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Jan. 13, 2023 - Timcast IRL - Tim Pool
02:05:42
Timcast IRL - Special Counsel Appointed To Investigate Biden For Classified Docs w/The Krassensteins
Participants
Main voices
e
ed krassenstein
43:57
i
ian crossland
05:22
l
luke rudkowski
13:22
t
tim pool
01:01:19
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
you you
tim pool
you a special counsel has been appointed to investigate Joe
Biden's handling of classified documents after it was revealed that in his
garage next to his Corvette was apparently a stack of classified documents
from when he was vice president
So, uh, that's rather shocking.
And he was asked about this and he just said, oh, it's locked in my garage next to my Corvette.
And then everyone pulled up this old video where his garage is very flimsily secured, if at all, from a thin little garage door and you can see just a big stack of boxes where people are assuming that's probably where it was.
Well, according to all of the hit pieces we saw against Trump going back for the past several months, well this means that Joe Biden has to forfeit his office because he had classified documents from when he wasn't president.
But we'll see.
A special counsel is being appointed, and I'm not convinced anything will actually happen.
Unless you believe the conspiracy theories, they think this is how the Democrats actually get rid of Biden, bring in Kamala Harris, and then prepare for a better 2024 or something like that.
We'll talk about that, plus we got some Twitter files revelations.
Apparently, Twitter and, uh, well...
We'll talk about this.
Democrats are being warned about fake Russian bots, plus censorship, and we've got some special guests who are going to be talking about censorship, which I think will be particularly interesting.
And then I really want to talk about Illinois' gun ban, because this one's fascinating.
Illinois is banning assault weapons, as they describe it, but local sheriffs are saying they won't do it, and they're being threatened with removal from their jobs.
So we'll get into all that, but before we do, head over to TimCast.com.
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Joining us today to talk about this and so much more is the Krasensteins!
How's it going, guys?
Which one he wants to introduce yourself first?
ed krassenstein
Yeah, so I'm Brian.
You probably know us from Twitter.
We were the Trump Reply Guys, I guess a lot of people call us.
But we've done a lot.
We're obviously left-leaning.
But I think it's important to kind of communicate and talk to people you disagree with politically.
We created a podcast, Crash and Chaos Dismantling Division, and we interview people that we disagree with and just talk about daily stuff and just try and get along and usually it works out.
tim pool
Sounds good.
I don't know, Ed, did you want anything?
ed krassenstein
Yeah, um, yeah, CrassingCast is new.
You can follow us on YouTube.
It's just CrassingCast.
I want to give a shout out to my friend Mike Mansueto in Los Angeles, or in San Diego.
He's a huge fan of TimCast, so just want to say hi to him.
Cool, I appreciate it, man.
Yeah, and glad to talk about whatever you want.
tim pool
Right on.
Yeah, a lot of people are commenting saying like you're the Trump derangement syndrome guys.
You are like the most notable Trump reply guys.
Like anything Trump would say, you are always on top.
Everyone always saw you guys.
ed krassenstein
We were.
unidentified
Yeah.
tim pool
And then they banned you.
And I think it was BS.
I thought I think they made up a fake reason to ban you guys.
ed krassenstein
Well, so so I mean it.
It's hard to tell if they actually thought we were doing what they said we were doing, which was buying our accounts and buying engagement.
And we proved to them that we weren't.
We showed them the emails of when we purchased the accounts.
When we purchased the accounts, not purchased the accounts.
When we registered the accounts, yeah.
Freudian slip, I guess.
No, we didn't actually buy our accounts.
And it came at a time when Twitter was banning a lot of conservatives, of course, and I kind of felt like maybe they used us as an example.
They looked for something.
They maybe saw something and thought that we did actually buy our accounts.
I don't know.
tim pool
I don't believe it, I think.
We'll talk about it, though.
We'll save it, because there's a lot to talk about there, especially the Twitter file.
So thanks for hanging out.
This should be a lot of fun, actually.
We got Luke.
luke rudkowski
Yeah, thanks for coming.
This should be a great conversation.
And I don't know about you guys, but with the way that things are going, I think I'm going to be voting in Brandon for the next upcoming presidential election.
And that's why I'm wearing my Let's Go Brandon 2024 shirt.
If you're with me, we could do this.
I believe in you.
We could just write in the name Brandon 2024.
If you're with me, get the shirt on TheBestPoliticalShirts.com because you do.
That's why I am here.
tim pool
Biden-Fetterman!
Come on, what do you mean?
luke rudkowski
Well, there's also Ligma Johnson, which is also going to be a very serious contender.
So there's a lot of very important people.
These nuts?
They're a lot better than the official choices, so I'm seriously considering them.
You should too.
unidentified
All right.
ian crossland
I'm glad you guys are here.
We had the Hodge twins earlier in the week.
I don't know if you know them personally.
I'd love to get the four of you in a room together.
ed krassenstein
That would be awesome.
ian crossland
But for so long I was like, oh yeah, the brothers twins on Twitter, and I thought it was all the same people.
So I'm glad now I put a face to the name and finally meet you guys.
I'm Ian Crossland.
What's happening?
unidentified
And I'm Serge.com, as always.
I was on Pop Culture Crisis.
I forgot to mention that after the show yesterday, but I was on it today.
Anyways, let's get started.
tim pool
Let's jump into this first story from APnews.com.
Garland appoints special counsel to investigate Biden docs.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate the presence of classified documents found at President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at an unsecured office in Washington dating from his time as Vice President.
Robert Herr, a one-time U.S.
attorney appointed by former President Donald Trump, will lead the investigation and plans to begin his work soon.
His appointment marks the second time in a few months that Garland has appointed a special counsel, an extraordinary fact that reflects the Justice Department's efforts to independently conduct high-profile probes in an exceedingly heated political environment.
Both of those investigations, the early one involving Trump and documents recovered from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, relate to the handling of classified information, though there are notable differences between those cases.
I love how the media really, really wants to make sure everybody knows there's notable differences, but they don't ever quite bring up the fact that PolitiFact ran this story.
Quote, the minute the president speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process.
Mostly true, reports PolitiFact.
So if that's the case, what is the issue with Donald Trump's documents?
So, well, I'm curious.
I mean, I think everyone's heard our thoughts on this.
I'm wondering what you guys think.
ed krassenstein
You know, like, I don't think the issues, at least from what we see with the search warrant, wasn't classification.
I think the issue was the fact that he, A, obstructed the investigation, allegedly, and B, the espionage act which says you can't have defense documents in your possession when the government needs them.
So I don't think that's what they're trying to get him on.
Trump?
Yeah, I don't think they're trying to get him on the classification issue.
Maybe that changes, but from what I've Red, I think they're going after him because he basically had government documents.
tim pool
I think one of the big challenges with the Trump thing is that we've heard from the Trump side of things and from early reports that they were cooperating, that they did let them come in and it was actually the FBI's own lock.
So the FBI comes in and says, hey, you have these documents, just make sure you lock them up.
And they're like, you got it, boss.
Then the FBI comes back later, smashes the lock and takes the documents.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, so what happened was, so January, he leaves office.
In May, the National Archives is like, hey, listen, we believe you have documents.
And I don't know if they gave him a list of documents they thought he had, but they said, you have documents, we'd like them back.
And it took seven more months.
Trump's lawyers, I think it was in December of 2021, said, Okay, well, we found some documents.
Then in January, they said, here's 15 boxes of documents.
And the following month, I think it was February of 2022, the National Archives comes back and says, we still didn't get all of them.
You still have more.
We need more documents.
And they go back and forth, back and forth.
And apparently National Archives wasn't satisfied with how Trump's team was cooperating.
So they got a grand jury subpoena In the spring, they visited Mar-a-Lago and Trump's team allowed them to search the basement, I believe, the basement storage room, and they came out there with more documents.
The lawyer signs a declaration saying, we've searched the entire place, no more documents are here.
There are more documents.
tim pool
But I suppose the issue is the president has plenary declassification powers.
As the president, he is the end-all be-all of what is classified or what isn't.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but you also got to look at like, what's the damage to the country?
So like, is he taking compartmentalized documents that there's one copy of that somebody else in government now, maybe in the Biden administration, might need for whatever they're working on?
Is it a danger to the country?
And we don't know.
We don't know if that's the case or not.
But I think that to figure that out would be big to just understand the situation.
tim pool
I can agree.
I mean, if there's like a single copy of it and they're like, whoa, what happened to these files?
Would be really, really bad.
But that'd be really, really bad outside of Trump just having them because what are we doing not having important copies?
But that still doesn't answer the question of So the reason the president can declassify anything instantly is because, imagine he's negotiating with Vladimir Putin to like, get out of Ukraine.
And then he has to go there and be like, well, you know, I would negotiate on troop positioning in Poland or whatever, but it's classified so I can't tell you about it.
Like, that makes no sense.
He needs to literally be like, okay, here's where our shipments and troops are going in.
We'll take those out if you take this out.
So he has to be able to do that.
So this looks just overtly political.
So outside of that, I can certainly understand an argument of like, the greater good, like whether or not Trump has the power to do it.
You know, maybe we should get those documents back, but then why pursue a criminal investigation?
And then you get the media coming out and saying Trump is under criminal investigation, but Joe Biden, his documents are facing a special counsel.
They didn't say he's facing it.
ed krassenstein
I think with Trump though, I don't think he was under criminal investigation until he didn't turn over the documents that the National Archives wanted.
tim pool
But he doesn't have to.
ed krassenstein
Well, he does if the government says they're their documents.
Even if they're not classified, he still has to turn them over if the National Archives says these are government documents, we need them back, they're not your personal documents.
tim pool
I suppose I can understand the argument you're making that they're property of, but that's an argument where we'd have to actually look and determine whether or not he made copies of these documents.
But my understanding was that he has copies of them as the president, and some of the documents were like his presidential briefings and stuff like that, which if he can declassify, then he can have.
But at any rate, if that was the case, pursuing criminal charges because he's like, I disagree on whether you own this piece of paper is kind of...
It's kind of silly.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, so you can't have copies of compartmentalized documents.
So like classified documents there could be multiple copies and several people could have them, but if they're compartmentalized there's only usually one copy as far as I understand.
So if he had that he would have had to have taken it out of the compartment or wherever it's at and brought it back to Mar-a-Lago and then somebody else can't gain access to that.
So there actually is only one copy as far as I know.
tim pool
Well, I guess we have to get into what all of the documents are.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, and when were the documents taken?
If they were taken after he was no—January 20th, when he was leaving the White House, maybe he was no longer president when he took office.
So, you know, you need that information.
luke rudkowski
And I'm pretty sure they have copy machines in Washington, D.C.
to be a little fascist here.
But more importantly, it's kind of convenient that the burden of proof is it's classified.
We can't tell you, but there's only one of us, and we really, really needed it.
For what?
We can't tell you!
ed krassenstein
Yeah, and we won't ever know.
luke rudkowski
For me personally, I don't think we should give the burden of doubt to the DOJ.
That clearly is very political, especially when it came to what happened with Biden.
They found Biden's documents on November 2nd, a week before the midterm elections.
We're now hearing about it?
I think this would have had an effect on the election, and I think this is why the DOJ has been politicized, because this is one clear example of it.
tim pool
And not just that, it's the Vice President and Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of State, Separate instances do not have the power of declassification.
ed krassenstein
Well, so Biden having... The vice president does.
So there was a 2003 executive order by George Bush, I believe.
I believe Obama had another executive order in 2009, which says the vice president and the president can both classify documents.
And the vice president can declassify documents that he classified.
And Also, if he is deemed in a supervisory role over the agent who classified it, he can declassify it.
So, I mean, if there are random documents, maybe he didn't have that.
It depends what a supervisory role is, and I don't think there's really a clear definition of that.
Is a vice president in the executive branch a supervisor of, you know, an agent in the CIA?
We don't know.
Like, I don't know.
I think that's something that would have to be determined by a judge or, you know, I do have this.
tim pool
I pulled it up.
This is from the Washington Times.
A March 2003 executive order signed by George W. Bush empowered the vice president to classify sensitive materials.
That same executive order grants declassification powers to quote the official who authorized the original classification or a supervisor official.
Under the executive order, vice presidents are granted the power to declassify documents they classified themselves, but it's unclear if the vice president would be viewed as a supervisory official with the ability to declassify sensitive documents from the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
I just think it's really convenient that we got probably 300 articles arguing that Donald Trump would have to forfeit any office or that he was disqualified for having classified documents, literally, not even the argument of I think it kind of depends on intent, right?
It was like, if he had classified documents, he violated the records act or whatever.
And then as soon as it happens with Joe Biden, then happens twice, all of a sudden there's
a debate over, well, you know, actually the vice president, the president can declassify
things.
ed krassenstein
It sounds like a cop out.
I think it kind of depends on intent, right?
So like, did Trump take them purposely out of, out of the White House or wherever and
keep store them at Mar-a-Lago?
I think we know more of his intent just because of the fact that he refused to turn them over
knowing that he had.
tim pool
I disagree.
I mean, the documents were in boxes of random things like briefings and Time magazine clippings.
It really does sound like in both instances of Biden and Trump, they had boxes of paperwork they just carried out not realizing what was in it.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I think until we see more information, you have to assume that he didn't intentionally do it, right?
Neither of them intentionally did it, unless you have, you know, witnesses that saw him or heard him say, you know, no, we have to keep these.
We don't want to turn them over to the National Archives because they're mine.
I believe they're mine.
The government shouldn't have a right to So, I think we have to hear the information that comes out, we have to see the evidence, and I guess we'll eventually see that.
I don't know how long it's going to take.
ian crossland
I'd like to repeal this executive order in the meantime.
George Bush gave Dick Cheney way too much power.
He let him run the war, basically.
He let him put his Halliburton company in Iraq to make all this money, and this stupid, stupid rule that he gave the vice president with no command authority, the ability to classify and declassify info is insane.
luke rudkowski
Well, Dick Cheney was pretty much the president.
He's pretty much calling the shots here.
Let's just be real here.
But the little that we know about these classified documents, and I don't think we're going to learn more about them because the DOJ clearly is very political.
They clearly have a side here.
So I don't see them releasing any kind of more information here.
I mean, we'll see what happens.
I'm always skeptical.
But the few things that we do know is that they were related to Ukraine, to Iran and the United Kingdom.
So these were specific documents dealing with Intelligence, foreign services, what's happening internationally.
So I think with that context, especially with where they were located at a think tank that's connected to Chinese money, there is some possible questions here about what information was shared, who got it, especially with the big business ties between Ukraine and the Chinese government and the Bidens.
I think there's a lot more room for a lot more corruption here.
Especially with Biden being a career politician rather than Donald Trump, who's kind of been obfuscated away from politics and kind of pushed away from everybody.
That's my initial kind of reaction.
What do you guys think?
ed krassenstein
I think that I definitely agree.
