Trish Regan reports on DOJ investigations into classified leaks targeting JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and Mark Kelly, while detailing allegations against Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The episode explores President Trump's proposal to annex Venezuela as the 51st state to access its massive oil reserves, analyzing economic potential under Delcy Rodriguez and contrasting it with political risks. Additionally, the show covers a Supreme Court ruling allowing Alabama to redraw districts without racial factors and reports on Keir Starmer's expected resignation as UK Prime Minister amidst internal party challenges. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Leaked Info and White House Spies00:04:14
As Donald Trump makes his way to China, there's a big question about whether or not we get a few spies here on the home turf.
And he's demanding an investigation.
The DOJ has confirmed that they are looking into concerns, that there's a lot of leaking going on at the White House, and that there was a lot leading up to this excursion, as he likes to call it, with Iran.
And some key names are being talked about.
At this hour, and may in fact receive subpoenas?
We shall see.
Welcome to the program, everyone.
I'm Trish Regan.
This is the Trish Regan Show.
Yes, a number of people right now are being talked about as having either leaked information or perhaps having received leaked information.
We have gotten word from the Wall Street Journal that a number of their reporters have been subpoenaed by the DOJ, and we have heard that.
There are a few people they might be looking at.
Here's the big story.
It crossed in the Daily Mail today, and it said Trump's chilling treason note revealed as he hunts down Iran war leakers and Israel bombshell sparks fury.
So there were some stories out in the media circulating suggesting that Israel had a very heavy hand in the decision for us to strike Iran, and apparently the president didn't really appreciate that.
There were some other stories out there circulating as this sort of Went to or came to fruition that suggested the president was really tired with Iran, etc.
And you may have heard from some reporters out there, podcasters, in fact, that really seemed to be siding with, let's just say, not us.
Okay.
And so I saw this story cross this morning.
I thought, you know, I may just have a few ideas for y'all.
You might want to take a good hard look at the vice president's office.
That would be JD Vance.
Now, we love JD, but, you know, he did have some people in there.
That were close to other reporters, including, I believe, Tucker Carlson's son.
So, you know, you talk to your dad, right?
You can see how something like that might happen.
It might have been perfectly innocent, but hey, you know what?
If you're an MA banker at Goldman Sachs and you decide to talk to your dad and your dad, say, trades on the news, you're going to be in a lot of trouble, even if he doesn't trade on the news.
Like, the deal is you can't talk.
So, I'm sure if you're working in the vice president's office, the rules are kind of the same.
You can't talk.
So that's one problem.
And then you had Joey Kent over there working for Tulsi Gabbard at the DNI.
That's another problem.
And, you know, these things add up to bigger and bigger problems.
And I think that's what they're trying to get a handle on right now.
What I would say is listen, any good CEO is going to be able to manage this.
Say what you want about Barack Obama.
He got stuff done, all right?
And he had everybody eaten out of the palm of his hand, for goodness sakes.
And no one dared to cross him.
Well, with Donald Trump, for whatever reason, with this whole deep state community, the media community, et cetera, they hate him.
They hate them, hate them, hate them, and they hate them some more.
And so they feel perfectly justified in doing whatever they have to do, right?
It justifies, however, in their brains, they justify what they're doing.
And so I think he got served kind of a different dish.
I'd also add that as a good manager, as a good CEO, you got to nip this stuff in the bud.
Like you cannot have the place leaking like a sieve.
And it was leaking like a sieve.
Look at this Todd Blanch saying, Hey, to the media asking about DOJ investigating the leak of classified information, he writes, With reporters, in turn risking our national security and the lives of our soldiers is a priority for this administration.
He just put this out this morning.
Any witness, whether a reporter or otherwise, who has information about these criminals should not be surprised if they receive a subpoena about the illegal leaking of classified material.
Because, you know, so often you hear, well, sources say, sources say, et cetera.
And in some cases, this information that they're leaking is classified.
Laura Accuses MTG of Nefarious Ways00:04:22
Mark Kelly is another one that's on the list.
And by the way, they're not even shying away from this one.
I mean, this is very, very public, given what he said on the CBS show Face the Nation over the weekend.
They are accusing him.
One Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon is accusing Senator Mark Kelly.
Of violating that trust as a government member, right?
As a senator, he's going to have access to classified stuff, and you can't go out and blab it everywhere, whether it be to reporters or on a national news show or on your Twitter account.
So, MTG is another one that they're looking at right now.
MTG, well, she's kind of in the tabloid, shall we say.
Apparently, she sold her house in Georgia back in March for $1.1 million.
We don't know who bought it.
One would hope it's not foreign interest, right?
I'm kidding, and yet not.
No, anyway, I'm sure she sold it to an upstanding buyer.
Anyway, she sold it for $1.1 million, quite a lot of acreage there, 10 and a half, 10.6 acres there in Georgia, 5,000 square feet, four and a half bass.
And now suddenly she's off vacationing with her, what was he?
He was some kind of reporter.
I think he was a White House reporter, actually, for a conservative network.
This is, I think his name is Brian Glenn, and he is enjoying the good life, apparently, with MTG in Georgia.
Costa Rica.
I'm going to get back to Tucker Carlson.
I'm going to get back to Joey Kent.
I'm going to get back to Mark Kelly.
But just first, so I keep you up to speed, because it's a lot.
Believe me, I know it is a lot.
This MTG is apparently fleeing the country, hanging out in Costa Rica, posting lovely little lifestyle posts about her wonderful vacation, and she's ready for the next chapter in her life.
There you see a couple of coffee cups.
Her other post being, I guess, on the beach with the love of her life right now.
And Do you guys know Laura Loomer?
She's like all over this.
So Laura is accusing MTG of fleeing the country very specifically because, in fact, there are questions about her allegiance.
And that allegiance had come up over and over.
She actually got out right before the Iran strike.
So I don't know as we can tie that so directly to her.
But here she is.
Laura's writing, MTG has fled the country to Costa Rica where she's now, oh, it gets better.
She's now living in a $5 million mansion after selling her home in Rome, Georgia for $1.1 million.
In March.
So that part is interesting.
I have not been able to confirm that Marjorie Taylor Greene bought a foreign villa in Costa Rica, but if she did, man, I mean, gosh, Laura's saying, hey, you know, those stock tips must have paid off well.
And she's accusing her of insider trading.
Anyway, it goes on to say Costa Rica only allows for tourists to stay for 90 days.
Does this mean that Marjorie, she calls her Trader Greene, has applied for dual citizenship?
Or has already obtained citizenship in Costa Rica?
And if so, for how long is she planning to flee the country to become a citizen of a foreign country?
As a now former member of Congress, the purchase of the property proves she began this process as a member of Congress, all while she pretends to be America first and America only.
More rules for thee, but not for me.
This is further evidence, she writes, of MTG's fight with President Trump, that it has always been planned.
She was always planning to leave Congress and America.
Now she gets to cry victim and say, I'm forced into exile, right?
Because.
The president has jeopardized my life.
She's so calculated and fake, writes Laura.
And then she goes on you know who else bought property abroad?
Tucker, she calls him Tarlson.
He bought a home in Cutter.
Okay.
She's not messing around because it gets even better.
She's now accusing Marjorie Taylor Greene of insider trading because how else could she have afforded that $5 million villa?
Again, I have not confirmed that Marjorie owns any such villa.
In fact, Marjorie actually came out and told the Daily Mail today, no, there is no villa.
I wish you would actually tell me where the keys are to this so called villa.
So she's like, no, no, we're just like, Moving, you know, we're just traveling the world and trying to see some other things at this point in our lives.
But this is all brewing, and she's bringing Tucker into it.
