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The Dark Truth About Bot Farms: Ex-Intel Expert Reveals All | Ryan McBeth DSH #896
00:40:12
🚨 The Dark Truth About Bot Farms exposed! A former intelligence analyst reveals the shocking reality of how foreign powers are weaponizing social media to manipulate public opinion and cause real-world chaos.
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- [00:02]
A
It was mainly Iran that got agent provocateurs to go and say, hey, you know, we're going to rush this building. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. Iran doesn't have aircraft carriers. Iran can't power project with a navy or with bombers. So how do they power project? Well, they use the Internet to get college students to do it for them.
- [00:26]
B
All right, guys, first intelligence analyst on the podcast and first guest to drink on the show live, Ryan McBeth. Thanks for coming on Cheers. I would join you, but I got a few more episodes after this.
- [00:36]
A
You know, I would love that. I actually got a gift for you.
- [00:39]
B
Wow. That's the first, too. Holy crap.
- [00:42]
A
You know, I always like to come bring you presents.
- [00:44]
B
Damn. So what is this? Old Bay seasoning.
- [00:47]
A
Old Bay seasoning it is. I am not the only great thing to come out of Maryland. Old Bay seasonings got me beat, dude.
- [00:54]
B
I actually love crab, so.
- [00:56]
A
But you. You know what? I. You put that on popcorn.
- [00:59]
B
Popcorn.
- [01:00]
A
Popcorn. You can put that on shrimp. Yeah, I put it on popcorn all the time. Wow. It's old day seasoning is absolutely amazing.
- [01:06]
B
Shout out to old bear. Well, you're busy these days. A lot of disinformation going up, right?
- [01:11]
A
Oh, my God, a lot. I. I do disinformation. I do podcasts. I have to get videos out. And then I travel. I speak. I'm actually speaking. When? After I leave here, after I leave Las Vegas, I have to go to Camp Perry, Ohio. I'm going to talk with a bunch of JAG lawyers. I'm going to give them a briefing on something called deceptive imagery persuasion, which is a type of disinformation. And these lawyers are going to come up with a plan to perhaps start figuring out how we can kinetically strike disinformation actors, right?
- [01:42]
B
And why are you so passionate about the disinformation?
- [01:44]
A
So, you know, I think that. That it is a hybrid method of warfare and we never really encountered it before. You know, if somebody, let's say somebody wants to take out a bridge, right? A couple of ways you could do it. You could use a bomb to destroy that bridge, right? Or you could maybe do a cyber attack to shut down the toll systems on that bridge, right? And so maybe people can't cross because the toll systems. Or you could tell people, hey, Taiwan has always been Chinese. This is this America defending Taiwan is an imperialist, colonialist effort to get at Taiwan's resources and deny them their true purpose of being Chinese. So go to the Golden Gate Bridge and glue yourself to the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge for China. And now what do you have? You have a weapon system. You just shut down the bridge. No different than a missile or a cyber attack. Right.
- [02:44]
B
Wow.
- [02:45]
A
So we need to start considering these disinformation agents, these bot farms. We need to start considering them enemy combatants, and we need to kill them. I am very blunt about that. We need to kill them. That might look like a Tomahawk strike on the building where they work out of. It might be a cyber attack, it might be a strike on the data center. It might be close up and personal, just targeting certain individuals.
- [03:09]
B
Right.
- [03:10]
A
But if you are a foreign actor and you are part of a disinformation campaign, you need to be targeted just like any other combatant. If you. If you were working at a munitions plant, let's say you're a person, you're. You're making shells at an enemy munitions plant. Are you a combatant? You're a valid target.
- [03:28]
B
Right, right, right.
- [03:29]
A
But if you're working at a factory that produces disinformation to help win the war for your side, are you a combatant? Yeah, we're going to find that out.
- [03:38]
B
So there's actual farms where there's buildings dedicated towards this?
- [03:41]
A
Yes.
- [03:41]
B
Wow.
- [03:42]
A
Yes, there's buildings. There used to be one in St. Petersburg, the Internet Research Agency, which was run by Victor Prigozhin, which was the. The guy who started Wagner. And essentially that was a huge bot farm that distributed, of all things, election information. That was one of the things they did, election misinformation. And the whole idea was, can we use misinformation or disinformation? And there is a difference between the two. Can we use these two things to physically affect something on the ground? And one example they gave was they. They found webcams that looked at Times Square and they said, hey, Nathan's is giving out free hot dogs in Times Square. And they watched as people came. There was no free hot dog. And. But they were like, wow, look what we can do now. This is a weapon.
- [04:32]
B
Dang. So do you think countries are actively engaging in this?
- [04:35]
A
Yeah, absolutely. China is. Russia is. China is. Iran is, you know, Iran. Those protests, those pro Hamas protests where you had college students, you know, which I. I never thought I'd see in my life. You have college students who are usually pretty in tune to human rights, supporting a group of people who don't believe in human rights. If you're a woman or you're lgbtq. Right. It was mainly Iran. That got agent provocateurs to go and say, hey, you know, we're gonna rush this building, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. Iran doesn't have aircraft carriers. Iran can't power project with a navy or with bombers. So how do they power project? Well, they use the Internet to get college students to do it for them. Yeah, that's how you can cause chaos.