I think there should be a special counsel and there should be an investigation.
So I think they're handling both Trump and Biden the correct way.
Special counsels I mean, you can say that the DOJ is politicized, but it's an independent special counsel being appointed.
I think he was actually appointed by Trump, this Herr guy.
luke rudkowski
I think the Attorney General that's overseeing it in one of the jurisdictions was appointed by Trump, but I don't know about this special counsel guy, to be honest.
ed krassenstein
I think Herr was a Trump nominee or Trump appointment.
I don't know.
I guess it's an appointment.
What's the name?
luke rudkowski
Herr?
ed krassenstein
Robert Herr.
Yeah, so I think we just gotta wait and see, and I hope they investigate Biden just as rigorously as they're investigating Trump, and we figure this out.
I don't think many Democrats disagree that we should figure out all the facts behind this, and it could be good, it could be bad.
Whatever it is, I think it's important we know, right?
tim pool
I think at this point Democrats are probably excited for the prospect of getting rid of Biden and getting someone better for sure.
Yeah, I mean, you've heard people saying that basically, it's like, here's how you get rid of the guy.
Because apparently, he's playing on running again, he's already campaigning.
And it's like, he's in a weak position.
If it ends up being DeSantis against Biden, I don't think Biden wins.
ed krassenstein
I agree that he's probably too old to run for a second term.
I would love for the Democrats to nominate somebody that's younger.
I think that if it was Trump-Biden, I think Biden would win.
I think if it was DeSantis-Biden, I think Biden's going to have a difficult time.
luke rudkowski
Who would you guys vote for?
DeSantis or Biden?
ed krassenstein
Still Biden.
tim pool
Why though?
ed krassenstein
Just because I agree more with his views than my view.
tim pool
Well, I can certainly understand from like especially the culture war and all that stuff but What has Biden done or what are his views that you think are good or that are worth giving a second term to?
ed krassenstein
I think he's done a lot, a lot of good.
I think that, I mean, I could name several things.
I think the CHIPS Act, which brought manufacturing of computer chips back to the United States.
I think that's great for manufacturing here, but also great for, I think, our national security.
The PACT Act with the burn pit thing, which he signed into law.
The cap on senior prescription drug costs at $2,000.
I think that's great.
I think there's a lot of old people in the United States who aren't even buying drugs that they need because of the expenses.
And I love the fact that you signed that new law.
tim pool
A lot of these things, I think, you know, before the show, we were talking about how we had Destiny on.
What's his name?
Steve?
ian crossland
Steve Bonelli.
tim pool
Bonelli?
Yeah.
I thought it was Bonnell.
Isn't it Bonnell?
ian crossland
Bonnell?
I thought there was an I. I don't know.
tim pool
Maybe there's an I. But, you know, I was saying, like, obviously, on a lot of core issues like health care, you know, rights of the workers, bringing jobs back, bringing chip manufacturing, like, we're going to... That's a good one, by the way.
ian crossland
Oh, it's Stephen Bonnell II.
So I thought that was an I. Sorry, Steve.
tim pool
There you go.
I was like, wait, there's an I in there.
One of the issues I take, the most important thing, foreign policy.
For me, I often go off on foreign policy, like we had a lot of Eliyahu, he's a reporter for us, and then we got into a yelling match because he's like, he called himself jokingly the resident neocon, because he was saying like, we should be at war in these countries, we should be stopping communism, we should be, it should be a unipolar world where the U.S.
is in control, and my attitude is kind of like, okay, I get that, I understand why you'd argue that, But I'm pretty much against US intervention in all these countries, effectively invading countries to remove their government and their cultures and impose our own will and stuff like that.
So when it comes to Joe Biden, you know, I've seen what Joe Biden did when he was vice president.
And it was... I think corruption is an understatement, right?
As soon as he gets put in charge of the war in Iraq, his brother gets lucrative contracts.
We see the expansion of the wars in the Middle East under the Obama administration.
We see the drone killings of children, which, okay, fine.
That's, you know, that's on Barack Obama, like the killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, but also other American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki.
Under Donald Trump, we certainly had some bad things.
There's a commando raid in Yemen, which the people there claim killed an eight-year-old American girl.
It's a bad claim.
It's not the same thing as what we know, that Obama did kill Abdul Rahman al-Awlaki.
But then Trump tries negotiating peace with North Korea, actually walking through the DMZ into North Korea with no security detail.
He gets us the Abraham Accords.
He gets, you know, pulling our troops out of Syria, at least as much as he could, without the U.S.
military actually lying to him and us about how many troops we had there, setting a timeline for Afghanistan withdrawal.
So those things for me are extremely important.
And I can certainly understand, you know, you mentioned those domestic policies.
But I'm curious your thoughts on that regard.
I mean, when it comes to war, Joe Biden is, in my opinion, indefensible.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I mean, you bring up some good points about international policy.
And I tend to focus more on national stuff, stuff that's happening in our country.
I'm pretty much against war too.
It's hard to argue with some of that stuff.
How many wars are we in right now?
luke rudkowski
We don't even know about them.
A lot of them are clandestine.
A lot of them are secret.
ian crossland
That's because of Donald Trump.
luke rudkowski
I want to expand on that because there's the proxy war in Ukraine, there's also expanded operations right now in Africa, there's limited operations in Syria, very limited covert ops in Libya, always a troop presence in Iraq still with fighting between the Sunni Shiites and the Iranians also getting involved there.
A couple years ago, we were bombing places in the Philippines.
I don't know if we're still doing that now.
A lot of this, again, is covert.
So we moved from overt war to, of course, a lot of clandestine war, limited war.
We kind of implemented the Henry Kissinger doctrine.
And to answer your question, there's probably a lot more wars that we're involved in than we actually know about.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, and I just mean official wars.
We got out of Afghanistan, of course.
But no, and I'm anti-interventionist.
I don't think we should be dabbling in all these countries.
I don't have a negative opinion on us helping Ukraine, though.
I think that Given what's happening over there, I think we do need to help them, just so that Russia's aggression doesn't spread throughout the rest of Europe.
I mean, I hate to see us supplying weapons that are killing people, but at the same time, I fear more what Russia would do if they went unchecked.
tim pool
Well, how do you feel about U.S.' 's direct involvement in Ukraine with our special forces on the ground?
ed krassenstein
I wouldn't like that.
luke rudkowski
Well, that's happening right now, and also Ukrainian soldiers are being sent to Oklahoma in order to get specific American training.
I also forgot one very important war, and that's the war in Yemen, which is still continuing right now.
It's a larger proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabian coalition, which is creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world right now.
I think these issues do matter, and I think not a lot of people take them seriously because they happen outside of the United States, but I definitely think we definitely need more of a conversation about this because the war in Ukraine, it's a very dangerous situation.
And I understand that, you know, a lot of people are vying for influence or vying for territory or vying for power, but I think it's clearer than ever, if you guys agree or disagree, that the United States and other Western powers like the United Kingdom have prevented peace deals, have prevented a stop to this larger proxy conflict and have prolonged it and are prolonging it by giving more weapons to it, making sure that it won't stop anytime soon, which I think is tragic for the people of Ukraine, tragic for the people in Europe, and also tragic for everyone else in the world as, of course, this larger proxy war is also creating a humanitarian crisis when it comes to energy resources, fertilizer, and affecting some of the poorest people in the world.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would require Ukraine to give Russia something that they didn't have before the war started, right?
luke rudkowski
And I mean, when it comes to peace deals and negotiations, every side has to give something up.
So Russia would give something up, Ukraine would give something up.
I mean, we reached the point where even Henry Kissinger, an absolute war criminal, the butcher of Cambodia, is coming up publicly saying, guys, this is getting out of hand, we need a peace deal here.
So when it comes to negotiations, both of the parties are going to have to concede on something.
ed krassenstein
But it's hard to say, okay, you know, Russia should gain for invading Ukraine.
Like, so if they agree to a peace deal now, what's to stop them from two months later saying, we're invading again and we're going to inch farther and we want another peace deal and we're going to do the same thing another two, you know, like, If you give Russia something, they're going to be like, we can get something.
luke rudkowski
Well, that's what they would be saying on the other side, too.
This is the perpetual prolonging of this conflict.
ed krassenstein
It's Ukraine giving up their land.
luke rudkowski
That's one potential stipulation.
But the first original peace deal that was actually sabotaged by the West was that Russia go back to its original territories before the war started.
And then we had Boris Johnson come to Ukraine and said, no way you're agreeing to this specific peace deal.
What are the parameters?
I mean, you're bringing up one parameter.
If that's on the negotiation table, it at least should be negotiated.
But we're even prevented from coming to the table and negotiating, which I think is absolutely crazy.
And rooting for more war when there's so many things at stake here, when there's so many innocent lives being lost here, is just absolutely crazy, in my opinion.
tim pool
And this is my answer, you know, you were mentioning, like, you're concerned more about domestic policy, and I completely understand that.
But how many years was it where flint pipes were not fixed, and these kids are getting, you know, there's like legionnaires in the older population, lead and other contaminants, and now we're learning in a bunch of different cities across this country.
So that's why when AOC first announced the Green New Deal, when it was very rudimentary, when it was just like this idea of we're going to rebuild infrastructure and massively invest in renewable energies, I was 100% on board.
I was like, this sounds amazing.
Then she puts out this document where it's like, once we do away with air transport and farting cows, which I understand was a joke, but I was just like, I don't understand what free college for people of color has to do with fixing pipes in places like Flint.
And the response I got from people, a lot of people on the left was, well, it's all tied to the same problem.
And I'm like, no, no, it literally isn't.
kids are drinking lead. And instead of spending the, you know, what is it, $30 million or
however much it was going to cost to fix these pipes, we're blowing up people in foreign
countries. And I think the reason we're doing it is because the U.S. will do anything to
maintain the petrodollar, that the world reserve currency will stay the U.S. dollar. So we
give money away to Pakistan for gender studies programs because it means they'll spend it.
Because it means everyone will maintain confidence.
So we neglect the things that are actually going on here at home.
They throw crumbs out.
Meanwhile, the southern border is completely just shattered.
And you've got people and children dying in the river, crawling through the desert.
They ignore those issues.
It feels like they're just...
Offering up whatever they can to keep people placated while they actually siphon away the resources from the people in this country for the issues of blowing people up overseas.
And more importantly, when it comes to Ukraine, my view of Ukraine is, to go back to what you were saying about Ukraine would have to give something up, I don't actually view it that way, and this is kind of a
hard thing to say, because I have Ukrainian friends, and it's really difficult to talk
to them about this, but Ukraine wouldn't be giving up anything because there is no Ukraine.
There's a proxy land between Russia and the United States that's been there since the
fall of the Soviet Union, and the US and Russia, or I should say NATO and Russia, have been
playing dirty games in that territory.
Russia regrets giving it up with the fall of the Soviet Union.
They think it was a mistake.
They need Crimea as a warm water port, access to the Black Sea, to the Suez, Mediterranean,
et cetera, et cetera.
And they're mad that happened, so they want to take that first.
Then they're running the risk because they only have that bridge, so they want a land
bridge.
That's why they want the Donbass region.
The United States, of course, is doing influence operations through USAID and other organizations
in Ukraine to gain influence.
You end up in 2014.
I'm actually there.
I'm interviewing people about this.
Yes, many of the Ukrainians outright are like, we would rather be with the EU than Russia because we remember the Soviet Union and it was bad.
But then the president gets removed, flees to Russia.
You get Zelensky instead.
You get the whole fiasco with Burisma, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and all of that corruption.
And then I look at it like, You've got Burisma, an energy company.
Surprise, surprise.
Gazprom has effectively a monopoly in Europe.
It's Russia's monopoly through Gazprom, through Ukraine.
The U.S.
starts putting its resources and assets into Ukraine, in the energy sector, notably Hunter Biden, as well as a former CIA director or something, working at Burisma.
A prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, is then investigating Mykola Zachevsky, the founder of this company, For corruption, I think 12 to 14 different investigations.
Joe Biden then flies there, says if you don't fire the prosecutor, you're not getting the billion dollars, which is an illegal quid pro quo.
I'm not saying he did it to protect his son, but his son did work for the company, did make money from that.
The investigations were happening, and it was illegal for him to do.
Everything together and I'm just like, you know what I see?
I see a guy, Joe Biden, who when he was the vice president was placed in charge of the war in Iraq and then immediately his brother got lucrative multi-million dollar contracts to build housing and other buildings and other construction in that country.
Surprise, surprise.
Politico wrote an article called Biden Inc.
where they go over all of the lucrative deals the Biden family's just fallen into In relation to the position of Joe Biden.
So now we're looking at Ukraine.
Joe Biden's dumping a hundred plus billion dollars, just constantly saying, give more money, give more money, give more money.
Zelensky is refusing to negotiate and saying, we will not surrender.
By the way, US, give us more money.
And I'm sitting here being like, can we fix our border?
Can we fix the pipes?
Can we make sure these kids are getting clean drinking water?
Can we stop blowing up people overseas?
My view of this whole thing is that you've got a corrupt parasite class, like Joe Biden, And not just him, but many of the Republicans as well, and they just seek to extract as much as possible for themselves.
And I think what they're probably doing at this point is transferring their resources to, like, Panama, because we learned that from the Panama Papers, so they can put it in holding, so that when the U.S.
finally implodes because they've extracted everything they can, they're going to send it over to China, where state capitalism will favor them.
Long story short.
ed krassenstein
It's a good story.
I don't disagree that we should be concentrating more on America and what's happening in this country.
A lot of your Joe Biden stuff I disagree with.
I think that Victor Shokin was pretty much wanted to be—the whole Western world, our allies all wanted him ousted because he was a corrupt prosecutor and he wasn't actually prosecuting people he should have been prosecuting.
tim pool
But like who?
luke rudkowski
I mean, if we're talking about corrupted politicians in Ukraine, Ukraine is known for corrupt politicians.
tim pool
To address that, I can agree, right?
The West did want Viktor Shokin out.
That was the policy.
The issue is that when Viktor Shokin got ousted, Mykola Zlotchevsky, this is what Biden said, he said, he wasn't prosecuting the guy.
He wasn't going after him.
So we got rid of him.
They bring in a new guy and Zlochevsky returns.
So I think it was London froze Zlochevsky's assets.
Victor Shokin gets removed by Biden.
Zlochevsky immediately returns to Ukraine to resume his work.
And then when Trump gets in and starts poking around, Zlochevsky flees the country again.
So I'm just I'm not going to believe this argument that, well, we really wanted him out when removing him actually helped the guy that was supposedly the corrupt guy in the first place.
It just doesn't it doesn't make sense at all.
ed krassenstein
I mean, you can come up, you can say, you know, Hunter Biden was working in Ukraine.
It's corrupt.
He was feeding money back to Joe Biden.
