#389 - “Powder KEG!” - Epstein, Iran, Inside Hezbollah & Israeli Settlements | RocaNews

Summary

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Julian Dorey Podcast #389 “Powder KEG!” - Epstein, Iran, Inside Hezbollah & Israeli Settlements | RocaNews

Release Date: February 27, 2026
Guests: Max Frost and Frost (RocaNews)
Host: Julian Dorey

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Overview

Julian Dorey hosts RocaNews founders for a wide-ranging, high-octane, and deeply reported conversation centering on geopolitics, the Jeffrey Epstein files, the ground reality in the Middle East (Lebanon, Israel, West Bank), shifting alliances with Iran, and the nature of modern conspiracies. The episode closely examines current events through on-the-ground stories, first-person reporting, and sharp, sometimes emotional, debate on the media, governments, and society’s response to systemic abuses of power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Nature of News in 2026 & The “Wild Moment” (00:41 – 03:01)

• Julian, Max, and Frost open discussing how fast current events move—what seemed critical (like Venezuela) is almost ancient history compared to today’s headlines (“That was like 40 wars ago” - Max, 01:44).
• They agree: "It's been insane for news. And then AI talk about..." (Max, 01:52).

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2. Reporting from the Middle East: Recent On-the-Ground Experience (04:08 – 14:13)

• Frost details a recent reporting trip to Lebanon, Israel/West Bank, and Egypt (“Lebanon. Israel, slash the West Bank. And Egypt. Egypt. Not really for work purposes. Just want to see the pyramids.” - Frost, 04:33).
• Vivid description of Egypt and ancient sites: “It's like it was built for giants. Like, it straight up makes no sense.” (Frost, 05:02)
• Debates how modern generations may one day struggle to understand even present-day engineering.

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3. Southwest U.S. Border & Tech in the Desert (08:01 – 08:57)

• Reportage from border towns and encounters with high-tech military hardware.
• “Stuff that's going on there right now…The stuff you see in the desert…is mind-blowing. I mean, like jets and airplanes, stuff that you've like never…They're just flying all over the place.” - Frost, 08:10

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4. Lebanon & Hezbollah: Visiting “Hezbollah Land” (10:35 – 19:49)

• Lebanon’s Fragmented Reality: “It's kind of three countries really…Lebanon. Then like the Shia part, the Hezbollah part…” (Frost, 11:00)
• Hezbollah’s Complexity: “Hezbollah is not what you think it is…Hezbollah has been totally weakened…Lebanese military is in the process of, like, taking back control of all these places ever since the war.” (Frost, 12:42)
• Life on the Border: “We're sitting there, like, literally…you're looking at it and very chill. We're sitting out, we're having tea. This guy, he was like the mayor of the town…” (Frost, 16:01)
• Unease as Shelling Begins: “All of a sudden…we start hearing shelling all around. And it went on. I mean, it was like a while.” (Frost, 16:20)
• Locals unfazed by ongoing violence—"He didn't even move his head…just totally unfazed." (Frost, 18:08)

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5. Israel–Hezbollah–Gaza: The Logic of Precision and Disproportionality (19:49 – 32:33)

• Israeli Strikes: Precision in Lebanon vs. devastation in Gaza—“They're not trying to [destroy everything in Lebanon]… Gaza is one thing, you look at the way they conducted the war in Lebanon [it’s] totally different from what happened in Gaza.” (Frost, 16:58)
• Hezbollah Attacks and Israeli Responses: “Hezbollah…forced Israel to do this…who suffers? All the Lebanese people.” (Frost, 23:32)
• Crossing the Line: Julian emphasizes difficulty of supporting Israeli government actions when collective punishment becomes disproportionate: “The response at some point crosses disproportionality, and then they continue drastically after that…” (Julian, 24:11)
• Empathy for All Sides: “It's very easy if you actually stand, listen to people…very easy to feel empathy for all people involved.” (Frost, 27:06)

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6. The Israeli Political System, Settlements & Society’s Attitudes (28:45 – 40:42)

• Settlement Support: After October 7th, greater support for settlements: “Before October 7th, it was kind of 50/50…now it’s way more in favor…” (Frost, 30:36).
• Israel’s Multi-Party Politics: "You have a government there that has been put in place by 25% of the people…it’s a lot of the orthodox community and the hard, hardliners." (Julian, 32:13)
• Government vs. Citizens: “People are not their governments…when I criticize intelligence services, I'm not criticizing the people.” (Julian, 31:07)
• Extreme Power-Holders: “On Netanyahu, the government is predicated on having their support…the coalition building…it is the hard right side and there was all this political turmoil before October 7th.” (Frost, 34:11)

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7. Settler Violence, Law, and Plausible Deniability (37:59 – 45:34)

• On-the-ground settler violence: “The settlers will drive them [Bedouin] off so they have more land for the settlements. But again, the land doesn't really belong to anyone…” (Frost, 37:59)
• Lawlessness & Responsibility: “Do they come in and actually treat it like Sherlock Holmes?” (Julian, 40:07) — “That's where the government matters…the people who control the police right now aren’t policing this stuff. It’s politics.” (Frost, 40:10)
• Incentivizing Violence: “If you kill an Israeli…you get payments from the Palestinian government to your family for the rest of your lives.” (Frost, 41:27)

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8. Everyday Life in the West Bank & Checkpoints (44:22 – 46:25)

• Checkpoint Occupation: “The most tangible form of occupation…is when they drive from city to city…they may have to sit for hours in traffic because there’s a roadblock.” (Frost, 44:22)
• Cycle of Violence: “The violence certainly doesn't achieve anything. That’s the one thing I've really…I think you are right.” (Frost, 45:34)

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9. October 7th’s Impact & Israeli Trauma (47:38 – 61:50)

• Profound Trauma: On visiting the kibbutz: “It's as though it was just obliterated…everything is burned, everything is gone.” (Frost, 46:26)
• Paradigm Shift: “The mental scar that this has taken on the people there is vast. Now this is not to minimize the situation in Gaza at all…simply put…It was every single person's, their worst fear manifest.” (Frost, 59:23)
• Shifts in Israeli Policy: Now, security first: “We're not even going to let them get to the position where something can happen, happen. So that's why you now have persistent shelling in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire…” (Frost, 59:24)

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10. Geopolitics of Iran & U.S. War Maneuvering (79:54 – 103:11)

• Trump-era War Drums: Real-time disclosure of administration's intentions to attack Iran; many interpret this as a “sugar high” for Trump’s legacy, not strategic necessity.
• Risks: “It is in the middle of a cultural pipe bomb. No pun intended. You were talking about the Middle East. This is not Venezuela, bro…” (Julian, 79:55)
• Diaspora Perspective: On Iranian immigrants in LA: “Dude, they are the most anti Islamic people I have ever met…they don’t view Islam even as a religion…it is the state ideology.” (Frost, 84:54)
• Hard Realities: “If Trump goes ahead…he has put so much pressure on himself to do something…that’s where you can trip yourself into a war.” (Frost, 96:03)

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11. Middle East Realignments & Sunni–Shia Dynamics (99:22 – 102:09)

• Breakdown of Old Alliances: “The whole Middle East is repositioning itself right now as though Iran is already irrelevant…Sunni versus Shia is not really relevant, Sunni versus Sunni…and Turkey wants to recreate their own Ottoman Empire in a way.” (Frost, 99:53)
• Turkey's Underestimated Role: “We sleep on Turkey a lot.” (Julian/Frost, 101:04)

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12. Inside Hezbollah & “Country Within a Country” (102:49 – 108:24)

• State Within a State: “Hezbollah, you got two things. You have the political party, then you have the armed…Hezbollah grocery stores, you have Hezbollah banks…it is a country within a country.” (Frost, 103:17)
• Cautious Reporting: “You will disappear if they don’t want you there…The worst—what you don't want—is to be labeled a spy.” (Frost, 104:11)
• Current Strength: “Hezbollah is much less present, visibly present now than they were before…if you are very, very…I think nine times out of 10, you wouldn't have any issues…” (Frost, 107:56)

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13. The Epstein Files: New Revelations & Theories (109:33 – 170:21)

• Sheer Breadth: “You have everyone from Peter Attia to, you know, all kinds of diplomats, all kinds of businessmen, all kinds of elites involved in one way or another.” (Max, 109:33)
• Danger of Theories: "Our role is to focus on the substance…and not let the crazies derail it." (Max, 110:41)
• Emotional Response: “I've lost it a few times since this case has come out, and I make no apologies for that.” (Julian, 128:16)
• Criminality vs. Society’s Blacklist: “Is Bill Gates criminally implicated?…We start to look at Bill and Melinda Gates foundation or the Bill Gates foundation, and just go, okay, this is no longer a treasured thing…” (Max, 132:21)
• Protecting ‘The System’: “If there’s one thing that…you are not coming back from—it’s being a pedo. It is the ultimate…Scarlet letter…” (Julian, 134:50)
• The Fixers & Super-Government: “Tucker is really spot on about this…a super government…Jeffrey Epstein is the fixer who works for the real people.” (Julian, 119:18)
• Transparency and Caution: “The harder thing to do, but the right way to go about this is…imagine the greatest, biggest…most historical mansion…you don’t tear it down—you go room by room…That’s what we got to do.” (Julian, 135:05)
• Room By Room Justice: “Room by room. But I guess find the rooms that actually have asbestos.” (Frost, 139:09)
• “Burning everything down” — not the answer: “If you burn down all of Western civilization overnight…the world as we know it ends. Instead…the right way is…one by one, and clean it out.” (Julian, 135:05)
• AI & Distractions: Max, Frost, and Julian note that while Epstein should not be forgotten, AI is “potentially the most destabilizing period ever for, for the U.S. …and, like, that’s where you can trip yourself into a war.” (Frost, 157:23, 96:03)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

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• On Living Near War (Lebanon):
  “We're sitting out, we're having tea…very chill. This guy…he was like the mayor of the town…beautiful everything…now you see how we live. Now you see it.” (Frost, 16:00/18:08)

• On the U.S. Perspective:
  “I feel so fortunate to live here…for all our problems, goddamn, like, whoa, happy to be here…we've never been invaded…It really shows.” (Julian, 20:51)

• Israeli/Palestinian Empathy:
  "It's very easy…to feel empathy for all people involved." (Frost, 27:06)

• Cycle of Violence and Checkpoints:
  “The violence certainly doesn't achieve anything. That’s the one thing I've really…you are proven right throughout history with that, unfortunately.” (Frost to Julian, 45:34)

• On October 7th’s psychological toll:
  “The mental scar that this has taken on the people there is vast…just everyone’s like, oh, it’s like 9 9/11s or whatever…It was every single person's, their worst fear manifest.” (Frost, 59:23)

• On American Power & Iran:
  “It looks like we're going to…do this. And it's…the wrong move. This is a country of 92 million people. It is in the middle of a cultural pipe bomb. No pun intended.” (Julian, 79:55)

• Epstein Files: All Is Not Conspiracy:
  “If you burn down all of Western civilization overnight…the world as we know it ends. Instead…the right way is…one by one, and clean it out.” (Julian, 135:05)

• News Business in Wild Times:
  “Look, it's a good time to be in the news business.” (Julian, 167:34)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Lebanon and “Hezbollah Land”: 10:35 – 19:49
• Israeli settlements & politics: 28:45 – 40:42
• West Bank daily oppression: 44:22 – 46:25
• On-the-ground Hezbollah talk: 102:49 – 108:24
• Epstein files, logic of prosecution: 109:33 – end (esp. 127:14 – 170:21)
• AI and distraction “soup du jour”: 157:23 – 161:30

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Tone & Style

• Direct, urgent, and often emotional—especially from Julian; deeply reported, serious, but self-aware; mixes first-person accounts with macro-level analysis; hosts and guests are lucid about complexity, nuance, and the danger of oversimplification.
• Sarcastic humor, bleak realism, but ultimately driven by a belief that open reporting and “room-by-room” reform is essential.