- [05:33]
B
I never know with these wars. Of all these things I see on Twitter, how much of it is real or misinformation?
- [05:40]
A
That's a good question. You know, a lot of, a lot of people don't. And I think one of the, one of the big problems is that, you know, you have to be a generalist and today everyone's a specialist. What are you good at? Like, what are you really good at? Doing? Podcasts. Right. You must be good at that. You got a million followers, you're popular, you're good at that. Probably not too good on raising chickens.
- [06:03]
B
No.
- [06:03]
A
Right. So what do you do? Well, you, you buy chicken from the store. Right. Because you have a specialist that goes and does that.
- [06:09]
B
Right.
- [06:09]
A
100, 150 years ago, people knew how to raise chickens. They knew how to do a little bit of farming. They probably knew a little bit of carpentry. Right. If you needed a carp, if you need a carpenter, what do you do? You probably call, right?
- [06:21]
B
Yep.
- [06:23]
A
So today there is so much information out there that needs a specialization for you to understand that you can easily mislead people by showing a picture. I call this deceptive image of persuasion. You show a picture and put false text on top of it. Look at Israel using white phosphorus against civilians. But what you're showing is a flare, which is an illumination round that, that hangs by a parachute and lights up the area. But to the average person, they don't really know what white phosphorus looks like. So that must be white phosphorus. Or if you hate Israel, you might easily go, oh, yes, that's white phosphorus. Share. Look at Israel killing children with white phosphorus. And there's a flare.
- [07:03]
B
Yeah. So what do you think the fix would be? Because I know Twitter has their, their own system. I don't know if other social media platforms have their.
- [07:08]
A
I actually developed a five step process and I, I made it open source as well. It's on my GitHub. Honestly, one of the ways you can fix it and you can. Twitter could do this tomorrow. It would take two sprints. So we're talking about a month's worth of software work. What Twitter could do tomorrow is they could use something called vector maps. So essentially, when you see an image, you put that image in a database, and you know where that image came from. And so later on, when someone uses that image or an image that's similar to it, even though that image has been altered a little bit, you're going to be able to detect that. And you can throw up a community note that says, hey, this image was initially used at this date, and this was the context. And that would solve maybe 90% wow. Of the. Of the. But Twitter, they'll never do that.
- [07:53]
B
Why not?
- [07:54]
A
It'll cost them money. It'll cost them money. Like, they need misinformation. Twitter needs misinformation. Twitter needs disinformation. They need people to post provocative stuff. That's wrong. Because that's how they get engagement. That's how they get clicks. That's how they get eyeballs.
- [08:11]
B
That's true. Some of the most viral tweets I've seen have been later debunked.
- [08:14]
A
Oh, absolutely.
- [08:15]
B
And you've debunked a ton of them.
- [08:16]
A
Yeah. It seems like I could make a living just off doing Twitter. Right. Like, I need to make a video. Crap. Let me look. All right, there's this guy right here.
- [08:24]
B
You're doing one a day, right?
- [08:26]
A
I. I try. Sometimes I do two or three videos a day.
- [08:29]
B
Wow.
- [08:30]
A
Yeah, it's exhausting. I work between 13 and 16 hours a day.
- [08:34]
B
Holy crap.
- [08:35]
A
You work pretty hard, too, man.
- [08:36]
B
Yeah, no, but you're. You're coming at people. I mean, you're not afraid to make enemies. I like that about you.
- [08:42]
A
No, and, you know. You know, a lot of it is, you know, I'm almost 50. I'm a little bit older, maybe the average listener. And, you know, I carry a gun. Right. And, you know, you can't. You can't. I spent 20 years as an infantryman. What do you got? You know, like, I was deployed. I was in Iraq. I was an infantry man in freaking Iraq. I. I used to drove down roads that insurgents really didn't want us to drive down. Right. What am I going to be afraid of? Are you going to come at me? Please. Give it. Give it your best shot.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah, you got some experience. Were the drones around back then when you were serving the military?
- [09:19]
A
Drones? Yeah, they. So that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, drones played an incredible part in overwatch, like, watching over soldiers as they were moving in route clearance. So you might have a drone fly ahead of a convoy, and they're looking at the ground, and they have thermal cameras. So when the sun comes up, it heats up the road. But if you have something buried under there, that dirt has been disturbed, that heats up at a different rate. Might have a metal canister.
- [09:48]
B
Oh, wow.
- [09:49]
A
So underneath that dirt there's a metal canister.
- [09:51]
B
So a drone could detect that?
- [09:53]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [09:54]
B
Interesting.
- [09:54]
A
Yeah. And you'll go, hey, there's a. There's something suspicious here. We need to send the engineers to go take a look at it. Eod.