I mean, you could say that.
tim pool
I'm not even saying any of that.
ed krassenstein
But I mean, people do, right?
unidentified
Right.
tim pool
But my point is, you've got a CIA director, you've got Hunter Biden.
ian crossland
CIA director's name, by the way, is Joseph Cofer Black.
tim pool
He was on the board, right?
ian crossland
Yeah, they put him on the board.
tim pool
So it's like, look man, I'll tell you what I think.
I don't think in this instance that it's overtly like Joe Biden's getting 10% for the big guy with his son.
I think it's that Europe didn't want to pay exorbitant prices for natural gas, but Russia's got them by the balls.
The U.S.
wanted to build a pipeline through Syria and Turkey called the Qatar-Turkey pipeline.
Syria said, our ally Russia would be mad at us if we let you do that, so we won't.
Surprise, surprise, we get lucky and a civil war erupts in Syria, which is going to basically grant us access.
Russia, of course, has their base in Tartus, creating all sorts of conflict.
I think the U.S.
wants to get cheaper energy into Europe.
They want to strengthen the European Union with more energy, with more economic development, because they want a stronger bloc to compete with China.
In a certain sense.
I'm not necessarily trusting all of the elites.
ed krassenstein
I mean, I agree with you there.
I think that's part of the U.S.
plan.
Yeah.
tim pool
Right.
It's a big component.
And when Syria was not willing to abide by this offer, I suppose, let's just call it convenient that there's a massive destabilization in the West is of course against Bashar al-Assad.
Then when it comes to the fact that Gazprom runs I think 20% of natural gas through Ukraine, the US all of a sudden has this interest in getting rid of a corrupt prosecutor who happens to have like 12 to 14 investigations into the founder of an energy company where Joe Biden's son and a CIA director are currently on the board.
I think the U.S.
is trying to gain control of energy.
Makes a lot of sense.
Russia's competing with them.
They're using Ukraine as a proxy.
I get it, man.
You know, it's tough because I don't want the U.S.
to falter.
I don't want China to rise and take over, and then we have Chinese state communism.
But I also take a look at Joe Biden flying Hunter to China on Air Force Two for private equity deals, and I'm just like, I don't trust them at all on any of this.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, like, I mean, I understand that.
And I definitely think what you said is correct that the U.S.
has A lot of interest in keeping the U.S.
dollar value up because without it being up, we can lose ground to China and our other adversaries.
But the whole, like, you know, I think they're right as quick to push this Joe Biden, Hunter Biden corruption thing.
Like the 10% for the big guy, that deal, right?
That deal never took place.
That deal never actually went through.
And Joe was a private citizen at the time.
Who in a subsequent email said, I don't want anything to do with this.
tim pool
I mean, Joe also lied about his involvement repeatedly.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, he lied.
Well, he either lied or he...
Things were kind of I mean over so he said that he'd never talked to his son about any of his business deals And then there's paying him with his son and his body That doesn't mean he had a business conversation with him.
Maybe he went to bank accounts No, I'm saying with this with this guy.
No, I know I know but like yeah, they share bank the and emails and text and phone numbers So it's just like come on, man Yeah, I mean, but... So you can jump to these conclusions that, yeah, since he said 10% for Big Guy, he was doing other deals, you know, since he got the... since he said Shogun should get fired, it was because Hunter was working for Burisma, and maybe that's the reason why, you know, there should be more... less...
Children of presidents working in other countries.
I mean you could say there are plenty of instances with Kushner and Ivanka and I mean what about the 666 Fifth Avenue deal in New York when Kushner couldn't get anybody to give him a lease and Qatar comes along right when Saudi Arabia is blockading Qatar and then Trump lifts the blockade as soon as Kushner gets the Sure.
1.4 billion dollars.
So, I mean, but there's no evidence that it's, they're two are linked,
but you could definitely come up with ideas that there's corruption going on, right?
tim pool
I mean, I think the issue is, as it pertains to Biden or Trump,
a fair point is, yeah, it's always a pick your poison, right?
Donald Trump, I don't know exactly how this goes down.
And again, a lot of this requires speculation, but I think there was a State Department website advertising Trump Doral or something like that.
I don't know if you guys remember that.
No.
Yeah, it was like a State Department website was like, stay at Trump resorts or something.
And people were like, yo, what the is going on?
Like, you shouldn't be doing that.
Trump wanted to have, I think, the G7 at Trump Doral in Florida.
And then he got backlash and was like, no.
I certainly think you see a lot of this kind of stuff.
But I think when it came to Donald Trump, There was actually, despite much of his shortcomings, which I certainly think there are many of, crossing into North Korea, that was really big for me.
Crossing the DMZ.
The Abraham Accords, I think were really, really big.
I certainly think there are questions.
I think anybody who comes out and says that there's no, like, that, like, Trump, or anybody who says like, oh, the Bidens weren't really doing this, or the Trumps weren't really doing this, I'm gonna be like, dude, everybody's always gonna be thinking about themselves to a certain degree.
So my issue is, after assessing all of the details, I take a look at the Biden family, and Biden Inc., as Politico magazine called it, I take a look at the history of this guy, his plagiarism, and the fortunes his families have tracked along with his positions in government, and it's just like, okay, this guy is just literally extracting from us.
Donald Trump lost money becoming president.
Like his net worth has dropped.
He's lost millions of dollars.
His tax returns actually showed- On paper, right?
ed krassenstein
But you don't know.
He could have foreign business deals that are being taxed in other countries.
ian crossland
His social capital is off the charts right now as well.
tim pool
I mean, is it?
He was a celebrity.
He made $5 million at the NFTs.
ed krassenstein
There's amazing NFTs.
tim pool
Yeah, they were really funny.
I mean, cowboy Trump.
Get a cowboy Trump.
Get an astronaut Trump.
ed krassenstein
Did he get one?
tim pool
I did not get one.
I would not buy an NFT.
ian crossland
100 bucks each?
Is that what they were?
tim pool
100 bucks each.
Yeah.
And you sold them all within like 20 minutes or so an hour?
And that was like, you know, I don't know, man.
I think he dropped in the predicted market by like 10 cents when he did that because it was like... I follow that too, yeah.
luke rudkowski
I posted a picture of one of his supporters rotting in jail and him looking through the cell be like, hey, you guys want to buy some NFTs?
So, I mean, talking about foreign policy here a little bit, there's corruption on both sides.
I mean, Jared Kushner was negotiating better weapons deals for Saudi Arabia.
All right, that's a lot of corruption there.
With North Korea, John Bolton sabotaged any possibilities of peace talks by comparing North Korea, saying that they're going into the Libyan model of foreign policy.
But again, you can always compare the two, but I think it's fair to say that The Biden presidency has a lot more room for corruption because he's a career politician.
He's been in office.
He knows everyone.
He knows all the diplomats.
He knows all the bureaucrats.
He has a lot more finagling room to do a lot of really bad stuff.
From the beginning of his political career, he has been known as a man of the lobbyist.
He has been giving a lot of special interest groups a lot of what they wanted, specifically the military-industrial complex, specifically Big Pharma, specifically a lot of the bigger agencies that are now coming in through the bigger problems that he caused, and especially in Afghanistan.
China, huge winner out of all of that.
They're gaining all the national resources from Afghanistan.
Ukraine, BlackRock, is getting all the lucrative contracts to rebuild that entire country after we spent so much money bombing the crap out of it and causing so much chaos.
This is why I think it's important to look at not just Trump, but Biden, but any person in power in a very critical light and criticize them to the highest degree.
But do you guys agree or disagree with me when it comes to saying— Get rid of the Yeah, but do you guys agree that Biden has more room to be corrupted than Trump, who hasn't been in politics that long?
ed krassenstein
I think that one of the appeals of Trump in 2016 was that he wasn't connected to lobbyists, and I can see that as an appeal, but I don't know if that necessarily means that he's not going to be Looking out for himself and his businesses.
I think owning a bunch of businesses around the world and having those businesses profit, whether it's financially or from a standpoint of getting name recognition for those businesses, I think that that can lead to just as much corruption.
I don't know.
I think it's definitely a problem in politics.
I think that a lot of people in politics are selfish and they're out for themselves rather than out for the country.
I think that money in politics is one of the reasons it's like that.
I'd like to see super PACs go away and I'd like to see money come out of politics.
ian crossland
The Trump-Biden conversation is like, cat poop or dog poop?
What do you want?
I'm like, I'm not hungry, man.
luke rudkowski
This is why I don't like any of them, personally.
I'm like, none of them.
I don't want the dog crap.
tim pool
I don't want the poop crap.
I don't view it that way.
I disagree.
I think Biden is like a moldy sandwich where you're like, I know it's bad and you shouldn't eat it.
And Trump is like, Well, look, man, it's not the healthiest thing in the world for you, but it's food.
ed krassenstein
I agree, just vice flip it.
I would feel the same way.
tim pool
Biden's got a track record of all this really awful stuff, and Trump's just a nasty guy.
ed krassenstein
I don't know if I agree with that, though.
tim pool
You look at the economic numbers under Trump, and it was massive success up until COVID.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but then Biden took over after COVID and wages dropped dramatically and inflation skyrocketed.
Unemployment rate is down.
Inflation is finally leveling up.
You're going to have inflation.
I mean, the whole supply chain, supply and demand, when the supply chain gets cut off because of all the COVID stuff.
Supply falls, the price goes up.
luke rudkowski
Do you guys think we have a positive economic outlook moving forward from here?
ed krassenstein
I'm more positive right now than I was, say, like three or four months ago.
I think that inflation's coming down.
I think a lot relies on the Fed, and the Fed's going to keep raising rates until they think inflation's kind of been halted.
And I think we're hitting a point, I think today's numbers were decent, the CPI numbers.
I think we're hitting a point where the Fed's going to start not raising as quickly.
And I think that's positive.
I think we could hit a mild recession sometime in the next six or eight months.
But ultimately, I don't think we're bad compared to the rest of the developed world.
I think the United States is doing quite remarkable compared to some of these other countries.
I was just going to say, Actually, I forget what I was going to say.
luke rudkowski
I was going to say the market's rigged, the numbers are rigged, and if you go to the supermarket, inflation is not stagnating.
It is hitting hard a lot of Americans, and a lot of people are dealing with record high energy prices, record high food prices, and the real inflation that the average American deals with, especially in the poor and middle class, is absolutely astronomical compared to everyone else.
ed krassenstein
Well, I just want to say inflation from November to December has stagnated, according to the CPI data.
So I believe it went up, what was it, 0.3%?
But when you take out oil and volatile foods, it's actually down, I think, 0.1%.
So we're actually in deflationary when you take those out.
tim pool
Not necessarily.
ed krassenstein
The year-on-year record can't fall unless we have deflation.
It can't fall significantly unless we have deflation, which would be bad for the economy.
tim pool
Let me ask you this question.
How do you rate the condition of the national economy right now?
Very bad, fairly bad, fairly good, or very good?
ed krassenstein
Somewhere between fairly good and what was the second one?
Slightly bad?
tim pool
Fairly bad.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I'd say the same.
tim pool
So, according to Civics right now, with 808,000 responses over the past 8 years, if you take a look at the latest developments from May of last year, 50% reported very bad.
Currently, 40% say very bad, 28% say fairly bad, 26% say fairly good, 2% say very good.
Only 2% say very good.
Now, what do you think's gonna happen if I sort this by political affiliation?
ed krassenstein
I think we all know.
tim pool
I think everybody knows.
So I'll start with independent.
Among independent voters, 44% say very bad, 30% say fairly bad, and 20% say fairly good.
So it's actually worse than all combined.
Now Republican, I think, is obvious.
There we go.
70% says very bad, 25% fairly bad.
Among Democrats, 50% say fairly good.
Now, how can that be?
That to me makes absolutely no sense when we're looking at $7 cabbage and $9 eggs.
I don't believe it.
ed krassenstein
I agree.
I think inflation is horrible.
I think inflation has definitely impacted things.
I think that it was unavoidable given not just Biden's stimulus when he came into office.
He did like a $1.2 trillion stimulus.
Trump gave $3 trillion in stimulus or something like that as he headed out the door.
And it's the Fed.
The Fed kept rates low for 20 years.
That's just adding all of this excess demand to the economy and now they have to pull back
and when they pull back it's going to cost us jobs.
So I think that yes, inflation is bad.
I think if you take the United States economy, compare it to Europe, to Japan, to China even,
I think we're doing remarkably better and I think that you've got to compare it because
the situation we're in after COVID, I think the lockdowns affected things, the supply
chain disruptions affected things, oil shocks from Russia, that affected things.
tim pool
I think that overall we're doing decent compared to the rest of the world I do very good it compared to the best I do think people need to recognize Donald Trump was the president when we were doing a lot of this inflationary policy stuff during COVID, like a lot of the stimulus stuff that was going on.
ed krassenstein
I don't blame him.
I think Biden's last stimulus was probably too much.
But also at the time, I don't think we realized that COVID was going to subside.
We're going to get Omicron and, you know, it wasn't going to be as bad of a strain.
And things started coming back a lot faster than we expected.
I think going back, I would say He shouldn't have done that last stimulus.
I think that probably would have helped inflation somewhat.
I honestly don't think it would have done more than maybe half a percentage point.
luke rudkowski
Were you guys in favor of Donald Trump giving out $2,000 checks?
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
luke rudkowski
That was the policy you guys agreed with?
I didn't.
I was like, what are you doing?
unidentified
Are you crazy?
luke rudkowski
It was like a UBI, personally, myself, based on my principles and values.
I was like, that's a little bit too much for me.
And I think just spending money and printing money out of thin air has brought us to this very irresponsible place where we are, what, $34 trillion in debt?
That's not something that's feasible.
That's not something we could get out of.
That's something that Our children, children, children, childrens will be paying for if we're lucky, if the whole system doesn't crash, because we have essentially allowed some of the richest people in the world to enrich themselves while, of course, everyone else was screwed over.
And when we look at the COVID years through the Trump years, he has allowed the largest transfer of wealth in recorded human history.
That, to me, is atrocious.
That, to me, is absolutely unacceptable.
He gave us $2,000, but the billionaire class, they got way more than that.
So that's why I was against it on principle.
ed krassenstein
I mean, what would have happened, though, if he didn't, if Trump didn't issue that stimulus, if Biden didn't issue his stimulus?
What would have happened?
Would the economy have fallen so low that, you know, we could have hit a depression?
We don't know.
We, you know, economics is, that's what's kind of fun about economics is that Everybody has different theories of what would happen, and you don't know until it actually does happen.
luke rudkowski
You make a very good point here, but there's a lot of economists who are making the theory that if you prolong a depression or a recession, it's going to hit a lot harder.
And I think our financial policy has been prolonging any kind of correction.
