← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/19/26: Iran War Imminent, Israel Detains Tucker, Prince Andrew Arrested
01:05:05
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This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.
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Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
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Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
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This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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We're we need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have?
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Crystal jam packed show. Trump officials say there is a 90% chance we are going to war with Iran as an insane amount of firepower is moved into the region. Tucker's producer is harassed in Israel after an interview with Mike Huckabee. We're getting the Israeli response on that one, which is interesting in and of itself. Former Prince Andrew arrested. This just breaking this morning. We have additional Epstein news as well. Les Wexner testified yesterday. So we'll break down what we know about that and some other developments as well. The Trump administration is seeking to block states from regulating polymarket, Kelshi and those types of betting apps. Don Jr. Is fully embracing his corruption. Link to that previous story as well. Dembase United question mark an interesting New York Times focus group that we're gonna dig into to try to get a glimpse of what might happen in 2028, the type of candidates that Democrats are favor at this point. And we're going to do a deep dive into the Red State AI backlash which is only growing.
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Yeah, can't wait for that. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing breakingpoints.com, we appreciate it. By the way, thank you very much to our premium audience for enabling all of our work. You guys hopefully have saw. You know I did the flagrant podcast. Ryan and Emily were recently on Megyn Kelly's podcast. By enabling all of the Epstein related work we've been able to do over the last month, you are making sure that we're able to do our journalism without any fear of being punished by big tech platforms at deep monetize quite a bit of our content. So thank you very much breakingpoints.com if you're able to support our work. If you can't Afford it. No worries. Please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you're listening to this as a podcast, please share an episode with a friend and rate us 5 stars. Helps other people find the show. But let's go ahead and start off with Iran. Just a titanic amount of US Military assets arriving in the Middle east, some not seen since the Iraq War and the Gulf War before that. It's very much reminiscent of the military buildup around Venezuela before the operation to kidnap Nicholas Maduro. Professor John Mearsheimer was reacting to all of this yesterday. Let's take a listen. And Israel wants zero enrichment capability. They want the whole nuclear enrichment infrastructure taken down. They want Iran to eliminate all the ballistic missiles it has that can hit Israel. They want Iran to give up supporting the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. And these are demands that there's no way the Iranians are going to accept. So even if Trump can work out a deal that's satisfactory to him along the lines I described before, it's not going to satisfy the Israelis. And the Israelis have made it very clear that they will attack Iran alone if that is necessary. And of course, if they attack Iran, there's no way we don't get involved because we're going to then have to help defend Israel when the Iranians start launching ballistic missiles at Israel. And also we're going to get involved because the Iranians are in all likelihood going to try to shut down the Straits of Hormuz and stop the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf. So I don't see what Trump can do. So Professor Mearsheimer's warning there about what this is all really about and some of the bigger stakes. This all comes again as all of these military assets which we're about to show you are arriving in the Persian Gulf and in the surrounding Middle east. You also have U.S. assets and service members, non essential personnel being evacuated from these bases. All signs are currently pointing to this. The White House was asked about yesterday whether they would strike Iran or not, and they certainly would not. Neither not rule it out, but said there's a lot of good reasons to do so. Let's take a listen to the press secretary. Can you share a little bit about the president's thinking on whether or not to strike Iran, who he's talking to, what information he's consuming, and why a strike might be necessary on a nuclear program he says was obliterated by the last U.S. strike?
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Well, there's many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against the, against Iran The President had a very successful operation as commander in chief with Operation Midnight Hammer, as you know, as you just said, totally obliterated Iran's nuclear facilities. The President has always been very clear, though, with respect to Iran or any country around the world. Diplomacy is always his first option. And. And Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump and with this administration. He's talking to many people, of course, his national security team first and foremost, and, you know, who the members of that team are. And this is something, obviously the President takes seriously.
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He's always thinking about what's in the
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best interest of the United States of America, of our military, of the American people.
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Many arguments could be put forward as to why we should strike Iran. Okay, well, certainly not ruling any of that.
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I like how they don't actually make the arguments, though. They're just like, there are arguments in favor of it. Figure them out.
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I have never. There is no precedent in American history, except for Venezuela, of this amount of buildup of US Military. This is more than Midnight Hammer. This is Gulf War level. Like, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of US Assets and all of that from across the world. You have air tankers, jets, service members, naval assets, carrier strike groups, all being built up. I mean, if you were not reading the news, you would have no idea. And you'd have to, like, really read the news to be able to find this out. It's stunning to me. They're not. They're making no argument. And I think because the more the American people learn, they'd be like, wait, I thought we hit them before. You told me it was already over.
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Yeah, so why do we have to care about it? Again, what are we doing?
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Right, but what's the whole point of this? Because of some missiles for Israel? No, no, no, no. I'm out. That's why they're not even trying. If you learn about this, you're like, this is insane. I'm not on board with this.
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Not at all. I think there's also a bit of a like, boy who cried wolf dynamic going on in terms of the lack of attention paid by the media, but also by the American public, because Trump is constantly threatening this or that and the other country and Canada and Mexico and Venezuela and Greenland, and obviously some of these threats he makes good on in some certain way. But I think that's part of why there isn't more focused attention from the American people on this. To your point about the military assets, I was reading Matthew Ho, who's former military himself, and he had an interesting analysis here because obviously one reading of the military assets is it's a threat and it's meant to coerce them in negotiations. And even one reading of all the Trump officials leaking, oh my God, 90% chance that we're going to war, etc. One way of reading that is that's all basically a threat in a psyop to try to coerce the Iranians in terms of the negotiations. I thought this analysis from Matthew Ho was significant in terms of kind of debunking that narrative and putting some credence. The idea like no, no, no, this is the thing they're actually planning on going through with. He says this is the strongest indication to me of the seriousness of the US threat to Iran. The US has just deployed more than two thirds of its available E3 command control aircraft to Europe and the Middle East. The E3 is an incredibly important aircraft for those unfamiliar. It's the large airplane that looks like an airliner but with revolving radar disk on top. It's loaded with an air crew whose job is to observe, manage, control the airspace in its area. It is especially important for directing fighters and ground sea based missile interceptors against Iranian missiles and drones. He goes on to talk about how like we don't have that many of these things and the vast bulk of them are now in the region and it is not the sort of aircraft or military equipment that you would send to just be like, look at how tough we are. They're these like clunky sort of like non impressive things. But if you're actually going to go through with the thing, they are absolutely essential. So I thought that was an interesting analysis just to dig into what exactly they're sending into the region. Trying to read the tea leaves of how serious this is.
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Yeah, well, we'll get to all the assets. I mean the other reason why I think it's going to happen is this amount of aerial refueling that is the precursor. I've talked about this. So I met somebody who had an intimate knowledge of the so called op plan. The op plan for attacking Iran. Midnight Hammer was like day one, part one of what it was supposed to be. It was a 35 day bombing campaign which involves cruise missiles, a massive part of the entire US military stockpiles. It has all this contingency planning. It looks a lot more like this in terms of the refueling. It's all the jets for the stuff to defend Israel because the immediate reaction expected is not only strikes on Israel, but also strikes on the United States. Another Piece of news many of you may have missed is that US Military bases in Syria are all uncerificated, ceremoniously closing. Now. You might. Oh, that's great. We've been calling for.