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Final Thoughts

The episode weaves together the whirlwind of world events—war, politics, intelligence, and accountability—against the stark backdrop of personal trauma, global corruption, and media responsibility. The RocaNews team’s first-hand experiences in the Middle East shine against Julian’s relentless drive to keep issues like Epstein’s crimes in the public eye. The conversation blends on-the-ground reality with a high-altitude view of geopolitical chess, all while warning against both conspiracy-for-conspiracy’s-sake and the cynicism that would throw out the baby with the bathwater.

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For listeners:
This episode is a masterclass in critical media literacy, real-world reporting, and the importance of nuance—and an unflinching reminder that some tragedies and crimes are too big to ignore or bury.

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Subscribe to RocaNews and Julian Dorey for further multi-part reporting referenced in the episode.

Transcript

[Julian]

Ugh.

[Frost]

You said you were over him, but his hoodie's still in your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics and sell it on depop. Listed in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue. Hey, still got my hoodie? Nope. But I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on depop, where taste recognizes taste list. Now with no selling fees, payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.

[Julian]

Because he lives on the hill. We're on air now. So I'm talking about one of my editors, Christian Venezuelan. He lives on like the hill above Caracas. And so in the middle of the night, these choppers come over. He's like, what the.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Runs outside and he just. He's like, bro, it was crazy, man.

[Max]

Are you just. You.

[Julian]

Boom, boom. We were cheering. He was like, you usa. This was amazing. I was like, well, I'm glad you're alive. They were watching it like the super bowl out there.

[Max]

Yeah. Wasn't there the theory too that on that hill, the mausoleum with Chavez. Right, Chavez, Yeah.

[Frost]

Was that true? Did they find that Rubio.

[Max]

They claimed that Rubio, out of spite, bombed that too. I don't know if it was true. I. I saw one thing rebutting it,

[Julian]

but I haven't even heard that.

[Max]

Yeah, I think on that, like up there. Wild, dude. Wild. Wild. Few months in news.

[Julian]

Yeah. Remember when we were on the phone like two days after Venezuela scheduling this, like. Oh, yeah, we'll talk about Venezuela. Yeah, that was like 40 wars ago.

[Max]

And then. Exactly. Yeah, that we have Iran, so the big M. We also have the big E to talk about the big.

[Julian]

Oh, the big. The big E. The big J.

[Max]

The big J. A lot of. No, but seriously, it's been insane for news. And then AI talk about.

[Julian]

We got to talk about that story today. I want to. I want to hear about that. We're talking about that before here. But it's great to have you guys here again. Enjoyed it a ton last time. I think this will be a regular kind of thing. What you guys are doing with your channels is amazing. And you also on Instagram. I love the. I know you're getting to more videos now, but I love just like the news wrap ups and everything. No, just here's what's happening. No opinions on it. It's God's work, so please continue it. Seriously. Thank you.

[Max]

Thank you, brother. Thank you. Yeah, it's been hard to do God's work. Because man's domain has been popping off lately. But. But no, we. We are pumped to be back and, you know, it's been exciting to see everything you all have been doing too. And see Johnny K go crazy like that and. Yeah, crazy time. I mean, truly crazy time. I know people fall back on. It really is a wild, wild moment.

[Frost]

When were we here last? Was it August?

[Julian]

Yeah, it was the end of August. Two days later, Def and me went to B and H and bought the store.

[Max]

That's right. That's right.

[Frost]

Say the lenses weren't so big.

[Max]

Yeah. You were like, these guys look awful. We need better cameras. Yeah.

[Julian]

I was like, pay your rent for

[Max]

the next three months.

[Julian]

Give me that. And they sent security out. That was the worst sense.

[Frost]

Security.

[Julian]

They sent secure. They wouldn't let me pay for it. They're like, no, no, this don't look right. Security came out. They're like, I'm gonna need a seat id. I'm like, do I look like that poor?

[Frost]

Do you trust the B and H team? You know, they're so good at selling stuff and they say they don't take money when they make a recommendation. Do you believe them?

[Julian]

Depends on the department, source, subject.

[Max]

Interesting.

[Julian]

They do a nice job over there.

[Max]

Yeah, I do think. I mean, they aren't commission camera on

[Julian]

you,

[Frost]

the B H team.

[Max]

Some of the greatest employees of any

[Julian]

business establishment that exists.

[Frost]

And I'll leave it at that.

[Max]

Excellent. All right, so we've got a little nice ambiguity to start the show. We love that.

[Julian]

That's right. We'll definitely. We'll definitely talk je today for sure.

[Max]

Yeah. Like.

[Julian]

Because I haven't had a chance to even talk with either.

[Max]

Yeah, we haven't talked about it and

[Julian]

there's obviously so much on the bone, but we've been doing a lot of that. It is the biggest story in the world. We are going to continue to cover it. Going to try to cover this thing up. I'm going to do my little teeny tiny part here to try to not let that happen. But I understand that you just took quite a trip to the Middle east to do some documentaries.

[Frost]

I did. I'm glad to be home safe and sound in New York City. Yeah, man, it was a good trip.

[Julian]

Where'd you go?

[Frost]

Lebanon. Israel, slash the West Bank. And Egypt. Egypt. Not really for work purposes. Just want to see the pyramids.

[Julian]

All right, well, let's start there. That's fun.

[Frost]

The pyramids. You know, a lot of people hate on it going there and like how like all like the touts and scams, all this kind of shit. I love the. Dude, it's awesome. And just being there, honestly being there, walking inside. Have you been?

[Julian]

I was there when I was 18. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but I couldn't fully appreciate at the time. Now I'd be like, oh, my God,

[Frost]

did you go and you look at it, you're just like. I mean, everyone has the same response, like how they do this. But dude, it's like. It's like it was built for giants. Like, it straight up makes no sense. And I don't know anything about it. I'm not going to talk. But just like the feeling of being there is. Is like all inducing. It makes no. It makes no sense. I saw this morning, the same day we were. There's. Did you go to Luxor? When you're there, like in the south, they have like all the big temples and the tombs and stuff like that. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

The whole thing.

[Frost]

Tiffany Trump was there the same day as us.

[Julian]

No way.

[Frost]

So didn't see her.

[Julian]

But yeah, she got the private tour, I'm sure.

[Frost]

No, in the picture, there are a bunch of people. Seemed like everyone was there, just chilling, just.

[Max]

Well, she's the Trump kid that nobody ever talks about, so I think they. She. She didn't even need Secret Service. She just showed up and nobody knew it. Tiffany looked like.

[Julian]

But it's like that kid in Cheaper by the Dozen where they forget FedEx.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Nothing but love for Tiffany.

[Frost]

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

That's a dangerous term to use, though. Looks like it was built for giants. I mean, we're on YouTube right now. People's heads are.

[Frost]

They're going there. Yeah, it's crazy, man. I mean, I don't. I don't know. I was just on the whole flight back, you know, 12 hours. I downloaded all the Rogan Pyramid episodes and I was just listening through those. I was like. I was like, oh, yeah, dude. Nuclear clear fusion. That makes a ton of sense.

[Julian]

I gotta have one. Who's the one guy Danny Jones just had on twice? Landa Kim, okay. Who lives out there and he's got like. He brings a lot of receipts for these other guys who will come up with all these theories. And this dude who's there, I guess, like every day because he lives there, it's like, nope, here's why that doesn't work. But also, he doesn't believe the story as we've been told. Which, you know, even if it Isn't the craziest possible outcome the idea that they're still trying to be like, yeah, no, they just got built. You know, they took these 40 billion ton rocks from 150 miles away, no problem, got it done in 20 years. It's like, come on. Yeah, you know.

[Max]

You know, I do think that in the future, I'm not denying that there could be some wild theory on the Egyptian pyramids that that that one of those wild theories might be true. But I was thinking the other day, if you like, I'm amazed at how regular shit gets built. Like being in West Virginia and seeing a train track across mountains. I'm like, how did they do this?

[Julian]

Right?

[Max]

And you think about like the next couple of generations in an AI world where everything's going to be so automated and a lot of human thinking and innovation will be kind of factored out and robots will be making those. They'll wonder how we built the most basic stuff like a stealth bomber, you know, in an era.

[Frost]

The most basic stuff.

[Max]

That is so true. That is so true. You know the kind of shit you build when you're a kid. Like a stealth bomber beef. But no, but in all seriousness, like a lot of the technologies we invented way before we had a personal computer, like, that's an insane thing.

[Julian]

It's not.

[Max]

Yeah, humanity's wild. But also, I think if we've learned. Yeah, phone.

[Julian]

No, they weren't scrolling this.

[Max]

Oh, they weren't able to go, dude,

[Frost]

before, before this Middle east trip two weeks before we are. We did. We shot a bunch of videos in the Southwest, starting in Vegas and down to the border with Mexico. Spent a few days like in the border towns there.

[Julian]

No, we got to talk about that today too.

[Frost]

That dude, that was. Honestly, given the stuff that's going on there right now. We were with the National Guard, our videographer me. That's a whole nother thing. But dude, the stuff you see in the desert in like Death Valley, you know, they have like all like the high tech, like all. That's where they test all their jets and like the test pilots and all this kind of stuff. The Air Force, dude, the you see just driving around is. Is mind blowing. I mean like jets and airplanes, stuff that you've like never. You, you look at, you're like, what is that thing? And they're just flying all over the place. It's crazy. Yeah, we got some on camera that you look at like, holy.

[Julian]

How long ago was that? You were there?

[Frost]

January 10th.

[Max]

He had back to, back to back two week trips to the southwest and then Middle East. Yeah.

[Frost]

With. In the. In between our third co founders. Bachelor party in Miami.

[Julian]

There you go. That's. Wow.

[Max]

I had to break it.

[Julian]

Wow. Mexico for blow. Bring it back to Miami, get it all done. Get the hookers out, go the Middle East. Cover yourself up. Exactly. That's it.

[Frost]

You gotta get the energy somewhere.

[Julian]

That's right. So. So you were in Lebanon though too? Did you ever see my buddy Brandon Buckingham's documentary on that?

[Frost]

No.

[Julian]

So Brandon was on a plane to go to India for some festival. This is back. Oh, can we look this up? I want to say it's September 2024 if I remember correctly. But he on the way to India on his layover, something goes wrong with his visa. So he's like, well, I'm already out here, where should I go? Decides to go to Lebanon, lands in Lebanon, the bombs start falling like that. Like literally the next day while he's there. But he films this amazing hour, 25 minute documentary and all these, all these different Lebanese kids are talking about, you know, it's like normal, they're having a good time. Like this beautiful country, all this stuff and they're all dead. Like they're all dead

[Max]

insane.