Marjorie Greene Villa Insider Trading00:02:18
Laura is, and she's suggesting that this money may have been gotten in some nefarious ways.
So that brings up some very, very interesting questions.
And don't forget what I told you that a lot of this leaking may have been coming from the vice president's office as well as the director of national intelligence office because you had Joe Kent working.
In one of those offices for Tulsi.
And the FBI was investigating him when he resigned.
And then you had Tucker Carlson's son, you know, working in JD's office on the PR side.
So I imagine a lot of information was being shared and that could come back in some pretty serious ways.
You know, look, I'm a reporter, so I tend to always want to be able to communicate as much as possible.
But I would say this you know, if you're working for the government, shame on you, right?
Shame on you.
You need to be.
Very aware of whatever is classified, and you may have a difference of opinion.
It doesn't mean you go running off to your favorite podcaster, and this is going to be a problem, I would imagine.
Um, at least for the people that are accused of having leaked more on that in a second.
But first, you know, the economy is a tricky one right now, and I realize everybody's dealing with higher energy costs and it's painful.
But you know what?
There are ways to save, there are ways to save a little bit of money here and there.
And by saving, I'm talking about maybe having a lower interest rate.
on your mortgage, on your mortgage or on your refinancing, because, you know, this is something that I encourage people to look at.
Hopefully you don't have a lot of credit card debt.
Hopefully you watch my 76 Research podcast and you don't get into credit card debt.
We don't do a lot of personal finance, but we do, in fact, talk a lot about investing, et cetera.
I encourage you guys to go look at that.
But hopefully you don't have this.
But if you do, if you do, you know, there are some things that you could call good debt, some things you could call bad debt, and it kind of all depends on the interest rate, right?
How much you're paying in interest.
Hopefully you're not paying a lot.
But one way to look at paying less would be to call my friends at American Financing 1 800 9930 737, 1 800 9930 737, or go to Americanfinancing.net forward slash.
Saving Money on Your Mortgage Rates00:15:48
Okay, this is tricky, guys.
Americanfinancing.net, not.com, dot.net.
And then you got to spell my whole name.
So T R I S H R E G A N.
And you can get started.
You can do it all right there online.
And it's terrific because you Put in your states, you tell them where you live, you tell them how much you're looking for, you give them all the information and they spit back to you some information.
And there's a lot of attractive opportunities right now.
So I encourage you right there to take a look.
All right.
There are some people that are being investigated right about now.
They're trying to get some information on just exactly who was leaking.
Who was leaking to lots of people, to podcasters, to the New York Times, to the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal has already announced as of today, here's an article in The Hill, that they are in fact.
Being subpoenaed.
Their reporters are being subpoenaed.
They're looking for reporters' records over media leaks connected with the U.S. Israeli conflict in Iran.
The journal received those subpoenas back on March 4th.
So that actually already happened.
And it was referring to a report published on February 23rd that said that General Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other Pentagon officials had warned President Trump about the risks of carrying out a military campaign on Iran.
Now, I saw some reporting around, well, in the last few weeks, right?
In the last few months.
Time flies when you're having fun.
That suggested the president hadn't been briefed on what it would mean for oil prices.
Well, I haven't ever heard anything so stupid in my life.
I mean, like, really and truly stupid, stupid, stupid.
Because what does this president care about?
Things like oil prices, inflation, et cetera.
So that one didn't even make any sense to me.
But of course, they're printing it.
Of course, they are.
Like, anything they can do to take him down, right?
So, all that crazy stuff that came up actually in today's hearing, I will show you, because Dan Kane was asked by Senator Susan Collins, who suddenly is like anti MAGA, whether he ever briefed the president on any of this.
And I'm like, you can't, like, by the way, would you even need to brief him?
I mean, it's kind of obvious.
And by the way, the Straight of Hormuz.
We've known about it forever.
20% of the world's oil supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz.
I'm a business reporter, okay?
How many times have I talked about that over the years?
A lot.
Anyway, Todd Blanch is going in.
He's confirming everything since everybody's all worked up about this.
He's like, heck yeah, you know what?
We're going in because there are some people that are willing to risk this country's national security.
And we're not going to stand for it.
As I told you before, any good CEO is going to stamp that out and stamp it out fast.
So that's what's happening in real time.
They're going in and they are looking for these Iran war leakers.
And who could they be?
Oh, gee, gosh, darn it.
You know, dare I say, you might want to look at Vance's office and you might want to look at Tulsi's office.
Here we are with the article here in the Daily Mail.
They're reporting the president privately raged to Todd Blanch last month about the leaks, prompting the Justice Department to launch an aggressive pursuit of reporters' sources behind sensitive national security stories.
This is what the Wall Street Journal is saying, because, of course, the Wall Street Journal has had its reporters subpoenaed.
As they write for decades, has been treated as kind of the nuclear option, right?
And you don't necessarily want to have to do that because you've got this sort of confidentiality that's supposed to be respected between reporters and their sources.
But, if you've got a whole bunch of people with a big, big old agenda and the agenda is completely different than your own at the State Department, at obviously the Oval Office, at the Pentagon, then what are you supposed to do?
Like roll over and play dead?
I'm going to allow like the inmates to run the asylum.
Deep state doesn't like what I'm doing, so they're going to go.
Hog wild, and I got to sit there and say tough, you know, for me.
Gosh darn it.
No, that is not what a good CEO, and I keep going back to CEO because, you know, I'm a business reporter and I look at this administration in part like a business, and you got a businessman running the thing.
So he's like, what the heck is going on?
All right, you don't agree with me, but that means you run off and you tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry at the New York Times and every podcast you can think of.
Hmm, that's not going to fly.
So among the stories that sparked Trump's Fury was, per the Daily Mail, reportedly an April 7th New York Times bombshell that revealed that the Israeli prime minister, that would be Netanyahu, of course, was actually lobbying for the president to launch the war during a secret Situation Room presentation.
So we've heard those rumors.
I would say that, you know, the Israelis are kind of badass, right?
And they know what's going on from an intelligence perspective.
And they had an opportunity with us.
To take out leadership.
Round one, round two, we're on round three now, right?
And they presented him with this.
And somehow that got misinterpreted into oh, we're somehow the puppet of Israel.
Trust me, we're not.
Anyway, the article went on to say that Vice President JD Vance warned that the war could break apart Trump's political coalition.
Well, that doesn't look very good for J.D. and his office because somebody, I suspect, in J.D.'s office was talking J.D.'s book or somebody's book that was a little bit different, shall we say, than the president.
Again, you have an issue, you deal with him directly.
You do not go to the media to fight this out.
It is not becoming, frankly, of this country, nor any member of this administration.
And so he's got to nip this thing in the bud.
Mucho pronto.
The article said again, JD Vance's office was saying, well, you know, this is going to break apart.
Trump's political coalition MAGA is going to be over.
Oh, that's because he's talking to Tucker.
Oh, no, he's talking to Tucker's son.
I get it.
Tucker's son was running the media op, right, for JD Vance.
And so Tucker's like feeding his son.
I'm hypothesizing, of course, but I can see how this would play out.
Feeding his son some ideas.
And the ideas get fed then to JD Vance.
I don't know as he was running it.
I should be.
Careful on that.
He probably was just, you know, a little peon because he's like all of 20 something years old.
And you can see how a 20 something year old is going to screw this one up.
And I feel bad for him.
And I feel bad that, you know, I hope to God his father read him the riot act and explained listen, kid, you cannot share secrets.
Even with me as your dad, even though I got this big podcast and I got a big audience and they're like chomping at the bit to hear this, you can't share secrets.
There's got to be a Chinese wall.
Maybe pun intended in this case.
We need a Chinese wall in this household.