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Yeah.
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Why is it closing now? Why? Because it is very close to Iran, very susceptible to attack. They've had multiple sort of instances. Even the bases in Iraq, those are much more hardened than some of the bases in Syria. They're the most vulnerable ones. So they're planning. Another thing many of you may have missed. Donald Trump had a very sneaky line, in truth, social, just yesterday where he was going after the British prime minister for this new lease on Diego Garcia, which is a Pacific base, and for refueling and for taking off. And in it he goes, Iran, if we attack, may attack other friendly countries. So the contingency plans are everywhere for this entire thing. And this looks like the full, like the big one. Now, I'm not saying that we're gonna see hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground. I don't think that that's what this administration will ever do. Cause they've learned the lesson of Iraq. This is gonna be Libya style, as you decapitate, you destroy, and you basically just declare victory immediately. And then when civil war erupts six months later, oh, who could have seen any of. Let the Israelis continue to do the dirty work of all of that. And so, you know, let's turn now to the vice President who was on Fox News talking about the negotiations, saying, well, in some ways they went well, in some ways they didn't. Let's take a listen. We would very much like, as the President has said, to resolve this through a conversation and a diplomatic negotiation. But the President has all options on the table. And, you know, one thing about the negotiation I will say this morning is, you know, in some ways it went well. They agreed to meet afterwards. But in other ways, it was very clear that the President has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through. So we're going to keep on working it. But of course, the president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end. We hope we don't get to that point, but if we do, that'll be the President's call. President, red lines. Look, this is all nonsense. The red lines are Israeli red lines. There's nobody cared about ballistic missiles until December when Prime Minister Netanyahu came here. This entire thing is a manufactured crisis, a war of choice on behalf of the United States. Iran is not closer to a nuclear bomb. They're not even claiming it right now. If they were, they would say it just like they did previously. They would release the intelligence. I mean, does anyone else feel dramatically insulted? At least last time around, we had the yellow cake, the uranium, and, you know, and Colin Powell and his present. At this time around, there's nothing. I mean, this is more bullshit than Iraq, which I never thought I would live to see. I truly did not live think I would ever live to see this. But here we are.
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They're not even bothering to manufacture a real case. So if I had to guess what is going on here, and what has gone on here is effectively Trump wanted to do some little sort of, like, you know, choreographed exchange similar to the 12 days war with Iran previously. And so there was a level of assets in the region that would be commensurate with that sort of approach. And then the Iranians were like, no, we can't just keep letting you attack us and just do symbolic responses. We're serious this time. We're not messing around. And so that pushed the timeline back, because then you have to usher more assets into the region. And as long as you are allowing Iran, allowing Israel to sort of like, pull your chain and move the red lines, and now Trump has backed himself into this corner, it's hard to see how they get out of it. And I think what, you know, the reason why they have so much that they've moved into the region is because they want to not only decapitate the regime, they want to degrade their capabilities sufficiently that they can't really adequately respond. And so that's why they're going for this potential approach of, like, overwhelming force. And maybe that will be successful and maybe it won't. You know, you. Anytime you're talking about kinetic action, you are taking incredible risk. You are courting an unbelievable amount of chaos. And Iran does have cards that they can play. They were doing some military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz to remind you, like, listen, this is a very important part of the world. We have our own choke points that could be very painful for your population. And yes, we will suffer probably more than you, but we can make your people suffer, too. And they don't want this war. They are not behind you. So there's going to be zero appetite from the American people to suffer on behalf of this war of choice against Iran.
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Exactly. See the difference. Our public is not engaged. This is the biggest story in Iran. This is all anybody in Iran is paying attention to. And as we all found out during the protests. It's not like people love the regime, but if you're gonna be attacked by an outside power, guess what? That's the dream of the power, the party in power. For somebody like them, who's actually quite weak after a protest like this, sure, they remain in power. No, now there's a rally around the flag. I mean, the best hope from the United States. This is what I think is going to happen. And this is where also, if you're anti war, we should call it like we see it. What they want is for us to say tens of thousands of Americans will die. That's probably not going to happen. What's probably going to happen is, is a massive air campaign, very similar to what happened with Libya. A no fly zone, a destruction of IRGC facilities and nuclear research, maybe a killing of the ayatollah. It'll be like a couple of weeks. Then they'll say, mission accomplished. Whoever comes in next, you negotiate on our terms. That's it. Period. But we will never occupy. That way they can make fun of us who are anti war. Be like, see, you said it would be a forever war. Kind of like with Venezuela. They were not actually gonna care if it's a democracy or whatever. Oh, Israel cares whether Iran is a democracy? No. Okay. They prefer a monarchy. Yeah. Maybe they'll fly Reza Pahlavi or something like that back into the country. But my point is, the way that this is going to go, they're going to use the tip of the spear of the U.S. military. We saw it in Venezuela. Special operations. The only, like, the part of our military which is like the best of the best of the best. Same with our area. Like, yeah, there's nobody who even comes close to American air superiority. But the point is, and this is what I want everyone to remember, strategic endgame. Libya looked like a dramatic success. It was very popular, actually, at the time, until it became a disaster. Syria, same thing. I mean, oh, supporting the rebels, the red line, chemical weapons. How could you be against that? Fourteen years later, there's a massive civil war. Half a million people, all of that are dead. Dramatically unpopular. The refugee crisis. That's what's going to happen. And then the Israeli part of this is very important too. They're going to try and tell you this is about going after the Iranians. The Iranians are bad. What the Israelis want is to turn Iran into Syria, into a rump state, which is beleaguered by civil war, where they can go and assassinate IRGC people. They want it to splinter. They don't want any more regional power. They wanna see it collapse into a full blown civil war that eventually, you know, oh, if it comes out better on the other side, like with Syria, who cares? Al Qaeda, whatever, as long as he's pro Israel, doesn't matter to me. Right? So this is not about the Iranian people. They will have an immense, immense amount of suffering. And so for those of us who are against this, we have to calibrate our expectations. They want us to freak out, to say that hundreds of troops are gonna die. That's, again, I really don't think that's gonna happen. There will be pain, almost certainly. We shouldn't underestimate our own military capabilities. When you throw it all out, as we all saw against Saddam. Right? Against Saddam, shock and awe. Yeah, it works. It actually works pretty well. We can never do the next part. And you cannot have faith in these people because this time around they won't try to go for democracy. They're just gonna say, well, oh, as long as they don't pursue nukes. But inside that bubbling cauldron is a nightmare, as we've seen every single time.
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One more point on that which ties in with the Epstein files coverage that we've done and what we've learned from the emails Jeffrey Epstein sending to any number of people is that the Epstein class views war as a positive, like, as an overt positive. They see the chaos, the death, destruction, as this is how we consolidate more wealth and power. So you have, you know, you have a whole class of people who are cheering for war with Iran because they want exactly the warning that Sagar is issuing about like this, you know, failed rump state, civil war, refugee crisis, chaos, economic collapse, all of those sorts of things. There is a very powerful class around the world that looks at that and goes, great, that is, that's my moment to shine. That's where I can gather up even more. That's where I can feast on the carcass of this country and benefit directly from that chaos. And so as you're looking at, you know, this very likely war and all of the other ones that we just can't stop, you know, we continually don't blunder into, intentionally get ourselves into around the world. That is a lot of the logic of why we continually go in this direction.