[Frost]

What were they?

[Julian]

They just got hit after the documentary came out, obviously. But that's why I'm curious, like what did you, where were you? Take me there. Like, what was it like now? What are the people saying?

[Frost]

Lifelock. How can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do?

[Julian]

My refund though.

[Frost]

I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix it. This lifelock fixes identity theft, guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage. I'm so relieved.

[Julian]

No problem.

[Frost]

I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Dude, depend. It totally depends on where you are. I mean, you know, it's so, so divided obviously about half the country Shia aligned with Iran. Generally Hezbollah, 40, 35, 40, Christian rest Sunni. And depending where you go, it's totally different.

[Julian]

Right.

[Frost]

It's kind of three countries really. It's like two countries in one. Lebanon. Then like the Shia part, the Hezbollah part, The, the people we were with there, the Lebanese, they call it Hezbollah land. Has bowl of land. We went to Hezbollah land two days of the trip, which is surreal and we went to the. We went. At first, I was like, I don't know. We're gonna go. A reader of ours got in touch. He's from there. Oh, wow. And just like got into separately, like five months.

[Max]

We're huge in Hezbollah.

[Frost]

We're huge.

[Max]

That's our biggest market.

[Frost]

He said he sent an email, just like the Roka email, like the Roka inbox. And just like, hey, man, I really love your guys stuff, whatever. And I missed it. But someone on our team said a couple weeks later, like, hey, you said email from the guy in Lebanon. I was like, no. So I got on the phone with him. I just like the guy. We had a good conversation, stayed in touch, and they invited me to come visit. So I kind of planned the trip around that. And yeah, we did. One day we went to Balbeck, which is eastern, on the border with Syria. That's Hezbollah territory. That's where Hezbollah was created. It's like their stronghold or whatever. We went to. We went up the coast yet, bro. That place insane. It's. If this were in Europe, it would be the most visited place ever, bro. Cuz it's where it is. Zero people there. There in their buyers, dude. Unbelievable. Unbelievable place.

[Julian]

What is that called? Deep. The temple of. The Temple of Bacchus. It's like. I mean, that's got Acropolis vibes to it, bro.

[Frost]

It is unbelievable. I mean, to be in there by yourself.

[Julian]

You went in there by yourself.

[Frost]

Oh, there's no one there. There is no one there.

[Julian]

You couldn't, like, live stream that or something? Yo, what up, fam chat? Way in here, bro.

[Frost]

I think. I think if Hezbollah finds out you're in. You're on their turf. Live streaming, it doesn't.

[Julian]

It doesn't end well.

[Frost]

But we did. So we did it. We spent a day driving out there, and we interviewed a guy in Hezbollah in that town right nearby, which is openly.

[Max]

How do you know he's in hesitant. Do they have guard?

[Frost]

Well, dude, it's different than you think. I mean, I mean, the. The Hezbollah thing, that's one of the most interesting things that. That I learned. I mean, there's so many interesting things, but Hezbollah is not what you think it is. Like, they don't. In my head, I was like, oh, you. You probably can't go to these places. There's armed men out in the street. That's not what it's like. That's just not what it's like. At one point, maybe it was a bit more like that, but Hezbollah has been totally weakened and like, now it's like the Lebanese military is in the process of, like, taking back control of all these places ever since the war. So October 2024.

[Julian]

So wait, so the Lebanese military is now taking back control from Hezbollah?

[Frost]

They're trying to. And this is. And here's the thing.

[Julian]

Pagers.

[Frost]

You, You. There's a warning, dude, when you're checking in for your flight to Lebanon, there's a warning saying, no pagers on board.

[Julian]

Yeah. You're like, yeah, 1999 call. Don't worry, I didn't answer.

[Max]

Exactly.

[Frost]

That's why I was MIA for the two weeks I was over there.

[Julian]

Yeah. What are you watching? The wire out here.

[Frost]

So whatever. So. So we were there for a day, then we went a day up the coast. There's Christian areas on the coast, really beautiful. Up to. At the top of the city called Tripoli. That's very troubled. It's like the poorest city in Lebanon. Sunni, some extremism.

[Julian]

It's.

[Frost]

It's divided between Alawites, like the Syrian, like Assad's group, and Sunnis, and they have their own kind of conflict there. Then a day just in Beirut, which is an amazing place.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

And then a day we went down. Literally, we were so close to Israel, like, deep in, like the. I mean, it's a war zone. And on the deep. Close enough on the border that our phones connected to the Israeli Internet, like, lte.

[Julian]

While there, you get a little spooked being that close to it, dude.

[Frost]

That. That experience. Yeah. So we were there, we went. So we learned. There's this. There's a town that's called Hasbaya. If you can look on the map just to show where it is. It's H A S B A I Ya. I think. And you'll see. Hold on.

[Julian]

Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. It's a huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pin comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below.

[Frost]

Yeah, you see it zoom out a little bit deep. So you see on the map here.

[Julian]

All right, deep.

[Frost]

We'll throw this up so you can see from. From Hezbaya. Just. Sorry, go to a bit more just to get the. Get the Full context of it. So from Hezbiah to the border of Israel is probably like six miles or so. Five, I don't know, 10 miles. Lebanon's such a small country. Lebanon's smaller than Qatar. It's like, it's. It's tiny.

[Max]

Wow.

[Frost]

So from there to the borders, like five, like, six or ten miles or so. But we went there because they're interviewing a guy that this guy there had started kind of like a wework type thing, trying to do, like, startups and like, the heads below, like the war zone, which is crazy. And we went there to interview the people who are working there. And one of the people there was like, hey, my uncle lives on the border. Like, you can see Israel from his house. Like, it's right there. He's like. She's like, do you want to go? I'm like, is it safe? Yeah, absolutely. Get there. And we're sitting there, like, literally. I mean, again, like, I'm not. I'm not kidding. From here to, like, the back of your building would be Israel. Like, like that close. You're looking at it and very chill. We're sitting out, we're having tea. This guy, he was like the mayor of the town. He's got this big orchard and just.

[Julian]

With the mayor.

[Frost]

Yeah. And they're not. They're not Shia, though. It's their Drews. And that's. That's a complicated thing.

[Julian]

Uz e. Yeah.

[Frost]

Whichever in there. When some. They kept saying on video, and they're like, yeah, it's all the Jews live there. It's like, no, the Drew.

[Max]

The Drew there.

[Julian]

It's like, Pam or pan for the Middle East.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Frost]

Well, we were there and we were talking, and all of a sudden, beautiful. I mean, beautiful day, Beautiful everything. We're like, oh, how nice is this? Like, we're in a war zone. And they're like, look how safe it is. It's fine. Like, people can come visit. They can come see how we live and whatever. Five seconds later, and we start hearing shelling all around. And it went on. I mean, it was like a while.

[Julian]

And after kind of showing, like, well,

[Frost]

we don't know the. Yeah, I did my research before going. And there I couldn't find any instances. Once, maybe once a month, there was like a drone strike in this area. And on targeting, you know, it's a Hezbollah, whatever.

[Julian]

It's like, I'll take my chances.

[Frost]

Yeah. I mean, just once a month strike, you just want to watch for it. I mean, dude. The dude the, the Israelis are so precise. And like, obviously when they, when they want to be. Dude, in Lebanon. The thing is in Lebanon, they're not trying to like, you know, Gaza is one thing. You look at the way they conducted the war in Lebanon totally different from what happened in Gaza. And this is the thing in Lebanon that a lot of people are like, they look at it as proof. There's two ways to look at it. When we were in Baalbek, in the city with that temple, we were sitting in this plaza. You're surrounded. Hezbollah flags everywhere, pictures of like Hassan Nasrallah and the Ayatollahs and whatever. Literally in the corner of like the plaza, there's a blown out building and like huge, just wrecked. Just the bottom of like a five story building. Just the one corner is blown out. And I was like, what happened here? And the guy we're with, I was like, well, that was like a Hezbollah bank. And dude, so dense. I mean like a Manhattan block. And boom. Right there, right there. Nothing else touched. And they're like, it's. It's crazy. I mean, straight up to see it. It's wild. Everything else is fine. Literally, people were sitting there. People told us they were sitting there at the same place as us having lunch, just like that. And they went on with their, they went on with their day. And it's like, that's the precision that they can operate with.

[Julian]

Yes, that they can operate with.

[Frost]

Yeah. And now Gaza, you know, that we can talk about because I went down to that. You can't go into Gaza still.

[Julian]

They, yeah, we're gonna get there. Let's stay with Lebanon.

[Frost]

But yeah, but yeah, so essentially I was like, oh, it's. Well, you know, if they want to. I'm hoping they don't want to kill me. And they, you know, they're going for the Hezbollah guys and we'll be fine. Um, but the fact is the, the stuff that happens are just not reported. Right? Like shelling and this kind of stuff, it's not making the global news. It's not something you can Google and find it. So, yeah, when we saw. And they just started laughing. The guys were with, they started laughing like, now you see how we live. Now you see it. And then they're like. And they could, they all said the same thing. They're like, we're glad you saw this. And then as we were driving back to the city, we kept hearing it in, around not like maybe like seven, eight times. And it was funny. We're driving this car, two cars in front of us is. So I'm with my one friend, Ramsey, Lebanese guy. And the car in front of us is a local guy, Osama, who's like taking us around. And then a car in front of him is just a pickup truck with like a Lebanese laborer in the back. Like 18 year old kid. He's just sitting in the pickup truck just like this, just watching us, just like looking out, you know, literally we hear over our heads and then right over the hill. And this kid, I was like, I was like, I was like, holy. I mean, dude, he didn't even move his head. He just sat there like that. And they're just totally unfazed. Totally unfazed. And it was, I mean it was wild. It was, it was a wild experience. But I mean, they're still in. The question is like, what are they doing? Why is this happening still? It's very, it's complicated. I mean, we subsequently went to the Israeli side of the border where there you hear the shelling in Lebanon from the Israeli side. And it's like, where are they?

[Julian]

Where are they firing it from?

[Frost]

Dude, this is the que. This is the question no one can answer. When I first heard the shell, when I first heard it, I thought it was artillery. And it was like a, like a deep boom. It sounded like artillery. And we couldn't hear the humming of drones. Now in all these places after being like in like by the border with Gaza, Lebanon, you hear the, the, you know, the sound of a drone, like when you're, when you're over there, it's just like literally to the point we're going to go to dinner one night in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which is where Hezbollah is based. But it's like still a normal area. This is the misconception. It's still like, like you can go, you just can't like take pictures and you got to be careful a little bit. But literally we're going to go to dinner and then someone called us and like just, you know, there's a drone over Dahia, which is the name of the neighborhood. They're like, I wouldn't go. So we didn't go. But like people just know. You hear it, you see it, like, whatever. But so we don't know the people, the people in Lebanon were like, it's a drone strike. And they're like, it's always drones. But we couldn't hear the drone. It sounded like artillery. Someone subsequently in Israel said it's most likely a drone, but we couldn't hear the drone. So who Knows. No one knows.