Anyway, as it also says, apparently Radcliffe dismissed Netanyahu's pitch as farcical and Secretary of State Rubio branded it BS.
I don't know about that because I think that actually those guys are all in and have been from the very beginning.
So that causes me to have some doubts.
And I really, I guess, question the source of all this.
You know, guys, I remind you look at the stock market.
If you want to know how America is reacting to this and how the.
I'm sorry, but like that's real money at work.
And we would be off badly, like off 30% if everybody thought that this was the worst idea in the world.
Now you listen to Tucker and his brother, who happens to have the same name as the son.
It's not the son.
It really threw me off at first because I'm like, his name is Buckley.
I'm like, Buckley?
Buckley?
I mean, does Tucker have like really, really good lights?
I need some lights like that, right?
If that's him and that's his son, this is his.
Brother.
So the uncle, it's like a family affair, for goodness sakes.
Wow.
This is actually kind of funny.
So Buckley Sr., the uncle, oh, he's out for blood.
Maybe because they realize there's trouble.
And certainly, you know, I don't wish that I'm on.
I certainly would hope that both the uncle and the father would sit the 20-something-year-old down and say, listen, you can't share any information with us or any other reporters because it's like.
Like, that's like traitor territory, okay?
You're going to get in humongous trouble, like jail kind of trouble.
That is scary, scary stuff.
Here is the brother, not the son, and Tucker talking about the 25th Amendment, right?
They're really freaking out.
We do have remedies for an out of control, megalomaniacal, you know, destructive president.
I think, you know, honest people who have that power should consider taking it.
The 25th Amendment is there for a reason.
It's not crazy to talk about it in this context.
If If our country is suffering great and lasting damage, which it seems to be, then sober minds need to come in and exercise what power they have for the benefit of all of us.
Easier said than done, I'm sure.
Right.
Easier said than done.
But I mean, it's certainly, I think saying the truth, whatever you think that it is, is the first step toward redemption of yourself and of your country.
Yes.
Tell the truth.
That's your number one duty.
Can I say one other thing?
Of course.
I'm certainly.
By the way, he decides every other day what the truth is, but I digress.
Fear of physical, the physical threat is real.
Oh, yeah, obviously.
Demonstrated a lot.
But also, if it's shame, if there's blackmail material, as there is on so much of our elected officials, If there isn't Trump, it's like, I'm sorry, you've demonstrated that you don't have any personal shame.
I mean, you've demonstrated that a lot.
You persevered through all of these accusations of disgusting personal behavior.
How shocking is it, really, if there are pictures of you doing compromising things?
Not very.
And it doesn't even matter.
Like, actually, I hate the term, but sack up.
Like, really, you again, it comes back to the obligation that he has, not just to Donald Trump, to everybody else in the country, well beyond Donald Trump.
Who cares?
He can survive.
So, looking back, being because I mean, you and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him.
I mean, we're implicated in this for sure.
Oh, wait a second.
Maybe that's it's dawning on him now.
I'm teasing.
Get ready for it, guys, because he's saying his prayers every night.
How on earth could he have ever backed Donald Trump?
I'm going to tell you how.
Ka ching.
He never liked Trump.
Trust me, never.
It's not.
Enough to say, well, I changed my mind, or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out.
It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.
Yes.
So I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences.
Oh, boy.
You know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time.
I will be.
And I'm sorry for letting you continue on in your torment with your.
Your demons that are coming to haunt you at night and scratch you up.
I'm just sorry.
But this is actually serious, okay?
This is actually really serious because, again, who leaked?
Some people awfully close to Tucker, it appears.
So, I mean, I'm just saying, it feels a little bit like one plus one is two here.
You've got, on the one hand, the son, and I hope for his sake that that's not the case.
But you've got the son who may have been talking to his dad and his uncle.
Why wouldn't they, right?
Why wouldn't he?
Like, it makes sense.
And I don't know.
In a court of law, is that a defense?
I would just say if you are an MA lawyer, right, this has come out with some of those big law firms on Wall Street, and you're calling people, even if they're just family friends, and giving them tips, like that actually is something you can go to jail for.
So when you're talking about, oh, maybe strikes on Iran, like that's a whole other level of stuff.
So that's scary for them.
And then you have this guy, Joey, Joey Kent, who is a top U.S. counterterrorism official.
official.
And then miraculously, he just decides to resign over the whole Iran war.
I do believe he was being investigated.
Was he not for leaks at the time?
So I guess rather fortuitous, he just decides to up and head out and then has this really aggressive letter that he pens that he fires off to the media and then goes on, uh-huh, Tucker Carlson's show like the very next day.
Funny how that all works.
I'm sorry.
Like you don't have to be a rocket scientist to add this stuff up.
Guys, you really, really don't.
A place is leaking like a sieve, and who is it leaking to?
A whole bunch of people.
I don't know.
I don't know what was really incentivizing them.
That's an important question.
Is it clicks?
Is it money?
Is it really just, you know, we want to do the right thing?
By the way, his new wife works for a website that really hates America, like really, really hates America.
Any side of any issue you can possibly imagine, you can be pretty darn sure that the website that this guy, Joey Kent's new wife, right, because he remarried, the new wife works for is anti-American.
So again, I'm just putting one and one together and I'm coming up with two.
I realize some people will come up with 23.
But one plus one generally equals two.
So, one of the things that came out during this whole, oh my gosh, you know, what are we doing?
And Donald Trump is so freaking stupid.
And how could he possibly go into the Strait of Hormuz?
And doesn't he know what that's going to mean for oil prices?
It actually hasn't meant a lot, really, in the scheme of things.
I thought maybe we'd be going to 200.
We're nowhere near that.
Anyway, you have Senator Collins from Maine, not exactly a rocket scientist herself, pushing General Keane today on this, asking over and over, well, I mean, did you guys know what this would mean for oil prices?
Did you know that it would mean possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz?
I want you to listen to this.
Bear with her and me, if you would.
This is Sandra Collins with General Kane today.
When the Department of War was planning its operations in Iran, did you anticipate the closure of the Strait of Hormuz?
And the resulting impact on oil supplies for many countries, including here in the United States, where we've seen gas, diesel, and home heating oil prices go up.
I ask this question because there's historic precedent.
Obviously, during the Iraq Iran war, tankers were fired upon in the strait.
Senator, thanks for the question.
As always, We have an incredible staff over at the Pentagon and down at US CENTCOM.
And we always look at the range of military branches and sequels.
I won't comment on any particular one because that gets to whatever advice I may or may not have given to the president.
And I do that in private.
But you should rest assured, as should the American people, that we cover and consider the full range of things all the time in our careful consideration.
Of military actions and the advice andor options that we present our civilian leaders.
It seems to me that there is a different plan almost daily with dealing with this.
Yeah, okay, Senator Collins.
Collins Plans for Moving Military Targets00:08:21
Yeah.
Ask.
Senator Collins, there is a different plan daily because you know what?
This is a moving target, this moving operation.
You get Iran on the one hand saying, okay, we'll make a deal, and then the next day they're like, yeah, but we don't want to get rid of our uranium.
And the president's like, I'm sorry, you got to get rid of the uranium.
Not that hard.
Okay, so we don't have a deal.
So, yeah, things are moving.
I realize it's a little fast for you, honey.
I know, I know, I know.
But you know what?
At some point, you got to just hang it up.
Okay, just hang it up because, well, it's obvious.
Anyway, you've got a lot of questions about how this all is getting leaked.
And again, I just think it's probably not that hard.
I think you have some people that had a certain viewpoint there in the administration, even within MAGA, right?
So, you had MAGA that I would say is sort of pure MAGA that really loves the president.