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Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let's go to A four then, just to show everybody the plan. And so if Barack Ravid is writing it, you know, it's all there. Trump moves closer to a major war with Iran The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle east than Americans realize. U.S. military operation would be a, quote, massive weeks long campaign that would look more like full fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela. The sources noted it would likely be a joint US Israeli campaign that is much broader in scope and existential for the regime than the 12 Day War. Previously, such a war would have dramatic influence on the entire region. Trump came close to striking Iran in early January. When the window of opportunity passed, the administration shifted to a two track approach. Nuclear talks paired with a massive military buildup. By delaying and bringing in so much force, Trump has raised expectations for what an operation will look like if a deal cannot be reached. Right now, a deal does not look likely. And again, the reason why is because the Iranians have willing to negotiate all day long on nuclear enrichment. But what they're saying is we have to have some sovereign capability to, you know, have a civilian nuclear power. Look, maybe they're lying. You know, we're not gonna take their entire word for it. The whole point for them is they're saving face. There's legitimacy, there's sovereignty, that's all involved. But the real red line for them is the ballistic missiles. They're like, we will not allow Israel to attack us at will. We cannot do that. Which again, you can understand that for any state that exists yet effectively what their strategic logic is, well, we might as well punish them and show them that we can do something and hope they're. See, this is the real tragedy of it. We have set up the circumstance where these people, I mean, what do they tell us all the time? They are not afraid to die. I actually believe that now at this time, I think that the IRGC and the Ayatollah and all those other people, they know 90% of them will be killed. I think they know that. But they're like at the end of the day, the logic for preserving our regime, which again they believe in the logic and all that of the Islamic Republican is that some of us will make it out of here. And the hope is that the 10% who make it, they'll survive. And this is about our sovereignty. And they know that they're going to be killed like they have. They are very aware of their military capabilities. They're not going to be able to do very much. They can do some damage and I certainly think that they will, but it's not going to be even close. All they can hope for is an insurgent Houthi like strategy spread the weapons around and just be a pain in the ass for a very, very long period of time and hope that you and I, if we have to go to the gas pump, are like, hey, why am I paying 550 a gallon? Right? Which again, the Houthis were very capable of doing and were not nearly as capable as the irgc. Same with an insurgency as we saw in Iraq. They want to make it as miserable as possible, but it's a long and a very dangerous thing for the civilian population. So this is bad because they know that thousands, I mean, who knows how many civilians would be killed in an Israeli US operation against Yarmouth. It's a nightmare for the Iranian people. Then it's a nightmare too because the government is basically like, yep, they're all gonna die and so are we. It's self suicide. And then the real nightmare on our part is our population is asleep, you know, watching the NBA or something like that. And when are they gonna wake up? Only when the bombs start falling on Tehran. They have no idea that anything's going on right now.
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Yeah, yeah. And I mean from the Iranians perspective, they're like these Americans. And by the way, they're like Gulf Arab allies are coddled, you know, in the ua, they're like outnumbered. Their population is outnumbered by their indentured workforce. They're, you know, here in the US they're, they're not bought in on this idea. They're not ready to pay any sort of price. And so we can exact some pain now. I mean, maybe they can, maybe they can't, depending on how effective that first wave of strikes are. But you know, that's, this is the logic that we've created multiple times. We've now had the Iranians agree to effectively these choreographed responses where it's like, okay, we think this right tactical approach is we'll do a limited response that doesn't result in any US soldier deaths or significant damage and then that will persuade them to leave us alone. And clearly, clearly that approach hasn't worked. So now they're okay, well I guess we have to take a different approach. The idea that they would give up their ballistic missile, I mean that is insane. No country would agree to that. Then you can't project force at all in your read. I mean, you're just a sitting duck then for Israel and you know, whatever they've been their proxies and whatever they want to do to you and for us as well, there is no way. And that is intentionally put in to these negotiations, inserted into these negotiations by Netanyahu and agreed to by our idiot president as an intentional poison pill.
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- [25:06]
A
Let's go ahead and play and take a listen to this is a professor at the University of Tehran who, you know, speaks to Western media quite a lot or I guess like, you know, Western but non establishment media quite a bit speaks English.
- [25:18]
B
He's basically a regime translator for the rest of us, which is fine. We want to show people what they're thinking.
- [25:24]
A
Well, and in fairness to him, I mean, you live in Iran, you're a university professor, like, your ability to complete completely speak freely is going to be curtailed. But in any case, I wanted to play a bit of how he is explaining the view from inside Iran and how they're thinking about, you know, as we, as we proceed on this, on this march to war, how they're thinking about what they have, what this is about and what chips they have to play as well. Let's take a listen to that.
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B
This is not a normal part of the world. This is not an ordinary region. It is full of oil and gas installations, oil and gas wells. It is full of refineries, it is full of ports for exporting oil and gas, importing goods from the west through all the wealth that is accumulated and from different parts of the world. And then you have ships, tankers coming and going. Then you have the Strait of Hormos. The Persian Gulf itself is not very wide. Iran controls one side of it and islands in the middle of it. And then there's the Indian Ocean. There is, you know, with the missile capabilities that, and drone capabilities that Iran has, whether they're from this sea or the land, the global economy will be devastated and the price of energy will go through the roof. Trump being weak and vulnerable as things are unpopular, people opposing war in the United States, you now have a very difficult economic situation. It's getting worse in the United States. And then to add on all that is of course, the exposure of the Epstein class to the American people and the COVID up and the continued cover up. So he's not going to have popular support when he engages in war. And when the, when the pain starts kicking in, Americans are not going to like that. His own small, his own 30% or so supporters are going to be the first to be outraged when they lose their jobs.
- [27:42]
A
I thought it was interesting. And he mentioned several times around this interview the Epstein class and tying that in and saying this is this war and the whole march to war, this is the doing of the Epstein class. And talking about the vulnerability of Trump, who was both in the files and also responsible for this mass cover up that has created this backlash in the population.
- [28:00]
B
What do you learn from that? They're not stupid. And that's one of the things I really hate often about the way that we paint our adversaries. Even with the, the Al Qaeda with the tether, like, oh, they're just, you know, goat herders in caves. I'm like, yeah, the gunman maybe. I'm like, the people at the top are definitely not like that. Same thing with here. I mean, what do you hear all the time? It's a great civilization. You know, they had, they invented math and all of the. Right. They have this great air of learning and yeah, that's the point. Like, we're not up against a bunch of rubes. Like, these people have survived for decades despite being punished by the west, including with sanctions.
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A
I mean, they have defied us for, I mean, like you said, decades. That's an astonishing accomplishment.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
I mean, this isn't the first time an American regime has wanted to take them out. And they've survived and, you know, I can't say thrive, but they've survived nonetheless.