- [10:00]
B
Take a look at. Wow. So they're that advanced?
- [10:02]
A
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Absolutely. And now, now they've only gotten more advanced. And the drones that we have today are great against fighting a bunch of dudes in sandals that can't really shoot back. What we need to think about now are drone swarms and how we can move forward with the kind of commercial, either commercial off the shelf drones or drones that have a little bit of AI that can use swarming technology to talk to each other. And we also need to take drone operator seriously. One of the things that I've advocated for, I give a lot of speeches.
- [10:43]
B
So you made a whole video about UFOs.
- [10:45]
A
I did make a whole video about UFOs. I knew this was coming. You know, I. I actually don't think that. That we've ever been visited by anyone. I ran it through the same process I would use using the CIA's tool, which is called ICD 203, the Intelligence Community Directive 203, which kind of looks at the likelihood or probability. And, you know, one of the reasons I don't believe we've been visited by aliens is that, you know, the distances are so great and the amount of energy it would take to get here is so vast that there'd be really no reason to do it at all. And, you know, the only reason I could picture aliens coming here would be to kill us, to wipe us out. And that's because it is too dangerous. If you find an alien civilization, it is too dangerous to let that alien civilization live, because they might be able to come after you one day and they might not show any mercy. You take a look at the Native Americans, you know, in. The Spanish landed in the New World, the Spanish very quickly killed like 90 of the native Americans in America, either through disease or through war. Right? So if the Spanish just. If the. Not the Spanish, if the Native Americans just killed every single Spanish dude getting off those ships as they were getting off, they probably would still be. They'd have a civilization today. Right? So the. One of the main reasons That I don't think we've been visited by aliens is that we're still alive. And probably the biggest reason to come here would be to wipe us out.
- [12:22]
B
Interesting.
- [12:23]
A
Yeah.
- [12:23]
B
Have you looked into all those situations where there's UFO visits and Roswell and all that?
- [12:28]
A
You know, I can usually expl. I haven't looked into those things specifically. I actually did a specific video about government testimony. This is. I think it was. David Fraver was testing, testifying. And, you know, at any. At any given time, I think that if. If you look at a computer software error, like a radar error, or you look at what a human being says they saw, you got to go with the error.
- [12:52]
B
Right.
- [12:52]
A
You know, every time.
- [12:53]
B
Well, the government released these files. I don't know if you watch the videos at all, but it didn't seem compelling to me. It was blurry.
- [12:59]
A
You know, one of the. One of the things I. I've often said is. Do you ever hear of the documentary Sour Grapes?
- [13:05]
B
No.
- [13:06]
A
So there was this Netflix documentary with this dude. This dude forged wine. So he would essentially say, hey, I have these bottles from, you know, 1942 in France, you know, and he would sell them, and people would. Would drink them. And then one day, like, people realized he was a fraud because, like, you know, this one vineyard owner said, like, hey, my family didn't make any bottles in 1944 because the Nazis had occupied France. So your bottle can't be real. So I think that, you know, despite the evidence that you might have, it's kind of like this guy Rudy, who used to fake the wine. Like, you might think you have a real bottle, but it can't be real.
- [13:49]
B
Got it.
- [13:50]
A
You know.
- [13:51]
B
Interesting. Now, you've been in the AI space for a while.
- [13:53]
A
Yeah.
- [13:53]
B
What percent chance is there that it turns haywire, goes matrix, terminator mode, and AI takes over?
- [13:58]
A
I would say there is a 0% chance of that unless we. Unless we make it do that.
- [14:04]
B
Wow.
- [14:04]
A
We have killer robots now. And those killer. So if you look at. If you look at the Aegis system, which is on every cruiser and destroyer in America's navy, or if you look at the Patriot system, Patriot system, Aegis system, those are killer robots, and they've been killer robots since the 1980s, and we're fine and all of those, the Aegis system, it can detect enemy planes or missiles, and you flip that thing into automatic mode, it'll talk with the other ships that way. Go. You don't put two missiles on each target and stuff like that. It knows what every other Ship is doing. You set an automatic mode and it just fires.
- [14:42]
B
Really?
- [14:42]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [14:43]
B
So it locks onto the target.
- [14:44]
A
Everything. It does, everything. It decides what engagement scenario to use. It decides what kind of weapon to use to service that particular target. Because humans just can't react that fast.
- [14:54]
B
Wow. So humans not firing the missile. It's actually the machine.
- [14:57]
A
Yeah, it's the machine. You can put it in manual mode, but it's a machine you put in auto mode. And just.
- [15:01]
B
And has it ever made a mistake?
- [15:03]
A
So the Aegis system once destroyed an Iranian jet in the Persian Gulf, but we let it do that. We let it go into that mode because we saw this. This radar reflection, and we're like, that's probably an Iranian F14. Turned out it was an Iranian civilian passenger liner, and we let it go into automated mode. But it didn't make the mistake we made. Got it.