And wants what's best from an America First standpoint.
And what is America First?
Well, America First is locking down the energy supply for the whole darn world, okay?
Especially for us.
And when I say the whole darn world, I mean that it's a global kabaddi.
It's priced in dollars.
And if we have to knock off 20% of the supply in the Strait of Hormuz, then that means, yes, prices are going to go up.
And so the president is saying, I want to make sure that they're never going to be able to do this in the future and that they're never going to get a nuclear weapon.
And if I have an opportunity to do it, I'm going to take it.
Thank you very much.
So some people don't like that, which makes you wonder whose side are they on, for goodness sakes?
Are they on Iran's side?
Are they on?
Well, not our side.
Certainly doesn't seem that way.
Mark Kelly's one of those guys, right?
Don't forget, Mark Kelly, signer Mark Kelly was part of the seditious six who was trying to tell the military not to obey orders.
I mean, this guy is bonkers, okay?
Seriously, seriously bonkers.
And he's in it now.
Boy, is he in it because he went on to CBS's Face the Nation over the weekend and he gave away apparently some proprietary classified information that he shouldn't be declassifying.
Listen.
Now, to Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who we spoke with earlier and began by asking whether the Pentagon has provided an answer on how depleted U.S. munitions are because of the war with Iran.
Yes, Margaret, we have.
We've been tracking it a number of times.
We've been briefed by the Pentagon on specific munitions, actually.
It's been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, Attackums, SM3s, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds, those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves.
And the numbers are, I think it's fair to say it's shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines because this president got.
I don't really want to play the whole thing, but you get the picture.
Pete Hegseth, Department of Wars, Pete Hegseth, and my former colleague, amazing how many of these people I've worked with, right?
Anyway, he's like, Captain Mark Kelly strikes again.
Now he's blabbing on TV falsely and dumbly about a classified Pentagon brief he received.
Did he violate his oath again?
We're going to review this.
So the legal counsel is reviewing it.
Now he's saying, no, no, no, I didn't violate my oath.
You've talked about this depletion and the need to actually replenish it in hearings.
And so this is what's going on.
But let me go back to Scott Jennings had a really, really good point on this because it just doesn't, it's not becoming.
Like you don't get on there and say all this stuff in your position, Senator Kelly.
And in light of your seditious six move, it really feels icky.
Here is Scott Jennings.
What's going on here?
Mark Kelly's partisan interests are what's most important.
This man is a United States senator.
He's getting classified briefings from the Pentagon, and then he goes on television and tells our enemies around the world, in great specificity, which weapons systems are depleted, which need to be restocked.
Setting aside the legal issues, which I'm with Molly, I'm not a lawyer either, and I don't know what the future of that holds.
Did he ever stop to ask himself what is in the best interests of the United States of America and not just my own?
Political future, because it's obvious that he did not.
A sitting senator going on television and telegraphing to our enemies and our threats around the world, what we may or may not have, it's extraordinarily irresponsible.
Well, let's not let that get in the way of a presidential campaign.
Well, I mean, Scott, but to Molly's point, could you not say, I mean, if Hegseth was legitimately interested, most interested in national security, he easily could have lost this investigation and not said anything about it, right?
Well, I mean, it's already out in the open when Kelly goes on television.
Right, but he's now elevated what Kelly said, right?
I think everybody heard it.
It was on.
And if the defense secretary is, in fact, acknowledging and saying, well, he revealed classified information here, he is confirming publicly what Molly said he is doing.
So the options here would be to ignore it or to lie about it?
No, the option would be to investigate and not tell the press.
Look, Mark Kelly went on television and said, I got a classified briefing, and here's what I was told.
I'm just saying it sounds like they're both doing the same thing, right?
Everyone's playing politics here.
I mean, if you're going to buy into your argument that, hey, this is a senator who's running for president, and that's what we're acknowledging he's doing, is Hagseth not doing the same thing?
Look, this all started because a senator received classified information and chose to disclose it for the good of his own partisan interests.
Right.
And that's just not a cool thing to do.
Okay.
So he's accused of sharing classified intel.
They've got an investigation going on into these reporters that shared information that was believed to be classified.
And I suspect they are looking back over JD Vance's office and also Tulsi Gabbard's office.
Okay.
There you have it.
Oh, and we're not done because Representative Jayapal.
She's also in the crosshairs.
She's also being accused of violating the Logan Act.
So a whole other kind of treason, if you would.
Don't forget what she was saying about Cuba, right?
Like she's working with the Cubans and she's working with the Russians and everybody that she can to try and make sure that the people have oil.
They have energy in Cuba.
But she seems to forget that we've sanctioned all those countries and that she's not supposed to be working with them directly like that.
I mean, isn't this part of the pressure campaign?
Isn't the idea that you actually want to make it challenging so that, hey, You know, according to the president, they want to do a deal with us too, right?
Why not?
Because they've been shut off from the entire world, unless Jayapal has anything to do with it.
Because Jayapal is like, well, let me turn the spigot back on.
Let's just make life really comfortable for them.
And then they'll be all, you know, well, they'll continue doing what they're doing.
So this lady saying this, just a quick clip Jayapal.
It's tourism.
I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba.
It is illegal.
It is against the war.
We've been talking about this in Iran, obviously, to bomb the infrastructure of any country.
That is against international law.
This is essentially doing the same thing.
It is bombing the infrastructure of Cuba with economic sanctions that essentially ensure that the infrastructure.
And so now she's trying to work with some of the bad guys to make sure that they got all the oil they need.
And this is not sitting so well with.
A lot of us, including Brennan Gill, the representative from Texas, listen to what he had to say.
Who do we represent?
Do we represent the interests of the American people or do we represent the interests of hostile foreign regimes like Cuba?
And she seems to believe the latter.
I mean, the reality is that this is an evil communist regime that tortures its own people, that operates as a hub for some of our biggest geopolitical adversaries, including Russia.
Whom she also believes that she ought to be helping aid the importation of oil into Cuba for.
So, this is astounding on so many levels, but I think that it's something that the American people recognize is that we've got a Democrat Party who is operating in the interests of our geopolitical foes, and that's a big problem.
Eileen Wong Rumors Defame China00:05:37
Yeah, kind of a problem, okay?
We've got our enemies out there, so we don't need Jayapal hanging out with them.
We don't need Bernie Sanders.
Remember the other day he was doing that big panel and he had some woman who's bankrolled by China on the panel with him.
It's like, what is going on?
I mean, meanwhile, you got a mayor, a mayor in California that pleaded guilty to being a Chinese spy, for goodness sakes.
This story just broke today.
And I'm like, I'm ready to fall off my chair.
I just cannot believe this is going on, and we gotta get to the bottom of it.
You know that.
I know that.
It's not okay.
This is a woman named Eileen Wang, who was a mayor in California, a Democrat elected mayor, and has admitted, yeah, she was working for the CCP.
A woman who ran and won for a Democrat seat, the mayor of California City, Arcadia, is a Chinese spy.
That Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wong just admitted to spreading propaganda for the People's Republic of China right here on American soil.
Under the U.S. Constitution, committing an act of treason means adhering to U.S. enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
They published articles at the direction of the Chinese government.
Lovely.
Here's an example from Wong's plea agreement in which she instructed to share a story denying the existence.
Of genocide and forced labor camps inside China.
The feds say that former mayor here in California operated a bogus website that pretended to be a news source for the Chinese American community, but instead promoted propaganda on behalf of China.
The federal plea agreement says Eileen Wong took directives from the People's Republic of China on what to post on the fake website between 2000 and 2022 before she became a council member and ultimately mayor of Arcadia.