- [28:52]
B
That's all they care about is survival. I mean, North Korea is a similar example. Like, if you, if you're willing to bear pain, you can live as long as you sprint to a bomb. Well, what we see inside of their logic is also they're obviously paying deep attention to us. And in an asymmetric conflict, Vietnam, I mean, you know, a lot of people forget this. People said the same thing. Ho Chi Minh, he's just a communist guy. No, they were very intelligent. They deeply exploited the cleavage in American society over the Vietnam War and they intentionally fed into that. They would invite Jane Fonda over and they had all these press conferences and they would make it very clear with their propaganda, like, all of this can end. This is not about you. You're being taken advantage of. You're being drafte and sent to die. Like, they speak fluent English. They knew exactly how to play into the problems for lbj. I mean, the whole Tet offensive thing. Remember they literally killed LBJ wanting to run for reelection. Like they know exactly what they're doing. You should remember then that the Iranians have a very similar capacity. I am a bit skeptical. And actually this will be a great testing ground for many of my theories of the US Military. I have long believed we're like a Rolls Royce engine, which is really, really cool, but requires an insane amount of mechanics and uptake and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And what I've always feared is that it could be taken out by these $10,000 drones in mass capacity with the Chinese and the Russians as the Ukrainians frankly have been able to stand up even to their limited capacity against the Russians. Like all you need is drones running off to be able to defeat like much more, more expensive technology. This will be a genuine test case if it does happen. Can they actually shut down the Straits of Hormuz? What are their capabilities? They could actually be a paper tiger. I actually am not ruling that out considering what happened with the 12 day war. So on the one hand they had ballistic missiles that were capable of hitting Israel. On the other hand it was a disaster for them. Like a lot of them were killed and infiltrated by the Mossad. It's very possible, I wouldn't put it past the US military to wipe out all of their ballistic missile defenses. I mean God, our military has not been used in this way, I mean since 2003. Like who? God only knows, AI, Palantir and all of this. Like we could probably wipe it out. We could actually maybe destroy all their conventional capabilities. But again that doesn't mean that we're going to win the strategic battle. So that's a long way, you know, kind of setting this up. But let's put the maps and all that on the screen just so you guys can see all of these assets that are moving into the region from all of these refueling tankers and different military assets. And you talked about the, the command and control planes and the US Navy. Let's go to that one, the next one please. Third of the US Military US Navy is now operating in and around the Persian Gulf. Two aircraft carriers, air support comparisons with 1991 and raises the question, as they say that nobody wants to talk about. And then eight, eight, let's put this one up here. This kind of highlights what I was saying earlier. Iran is getting ready for war with the United States, is confronting its biggest threat in decades. The regime is trying to boost its odds of survival. If the diplomatic odds are fall through. Tehran is deploying its forces, dispersing decision making authority, fortifying its nuclear sites, expanding its crackdowns. The move reflects its leaders belief the survival of the regime itself is at stake. It's like I said, I mean they know that they're all, probably, most of them are probably going to die. So you, what you do is you create a cell structure, you move it around, you try and create survivability inside of your command and control networks. They have been hardening some of their things and they're probably focusing on, on like a Pareto Principle of like the highest impact with the lowest amount of force. Try and mine the Straits of Hormuz, right, and make it so that it's instantaneous, like a button push. Their ballistic missile capability probably will get wiped out very quickly. So then you need like various different nodes and things that they may not be able to hit in a first strike. Again, I'm not going to underestimate the capacity of the US military, but it only takes 1, 2, 3 for it to change the entire strategic logic of the situation.
- [32:47]
A
I mean, on the one hand, you've got the Venezuela example where, you know, Venezuela had supposedly significant capabilities that we were just wiped down, right? And there was, you know, not a single US Service member is, is killed in this, you know, extraordinary action, et cetera. On the other hand, you have the example of the Houthis where it's this ragtag group, you know, some, like, cheap, some of it off the shelf technology. And we're effectively defeated by that. We're like, okay, we're just not really, you know, up for expending what would be required to deal with this situation. So we're moving it along. So you have both examples, you know, in recent memory and to the point of Iranian preparation. Keep in mind that we learned something from the 12 days. The Israelis learned something from the 12 days war, including the fact that they do have some vulnerability to Iran being able to hit them and penetrate their air defenses. The Iranians also Learned from the 12 Days War about what they're able to accomplish, where those weaknesses and vulnerabilities are in terms of Israeli air defenses in particular. And they learned about, okay, who are the infiltrators? How were we compromised in this way? They also learned from the protest because one of the things that happened during the protest is we helped to funnel a bunch of Starlink satellites into Iran. So that. And we're out there, Mike Pompeo and others bragging about, oh, to the Mossad agents who are marching alongside the protesters, congratulations. So in any case, the protests were a fantastic opportunity for the Iranians to smoke out, okay, who are our ops? And with the Starlink thing, one of the theories is because they were eventually able to take the Starlink capacity down as well. So were they able to track which. That was an extraordinary development. Were they able to track who were the owners of those terminals, who was using that tech? Because that, again, would have given them a blueprint and a Roadmap to who are our ops and how do we take them out. And some of those would have been very likely, you know, foreign intel that could have been causing problems in providing intelligence to the Israelis, most likely, and to the US Obviously, you know, those two being very connected. So they have also learned and have some ideas of where their vulnerabilities are, where their strengths are and the way that they need to approach this as well. And so that's important to keep in mind as too that they have not remained static to the point about the, you know, the sort of propaganda push. This was interesting. Put a 10 up on the screen. Here you have the Ayatollah again getting in on the kind of Epstein class discussion. And he tweeted out this island of corruption, referring of course to Jeffrey Epstein's rape Island is only one example. There is much more of this. Just as this was not apparent and then became exposed, there are many other things that will soon come to light. So a threat, a direct threat there that light. Hey, we've got some stuff. And you know, I mean the Iranians have successfully hacked, have Epstein's emails and there have been, you know, successful Iranian hacks. And Ryan points out here, according to search warrant used to search John Bolton's home, Iran hacked Bolton's AOL account three times. That cache has not yet been released. Khameney is hinting at leaks to come as several U.S. armadas float nearby with countless missiles aimed at his head. So maybe this is just an empty threat, but, you know, there's reason to believe that he could have some, some goods here. He could have some sort of kompromat that is, you know, plausibly could be released.
- [36:13]
B
This is what you do is you have to do your best to try. You know, you leak stuff, you make it difficult, you do the mining. I don't know. I mean, on the one hand, I don't underestimate the US military. On the other, like I look at the Houthis, I look at all, you know, we've had a significant amount of planning. I do know about all of the different problems in logistics and supply chain. I mean, this is the problem. You always know something is going to go wrong. Nothing ever goes exactly according to plan. Even in Venezuela, one of the helicopter pilots got shot to shit. I think it was on the way out. Right. Like it's a miracle he didn't die. Yeah, imagine if it, how different it is. I mean, think about the bin Laden raid. Always one of the most highly helicopter pilot. If you don't have the best trained guy in the world in that seat. At that exact moment, everybody on the chopper dies. Oh my God. It's a different world. Half the Navy SEALs get killed. It's a nightmare. And then the Pakistani military arrives like that. History turns on a dime and you never have any idea. And especially if you have all of these guys. A multi week bombing campaign. It only takes one thing to go wrong. And look at our, look at, think about the U2 spy plane crisis, you know, with the Soviet Union. Like it was the greatest plane in the history of the world.