- [15:29]
B
So it still was a human error.
- [15:30]
A
It still was a human error thing.
- [15:31]
B
Interesting.
- [15:32]
A
I actually think AI is, you know, in a lot of ways, AI can help prevent human error. Believe it or not, soldiers make mistakes all the time. Soldiers hit the wrong target or they, you know, they don't really know. What is that? I don't know. Screw it, shoot it. Right. Soldiers do that all the time, either because they're scared or they're tired or they just got the wrong information. AI if you give AI training data of what a Russian T72 tank looks like, it has a better chance of recognizing that tank because it doesn't get tired.
- [16:07]
B
Wow.
- [16:07]
A
It doesn't get scared. Right.
- [16:09]
B
That's interesting.
- [16:10]
A
And so if AI can draw boxes around tanks for us, I mean, that's a force multiplier inside a tank. You're inside a tank and your optics are looking and going. Okay, I know the thermal profile of that. That's a T72. Draw a box around that, and then you can let the human decide to service it, or you let the AI decide to.
- [16:30]
B
Imagine an AI sniper.
- [16:32]
A
I mean, it. So look, I know when I see. I mean, I was in Iraq. Like, I know what's a threat. A farmer with a rifle and he's. It's on his back and there's a bunch of sheep around him. Do you shoot that guy? No, he's just a farmer. He's got his. You know, he's afraid of wolves, right? He's going to shoot wolves. He's not, you know, he's no threat to you. You can pro. You can program AI the same way.
- [16:59]
B
Yeah. That's interesting. Speaking of all these Weapons, talk nuclear weapons. So how many countries do you think have nuclear weapons right now?
- [17:06]
A
So right now, so it's the United States, Russia, France, the uk, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea. South Africa had them, but then they. They destroyed them. And Israel may or may not have them.
- [17:24]
B
Okay, so about nine.
- [17:26]
A
Roughly nine.
- [17:26]
B
Why did South Africa destroy theirs?
- [17:28]
A
They didn't need them. Any. You know, they. They did it during apartheid. And I think that they were like a last ditch weapon if they ever had to. If they were ever invaded by a country, if, let's say, if there was an internal struggle, they might use a nuclear weapon. But, you know, keeping a nuclear weapon around is an expensive thing.
- [17:45]
B
Is it?
- [17:45]
A
Of course. I mean, look, you have to have all the security around these nuclear weapons. You have to have. It's not like. It's not like these things have a bicycle lock on them, right? There's different codes called permissive action links. There's different codes they have to enter to get this nuclear weapon to actually explode, right?
- [18:03]
B
Yeah. Is it true the president has a button?
- [18:05]
A
So it's not a button. It's more like inside what's called the football, which is this briefcase that's carried by an aide, usually an Air Force aid. Inside this briefcase, there's literally a Denny's menu.
- [18:17]
B
What?
- [18:18]
A
It's not a Denny's menu, but it looks like a Denny's menu. And so we have all these op plans, all of these scenarios and packages for what? You just kind of like Denny's, you know, like, all right, I'll have one from all of eggs from column A, and I'll have bacon from column B.
- [18:33]
B
Right?
- [18:34]
A
So let's say Iran launches a nuclear weapon at Saudi Arabia and destroys Mecca. Right? We might respond to that. We might say, all right, let me look at the op plan. And there might be an op plan for what happens if Iran destroys Mecca. We'll go, okay, we're gonna fire nuclear weapons at these four targets. This is what's in the Denny's menu. So it's not an actual button, but there's codes and there's essentially a menu. So just give the person at NORAD the. The menu number and they go from there. So.
- [19:06]
B
So If World War 3 happens, which some people think we're in, and now I'd love to hear your opinion on that. Is there a percent that it could go nuclear, you think?
- [19:13]
A
There's always a percentage chance that it could? I don't believe it will. And I say that because in order for. Usually a nuclear exchange would stem from Using tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. So there's a difference in a tactical nuclear weapon and strategic nuclear weapon. Strategic nuclear weapon is a city buster. Right. That's designed to destroy entire cities. And typically the scenario kind of goes that someone might use a nuclear weapon on the battlefield to destroy. Do something like destroy a troop concentration or there's troops who are breaking through the enemy's lines. You might use a nuclear weapon over top of that to stop them. Using nuclear weapons against American aircraft carrier strike groups. That is a valid use case for a nuclear weapon. Be really good. If China want to destroy American carrier groups, Getting a nuclear weapon through that would do it. That would help. You might also use a nuclear weapon to destroy an underground command bunker or any kind of facilities that are underground. Iran has a lot of those. And one of the things that we've done with our nuclear inventory is we've changed it so that it can penetrate into the ground.
- [20:22]
B
Oh, wow.
- [20:22]
A
Explode. Yeah. Or destroying an amphibious assault group. So that's. That's actually one of the reasons I don't believe Russia will ever use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, because China is deathly afraid that this. The second Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, it makes it easier for the United States to use a nuclear weapon against an amphibious group going into Taiwan.
