04:41]  And then Alesso also performed.
[01:04:45]  And Danny Ocean.
[01:04:47]  But it was just a disaster.
[01:04:50]  The Juan Guaido shit.
[01:04:53]  Do you remember that shit?
[01:04:54]  That was like a little before we started the podcast.
[01:04:56]  Yes.
[01:04:57]  We love Guaido around here.
[01:04:59]  I mean, what an amazing character, Guido.
[01:05:02]  The mayor Pete of Latin America.
[01:05:04]  He really was.
[01:05:05]  And you know what?
[01:05:07]  I believe he was a member of the Socialist International.
[01:05:10]  I love to point out one of the worst international organizations ever.
[01:05:14]  I have like, you know how Israel views the ICC?
[01:05:19]  That's how I view the Socialist International.
[01:05:23]  Guaido, by the way, declared president of Venezuela by the USA.
[01:05:27]  Yeah, we keep doing that, by the way.
[01:05:29]  That's not the first time or the last time that we've just declared a random other person.
[01:05:33]  But I'm like.
[01:05:33]  But the president of Venezuela.
[01:05:35]  Just to see if it's a good stick.
[01:05:36]  Is he still president?
[01:05:38]  No, there's, we tried to push, what's his face?
[01:05:41]  Eduardo.
[01:05:43]  That's the new guy.
[01:05:45]  Oh, the old man?
[01:05:46]  Yeah.
[01:05:46]  Yeah.
[01:05:47]  I can't remember his full name.
[01:05:48]  He's 75.
[01:05:49]  So he'll probably die in office.
[01:05:51]  Yeah.
[01:05:52]  But there's all this entire time the U.S. is increasing sanctions on Venezuela and Petavesa, making it really difficult to do business with anybody there or even have bank accounts.
[01:06:01]  And it's like all these sanctions.
[01:06:03]  It is like they're just trying to topple the Venezuelan economy or government rather by making the economy scream.
[01:06:11]  Guaido, we talked about in the Silvercore episode.
[01:06:14]  I can't remember which one that is.
[01:06:15]  Just Google True and On Silver Core.
[01:06:17]  It's not my, I'm not your fucking babysitter.
[01:06:18]  You're talking about the Bay of Piglets?
[01:06:20]  Bay of Piglets.
[01:06:21]  He literally got a phone call from Mike Pence asking if he'd like to be president, which is really funny.
[01:06:26]  That's how we do it.
[01:06:28]  It is just amazing.
[01:06:31]  He's helped steal Venezuela's gold that was being held in the Bank of England, although that's currently held up, but I don't believe Venezuela is allowed to access it.
[01:06:38]  No.
[01:06:38]  It was the Bay of Piglets.
[01:06:40]  And now Guaido has retired to the, I believe he is at the Adam Smith Institute at the Florida International University.
[01:06:48]  Good for him.
[01:06:49]  Good for him.
[01:06:50]  You know, that's like two, that's like also where all these guys end up.
[01:06:53]  One, something affiliated with Adam Smith and two, Florida.
[01:06:57]  Florida.
[01:06:57]  Florida.
[01:06:59]  Finally, it's Machado's time to take the reins.
[01:07:03]  So her father, she comes from a humble background.
[01:07:06]  Her father was a steel mogul.
[01:07:09]  And her uncle was a business lobby guy and ran, I believe, the largest private business in Venezuela, which was Caracas' electric utility.
[01:07:17]  And I was looking into that because I'm like, it's a little weird because Electrodad de Caracas is the name of the company.
[01:07:23]  I think he might have just sold it at some point.
[01:07:25]  I don't think he actually ran it at any point during the Bolivarian years, but it was purchased in 2000 by an American company, which sold it at a pretty good price to Petavesa in 2006.
[01:07:36]  But she claims, I guess, it was expropriated.
[01:07:39]  I'm not really sure who would have expropriated it, but I'm not an expert.
[01:07:41]  Who knows?
[01:07:42]  Her father's steel businesses were, I believe, expropriated.
[01:07:46]  And frankly, seems like in retrospect, they were right because the daughter is such a piece of shit.
[01:07:51]  She is essentially, and like, there's like no bones about this.
[01:07:53]  This is not me saying this.
[01:07:54]  I obviously we're a balls and strikes podcast.
[01:07:58]  It's not my business, you know, but she is a representative of U.S. business interests in the Venezuelan upper classes.
[01:08:05]  She signed the Carmona decree in 2002 during the coup.
[01:08:08]  She's been at this a while, by the way.
[01:08:10]  She was the person who headed up Sumate in 2004 and fails to recall Chavez, after which she immediately goes to the White House to meet with George Bush.
[01:08:19]  They were good friends, actually.
[01:08:20]  Yes.
[01:08:22]  She's someone who has been at this for a long time, who has tried over and over again and is still at it.
[01:08:31]  And that's what I'm saying.
[01:08:32]  When we say it's her turn, that's what we mean because she has been down for too long.
[01:08:38]  She's down for too long.
[01:08:39]  She's known as the Iron Lady of Venezuela.
[01:08:41]  Obviously, a call to Margaret Thatcher.
[01:08:44]  She is sort of under Leopoldo Lopez's wing, but she's seen as actually a pretty divisive figure on the Venezuelan opposition because she's very right wing and there is like a social democratic Venezuelan extremely right wing.
[01:08:57]  Like she is far right.
[01:08:59]  Far right.
[01:08:59]  She wants to privatize and sell off everything.
[01:09:03]  Like she wants to like a radical, radical, complete privatization of the government.
[01:09:08]  I mean, she's like Malay.
[01:09:10]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:12]  Real like, yeah, to the right of Margaret Thatcher, I would say.
[01:09:16]  She was arrested in 2014 for plotting to kill members of the government.
[01:09:21]  Well, she was behind a bunch of riots.
[01:09:24]  She was prevented from running in the last election, 2024, which is either the old guy.
[01:09:28]  Just to reiterate, this is the now winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
[01:09:31]  Correct.
[01:09:31]  Yes.
[01:09:33]  Still living in Venezuela, I guess.
[01:09:34]  And she's like giving interviews to Bloomberg being like, Heg Seth, like you need to bomb the country from Venezuela, published the Freedom Manifesto in Washington Post, sort of a proto-Constitution.
[01:09:45]  And she is the new Guaido.
[01:09:47]  She is like, if America does succeed in toppling Maduro and taking out the Venezuelan government, she will be installed.
[01:10:07]  So there's a lot of shit that's going on kind of around this.
[01:10:10]  And do you remember, do you remember Trenda Aragua?
[01:10:13]  Of course.
[01:10:14]  Not to be whatever by this, because again, like, I'm just.
[01:10:17]  I'm just a regular guy looking at the news, right?
[01:10:20]  You got your nose all up in that newspaper.
[01:10:23]  I do.
[01:10:23]  And I'm like, let's, but I got little eye holes poking out so I can look at people in the subway.
[01:10:28]  Trenda Aragua, I feel like they kind of made it up.
[01:10:31]  Like, I know it's real, but like, I don't know how real it is.
[01:10:36]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:10:37]  I think it's, it's, you know, yeah.
[01:10:41]  The other one's fully fake, like the so-called cartel of the sons.
[01:10:46]  But like, Trenda Aragua, I think, is, like, real, but, like, it was kind of made up to give a storyline to a viral video about the, the, right, the Denver apartment or whatever, the Colorado apartment building.
[01:10:55]  So it's a prison gang, which I believe does exist.
[01:10:58]  As far as it's known, there's no links to the Venezuelan government.
[01:11:02]  Back in March, when declaring Trend de Aragua a terrorist organization, the Trump White House made this statement.
[01:11:08]  Would you read this statement out?
[01:11:09]  Trend de Aragua TDA is a designated foreign terrorist organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertakings.
[01:11:23]  Weird warfare.
[01:11:26]  Undertaking hostile actions against the United States.
[01:11:28]  TDA operates in conjunction with Cartel de la Souls, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human drug and weapons trafficking.
[01:11:46]  TDA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming U.S. citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime's goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.
[01:12:07]  Cut to video of Maduro like doing his little freedom dance in front of his faces.
[01:12:14]  You know, 50 kids or whatever he was doing the other day.
[01:12:18]  Yes.
[01:12:19]  Where he's like, no war, no war.
[01:12:21]  And he's dancing.

=== Admiral's Dilemma: Hegseth's Legacy (15:44) ===

[01:12:23]  I'm singing Imagine.
[01:12:24]  He's amazing.
[01:12:25]  Oh my God.
[01:12:25]  The Imagine is so.
[01:12:27]  We put that in right here.