- [37:25]
A
Boom.
- [37:25]
B
Gone. Shot out of the sky. Now we're doing Bridge of Spies. Like swapping people in east. In West Germany. Like that's. You always have to hope for the best, plan for the worst. And I've seen enough now over the years just to know like all it takes is one or two different things and we can, I mean, can you imagine if one thing goes wrong or if some civilian tanker misses the mine and gets blown up and several Americans are like, we're gonna be living in a different universe. Like that's troop level deployments and all that. And you can't look to the people who are in power and are like, oh yeah, they're, they're, they're definitely looking out for all of our insurance. Trying to turn down the dial. Like no, it's, this is bad. All right. And then the last thing I know, we've been talking for a long time. A12. Can we put that up there on the screen? I just wanted to show you all what the Secretary of Defense is up to. So yesterday as all of these missile, you know, all of these carrier strike groups and all that were moving there, secretary Hegseth joined Dr. Oz for a beachside brunch. Hanging from trees, doing cold plunges for a leisurely afternoon into a maha extravaganza with tree pull ups, a cold plunge and a Mediterranean feast. So really glad to see the Secretary.
- [38:38]
A
That's so nice for him.
- [38:39]
B
Thank you Mr. Secretary, for your service.
- [38:41]
A
Last thing also shows you how essential this administration thinks he is to their planning too.
- [38:47]
B
Last thing we'll put up here, Major, shout out to again the heroes of our time. Ro Khanna Thomas Massie. Let's put that up there on the screen. The last element, they are now introducing a war powers resolution to debate and vote on a war before putting U.S. troops in harm's. May I harm's way. I will make a motion to discharge a force and vote on it next week. So hoping that this will actually come to pass. Thomas Massie, Ro Khanna bipartisan resolution will terminate the use of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. Which of course is like the final thing. There has never been a build up or a military potential military action like this ever in United States history of this magnitude without any congressional authorization. And by the way, it's not that the congressmen all support it. They just don't want to vote for it so that you hold them accountable for it. Let me make that clear too. Outside of like five people who are in the US Congress, they love this. They all support it.
- [39:43]
A
Yeah, I saw Senator Mark Warner, who of course Democrat of Virginia, Ken Klippenstein was clipping him saying like, oh, I'm glad the President's keeping all the options on the table.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [39:53]
A
This is our opposition party. That's fantastic. But shout out to Roe and Thomas Massie, the dynamic duo. And one dynamic that Massie was highlighting in Politico interview that I hadn't completely thought of. He thinks there are going to be more Republican dissenters like himself going forward after primary season. And in particular, one dynamic I had not thought of is Trump did this big redistricting push.
- [40:19]
B
Yeah.
- [40:19]
A
You are going to have some Republicans who are redistricted out of their seats.
- [40:23]
B
Good point.
- [40:24]
A
They're gonna be like, fuck you. But on the other hand, they'll have to think about like, oh, if I piss off the president. No, not primary. But what about my post Congress job prospects? If I'm not in good with the administration, they'll have to balance that. But I did think that was an interesting note for him that he expects in the future there could be more room, more Republicans who are retiring, who lost their primaries, who got redistricted down to their seats, et cetera, who might be more open to taking a dissenting line.
- [40:50]
B
I'm not gonna hold my breath for that one, but it'd be great to see. There's drama and then there's full telenovela level drama.
- [40:57]
A
Yes, and Elf Cosmetics went all the way there. Elf Cosmetics just dropped something wildly unexpected.
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A full blown, absurdly funny telenovela celebrating
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It stars Melissa McCarthy, TV doctor Nicholas Gonzalez and iconic telenovela villain Itati Cantoral. But the real star, Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. When the language fails her and her lips are dull and dry, only Glow can revive her. Melissa McCarthy, who I love fully, commits by even rolling the arrrs with Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil Reviver Lip Oil is an
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ultra glossy lip oil that nourishes, hydrates and enhances your lips natural color. Available in 10 shades and only $9 each.
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Watch the full episode of their new
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elf novella on soyuanbanyo.com yes and drench your lips in an addictive sheer watch
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of ultra glossy color with Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items Like Gummy Savers five flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch Watermelon, M&M's party size stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
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- [43:03]
B
let's get to Tucker Carlson. All right, we had to put this one this is just an insane, insane situation. So for those of you who haven't been following this, Tucker Carlson arrived in Israel yesterday. He landed at the jet terminal and interviewed the ambassador, Mike Huckabee, after a Twitter challenge in the airport. Now, he was only there for a couple of hours, apparently did not want to leave at the airport and the protection around them. Don't blame him. I wouldn't want to leave if I were him. I would never set foot on Israeli soil considering especially to go to Bethlehem or any of these Christian communities with these crazy separatists with guns who want to kill you like I'm. No way.
- [43:44]
A
I saw some speculation that the Israelis didn't want to let him in and there had to be some State Department negotiations that result in him just like, okay, he's just going to Ben Gurion Airport. That's it.
- [43:54]
B
Right? So. So the Israelis are criticizing him for not leaving the airport. Then there's Also, this reporting that maybe the State Department was like, no, no, no, you have to let him in, but just to interview us in ours, so who knows what happened? Anyway, here's the story from Tucker and his team. Let's put this up here on the screen. Tucker Carlson, quote, detained in Israel. Journalists dragged into an interrogation room as explosive interview sparks a diplomatic firestorm. So Tucker told the Daily Mail that him, his producer. Shortly after the interview, Israeli officials confiscated his passport, hauled one of his colleagues off to an interrogation room, quote, men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room, and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about. Quote, it is bizarre. We are now out of the country. This immediately ignited a major firestorm, especially from Israeli defenders. Let's put their response up here on the screen. The Israeli foreign minister insists, quote, contrary to reports, Tucker Carlson and his entourage were not detained, delayed, or interrogated. Mr. Carlson and his party were politely asked a few routine questions in accordance with standard procedure applied to many travelers. Did you note that many travel, aka not all travelers. Many travelers. The conversation took place in a separate room within the VIP lounge solely to protect their privacy and to avoid conducting such a discussion in public. No unusual incident occurred, and Israel Airports Authority firmly rejects other claims. So basically their defense is like, guys, guys, guys. We didn't treat Tucker any differently. We interrogate and detain and harass all foreign journalists. It's not clocking for you. This is how we treat everybody who is an international journalist.
- [45:42]
A
I don't believe them.