[Julian]

But I always think about this idea all the time because I feel so fortunate to live here and be born here, which you don't get to decide where you're born. It's like winning the fucking lottery to me, being here for all our problems. God damn. Like, whoa, happy to be here. But the thing that kind of bothers me about a lot of society with our complacency, is that, you know, we've never been invaded with the exception of the war, 1812, and a couple terrorist attacks. And it really shows.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Like, there's this idea that it's like no one can come across the Atlantic or do something like that. But what you're seeing up close is people who, because of the geography of where they live every day, walk outside, they want to order a pizza or do whatever they do. Shells coming over, drones coming over, precision strikes happening. And it's like, we're lucky to live here.

[Max]

What's the Israeli rationale for those shells and the continued.

[Frost]

I mean, the basic rationale is Hezbollah is trying to rearm and whenever Israel sees anything, gets wind of anyone who's trying to bring artillery, rockets, guns anywhere in the vicinity of Israel, they strike them. That's not what was going on. The shelling is different. Like, that's. That's a precision drone strike. Yeah, right. If, like, what we heard eight different explosions. And the people said, this happens all the time. They don't kill anyone. I asked, I was like, how many people in this town have been killed from. From this, like, you say, you hear it all the time, how people have been killed. They said, zero. So it's not about that. And what military kind of strategy says, you know, a lot of, like, artillery is about denial. It's about making it so people can't use certain areas. Lebanese people think a lot of them, that they're trying to depopulate these areas along the border by making it so impossible for them to live there that they move. When I was in Israel and we heard the explosions over the border, the guy I was with said, who. Who was. You know, I mean, he had been in the. Obviously, like, I'm in the military. Been the Israel. Everyone in Israel's been in the military. He said, they probably saw a terrorist. You know, who knows? Like, who's a terrorist, though?

[Julian]

That's the question, right?

[Frost]

And Baalbek, the guy, the Hezbollah guy we were with, he's like, they say we're all terrorists. He goes, these are all terrorists. These are all terrorists. But the thing, I mean, Hezbollah. I mean, Hezbollah, I mean, it is a political organization. It's a political party. But they're, I mean, to me, the whole thing that they did after October 7th was just stupid. It was, it was moronic. I mean, I don't care. Even if, even if you support their thing and you support the resistance and you support this and that, why would you attack Israel? And then they got destroyed.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

And, and they did it. And their method of attacking was rocket attacks on civilians. And it's like they forced Israel to do this. Now, maybe Israel would have done either way, but the fact is, yeah, they, they did it. And it's like, and then who suffers? Well, all the Lebanese people who are, who live in these areas and who are stuck in the middle. That's why there is a huge appetite. Huge. No one in Lebanon likes Israel. I mean, you're not going to find them. Some of the Druze people maybe. Yet a lot of them are like, well, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend in the, in this, in the, in terms of. They hate Hezbollah, they view Hezbollah as breaking the country. And if Israel is going to kill them, you know, they like their sovereignty, but they don't, you know.

[Julian]

All right, so I have a lot of questions here, but it's a really important point you just made right there, because that's the thing. When a group like that has some power within a country where they take apart the vacuum, if you will, they then take actions that is collectively punished on everyone else. And I think where I run into a problem with Israel and other people have run into a problem with them, is that the response at some point crosses disproportionality, and then they continue drastically after that. And also, you know, there's the matter of also provoking attacks in other ways. What you're pointing out with Lebanon, though, is a good example of where Hezbollah was just like, all right, it, send it. And you're not good. You're not going to beat the Israeli military.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

If you're Hezbollah, it's just what it. But you also point out the precision of strikes, and we saw very similar precision. I will give Israel credit for this. When they attacked Iran before they fucking dragged us into it back in June, their strikes were very precise at the locations of who they wanted to get. And that's where people run into a problem. Because as you pointed out, you then look at Gaza and you're like, you're just taking out whole city blocks because It's Tuesday at 11am and I guess we, we Gotta meet our quota.

[Max]

Well, you know, we never subscribed to the Douglas Murray. You've never doctrine. But I do think that going in to, to this trip, I remember Frost pitching, you know, or just talking about the premise when he was like, I want to do this trip and I'm going to do it is, you know, we thought it would be fascinating to actually, if possible. And he ended up pulling it off, which was amazing. Going to both Lebanon and Israel and seeing the parts of Palestine that you can see and to really immerse yourself and talk to locals and get a real feel for what on the ground is like. And I think for the specific type of coverage you did, you kind of do need to be on the ground. Less of the macro arguments and more. And so it was just fascinating to hear, you know, the rash. And then it comes to, I think the people's, you know, to everyone's own prerogative to judge whether something was disproportional or, or whether you don't even buy the basic premise or whatever it is. I think, I think there's still a lot that the people can decide based on the videos you show and the reporting you have. But I think it's also important to see what you saw because I got to say, getting the play by play updates, it was kind of like, wow, you know, I'm on this team. And then I'm like, oh, I really get how they feel, you know, and, and all the, and then, and then, you know, I mean, so like, I know we're not done with this, this whole trip yet, but it was kind of fascinating to get each side of it. Yeah, yeah.

[Frost]

You know, yeah, the, the main thing I took away, it's very easy if you actually stand, listen to people and you don't have any like objective on it. It's like it's very easy to feel empathy for all people involved.

[Julian]

Yes.

[Frost]

And it's like there's no way, there's no way that you can go to the west bank if you're not someone who has like a stake in like either you like, you know, Israel or Palestine, just like an objective observer and you go and you talk to people and you drive through. There's no way you can have sympathy for the Palestinians chance. But then if you go to Israel and you just talk to, I'm not talking about like the, you know, the idf, whatever. You go talk to everyday Israelis do they all know people who've been killed. It's not like here, it's like, it's, it's like. It's a very different thing. So then again, you talk to them, and then all of a sudden you have to have empathy for them in a way.

[Julian]

Sure.

[Frost]

And it's that and it's the same thing in, in Lebanon. Even the Hezbollah guy we talked to. I mean, we probably talked to a number of them. That's the only guy I know is an Hezbollah. But he.

[Julian]

His.

[Frost]

I mean, this stuff goes back. It's like a blood feud. Like, like, like for him, Israel's. Yeah, I mean, like the original sin, if you want to call it that, for Israel and Lebanon was invading during the Lebanese civil war, trying to. Trying to install friendly Christians to take over Beirut and whatever. That then created a bunch of people, you know, in an Israeli occupation in Lebanon, which then created Hezbollah. And then, you know, and it goes and goes and goes. So now you're in this constant thing, though, where now you have Israelis, you've been killed by Hezbollah, you have Hezbollah. It's like a gang war. You hear this in the inner cities here, right? Where people are, where people are like, well, yeah, I don't know where the feud started, but like, you know, his cousin, the generational. Generational beef. And that's what, that's what it is. I mean, that's what it is. I do think. I think Lebanon is very different than, than Palestine. I like, like, I think the issue with the Israelis and the Lebanese, I think if Hezbollah weren't there, it would be a very different situation then with, with the Palestinians. Without Hamas there. I think you're still going to have the issue with the Palestinians.

[Max]

I've got a question. I'm sure, Julian, you may have some thoughts on this too, but I think this is one of the most. I don't know. I don't think this question ever got enough attention as people do treat Israel like a monolith. And if you think about, like, if you were to cover the United States treatment of the Native Americans, if you went to, we, we did go to Navajo Nation, you got a lot of reservations. That's not the best look for it. But if you're. If you like, then vilify the entire country of the United States, you'd have people in like, you know, New Hampshire, like, what the fuck did I do? I'm like, guilty for that. To read a land acknowledgment. And, you know, and so I think there's like, similarly some things our government does. Obviously, most people don't support to what extent, but it's also. There's also A big regional component. I mean, consider Portland, Oregon versus rural Texas. I mean, these are vastly. So with something like the west bank settlements, to what extent do most Israelis. And I'm sure there's also a feeling of. They feel a lot of criticism. So they don't want to probably show too much vulnerability or self criticize too much because they're like, where do you get it? But like, to what extent do say, Israelis in Tel Aviv go, yeah, that's kind of. But it's only one part of our country. We don't, we don't have any guilt.

[Frost]

I'd say that is the, that is the typical thing of. It's like someone I asked, I said to someone, I want to go see the set. I want to go visit settlements. I said, well, why would you want to do that? It's like, because I'm shooting a bunch of documentaries about Israel and Palestine, like, how you can't do it without.

[Max]

Without. Without. Yeah.

[Frost]

And that's kind of like the typical thing. The. I mean, yeah, Israel's such a complicated place in. For so, for so many reasons. But I mean, it depends. It depends on. It depends on where you go. The thing is, I pretty sure I don't know the numbers exactly, but what I was told there was that before October 7th, it was kind of 50, 50 on the settlement settlements. In terms of 50, 50. Yeah. After October 7th, it's not. It's way more in favor of the settlements.

[Max]

Wow.

[Frost]

Because. Because they look at, they pulled the settlements out of Gaza back in 2005. Then October 7th happened. Right. Hamas and so, so there are so

[Julian]

many things we gotta talk about.

[Frost]

Oh, yeah. But. But I'm saying you're never getting to AI in terms, in terms of their, in terms of their law, in terms of their logic.

[Julian]

Right.

[Frost]

They're like, so if we pull it out of the west bank, we'll have October 7th from the west.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

You know, the PLO, like, that's just like, what Very simplified form of thought, you know, about it. Like, but like, people, you know, obviously people have way more nuanced views. But, like, that view is. Is prevalent among a lot of people we talk to.

[Julian]

All right, I'm going to bring it back to the Hezbollah thing in a little bit, too, because I have a lot of questions about on the ground and when you were talking with these guys and what it was like and all that. But this is, this is obviously the, I guess, like soup du jour of the moment, what you're talking about with Israel. So matzo balls Yeah, a lot. A lot of input. Exactly. A lot of important things here. Number one, you make a great point that like, people are not their governments. And so when I like right now, especially with the Epstein stuff, which looks how it looks and is what it is, you know, when I criticize a government and I criticize intelligence services, I'm not criticizing the people. Same way that when I criticize China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, all these different places, I'm not being like, yo, every person that lives there as well. I think that's really, really important. Secondly, you have to remember with the Israeli government, it's not a two party system. And I have to admit I hate the two party system. But when I look at other places, I have to be like, God damn it. Like I'm one of these guys yelling about the two party system. But I don't have a good solution because this is actually worse. You have a government there that has been put in place by 25% of the people. Let's call it what it is. It's a lot of the orthodox community and the hard, hardliners, right? So now everyone has to be responsible for, for what leadership does when in fact, two weeks before October 7th, they were on the brink of civil war trying to overthrow this government. Right?

[Max]

Totally.

[Frost]

Well, I mean, one thing that kept coming up in the trip we went, we saw the settlement where with. We were with a Palestinian on the one side looking at the settlement where Ben gvir, you know, the minister where he lives, you know, he's got a

[Julian]

picture of Baruch Goldstein over his dining room table.