[01:12:28]  Alfred Nazareth, como era la canción de John Lennon.
[01:12:31]  Imagine us people.
[01:12:34]  And that was Nicolas Maduro with his rendition of John Lennon's Imagine.
[01:12:40]  This shit actually like makes me, all this shit makes me so mad because like the government is like, not to be adbusters, but like the government is just lying.
[01:12:47]  Like they're just lying to you.
[01:12:49]  And I think if you're a smarter Trump supporter, you realize the government's lying, but you don't care because it gets you further along your political goals, which is just getting these fucking, you know, Spaniards or not Spaniards.
[01:13:03]  What am I calling that?
[01:13:04]  These fucking like South Americans out of here.
[01:13:06]  You know what I mean?
[01:13:07]  And like, but like this is, there's no proof of this.
[01:13:10]  They're saying that what they're essentially saying here is that Trenda Aragua in the United States is an act of, it's an invasion by Venezuelan-backed militants to destabilize the U.S. by taking over the Denver apartment complex or whatever.
[01:13:27]  I guess that's going to be their base of operations.
[01:13:30]  They're sort of like taking, and we'll talk about this in a second too, a little bit more specifically, but they're sort of taking the logic of from the GWAT of how Al-Qaeda and terror-sponsored groups were there to attack American freedom and were infiltrating different whatever.
[01:13:52]  They're kind of taking some of that logical framework and now imposing it in other states to these sort of like other kinds of organizations.
[01:14:02]  Well, this is sort of what this is back when we're talking about 9-11.2.
[01:14:06]  This is like 9-11.2 to me, where it's just the logic of GWAT, but like expanded to everything.
[01:14:11]  Right.
[01:14:12]  And so like, it's just, yeah, they're, they're, these are al-Qaeda infiltrators, right?
[01:14:18]  And at the behest of Osama bin Laden, who caused terror.
[01:14:22]  I keep hearing them, I would say, some of the more intellectually challenged spokespeople for the regime constantly talking about how like Hezbollah is also working with Maduro.
[01:14:37]  Not only Hezbollah, did you see there was a Wall Street Journal article that was like, Venezuelan and jihadist African jihadist drug traffickers are flooding cocaine into Europe.
[01:14:47]  It's like, all right, we're checking everything off here.
[01:14:50]  So the pumping up of the TDA threat comes for like two pretty obvious, or probably more than two, but two really obvious reasons.
[01:14:56]  One is that U.S. sanctions on Venezuela had so damaged the economy that large-scale migration began around like 2015.
[01:15:02]  There was a lot of people coming from Venezuela.
[01:15:05]  This let, and they were given DDS status.
[01:15:08]  And then I think later TPS, I know they were later given TPS status.
[01:15:12]  In fact, they were given the status on the second to last day of Trump's first term.
[01:15:16]  So that's temporary protective status, which means that a country that they come from is too dangerous for them to be deported there.
[01:15:23]  By declaring Trende Aragua a terrorist organization, Trump revoked the TPS status, I think, of all Venezuelans and has engaged, as many people I'm sure are familiar with, who've talked about on the show, in like large-scale deportations of Venezuelans.
[01:15:36]  And remember, like that apartment building in Chicago that they did that like hype video raid on that resulted in no arrest.
[01:15:44]  But like there, I think the reasoning for that was Trende Aragua terrorists were there.
[01:15:49]  Because now it's like, you're not just in a gang, there's terrorists in all of these cities.
[01:15:54]  And so now they're doing these deportation flights.
[01:15:57]  Obviously, people saw the really insane El Salvador shit where they sent a bunch of Venezuelans to El Salvador, including like people that had some maybe TDA members, but then just like a lot of a hairdresser, like random people where they were beaten in, in some cases, actually assaulted by prison guards in Bukele's sort of black site prisons.
[01:16:20]  So two, the other reason for this like terrorist stuff is to gin up public support for war against Venezuela.
[01:16:26]  I mean, you can think of like Trende Aragua and Cartel of the Sons as essentially the WMD of Venezuela's Iraq, if that makes sense.
[01:16:36]  They've been pretty lazy on this, to be totally honest, but Tulsi Gabbard did fire two of the highest running officials on the National Intelligence Council for putting out a memo contradicting U.S. government claims that Trende Aragua is being operated by the Venezuelan government.
[01:16:50]  That's so weird because what Tulsi Gabbard herself has said is this.
[01:16:55]  When we look throughout history, every time the United States goes into another country and topples a dictator or topples a government, the outcome has been disastrous for the people in these countries.
[01:17:07]  That's why we should use our leadership in the world to try to broker a diplomatic solution, working with countries like Russia that have great influence over Venezuela so that there is a peaceful outcome.
[01:17:21]  Tulsi, what a debased piece of shit Tulsi Gabbard is.
[01:17:25]  Man, wow.
[01:17:28]  Is it even worth it?
[01:17:30]  Probably.
[01:17:31]  Probably in some way it is.
[01:17:34]  The U.S. government did invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of TDA, again, many of whom just appear to be regular people.
[01:17:41]  But I believe that has now been blocked by the courts.
[01:17:44]  And the U.S. government, as mentioned sort of in the thing that Liz read earlier, or in like the designating TDS FTO, they say that the Venezuelan government controls a fictional cartel of the Suns, which is literally a media invention, which is like the exact phenomenon that Oswaldo Zavalda talks about in drug cartels did not exist, like the book.
[01:18:05]  But it is like, it is just completely like there's no, nobody says that the cartel of the suns exists, but they want you to believe that like Venezuela is this giant narco-state that like is pumping the U.S. full of, and they want to say it's fentanyl, but they can't.
[01:18:22]  They say drugs.
[01:18:24]  People have like missed the government, hasn't come out and said it's fentanyl.
[01:18:27]  There was something that I think Alex Karp said, well, he's like a moron, but it was really funny because they were talking about the like it, whether or not Palantir was active in the Caribbean with like what the government's doing down there.
[01:18:46]  And he was like, I, I, you know, I can't comment for sure or something.
[01:18:49]  And he's like, but if you know, Palantir is involved, if our tech is involved with stopping the importation of fentanyl that is killing our working class Americans, then, you know, but I'm not going to apologize.
[01:19:06]  Which just like they are not making fun.
[01:19:10]  That is not what's happening at all.
[01:19:12]  That's not where this is coming from.
[01:19:13]  It's just not.
[01:19:14]  It's just not.
[01:19:15]  So, Liz, I don't know about you, but everybody I talk to on the street is like, I'm terrified of these terrorists.
[01:19:25]  Narco-terrorists.
[01:19:26]  Narco-terrorists.
[01:19:27]  We need to invade Venezuela.
[01:19:28]  The name on every, yeah, no, it's true.
[01:19:32]  Um, it's funny.
[01:19:34]  There's some polling that came out, and this is great.
[01:19:39]  Um, more Americans oppose than favor the U.S. military force to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro.
[01:19:47]  Actually, this is like pretty, I mean, only 15% of Americans, including 5% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans, view the situation in Venezuela as a quote national emergency for the U.S. That's not that surprising, but what's funny to me is opposition outweighs support for the U.S. using military force to overthrow Maduro.
[01:20:06]  45% are opposed to the U.S. overthrowing Maduro, while only 17% are in favor of doing so.
[01:20:15]  Regime change is incredibly unpopular.
[01:20:20]  It is.
[01:20:21]  Regardless, the peace president seems to be moving forward with those plans.
[01:20:27]  So we should kind of travel back for a second to September.
[01:20:34]  So long ago.
[01:20:36]  When a video was released of a strike on a boat in the Caribbean.
[01:20:41]  You remember this?
[01:20:42]  I do.
[01:20:43]  It was fucking nuts.
[01:20:45]  I do.
[01:20:45]  I do.
[01:20:46]  The White House and the fawning press kind of framed it as attacks on quote foreign paramilitaries affiliated with narco-terrorists.
[01:20:57]  Narco-terrorists.
[01:20:59]  So this was the first in what ended up being months-long string of a month-long string of attacks.
[01:21:05]  Very similarly, it has received new scrutiny because a Washington Post report came out that the first boat that was actually struck was actually struck a second time.
[01:21:17]  Double tap.
[01:21:18]  It was double tap.
[01:21:19]  The first strike left two survivors clinging to the like floating remains of this boat.
[01:21:26]  And according to reports and from statements from the Department of War, it's so hard for me to say that, but let's just, no, let's just say Department of I mean, whatever.
[01:21:36]  No, actually.
[01:21:38]  No, it's the Department of War.
[01:21:40]  It's the Department of War.
[01:21:41]  That's what they want me to call them.
[01:21:42]  That's what they'll call them.