- [45:45]
B
Well, I'm sure it's more that they're shocked because, I mean, these people have went to Moscow, Saudi Arabia, and Israel is the country that detains them, harasses them. I mean, look, do you really wanna parse it? If you're led to a separate room where people take your passport and ask you a question that is literally interrogation, whether it's polite or not. Okay? I'll tell you this. When I was in Israel, drone, I was there for school, and I was doing a program about counterterrorism, okay? And I have never been harassed in an airport. More in my. This is long before any show. I'm 22, something like that. And they're like, well, why are you studying this? And I was like, I mean, have you. I was like, do you read the news? It was two hours constant. And I was flying to Jordan. Why are you going to Jordan? Is your father Muslim? I was like, no. Is your grandfather Muslim? Have you had any association this is 2015. Have you ever had any association with, with Muslims in the past? No. Where do you study in the United States? George Washington University. Oh, when did you graduate to, you know this? Well, why are you coming here now? I was like, well, I'm doing a master's program. It's like it was never ending. And then you had to go to a special security line. And by the way, it was totally racially profiled. Cause I was the only person who was detained out of this whole group. And it was before they even started questioning me. They came up to me like the moment that I arrived, arrived at the airport based upon this, before I even have a beard or anything like that. And it was non stop. And then, you know, and you're. And again, I'm flying to. The funny thing is you land in Amman, they're like, welcome to Jordan. That's what it was like over there. But even this is me leaving the damn country.
- [47:22]
A
That's crazy.
- [47:23]
B
Oh, as an American citizen, I have landed, I mean, probably 45, 50 different countries. It was the worst experience. And this is me as a student. So now imagine Tucker Carlson and his entire entourage. So I believe Tucker and his team 100%.
- [47:36]
A
Yeah.
- [47:36]
B
I also believe the Israelis that it's routine to harass every international journalist who goes in and out of the country. That's why I'm never going back.
- [47:43]
A
I mean, that's the tell is like, what is it any of your business what the interview between a close ally of the President of the United States and an American official. So an American media personality and an American official. How is it, is it any of your business what we discussed, what questions were asked, et cetera. I mean, it is wild. It just underscore, you know, we get fed all this other only democracy in the Middle east, blah, blah. It just underscores what a crock of shit that is. And especially with their rationale here of like, guys, this is just how we operate. Like, what is your deal? The other thing I would say is, you know, they are authoritarians and they're very fragile. Like they are so sensitive. It reminds me some of the way the Trump people operate. Like with this trying to, you know, the James Talarico interview and that whole situation. It's like by taking this heavy handed approach, you are undermining the very thing that you're trying to accomplish. Now people are gonna be even more interested in the Tucker Huckabee interview and what was said and how that all went down. They clearly have no understanding of the streisand effect. But the other thing is that their whole tactic is just to, like, scare people and bully people so that whether it's those journalists or other journalists who hear of this story and don't want to be harassed in Ben Gurion Airport and decide, you know what? I'm just gonna leave this one alone. I'm not gonna do it. I mean, that really is ultimately the goal here, because the interview was already done. There's no going back now. Maybe you can scare them into, like, editing some part out, but I highly doubt that that is going to be the case. They've already got it. Like, they're already out of the country. It's a done deal.
- [49:17]
B
If I know them, they immediately uploaded it to the cloud and got it as soon as possible.
- [49:22]
A
Yeah. So the idea is for future journalists to look at this and be like, yeah, maybe this is just not really worth it. Yeah.
- [49:31]
B
I mean, I'll tell you, I'm never going back there. Let's put Huckabee's tweet up there on the screen. He defend, by the way, this is the humiliation ritual. Everyone who comes out of Israel has passports checked and routinely asked security questions. Even me going in and out with diplomatic passport. He goes, even I, the United States ambassador and harassed going in and out of this country. That's how great this country is, is you should be humiliated.
- [49:55]
A
That's how cucked we are to the officials, to be harassed by them.
- [49:59]
B
Thank you. I'm like, wait, so the US Ambassador even is questioned, like, oh, we're not doing that over here. We pay for your shit, mister. I cannot believe that this is what happened. It's also funny. All these other people, they're like, guys, this is totally routine. When I flew into Israel, I was also detained and harassed, and my staff was questioned. I'm like. And nobody else seems to have a problem with that. Like, what are you talking about?
- [50:25]
A
Wow.
- [50:25]
B
I just. I can't believe it. I'm looking forward to the interview. Specifically why Mr. Huckabee allowed a convicted spy, Jonathan Pollard, to come into his embassy on set foot on US Soil, literally a traitor to the United States of America. I believe that that beef is what set everything off here with Mike Huckabee. So we'll see. We'll see.
- [50:45]
A
See.
- [50:45]
B
I'm hoping for another Ted Cruz moment.
- [50:47]
A
Sure. We're likely to cover it here on the show.
- [50:49]
B
Oh, I cannot wait.
- [50:49]
A
Tuned for that.
- [50:50]
B
Wait to see this one. Okay, let's get to Wexner. There's drama, and then there's full telenovela level drama.
- [50:57]
A
Yes, and Elf Cosmetics went all the way there. Elf Cosmetics just dropped something wildly unexpected.
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A full blown, absurdly funny telenovela celebrating
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positivity, inclusivity and accessibility. It's called Melissa and it's absurd in the best way.
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B
It stars Melissa McCarthy, TV doctor Nicholas Gonzalez and iconic telenovela villain Itati Cantoral, but the real star? Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. When the language fails her and her lips are dull and dry, only Glow can revive her. Melissa McCarthy, who I love, fully commits by even rolling the RS with Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil Reviver Lip Oil is an ultra glossy lip oil
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Watch the full episode of their new
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sheer watch of ultra glossy color with Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets, shop in store or online and save on items like like Gummy Savers. Five flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch watermelon, M&M's party size stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. For period protection you can put on
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- [53:59]
A
And they're ruthless.
- [54:00]
B
Oh, I love, I'm loving every second of this entire thing. Quote, as part of this investigation, we have today arrested a man in his 60s from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in public custody at this time. We will not be naming the arrested man per national guidance. Please also remember this case is now active and should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court. So this, this is very different rules there in the uk, but basically the King later confirmed this morning that Prince Andrew had been taken into custody and there may be some misunderstanding about this whole thing. Prince Andrew is currently being investigated, not necessarily for his conduct, horrific conduct previously, with the pictures of him with the women, Virginia Giuffre, etc. And remember, you know, he maintains his innocence. It's about the shared information that he sent Epstein which was in the files. Remember, he was the trade advisor to the UK and he was sharing sensitive documents, including his schedule and other inside information with Epstein. That is open, clear cut and a violation of his official duties, which he was doing at the time. That's what he's under investigation for. In addition, this is part of the Lord Mandelson investigation too, for insider trading, for stock manipulation, for, you know, basically going after telling Jamie Dimon to try and blackmail the Chancellor at the time. Like that's the criminality that we're dealing with. Not to mention Prince Andrew. What is it? Ex wife Sarah Ferguson and all of her dealings with Epstein. That's happening right now. So there's a deep, this goes deep in the British aristocracy, all the way up to the prince. I was telling you, Prince Andrew is now the first royal in 400 years to be arrested. The last one was King Charles I in 1647 during the English Civil War, who was then executed some two years later. So I would like to see some old Lindy Justice Here.