And now, because of these fiscally irresponsible policies, when there is a correction, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be bad, and it's going to wipe out people instead of having the natural flow of the economy like there used to be, up and down, rates going up and down.
This is going to conflate into a huge problem that's going to absolutely hurt so many people, and that's why I'm against it.
ed krassenstein
I think it's good that rates are going up now, because you need that in your toolbox for when we do hit a You know, an epic disaster.
It would have been good to have that tool when COVID hit so that we didn't need to have as much money being pumped in through fiscal policy.
We could have used monetary policy.
But we didn't have that tool unless we went to negative rates, which would, you know, I don't think anybody's supporting negative rates right now.
Actually, Trump supported negative rates at the time.
He was kind of pushing for the Fed.
But no, I do think that we're headed towards a cliff at some point, whether it's in Three years or 30 years, I don't know when that's gonna be, but it's obviously not sustainable to have this debt and something needs to be done.
I think we can all agree to that.
ian crossland
Yes, it's not monetary, it's not MM, not modern monetary policy as prescribed by the definition of the term, which is you print massive amounts of money and then you invest it in infrastructure to rebuild capital so that it overcomes your debt.
This is, they just printed massive amounts of money and put it in people's bank accounts.
There's no industry being created with it, so it's not modern monetary policy.
luke rudkowski
Yeah, the Federal Reserve went to BlackRock.
It's like, here, have all this money.
Went to the stock market.
You're losing money.
Here, have all this money.
That was American foreign policy, fiscal policy.
It's crazy.
ed krassenstein
Sorry, go ahead.
I think it's also from the bottom.
It's a different theory.
Do you start from the bottom and go up or do you start from the top and go down?
And there's two different foods of thought on that.
You know, some people think it's better to start at the bottom.
Some people think it's better to start at the top.
And, you know, I don't know.
There's an answer.
Every situation is different.
ian crossland
I think if you could go either direction, top or bottom, but as long as there's industry being created, like if the money's being spent on groceries, it's not moderate.
It's not monetarily, fiscally possible.
It's just pure debt that people eat, get fat.
tim pool
But here's one of the issues I have with the Fed giving all this money to BlackRock and these big companies is ESG.
Are you guys familiar with?
ESG. So it's environmental, for those unfamiliar, environmental social governance. It's basically
ideological. I think it's basically state communism or state capitalism, whatever you
want to call it, injected into corporations, imposing an ideological bent on what they
can or can't do in exchange for a score. It's like a social credit score. What do you guys
think about ESG?
ed krassenstein
Jeff Fischer, CFO Alphabet and Google I think there's – I'm typically against the government
getting involved in corporations, But I also see where some people are coming from.
I think that our environment's important.
I have young kids.
I hope that climate change doesn't progress like some people are projecting.
I think it's kind of one of those gray areas.
I don't think ESG should be totally cut off, but I also don't think that we should take it over and overkill.
ian crossland
Don't remove it?
ed krassenstein
Everything has an in-between, I think.
tim pool
But ESG, it's either in our institutions or it's not.
So this is what happened in West Virginia.
There's energy companies in West Virginia.
It's a big industry.
And these companies were told they could no longer secure financing to operate because it was against ESG.
And it's like, okay, well, that destroys the economy of West Virginia and puts everybody out of work.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and be like, we should burn the plant to the ground for the sake of someone having a job.
But certainly the solution isn't just to be like, we've implemented an ideological system that now destroys your industry.
There's got to be ways to, you know, we got to find a way to I think technologically advanced away from this.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I agree.
tim pool
So, like, the example I often give is how they used to be scared that New York would be littered
with mounds of horse crap everywhere because the horses were transporting all the goods.
And there was like this article written like, at the turn of the century, 1900s, there'll be so much
horse crap you'll be able to live in the city anymore. And they invented the
ed krassenstein
car.
tim pool
And so my view is like, we need to slowly shift off this industry through invention and innovation.
ESG seems more like what China does.
The government gets involved, or some kind of ideological entity gets involved, and then punishes people, takes away their ability to operate their business unless they do things like fire their white board member and put a black woman as a board member.
I don't see how that's actually solving any problems or making anyone's life better other than actually creating racial animosity, destroying industries, and my view actually is if they start destroying these companies, they're actually going to make the issue of pollution worse.
It's going to result in people with like disheveled, broken down, disgusting houses, an inability to properly maintain a building, meaning You're going to get metals leaching into the water.
People are going to get sickly.
It's going to create pollution problems.
The economy isn't just, can we build a house?
It's, can we properly remove wastes, recycle wastes, innovate ways to solve these problems?
And destroying these industries, in my opinion, will probably result in us just piling up waste and living in filth.
And then you're going to get people who are going to be angry about the race stuff.
That's where it comes to, you know, the financial policy of giving money to these big corporations like BlackRock in order to buy a property.
It's the ideological component.
I suppose outside of all of that, though, we can talk for a bit.
I'm curious your thoughts on wokeness in general, critical race theory.
We should talk about all that stuff.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I think that those in the right pay too much attention to the social issues and things that really aren't impacting them.
And if they're doing so, In a way that affects the happiness of other people and affects the way other people feel?
I don't agree with it.
I think that politicians on the right, and not everybody, I think that they should focus on other issues rather than some of the issues they've been focusing on, whether it is the LGBT community, all of that stuff.
I do have a particular issue.
What's your definition of woke?
Like, that's something I don't know, really, what the definition of woke is.
tim pool
That's interesting.
So, if you go back in time, I'll simplify this way before I get into it.
ed krassenstein
I know what the general definition of woke is, and it has to do with inequality and stuff like that, but is that how the rite generally refers to it?
ian crossland
So, when you think you're enlightened, but you're not?
tim pool
Well, perhaps.
The simple definition, colloquially for the right, is an ideological cult with no clear aims or goals masquerading as a social justice movement, is one simple way to define it.
The harder way to break it down is, going back in time, the culture war starts with intersectional feminism.
Which is elements of wokeness.
It then evolves into the greater critical race theory, which then starts adopting elements of critical gender theory, and now has become this big amalgam of all of these.
They're not necessarily all Marxist derivatives, but into a certain degree they are.
And the way I see it, If I was talking to somebody who already understood and agreed with me, I'd define it as fire.
Something that's just consuming and destroying and eventually will wipe us all out.
It's not so simple as to be like, it's just something that makes someone happy.
No, it's quite literally like, they say that, a simple example, and they're all grains of sand making a heap.
You can't say woman.
It's offensive.
It's not inclusive.
So you need to say women with a Y because women are not men.
Then they say, actually, that's offensive.
You should say women with an X because that includes this.
ed krassenstein
I mean, I say woman.
tim pool
So I mean, my point is like, you end up with issues where people are getting banned from Twitter because they said, okay, dude, and this person is no longer allowed.
ed krassenstein
Is there actually an example of that?
Zuby got suspended from Twitter because the person identified as something else.
tim pool
And he wasn't misgendering, he was having an argument, and they said something like, okay dude, like he was... Yeah, I mean, I think that's too far.
ed krassenstein
I think Twitter went too far.
tim pool
But this has been too far for 10 years.
And it's getting to the point now where, you know, it starts with saying things like, hey, you know, we shouldn't be censoring people because they have these opinions, and then it leads us to, Hunter Biden's laptop is leaked.
It's got damning videos and information that implicates Joe and Hunter Biden, whether they're guilty or not, implicates.
And multiple polls have come out showing that if the American public had been made aware of the information on that laptop, I think it's between 6 and 7 percent said they would not have voted for Joe Biden.
Theoretically, that would mean that Donald Trump was president.
Now, that's massive.
And so that means that all of these issues we've been concerned about with the hate speech rhetoric,
which is like the idea that we should ban hate speech, is all a component of wokeness.
Twitter then implements policies based on this. Twitter then uses that for political advantages.
And now we know for a fact that for the most part, it was Democrats leaning on Twitter for favors.
Republicans did sometimes as well. But because the Twitter staff was overwhelmingly San Francisco
liberals, Democrats were—and in government too, like the Biden administration actively
are using the private sector as a weapon against their political opponents.
And what we view as wokeness is now just like, you can say woke or you say red-pilled,
you can say left or right. We're seeing a total bifurcation of our culture.
So, the interesting thing is, I've always been fairly liberal, in the literal traditional liberal sense, growing up in a democrat city.
And then the issue of free speech arises.
I look at these stories, notably from Gizmodo, and it says, you know, Facebook employees were routinely banning conservative news outlets from their trending tab.
That's 2016, they reported that.
And I said, hey guys, did you see the story?
What happens?
A whole bunch of leftist organizations come out saying Tim Pool is a conspiracy theorist who thinks the right is being persecuted, because I literally cited a left-wing news source They actually include it in my Wikipedia as if it was some kind of smear that I agree with conservatives that they're more likely to be suppressed or censored when it's a fact.
And it's always been a fact.
And this is the component of the culture war that leaves people on the left calling me right-wing or something.
So it's like, if I was going to vote for someone who is, you know, Democrat or progressive, because I was a big fan of Bernie before I think he lost his mind, It's not going to happen when the liberals and the Democrats are actively supporting a chaotic ideology of destruction and seeking to censor ideas they don't like.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, like, I think you have a point in some respect, but I think most Democrats, most liberals are not woke, as you say.
I think what the right does is they jump over, jump onto instances that took place and paint the picture that Liberals are all woke, or liberals are all, you know, you say woman with a Y, or whatever you said it was.
Just like how a lot on the left say, Republicans are all racist, or Republicans are all anti-Semitic.
I think there's similarities there.
tim pool
I agree.
I agree that there's similarities, but I think, obviously, one side's wrong, right?
Obviously, the right is not all anti-Semitic.
That's ridiculous.
But you can say that the left is not entirely woke.
I would agree that liberals are not all completely woke, but they certainly agree with all of it.
No, I know.
I've heard the same thing.
They say, not all Donald Trump supporters are racists, but all racists are Trump supporters.
Then they say that the people who support Trump are blindly supporting white supremacy and other nonsense.
And it's just not true.
Donald Trump did not defend neo-Nazis as very fine people.
That was a complete lie.
They made the whole thing up.
Donald Trump literally said they should be condemned totally.
That's a quote.
And they lie.
But when it comes to liberals on the left and wokeness, I'll give you one example, the Parental Rights and Education Bill in Florida.
So you get kids who are severely depressed and being abused by their teachers.
The parents then find out, probably because, I think a lot of it was because of the remote learning, Parents had no idea their kids were suffering and depressed, and the schools weren't telling them, and the schools were actually trying to get these kids to undergo medical treatments without the parents' knowledge.
Parents get mad, so the Republicans in Florida say, we're gonna do a bill.
If you're third grade or below, no sex education.
Afterwards, the parents have a right to know about sex education.
What happens?
The Democrats come out with this big lie.
Don't say gay.
Completely not true.
Because the bill barred you from saying straight as well as saying gay.
But they run this fabricated narrative to smear anybody who says parents have a right to know what's going on with their kids.
That's wokeness.
Now whether all Democrats know they're part of a cult or are just blindly following it is the question.
ed krassenstein
So that bill, I actually follow that bill closely because I live in Florida and my wife's brother's gay so I'm close with him.
So I follow the bill and it changed, it evolved, that bill evolved a lot and so at the end I don't think it's as close to don't say gay anymore.
I don't think it really said that toward the end of the bill.
So what I'm saying is that I understand those who are angry.
I see both sides there.
I can see both sides on that, Bill.
I think, you know, the whole idea that you can't... So, the way you understand it, say a child has two fathers.
Draws a picture of his two fathers.
And another kid says, what's that?
You got two dads?
And starts making fun of the kid.
And the teacher comes in and says, you know, some families, there's two men in the family, they love each other, and they can have a perfectly fine family.
tim pool
The bill doesn't bar that.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but it's kind of hard to understand that.
And I think that's why a lot of people, especially early on, teachers were worried, hey, if I say this, am I going to get sued?
tim pool
Am I going to have to But it was specifically outlined that only in classroom instruction was it prohibited.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but what is instruction?
tim pool
What's the definition?
It was all defined, right?
So quite literally, and this was actually outlined by the politicians, a teacher could walk up to a group of—say it's recess—the teacher could walk up to a group of students and say, I'm a man married to a man.
This means this, that, or otherwise.
It just couldn't be part of the curriculum.
ed krassenstein
I don't think that's how it was worded, at least not early on.
Early on in the bill, the way I read it, it was like, you couldn't talk about it.
tim pool
When it goes to passing, and we're at the point where it's like, this is what's actually happening, the narrative across the country was all these celebrities going, gay.
Gay.
But even the bill itself, like, initially, you couldn't say straight either.
It was just no sex ed, period, for third grade or below.
So, like, if a kid drew a picture of a man and a woman and someone made fun of them, theoretically, the argument was still, you'd be like, that's a question for your parents.
Whether it's a man or a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
luke rudkowski
Do you guys think third graders and below should learn about sex ed?
ed krassenstein
No, I don't think they should.
luke rudkowski
But I think a lot of this was a big misunderstanding, and a lot of people kind of jumped to conclusions and speculated when they really didn't know.
So I think, you know, the more clarifications.
But to have a whole national outcry kind of push this larger narrative, which wasn't really true, only empowered people like DeSantis.
ed krassenstein
I'm definitely gonna go back and read the final bill because I know I was following it really closely.
But then, so, talk about wokeness.
Then DeSantis goes and takes the special tax exemption from Disney because they were against the bill.
So, like, isn't that kind of the same thing?
Being woke?
Like, you're attacking a private company because they don't agree with your political philosophy?
I mean, that approach is unauthoritarian, Esamu.
tim pool
I disagree.
I think Disney shouldn't have had the special provisions in the first place.
ed krassenstein
But they're a private company, though, right?
tim pool
But that's an aside.
No, the fact that the state gave a major corporation that in the first place was more authoritarian.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I agree they shouldn't have had it in the first place, but... So taking it away from them, kind of like they should have done that a long time ago for any reason.
unidentified
It was as if it... I believe it was because... So you guys believe corporations shouldn't pay any taxes?
luke rudkowski
Is that what you guys are saying?
tim pool
No, but should major corporations be allowed to lobby their employees and the state to prevent legislation?
ed krassenstein
I don't necessarily think so, but I think that the fact that he used that as the reason why he took it away... He was punishing them for being against him.
That's how—at least it appeared.
Don't you think that's why he did it?
He didn't just say, oh, now's a good time because randomly—it was awful.
tim pool
Opinion argument.
I mean, I could argue it's because they're advancing abusive children, and it was deeply unpopular in the state, and they shouldn't have been given special privileges in the first place, so now's the best time to remove it from them.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but I feel like laws should take care of that, not a governor, you know, stepping in and saying, because you go against my policy.
tim pool
But it was a law.
It was the legislator that actually had to pass the bill.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, yeah, but I mean that bill's, yeah, the bill, but they're against that law.