[01:21:44]  Admiral Frank M. Bradley, who's the commander of the operation and clearly being thrown under the bus here.
[01:21:51]  So one of the most thrown under the bus individuals in the 21st century.
[01:21:55]  I've never seen a guy thrown under the bus this much.
[01:21:59]  Man, by the way, if you're an admiral, you're another admiral, your ass is not feeling great about Hegseth right now.
[01:22:08]  No.
[01:22:09]  You're like, you're fucking throwing admirals under the bus?
[01:22:12]  You're calling JD and be like, dude, I thought you were a Marine, brother.
[01:22:16]  And he's like, I don't fuck with Navy, though.
[01:22:19]  So allegedly, you know, Admiral Frank M. Bradley gave the order for the follow-up strike.
[01:22:25]  He's kind of falling on his sword or whatever here.
[01:22:28]  This is from the New York Times.
[01:22:29]  In the video, three flashes of light filled the video screen and then the men were gone.
[01:22:35]  There's like reports of people watching this and like someone throwing up, like, you know, very Oppenheimer.
[01:22:42]  Yes.
[01:22:42]  But like, it's, it's, so first of all, I want you to remember, I think maybe back in March.
[01:22:47]  I feel like a lot of shit happened in March for some reason, but I have no idea when this actually happened.
[01:22:51]  Sometime in the past year when they drone striked that like just group of people sitting in a circle in Yemen.
[01:22:58]  Yeah.
[01:22:59]  And they're like, actually, we just killed 80 Houthis.
[01:23:02]  But like, there's zero proof of that.
[01:23:05]  It looks pretty likely that they just killed a bunch of random people.
[01:23:09]  And then they posted the video in the same sort of way on the internet.
[01:23:12]  And like, no one really gave a fuck, but it was like, this is, we talked about this maybe just in the live shows.
[01:23:18]  I don't know if we talked about it in one of the live shows.
[01:23:19]  I don't know if we talked about this on the show.
[01:23:21]  But you made a point, which I think about a lot, which is that like collateral murder, like that video.
[01:23:28]  The WikiLeaks video?
[01:23:30]  Yeah, like the government just tweets that shit now.
[01:23:33]  Yeah.
[01:23:33]  I mean, this is stuff that had to be literally like illegally leaked before.
[01:23:38]  And now when we talk about the Trump administration speaking empire plainly, like this is another example of that, which is like they are just fucking literally, they just tweeted it out.
[01:23:50]  Yeah, it's, it is.
[01:23:52]  Someone was working on this story for years.
[01:23:53]  They're not tweeting that second video app.
[01:23:56]  That is interesting.
[01:23:57]  You're right.
[01:23:58]  Doing October 7th style, only we're only showing this to you behind closed doors.
[01:24:03]  So, you know, according to the Washington Post, this was following Hexa's direct orders, right?
[01:24:09]  He, there was, they said there was an order.
[01:24:11]  The order was to kill everybody.
[01:24:13]  And this has landed our boy Pete in some hot water.
[01:24:18]  Congress is now demanding investigations because, and this is also, this is from the Washington Post.
[01:24:24]  We read this.
[01:24:25]  Current and former U.S. officials and law of war experts have said that the Pentagon's lethal campaign, which has killed more than 80 people to date, is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.
[01:24:38]  Yes.
[01:24:38]  So may have committed some war crimes.
[01:24:42]  I mean, the reality is, is like, this is all, I mean, legal and illegal is increasingly just like an irrelevant or relevant concepts.
[01:24:49]  But like in a, in a world governed in the way that all these people told us the world was supposed to be governed, this would be illegal, right?
[01:24:57]  They are just killing people.
[01:24:58]  They're taking video and they're posting the videos on Twitter.
[01:25:02]  I don't think there is often, I wonder, but people don't like to prosecute military members.
[01:25:13]  And oftentimes, like, like if you actually, why don't you go get yourself to a favor?
[01:25:17]  I might be pushing that, pushing that one.
[01:25:20]  I could see Gruesome Newsome.
[01:25:22]  I could see Gav.
[01:25:23]  Gav coming with like the liberal Hitler woke to regime and putting Hegseth on trial.
[01:25:31]  We're putting, yeah, we're putting Karen Bass in charge of the Navy now.
[01:25:36]  But yeah.
[01:25:38]  It is interesting, though, because there was like internal disagreement about this.
[01:25:43]  And that's what some of this reporting has kind of showed.
[01:25:46]  Like, so the JAG at SOCOM reportedly like came out and said, like, killing these people amounted to extrajudicial killings and basically expose.
[01:25:58]  Sure, but even within a very broad legal justification regime, it's still for them.
[01:26:06]  They're like, hold on, this might be too far.
[01:26:08]  And it might expose our guys.
[01:26:10]  We're going to expose our boys to some legal issues if you continue to like carry this out.
[01:26:16]  And then it's interesting too.
[01:26:17]  The head of SOCOM, former head of SOCOM, Admiral Alvin Holsey, announced he was stepping down right around this time, which is like after less than a year on the job.
[01:26:30]  Now, this is from the Wall Street Journal.
[01:26:33]  Heg Seth asked Admiral Alvin Holsey to step down.
[01:26:36]  A de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord between Hegseth and the officer intensified months after the inauguration when Holseley had initial concerns about the illegality of lethal strikes on alleged drug votes in the Caribbean.
[01:26:52]  So like since all of this kind of came out and clearly it's interesting to know that there has been a huge squabble within the upper echelons of the military about this.
[01:27:06]  Also, when you think about, you know, Heg Seth's big pageant that he threw where he made all the generals come, like said, you're fat, you're lazy, you're stupid, you're ugly.
[01:27:19]  No more fat souls.
[01:27:22]  You know, we're really tired of the oompa babies around.
[01:27:28]  Fucking number two, wasted.
[01:27:30]  Did you see that?
[01:27:32]  Are you talking about, oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:27:34]  You think it was wasted?
[01:27:34]  You think he's neurodivergent?
[01:27:36]  No, dude.
[01:27:37]  He was fucking slurring his words.
[01:27:40]  Yeah.
[01:27:41]  Well, he's like, he was like, drones are the future military, guys.
[01:27:46]  What we have right now, and you saw last, just last month in the acquisition speech, is a department and leadership that's willing to get after it to challenge industry to produce better.
[01:27:56]  Maybe Hegseth is just like, if I can't drink, you have to, dude.
[01:28:01]  Well, we got that tip about how much they're fucking drinking.
[01:28:05]  In the department.
[01:28:06]  Yeah, we did.

=== Fog War Conflicts (08:24) ===

[01:28:07]  I don't know if we said that on the show.
[01:28:09]  But they're fucking, we got a tip that they're all fucking drunk there.
[01:28:12]  And I, I generally, I've, if you are, and we know that a couple of you do, if you are a high-level Pentagon person or NSA, anybody, we need to hear about the drinking in that damn department.
[01:28:27]  Dude.
[01:28:30]  It's like a based fucking we work, man.
[01:28:34]  Yeah.
[01:28:34]  Well, it's, it's, it's not good.
[01:28:36]  I mean, it's so funny because like there was also that Democrat video where like six of them, I can't remember their name.
[01:28:44]  I think it was like Mark Kelly.
[01:28:45]  I know that because he's been sending so many text messages.
[01:28:47]  That's the astronaut, right?
[01:28:48]  Yeah.
[01:28:49]  Who his wife got.
[01:28:50]  So sick of that guy.
[01:28:51]  Well, his wife got blasted on.
[01:28:53]  I know, but there's something about him being an astronaut that annoys me.
[01:28:56]  I love astronauts.
[01:28:57]  Interesting.
[01:28:57]  Women.
[01:28:58]  The fact that he was like an astronaut and now a politician annoys me.
[01:29:02]  It feels like so.
[01:29:03]  You've been high enough.
[01:29:04]  Is that how you think?
[01:29:05]  Like he's been hot.
[01:29:05]  He's already been too high.
[01:29:07]  Feels extremely op to me.
[01:29:11]  Interesting.
[01:29:12]  My mind's like Obama's boy.
[01:29:15]  My grandpa always wanted to be an astronaut, but he was too tall.
[01:29:21]  Humble brag.
[01:29:24]  He had to like make himself smaller to be a pilot.
[01:29:28]  Really?
[01:29:29]  Yeah.
[01:29:29]  He was a big boy.
[01:29:31]  No, but there really was, how did he make himself smaller?
[01:29:34]  I don't really know.
[01:29:34]  I think they also needed a lot of pilots back then.
[01:29:37]  Compressed himself.
[01:29:40]  It is interesting because there was that video of Mark Kelly and like Elizabeth Lotkin and all of our goats being like, if there's an illegal order, you don't have to obey it.