- [56:00]
A
But anyway, yeah, well, I mean, the while, I think the interesting part is, like you said, that what they're going after him for, the thing that is most concrete is abusing the public trust by sending the sensitive information. And it is very much like what Mandelson appears to have been up to as well and is now under investigation for too. And so we've heard all this nonsense in the US about, oh, there's nothing here that's prosecutable, there's nothing here to investigate. It does seem like this sort of either abuse of public trust or insider, you know, insider trading, that is one of the avenues that could be the most clear cut in terms of legal consequences. But, you know, I think it's easy to forget, cause we're very American centric. That Ghislaine Maxwell first was. She's British. Like, she's a British socialite.
- [56:44]
B
She's the upper crust. Yeah, like the elite of the elite,
- [56:47]
A
the Epstein class of the uk. And so she had deep ties in elite society within the uk and so there is massive fallout there, including Keir Starmer, who already was deeply unpopular. He brought Mandelson into his government at a time when this hadn't all come out. But it was known that he had had some level of close Epstein contact. And he has now been caught in a lot of. Andrew's been caught in a lie, Fergie's been caught in a lie. They all have been caught at this point in lying about the nature and the extent of their relationship with Epstein. So people are rightly saying, like, you knew that this guy was in league with Jeffrey Epstein when you chose to bring him into your government. So this has really, really created a massive crisis for him at a time when he was already politically weak with the population.
- [57:41]
B
It's a huge deal, like I said. I mean, the first royal to be arrested. So I was joking to you, Crystal, this morning I go, it doesn't feel right to prosecute a prince.
- [57:48]
A
Like, it's just.
- [57:50]
B
It's like modernity catching up with royalty. I think he should be banished, exiled, married off against his will, pilloried in the Trafalgar Square, reduced to rags in a stockade. And everybody, everybody, like businessmen on their way to work at 8am in the morning, housewives can come and heckle and throw rotten tomatoes at him. Like, that's what we need to see.
- [58:13]
A
What's the point of having a.
- [58:14]
B
Why have a king in a royal in the first place? It's ridiculous. So if we're gonna do it, then let's do it. Let's do it. Right. The Tower of London. You know, if you're there, you can do the. You can do the tourism, like, for the Tower of London, like put him in there, you know, lock him up and let all the tourists parade past them. Chinese people could take selfies.
- [58:31]
A
So you're basically arguing that they get the benefit of the archaic tradition without having to deal with the archaic punishments that could come.
- [58:40]
B
Exactly.
- [58:40]
A
If they step out of line.
- [58:43]
B
If we have the crown and the robes and the velvet and the carriages and the palaces. And then we need the other part. Right. That was the interesting part for the masses. So, look, I'm not British, you know, sometimes I wish I was. But if I was, if I was a Brit, this is what I would be demanding. I want pillory. I want reduced to rags. But now, originally, we were gonna talk about the Wexner story. Let's go ahead and start with that. C1. This is unbelievable. So for those of you who don't know Leslie Wexner, he was the Victoria's Secret billionaire. He was the source, in many way, of Jeffrey Epstein's wealth. In 1991, he signs over power of attorney. He eventually sells him the townhouse first sweetheart deal, transfers significant amounts of his assets, doesn't break ties with him until 2007. He was interviewed under oath yesterday by members of the House Oversight Committee, and he has now testified under oath that neither the FBI nor the DOJ has ever sought to question him regarding Epstein. Let that sink in. This is despite victims publicly alleging his involvement. An FBI document that names him as a co conspirator. He literally is the source of this entire thing. Not to mention his modeling stuff with Victoria's Secret, the properties in Ohio, as Ryan and Dropside have revealed, the Iran Contra planes that landed at the Leslie Wexner base, which are then brokered. I mean, this is unbelievable. And this is the bigger sign to me of a cover up than anything, because you're getting named as a co conspirator in the document. You're literally a billionaire. The source of his entire wealth. Numerous victims and others are alleging Wexner involvement or Wexner. And again, to be clear for his lawyers, he denies literally all criminality. His statement, which we have some of here on the screen, puts C2 up here, is that he was duped by Epstein. He says that Epstein was a con man, that he conned him, and that he stole vast sums of money from Wexner over the years, and that he's an unfortunate victim in all of this. So I do wanna be clear that he literally denies all wrongdoing. He didn't know anything about trafficking, never visited the island, according to him, and all this other stuff that he's put out on the record from his statement. But it is just absolutely insane that he's never been interviewed, considering what we know in the files from the co conspirator original document to all of the other allegations and the information between the two. I mean, at the very least, interview him about how Epstein allegedly stole from him. That's a crime. That's embezzlement. Embezzlement if it's true or it's something else.
- [61:16]
A
But he never filed suit against him and never complained about that publicly until now that, you know, he had did complain about it, but until it became uncomfortable for him. That's kind of interesting. No? I mean, even just from the financial entanglement perspective, this is the man you would want to talk to.
- [61:31]
B
Of course.
- [61:31]
A
I mean, he knows everything.
- [61:33]
B
He.
- [61:34]
A
He gave Jeffrey Epstein power of attorney over his whole financial empire. I mean, it's insane. Dropsite had a great report where the philanthropic arm of what Wexner was up to, which, by the way, they were some of the largest donors to pro Zionist causes.
- [61:50]
B
They paid Ewud Barack $2 million.
- [61:52]
A
Exactly right. And they conducted a review. Oh, how involved was Epstein? And. Oh, really, he wasn't involved at all? Well, Dropsite reported out that was not true at all. He was. Was directing the whole thing. You know, anytime a question would come, oh, should we do this or should we do that? They would reply, ask Jeffrey. Check with Jeffrey. He was running the show there. And so at the very least you would want to know, okay, like, why were you persuaded to hand over power of attorney to this man? How much money did he have control over? Let's talk about the sale of the mansion. What exactly went down there? What do you know about any of this? And then when you add into that, you know, one of the first accuser, I think the first accuser to come forward, Maria Farmer, back in the 90s. She alleges that she was sexually assaulted at New Albany, which is Wexner's whole town, that he built at Epstein's house in New Albany, which again, she says the security there were all Wexner security. She had to ask Wexner's wife whether or not she could leave. She had to get permission to be able to leave. So there is more than enough there. Which just goes to show you, I mean. I mean, there clearly was some investigation that was done. We know Wexner was named as one of the potential co conspirators who was being investigated. So the fact that this all gets closed up and he never gets charged with anything without even being interviewed is so incredibly wild. That is a stunning revelation. And, you know, it just speaks to also the incompleteness of the documents that we've been given access to. We talked earlier in the week about how it looks like it may just be about 2% of the existing files that the government actually has in its possession that have been revealed to the public. So, you know, it shines a spotlight on the vast trove of questions that remain and vast amount of information that we still do not have access to.
- [63:47]
B
Yeah, I just think it's so unbelievable that this is the. I mean, it is also Wexner's 88 years old. I mean, he can claim all sorts of things now at this point when it mattered, he was completely, you know, I mean, never, never questioned is insane. And he's testifying this under oath. Maybe he's lying, I guess. Possible somebody needs to prove it. Then they should prosecute him for perjury if that's the case.