They can, that's their freedom of speech, right?
tim pool
No, no, I mean the stripping Disney of their provision came from the legislature.
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
tim pool
Ron DeSantis was just a loud voice.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, and did he sign off on it, I assume?
tim pool
I can't remember exactly what happened.
I think they ended up losing that in the long run.
Like, I think Disney went to court and ended up winning.
ed krassenstein
Oh, did they?
tim pool
But I think that this is a tough one because I can certainly agree, you know, we have to find that balance.
Like, we don't want the government to attack private entities because of their policy.
Like, finding that balance is difficult.
I don't want power to centralize in the government or corporations.
We got to find that I will say, outside of it, Disney shouldn't have had that.
I think we agree.
Disney shouldn't be allowed to build a nuclear power plant.
ed krassenstein
That's so weird.
I think the issue is that it helped the Florida economy so much that Florida saw it as, hey, we're going to do this, but we're going to get so much back in tax revenue.
I mean, how much money are they making from tourists coming to Orlando every year?
tim pool
I think the other issue is it's not just in Florida, right, when it comes to the wokeness, right?
So going back to the root issue, we're talking about wokeness.
You're saying, you know, not all liberals are woke, but I think all liberals march behind the woke blindly.
So, you know, one thing we've referenced quite a bit is this book, Gender Queer, that we have here.
Without getting into this for the 800th time for everyone who's listening, you've got places like Loudoun County, which is literally 30 seconds away from where we are right now.
You drive 30 seconds, boom, you're in Loudoun County.
And there was a student at a school who I think he raped two girls.
Is that what happened?
It was the trans student.
luke rudkowski
At least two that we know of.
tim pool
He raped two girls in the bathroom.
luke rudkowski
And then the principal covered it up.
unidentified
Yep.
tim pool
And then when the parents started complaining about this stuff, they get shut down.
They get called far right.
The Biden administration investigates them as terrorists.
luke rudkowski
And the parent speaking out about this was arrested and manhandled by police officers when it was his daughter that got, you know, raped.
So, you know, those visuals were absolutely insane and crazy, seeing a father saying, hey, this is happening, and him being shut down and arrested and taken away, which was crazy.
tim pool
But so this is what leads ultimately to, you know, Yunkin winning.
They say that the parents were getting fed up with the wokeness.
It's not just genderqueer, we had Asra Noumani came on with a stack of books that are appearing in public schools for children.
And it is, I'll put it this way, let me ask you a question.
Are you guys religious at all?
ed krassenstein
I'm Jewish, but I'd probably describe myself as agnostic.
tim pool
All right, are you similar?
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
tim pool
Do you think, let me give you an example, if there was a grade school, first graders, and they had a math book, And it had a math problem, and it said, there are 50 sinners in Sodom and 50 sinners in Gomorrah, and Abraham speaks to God and says, will you spare this if there is, you know, 10 righteous people?
How many righteous people would have to be, you know, how many people would be remaining in Sodom and Gomorrah if 10 righteous people were removed?
ed krassenstein
Do you want me to answer that?
tim pool
Do you think that would be an appropriate math question in a public school?
ed krassenstein
No.
tim pool
But because it's religion, right?
Because it's teaching the story of Lot, Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah.
That's what they're doing in schools right now with critical race theory, which is an ideology.
ed krassenstein
See, that's another thing where I think you have to say there's no solid line.
tim pool
So look, the math problem, we actually pulled the book up.
And it says, Jamal is stopped by the police 17 times on his way home from school, while Eric is stopped 3 times.
What percentage of the time was Jamal being stopped?
And it shows a picture of a little black boy, a cop, an angry cop pointing at the little black boy.
That's racial, that is critical race theory ideology being weaseled into math problems to instill an ideology in children.
I don't think that's appropriate.
ed krassenstein
But there's a difference between separation of church and state and something like that.
I disagree.
Technically, you're not supposed to have religion in school.
tim pool
And critical race theory is a religion.
It's a non-theistic religion.
I shouldn't say critical race theory.
Wokeness, as we describe it as an umbrella term, is a non-theistic religion.
It follows all the tenets of religion except for a deity.
That's what we call non-theistic.
ed krassenstein
I mean, you could say that about so much stuff, though.
Like what?
You could say Trump supporting is a religion.
You could say, you know, Bitcoin maximalist, that's a religion.
Cults, every cult, you could... Well, it kind of is, Charlie.
tim pool
A cult, yes, I agree.
So there are elements of Trump supporters I call cultists 100%.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but I mean, if you start saying that's a religion... But there's no Trumpism.
tim pool
Matt Gaetz challenges McCarthy, Trump calls him out, and Matt Gaetz responds with, sad.
Actually just rejecting Trump outright.
Many of these Republicans are just telling Trump, no.
ed krassenstein
There are a lot of... Yeah, but it didn't happen back then when he was president.
tim pool
To a certain degree, I would say I agree with you, but I will also point this out.
You are like the fourth people we would describe as being left-leaning who have ever been willing to come on this show.
Because they will not have conversations.
The right is willing to have a conversation where there's disagreement, dispute, and potentially proving them wrong.
ian crossland
You know, I would take issue with that because you're left-leaning, I'm left-leaning, we're both libertarian left-leaning.
I think it is that what happens is NPCs will follow blindly any kind of ideology.
tim pool
That's what I'm talking about, with the cult.
ian crossland
And wokeism, it might even be considered like a political philosophy.
So I'm all about teaching kids about communism.
This is what that is.
But when you teach them to become communists, you're indoctrinating.
And so the concern is, are they indoctrinating children with philosophy in school?
ed krassenstein
My issue is, what is the clear line of critical race theory?
If you teach about MLK, is that No.
No.
So but where is that line?
What differentiates that from, like where does that line end?
There has to be a clear line.
tim pool
Assuming there is.
There is.
Critical race theory is defined as the concept of the oppressed versus oppressor on racial
grounds of the white man as the oppressor and the non-whites as the oppressed.
ed krassenstein
So in history though that took place.
So when you teach history... Not in China, or Japan.
No, I mean in America.
Sure, sure, but like... So if you teach American history, is that critical race theory?
unidentified
No.
tim pool
Okay.
So here's the issue.
Kimberly Crenshaw wrote in her book, it was an essay, I believe multiple people contributed, that Karl Marx got one thing right, he got something right with critical theory, that there is an oppressed and oppressor class.
Marx wrote that it was the wealthy who are the oppressors and the poor who are the oppressed.
I'm simplifying it.
And she said, he doesn't understand the racial component of America.
So we need a critical race theory.
And that's how they coined the term.
The idea then is white people are inherently oppressors, no matter what.
And non-white people are inherently oppressed no matter what.
That means Oprah Winfrey is oppressed, and a homeless veteran sleeping in the gutter is an oppressor.
And that's psychotic in my opinion, but that is the basis for the ideology they teach in these schools.
So when they did the Whiteness Contract, what was that book?
It was called... You want to look that one up?
Again, Asra Nomani brings this book to us and it shows a whiteness contract with a devil tail and a hand reaching out and it says, sign the contract and you'll receive all of these benefits at the expense of your non-white friends.
That is indoctrinating kids with an ideology.
You mentioned separation of church and state and I find this fascinating because what does church and state really mean?
Religions are ideologies.
They believe in tenets, they believe in a certain set of faith-based ideas, and then they hold true ideology.
What's the difference between that and any other ideology?
Obviously, religions have some spiritual component to them.
But if we're talking about separation of church and state, what we're really talking about is separation of an individual's ideology and the state.
The law should govern fairly and equally based upon certain facts, the Constitution and human rights, not whether someone believes someone is inherently evil or an oppressor or someone is going to heaven or hell.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but ideologies are just opinions.
Ideologies are just opinions to another level.
tim pool
If you ban creationism from schools because it was Christianity masquerading as science, then I argue the same thing for critical race theory.
ed krassenstein
So this is the way liberals tend to view critical race theory.
They view it from the standpoint that black people were oppressed by white people and you can't teach that that took place.
tim pool
That's a lie.
ed krassenstein
But the problem is Certain people view it that way.
And if a bill is written saying you can't talk about critical race theory, what if somebody says that's critical race theory?
Then that teacher is going to get thrown out of school.
Teacher is going to be prosecuted, perhaps.
tim pool
Well, you're talking about an issue for a judge to interpret the law properly.
ed krassenstein
But our teachers are paid, in Florida, they're paid like $30,000 a year.
Yeah, but look, you're making an argument that like, what if someone's arguing that- No, my argument, if that bill is written exactly how you explain it, then I think That would be a bill to support.
But if the bill just says critical race theory, it is just too... The law usually defines terms.
Yeah, but I haven't seen a law that defined it the way you've defined it.
tim pool
That's the literal definition of what it is.
ed krassenstein
Well, so then you extend it.
From the book.
And what if you have a class that's talking about income inequalities and you link that certain races might be Inequal to others because of social... It's a Title IX violation.
No, so you have a class that might say... Title IX refers to, like, sex.
What I'm saying is, what if you're teaching that a certain area of this state is socioeconomically unequal to this area?
A percentage of this area is also 80% African-American.
I mean, where do you draw that line?
Is that now going to be... You just say that.
tim pool
What's that?
ed krassenstein
But are you saying that that's going to be considered critical race theory because it's going back to race and socio-economical differences?
No, no, no.
tim pool
Critical race theory and fact are two distinct things.
ed krassenstein
What if a school board says it is critical race theory?
They're wrong.
Yeah, but that teacher gets fired.
tim pool
But you're making an argument for the courts to interpret the law.
No one is arguing that people should be able to misinterpret the law to abuse people.
ed krassenstein
But the courts haven't interpreted that law, and it's so broad, that one judge here could interpret it.
A judge in Florida, a judge in Georgia, a judge in New York's gonna...
tim pool
Judge in New York just said bump stock ban was unconstitutional.
So you have one federal jurisdiction saying one thing.
A matter for the courts is not a matter for argument in law.
I'm saying outright there should be a separation from ideology and the state.
We should govern this country based on what we Vote in, so for instance, I mentioned Title IX is sex, Title VII is race.
It is a Title VII violation for what Joe Biden is doing right now in the federal government is completely illegal.
It's illegal!
And Donald Trump banned that and Biden removed that ban.
ed krassenstein
What's that?
What are you referring to?
tim pool
In government contracting, Donald Trump made it illegal to claim white people are bad or evil and to implement trainings based on race.
This is directly in line with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
This is Title VII.
This is 1991, blah blah blah, amended, etc, etc.
You cannot, in this country, go before a group of children, employees, government workers, period, and say, one race is better than the other.
That's our training.
But that's what they're doing.
ed krassenstein
Are they saying one race is better than another or one race is equal to another?
Is there an example of this?
An actual statement somebody made?
tim pool
I'd have to pull up Christopher Ruffo's article because we haven't pulled it up in a long time.
Let me see if I can find it.
ed krassenstein
I agree.
If they're going around saying one race is better than the other, yeah, I don't think that's right.
tim pool
National Nuclear Labs employees sent a seminar that claimed rugged individualism and hard work are white male culture.
There's also the Smithsonian Museum that said working hard and being on time are elements of white people.
Like, as if to imply, look, outside of any argument you want to make against, like, Asians, Hispanics, or, I'm sorry, Black people, or Hispanics, or whatever, the craziest thing is when the woke people and the critical race theorists argue this right here, nuts, Sandia Labs telling people that hard work is white male culture, as if Black people don't work hard.
That's insane.
But then when I have conversations with these people, they say, oh, you know, it's white people who adhere to schedules, and it's white people who save for the future.
Not kidding.
That's in the Smithsonian.
And then I'm like, what about Asians?
They plan longer for the future, on average, than white people do.
This is an insanely racist ideology that does not belong in government.
One of the reasons why I was more inclined to support Donald Trump, because Joe Biden's actively supporting what is overtly illegal.
ed krassenstein
Like, let me ask you, do you think- Well, I mean, Trump did too, and how many executive orders were overturned by judges during Trump's presidency?
unidentified
I mean, that happens.
tim pool
But I'm referring specifically to critical race theory, Title IX, Title VII, etc.
So, like, let me ask you guys.
If a teacher told a group of students that one race was bad, and one race was not, should that be allowed?
ed krassenstein
No.
tim pool
But that's what they're doing.
ed krassenstein
Okay, and I mean, that teacher should be fired.
tim pool
But this is critical race theory.
ed krassenstein
I mean, but shouldn't that teacher be fired anyway?
Like, I mean, do you need a bill that says you can't teach critical race theory so all the lines get blurred and teachers have less motive to be teachers?
tim pool
I don't know who this guy is who's holding up this book, but I chose this for a reason.
Whiteness is a bad deal, it always was.
Dude, we can see your pointy tail.
And a white hand with a whiteness contract with fire and money and a devil's tail and goat feet is sticking up.
This book is in grade schools all over the place.
ian crossland
That might be called Not My Idea.
tim pool
Not My Idea, right.
And here's the issue.
When someone like me comes out, and I'm like, urban skateboarding liberal dude, and I say, yo, that's messed up, you know what happens?
All the Democrats say I'm lying, I'm wrong, and I'm a conservative.
ed krassenstein
So I totally agree with you.
I don't think that belongs in schools.
But at the same time, I feel that the bill, this critical race theory thing, is an overreaction to a very few cases of this.
Discipline the teacher.
Fire the teacher.
You don't have to write a bill that's then going to be vaguely misunderstood by who knows around the country.
And puts teachers in difficult situations of, can I be saying this?
Should I be saying this?
Can I be teaching this?
Like, do you know how severe the teacher shortage is?
Especially in Florida.
Like, my son doesn't even have a kindergarten teacher.
He doesn't have a teacher because people don't want to teach.
tim pool
I mean, I think public schools are completely corrupt as it is.
ian crossland
Hey, say the pledge of allegiance.
Pledge your allegiance to this country before you say that again.
Don't you remember the indoctrination camp?
Pledge your allegiance every day.
tim pool
But now a lot of these schools are doing pledge allegiance to the pride flag.
I think schools are completely corrupt.
ian crossland
A school making you pledge your allegiance to anything is crazy.
tim pool
I mean, you know about the history of public schools.
Luke, who was it?
Was it Rockefeller?
luke rudkowski
Well, Rockefeller was a key instrumental figure with his larger institutions when it came to building up this model of essentially building up good slave factory workers.
A lot of the education system, depending on what time they start, the breaks that they have, is all based on creating them to be good factory workers.
There's a lot of consensus here.
But there's also a lot of Crazy things, especially with the New York City Public School Board system even having one of their representatives previously a couple years publicly declare that, hey, if there's a poor white kid, we have to spend resources on a rich black kid over a poor white kid because this is to fight all the racism that's happening in this country.