[01:29:49]  He didn't say what the illegal order is, even though they should have, because this entire fucking thing is illegal.
[01:29:54]  Although I'm like sure that they kind of fucking illegal.
[01:29:57]  But Trump is like, we got to kill them.
[01:30:00]  He was like, they should be executed for treason.
[01:30:03]  And now they're investigating Mark Kelly and all this stuff.
[01:30:05]  But like the reality is, is like there isn't a such thing as really an illegal order.
[01:30:09]  First of all, nobody really gets in trouble in the military.
[01:30:13]  Like if you want to, if you want to, if you want a fun time, look at how much it's long the sentences after My Lai were.
[01:30:19]  But people also like, look at fucking Eddie Gallagher.
[01:30:22]  He's like a fucking, wasn't he?
[01:30:24]  I think he was at Tucker's party.
[01:30:26]  Well, that, and, you know, that was Hegseth's big push.
[01:30:29]  Exactly.
[01:30:30]  Like, Hegseth is genuinely like out and out, a pro-war crimes guy.
[01:30:35]  But it is, it's, it is like, I don't know.
[01:30:39]  I wonder what the tension the military.
[01:30:41]  I have no insight on this, but I really wonder like what, if there is tension in the military over this, because I think, you know, if you're, if you're a career officer, you might want to look at your future and be like, oh, yeah, you were the guy that was like backing Hegseth up on this stuff.
[01:30:52]  I mean, dude, who the fuck wants a boss who's like giving illegal orders and then scapegoating the generals and the soldiers were following them?
[01:30:59]  I mean, that's like, come on, man.
[01:31:02]  So it's funny because Hegseth now says he didn't know there were other survivors when he was in the room watching the stream.
[01:31:08]  He was, he was like, he's like, I got bored.
[01:31:12]  He was too fucking drunk.
[01:31:13]  That's what he just said.
[01:31:15]  But he's like, a couple of hours passed before he was, this is from the Washington Post.
[01:31:20]  A couple hours passed before he was made aware that a September military strike he authorized and quote watched live required an additional attack.
[01:31:27]  He said, I did not personally see survivors because the thing was on fire and exploded and fire smoke.
[01:31:33]  You can't see anything.
[01:31:34]  You got digital.
[01:31:35]  There's this thing called the fog of war.
[01:31:39]  I'm sorry.
[01:31:41]  That's 18 buzzballs, dude.
[01:31:44]  The fog of war.
[01:31:45]  That's not really what the fog of war is, by the way.
[01:31:48]  No, I could, it's not literally like the a lot of you civvies wouldn't understand, but the fireball of war is just like you know, it makes it so you can't see anything.
[01:31:58]  Pete Hegseth, I mean, this is what I've heard from sources that Pete Hegseth actually watched the video for about five minutes before blacking out or actually, which technically turned a brown out.
[01:32:06]  And he sort of came to later and he found out there had been another strike.
[01:32:09]  That he authorized.
[01:32:10]  That he authorized.
[01:32:13]  It is fucking insane.
[01:32:15]  Like they need, actually, if you are one of the fucking Congress men or women or whatever senators that they're letting watch this video, record that shit on your phone and put that shit out because you know this video is bad.
[01:32:24]  Yeah, they're already tweeting out everything else.
[01:32:26]  Why don't you fucking tweet it out?
[01:32:27]  Yeah.
[01:32:28]  So the New York Times had more reporting that makes this even more dumb and confusing and obviously illegal.
[01:32:34]  This is what they say.
[01:32:35]  Before the Trump administration began attacking people suspected of smuggling drugs at sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved contingency plans for what to do if an initial strike left survivors, according to multiple U.S. officials.
[01:32:48]  The military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared to be helpless, shipwrecked, or out of what the administration considered a fight.
[01:32:56]  But it would try to again kill them if it took what the United States deemed to be hostile action, like communicating with suspected cartel members.
[01:33:04]  Like, I don't know how any of that makes sense.
[01:33:06]  It's basically like, okay, survivors will be rescued, but survivors that call for help are killed.
[01:33:12]  Well, it's also interesting because I think the justification for this double tap here was that they were waving their arms.
[01:33:21]  They were like, that's them communicating.
[01:33:24]  I'm like, but with who?
[01:33:25]  With who?
[01:33:26]  With your communication.
[01:33:28]  With you, dude.
[01:33:29]  They're surrendering, actually, is what's happening there.
[01:33:32]  And like, it is just, it is crazy that, like, this is like, anyone's even, I don't think a lot of people are buying this, actually, but like, it is crazy that they expect us to buy this.
[01:33:42]  I mean, frankly, they, they probably will be fine.
[01:33:44]  I'm sure that nothing will happen, but it does seem like, I mean, the whole thing's murder.
[01:33:49]  No, the whole thing is like, they're like, like, obviously, this is, this is, they're killing everybody here as a civilian.
[01:33:55]  You know what I mean?
[01:33:56]  Like, we don't know who, first of all, any of these people are.
[01:33:59]  We have identified some of the survivors from, they did rescue survivors from one attack, and those people are suing the U.S. government now.
[01:34:07]  Some of these people are like clearly just fishermen.
[01:34:09]  Yeah.
[01:34:11]  And, and so it's like, and, but even if they were cartel members, or like, first of all, these are the lowest ranking guys.
[01:34:18]  The guy's taking the fucking phone to Tobago or to Tunidad.
[01:34:21]  Yeah.
[01:34:21]  And it's just those are probably not going to the U.S. Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.
[01:34:25]  Yeah.
[01:34:26]  And it doesn't fucking matter if they are.
[01:34:28]  So all of this rests on a secret OLC memo, which is, that's the Office of Legal Counsel, which like relies on the claim from the Trump admin that the U.S. is in a formal armed conflict with the drug cartels and that people suspected of smuggling drugs are therefore combatants.
[01:34:45]  So this is really like stretching the definition of combatant here.
[01:34:50]  And based on that, the boat strikes are quote legal.
[01:34:55]  So this is how they've internally justified it.
[01:34:59]  We mentioned, you know, we did that episode on Hegseth.
[01:35:02]  And I do want to like mention that like he has called the rules of engagement stupid.
[01:35:09]  I think that's a direct quote.
[01:35:11]  They're stupid.
[01:35:13]  And he's argued for years that basically the U.S. military needs to relax rules for American troops.
[01:35:18]  Like there's a, I remember like other, you know, other people have said this, but he is, this is something he said during his big speech unveiling the DOD as the Department of War.
[01:35:32]  He said, maximum lethality, not tepid legality.
[01:35:37]  Violent effect, not politically correct.
[01:35:41]  Bars.
[01:35:44]  But seriously, I mean, that's something you hear.
[01:35:46]  The, you know, lethal, we need to be more lethal.
[01:35:49]  We need less regulation, especially from those woke lawyers.
[01:35:53]  Because being, you know, the more lethal we are, the more effective we are.
[01:35:57]  And that's like a part of the way that he was also able to like get the job from Trump in the first place is he was like, you know, Trump really liked that he, you know, oh, he does things a little bit different.
[01:36:10]  He doesn't care for the rules.
[01:36:11]  He's a rule breaker, you know?
[01:36:13]  Yeah.
[01:36:13]  Those are fucking called laws, by the way.
[01:36:16]  They are.
[01:36:16]  Oftentimes, yes.
[01:36:18]  It is like his whole thing.
[01:36:19]  He's like, he's an Eddie Gallagher guy.
[01:36:21]  You know what I mean?
[01:36:22]  Like, he's like, the dirty jobs, you fucking sleep in your bed while hard men with guns go protect you from farmers in Iraq.

=== Elliot's Vision: Welcome Us, Not Missions (15:05) ===

[01:36:32]  Like, what?
[01:36:32]  They were going to come to Ohio and fucking unplug your CPAP machine.
[01:36:38]  You know what I mean?
[01:36:39]  Like, the reality is the U.S. Army isn't protecting you.
[01:36:42]  Who's the U.S. Army protecting you from?
[01:36:43]  The U.S. Army exists to go kill farmers in third world countries.
[01:36:47]  That's what it does.
[01:36:48]  People who could never, never hurt you in any way.
[01:36:52]  Because it's just, it's, it is like, it is ridiculous.
[01:36:57]  The way that these people preen around and act like they're fucking owed something.
[01:37:02]  They should not be, veterans should not be given discounts.
[01:37:05]  Veterans should be double charged by every restaurant they go to because they should be eating for two for every poor person that they've murdered in another country.
[01:37:15]  It's crazy to me.
[01:37:17]  But, anyways, Hegseth, you know, here's how you punish Hegseth.