[Frost]

I didn't know that. We went to the mosque where Baruch Goldstein went in and kill all the people. Yeah, the. Yeah. I mean, you talk to Israeli people and I mean, I don't want to. It is not, look, Israel proper, like America is a very free country. Israel proper. I'm not talking about the West Bank, I'm not talking about Gaza. And the range of debate you have is it's like America, like you can find every single opinion and you really, to generalize, like Americans think this, obviously that doesn't work, right? So say like Israel. What I kept hearing a lot of people say though, like, they're like, why you Americans, like you're always obsessed with, you know, what Beng Veer says or smoke trich. Like they're really far right ministers, but they say they don't represent anyone. I'm like, that may be true, but like they're saying it. They're in positions of power. Like, this is an Issue, like, this is a major issue for the country. And the fact is, on Netanyahu, the government is predicated on having their support, right? And you do have a friend. I mean, you have a real hard, hard, hard right side to, you know, the population there. And, and they're, they've got serious influence right now. I think it's. I personally, I think it's a disaster for, for I, I want to, like, weigh in on their politics, right? And like, whatever. I don't like, it's not my whatever, but I think it's a disaster for them. I mean, just, just the fact to even say, because someone's like, why'd you bring him up? When I brought up Benavir and Smoke Church, and I'm like, because they say this stuff.

[Julian]

You have to.

[Frost]

And they're like, yeah, but it doesn't matter. I'm like, it matters to us. Like, it matters to the people around the. And they're like, well, we don't. Like, essentially, their thing is, like, you know, we have to stand on our own. We're Israel. We're never going to have friends. Got to stand our own. We appreciate America. We need to be independent. But the fact is, it's definitely. I don't see how it's anything positive.

[Max]

Well, that's, that's another reason why getting on the ground's important because, like, if you were. Let's. If you were in a separate media ecosystem and the only quotes you saw from American leaders were from Ilan Omar or from Randy Fine, you know, like, I would, I would hate America, frankly. I think those two, you know, like,

[Julian]

they are maybe my first votes off the island.

[Max]

You know what I mean? But, like, imagine a media ecosystem that really feeds you those. And you see, they're, they're. They're one of the representatives. And they get applause at this place. And I'd be like, what are they cooking up in America? Seriously, like, if you were in it. So it's always, it's always important to see, like, okay, to what extent do they have political power? Because, like, Ilhan Omar kind of is on a fringe. Randy Fine is more or less on a fringe. I think some would argue he has more institutional power behind his view of, like, being ardently pro Israel and everything, but he is, he's not representative, I would say most. So, like, hearing you talk about that's interesting. But as you point out, like, the coalition building of the government and, like, there is the hard right side and there was all this political turmoil before October 7th about, you know, you know, involving their Supreme Court. Like, it is interesting one thing that's,

[Frost]

I mean, one of the most tragic ironies of this whole situation. We went to kibbutz near Oz, which is like one of the hard. It was the hardest hit one on 10-7-25, by the way.

[Julian]

Max, I'm sorry, I should ask this earlier. Can you just explain for people out there who aren't familiar with the settlements, when you're talking about this, can you just explain what that is? And then.

[Frost]

Yeah, I mean, there's two kinds. There's. There's. I mean, under international law, it's all illegal. Under Israeli law, you have illegal and legal ones. The legal ones are just towns. They're just towns that have been built in the west bank. And that's it.

[Julian]

That's supposedly not theirs.

[Frost]

And it's the. It's. It's complicated because the west bank is divided up into three types of land, areas A, B, and C. Area A is controlled by the. I may have some of these backwards, but area A is controlled just by the Palestinians. No Israelis present Area B. It's a mix. Maybe you'll have Palestinian governance, but like roads controlled by Israel. Area C is controlled by Israel. Area C is most of land, but little of the population. Area A is a little land, but most of population. Talking cities, towns, whatever. Area C is where most of settlements are. And it's complicated about whatever the Palestinians. I. Look, I don't know enough about how they obtain the land. I know it's. I don't. I just don't know the nuance of it because to, to the, the Israeli, the, to the Israeli side is the land is being purchased. Land is not being stolen, whatever. To the Palestinians, it is being stolen. And I don't know enough about the exact nuance for that. When we make the video, you know, obviously I'll do the interviews and get the, get the nuance on that. But you have essentially towns, but then you have the illegal ones. The Israeli government does not consider these licit. I mean, and this is like, these are cowboys. This is. They go out, they go up to a hilltop where they get. It's like, out of like the Wild west, they go up to a hilltop, they erect a bunch of, you know, little buildings, and they just start farming and having their goats and whatever. And their hope is, over time, the Israeli government will legalize these. And because you have the hard right and power in Israel right now, they are increasingly being recognized and legalized. And then that land becomes Israeli land. And this is the theft. Right. This is when people talk about, like, when they're saying, like, they're stealing the land. A lot of it comes down to what these people are doing. So they literally will just go out

[Max]

there to a hilltop, and it's rural.

[Frost]

It's rural. But you have, like, what. Where we went and we saw this at the bottom of the hill, you had these Bedouin communities. These are nomadic Arabs, very, very poor. I mean, they're living in what you. What you'd find in, like, you know, sub Saharan Africa, really shanty kind of things. And then at the top of the hill, you have the settlers come. Yeah, and the settlers, they'll. Frank. A lot of them, not all of them. A lot of them will come and terrorize them.

[Max]

Them.

[Frost]

And they'll. They'll come through and they'll walk through their stuff. And then the ones at the bottom, because they're nomads, they don't actually own the land. So they can't call the police. They can't do anything. They're kind of like, they're just there. And, and this is where you hear settler violence. This is where settler violence happens. So sometimes you'll have. They'll go down and they'll, you know, they'll, they'll just, they'll just kind of. With them. And we saw it. We, we, we. This guy showed us a video. These kids, they're kids of settlers. They come through with like. Like their sheep or whatever they had. They're like herders and the Israeli kids. And they would come through and just run them literally through the homes of the, of the Arab nomad, the Bedouin. And they're, and they're just, they sit there and they're just like, we can't do anything about it. And. But the sellers will drive them off. So they have more land for the settlements. But again, the land doesn't really belong to anyone in the sense of they don't own it. Right. They're nomads. So. So it gets. It's way more complicated than it thinks than, like, it seems because you get into, like, land rights, you get into, like, the Palestinian Authority also really mistreats them. So it's, it's a whole. It's like, it's layers to it.

[Max]

But you also.

[Julian]

This is what I mean when you don't allow a country to have their own military, and military is what backs and uphold effectively. This is not. This is a strong way of putting it, but if you're going to look at it brass tacks, that's Effectively what holds up the idea of laws meaning something, because it's like you have a standing military and then the government that is supposed to, like, control their actions or whatever. When you don't allow that to happen, you create organizations like the plo, like Hamas, like these places. Because that power vacuum, they're going to suck it up every time and say, you guys live in shit. And by the way, we're going to keep you in that. But it's not our fault because it's them over there that's doing it. And they have a way to be able to say that. So when we see settler violence on the. I won't even say the illicit ones in, in the illicit ones, when someone dies, is there a murder investigation? Does, like. Well, obviously there's no Palestinian cops. Yeah.

[Frost]

It's the Israeli authorities. Yeah.

[Julian]

So do they come in and like, actually treat it like, like Sherlock Holmes?

[Frost]

This is where the government matters. I mean, like, I believe it's the deep. Can you pull up the interior minister of Israel? I don't want to get the name wrong, but essentially the people who control the police right now aren't policing this stuff. And it's, it's, it's, it's a political. It's.

[Max]

Well, Cash Patel. Here you go.

[Frost]

Yeah, I don't, I don't want to get into the names and everything because again, I don't. I've got all my notes and everything for now.

[Julian]

Moshi Arbel.

[Frost]

Yeah. To be honest, I don't. I don't know if it's him. Which one is Smotrich? Which one's Ben gvir? One. One is in charge of finance.

[Julian]

Finance, like the national security.

[Frost]

It's Benavir. So, so Ben Gavir is the one who should be, who should be looking at the. This stuff. But, yeah, they don't. And, and it, and it's, it's, it's politics. I mean, it's just like. But again, I don't. Two, Two things, two things worth noting. One, I'll get back to what I was saying before about the kibbutz that we went to. The tr. I mean, the Palestinian issue. Two things can be true. That the occupation of the west bank is, is wrong. And it comes with all these human rights violations and everything bad that you can say about it. There's also an issue in the West Bank. For example, if you kill an Israeli soldier or an Israeli, period. Not a soldier, a citizen. You get payments from the Palestinian government to your family for the rest of your life, for the rest of your lives.

[Julian]

Yeah, it's a problem.

[Frost]

It's like. Well, for the Israelis, they're just like, it gives them. Whether, whether it's. It's cynical or not, that is, that lets the Israelis do what they do. And it's like there is this ideological issue. Now, the reason that they have to allow that is because the threat to the government is Hamas. Right. The threat to the government is not some secular progressive, whatever it is an Islamist group. So they get their. They get their credibility by killing Israelis. So what do you have to do? Well, you got to tolerate the ones who kill Israelis. And this is, this is a huge problem now. I understand. Like, you know, it, it's just complicated. It's just complicated. And, and, and a lot. But there are certain issues in here. For example, like a lot of that money, it's like, like that's just not good for anyone. And the thing that comes through every single conversation you have there, I'm talking about three days with the Palestinians. And every conversation you have, they don't even mean to say it, but they'll say, you know, things used to be better. And then the first intifada happened, and then we got the checkpoints. Oh, and then the second intifada happened, then we got the wall, then October 7th happened, then more checkpoints. The point is, the violence has made everything worse for them, and I don't think it's made them closer. Get a Palestinian state. I think, I think it's done the opposite.

[Julian]

I agree. What. So two things. One, the violence is led from the tip of the spear, which is the organizations who are in charge who seize that power structure. Whether or not the people in the rank and file may feel a certain type of way about Israel, they don't really have a choice as to who's in charge of them and what they do. And secondly, you know, I don't. In a perfect world, violence is never the answer. But what. What is the. What is the answer for them to do? Because you have to. In order to make deals, you have to have both sides wanting to make a deal. And I feel if I could point the finger at both sides on this. There has been a demonstrated history from the various Palestinian organizations and the Israeli government that almost throughout the entire history, neither side has actually want to make a deal. You read all these behind the scenes accounts about these accords that happened in the past, in the 90s and in the 80s and things like that, and they're just backstabbing each other behind the scenes. One leaves the room and the other one goes, yeah, everything. That guy just said that.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

You know, and it's like, what are we even doing?

[Frost]

I mean, look at the Oslo cores, and you look at Yitzchak, Rabin was killed, and then simultaneously, you had suicide bombings intended to disrael it and persuade the Israelis against supporting it. So, I mean, this. This stuff goes so deep. And that's why, like, you know, there's just certain. There's just certain things. You look at this and you're like, if you. If you see it from the Israeli perspective, it's. I mean, again, it's. There's so many different Israeli perspectives. I would just say this. You spend a couple days with Palestinians, and you look at this and you go through all the checkpoints. The checkpoints, the checkpoints, the checkpoints. That's the most tangible form of occupation for people. Like. Like the. The raids, the housing demolitions, all this kind of stuff. Most people don't feel that. They don't see that. You know, they're just going about their lives like, whatever. There's a misconception that everyone. Everywhere, everyone, everywhere you go, you're getting. Search. Getting this.

[Julian]

Like, that's not the West Bank.