When we see educators and people that have been entrusted in our education system giving out resources based on color and not on need, that to me is something that we have a big problem with and should be kind of corrected, in my opinion.
ed krassenstein
I mean, that goes to the whole reparations argument.
I had a class in college about inequality.
I feel there's good arguments on both sides of that.
And if I'm a black person, I've seen, you know, my family struggle.
All their generations struggling.
You just want to be like, just give one of us an opportunity and we'll try and make a difference.
So I see their point of view, but I also can see that poor white family's view that could also be stuck in a similar situation.
Maybe not dating back to slavery.
You know, maybe it's not, they never got started.
Maybe it's something else bad happened in their family.
Maybe their father was killed and their mother had to raise them.
luke rudkowski
So do you agree giving more resources to rich black kids over poor white kids because of their race?
ed krassenstein
In general?
I think it would be based on a situation.
I would think I'd need the details on both situations.
tim pool
Are you guys in favor of reparations based on slavery?
ed krassenstein
Indifferent.
Not indifferent, but I see both sides.
I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
I don't think that would be a factor in me voting for one candidate or the other just
because I see the difficulty in that decision. Do you think race should be
tim pool
taken into account when someone applies to college? I think so.
ed krassenstein
I really do.
I think that they need to try and kind of even out the racial differences.
unidentified
Why?
tim pool
You think people are different based on race?
ed krassenstein
I don't think they're different, but I think they have different socioeconomic upbringings.
I think that one race has been pushed down for generations and generations.
Which one?
luke rudkowski
The Polish people, right?
The Polish people have been screwed over historically.
ed krassenstein
Maybe Polish people as well.
Jewish people too.
tim pool
So, would you be willing to go to, say, an impoverished seven-year-old Asian boy, look him in the eyes and say, you are not welcome at Harvard because you look too much like those people?
ed krassenstein
I totally get that argument, and I do think it's difficult.
tim pool
Like, maybe it makes more sense to be like, where you live and not your race?
ed krassenstein
It would make more sense to say, hey, yeah, where you live or what your background was.
Your lineage.
Your lineage, but how do you go about that, you know?
unidentified
I agree, it's unfair for some people.
tim pool
Harvard, you know, they have that lawsuit where you have to score 1,300 if you're Asian, 1,000 if you're white, 800 if you're Latino, and like 700 if you're black, which I just think is extremely racist.
But they're doing it because they think they want racial parity, which to me also makes no sense, as if to imply that race is the component by which we measure humanity, and it's a weird thing to me.
But that means that poor Asians will be kicked out for rich black kids.
And I'm just like, I don't get that.
ed krassenstein
I understand their argument, and I can understand both sides of it.
tim pool
I don't understand their argument at all.
What's their argument?
ed krassenstein
I think the argument is that we As a nation have pushed down this group of people, African Americans, for so long, generation after generation, going back to the 1800s.
I think we owe it to them in a way to equalize their opportunity now.
tim pool
But actually, I see something real quick.
Sorry.
I see it.
I see my view is based on we're all Americans and your view is based on we're white and you're black.
ed krassenstein
No, my view is that we as a nation have pushed these people down for so long that... Right, right.
tim pool
These people, not us.
You see what I'm saying?
I view us all as one group.
ed krassenstein
You view us as separate groups.
Let me try.
I don't want to speak as a black person because I don't know, you know, I don't know their life and I don't know everything they've gone through.
But from my point of view, the way that I would view it if I can imagine myself in their situation, which I know I can't fully, is my great great great grandfather was a slave.
He had to.
He worked for this man.
He got nothing.
Uh, you know, he had his son.
tim pool
Pause here real quick.
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
tim pool
Not even that far back.
ed krassenstein
Okay.
tim pool
We've had people on whose grandparents.
ed krassenstein
Okay.
So older people.
All right.
Great, great grandfather.
That would help.
tim pool
No, literal grandfather.
Like my grandfather.
ed krassenstein
Okay.
I'll do my grandfather.
My grandfather was a slave and you know, he couldn't, he had to work his ass off.
Didn't earn a dime, you know?
And then his, Owner died, he died, and my father was his son, and he tried making a life for himself, but he had to go to an all-black school with teachers who were subpar, and he'd ride on the back of the bus.
His education just wasn't there.
It wasn't on par with these white people.
So he didn't get a good education.
He had to work in the factory.
He worked his butt off and hardly earned a dime.
And I couldn't go to college because of it because I had to go work from an early age.
And then my son, I want him to get an education but I can't afford to pay his college.
I, you know, he's smart but he's not as smart as this guy because I couldn't spend as much time raising him as some of these other fathers.
So I want him to have the same opportunity as his white counterparts.
So that's a point of view from the black person.
So I can see why they get so, why they feel so impacted by what happened in the past.
tim pool
I want to clarify too, what I mean to say is, there are people in this country who are older,
who's actually like, very old, and their grandparents, I was watching some video about
it. But then for the people that we've talked to, it's great grandparents and stuff like that.
But the issue I take with it is, we had one conversation.
So what about the dude whose family has been historically poor because his great-great-grandfather
died fighting for the the union to end slavery and they lost everything.
Their house was burned down and destroyed by the Confederates, and now they're slack-jawed, you know, mountain trailer people.
They are not entitled to anything?
ed krassenstein
And they have a right to feel entitled to stuff too.
tim pool
But they're not going to get it because you're basing everything on race.
And I don't mean you, I mean like the system would be like, it would say, oh, black people are oppressed, therefore black people.
The issue I take with that is Oprah Winfrey does not deserve a handout.
She doesn't need it.
She's one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
And these people who are in rural West Virginia, which broke off from Virginia to stay with the union and actually ended up opposing slavery, these people are impoverished Because of that history, shouldn't they get some kind of reparation for the sacrifices their families made?
ed krassenstein
Maybe they should, yeah, maybe they should.
tim pool
But then it's not race, you see?
luke rudkowski
Yeah, but... Or what about the British sailors that were fighting in Africa against slavery?
ed krassenstein
No, so what I'm saying is that these, this group of individuals who, it dates back to slavery, so these people, most black Americans have ancestors who were enslaved, so they feel like they deserve some sort of, you know, Something to help them rise to the level of their counterparts.
luke rudkowski
Is that true?
I mean, it would be very hard to kind of calculate.
ed krassenstein
I think most black Americans are descendant of slaves.
luke rudkowski
I've heard data suggesting the opposite of that.
ed krassenstein
Really?
luke rudkowski
Because there's been a lot of immigration, there's been a lot of people coming in, but it's going to be very hard to tell because how do you prove a lot of this stuff when there wasn't really a lot of records as well?
ed krassenstein
That's a good point.
tim pool
No, and I've talked about this quite a bit too, especially the documentary I did in Ferguson and St.
Louis.
Absolutely, there are people who are the descendants of slaves, so they have no generational wealth.
And then there's a tendency among white people to have generational wealth.
But the solution, in my opinion, isn't race-based.
It is not critical race theory.
Because what ends up happening is then when you say that white people are oppressors and non-whites are oppressed, there's like a homeless veteran who grew up in the sticks, low-income family, joins the military, fights for this country, comes home, is injured in a wheelchair, he's an oppressor.
Like, come on, man.
That's a crooked ideology that makes no sense.
ian crossland
I want to call it.
tim pool
And that, like, Will Smith's kids are going to get, you know, benefits in college.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that white people are oppressors.
I mean, back then they were oppressors.
During times of slavery, the majority of white people who owned slaves obviously were oppressors, right?
tim pool
But I think that's an interesting question, too.
What does it mean to be an oppressor?
ian crossland
If you're getting your cobalt out of the Congo and there's 15,000 black people digging with their hands and hammers to try and get this toxic chemical out, are we oppressing?
We're oppressors right now.
There's reparations right now if you want it.
tim pool
Here's my point.
You go back to the 1700s when there was, what was it, like 4 million people or 2 million people who lived in the United States, this area that we call the United States?
It was like two million.
It was like some ridiculously small number.
So are you really an oppressor if the people can just go build a log cabin and hunt for food like everyone else is doing?
I understand the Native Americans would eventually lose land and there was conflict in that regard.
That's war.
If someone goes to war with someone else over resources, do we call one side the oppressor?
Going back, we don't.
We never did.
ed krassenstein
But, I mean, slavery's not war.
Slavery's just taking people and forcing them to work for you.
Right.
tim pool
So, my point is, as it pertains to—obviously not slavery.
The point I'm bringing up is the idea that white people were always oppressors.
Certainly, there are white people who literally did oppress other people.
ian crossland
The Romans.
tim pool
You know what I mean?
ed krassenstein
The Romans had a big start.
What I mean to say is— White people in general are not oppressors.
tim pool
That's critical race theory.
The idea that white people specifically are oppressors and non-whites are oppressed.
That's literally it.
ed krassenstein
That's not how I know most my liberal friends.
tim pool
They're wrong.
They don't read books.
I gotta tell you, this is the problem.
We have the books here.
I can show you.
You know, this book, which is in grade schools, which depicts a non-binary woman receiving a blowjob, and they give it to kids to read.
And she talks about her severe psychological trauma and abuse.
We actually had multiple books from critical race theorists that we've gone through and read.
And, you know, you'll say, my liberal friends don't view it that way.
It's like, well, they're wrong.
They're not reading it.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, like, so I get what you're saying, but I feel like if you're going to write a bill banning critical race theory, you don't just say critical race theory.
You outline exactly what is deemed... Fair point.
tim pool
And that's what Donald Trump did when he banned critical race theory.
He didn't say critical race theory.
He said any training That would argue a certain race is better than another race, etc.
and things like that.
That's what he actually had.
The legal office for the White House wrote this thing up.
He signed the executive order, and all it basically said was, it is illegal under the Civil Rights Act, Title VII, to discriminate on the basis of race, therefore, and then Joe Biden rescinded that and allowed these companies to continue discriminating on the basis of race.
ed krassenstein
But these bills are very broad, and I think that we can agree that if the language was defined enough to be able to say, this is considered critical race theory, this is not, I think we'd agree that, yeah, this can be a law.
But I think when you leave it open to the courts, and then you have teachers getting sued, you have parents attacking teachers, I think it opens up a whole can of worms That isn't really necessary when you can actually go after the teachers themselves based on other things, like something like that.
The teacher can be criticized, could be fired on an individual basis.
tim pool
I completely agree and I think one of the problems is that parents see this stuff and they don't sue.
Some parents do.
If they went to your kid and said white people are bad, okay that's racist.
That's a violation of the Civil Rights Act, Title VII.
File your lawsuit, get the book pulled.
Instead, we get a lot of, like, community complaints and stuff like that, which has borne fruit, but I think lawsuits are the way to go.
We did see, however, with books like Genderqueer, when parents go to school board meetings and read the book, they get ejected for reading pornographic material in public.
Like, the board freaks out and says, stop, stop, stop, you can't say these things here, and they're like, then why are you giving it to our kids in school?
ian crossland
I feel like it's super important to teach about critical race theory, that it's important that people know what it is, any kind of political or philosophy theory.
You should have classes like for college kids or high school kids, like political philosophy on critical race, but indoctrinating, especially children, young children, like with any kind of ideology.
So I could see banning the indoctrination tactics, but not necessarily banning the ideas, because we need to understand what it is, like communism.
You got to understand what communism is in order to bypass it.
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
So I know I had a class at Rutgers in college about critical race theory.
It wasn't called critical race theory, but it discussed a lot of things that critical race theory does.
But in grade school, in middle school, we didn't learn anything like that.
And I don't really think the vast majority of classes are.
They are.
I mean, my kids haven't learned it.
I have a third-grader who hasn't learned anything.
tim pool
But this is another misunderstanding.
The teachers aren't coming out and saying, everybody open up Critical Race Theory by Kimberlé Crenshaw.
They're saying, everybody open up Math 101.
Read me the problem.
And the kid goes, Jamal got stopped by the police 17 times.
Eric got stopped 5 times.
What percentage of the stops were illegal stops against Jamal for being black?
ed krassenstein
No, but I read my son's homework.
There's nothing even close to that.
There's nothing in there like that.
Maybe it's some obscure super left-leaning community school that has that, maybe, but most liberals wouldn't support that.
tim pool
And that's the problem!
unidentified
You guys aren't- But don't write a bill saying- That's a separate issue.
tim pool
I agree.
Don't write a bill.
They shouldn't have this stuff in the schools.
It should be done through the school board meetings and removed.
The books are in the other room, actually.
Asra Nomani bought a stack of all these books.
One of them was from Ibram Kendi, and it was a workshop book, and it opened it up and it said, explain the differences between you and a racially different peer or whatever and things like that.
Let me show you this one, man.
ed krassenstein
I can't even show this on camera, and it's like... Yeah, but is that an actual curriculum book or something that somebody checked out in a library?
ian crossland
I think it was turned up in libraries.
tim pool
No, but it was on reading lists for kids.
unidentified
Recommend reading lists, yeah.
tim pool
Yeah, and it was in thousands of schools.
No, I get it.
There's, you know, hundreds of thousands of schools.
ed krassenstein
I mean, what were the books we were reading when we were in grade school, like To Kill a Mockingbird?
I mean, there's, yeah, I mean, yeah.
tim pool
What do you think, a kid should look at this?
ed krassenstein
No, absolutely not.
tim pool
Okay, so this is genderqueer, and NPR just wrote it.
ed krassenstein
And what grades, what grades had access to it?
tim pool
Twelve-year-olds.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I definitely not.
tim pool
And so the problem is when I come out, and I go to liberals and say, hey, that shouldn't
be in front of kids, they say, you hate gay people.
You're a liar.
You're anti LGBTQ.
And I'm like, I'm just saying don't show blowjobs to 12 year olds.
Are you nuts?
So that doesn't happen.
ed krassenstein
You know, put that in the bill, right?
tim pool
Well, so so this is this is the issue.
This book is there's an they've like you go to any of these prominent left websites, and
they argue, it's an important memoir for young queer teens, they need to read this stuff.
And I'm like, dude, you don't need to show there's more than just that in there.
That was just one thing.
Yeah, and I don't even I don't even think I can say on YouTube, some of the other stuff.
We've already talked quite a bit about it.
But we'll show you in the after show.
It's, it's insane.
We have this on the table because Ian bought it.
A lot of conservatives haven't even read it.
And it is worse than what I just showed you, like the trauma and abuse that's in this book.
book.
Thousands of schools, at the very least.
ed krassenstein
Are you sure about that?
Like, honestly?
Yep.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe there's thousands of schools that have that book.
tim pool
This is why in Loudoun County, right here, we had parents screaming.
Because these books are in grade schools.
ed krassenstein
I mean, let me see if I can... But at the same time, they're also banning books that aren't that crazy.
And when I say ban, I mean they're trying to take books out of libraries that aren't that bad.
luke rudkowski
Is there one specific one?
ed krassenstein
I don't have.