- [20:45]
B
Got it. So it's kind of like who wants to pull the trigger first? Right.
- [20:48]
A
And nobody does.
- [20:49]
B
Right.
- [20:49]
A
So I don't really see a nuclear war stemming from what's going on in Ukraine. It's just that nobody wins.
- [20:56]
B
Right.
- [20:57]
A
Nobody wins that. And while there are valid use cases, I mean, Ukraine actually broke through Russian lines into Russia. They're, I think, about 40 miles from the city of Kursk.
- [21:08]
B
Really. So Ukraine's put.
- [21:10]
A
Ukraine invaded Russia north of Sumi, south of Kursk.
- [21:14]
B
I didn't even see this anywhere.
- [21:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. It happened about three days. So at first I thought it was a raid. Ukraine's done this twice.
- [21:18]
B
Yeah.
- [21:19]
A
Where they've. They've entered Russia and they've done some stuff. And it's just a way of saying we can come toward you anytime we want. You know, somehow from what I understand from the intel that I have two brigades. So think of it like 5,000 people, 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers entered, and right now there's a front of like 70 miles. So typically, to cover a front of 70 miles, you need like two and a half divisions. Think of a division as like three or four brigades or like 10,000 troops. So the, The. It's. I don't know what Ukraine's goal is in that. But I could, I could theoretically see Russia using a nuclear weapon to stop their advance. But then they're using it on their soil, they don't want to do that. Right, right.
- [22:09]
B
The radiation.
- [22:10]
A
Yeah. You know what? Well, if you do an air burst, there'll be less radiation, but it's still, it's still going to freak people out. You know, there's just no advantage to using a nuclear weapon.
- [22:20]
B
So all our tax dollars going to Ukraine are working.
- [22:22]
A
Oh my God, like you wouldn't believe. You know, one of the biggest, one of the biggest advantages of supporting Ukraine is that our equipment, you know, we have to pay to dispose of it. Rockets, things like high Mars missiles, TOW missiles, Javelin missiles, Stinger missiles. The rocket fuel in them actually expires, has a certain shelf life.
- [22:42]
B
Oh wow.
- [22:43]
A
And artillery shells are a little bit better. You can make an artillery shell and you can put on a shelf. As long as you store it in a cool dry place, it'll last for decades. But missiles, rocket fuel is a little bit different. So you have to shoot it after a certain number of years or it goes bad and you have to send it back. And then they send it back to Raytheon and then they have to put it into a room and they have to demille it. Like they take the rocket apart and it becomes hazardous waste. It's just easier to shoot the darn thing, right?
- [23:14]
B
Yeah.
- [23:15]
A
So tip, you know once when I, when I, when I was in a heavy weapons anti tank guy and I made friends of this guy from Raytheon who came to train us on some stuff and he gave me his car, he's like, listen, anytime you want to shoot missiles, let me know.
- [23:28]
B
What an invite.
- [23:29]
A
Yeah. Because we got all these. One time I think we fired 21 TOW missiles, 21 anti tank missiles in one day. I never thought I'd get sick of shooting anti tank missiles. Like by the end of it we're like throwing trash cans up in the air like skeet pull. Not that didn't really happen, but no, you know, hypothetically. Yeah, the. Yeah, we have to shoot these things. So rather than send them back, let's give them to Ukraine, let Ukraine shoot him at Russia. It saves us the disposal cost.
- [23:57]
B
Right.
- [23:57]
A
It's actually. And we get to buy new stuff, which we need anyway. We're gonna replace this stuff. Some of our old tanks, our old armored personnel carriers, like M113, we're dumping them in the freaking ocean as artificial reefs. I like fish. Fish are great. But like if we Give those weapons to Ukraine. Ukrainian can use them to kill Russians. So, ah, the. The. We're not. We're not actually flying C17s full of money and just, you know, parachuting it out over Ukraine. We're actually. We're mainly giving them equipment.
- [24:31]
B
Okay.
- [24:32]
A
And weapons, and then they use them and we get to buy new stuff, which creates American jobs.
- [24:37]
B
Okay, that's interesting, because I see a lot of headlines where we're donating hundreds of millions bought in those in weapons.
- [24:42]
A
Yeah, those hundreds of millions are really to pay companies to replace the weapons that we're giving them that we're going to have to destroy anyway.
- [24:50]
B
Okay, so it's fueling our economy then.
- [24:52]
A
I mean, not. It's. Look, we're not going to have a ripple or an economy because we hired an additional 2,000 people to work at Raytheon, but it is helping American jobs.
- [25:02]
B
Okay, so when you see Trump saying he wants to pull out, how do you feel about that?
- [25:07]
A
Pull out of the war? There's things that you say and there's things that you actually do.
- [25:13]
B
Right.