[Frost]

In the West Bank. The most tangible form of. Of occupation to the average Palestinian in the west bank is when they drive from city to city. They may have to sit for hours in traffic because there's a roadblock erected by the Israelis to check everybody's papers and, you know, see if they have guns and whatever. You can imagine how much that pisses people off. And it's like, like, imagine if here. Imagine if in Texas. Like, take the mentality of, like, a Texan if. But driving between Austin and Dallas, you know, maybe it should take three hours, but instead, you don't know how long it's gonna take because they might close the roads and it could take 15 hours. You might have to sleep in your car. You might. It would piss people off so. So, so much.

[Max]

Right?

[Julian]

I don't think Texans would take that.

[Frost]

No, they wouldn't. And so. And there's no way that you can experience that. And then, like, I said this to a settler and an Israeli settler, and I was like, this is what I saw. I was like, how could this not bother you? Like, like, doesn't this. Don't you understand the anger that they have and that sometimes this produces violence? And he says, yeah, but we have those checkpoints because of terrorist attacks. And the terrorists. Then, of course, the Palestinians say, well, we have the terrorist attacks because they are occupying Our land and whatever. But the point is the violence certainly doesn't. The violence certainly doesn't achieve anything. That, that's the, that's the one thing I've really. I think you are right.

[Julian]

You are proven right throughout history with that, unfortunately.

[Frost]

But it's on. But again, you know, obviously there's. There's violence from both sides. You got the cellular violence, you got the IDF right there. You, I mean, you got, You've got so, so much stuff that, like, it's just, it is just complicated. Anyone who wants to just paint it with a brush and say it's simple, unless you believe one way. There's two ways that you can just paint it with a broad brush. One is you do not believe Israel is the right to be there at all. You know, you're from the river to the sea person, and therefore, whatever. Okay, fine. Like, if that's your perspective, then, then none of it is legitimate. Israel's security concerns are not legitimate. None of it's legitimate. Or you are a hardcore, take it all Zionist who does not care about anybody else in there. And if you're not on one of those two fringes, like the Palestinian people I talked to, most of them were like, we just don't want to deal with this. Like, we don't really care what the borders are. We just don't want to have this stuff here. And then now they don't, but they are not. That's not Hamas's position and.

[Julian]

Which is all that matters.

[Frost]

Yeah. And on the other side, most Israelis say, you know, I don't want. We don't really want this, but whatever. But, but in any event, the. October 7th, the kibbutz you went to, Nero, is 25 of the people there were kidnapped or killed on October 7th going. I mean, visiting it is. Is eye opening because I thought we do these videos, we drive around from town to town, right? And we just go and we talk to people. I thought we'd do that down by the border. Well, the towns are gone. I mean, like, it wasn't just like. I mean, this is just, I guess, ignorance on my part. I mean, obviously read a lot about October 7, watched a lot of footage and everything. The town, like, it's, like, it's, it's as though it was just obliterated. I mean, nothing, Everything. Everything is burned, everything is gone. And there's people don't. I mean, a handful of people move back. They're trying to get more people to move back. But I met a lady who lived there, and she took us around. It's one of the most progressive places in all of Israel. I mean they, they were the kibbutz. I mean you don't have a, you don't have a salary. It's a communal farm and they share all the money equally between everybody who lives there. They're like hardcore lefties. Peace with the Palestinians. Peace with the Palestinians. And these are the ones who are massacred. And all the kibbutz on the, on the border with Gaza, it was the most left wing people, the most pro peace, the most pro2 state solution people, they're the ones who are murdered. And that's why like that's changed the position in Israel by a lot because a lot of people are just like, why if we want peace, this is how you'll treat us? That's the way a lot of the Israelis see it.

[Max]

But so that was, I mean I remember just the two takeaways and you sort of just expressed both, that you got where west bank was worse than you probably had imagined it. Yeah.

[Julian]

You're also doing a great job with this. Like really seeing the nuance.

[Max]

Yeah, totally.

[Julian]

It's hard.

[Frost]

This is a, the dislike ratio on these videos when we post it is going to be. Sorry because.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

That means you're doing your job.

[Max]

Exactly. And but then also that like October 7th, it was kind of like a Holy shit. I get how this would shake a country so deeply to its core.

[Frost]

It changed everything. I mean it changed everything for change.

[Max]

Everything I do want to hear. I mean one of the most interesting things you brought up that nobody is really talking about in the media, especially the American media, is. Oh, interesting.

[Julian]

Deep just brought something up.

[Max]

Okay.

[Julian]

Yeah. And, and, and this, this is the thing. I don't know if you ask people about this, but again, this is a prime example of people aren't their governments. And like by the way, if we're gonna talk about America here, there's plenty of shit that's happened in this country where we can look at our government and say what the fuck did you do here? You know, that was blamed on other people. But there was a stand down order that was given on October 7th. And as, as an aside here, October 7th was a very weird day for me. I should say this because that morning the war is breaking out when we're waking up 7, 8am I had a guy on a flight from Chicago while he was back in America, he was in the air when it was breaking out, who was a Jewish recon marine who was born in Scotland, who's got A Scottish accent, came to America, ended up serving in the Recon Marines. Mark Turner, very nice guy who ironically, he was coming here to do a podcast on some of the shit he had seen in Ukraine, which was nuts. And he was like, this war should be over. Like, we got to stop this. But he had just spent the last six months working with IDF on the Gaza border. So he's in the air, this war is breaking out and he gets here and I'm like, well, I guess we're doing two podcasts today. And it was a weird thing because there were things I was seeing like he's opening his WhatsApp and where he hearing and seeing things to this day and will never be released. I'm sure that was kind of surreal, but like, someone just got attacked in a terrorist attack and you're like, whoa. Right? And so I would handle that podcast a lot differently today. And that's on me for sure, because again, it's not his fault that he was here for that. But there were thoughts in my head that I was afraid to say at the time that, you know, even when he left here, I was like, come on. And one of them was, I know how tight the Gaza border is. And if you don't believe me, Charlie Crook said this three days later. And he was back then. I remember it like five days later on Patrick Bet David's podcast. But like, you can't take a shit on the Gaza border without having, you know, a sniper rifle trained on you from the idf. And so obviously this attack was horrible. And who got hurt? Civilians in Israel and who did it? People that are not good people and fuck them. But, you know, did you ask anyone in these places what they thought about some of the stuff that's even been like, have real evidence of like stand down orders and things like that that could involve their own government?

[Frost]

They, I mean, they. People bring it up in the kibbutz. I was talking, talking to a guy. We met this family there. It was a guy probably like 70 and like his two kids like our age. And they, they were there that day because their house been destroyed on October 7th. But they're finally bulldozing it that morning. And they were there to see it one last time. L. Right. Then they're bulldozing it and we met them.

[Julian]

Wow.

[Frost]

And the guy said to us, essentially said to us on camera, he's like, they abandoned us, like. And I said, why? He said, that's it.

[Julian]

Just.

[Frost]

I asked someone else. They said, it's political. No one, no one knows. I Don't think you're gonna find. Look, you're not gonna find a single. Sir, I talked, I talked to probably 150 people in Israel. I didn't talk to a single person who believes that the Israeli government. There's two. Look, I'll be straight up. There's two things that I heard. I didn't talk to one Israeli who believes it's a genocide in Gaza. I didn't talk to one Israeli who believes that the government was behind it. They. This question though, of what happened, how this happened on October 7th, I asked this one guy, took us around, the guy who took us to settlements. Say he's Michael Bauer. He's kind of like a self, self described lefty, pretty like prominent geopolitical analyst in Israel, but also all over the Arab world. I mean, he's not like, he, he travels all over, kind of meeting with Arabs and stuff like that.

[Julian]

Michael Bauer, Yeah.

[Frost]

He's an interesting guy.

[Julian]

Related to Eddie?

[Frost]

I don't think so, but he's essentially, when I asked him about it, he said we just, he said we didn't think that this was even. We just didn't think it was possible. It was a lack of imagination. It's whatever.

[Julian]

This stuff about 9, 11.

[Frost]

Yeah, yeah, well, but, but, but it gets to a point where like everything feels possible in hindsight. What? They all send the kibbutz and they were used to this. They all, you know, they were armed, they had guns. The scenario that they planned for was a handful of people coming across the board. Because this is what happened before, right? It's the same in the north with Lebanon. I will say, to the point about you can't take a. On the border. This shocked me. On the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, dude, Hezbollah was like, people go to sleep. Literally, they would go to sleep. And Hezbollah soldiers or whatever you call them were on the hillside looking at them, taunting them. And the Israelis allowed it. And it was, it was like, literally, I couldn't believe it. I was like, the Israeli, like the IDF let them sit right there with their guns taunting you guys. They said, yeah, we're used to it. And that's how it was. It was like a frog in boiling water, I think, where, like it just kept, like the temperature kept turning up and turning up and turning up, and then all of a sudden, boom, it happened. So, so. But in terms of this question, the, the people at the kibbutz there and all those kibbutz along the way, they feel like they were totally, totally abandoned. And they don't Know why they. No one, to my knowledge, no one I spoke to believes that it, that it was nefarious by the Israeli government. I'm sure there are people who think that but like within Israel, not the ones I talk to and I don't

[Julian]

know, I mean they were also there that day. They lost family and friends. It's impossible to put yourself in someone like that's position. How your mind would try to even process that or make sense of that. So that's fair. But it's interesting that you know they're willing to say this is up but also be like yeah, no, it's a failure of imagination that you know it clocks though there's a lot of people have said that about things like 911 and stuff who were there and I get it, you know, like you can't, your brain's almost not meant to process something like that.

[Max]

Yeah, I think it's also, I mean I still think the burden of proof is certainly on that this was orchestrated, not explaining that it wasn't. You know and like I think of the 911 on the one hand people will find like us, you know any sort of incentive alignment and then assume therefore action. And so like on this maybe it would have been in you know, to Netanyahu in the hard right coalition's advantage to have license to a shed their political scandal, their domestic political turmoil and baby then eliminate all the groups that surround them in a long standing war. Maybe get it shot at around whatever, whatever the theory is. But it's kind of like 9 11. I also, they're also really good accounts too of like, like for you know, Building seven. Like basically it would have been very difficult to pull that off for the government. I know a lot of people are rolling their eyes and being like they can do it. Really think about it though. I mean to, to, to line an entire skyscraper New York with explosives with not a single credible whistleblower. Just sort of you know, self appointed like demolition experts on YouTube generally going after or whatever it is. It's kind of like pulling that off would be extraordinary. And I think probably you know we're always, we always want a scapegoat of like one evil person who did it or two really evil people who did it. And I think oftentimes it can be more complicated. So I, I still feel like on this stuff, at least from my perspective if major bold claims deserve a high burden of proof is my personal viewpoint,

[Julian]

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Yes, I agree and that's the thing like been doing this a Long time now. And I think to be able to do this and be credible, you have to be willing to change your opinion on things when presented with new evidence. And I have to say, I don't have an official opinion on 911 yet, because there is a lot going on there, like a lot, like multiple governments around the world, all kinds of false premonitions, things like that. But I have had to change what I'm open to on that over the years. And there are takes that I would have given two years ago that I think are objectively, provably wrong. And that is because I have seen some evidence where the burden of proof does get met on things. You know, one of the places I'm still not, because there's a lot of evidence against it, is unpopular, as this is to say, is that CIA themselves did it. I don't. I. I don't agree with that because they literally went to the White House twice that summer documented on record, including with George Tenet, who was the head of CIA, saying, they're coming here, they're coming here, they're going to do something. And Condi Rice told them to shove it up their ass. So maybe the White House is. I don't know. I'm open to it. But, like, when you look at Building 7, one of the things there, you know, the demolition doesn't really make any sense. Falls so perfectly. And also when you look at who was in that building. CIA, Secret Service, all these different organizations that have proprietary information, I could totally see. And this is. This one's more of a hypothetical. I could totally see a building like that being wired for explosives in the event of some sort of catastrophe, where it was Mad Max Fury Road and anyone could get in there. You know that place, 911 that day. I've had a lot of people on the podcast who were there that day.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And like, it still doesn't get old here in the accounts because you're just like, holy, insane. It just blew up the city.