I know I've looked at lists and I've read about them.
I didn't see genderqueer.
ian crossland
Was To Kill a Mockingbird on there?
I thought I'd seen that getting taken out.
ed krassenstein
I think it was.
luke rudkowski
I think 1984 is also being taken out of some schools.
Take a look at this.
tim pool
From NPR, efforts to ban books jumped an unprecedented fourfold.
There's genderqueer on their list of banned books.
Now, why are they calling it a banned book?
Like, is Hustler a banned book?
You know what I mean?
Like, if you've got a book that depicts sexual acts and explains how to do them, would you call it banning a book?
Or would you say, like, we just don't allow obscene material for children?
ian crossland
The banning of books is when the government destroys every copy of it, kind of thing.
ed krassenstein
Are these school libraries or public libraries?
tim pool
The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom counted 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials in 2021, a significant jump.
Last year, they noted 156.
So here's what's happening.
The total number of individual books challenged in 2021 was 1,597.
Genderqueer is just one of these books.
People aren't actually challenging some of the more egregious critical race theory based books that are appearing in schools.
The stuff that we've actually looked at.
And then we have advocacy groups coming, we've multiple times interviewed them.
It is hard, right?
ed krassenstein
So a thousand, fifteen hundred books in how many schools does it say?
tim pool
They're talking specifically about these books.
So when we have someone come in here and say, here's a book that does that math problem I explained.
It used to be like a train leaves Cincinnati at 5 p.m.
and leaves New York.
At what point did it crash?
Now it's, you know, a black man is beaten by the police 17 times.
ed krassenstein
A math problem?
Really?
tim pool
We've actually had the book and we opened it.
We went through it on this show.
ed krassenstein
That book shouldn't be there.
I agree the school board should just say this book should be in our school.
I don't think there needs to be laws that are in place that are broad that could be misinterpreted by a super right-leaning school board.
tim pool
And so here's the gain that we get from this show is Next time you come across someone talking about something like this, you simply say, I agree, that shouldn't be in the school.
Let's advance, you know, getting that out.
And then agreed.
Whether it's 1,000 schools, 5,000 or 10,000, we'll just agree, okay, sure, for you guys, not the most important issue in the world, but that shouldn't be in schools.
We agree.
ian crossland
It seems like it's wrapping the conversation back around the importance of school boards.
We constantly, I'm like, what is the answer?
Cause I'm looking out there at Klaus Schwab, Economic Forum, Global Collusion,
but what's the answer?
It's local.
People keep telling me, I mean, Luke's a huge proponent of local communities
and stuff, but like your local school boards.
Because I think a lot of the problems is that there's been very little oversight
of what the schools have been doing.
Kids would send them there, and then eight hours later, they'd see the kid,
you have a little conversation about it.
But now with like video cams in the chat, in the schools since COVID,
people are like, whoa, this is what they're reading.
tim pool
This is what they're reading?
After we wrap this portion and go to the members only, I'll see if I can, if we have a big bookshelf of books of other people brought in, we'll see if we can grab them.
Cause we have stacks of these books that are in these schools, but we got to go to super chats cause we're running late.
So if you haven't already, would you kindly smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show with your friends, become a member at timcast.com.
We're going to have a members only uncensored show coming up for you, which should be good fun.
But let's read some superchats.
ed krassenstein
All right.
tim pool
Plank says, being someone who currently holds a TS-CSI clearance, I can tell you that the media and Biden are gaslighting the TF out of everyone who doesn't hold a clearance or no protocols.
I can explain it all.
ian crossland
Please do.
tim pool
Well, get another superchat in there, Plank.
Michael Alio says, I called this shortly after Biden became president.
They get rid of him after two years, which can set up Kamala to be president for 10 years in accordance with the 22nd Amendment.
ed krassenstein
I take Buddha judge over Kamala.
ian crossland
Yeah.
Amen.
luke rudkowski
Kamala is so popular though.
Everyone loves her.
She's so personable and such a great personality and definitely worked really hard with Willie Brown to get where she's at.
tim pool
Culture Abduction says they should have a debate with the Hodge twins.
Twins versus twins.
ed krassenstein
Absolutely.
We actually invited him onto our podcast, but they never wrote back to us on Twitter.
So Hodge twins, if you're watching us, check your Twitter DMs.
DM us on Twitter.
And when you do the wide shot Or we'll come back, we'll come back to this show and it can be like, but I guess somebody has to get kicked out, right?
tim pool
Clint, Clint Sora says, first Hodge twins, now these guys.
What is this, twin cast now?
Yep, that's right.
That's kind of weird that it worked out that way.
ian crossland
Are you guys identical twins?
unidentified
Yeah, we are.
ian crossland
Because you look similar, but not completely identical.
ed krassenstein
I'm slightly better looking.
tim pool
Now why is that?
Is that because you got more sunlight or something?
ed krassenstein
I was sitting on his face in my mom's womb.
tim pool
Do you get mad that he says that?
ed krassenstein
I thought he rode my back.
ian crossland
Did you come out first?
ed krassenstein
I did.
He did.
It was a c-section.
I was supposed to come out and they took him out.
Stole my thunder.
ian crossland
Oh, nasty!
tim pool
All right, Michael Irwin says, hey Ian, how do you defend the Fediverse when sites like Mastodon seem to be havens for CP?
Do we have to accept things like that for your decentralized internet?
ian crossland
Yeah, really, how do you accept the world when you know that people are being trafficked around it?
That's a great question.
The horrors of humanity are exposed on the internet.
I don't know if there's a solution.
ed krassenstein
So Deeso, I was talking to you about Deeso, which is Deeso.com, decentralized social media.
What they do is they have a database, a blockchain, and You know, all that data can get into the blockchain, but people can flag it, and the apps that are running on that blockchain can choose what they want to show or not.
So they could say, post flagged by Tim or flagged by X amount of people just won't show on my node.
So I think there is a solution.
I think we'll get there.
ian crossland
Use like a government command.
luke rudkowski
I mean, if someone posts something illegal, they should be dealt with by the authorities.
The authorities, though, are aiding and abetting a lot of this stuff, which is disgusting.
So that's the first place that I would look into.
tim pool
And I want to add this.
How do you defend highways when people in cars traffic children on highways?
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm not going to blame the Fediverse because bad people do bad things.
We got to stop bad people from doing bad things.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but I mean, you don't want to randomly see bad things either because then you're doing something bad.
tim pool
Well, I mean, like, we got to think about it.
If you're driving on the highway and you see someone committing a crime, you report it.
You know what I mean?
Like, hey, stop.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, that's true.
tim pool
All right, let's see.
ed krassenstein
Definitely check out DeSo.com.
ian crossland
Yeah, tell me about DeSo really quick.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, so it's decentralized social media, and basically where you have the data is actually decentralized on a blockchain.
And you can have different nodes, so you can have like Twitter.com, you can have Brian.com.
We can pull up that data and censor it however we want, but that data can never be fully censored because it's on the blockchain and anybody can pull it up.
So it kind of solves this censorship debate.
tim pool
All right, Midas says, the intent argument is invalid.
Comey did the same garbage, where he read intent into a law that didn't have it.
Trump was perfectly legal.
He was the president.
Biden was VP.
Only if he classified the documents can he take them.
ian crossland
Except for the George Bush, you know, executive order.
tim pool
That's literally it.
That's the George W. Bush executive order.
ed krassenstein
Or if he was in a supervisory role, what's the definition of that?
tim pool
I think what they're basically saying is that if it was classified by someone under him, as he was supervising.
ian crossland
I read it as if he classified it so he could appoint someone under him to unclassify it at any point.
ed krassenstein
It's hard.
Like, I think it would take a judge to determine that, you know?
I don't think there's, there's not a law that says anything about supervisor re-roll, right?
So, I accept that executive order, but it doesn't explain what it is.
It doesn't mean a supervisor of, if it's your supervisor in the CIA?
Like, I don't know.
So, that'll be interesting to see.
tim pool
Plank continues, I hear a lot of speculation and false assumptions in this convo.
There's plenty of people who have active clearances in here that can explain everything, including myself.
Also, intent doesn't matter.
ian crossland
Well, you didn't give me what I wanted, Plank, but thanks for responding.
tim pool
Well, that was because that was an old one.
ian crossland
Oh, that was an old one.
Okay, you're on it.
tim pool
Yeah, we're not going to be able to see anything new from Plank until we get to the bottom.
All right, let's see.
A lot of people don't like you, just so you know.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I kind of figure that.
tim pool
Victor Draco says, the Krasenstein Bros' voices sound exactly like what I imagine every Trump Reply Guy's voice sounds like.
Thank you both for all your gaslighting.
ed krassenstein
Do you want to hear a really quick funny story?
Is that when I first met my wife, she called me Michael Jackson because of my voice.
She told her sister, oh yeah, I'm going out with Michael Jackson again tonight.
So I know I have a kind of a weird voice.
I can't help it, but hey, I'm here talking to you.
I don't think it's that weird.
ian crossland
Do you sing too?
ed krassenstein
I mean, it kind of sounds like mine.
I don't sing.
tim pool
Yeah, here's what I don't understand.
It's like the people who are chatting that they're upset you're here, but who also complain that we can't get more Democrats to come on the show and talk with us.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
This is awesome.
I'm glad you guys are here.
ed krassenstein
I'll come whenever you want.
tim pool
I'll be here whenever you want.
We should have you on with some other people and we'll have more conversations.
ian crossland
Are you in Florida too?
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
We live like four houses from each other.
unidentified
Oh, sweet.
tim pool
Marty Smith Fan Su says the CHIP Act was nothing but a transfer of taxpayer dollars to companies not in the U.S., nor any who are coming to the U.S.
DC rewards their cronies.
ed krassenstein
I think several have come to the U.S., though.
Or brought, or open manufacturing camps in the U.S.
tim pool
I thought that was the point.
It was, we have to get our chip manufacturing away from Taiwan because we're about to lose Taiwan.
unidentified
Right.
tim pool
Am I going to be wrong?
ed krassenstein
All right.
tim pool
Bad Andy says, Tim, I appreciate you bringing on different voices.
However, I'm now more concerned for the future of this country than ever.
Well, that wasn't the intent.
ian crossland
Think of these deep debates with people you don't agree with as, like, pulling open the wound to see how festering it is so that you can clean it out.
It's not pretty.
It's never pretty.
But that's the point.
That's why it hasn't been happening.
tim pool
But this is so mild.
ed krassenstein
We could have been so much worse.
tim pool
I mean, there's other people who come on and would, like, stand up and smack the microphone.
ed krassenstein
I could just walk out, you know?
luke rudkowski
We had a civil discussion.
We didn't get personal.
We didn't call each other names.
That's awesome.
I think we need more of that to understand where we're all coming from.
tim pool
Raymond G. Stanley Jr.
says, Krasenstein brothers, thank you for coming.
You stated Trump lied about the docks.
That's a lie.
You say Biden apprehended more illegals than Trump.
Well, duh, it's porous.
You say we need 87,000 more IRS agents.
Why?
ed krassenstein
So his attorney lied about the docks representing him.
She signed a certification saying all the docks have been turned over and we've looked everywhere.
tim pool
Was she just wrong?
ed krassenstein
We didn't talk about taxes.
Well, I mean, she didn't have to be signed.
She could say we still haven't looked everywhere.
tim pool
Well, what if she thought they looked everywhere?
This is the issue with perjury.
It's like, how do you prove someone intentionally lied?
ed krassenstein
Yeah, that's true.
tim pool
I mean... Well, let's talk about the 87,000 agents.
You think we need more IRS agents?
ed krassenstein
You know, like, I do think that we need to catch tax cheats, corporations that are not spending... But you don't need 87,000 agents for... I don't know.
We do.
luke rudkowski
The IRS goes after poor people more than they do rich people.
ed krassenstein
I think that if we have that many more agents, I think it has to be in a way that they're going to be going after the wealthy, not the middle class.
I mean, that's what Biden's intent is.
Is he going to ensure that somehow?
Who knows?
Put it in a bill.
tim pool
What's going to happen?
luke rudkowski
But then a Republican is going to take over and he's going to weaponize those IRS agents against you guys, right?
Do you guys want that?
ed krassenstein
Who knows, you know?
tim pool
No, we do not.
They do it all the time.
luke rudkowski
They do it all the time.
That's how they get away.
tim pool
Republicans are now super angry about empowering the intelligence agencies because they're going after Trump.
And they're like, oh no, what have we done?
Well, 10 years ago, you guys thought this would be a good idea and Democrats warned you.
And then you had like Harry Reid with the nuclear option and the Senate and confirmations.
And then McConnell was like, we warned you.
ian crossland
And it just, you know, when it comes to the IRS, I don't know how they're going to handle like a Panamanian bank accounts.
unidentified
Those things are off.
ed krassenstein
And cryptocurrency, all that stuff, you know.
luke rudkowski
They're gonna get all the poor people, just like they are already.
ed krassenstein
Definitely don't agree with that.
tim pool
All right, let's grab some more.
Kyle Miller says, this episode proves Michael Malice right.
We need a peaceful divorce.
We are looking at the same screen and seeing two different movies.
Not sure how long this can keep up.
ed krassenstein
And I think that's due to confirmation bias.
You see what you want to believe, you believe what you want to see.
tim pool
I think it's partly yes, I agree, but I think, you know, going to the cultural issues, there's a big component.
Like you guys were saying, you don't care that much about social issues, but... Well, I do.
ed krassenstein
Did I?
tim pool
I forgot how you said conservatives care too much about them or they focus too heavily on them.
ed krassenstein
I think that they blow them out of proportion sometimes.
I think they take a low number of issues and make it out to paint a picture of the entire Democratic Party.
And I think that the left does the same to the right as well for other things, so I don't think it's a... I mean, it's how you get an advantage.
That's how you convince people not to vote for their party is by fear-mongering.
I think both parties do it.
tim pool
But I mean, if you take a look at how Democrats vote, they vote in lockstep.
And they brag about it, like, we're unified and we all vote for the exact same things.
unidentified
Blue no matter who?
tim pool
Yeah, so it's like, if there is an issue that we're concerned with as it pertains to free speech, for instance, it's a social issue, yeah, but it's the fabric of, like, big tech censorship going on for over a decade, and you brought it up and you were smeared and lied about.
I had so many big institutions, universities, make up fake stories about me, and then it's like, oh, you're blowing a small thing out of proportion.
It's like, well, look where we are 10 years later.
The government intervened to subvert an election, But what do you think the solution is?
ed krassenstein
Is the solution for the government to intervene and say, hey, these corporations can't be censoring people?
I think it goes both ways.
So you have the government saying, corporations who are private companies can't create their own rules.
Isn't that going against free speech?
Isn't that curtailing their free speech?
They still have free speech.
tim pool
It's called negative versus positive.