- [25:13]
A
And the one thing about President Trump is that he was the first guy to send lethal aid to Ukraine. He sent Javelins. One of the reasons Ukraine still exists today is that the Russian army came from Belarus and they entered Key or they entered north of the country and they're marching toward Kiev, and they ran smack into the Javelin missile. Javelin is a fire and forget missile. I put that Javelin on the target, put the track gates on what I want to hit the safety, hit the trigger, and that missile will go toward that tank and destroy it.
- [25:47]
B
Wow.
- [25:48]
A
Doesn't. Doesn't care if the tank tries to run or hide or whatever, it'll find it. And Trump got these Javelin missiles to Ukraine. The previous president, President Obama, he sent, like, night vision goggles and blankets. Useful. We need night vision. You know, they need night vision. But President Trump is the only person to send lethal aid. And I think that what President Trump knows. What's his biggest fear? What is Trump's biggest fear?
- [26:16]
B
His biggest fear?
- [26:17]
A
China. Oh, right, China. And he knows that the best way to prevent China from invading Taiwan is to stand with Ukraine. Because if we don't support a country that's in Europe, how the hell are we going to support a country that's 6,300 miles away from anything? There's the tyranny of distance. When dealing with Taiwan, we have to get all of these ships, all these weapons, all this aircraft, all these missiles, all these drones 600 miles over to A tiny island. And China only has to get him right next door. Miles. Yeah, right next door.
- [26:52]
B
Wow. So he's looking at it strategically then.
- [26:54]
A
Yeah, I. I think there. There's things that you say and there's things that you're actually going to do, and you look at. What's the speaker of the House's name? It was Mike. I want to say. Mike Wilkins. That's not it. But speaker of the House, you know, he got a CIA brief, and he walked out of that CIA brief a changed man. He was like, okay, let's get this aid to Ukraine going. Why?
- [27:18]
B
What was he saying before that?
- [27:20]
A
It was the. It was the typical, oh, we need to take care of problems at home. You know, we need to close the border. We need to. We can do both. We could close the border tomorrow, right? We could do. We can. We're big enough to do both.
- [27:31]
B
Well, the border situation is getting pretty.
- [27:33]
A
Crazy, so one of my biggest fears, and I. I love immigration. I mean, you know, my family came to this country from Northern Ireland.
- [27:40]
B
Oh, nice. Same with mine.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah. And Northern Ireland.
- [27:43]
B
Yeah. My dad.
- [27:44]
A
Really. Is he Protestant?
- [27:46]
B
Yeah. I got a passport and everything.
- [27:48]
A
Yeah, I'm Orange.
- [27:49]
B
I went to visit, actually, a few years ago. It was raining every day and windy, drinking everywhere.
- [27:54]
A
You know, I've. I've often thought about, like, going to Northern Ireland, going to Lisbon, where my family is from. And there's like. My dad has never been back to Northern Ireland. And, you know, my family only told me about why he. He left once. And I've never.
- [28:11]
B
Not much to do there. But, I mean, if. If you got heritage there, I would check it out, you know? Yeah.
- [28:14]
A
I mean, the thing is, I don't know if my dad was a good guy or a bad guy.
- [28:17]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [28:19]
A
You know, secretive man, you know? Well, back then, like, if you were in, like, a Protestant militia, like, they call the. You know, maybe not such a good guy.
- [28:29]
B
I don't know.
- [28:29]
A
I. I've never really broached that subject with my. With my dad. Right.
- [28:33]
B
Wow.
- [28:34]
A
But how do we get on that topic?
- [28:37]
B
Our dads?
- [28:37]
A
Yeah, I guess our dads. Yeah. I don't know. I was talking about Northern Ireland. I don't know. What else you got for me?
- [28:43]
B
Yeah, I forget what I even asked. Something about wars, but. Yeah. I don't know how we got into Ireland.
- [28:49]
A
What's that?
- [28:50]
B
Immigration.
- [28:50]
A
Immigration? Yeah. I mean, I. I think immigration is great. We need immigration, but we should probably know who's coming in. And when you look at our border, one of the Things that scares me is the number of Chinese and a number of Iranians coming across, you know, because there. There is a non zero chance that you'd have a military age male coming across to do something bad. Oh, wow.
- [29:10]
B
I thought it was Mexicans mainly. So it's a lot of Chinese and Iranians.
- [29:13]
A
I mean, so from what I understand, there's not a lot of Mexicans. What you have is there a lot of people from, like, Guatemala, Honduras, a lot of places where there's gangs. Not a lot of job opportunities. But the Chinese, I think I want to say it was like a quarter million.
- [29:32]
B
Really?
- [29:32]
A
Yeah.
- [29:33]
B
So they're just.
- [29:33]
A
I'm doing this for memory. Yeah. Like, after Covid, like a quarter million Chinese just walked right across the border.
- [29:39]
B
Holy crap. Yeah, I'm half Chinese, but yeah, I want people to come legally.