[01:37:22]  You take away his hornedos after the new administration comes in and let him die on the floor from alcohol withdrawing.
[01:37:30]  No Attavan.
[01:37:31]  Just let him writhe there, have his visions, maybe give him some Beladar and poison him with that.
[01:37:38]  But you know what?
[01:37:39]  Just let him die of alcohol withdrawal, not poisoning, because that's a great way to go out.
[01:37:43]  That's how Jimmy did it.
[01:37:57]  All right, so we should talk about what the plan is.
[01:37:59]  Yeah, we'll go on.
[01:38:01]  So the military buildup in the Caribbean, it started back in August.
[01:38:06]  Before the first boat attacks, we had about seven warships out there, including a nuclear sub just hanging out in the sea with close to 4,500 U.S. they like to call them personnel, which I love.
[01:38:20]  I love that because they could be from any one of our armed services.
[01:38:26]  We have no idea.
[01:38:28]  Following the strikes, which I think, you know, we kind of mentioned, but they've carried out like dozens of these since.
[01:38:37]  We have only ratcheted things up.
[01:38:39]  So there's about, you know, 10,000 troops were added to the area in October, along with more warships, F-35s, drone fleets, obviously.
[01:38:50]  I think a bunch of people in Puerto Rico.
[01:38:52]  Yeah, it's only continued through the end of the year.
[01:38:54]  There's like a massive carrier strike group now that was just sent to the region, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, big boy.
[01:39:02]  And the estimates are that there's about 15,000 U.S., again, personnel in the area, which is huge, including an amphibious assault group of about 2,200 Marines.
[01:39:16]  So this is a big, big buildup, big show of force.
[01:39:20]  It's about 8% of the U.S. total global fleet just parked out hanging out in the Caribbean.
[01:39:28]  They have done numerous shows of force.
[01:39:32]  There's a bunch of reporting that shows that the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which like they're the guys that fly all the missions for the SEALs and the Green Braves and the Delta Force and famously worked with some of the scariest death squads in Iraq.
[01:39:52]  They're flying helicopters off the coast of Venezuela.
[01:39:55]  They flew like a few B-52s as well, just like to put on a big show.
[01:40:02]  At the same time, reporting has come out that covert ops, including lethal covert ops, are underway.
[01:40:08]  And I think Trump, like, he just came out a month ago and was like, oh, yeah, I've already authorized that.
[01:40:14]  So it's like unclear exactly why it was just reported like a month later from like official off-the-record CIA sources.
[01:40:24]  But Trump had already said, like, oh, yeah, we're going to do lethal covert ops there too.
[01:40:28]  Well, I mean, the U.S. has put, and, you know, I should mention this.
[01:40:33]  I mentioned this in another episode too, but a Trump-installed Department of Justice, I guess, prosecutor or lawyer charged Maduro in 2020.
[01:40:44]  I think she was later dismissed by the Biden White House with like narco-trafficking and shooting machine gun.
[01:40:50]  And there's a $50 million bounty on Maduro's head.
[01:40:55]  Now, to put that in perspective, you can't get someone for that, by the way.
[01:40:59]  I know.
[01:40:59]  Which is so fucking cool.
[01:41:02]  It's tight.
[01:41:02]  But it says something about the restructuring of the military, by the way, Venezuela.
[01:41:07]  Yes, which actually is something that's worth mentioning, maybe.
[01:41:10]  It's really worth mentioning.
[01:41:11]  It's from an analytical perspective, some interesting things done.
[01:41:14]  That he's, because this is not Chile.
[01:41:18]  But to put that in perspective, the 50 million, there's 27 million on Osama.
[01:41:24]  Well, like inflation.
[01:41:26]  Inflation.
[01:41:26]  I know, but even with inflation, like, what is that?
[01:41:29]  50?
[01:41:29]  You know, it's probably 50 million now.
[01:41:32]  But, but, like, yeah, like the Joe Brandon economy that we're still living in.
[01:41:38]  It's like, it's the U.S. and Marco Rubio, narco Rubio is saying that Maduro's bin Lot.
[01:41:46]  Like, who's buying this shit?
[01:41:49]  You know, I don't know.
[01:41:50]  I mean, some of it is just their own.
[01:41:52]  That's like the whole thing is that some of it is just some of their own internal justifications, like that they need to like, they have to justify this stuff by their own laws, right?
[01:42:04]  So, like, the narco-terror war framing is super important for that.
[01:42:08]  And I think that's why they continually keep evoking people like Bin Laden.
[01:42:14]  Um, because it's kind of like new wine, old bottle, legal and rhetorical justification, you know, like because they're able to use the post-9-11 terror authorities, which means like conducting overseas legal strikes without standard oversight, right?
[01:42:33]  Um, can also be used to justify extraterritorial killings, which we've seen, and also expand budgets for what they like to call homeland missions without that kind of oversight.
[01:42:46]  And so, with Venezuela labeled as a quote narco-terror state, it ends up like sidestepping major assassination prohibitions, which is a big thing.
[01:42:58]  And then it opens up the Title 10 and Title 50 pathways.
[01:43:00]  And the Title 10 is the legal framework for the U.S. military.
[01:43:04]  So, that's like all overt actions.
[01:43:06]  And that's what allows the admin to treat vote strikes and border operations as military missions rather than law enforcement because those two things have different rules.
[01:43:16]  And then, Title 50 is the legal framework for covert ops.
[01:43:21]  And so, that allows them to go in with covert strikes, cyber war, intelligence capture kill missions, et cetera, et cetera, without acknowledging any of it publicly.
[01:43:29]  So, I mean, I was wondering if they had to do like an AUMF, like an authorization or use of military force here.
[01:43:34]  And it seems like they're just like, no.
[01:43:36]  No, they're trying to just kind of like stretch the limits of metaphor, really.
[01:43:43]  But like, something that I think people should get in their head is that, like, it's so, I mean, it's just such a like, like, remember the Yemen shit?
[01:43:51]  They were like, we need to do an AUMF for Yemen, like all this stuff.
[01:43:54]  And it's just like, they don't actually need to.
[01:43:56]  They just do whatever they want.
[01:43:57]  Right.
[01:43:57]  Like, these people, it's, it's, what drives me crazy is these people live outside the law, yet we are constrained by it in dealing with them.
[01:44:06]  And like, and that, that's what drives me crazy.
[01:44:09]  Like, that's what really makes liberals of us all because somehow they can exist.
[01:44:13]  I not somehow, it's because they have the monopoly on violence, but they can exist without outside of the bounds of laws that they themselves took part in creating or supposed to be the people overseeing.
[01:44:25]  But in order to oppose them, there's an increasingly arcane and restrictive set of laws that you have to obey or you're getting sent to El Salvador.
[01:44:34]  Yeah.
[01:44:36]  So it's unclear exactly.
[01:44:39]  I mean, you know, they haven't given the go-ahead yet, right?
[01:44:42]  It's like, it's a little unclear what is going to happen.
[01:44:48]  Yeah.
[01:44:48]  If they're, if Taco will taco, which is still on the table for sure, kind of did in Trump won.
[01:44:57]  I could see, I could see, I could see him pulling back from this.
[01:45:01]  Elliot Abrams, shout out Elliot Abrams.
[01:45:04]  He came out of whatever coffin he was sleeping in to give a really, to like start really lobbying for regime change.
[01:45:14]  He was like, Trump is our, it was his informed policy mag, my favorite mag.
[01:45:19]  Trump has already passed the point of no return.
[01:45:21]  The game is on.
[01:45:22]  I love it.
[01:45:23]  Game is afoot.
[01:45:24]  The game is afoot.
[01:45:25]  And either he wins or Maduro wins.
[01:45:30]  You know, this is kind of how he lays out the plan.
[01:45:34]  Washington should expand its target to include drug trafficking speed boats in ports in addition to those on the high seas because the threat must be brought home.
[01:45:44]  So he's talking about bombing Venezuela directly.
[01:45:47]  Okay.
[01:45:48]  Then he says to protect U.S. planes that may strike targets in Venezuela and to demonstrate that such strikes are planned, U.S. forces should destroy Venezuela's air defense systems, F-16 fighter aircraft at the Palo Negro air base and the Sequoia jets at the airbase located in La Orchilla, an island about 100 miles off the coast.
[01:46:12]  So he's like, take out all the fucking military.
[01:46:16]  Then, you know, he continues on talking about then you target all the small airstrips, all of the, he says, oh, that are used for drug trafficking, of course.
[01:46:25]  Of course.
[01:46:25]  Of course.
[01:46:26]  And anything affiliated or that has links to ELN, which is, of course, the Colombia, he calls Colombian terrorist group aligned with Maduro.