For example, in 2021, Wang reposted a pro Chinese essay that read, There is no genocide in Xinjiang.
There is no such thing as forced labor in any production activity, including cotton production.
Spreading such rumor is to defame China.
Now, right after that article was shared on the bogus website, a Chinese official praised Wang and others in a group chat, writing, So fast.
Thank you, everyone.
Federal prosecutors say Chinese officials had such fine control of the website that they would even message Wang.
And others about specific paragraphs or edits they wanted in articles, all to make the PRC look good.
Wow.
Essentially, it means she worked in the United States for another government, for its officials.
She executed directives.
She did what they told her to do.
They'll give her praise for how well she's doing, and she'll say, Thank you, leader.
As part of the federal plea agreement, Wong resigned as mayor of Arcadia, California, and pleaded guilty to the felony offense of acting as an illegal.
Agent.
She faces up to 10 years in prison.
Now, the feds say Wong worked alongside her former fiance, Mike's son, who also previously pled guilty to espionage charges and was sentenced to 48 months in prison.
This is unbelievable.
I mean, like, absolutely positively unbelievable.
So, it's coming at an interesting time.
The DOJ put this all out.
And as I said, an interesting time because the president of the United States is en route to China right now.
So, we got a little problem with China, just a little teeny, like, little problem, right?
Because they are.
Constantly trying to infiltrate.
Think about what they did with, oh, Fang Fang and Eric Swalwell.
There's another one we haven't talked about lately.
I mean, all these losers out there Fang Fang and Eric Swalwell.
So she was a Chinese spy that they put on him.
And now you got this woman who's putting out stuff on a website.
I mean, look, I would say this the administration has been, even during, well, not so much during the Biden years, but I do remember the FBI being very concerned about Chinatown during that time because in Chinatown they were tracking people.
They had a whole system.
It was very Orwellian.
And let me go to a CNN interview with an FBI person just the other day, where they were talking about this climate of fear that China puts in Chinese Americans.
And, you know, this Eileen Wong was somehow, I'm not going to call her a victim because she admitted this.
She's guilty as charged.
But there are some people that wind up under these pressure campaigns.
And it is just so flat out wrong right here in our own country, thanks to China.
They do these very overt things to.
To scare the rest of the community, and they recruit people to report, you know, within the community.
So they're creating this Orwellian climate of fear where everyone is afraid to speak out.
Yeah.
I've actually had a personal experience with that myself in some of my reporting.
I once came across a phenomenal source, a phenomenal source who was really, really helpful to me and wanted to put this person on air.
And ultimately, what it came down to was this.
Person said they had too many relatives back home in China, and the CCP watches everything.
And if they saw this person on television, then it would become a problem.
And I'm like, You got to be like, This is serious stuff, okay?
Delcy Rodriguez Puerto Rico Fears00:15:16
So you can't ever get free.
You can't ever get free.
They're going to take it out on your family back home in China.
Like, this can't happen, okay?
It just can't happen.
And yet it is happening.
So none of this is good.
The president's been talking about something kind of interesting lately.
Have you guys been following this?
The president's been talking about getting a 51st state, a 51st state.
It would be Venezuela.
Venezuela is responding.
Delcy Rodriguez, the new president, thanks to us, saying, Yeah, you know, thanks, but no thanks.
She came out rejecting this so called offer, this so called overture.
And again, I know what you're saying.
I know what you're saying.
Venezuela.
Venezuela as the 51st state.
You know, we've heard a lot about Greenland, but Venezuela, this is actually coming up.
The president is talking about the idea of Venezuela.
About two and a half hours, maybe three, from the state of Florida coming on board.
What's this really about?
Let's go over to an excerpt from John Roberts over at Fox.
He kind of surprised me a little bit because he said, John, I just want to tell you, I'm very serious about this.
So you can talk about this.
I'm serious about beginning a process to make Venezuela the 51st state.
Now, there's a rich history in this nation of taking territories and absorbing them into the United States.
You know, Puerto Rico is one that people.
Talk about.
But this would be the first time, to my knowledge, that a sovereign country was ever invited to join the United States of America.
Well, they haven't been invited yet, but you know, it's on his radar, and there's a reason it's on his radar, and there's a reason why there's no Puerto Rico.
And it's because of, check it out, right above my left hand shoulder.
We're talking about a lot of oil right there in the Orinoco region, something like 303 billion barrels of oil.
And the president is very focused on that, you see, because we need energy security.
Joining me right now with a look at this very interesting and developing story, we have my Good friend Hans Humes back on the show.
Hans is just, I want to give them a little sort of knowledge about you if they haven't met you on the program before.
Hans is the guy that goes in.
You're like the Cleanup Act, right?
Because you're representing all the American bondholders that want to make sure that they get paid back when a country goes bankrupt.
And so you call Hans, and Hans will go in there and help basically make that country solvent again.
And you've done it all over the world, right, Hans?
Oh, yeah.
Greece, Russia, Argentina, once or twice or three times, Ecuador, you know, plenty of countries in Africa.
Yep.
So, you've seen this movie before.
You know how this works.
And what's, you know, look, I mean, the Venezuela thing is fascinating the way this has all been playing out.
Again, I have a big feeling that this is about something that's very important to the nation, very important to the hemisphere, and very important to the president.
And that is, especially right now, oil, oil, oil.
Yeah.
I mean, oil, oil, oil.
But it's also Venezuela has gold, it's got diamonds, it's got.
Huge amount of rare earths we need.
So it's not just an energy story, it's a broad commodity story, as you said, to sort of establish our foothold to make sure that we have the raw materials for the coming decades.
And frankly, a lot of people, it's amazing.
You've got to love Donald Trump.
He'll put something out there, and the amount of discussion that comes off the back of it is always entertaining.
I called you right away, by the way.
You were my first call.
Delcy Rodriguez did say at a big event yesterday, no, there's no way.
We maintain our independence, et cetera.
Of course, I don't think she really has a choice.
She has to say that.
Her country may not react well to this.
You know, it's interesting.
If you actually took a poll in Venezuela, whether it be a man on the street or, you know, the.
The elite that send their kids to the same colleges that, you know, sort of the elite Americans go to, you'd be surprised how much, you know, maybe not overt support that you'd have for this, but you're dealing with a country that is arguably the most Americanized country in the world, certainly in Latin America.
You know, this is a country, they won the World Baseball Classic.
Nicolas Maduro, you know, used to stop meetings to watch the NBA Finals or Major League Baseball, the World Series.
Everybody is Americanized there.
And it's just a reflection of the history of the country.
We were, our oil companies, pretty much from the 19 teens, 1920s on, we were working in lockstep with Venezuela.
And we got it to the point that it was the wealthiest country per capita in Latin America through the 1980s, the early 1990s.
So it was only really with Chavez coming in that ideologically it pulled away.
So at the surface, what seems like maybe a far fetched idea is actually.
Brilliant.
It's arguably the culmination, the genius culmination of the Don Roe Doctrine.
And whether or not Venezuela actually becomes a state, pushing the conversation to what it would take to make it a state addresses a lot of the issues that you're going to have to grapple with to make sure that the United States is the dominant economic partner of Venezuela.
You know, look, I've believed this for a long time and I've done a lot of reporting on this.
And you and I knew each other long before.
For that, actually, because I used to also call you with questions about Greece.
You know, you were the only American on the Greek steering committee.
I remember during the whole European debt crisis, which, you know, was really being led, of course, through the challenges of Greece.
So we've known each other a long time, but I've covered Venezuela quite a bit.
And to me, it's sort of like, yeah, you're sitting on a massive source of oil.
We're talking about oil reserves proven that are bigger than that of Saudi Arabia.