- [64:11]
A
I don't, but I think I believe him. Yeah. Because it would be the sort of thing that the government could very easily check him on.
- [64:17]
B
Right.
- [64:17]
A
You know, and so it would be. It wouldn't be a smart lie to pursue because it would be so easily dependent. Bugged.
- [64:23]
B
It's so crazy. Let's continue. When we're talking about foreign investigations, let's put C6 up here. This is very interesting, and I've been talking about this more recently. This is about Jean Luc Brunel, who again was one of these modeling agency conduits for Jeffrey Epstein. The Wall Street Journal reports that the accomplice who was going to testify against Epstein then went dark. Jean Luc Brunel was actually negotiating to provide prosecutors with evidence against Epstein in 2006, three years before he was arrested, but ultimately backed out. Basically, he was considering working with Epstein victims who were suing the Epstein estate while Epstein was still alive. At the time, Epstein was negotiating with Brunel via Kathy Rumler and a few other people where allegedly they, he. Brunel wanted like $3 million to shut up. And it seems that the investigation didn't go anywhere. Now remember though, what ends up happening is that Brunel goes to prison in France and actually dies again, you know, allegedly by suicide.
- [65:23]
A
So you can see hanging, hanging, death. Cameras didn't work.
- [65:26]
B
And just so you guys know, they're currently reopening the investigation in France after the release of these Epstein files. And you can see that, look, there's obviously a pattern. Jean Luc Brunel, I mean, he has been accused of some of the most heinous stuff. And I mean, you know, you need a tough stomach if you want to go and read some of the things that those two used to reminisce and to talk about. But it's the same relationship that we're talking about here. Modeling agency, key conduit, potential cooperation against Epstein. Goes away, gets arrested, dies by suicide in a cell.
- [65:59]
A
Emily's been surfacing some of the emails from the young women who were promised this life of, oh, we're going to help you with your modeling career and the way that they were completely bamboozled. One of the emails in particular says it seems like the only piece that you were serious about was me being your mistress. And so, you know, and you've got a track record of emails of Epstein effectively like grooming these girls, coaching them on how, what they should say around these powerful men. They're being effectively pawned off to this man or that man as, you know, sort of currency in Epstein's relationship with them. So the modeling pipeline is a really important one. Now the specific allegations against, against Jean Luc Brunel, like you said, are just utterly heinous. I mean, one allegation is that he provided Epstein with, I think it was 13 year old twins, provided him with 13 year old twins as a birthday present. Clearly his modeling agency, which was a real modeling agency, quote unquote, that this was really used as a core part of trafficking girls and young women to Epstein as part of his web of opinion. So, yeah, I mean, I think the revelation that he was considering cooperating and then he walks away and then he ends up in prison and then he ends up dead under very strange circumstances. You know, there's a lot there. I recommend people read the piece too because some of the exchanges here are very, very enlightening about the way that Epstein operated too, and the type of like threats and manipulation that he engaged in as well. You know, the other piece, let's put C4 up on the screen. So the UN experts are saying that the allegations in the Epstein files could amount to crimes against humanity. And I just want you to contrast this reaction, and this is from independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Contrast this reaction with what we've been fed here in the US which is that this is completely exonerating to try. That's what? He says that it's, you know, that there's nothing to see, there's nothing prosecutable, that there's no further even investigation that is worth pursuing. And then when you have new investigations open in France, you have former Prince Andrew arrested. In the uk, a total political crisis in the uk. There are other foreign officials who have lost their jobs. Corporate America, actually, there has been some fallout from. Kathy Rummler lost her job. There's been some fallout there in corporate America.
- [68:26]
B
The law firm here.
- [68:27]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [68:28]
B
It's crazy. These are very rich, powerful people.
- [68:31]
A
Pritzker, Tom Pritzker had to step away. And I mean, look, let's not shed a tear for. They're all keeping their money. They're all gonna be fine. But at least there was some level of social consequence. The political class here escapes utterly unscathed. And so to go back to this UN report, they said crimes outlined in documents released by the US DOJ were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption, and extreme misogyny. They said the crime showed a commodification and dehumanization of women and girls. I mean, that's just undeniably true. So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls. Number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, the experts said in a statement. So, you know, this is how they're evaluating what is seen there. So when you're looking at this and you're horrified and disgusted and appalled and outraged that there has been and effectively no accountability. I mean, the one person who's in prison for this right now is Ghislaine Maxwell. And she's getting the cushiest treatment you could possibly imagine and has the possibility even of getting a pardon from this president. When you're appalled by that, just know that you're not insane. Other independent experts are looking at this, are like, yes, this is utterly appalling, like degrading, horrifying and massive. You know, massive in terms of scope and reach. This behavior is so appalling that we think it could reach the scale of crimes against humanity. So just, you know, an astonishing result there. And so it's. I mean, I'm glad to see some of the accountability that's happening in other countries, but it does just make you realize how utterly without accountability and what utter impunity the political class here, the Epstein class here in the United States enjoys. And even, you know, the corporate America reckoning, it's not like any of Them are having charges filed against them. It's not like any of them are taking anything other than like a temporary reputational hit ultimately.
- [70:24]
B
Exactly. So look, everybody stick with it. These are just the latest and unfortunately it does seem that other countries are going to do much more than our country to actually look into and hold accountable anyone in public life who had anything to do with this. So anyways, that's. It's a tragic story, I guess, but maybe a hopeful one. Maybe we can get to those that maybe if somebody runs on holding these people accountable, then they'll have to do it if they do come into office. But somebody already did though and then now this happened. So yeah, kind of a black billing experience.
- [70:58]
A
We need a little bit more credibility this time in the, you know, whoever's going to take that direction. Yeah, I've made them to not be themselves a direct member of the Epstein.
- [71:06]
B
I really wondered about that. I'm like, how do you. You know, I've seen how many presidents have promised. I'm not talking about epc, but generally on certain things come into office, turn on a dime and we just fall for it every single time. Why do we always fall for and believe maybe because we want to that it'll be different. It's always the same man. And I'm like, can we do something different? Like I don't know, maybe you need a total shake up in the whole system.
- [71:33]
A
But again that's what people is what people.
- [71:34]
B
We thought we were trying that. Right. I mean I don't even.
- [71:37]
A
A lot of people did.
- [71:38]
B
Okay, but you're talking about. And let's talk about Obama. How many people thought that?
- [71:42]
A
Oh yeah, I thought it.
- [71:43]
B
Didn't you? A lot of people did 2008, hope change Iraq. Thought a whole new thing was coming into that. A lot of people thought about Clinton too. New guy, baby boomer, never seen that before.
- [71:53]
A
Well, let me just. I think the most important thing to look for is you have to look at who the funders are. You have to scratch one layer deeper than the rhetoric and say, okay, well who. But who is actually like who is actually backing this candidacy? Because if you are, you know, like with Obama, the red flag was all the Wall street guys loved him, they funded his campaign to the Hill, you know, and he. So that's who ultimately was really running the show in terms of his administration.
- [72:20]
B
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- [72:31]
A
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B
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- [73:41]
A
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