- [29:42]
A
Like, we should probably know who these people are. Like, isn't that what defines a country? Right. Like, all right, this is where your laws stop and our laws start. And, you know, I'm not saying don't come, but let's just kind of figure out who these people are without, you know.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah, we agree on that for sure. What about there's talks of them being able to vote, these illegal immigrants? Where do you stand on that?
- [30:03]
A
I mean, I don't really have an. I've never given that any thought, really. Well, I mean, you have to be a citizen to vote, I think. Right. Unless it's like maybe a town election or something.
- [30:14]
B
Yeah, they're pushing on towns and counties, I believe.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah. Because you might. You might have a green card, right? If you have a green card, can you vote?
- [30:22]
B
I don't know.
- [30:22]
A
I don't know.
- [30:23]
B
Yeah, no idea.
- [30:24]
A
I've. I've given. You know, I. There is this girl that I dated who she. She asked me once the darn subject. It was something political. She asked me some political question. I said, I don't know, what do you think of the bubble? But I said, I put 0% of my brain to thinking of that. She's like, how can you not think of that? And I was like, how many road wheels does an M1 tank have? Because I know that 14, you know. You know why I know that? Because this is all I do. You know, I. I actually, I read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and ha. Rats cover to cover every day. But I skip over, like, some articles. I know I like, I don't need to know what Taylor Swift is doing.
- [31:07]
B
Yeah.
- [31:07]
A
Don't care. But apparently there was going to be A chemical attack at a Taylor Swift concert. I read that article that was pretty interesting. You know, so I, I read about, you know, the military. I read about defense. I read about intel stuff. What's going on with green people with green cards voting. Not too up on that. I need a finite amount.
- [31:29]
B
Yeah. When you're reading these outlets, because Trump calls these fake news, are you just. How do you, how do you approach that?
- [31:36]
A
I guess New York Times is. Well, New York Times can be hit or miss on military stories I can usually pick out because they only have eight people working for them who are ever in the military. This is out of an organization of, I think 2800 people. Eight.
- [31:51]
B
Wow.
- [31:51]
A
Yeah. You have a better chance of getting a. I don't know if you gamble or not. I don't Better chance of getting a straight in poker of finding some of the New York Times.
- [32:00]
B
Wow.
- [32:01]
A
Was in the military. And that's why they screw up their military story so badly. I did a whole video on that. New York Time or Wall Street Journals. A little bit better. Washington Post. A little bit better with military coverage. How? I don't really. I can usually spot fake news pretty darn easily. And, you know, I think one of the things we need to kind of emphasize is that fake news does not mean news that you don't like. Right. Like there's, there's news you don't like and then there is genuine, honest to God fake news or news that has been manufactured.
- [32:32]
B
Right.
- [32:33]
A
And there is a big difference between those two things.
- [32:35]
B
Makes sense.
- [32:36]
A
And again, you know, President Trump is a very bombastic, larger than life figure. He's going to say things that appeal to people who like him.
- [32:44]
B
Where are you seeing the most misinformation and disinformation coming from right now? Is it from the media outlets or is it from social media?
- [32:50]
A
Is there a lot of. It's from social media? You know, a lot of it depends. There are Russian accounts on social media that they, they spend all day trying to figure out, like, all right, how are we going to get people to believe our side of the story? Right? Because Russia, they can't, they can't use a bomb to destroy a German artillery plant. If Germany is giving artillery shells to Ukraine, there's a couple ways you can fight that. You can drop a bomb on that plant. All right, that starts that start, you know, now NATO gets involved. You do a cyber attack. NATO might or might not get involved. Right. Or you could convince people in Germany that President Zelensky is a. He's a grifter and he is corrupt and he's stealing all your money. And so don't vote for someone who's going to give artillery shells to Zelensky. All three are the same effect, right?
- [33:51]
B
Yeah.
- [33:51]
A
The effect is no artillery. Munitions go to Ukraine. So Russia is constantly putting out fake information. Constantly. Because they consider it a part of their warfare.
- [34:04]
B
Right.
- [34:05]
A
That's. That's one of the reasons why I'm going to. Going to Ohio and I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk to a bunch of attorneys about how we can get the ball rolling on kinetically striking people who are disseminating disinformation in these bot farms.
- [34:20]
B
Don't you think the US does it too, though?
- [34:21]
A
No.
- [34:22]
B
Really?
- [34:23]
A
No.
- [34:23]
B
You don't think we put out any misinformation? Disinformation, No.
- [34:27]
A
I mean, we have Voice of America. That's one thing. So why do you do that? Why do you do the misinformation or disinformation? You do that because you don't have the kinetic strike abilities that we have. You don't have. We have 11 aircraft carriers. 11. Most countries don't even have one. We have 11 aircraft carriers. I want. I've been on an aircraft carrier. And it's not just the aircraft carrier. You have four or five cruisers and destroyers following you. And you have a submarine.
- [34:58]
B
Wow.