And it's right here, like in your own hemisphere.
Like, why wouldn't you want that?
Oh, 100%.
I mean, listen, if I would probably tend to agree with many of the people in your audience that the United States stretching too far in the world and using up our wealth to sort of butt heads with different countries too far afield may not make that much sense.
But Venezuela is in our backyard, as you said, two and a half, three hours' flight from Miami.
They.
Need to be part of our economic ecosystem.
And again, oil, energy is going to be the dominant story going forward.
If you want to talk about AI, anything to do with growth and competing internationally, you're going to have to have a lock on oil.
And Venezuela's got the largest proven oil reserves.
So, whatever happens in the rest of the world, if you can get Venezuela from producing a million barrels a day, which is up from their trough of, I don't know, 400, 500,000 barrels a day to five, six, seven million barrels a day.
They can do that.
Wow.
And that closes a lot of gaps.
Yeah.
And, you know, that would be kind of really amazing.
And I think the president's been really thrilled with how much they're producing right now.
But in order to get them to that level, it's going to mean investment.
Okay.
Like you're going to need to go in there.
And I was telling the viewers yesterday, I held up my coffee cup when I was in Orinoco and I looked at that.
Basically, that tar, right?
Like you hold it, coffee, if it's in the coffee cup and you hold the coffee cup upside down, nothing's coming out, nothing's coming out.
And you have to thin that out.
And that takes technology.
And a lot of people worry about oil prices, right?
If oil goes too low, like maybe it doesn't make sense to invest all that money and all that technology.
But let's assume that oil is going to hover around, you know, sort of, yeah, I don't know, I'm making this up, maybe $60 a barrel for the near future.
I know it's way above that right now.
But, you know, as the president says, once it says, once Iran works itself out, it'll come way back down.
So if you assume that and you assume at least, you know, you're getting some return.
Based on those long term oil prices and the need for energy, I'd assume you'd want to put tons of money into this.
But this is the important, but the danger is you could get kicked out, right?
So, this is American companies are looking at this.
And I imagine the president saying, well, we don't need, I mean, he's a real estate developer at heart, right?
So, he's like, we need to own that.
We need to own the land.
We need to own everything.
And I think that's part of this sort of tension.
If we invest all this and we give them this opportunity, and yeah, sure, we get the oil, but they could turn around and pull a Chavez on us, just like he did back in 2007 and kick us out.
Right.
Well, I mean, think about it.
The nationalization of the oil industry happened before Chavez.
So it's a constant risk.
Making them a state would certainly sidestep the issue.
But the issues that you'd have to address in moving towards statehood are the ones you're going to have to address anyway.
So you're right about the investment, but it's in the case of Venezuela, the cost of extraction isn't that high.
What you have is a system that has.
Basically, it disintegrated over the last few years because of lack of investment.
So, you've got a huge upfront investment to get everything operating.
There is no question that the best companies in the world to do that are American.
And I would apply that to other commodities as well.
I mean, having the United States be the dominant presence there economically is the answer to Venezuela's problem.
The best way to make the U.S. dominant is to make them part of us.
What you're dealing with is the upfront investment.
After that upfront investment, the maintenance is going to be less.
But you're right.
What you can't take is the economic or the political risk of being divested of what we put a lot of money into.
So, how do we do that?
You need transparency, rule of law, basically, US governance standards across the board.
And what you've had because of the economic management of Chavez, the Chavista era.
The sanctions, you've got this really weird situation that always comes out where, because of the inefficiencies, you have a lot of people making money.
I've been very comfortable making money off the inefficient situation by smuggling the oil out, smuggling the commodities, the gold.
We need to clean that up.
It has to be cleaned up.
All those middlemen need to be cleaned up.
I mean, I get the impression, and you know this better than me, that the president's pretty happy with Delcy Rodriguez and he feels like.
She's running Venezuela more like a business, dare I say.
She's one of his CEOs.
Yeah, with your status.
She's doing a good job with the enterprise.
The people also like her.
A lot of people say, well, why didn't you put Maria Carino Machado in?
Maria's great, believe me.
I actually like her a ton, and she has big political aspirations, and maybe one day she gets there.
But I think his concern was that it would be too much disruption.
Is that fair?
Yeah, I think it's fair.
I mean, I think that Delcy Rodriguez is a very, very capable.
Economic manager.
I think, you know, in broad terms, she's got the interests of the country guiding her.
Even though she's a socialist.
You know, at this point, we're ideological.
You know, I think it's hard to pin people down ideologically.
I think she's a pragmatist.
I think Maria Corina Machado represents something very significant that needs to be addressed.
And for Venezuela to function properly, you are going to have to.
Open up the political sphere there, and you know, others in Mundo Gonzalez won the election.
Now, everybody has a seat at the table.
You say this before, I can't remember if it was in Ireland.
You've told me this before that there's an importance, or maybe it's just in every country that you've restructured.
Um, and I know you played a role in what went down in Northern Ireland, but I mean, in other words, do you need to make sure that everybody kind of has a voice, right?
Because if people get shut out, that's when you run these risks.
Then you have the problems, and you know.
While you could argue that having our guys run the show in Venezuela, if you're really focused on productive capacity for the country, we are way better off for Venezuela returning to the per capita GDP that the country had in the 1980s than leaving the situation now where people are poor.
They need a voice.
I think Delcy Rodriguez, with her management, can bring it a long way, but you're going to have the opposition.
We'll need to have a seat at the table.
And you'll have, listen, the easiest way to bring democracy to Venezuela is to make it a state.
We have a very, very solid state.
I mean, but then they get some senators and some congresspeople.
I'm thinking, is there an in between stage?
Maybe territory.
I mean, people are all my gosh, you know, the life that you bring on.
But look at Puerto Rico.
We don't have to pay for SNAP and we don't have to pay for health care benefits.
And by the way, Puerto Rico kind of gives us nothing.
I mean, unless you get down there and you get zero tax.
I mean, yeah.
But I mean, Puerto Rico versus Venezuela?
It's well, let's put it this way if we bring Venezuela in and make them part of the United States, then we don't have to worry about losing the World Baseball Classic in the finals because they won.
So we take their players.
But it's just imagine the oceanfront property.
Oh my gosh, I know it's amazing there.
It's arguably not just the most commodity rich country per capita in the world, but it's one of the most beautiful.
And with American investment that doesn't worry about You know, contracts being reneged on, there's no question that they'll do better and will do better.
So, this is in his head.
I mean, just to get into the president's head for a second.
I mean, it's obviously in his head.
He's telling John Roberts, go out and report it.
Besson Likes Idea for Happy Population00:04:57
You know, I really like this idea.
And I'm thinking, like, I know why he likes this idea.
And I bet you Hans knows why he likes this idea.
And it's because if you have that right consistency, you're going to encourage more and more investment.
And it's a no brainer from an investment perspective.
Perspective, except for the fact that you're always worried they may tear up the contracts.
Yeah, I mean, I certainly think that Donald Trump is smart enough to realize that if you force the focus of the discussion on what would need to be done to make Venezuela a state, that will resolve a lot of the issues of, you know, cleaning up the systems, making sure the institutions work, making sure that people have a voice.
I mean, whatever you say about Donald Trump, I think he really does care about the people and he wants the people to.
Prosper.
And I think he understands also that if you've got a happy population, you have a more productive country.
So if you want to optimize petroleum production, make sure the people are well fed, well educated, the lights turn on, making Venezuela part of the United States is probably the easiest solution.
But even in addressing the issues of what would need to be done, then I think you can take the steps to resolve what we need to do to make.
Venezuela, a fully operational economic partner in the United States, which is the best thing for us and it's the best thing for them.
I mean, you're talking about.