[01:46:38]  And then he says, no single step would have a greater effect on the Venezuelan military, intelligence services, and police than removing Interior Minister Diostado Cabello, the regime's chief thug.
[01:46:51]  So this is something that Trunan listeners should keep in mind.
[01:46:54]  Elliot Abrams.
[01:46:56]  Clearly a follower of the Trunan rules.
[01:46:58]  He recognized the importance of the Interior Ministry, as does Nicolas Maduro.
[01:47:02]  Yes.
[01:47:04]  And then he says, it is not likely that Maduro's regime could withstand such an assault.
[01:47:09]  But aside from deploying special forces, it would be neither wise nor necessary to deploy U.S. ground forces to Venezuela.
[01:47:18]  The U.S. cannot, yeah, we can never, you know, we don't want to ever deploy ground forces.
[01:47:23]  Well, I think what they want to do is assassinate.
[01:47:26]  So back in late November, the New York Times had a piece reporting on a bunch of war games that the U.S. government did for a potential Venezuelan assault.
[01:47:36]  And it did not turn out the way that Elliot is suggesting.
[01:47:42]  They said the results showed that chaos and violence were likely to erupt within Venezuela as military units, rival political factions, and even jungle-based guerrilla groups jockeyed for control of the oil-rich country.
[01:47:54]  Yeah, no fucking shit, dude.
[01:47:57]  Like, I think people bring up Iraq, but probably a more apt comparison, especially given what the military plans to be, would be Libya.
[01:48:06]  Yeah, well, I think, I think also a more apt comparison would be Libya as well, because Venezuela does have social programs that would be immediately cut for all of these people and have actually suffered quite a bit because of U.S. sanctions.
[01:48:23]  And like, there is a base for Maduro.
[01:48:25]  Like, people pretend that he's like the most unpopular leader in the world, whatever, whatever, whatever.
[01:48:31]  I mean, there might have been some hijinks in the last election, which, by the way, I would have canceled all elections in 2002 after the coup.
[01:48:37]  So there's that.
[01:48:39]  But it is like complete delusion that this is some like horribly unpopular leader that they'll kill.
[01:48:49]  And then everything will just like, everyone will be like, oh, thankfully we're freed now.
[01:48:52]  No.
[01:48:53]  Yeah, they'll welcome us.
[01:48:54]  What did Cheney say?
[01:48:55]  They'll welcome us with open arms or what's liberators.
[01:48:59]  Yeah.
[01:48:59]  It's whoever it was that said that.
[01:49:01]  Yeah.
[01:49:01]  I mean, you know, you brought this up with the restructuring of the military, but I do think it is, you know, worth mentioning.
[01:49:12]  Like the U.S., I think, is exaggerating, overstating its ability to just like trigger political collapse, you know?
[01:49:21]  This is sort of similar to every other kind of coup attempt with Chavez, where, but like they did restructure the military in a way.
[01:49:31]  They, I don't know, they, they say that, like, to coup proof it, which it's like, how, how far can you really like take that?
[01:49:38]  But my understanding is that they have like really fragmented command structures and they do like systematic purging constantly to like really like harden alliances, basically.
[01:49:52]  It's, it's really funny because they hear the way the opposition tells it.
[01:49:55]  There's like Cuban like commissars standing behind every general and like Cuban, a Cuban, all Cuban bodyguard that like supports Maduro and stuff.
[01:50:04]  I've been, I mean, maybe there's some, there's probably some Cubans there, but like, um, it's funny because Bukele has like his Venezuelan opposition advisors and stuff like that.
[01:50:18]  And so, I mean, how to imagine to be a Latin American advisor.
[01:50:22]  That would be a dream job for me.
[01:50:24]  But, but, but it is just like the military is, has not turned on Maduro.
[01:50:29]  That's what they're counting on during the fucking Guaido stuff.
[01:50:32]  And Guaido got like 20 guys.
[01:50:34]  But also, like, how, how, what members of the military are going to move against Maduro if they, if there's no credible guarantees of immunity?
[01:50:43]  Like, yeah.
[01:50:45]  Unless you really fucking believe this, why would you do that?
[01:50:48]  And why would you move against Maduro and then give it to Machado?
[01:50:51]  Yeah.
[01:50:51]  And like, if you're a patriot too, like, this is the whole thing.
[01:50:55]  Like, with even with that last election, I'm like, I'm sorry.
[01:50:59]  Like, why would you give power to people who are begging the U.S. to bomb your country?
[01:51:05]  You know, and kill people and kill Venice.
[01:51:07]  It's so funny to go on TV and be like, please, Mr. Trump, bomb my country.
[01:51:11]  Bomb my country.
[01:51:14]  It's like, yeah, you can't be in a fucking election.
[01:51:18]  I'm sorry.
[01:51:18]  You're going to fucking jail if I'm in charge.
[01:51:20]  Like, bomb my country.
[01:51:23]  Fuck you.
[01:51:24]  You know, it's, it's, that's what's, that's what's bomb my country and make it, please, bomb my country and install me, Lady Malay.
[01:51:31]  Get fucking real, dude.
[01:51:32]  Lady Malay.
[01:51:33]  Lady Malay.
[01:51:35]  You're in the crack, baby.
[01:51:36]  I'm sorry.

=== Defense Contractors and VR Headsets (05:12) ===

[01:51:37]  You know what?
[01:51:38]  We're giving you.
[01:51:39]  I'm like, it's, it's crazy to me.
[01:51:40]  I mean, it's just, you know, and again, balls and strikes here.
[01:51:44]  Balls and strikes here.
[01:51:45]  I'm just saying, if you're, if you're, if you're saying she's a, what was it?
[01:51:49]  It sort of inverts kind of the Lennon, the Lennon line on the First World War.
[01:51:54]  She's a reactionary defeatist.
[01:51:56]  You know, she's like, I want the, I want the U.S. to come in here and destroy my country so that, so that we can have like some shitty fucking what?
[01:52:06]  Like, you think Machado is really going to run the country well?
[01:52:12]  I'm sorry.
[01:52:12]  You're crazy.
[01:52:13]  I'm just distracted thinking about Malay in a wig.
[01:52:15]  She's going to be like Naboa Malay.
[01:52:17]  Lady Malay.
[01:52:19]  It just, it drives me crazy.
[01:52:21]  Like there is a higher, the Chavez and then Maduro governments have shown a higher degree of tolerance towards people who are begging for their country to be invaded.
[01:52:32]  And not just begging for it, because that's one thing, but begging for it by people with two people who might do it on their behalf.
[01:52:38]  It's like, I'm sorry, this is a, we're talking, you're putting the Democrats on trial for saying, or whatever, being like, these are, these are people who are treasons.
[01:52:47]  That is treason.
[01:52:48]  It's fully treason.
[01:52:51]  It's just, but again, I'm not, you know, balls and strikes.
[01:52:55]  So there's another angle to this whole thing that's important to mention, which is obviously the role of weapons manufacturers.
[01:53:07]  Because, you know, there's a really good big piece in the Wall Street Journal recently called Trump's Focus on Drug War Means Big Business for Defense Startups.
[01:53:16]  We love that word startup.
[01:53:18]  Startup nation.
[01:53:19]  We're always saying that.
[01:53:20]  In the gun, no.
[01:53:22]  No, literally.
[01:53:24]  Basically, like all of these counter narcotics operations, especially the strikes on Venezuela, are, you know, not surprisingly a new testing ground and revenue stream for all these defense tech firms.
[01:53:38]  And it's especially good business for the ones that were originally built out for a potential like China-Taiwan situation.
[01:53:47]  And then also ones for Ukraine, which are one, getting pulled back a lot because of the changing politics of the new administration, but also where a lot of systems failed because of Russian electronic warfare, where now in Latin America, they're not facing the same challenges, right?
[01:54:08]  So there's this like really big structural shift happening that I think this like big power conflict is essentially being rebranded as a kind of hemispheric narco-terror war, right?
[01:54:21]  So it's like bringing in all these new defense contractors.
[01:54:25]  Drones are kind of getting rebranded.
[01:54:27]  And there's like a bunch of firms pitching like AI drug network mapping, all that kind of stuff, right?
[01:54:34]  Which is kill lists.
[01:54:35]  Yeah.
[01:54:35]  There's even some like Ukrainian startups in there who are like trying to get in with their experience in fighting against electronic warfare, right?
[01:54:44]  So Southcom came out and said that the Caribbean is in a quote ideal setting for demonstrating new technologies.
[01:54:51]  And this is kind of going back to what I was saying about Latin America being like the U.S.'s like testing ground for like theater for showing like a big show of force to the world, you know?