So the government can say, you can't do a thing.
Right now what they're doing is they're saying you can do a thing.
The government right now says that big tech platforms have the right to censor anything they find objectionable and be completely free of any liability.
That is a government protection.
There should be a government restriction.
Hey, we can't tell you what you have to say, but you cannot tell people what they can't say.
ed krassenstein
But you still have your censor somewhere, right?
Like scams or child pornography.
But when is it illegal?
Do you wait for a judge to decide on it?
tim pool
Yes, you do.
ed krassenstein
But then you're going to have child pornography.
What if you don't know?
tim pool
You are.
ed krassenstein
I don't know.
I can't agree with that.
tim pool
A citizen can make a citizen's arrest, right?
And if you're wrong, you face civil penalties.
What would happen if a guy went out with pictures of child abuse and a big sign and stood in the middle of the street?
Are you gonna walk up and be like, the owner of the street?
There's no owner of the street.
The police will have to come and arrest him and take those... Yeah, but social media is so much slower.
ed krassenstein
It's gonna be such a slower process than a cop coming and arresting somebody versus... People have a right to have due process.
You cannot just say... It's also not the public square.
It's a private company.
Well, I think there can be debate over that, but...
Laws in the past, courts in the past, have said that shopping malls aren't considered public squares.
I don't really see a reason why Twitter would legally be a public square.
And what if you wanted to create your own community?
Timcast, whatever.
luke rudkowski
Freedomistan.
ed krassenstein
And yeah, there you go.
And you don't want to have certain content.
Like, should you not be able to have that right?
tim pool
Yes, so there's two things.
The size of the platform and the initial terms of the platform.
Twitter says we're the free speech, we're the free speech party, all are welcome.
When I was talking with Vijay Gadde and Jack Dorsey, they repeatedly said we defend free speech.
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.
If you're going to lie to people to come on your platform and then set ideological parameters for speech, you're lying.
If I want to create, you know, skateboardforum.com where the only thing that's allowed is skateboard talk and if you deviate we're banning you, I told you the rules before you got here.
Twitter is now saying the rules are you can't say these certain things, but that's where the issue of size comes into play.
You've got a massive stadium open to the public that can seat 100,000 people, but the people who are running the front gate have banned one political faction from coming in.
And they say, don't worry.
There's a high school football field across the street.
You can rally there.
It's like, well, you have no access.
ed krassenstein
That's legal though, right?
They can ban.
tim pool
I'm saying like in a public place.
It's analogy, right?
If Twitter has become, I'll put it this way.
If the president was speaking in a stadium with the doors open to the public, I do not believe a private entity should be able to bar someone for private reasons.
There should only be legal reasons to bar them.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, I mean, that's a decent opinion, but I mean, it still comes down to government speech.
And like Trump, he blocked us on Twitter.
And we were actually part of a lawsuit with the Knight Institute, and he was basically forced by a judge to unblock us.
That's right, and if you agree with that precedent, then you would also agree that Twitter can't- But he was a government official, so the government official is blocking my right to speech on his- And what if he had Jack Dorsey block you instead?
And you're going to be like, well, it was a private company that... I would say that that would probably be an abridgment of the First Amendment.
unidentified
And that's what they're doing.
tim pool
We know they were doing that.
ed krassenstein
No, so what they're doing is they're saying, hey, Twitter, this is against your term of service.
You should remove this.
tim pool
And they interpret their terms as they see fit, right.
ed krassenstein
But that's different than them saying, hey, Twitter, if you don't block this content or ban this person, we're going to shut you down.
tim pool
What do you think would happen if you went to a guy and said, I'm going to leave this suitcase with $10,000 right here on this desk.
Would be a shame if my neighbor got whacked.
Have a nice day!
You think they're going to be like, you didn't just order a hit, now they're going to arrest you.
ed krassenstein
No, no, no, I understand the argument.
tim pool
No judge is going to look at what they're doing, the government going to Twitter and saying, here's a list of people who've broken the rules, get rid of them, and then be like, well, that was just actually them moderating for free.
ed krassenstein
So what happens when Congress calls Jack Dorsey to testify?
Is that intimidation as well?
Well, how is, I mean... Like, calls him to testify, and, you know, let's say McCarthy stands up and says, what you're doing to Democrats isn't right, or to Republicans isn't right, you never ban Democrats, and then he goes and bans, he bans the Democrat.
tim pool
Like, is that, like... There's a difference between, you are acting in a biased manner, and here's a list of names that broke your rules.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but we're not saying you must delete them.
tim pool
Yeah, or won't someone rid me of this priest?
We know what that means.
ed krassenstein
I mean, that's a fair argument, I think, that they're pressured.
But at the same time, it's not going to hold up to legal standards.
You can't say that this is actually abridging somebody's First Amendment.
You can say that it's immoral.
You can say that it's not right.
I think Twitter screwed up multiple times.
tim pool
I'm pretty sure, under precedent, this has already been determined to be a constitutional violation.
ed krassenstein
I don't know.
I don't think it will.
And we'll see what happens.
unidentified
Is there a case against a website?
tim pool
Not website, but I'm pretty sure there's something having to do with radio stations.
The government came in and said, hey, we personally feel that this goes against your company's policies or whatever.
ed krassenstein
I'd be interested to see that.
tim pool
The government can't use a private entity?
Or advocate for the suppression of someone's speech rights or things like that.
ed krassenstein
I mean, they issue subpoenas though, right?
tim pool
Yeah, but what's wrong with that?
ed krassenstein
They're requesting you turn over documents.
tim pool
And a judge has to sign off on it.
ed krassenstein
Well, not really a judge.
tim pool
It's due process.
ed krassenstein
Well, a search warrant would be a judge signing off, but a subpoena I believe you can get like a clerk or something.
tim pool
There's a difference between that and the government going to someone and saying, oh, won't someone rid me of this priest?
That's what they're doing.
In fact, when it came to Alex Berenson, it was more egregious than that.
They were saying, like, why haven't you banned him yet?
And he didn't even break the rules!
So that, right there.
And Twitter was forced to reinstate him because they were like, yeah, Alex actually didn't break any rules.
ed krassenstein
I'm not really for censorship.
I think that Twitter screwed up massively.
I wasn't for the New York Post article getting deleted.
I think that Twitter screwed up.
I think that the FBI, I think that Congress, I think they overstepped.
I don't think ultimately there's going to be a judge or a court case that rules that this actually abridged anybody's First Amendment rights.
I think it was wrong.
I don't think that it was illegal.
tim pool
Uh, Alex Berenson already won.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, but a civil case.
Right.
Yeah.
tim pool
They're all civil cases.
ed krassenstein
Not, not, not, not breaking the First Amendment, not abridging the First Amendment.
tim pool
That would be a civil case.
ed krassenstein
No, a First Amendment's only, only a... Against the government.
Against the government.
tim pool
Yeah, it's a civil lawsuit.
It's not a criminal lawsuit.
They're civil and criminal.
ed krassenstein
I don't think he won a lawsuit saying that his First Amendment rights were abridged by
tim pool
the government.
It was a settlement with like undisclosed terms.
But what eventually came out was that the government went to Twitter and said, why haven't
you banned this guy?
Twitter then banned him.
And then he filed a lawsuit saying he broke no rules and they were in breach of contract.
ed krassenstein
But it wasn't his victory in that case was the First Amendment.
tim pool
Wasn't the government admitting and being pointed to fault, right?
ed krassenstein
Yeah.
I mean, it's gonna be so hard to get a judge to say that's abridged in the First Amendment.
That's going to set that precedent.
tim pool
And I don't think Louisiana and Missouri lawsuits right now are moving in that direction.
So it may very well be.
ed krassenstein
I'm interested to see what happens.
tim pool
It will be interesting to follow this.
Brett Bullard says, work in semiconductor industry.
CHIPS Act is transfer of wealth from state to wealthiest industry in the world.
Chosen winners by government in a free enterprise society.
Luke, speak up.
Why do you like CHIPS Act?
luke rudkowski
I never said I like the Chips Act.
tim pool
Yeah, Luke, why do you like the government so much?
luke rudkowski
How dare you?
Spit out those words.
Don't say that.
I think it's a larger kind of geopolitical move to kind of isolate Taiwan so it doesn't become such an important linchpin when it comes to the bigger kind of tedious trap that's unfolding between China and the United States.
ian crossland
The chips and science.
luke rudkowski
But anytime the government gets involved in the economy, I think it's absolutely for the benefit of the super-rich who really control government, and anytime the government's in finance, I say, get the hell out.
So, I'm with you.
unidentified
All right.
tim pool
Dylan Ennis says, the U.S.
would be better if we were still drilling in the U.S.
and Russia wouldn't be in Ukraine because the U.S.
would be dominant in the oil market, so it wouldn't be worth the money for Russia.
ian crossland
Well, I think Russia's foray into the Ukraine was inevitable after the Soviet Union gave Sevastopol to Ukraine on the breakup, because they neutered Russia's ability to get into the Mediterranean and to prevent them from becoming a global trade power.
And now we're just seeing, like, that's what happens when you partition countries.
Same thing happened with Treaty of Versailles.
It's why Germany invaded Poland.
You split off part of the country, and then they're like, that's my country.
tim pool
Lisa, um, I guess, yeah, about an hour ago, Lisa Marie Presley died of cardiac arrest.
54 years old.
About an hour ago.
Sad to hear it.
unidentified
A lot of cardiac arrests, you know, in the news lately.
luke rudkowski
Damn climate change.
tim pool
Probably climate change, you know.
Temperatures are changing.
And what is it called?
What was it called?
unidentified
Wet bulb?
luke rudkowski
Wet bulb.
Yeah, wet bulbs.
unidentified
Bad for you.
tim pool
You gotta dry them up, guys.
All right.
StuckinVA says, these two are typical Florida Democrats.
I have family in Florida that are MSNBC Democrats and they have no actual real-life exposure to what is happening in other parts of the country.
To them, what we see with CRT, ESG, WOTAN, etc. every day in the Northeast and Western
states are extreme examples.
They are unknowingly influenced by the fact that Florida conservative policy is protecting
them from the nonsense going on in other states.
ed krassenstein
I moved to Florida 15 years ago, but I go back.
ian crossland
It doesn't surprise me to think that people would be insulated from things like genderqueer, because I probably would never even know about it if I wasn't on this show.
People come in and they tell me about this stuff, and I'm like, oh my god, are you serious?
tim pool
All right, here's the last one.
Calop Harvey says, peaceful divorce!
There is absolutely zero common ground anymore.
Time to separate.
The problem is they'll simply invade our states like what's happening on the southern border.
Yikes, man.
Okay, well if you haven't already, would you kindly smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show with your friends.
Become a member at TimCast.com.
We're gonna have a good fun this Saturday in DC's Freedom Plaza skating around.
I'm wondering if like too many people show up, are we even gonna be able to skate as it is?
Maybe there'll just be a huge crowd of people all like yelling or something.
But, uh, it'll be fun either way.
Head over to TimCast.com.
We're gonna have that members-only show.
You can follow the show at TimCast IRL.
You can follow me personally at TimCast Everywhere.
You can follow at TimCast News on Twitter.
Do it!
Uh, Kratzensteins, you guys wanna shout anything out?
ed krassenstein
Just follow our YouTube, Crassing Chaos, just search for it, Crassing Chaos.
We're interviewing mostly right-wing people, so.
And we had to have Carpe Donctum, our first show, and it's called Dismantling Division, and we just seek to have conversations with people we disagree with, like Tim.
Tim, you could come on the show.
tim pool
And it'll be like in six months, you guys will be wearing MAGA hats, and you'll be like.
ed krassenstein
Maybe, maybe we're gonna transform.
luke rudkowski
Hopefully not.
ed krassenstein
I doubt that.
Yeah, and I just wanna give a shout out to our co-founders at NFTZ, Dot me, Martin Van Halen, Boss, and Valter Van Halen.
Just want to say hi.
I know they're watching.
tim pool
Right on.
luke rudkowski
Are you guys on Twitter?
ed krassenstein
We are.
At Ed Krasen, E-D-K-R-A-S-E-N, and at Krasenstein.
unidentified
Sweet.
luke rudkowski
Well, thank you guys so much for coming.
It was a great conversation.
We kept it civil, which I think is awesome.
We didn't agree, which is fine.
I don't have to enforce my views or will on you, and I think having more of these conversations is more important than ever.
I love having some of these conversations myself on youtube.com forward slash we are change.
Today I did a video about the 5,000 Gestapo agents coming to Davos, Switzerland, along with the governor of Illinois.
Lots of things happening in Davos at the World Economic Forum.
Did a full video on that plus a lot more youtube.com forward slash we are change.
See you there.
ian crossland
Just put it together that you guys are the Krasensteins.
ed krassenstein
Not Steen, but Stein.
Either one.
ian crossland
Does it literally either one?
ed krassenstein
Say Krasenstein, say Krasenstein.
Either one.
I think my mom says one, my dad says the other.
ian crossland
Oh, okay.
It's a lot easier.
tim pool
Actually, it's Ed Krasenstein and Brian Krasenstein.
ed krassenstein
Exactly.
They're not related.
Yeah.
ian crossland
Turns out.
Well, I want to remind people to go to deeso.com if they haven't yet.
Deeso, D-E-E-S-O dot com.
ed krassenstein
We're not affiliated with them, we're just building on there and we've been members of it since getting kicked off Twitter.
ian crossland
So it's a decentralized social networking, essentially.
So thanks for coming, guys.
This is really great.
ed krassenstein
Yeah, thanks for having us.
I think it's important that we can get together and just talk, even though we disagree on a lot of things.
I know we agree to on a lot of things, so thanks.
We only talk about stuff we disagree with, though, you know?
tim pool
Oh, for sure.
And look, we invite people who are Democrat, liberal, left all the time.
Very few will ever come and sit down and have these conversations.
So I appreciate you guys coming.
ian crossland
Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting the authoritarian anarcho-tyrannists to come on and talk about the World Economic Forum.
I'm ready.
tim pool
Klaus Schwab shows up.
ian crossland
Schwab and the gang.
Let's roll, baby.
tim pool
It would be cool if Klaus Schwab agreed to come on.
And then he sits down wearing his weird robe.
And he's like, let me just tell you why you're going to lose.
ian crossland
That sounds some fun.
Yeah, I'm into it.
All right.
Bye, everyone.
unidentified
Hey guys, I'm Serge.com.
I agree, it's really nice to have a conversation where it's civil, we're able to discuss things, we're not here trying to accuse each other of things, call each other names, get muckracking and everything.
It just doesn't go anywhere.
It's so annoying and regressive, so I appreciate you guys coming.
Thank you very much.
I see all these conversations happen in front of me, so really nice change.
Thanks guys.
tim pool
Alright everybody, we'll see you all over at TimCast.com.
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