At first glance, and I'm looking at, I'm seeing per capita income of $4,000, like, oh, what a nightmare.
And then the flip side of that is the oil, right?
And if you can get that oil up and running, it would be a home run for us.
And we would then have a forever stake in benefiting from that upside.
And I think, you know, your point on the people.
Is very interesting because, of course, everybody has a lot of pride, but at the same time, it's like getting adopted by a billionaire or something.
And now, finally, you got a chance.
You had all the makings to do something great.
You just need a little capital behind you, and that would be the capital push.
And you think about where we failed in places like Iraq, where we went in, we dropped our systems on top of them, and it didn't work.
Why?
In many ways, it just, you know, culture.
Venezuela is incredibly Americanized.
It's not just baseball, basketball, everything else.
Even the language, even their slang.
I mean, the word for buddy is pana, which is partner.
That comes from Texas, Texan oil men.
You know, Echelad Pichon, like all their slang, you know, street level, whatever, comes from Texas English.
So culturally, there is no divide.
You know, these guys love America.
So I think.
Donald Trump is putting out a really smart idea at this time.
Well, he's been known to.
He doesn't get a lot of credit for them, but he does have a few good ideas here and there.
Hans, thank you for your perspective.
It's always interesting to hear from you on all of this.
Hans Humes, founder of Greylock Capital, I call you the banker to the world because basically he goes out there and you get these countries that are just a mess and he puts them into shape, right?
So that everybody hopefully gets repaid.
And this is one where the bondholders have to be pretty darn happy right about now because I'm thinking they're going to get paid and then some.
We're supposed to be part of the solution.
One of the things I like about the Trump administration is they really understand that the debt part of the equation is a policy tool.
It seems obvious, but you'd be amazed how administrations in the past just couldn't get it through their thick heads.
That's actually really interesting.
I've said that in part.
I mean, I know Trump gets it, but also Scott Besson is the real deal.
And he's a very sophisticated.
Player, you know, unlike anything I've really, I mean, Mnuchin was good as well, but I think a lot of times Treasury secretaries are more steeped in politics than they are finance.
And this is where, you know, you really need somebody who kind of understands both.
He, Besson really gets it.
He was part of the Greece process.
You know, you could see what he did with Argentina.
He has a sophistication in his perspective, not just in terms of recognizing the situation, but understanding the impact of potential solutions.
That I don't think any other Treasury Secretary has had.
Yeah, I keep joking.
He's like the Alexander Hamilton of our time.
They're talking about JD and they're talking about Marco Rubio.
My thanks again to Hans Humes there from Greylock.
Just really interesting perspective.
I know, I know.
Supreme Court Voting Rights Act History00:10:09
We're probably not going to make it a state, right?
We don't want to have to deal with all the Congress people from Venezuela, but nor the immigration challenges that we would then have.
But it's an interesting thing to think about.
And what it tells me is that this president is very committed to finding some way to strengthen that relationship so that we do have access to that oil, which is right here in our own backyard, right?
Kind of important to think about.
And I love what he said about Scott Besant because I'm seeing it too.
Like, again, finance is my background.
In fact, trading sovereign debt, believe it or not, I actually used to trade this stuff in Venezuela back in the day as Chavez was first coming in, along with Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
And I would just say, look, you know, you have a lot of power in that we're sort of the financial heartbeat of the world.
And so using that power and using it in smart, articulate ways is really, really, really important.
And that's what this administration actually gets and understands.
And obviously, Hans is agreeing with me on that.
Another big issue right now Democrats are freaking out.
I mean, they are freaking out because Alabama is about to get four new congressional seats.
And guess what?
They don't have to be in.
Gerrymandered districts anymore.
The Supreme Court coming out with that news last night.
And believe me, the left is flipping out.
This comes on the heels of Louisiana, of course.
And then you had kind of a procedural thing going on in Virginia, but you know, it's not looking good for them.
So, the Supreme Court's clearing path for Alabama to use the new voting system.
Majority of the justices siding with Alabama in a move that is seen as speeding up efforts to really rejigger this whole thing.
And again, the governor of Alabama, her name is Kay Ivey, she has now scheduled these special elections for these House seats.
So let me show you the way it was and then the way it is.
These are the districts, the current districts.
Look at how much more smoothly they are designed, or rather, I should say, the proposed districts versus the current district.
So look at the current districts that's there on the left, and it's kind of funny, right?
You have one going all the way through the state, and people say, you know, this doesn't really make any sense, but they did it this way because of race issues, and they wanted to make sure, and they used the Voting Rights Act as the reason for being.
And the Supreme Court is like, wait a second, you can't do that just based on race.
Like, that is not fair.
That's not the way it works anymore.
And so you're going to have to rethink all this because they're learning this, shall we say, at the collegiate level, right?
Harvard having to learn the hard way.
You cannot.
Just have affirmative action and let somebody in just because of their color of their skin.
Disney is learning this the hard way because there's that investigation courtesy of the FCC and Brendan Carr, where they're looking into the use of race to program.
That's a problem.
I mean, it's coming out everywhere, and now we're seeing it in the congressional map.
So it's like enough already.
You know what?
I'm not saying America's perfect, but we're pretty darn good.
And at this point, we can't be judging everything based on race because that in and of itself is actually racist.
And there's no constitutional precedent for it.
Let me go to a good soundbite last night as everybody was just becoming undone on CNN and Scott Jennings had to set them straight.
I'm really liking Scott.
Watch.
In the case of Louisiana, you know, they didn't have a choice.
The Supreme Court said their maps were unconstitutional.
They had to redraw it.
And so what they chose to do was move the House back to the fall and they'll leave the Senate primary in place, which is actually happening right now.
So I get the argument about a little bit of confusion.
I mean, around the edges of congressional districts, you're always going to have some areas where, you know, one person on one side of the street, one person on the other.
I live on the very western edge of a congressional district in Kentucky, in fact.
If I might respectfully debate Bakari on this for a moment, to me, I heard you say that people are losing representation.
People are losing their voice.
No voter has lost their voice at all.
No one's been disenfranchised.
Every voter in America before these court rulings could go cast a ballot this November, and every voter in America, white, black, or otherwise, can go cast a ballot.
Right now, the lines may be changing, but every voter still has the same amount of voting power, one vote that they had.
It's just that this Supreme Court said your race doesn't necessarily have to dictate your political identity.
The fact that you're an American citizen and your franchise gives you one vote, that is your political identity.
And it is incumbent upon both parties, Republicans and Democrats, to run people who speak not to just one constituency, but all American interests.
To me, that's how the November election should be run.
Yeah.
Hear, hear, right?
I can't stress that enough.
We've got to get beyond just seeing through this lens of race, and we've got to move towards a more fair system for the country overall.
And this is what we're heading towards.
Of course, you know, we still have some holdouts, including the ladies on the view.
Oh, you know it, you know it.
Whoopi Goldberg reacting to the Louisiana news just recently.
Here's the other problem you know, we make laws to fix problems.
We put the Voting Rights Act together because there was an issue.
Because they were keeping people from voting.
They were living.
Okay, now she's not wrong, right?
Back in the day, there was a reason for this being.
But guess what?
We're no longer in that day.
Whoopi, I know you want to live in the past, but guess what?
It's a new day and age.
Welcome to 2026, Liam.
Literally, shooting people, they were running them down with dogs to keep them from voting.
Okay, let's start with that.
So when they say that problem is gone, it's not gone.
Because you're still doing it.
You're still doing it.
And what I don't understand is what is everybody so afraid of?
Because I always thought, I was raised to believe that you and I don't have to agree.
That's all right.
But now suddenly, your argument doesn't hold water, so you're cheating.