[Frost]

Well, just to bring it back to just this one more time, I was

[Max]

about to get my toothpicked tower and go, well, if one floor collapses, absolutely, you could have subsequently cascade. When we're going to get the marshmallows out.

[Frost]

I. I do think, like, it's like, honestly being. Being here and kind of like, if you talk to a lot of. I mean, I've talked to 911 survivors here, and they're just like. I mean, obviously you can. You can find anyone, right?

[Max]

Who.

[Frost]

Yes, but like, I've talked to people Here who are so offended and horrified by the idea that anyone would suggest it was. It was conspiracy.

[Julian]

Yes. I have to.

[Frost]

In Israel, that is certainly. Dude, the mental. The mental impact October 7th had. Dude, Israel is not like the US Israel. Like, if the US is radically individualistic, right, and everyone's on their own, you move away from your family, you do this, you. This. Israel is the opposite. Every single Friday night, the Israeli, you know, Israeli Jews come together for dinner, right?

[Max]

It's.

[Frost]

It is the national pastime. You do this even if you're not religious, right? Which half the country is not religious. And they come and they come together and they do this every single night. They go. And obviously everyone's serving the idf. Everyone. They go and live on these collective farms where it's like a family, right? Your kids are raised collectively, then all of a sudden this happens.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

The mental scar that this has taken on the people there is. Is vast. And now this is not to minimize the situation in Gaza at all. Okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not. No, I'm not saying anything. I'm not commenting on that. Simply put, though, just like everyone's like, oh, it's like 9. 9 11s or whatever the. Whatever the number is that. Yeah, yeah, it is so different. And it's like the. It's. It was every single person's. Their worst fear manifest. And now you could. Like, obviously there's so whatever the debate about what. All I can. All I can say is that the toll it took on these really people I like, I didn't really get it until going there. And it just like it was a paradigm shift and that's what produces the situation in Lebanon. What happened before was they were essentially defensive with a lot of this stuff where, okay, something happens, okay, we'll bomb Gaza. But now it's like we're not even going to let them get to the position where something can happen, happen. So that's why you now have persistent shelling in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire. That's why you still have persistent attacks on Gaza. And we were there, we could see, literally, we got this in the video. You hear the. The launch the artillery and then you see the smoke rising from Gaza. So it's still going on.

[Max]

But.

[Julian]

And that's nuts.

[Frost]

And.

[Julian]

And like, you have to look at this. And again, this is where I'm talking about the government and not the people, because you are out there talking to the people who live in the country and they have their opinions and they have every right. Right to have that, that's, it's, it's. They don't take these actions and they also, you know, just like we do here, you can get propagandized with things. But, like, I've studied Benjamin Netanyahu's life inside and out, all right? Ironically, I sometimes just like, sends a chill up my spine. But I was on a podcast with Joby Warwick in January 2023, episode 134, and I remember, like two hours into it, I made an offhanded comment about Netanyahu. And it was like a side comment. It had nothing to do with anything. He didn't think anything of it. And he just continued on the point. And basically what I said is, yeah, what's the difference between Netanyahu and Putin? He's like, I know, it's an interesting point. He started talking, and while he was talking, it was the only time in that sit down where I was like, absent for a minute. And in my head I was like, did I just speak out of my ass there? Like, if I went to court and had to defend that with evidence, would I be able to produce evidence? Like, I think I spoke out of my ass.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So I made it my project that year to just learn everything about Israel, the conflict, Netanyahu. I've read fucking every word that guy's ever written. And, you know, ironically, I finished somehow his 1250 page autobiography two weeks before October 7th. So when October 7th happened, I was

[Frost]

like, some would say you're a plant.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

But, you know, the guy, he has had an obsession with this his entire political career. And when he was finance minister of Israel, after he was prime minister, when he was finance minister in the early 2000s, he was a very effective finance minister. He's a very smart guy. He's a sociopath, but he's a very smart guy. And, you know, he set up their economy in a way that had never been set up. And he. They started talking about giving this land back in Gaza, and he was hard line, no, you do it. I. You do it. I will resign. He was dead serious. And so it was like being negotiated over a year or two, and then they did it and he resigned. Even though he was, like, popular in that job, and he had an obsession with. Not with getting Gaza back and that they never should have done that. And so it does ring in my head when you see him, because that's the thing about Netanyahu. This got a big mouth, bro. He's got a big mouth. You go run the tape on him, you run throughout his entire career, this motherfucker thinks people aren't listening. And when he tells people in the Knesset in 2019 that if you want to guarantee that you don't have a two state solution, this is a direct quote, then you must be okay with funding Hamas. Yeah, my brain has to go to, what the fuck?

[Max]

Who's funding Hamas here?

[Julian]

Like, I know the Iranians are, don't get me wrong, I know they are, but who else is doing it too? And do you want this to manifest into what that is? Are you using your own people as a pawn? And this is where I defend the Israeli people. It's like they don't have control over what this fucking asshole does in a back room who only a quarter of the country even elected. And like those are questions you have to ask.

[Max]

Just like I'd ask questions about Xi

[Julian]

Jinping, Just like I'd ask questions about Vladimir Putin. Just like I'd ask questions about the entire Ukrainian government, whatever the fuck that even is these days. Just like I'd ask questions about Iran, just like I'd ask questions about uk. I should be able to ask questions about the Israeli government and not be labeled fucking anti Semite.

[Frost]

Totally, totally. But just, I mean to strong man, the other, the other side of it, because I did ask, I asked, I asked a lot of people about the, about the funding, about the funding of Hamas. You know, this whole, this whole situation and the, the, I mean the main, the, the, the main take that you hear is we didn't think Hamas is capable of this. We thought Hamas was essentially controlled opposition and by allowing Qatar to give them the money, it kept their economy viable. So we didn't have an uprising, we didn't have anything. And then we didn't see this is going to come.

[Julian]

Controlled opposition, they use that term.

[Frost]

No, no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm. But you know, it's like they, they, they thought it was under control. They thought they had this, they thought they had this. They had essentially figured out Qatar gives Qatar and Iran, but Qatar gives money to Hamas. Hamas then keeps a semi functioning economy in Gaza. They aren't clamoring, you know, they have peace, they have relative peace. Israel's not getting the two state solution, whatever it is. And even the two state solution stuff aside, it was like, well what is, I mean what, like what is the alternative? Like you like to them like having like a semi functioning Gazan state led by Hamas that is not constantly trying to wage war against Israel. Like to them, even if you're not like trying to eliminate. Even if you are pro two state solution, that may be the best outcome that you imagine. I mean just being a total realist, it's like, okay, so this episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get [e-mail], own the dream. Okay, let's just say, I mean first of all the alternative to Israel funding Hamas was Israel saying Qatar can't let any money in. And then you're going to have the collapse of the Gazan economy more than you already had. Right? Like that, that was the alternative. And that's one. And then it's like, okay, so what is the sec, what is the Gaza state? Obviously you can't have a Gazan state. It's not gonna, it's not gonna work on its own. Like that's just not a, it's not a, it's smaller than like Hoboken. Like, I mean it's like, it's. So that's, that's not a viable thing either. So to that, to a lot of people even who weren't hardliners on this stuff, they're like, it was the best, it was the best outcome. And a lot of Gazans were coming and working in Israel. You were, they were trying to kind of like whatever. Yes, that's, that's just the argument against it, right? Against like the, you could have the cynic, you could have, you could have the same exact. You could be a total cynic and not a cynic and reach the same outcome that the best scenario is allowing Qatar to pass some money in to into Gaza. What the people in the kibbutz told me was even ones who thought that that was like that the status quo, they wanted a two state solution. But they're like in the short term, like the issue was we, no one was tracking where the money went. The money was going to missiles is going to tunnels, it was going to this and that and instead of going to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, which is also true, like if someone were looking at this and instead of all this money coming in from Qatar and they could have built, they could have built a ton of stuff Right. And instead they chose to build The. Hamas chose to build. Build this stuff. And that's. But again, so in all these things, two things can be true, right?

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

Like Israel destroying whole blocks of, you know, whole blocks of Gaza, whole cities and towns. Like, obviously, that can be egregious. And it can also be egregious that Hamas took zero efforts to protect its people, that it put the tunnels underneath all this stuff and then essentially let them out to die. And you can't forget too, like, Tucker has tried to, like, downplay the idea that Hamas is an Islamist group. Hamas is an Islamist group. I mean, it's. It's in everything they do and the ideology. And again, just spending weeks in the Middle east, like, you just. Like, religion is. Is so important and, like, it's so different. I was thinking in Egypt, in Cairo. It's very rare in Cairo that you're walking around that you see a woman whose head is not covered, right? Imagine if here you had every single person walking around, you know, dressed like, wearing, like, Christian garb, right?

[Julian]

That.

[Frost]

That was how they went out in public, was. They identified themselves as Christian. You'd be like, God. This is an insanely religious place. And yet for the Middle. We don't apply that standard for places like the Middle East. And it's like. Like, two things can be true, and that's not even the same thing bad about them, right? I mean, I. I love Arab culture. I love the Middle East. I love visiting there. But the, you know, two things can be true. They can have a very different world view. That's very hard for us in the west to understand because we're like, atomized, individualistic, secular people. And they're like, they're just not that most of the people over there. So, you know, talking on a societal level. And Israel, similarly, a lot of Israel is secular and kind of Western and, you know, all this kind of stuff. But also it's in the Middle East. It's a Middle Eastern culture.

[Julian]

They.

[Frost]

They. They see things in. In for them. The stuff's not hypothetical, Right. I mean, like, they're right there. So that's just to say, like, all these different things can be true. But I do think culturally, you're dealing with people with a very different outlook. And it's hard for us sitting here in America. It's like, well, why can't you guys just all, you know, go to college and get a job and become tech workers? It's like, well, that's not how it works. Coexist. Bumper sticker does not work in the Middle East.

[Julian]

Like, now you.

[Max]

You.

[Julian]

You point out that there's a. There's a wide degree of differences, socially speaking, that just exist before you even start to get to the chessboard itself.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Did you ask anyone in Israel or anywhere in the Middle east about Epstein in Lebanon? Not to do an unsubtle, vivid.

[Frost]

But seriously, I heard.

[Max]

I was, like, curious.

[Frost]

In both Lebanon and Israel.