- [34:59]
A
So it's not just the aircraft carrier. You know, when you see these aircraft carriers, there's a whole bunch of escorts around them as well. They might be like two miles away. You can't see them. Believe me. They're there and they're providing radar coverage and missile coverage and stuff. That's how we take care of business. We bomb you. Right. We're good at that. We're really good at that. You know, back in 1986, it was Muammar Gaddafi, who's the leader of Libya, the dictator of Libya, he bombed a nightclub in Germany and then he destroyed a Pan Am jet over Scotland. Actually, I don't remember one came before the other, but he. President Reagan, just bombed the crap out of Tripoli and they actually went after Gaddafi personally. They actually hit one of his tents because he kind of lived like a Bedouin, you know, like, I'm. I'm a Bedouin man. You know, imagine like the President going camping.
- [35:56]
B
Yeah.
- [35:57]
A
You know, so he would do that to prove how Bedouin he was. Right.
- [36:00]
B
Interesting.
- [36:01]
A
So, yeah, so we. We bomb Triple A and they shut up for like 20 years. You know, we're really good at that. We're really good at bombing people when they piss us off.
- [36:12]
B
What about cyber attacks? Are we doing that?
- [36:14]
A
Yes.
- [36:14]
B
Okay.
- [36:15]
A
Yes.
- [36:15]
B
So we're doing two out of the three.
- [36:17]
A
Yeah. But actually spreading disinformation. It's almost like we're afraid of doing that. And I think some of that might be freedom of speech, because we actually kind of believe in freedom of speech. That's one of been one of the biggest issues that I've had dealing with military lawyers about going after some of these disinformation farms. Say, what about freedom of speech? Well, they're a foreigner in a foreign country. They don't have freedom of speech. You know, if you are a civilian working at a munitions plant building bombs or building tanks, are you a lawful target? Yeah, that, that, that place that's building tanks is a lawful target. So if you're at a disinformation factory, is that a lawful target? Yeah, they can change the outcome of a war. I don't see why it's not a lawful target. But for some reason we really don't do that. And I think a lot of it's because we're just so focused on kinetics.
- [37:09]
B
Don't you think we do it internally a little bit, though?
- [37:12]
A
I mean, so what is branding, right? I mean, look at this old bay that I gave you, right? This can of Old Bay, right? I mean, I know exactly what I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get some deliciousness. When I open this up and I sprinkle it on my fr. Or. Or I sprinkle it on my. My crab, right? Or my popcorn. I'm going to get some deliciousness of that old bay. So a brand is a contract between a producer of a good and a consumer of a good. A contract of quality. I know exactly what I'm going to get when I open up that old Bay, right? So I think what we do is branding. Where? America, land of the free, home of the brave. That's our brand, right? I definitely think we do that. But as for genuine mis or disinformation. No, no, I don't. We do branding.
- [38:02]
B
Okay. Because Trump really attacked these outlets. So I just feel like there's some.
- [38:05]
A
Validity to it, to what he's saying.
- [38:08]
B
About just how they're painting him in a certain way and just spreading misinformation.
- [38:13]
A
Oh, look who becomes a reporter.
- [38:16]
B
Right?
- [38:17]
A
Like, yeah, there was once a point where reporters were like, it was like a blue collar profession. Right. And I think a lot of reporters become reporters. They get into journalism because they want to have this be in the proximity of power. Right. And at a certain point, let's say you enter, I don't know, you got a job at the New York Times as a conservative or something. Yeah, I could see someone, maybe they were hired as the token conservative. I could see them maybe moving their politics a little bit because it's just easier that way to get along.
- [38:50]
B
You get more views too.
- [38:51]
A
Yeah, you might get more views.
- [38:52]
B
Well, negative headlines are proven to get way more views.
- [38:55]
A
Absolutely. I mean there was a look, there was a. This company was called channel three, channel three news.com and this, this company basically faked the name, faked an Arab name for this dude who stabbed a bunch of girls in England in Southport, England. And I've already decided I'm going to find out who these people are and expose them. Like.
- [39:17]
B
Wow.
- [39:18]
A
Yeah. Oh yeah, that's Train just leaving the station on this one. But one, one British reporter actually, I think she might have gotten to it before me. But these guys, their website, first I thought, oh, is this a Russian run website spreading disinformation and. No, it's, I think it's an Indian, Pakistani run website that's just designed to sell ads.
- [39:36]
B
Wow. So they just want clicks.
- [39:37]
A
They just lie. They just want clicks. They just lie about stuff and get clicks.
- [39:41]
B
Damn.
- [39:42]
A
Oh, I'm, I'm going to shut them down.
- [39:43]
B
You're going after these guys?
- [39:44]
A
Yeah.
- [39:46]
B
Can't wait to see it, Rya. And it's been fun. Where can people find you and find out what you're up to?
- [39:52]
A
Well, I, you can find me on YouTube. Ryan McBe programming. Also have a substack, Ryan McBeubstack.com Instagram is the real Ryan McBe. And you know, feel free to join me and let's fight some disinformation.
- [40:04]
B
Let's fight it, man. Cheers. Thanks for watching guys, as always. See you next time.