[01:55:10]  So, which isn't to diminish the like the actual like political nature of these attacks as well.
[01:55:17]  It's like Venezuela and the rest of Latin America are both targets and stages.
[01:55:22]  You know what I mean?
[01:55:23]  And it's just like a fucking flood of money.
[01:55:26]  Like it's, it's a lot, a lot of money.
[01:55:29]  Well, did you see that Heg Seth basically did an ad for Anderil yesterday?
[01:55:33]  Yes.
[01:55:34]  Like the Department of War tweeted out like a video of VR headsets.
[01:55:39]  Yes.
[01:55:40]  And fucking, you know, you have Heg Seth knocking them back in a VR bar talking to eight-year-olds.
[01:55:46]  Yeah, man.
[01:55:47]  He's in the SpongeBob.
[01:55:48]  I think it's so great how cool our warfighters look in heads and VR headsets.
[01:55:53]  And how quirky are like our fucking, and it is like a real, it's a real thing because, you know, we follow tech pretty closely here.
[01:56:00]  A lot of these guys, like defense is the big thing now.
[01:56:03]  And it's so funny that like so much of like tech people is just, there's this like both the you can just do things kind of mentality,
[01:56:14]  but also the kind of like embrace of making the world worse, which I think we've seen a really, I don't want to say subtle because these people are rarely subtle, but a slow and now increasingly fast pivot towards that being like kind of explicit of like, yeah, yeah, we're making the slop apps.
[01:56:36]  We're making the defense contractors.
[01:56:37]  Like this is what we do.
[01:56:39]  You know, like we love it.
[01:56:40]  And like it is, and Palantir now operates like at every level of the government, you know, it's fucking crazy.
[01:56:47]  They have huge, huge contracts.
[01:56:49]  Yeah.

=== Oil Competition with China (10:32) ===

[01:56:50]  The last thing, and we do got to mention this real quick because it is an important component is the oil, the oil.
[01:56:58]  The oil.
[01:56:59]  It's always about the oil.
[01:57:00]  Black gold.
[01:57:02]  And you know me.
[01:57:03]  Liz, you know me.
[01:57:04]  I'm as green as they come.
[01:57:06]  I'm as green as they come.
[01:57:08]  But a lot of these guys, look, because that's the reason.
[01:57:11]  You remember that guy that wrote how to blow up a pipeline, right?
[01:57:14]  Never wrote a sequel because when he did blow up the pipeline, he held that, he held that nectar in his hands and he smelled it and he tasted it, he licked it up like a cat.
[01:57:24]  And he was like, ooh, this stuff is amazing.
[01:57:30]  This stuff is amazing.
[01:57:32]  Imagine this.
[01:57:33]  They say it's dinosaur bones.
[01:57:35]  Yeah, right.
[01:57:36]  But these dinosaur bones all ground up.
[01:57:39]  And now I get to run the Jenny, charge my motherfucking iPad and watch Cocomelon.
[01:57:46]  It's amazing.
[01:57:47]  Dylan style.
[01:57:48]  Me and Dylan watch Cocomelon on the Jenny hiccup to the iPad, dude, from oil.
[01:57:53]  Black gold.
[01:57:54]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:57:57]  Think how much faster you could get on your Cocomelon if we had access to Venezuela's oil.
[01:58:08]  Wow.
[01:58:08]  Cocomelon does kind of sound that's how they should sell this.
[01:58:11]  Coco melon does some sound like something like you're like, I don't know, you're like Panamanian classmates.
[01:58:18]  But yeah, I know.
[01:58:20]  The thing is, Venezuela has so much oil.
[01:58:23]  Yeah, it has one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
[01:58:25]  Most of it, it should be noted, it's actually really very important that most of those reserves are in the form of heavy crude, what they like to call tar sands.
[01:58:34]  But enough about my ex boyfriend.
[01:58:37]  Terrible.
[01:58:38]  But yeah, it's not, they have, they can't really refine it there either.
[01:58:41]  No, they need, they need help, which is where Western firms come in, and maybe some Chinese.
[01:58:48]  Although they could come in a lot more.
[01:58:49]  China, if you're listening to this, I wish I knew how to speak Chinese.
[01:58:54]  Don't back down.
[01:58:56]  No, they back down.
[01:58:57]  When did they stand up?
[01:58:59]  Stand the fuck up, China.
[01:59:02]  Stand tall.
[01:59:03]  But China's infrastructure shit in Venezuela has not been good.
[01:59:05]  It has not been good.
[01:59:06]  Yeah.
[01:59:06]  It just, I mean, not like bad for Venezuela.
[01:59:09]  Well, it's kind of not been great, but there's a lot of unfinished shit that's well, there's a lot of, you know, it's tough.
[01:59:14]  There's, it's not just because of that.
[01:59:16]  I mean, there, you know, the sanctions and the underinvestment.
[01:59:20]  And then there's also a bunch of environmental considerations, right?
[01:59:25]  That have all sort of depressed Venezuela production and export capacity.
[01:59:30]  Like they could be pumping a lot more than they are.
[01:59:33]  Maybe they don't need to, but they could.
[01:59:36]  And, you know, the U.S. companies are sure salivating over it.
[01:59:41]  It is one of, we should say, Venezuela, because I think maybe, I don't know if people know this, Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the U.S.
[01:59:49]  It's right behind Canada and Mexico and the Saudis.
[01:59:52]  Something like it, it varies between like 200 to 300,000 barrels per day, depending on the month.
[02:00:00]  And most of that is produced by Chevron, who also represent about a third of Venezuela's total oil production.
[02:00:08]  Yeah.
[02:00:09]  So they're putting out about a million barrels a day.
[02:00:12]  You might say, wait a second, how can we get oil from Venezuela when there's sanctions on Venezuela?
[02:00:20]  Well, we, you know, because it's in our interest, we give them a special license to work with Chevron.
[02:00:30]  Yep.
[02:00:30]  So we can still keep getting that black gold.
[02:00:33]  That black gold.
[02:00:36]  Yeah.
[02:00:36]  You know, Biden lifted those sanctions, by the way, in 2023, but then they were like reimposed after the election, even as Chevron's exemption.
[02:00:49]  That exemption is always renewed.
[02:00:51]  It is always kept in place.
[02:00:53]  You keep that baby going.
[02:00:54]  Chevron is actually really important here.
[02:00:58]  Not just because they're like a huge Western multinational, but because like for Venezuela, the chevron sales generate hard currency that Venezuela then converts on its exchange market.
[02:01:10]  And it's what helps stabilize their currency and tame some inflation.
[02:01:15]  So they have like an important kind of structural role.
[02:01:18]  Like you mentioned the refining, like they supply the hydrocarbons necessary to blend with the heavy crude, which Venezuela wouldn't be able to like transport and refine much of it without that.
[02:01:32]  So there's kind of like both macro and production considerations here on both sides.
[02:01:37]  It's a little more complicated than maybe people would like it to be.
[02:01:43]  But the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil is China.
[02:01:47]  To charge the iPad.
[02:01:49]  Yeah, the Chinese iPads.
[02:01:51]  The Chinese iPads.
[02:01:52]  The ones that fold.
[02:01:54]  It's like somewhere between 80 and 90% of Venezuelans' exports.
[02:01:57]  Yeah.
[02:01:57]  I was looking at this.
[02:01:58]  It's crazy.
[02:01:58]  It's completely like, I mean, it's a relatively new phenomenon, obviously, because of the sanctions.
[02:02:03]  Yeah.
[02:02:04]  Exports in 2024 reached something like 17.5 billion USD.
[02:02:09]  So it's really big.
[02:02:11]  China and Venezuela have deep ties going back to the 70s.
[02:02:16]  But Xi has been explicit about how important of an energy partner Venezuela is for them, along, you know, because it's also, they want it to be a key market for Chinese infrastructure and tech projects.
[02:02:29]  Yeah, it's, it's, it's also like, I mean, there's a, it's funny.
[02:02:33]  I think there's a subtext here with like a lot of just energy competition with China in general.
[02:02:39]  Yeah.
[02:02:40]  Whereas like the U.S. is really, I'm sure that you've noticed this.
[02:02:43]  There's like a real focus on like, we need a lot more energy to power our data centers because we're doing the Manhattan Project AI against China.
[02:02:52]  Right.
[02:02:53]  Yeah.
[02:02:53]  And, you know, look, China is Venezuela's second largest trading partner.
[02:02:58]  Like they, China mostly exports like machinery, electronics, consumer goods, and then Venezuela provides the fuel and the crude.
[02:03:06]  So it's a pretty like, you know, symbatico relationship.
[02:03:10]  Also, and this is important, China's lent Venezuela about 60 billion since the 2000s, which is more than they've lent any Latin American country.