See, we're a two party system.
We're not just Democrats.
We're not just Republicans.
We're a two party system.
So Ruth Bader Ginsburg said throwing out.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Are you gaslit yet?
Because I kind of am.
I mean, it's like they're trying to twist the whole thing and turn it right back on us.
No, no, no, lady.
The problem is you are the ones that can't handle the other side.
You are the ones that are sitting there saying, okay, and I just heard you.
We have to have all the gerrymandering because it's the only way things are going to be fair.
It's not fair.
You know what's fair?
Just evaluating people for people.
You know, we got to move beyond the race stuff, for goodness sakes.
Come on, whoopee.
The preclearance, when it worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes, is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet.
Yeah.
The other thing I want to say is voting in local elections matters more now than ever before.
Think nationally, work locally.
That's correct.
I don't disagree with that.
Vote locally, okay?
So, what is gerrymandering, really?
I mean, how did that come about?
It's been around.
It really kind of came up more as an issue, right?
After we had blacks voting.
And yes, I mean, she's not wrong in that there were certainly attempts to make sure that you squashed one side and an entire group of people.
That is not wrong.
But the point is, this is now 2026, and we're not living.
You know, in the pre civil rights era or in the civil rights era anymore, we have, you know, I hate to keep bringing up this example, but we have had a president of the United States who, in fact, is black and a vice president of the United States as well, Kamala Harris, who ran to be elected president.
Thank goodness she didn't win that one, but it has nothing to do with her skin color and nothing, by the way, to do with her being a her.
We've now had two women run.
So, come on, enough already.
Okay, can we just evaluate people for people and we'll take the good ones?
And hopefully get rid of the bad ones.
Period.
End of story.
Do we have to care what the color of their skin is?
No, because guess what?
It is not in the Constitution.
Anyway, gerrymandering, if you're wondering where that came about, this is from like 1812.
There was a governor, Governor Eldridge Gerry in Massachusetts.
And he was so intent on making sure that his party won that he drew this really insane map that the local newspapers then said looked a lot like a salamander.
So they said, okay, his name is Gerry.
And salamander.
So we're going to get, and can you see that all right?
Here's, I'm going to go to a closer map.
We're going to go to salamander.
And this is kind of funny for me because I grew up in New Hampshire.
And so I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, I know all these places Andover, right?
You know, and Danvers and Lynn and Marblehead.
Anyway, you look at this thing and it really does kind of, I mean, they embellished there with the head, for example, but you have Methuen, Amesbury.
And so he put together what you would call a gerrymandered map or what the reporters at the time said was gerrymandered.
Well, guess what?
Those days are over.
Okay.
We don't need them anymore.
And, and, You know, why are you drawing maps that make no sense for just racial reasons?
This is going to be a big deal because you've got a huge number of maps nationwide that are now at risk for being completely redone.
And we're talking Georgia, we're talking South Carolina, we're talking North Carolina, Louisiana, which you know about, of course, Texas, which you know about, of course, Alabama, which just happened last night, Virginia, mostly procedural there, but Virginia also, a place that the left was trying to redistrict.
And, you know, I'm telling you, all these states.
All of them are now back in play, back in play in a big way, actually, for the right.
Because if we're living in a fair world where you're not actually trying to cheat in some way to get ahead, and you're just saying, I'm going to work on behalf of all the people for the good of all the people, not just people of a certain race, then you're leveling the playing field in a pretty massive way.
So I think this is super, super, super exciting right now.
And I'm thrilled to see it.
Phytonutrients and UK Minister Resignation00:03:46
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I want to give a quick shout out for another one of our great sponsors and friends before I get to Europe, because briefly I do want to talk about what's going on in the UK as we get word that Starmer is on his way out with the resignation expected to happen this week.
Oh, yeah, yeah, this week.
That's coming.
And, you know, I'm just going to tell you this.
You look at what's going on in Germany, you look at what's going on, for example, in Germany.
In Italy right now, even Georgia, Maloney, believe it or not, is running into challenges.
And I would say Germany's definitely in a big, big challenge spot right now because, hey, you know what?
People don't like them.
And they don't like them because the economy's not going to do well, given what he's been out there saying about one Donald Trump.
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I mean, the reality is our body relies on this stuff, right?
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Keir Starmer.
Keir Starmer may just be out in the UK, guys.
He may just be on his way.
Everybody's reporting this.
I've talked to sources overseas who say it's expected.
It's likely to happen this week.
And of course, GB News.
As well as the Telegraph putting this one out.
And this is just within the last 24 hours here.
Take a listen.
Well, breaking tonight, Saqir Starmer looks set to resign as Prime Minister in this coming week.
I know you've heard it all before, but we've seen huge speculation this evening that suggests the Prime Minister's time has indeed run out.
Wes Streeting has told Saqir Starmer that he is preparing his case to be the next Prime Minister.
The Telegraph has indeed disclosed this evening.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Reyner has also posted on X this evening, demanding that Starmer allows Andy Burnham to return to Westminster.
She's also criticised a so-called it's a little bit inside baseball there.
So for all our non-UK viewers, I will assure you the bottom line here is that Keir Starmer, who is one of the most unpopular PMs in UK history, looks like he is going to be out.
Starmer Wake Up Call for Europe00:03:12
It looks also as though four of his ministers actually resigned.
At least four ministers quit, actually, on May 12th today, including high-profile home Office Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips.
They're expecting more resignations to come.
You have MPs calling for him to go over 80 to 90.
Labor MPs are now publicly saying, hey, Starmer, you gotta go.
And, you know, he's just like, oh no, we're gonna get on with things.
We're just gonna get on with governing.
And I think that the headline is here, you know, he's trying, he's trying, but it's not gonna fly.
And you have a lot going on.
Nigel Farage, for example, has really with the Reform Party, Taken hold of everybody's imagination because they're frustrated.
They're frustrated about all the immigration that's happened in Europe and what that's meant for them, economically speaking and also culturally speaking.
And so all of that migration that's come into the UK is being effectively blamed on Starmer, who wasn't going to raise taxes but has been raising taxes pretty aggressively.
So a lot going on.
This is kind of, if I dare say, a wake up call for Europe overall.
JD Vance talking about this over the weekend.
It's an important thing to hear.
Listen.
It's one of the big things that people don't understand about this administration.
They think that the president, or they think that I, or they think Marco Rubio, that we hate Europe or have some problem with Europe.
We don't.
We love Europe.
Why do we want Europe to control its borders?
Because we love European civilization.
We want it to preserve itself.
Why do we care about economic growth?
Because they're one of our most important allies in the world.
We share a common civilizational heritage.
You can't drive your economy off a cliff.
Why do we care about NATO?
Because we want Europe to be able to defend itself if, God forbid, they were invaded.
We actually love Europe.
We love Europe so much, we're actually demanding that they do what their own leadership refuses to do, which is look after themselves and be smarter.
They do need to be smarter.
They need to be less reliant on us.
Less reliant, please, because you know what?
We got other things to do.
We got other things to focus on, other things to pay attention to.
And yet, you know, they keep turning around and want more handouts.
I mean, enough is enough is enough.
And so that's the point at which we are at, ladies and gentlemen.
There is no more left.
To give, no more left to give.
Please make sure you go.
We saw a market that was under a little bit of pressure today, just a little bit of pressure.
But you know, I always go in, I buy a little bit when it's a little bit under pressure.
And I think it's a sort of sensible way to be.
Go check my 76 research when you can.
Look, the portfolios have done really well.
They actually have done better.
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Thank you so much for.
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Let me know what do you think.
Do we need to stop the NATO funding here and now, like forever?
Can they just kind of manage on their own, please?