[02:03:20]  Yeah.
[02:03:21]  And when Venezuela defaulted, they basically repaid all of their loans in oil rather than cash, which one, super cool of China to let them do that.
[02:03:32]  And it also like deepened their dependence on Chinese buyers and financing while China was then effectively able to like securitize future barrels.
[02:03:41]  So it was like, you know, a pretty good situation for both of them.
[02:03:45]  Although I do think that Venezuela's been kind of a, that's sort of a black hole on China's balance sheet, but who cares?
[02:03:51]  Yeah.
[02:03:52]  Much of their oil revenue too from China is coming in the won and not dollars, which is both useful to Venezuela because it allows them to get around the sanctions.
[02:04:06]  And then for China, it's like a slow step de-dollarization as they're doing all this trade.
[02:04:13]  So, you know, it's like you really got to stress that like China's continued trade with Venezuela is like a way around U.S. financial channels.
[02:04:21]  And it also gives them major diplomatic weight in international forums, like, which is very, very important.
[02:04:29]  So this relationship is really key, which is why you keep seeing it, while not explicit, very like clearly signaled in that like NSS, right?
[02:04:43]  Like even by Trump's, the like Trump admins own admission, you know, yes, this has to do with like oil and gold and minerals and all those strategic assets, but it also has to do very much with Venezuela's alignment with China.
[02:04:59]  And also, by the way, through that, Russia and Iran and not really any kind of drug trafficking or narco-terrorism.
[02:05:06]  I mean, this is, we have to keep in mind the Panama and the Greenland stuff, right?
[02:05:10]  Yeah.
[02:05:11]  Greenland, obviously, that are meddling there, which boy, if you're we should just go, we should just send a guy to Greenland.
[02:05:22]  Like some, one of the many like losers that I know.
[02:05:26]  Just like be like, here's 20 grand.
[02:05:29]  Why don't you go live in Greenland?
[02:05:30]  We should send that astronaut.
[02:05:32]  Mark Kelly.
[02:05:33]  I feel like astronauts should be able to do well in the cold.
[02:05:36]  Well, they're not outside in space.
[02:05:39]  Sometimes, yeah, but like in their in a thing.
[02:05:43]  He can be in a thing in Greenland.
[02:05:45]  In a space suit.
[02:05:46]  But like that was because of Russia, right?
[02:05:48]  Or in China.
[02:05:50]  The Panama stuff was China.
[02:05:52]  Like it's, it's like a lot of this is China.
[02:05:54]  And so people, I think, are wrong.
[02:05:56]  It's funny because there's been like lib hawk people being like, oh, the America is like pivoting away from Russia and China.
[02:06:03]  I do think that there probably is more to the pivot away from Russia for Trump specifically.
[02:06:08]  Because you know, he's controlled by that.
[02:06:10]  But, you know, I think he does like want to sort of smooth things out with them.
[02:06:13]  But I think with China, they don't view that as like a relationship that can be anything but antagonistic.
[02:06:20]  And I do think that like, or that at its core will always be deeply antagonistic.
[02:06:26]  And I think that like, really, this is about strengthening the Americas, hardening the Americas as an American, a U.S. American protectorate against China and like hardening those supply lines and getting the oil we need to power our motherfucking data centers to watch iPad with Bob Daly.
[02:06:44]  There's one last thing that I do want to say, which is that Venezuela is also like an important proof of concept that threatens, you know, some of the American project, right?
[02:06:58]  Like if you can be a left-wing government in the U.S. sphere of influence and weather continued military pressure, cultural pressure, diplomatic pressure, massive fucking sanctions, and still resume modest growth, thanks to the backing from China, it's sending a signal to the world that it's possible to defect from Washington and not die.

=== Venezuela's Sleepy Threat (03:46) ===

[02:07:22]  Yes.
[02:07:23]  And that's really, really big in the region.
[02:07:26]  And so for the U.S., you know, it's basically like a test case, right?
[02:07:31]  Do sanctions and regime change still work?
[02:07:35]  And, you know, I don't know.
[02:07:38]  I think we might, you know, we might find out or we might taco.
[02:07:52]  Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's a lot.
[02:07:57]  I know I have a lot.
[02:07:59]  There's just so much to say about this.
[02:08:01]  I was given a working Trump phone number, as I mentioned.
[02:08:05]  And obviously, I can only deploy it once.
[02:08:08]  And I'm going to deploy it.
[02:08:09]  I'm going to deploy it if we attack Venezuela.
[02:08:15]  And I'm going to call Trump and I'll be like, don't do this.
[02:08:17]  Can you?
[02:08:19]  Fuck it.
[02:08:19]  I'll be like, I think you need to also say the caveat that you were given.
[02:08:23]  What?
[02:08:24]  About the time.
[02:08:26]  Oh, I had to call him after 11 p.m.
[02:08:29]  I love that.
[02:08:30]  Do you think Trump sleeps?
[02:08:32]  I think Trump is one of those people who sleep four hours a night.
[02:08:35]  Yeah, definitely.
[02:08:36]  Because I'm also sleep four hours a night guy, but it ruins my life.
[02:08:39]  But there's a lot of sleep four hours a night guy and they're fine.
[02:08:42]  I think he's a like 2 a.m. wake up at 5 a.m. guy.
[02:08:46]  Yes.
[02:08:46]  Yeah.
[02:08:46]  Absolutely.
[02:08:47]  I do.
[02:08:47]  Absolutely.
[02:08:48]  Which is funny because I do think he is in a dialectical relationship with Sleepy.
[02:08:54]  Yeah.
[02:08:55]  Which is, I really got to like.
[02:08:57]  I wish the world was more stable so that you could just be like a grad student who's like writing the dialectics of Sleepy and Trump.
[02:09:07]  Because under our regime, Liz, we will let there will be like reserves or preserves for grad students.
[02:09:13]  And like, yeah, write it, you know?
[02:09:15]  I don't know.
[02:09:16]  I'd read it.
[02:09:18]  Yeah, I'd read part of it.
[02:09:20]  Sure.
[02:09:20]  You wouldn't read all of that.
[02:09:22]  Depends on how interesting it is.
[02:09:23]  It's going to be 400 pages.
[02:09:25]  It doesn't have to be.
[02:09:27]  It has to be, Liz.
[02:09:28]  A book on dialectics has to be 400 pages.
[02:09:31]  How can you get to all the dialectic?
[02:09:36]  Him and sleepy.
[02:09:38]  Him and sleepy.
[02:09:39]  Who do you think lives the longest?
[02:09:41]  Sleepy.
[02:09:42]  No, Trump's going to live to be 150.
[02:09:44]  Sleepy, but Sleepy will live.
[02:09:47]  It would be awesome if Sleepy Joe Biden died the second that, like, on January 20th.
[02:09:52]  I feel like they should make Trump give the eulogy for Sleepy Joe Biden.
[02:09:57]  Trump, I think he would do a really good work.
[02:10:00]  Trump, if you're listening to this, you have to go to the funeral, dude.
[02:10:03]  Dude, but he would be so he would like surprise everyone and like give something and like he was like a yeah, be like he was a warrior.
[02:10:10]  Like he was fit.
[02:10:11]  Like he was like, you people abandoned him, but he was a warrior.
[02:10:14]  He gave me, you know, he beat me.
[02:10:16]  He beat me.
[02:10:16]  He was the only one who could beat me.
[02:10:18]  They took him down.
[02:10:20]  They took him down.
[02:10:21]  For as sleepy as Joe was.
[02:10:22]  Oh, also, that's another funny thing is Machado in her interviews claims that Venezuela stole the 2020 election for Joe Biden.
[02:10:29]  Oh, right.
[02:10:29]  I forgot.
[02:10:31]  What a fucking dumb piece of shit.
[02:10:34]  But it's like, he's the only one who could beat him.
[02:10:40]  It's true.
[02:10:41]  He was.
[02:10:42]  Hillary couldn't beat him.
[02:10:43]  Kamala couldn't beat him.
[02:10:44]  Joe Biden beat him.
[02:10:45]  For as sleep as he was, he still opened those eyes one last mission, Joe.
[02:10:50]  Still got a puncher shot.
[02:10:52]  It's so cool.
[02:10:52]  He's going to be in the top worst, 10 worst presidents.
[02:10:57]  Yes.
[02:10:57]  I got to go.
[02:10:58]  Everyone, we love you.
[02:11:01]  My name is Liz.
[02:11:02]  We love you.
[02:11:03]  My name is Brace.
[02:11:04]  I'm producer Young Chomsky.
[02:11:06]  And this has been Trunan.
[02:11:07]  We will see you next time.