[Julian]

I heard about it. We're gonna. By the way, we're gonna put. I think what I'm gonna do is put out this podcast and then Sunny, Faz and Beck right after this. And that is gonna be a rigamarole of a week of perspective. So Sunny, Faz and Beck are two of my friends who I just had in. Who are both Muslim. And what it's funny, like, listening to because we all use the terminology and everything, but they were breaking down, like, how this terminology comes across. And one of the things Sunny was talking about was, like, the term Islamist and where that came from. It was just. They threw an ist on the end of it to make it sound like something. And it's true. But also where I'd push back on Sonny with some things is I'm like, there's also a. To your point, Max, like, there's a degree. So if you are a member of the religion of Islam, there's a huge difference between someone who is from Albania and practices Islam and someone who's in Saudi Arabia and practices Islam and someone who's in Iran and practices. Like there is. There are ranges to it, and some ranges, I would argue, are not very viable with Western culture. Other ranges are great.

[Frost]

Well, I'm not even necessarily talking about the viability with Western culture as much as just like a different outlook. But. But I think even, like, take Egypt or take the UAE or take Jordan, the leaders of all these places are Muslim. Like, they practice Islam. They are not Islamists. They are not trying to enact. I mean, you look at, like, the uae, right? Like, look at the UAE or. Or MBS and Saudi. Like, they're trying to. They're trying to have. Remove the ist from the Islam. Right. They're trying. Trying to make it compatible with modern, you know, modern progressive societies like the West.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

You know, so. So I do think. I know. I know there's a lot of Islamists, a very super political term, and. And you can use it in many different ways, but I do think. I. Look, I'm not an expert on this. I don't want to. It's More complicated than just adding an is to it. I mean, like, like, there's political. You can be. I can be. It's just like here it's like, I can be a Christian and not think my Christian values should dictate the policies of the United States. I can be a Christian. I can think my Christian values should dictate the policy. United States. It's the same exact thing with Islam.

[Julian]

That's the issue when you wouldn't be reading the Constitution.

[Max]

But, yeah, exactly. Dude, this is like the Justin Timberlake and Social Network. Drop the ist. It's cleaner if he did that for rebranding the Middle East. But no, I totally. I mean, I think the pluralism point is key. Like, if you believe that a country can be pluralist with religion or culture, you. You sort of have to believe that if you're going to be in the West. And I think if you don't. And whether it's. If that's innate to Islamism or all Muslim cultures are some. You know, I think there's obviously debate there. I really think that, like Ben Affleck, Sam Harris clip. Did you ever see that one on Bill Maher? Yeah. Where they were talking about basically the concentric circles of Islam and to what, you know, the jihadist group and then the Islamists and then those who are conservative Muslims who sort of support or at least justify. And you know, how big are those circles? Because, you know, people, they're extremists of every single group. Yes. But there are also some who've tamed their extremist wings more than others. And then some groups that institutionalize those. Those more extreme wings, you know, and they have a power and. And I think that, you know, if you look at the liberties of women in a lot of Muslim cultures, these aren't like, this isn't. You know, it's not just Mike Huckabee or conservative Christians who have you believing that women can't vote or exercise fee rights. That's the reality. General female. General mutilation is common practice. The killing of apostates in certain Muslim countries. These aren't fringe things because people will be like, well, the KKK is Christian. Right. You know, and it's like, well, yeah, it's. You just went to the KKK headquarters. How daunting. You know, like, it was.

[Frost]

I really. I've been checking all the.

[Max]

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Last time he comes in here, he's just back from Pakistan. Now he's going in the middle. But, like, but Seriously, like, you go there and it's pathetic because, like, it's pathetic. It doesn't have political power.

[Frost]

Yeah.

[Max]

And I know. I know Tucker might say, well, evangelical Christians who are, you know, Christian Zionists have a lot of political power. That's very different. And it's not institutional and. And legal. Anyways, I would just make that point to a lot of the people because I do think a lot of people do, like, the hits. Blunt thing. Like, maybe you've just been told a lie, but you have it. I mean, in some areas, I think we've also seen, you know, like, just in Sugar Land outside of Houston, which is like their queens, and it's white, minority and all this, and a ton of Muslims there. And by any metric, they seem to be thriving. And B, be like patriotic and C, be like great American citizens, you know, and you see that all over. And, you know, it's just the new.

[Frost]

You need to have nuance.

[Max]

You need to have.

[Frost]

And like, just to give one more example, like. So when I was in Cairo last week, right? Like, kind of like in this downtown neighborhood, just like walking around, I met this guy. I went out to breakfast and whatever. The people are so friendly. And it's like everything that you think of, like, you know, like the kind of like the propaganda machine might train, like an American to think about, like an Arab country, city people. It's just. You just go there and you're like, okay, this is.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

And. And I'm there. I'm walking around. People. I. You can't make up how friendly people are. You want coffee? Tea? Oh, come in. Like, like, like, just super, super, super friendly. I Google that night out of Cure. I was googling. I was like. I was like. I think some of the 911 guys were Egyptians. Muhammad Atta, head of IT, he grew up in this neighborhood in Cairo. So it's like two things can be true. 99% of the people. 99.9% of the people can be amazing. But, like, that. You couldn't make it up.

[Max]

This is like, do. We've seen this now twice on where in Dearborn, Michigan, the air majority city in America. Everybody is so nice.

[Julian]

Yep.

[Max]

But at the end of the night, some of the wild takes start coming out. And then you hear about, you know, you see certain leaders that got like, rallies and Dearborn born, and you're like, okay, so there is a bit of a fringe. And then more notably in a Muslim Savil town in. In England, it's just this Muslim segregated Savil town. Savil Town. Yeah. And it's this sort of Muslim segregated town next to this English city called Dewsbury. You meet the nicest people in the world. And then there's, you know, one of the most prominent car bombers, right?

[Frost]

England's youngest suicide bomber.

[Max]

English. They're from there. And so it's like this weird juxtaposition.

[Julian]

You see this map in New York right here, right?

[Max]

Yes.

[Julian]

This is one of my favorite parts about new favorites. The wrong word. It's just one of the most fascinating parts about New York to me. You can walk on any one of those fucking blocks right there. And all the blocks that we see that are off the map from this perspective over here. And when you stand there before you take out Google and Google things from that block, I can guarantee you some of the most amazing things ever have happened there and some of the most darkest things ever have happened there. And it's no different in all these places you're describing. It's like you never want the sum of the hole to be described by the minority or like the. The bad. The 1% that does the bad things, if you will. You want the sum of the whole to be described by the majority of the people there. And to be able to go see that and report on that, I think is really important. And you're doing it on both sides of a conflict like this as well, which it. Which is very important. And, dude, I love conversations like this because they're dangerous.

[Max]

Yeah, they are.

[Julian]

Right? Like, we are gonna have a lot of people who are like, yeah. And then one minute later, be like, these guys. And that means you are. You're somewhat over the target.

[Max]

Totally. And I will say this. I do think people can also get so cultural relativist where they're like. They're all. I do think there are notable differences. Like, in the one hand, you travel around the world and you see. Which I need to do much more of. But you see this at it on the US you see it just in international travels, too, that, you know, people are all this. Human nature shared all that. And that there are a lot of very similar, often eerily similar parallels between different cultures. And a lot of your preconceptions are shattered. With that said, their culture is a powerful freaking force. You see it in ethnic groups, culture toward work, family culture, all of it. And then you see it with sort of cultural principles. And. And so I do think some of it's notable, but you also do have to demystify anytime I think people, like, go huge blanket, or it's like, it sounds really bleak. That's when I'm, like, most tempted to see a community, you know, whether that's, like, the Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, which we've covered, or it's, you know, a Muslim town in England. Like, it's always interesting to see what preconceptions you shatter.

[Frost]

Totally. Well, I just realized, too, also, based on John Kerry. How you say his last name.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

Based on his assessment, the US Was a bomber on today. Right. Monday or Tuesday.

[Julian]

I. I don't think when we put that out, I. I'm with him on the report. I think the timing probably was off because that was one. Usually this doesn't happen. But when he walked in that day, he discussed this with me and, like, showed me. I was like, whoa. And I figured it was something he wasn't gonna talk about. It's like, fuck it, let's do it. I was like, sure. He's like, em. And he did it. But. And to be clear, this was John reporting. We recorded on Friday evening, and he was reporting that President Trump had already decided he was going to attack Iran. I got a call from a second source, and I had a video ready to go to put out right behind the John report. And I decided against it at the time. And I think it was the right call, because the second source, in addition to having to give an anonymous source citing what he was doing, he also wanted his name off the record. And I'm like, all right. But it was. For what it was worth, it was a very good source. And he called me and said, john's over the target. I think he's off on two things based on who I'm talking to. Number one, it won't be Monday or Tuesday. The timing's also. And this was something John had said, like, yeah, he's got the State of the Union on Tuesday. Tuesday. But he wants to do it on Monday or Tuesday. Like, that was a little weird to John, too. And this guy was like, that would be kind of tough to do, timing wise. And then number two, he said, it is true. Vance is against it and Gabbard's against it. Gabard's not really even in the room, though there are a few more people against it. However, what this source did not say is he did not say that was the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is interesting because that was a big part of John's report. He's like, he was shocked that this. His source was saying that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are on board. And we've seen conflicting reports on that. But this guy seemed to also support that as well.

[Frost]

Really? That they're on board?

[Julian]

Yes. And he also, he said there's just. There's a few other voices in the White House that are not on board. But he did what he said is that. And these are direct quotes, source to. Trump is feeling a real sugar high from Venezuela, and he wants a quick victory. And he's all about legacy, obviously, which all these guys are. And he wants to have it, his legacy, that the United States under Donald Trump is the one that finally took down the Ayatollah's regime. And, you know, this guy that I'm referring to is directly wired in to people at the White House. Like, the guy who called me is directly wired the fuck in. And so when you look at all everything that they have put on board and you look at Trump's posturing, including, you know, yesterday putting out a big post specifically saying that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are on board, which would support John's reporting if he's telling the truth. I have to say that, you know, they're going to do this. It looks like we're going to put out this episode in like a day or two. So, you know, we're seeing this pretty live right now, if you're listening to it. But they're probably going to do this. And it's, in my opinion, in every way, the wrong move. This is a country of 92 million people. It is in the middle of a cultural pipe bomb. No pun intended. You were talking about the Middle East. This is not Venezuela, bro. Venezuela. The whole country wanted that government gone. A lot of Iran wants that gone once their regime gone. But this is a stronger, more tightly held regime with way bigger alliances than Venezuela, way bigger cultural technical alliances than Venezuela. You're talking about the middle of the Arab world. And once again, it's a situation where you have the Israeli government, who is legitimately concerned about Iran, and I understand that, that trying to get us to clean up their problems over there when Iran, objectively, no offense to them, poses no fucking threat to us. That is just a fact. Now, Huckabee may have just thrown a fucking big wrench in the timing of this thing because John reported that on Friday, the same day the Tucker interview comes out, and Huckabee's like, yeah, first of all, fucking guy can't even say the word Israel. He's like, Israel. I mean, he. He is. That guy is so. But like, you know, this idiot. And that is what he is. He is a stone cold Moron comes down and goes, yeah, you know, I, I think, I think it'd be perfectly fine if, if Israel, you know, controlled at all. Yeah, yeah, that's not going to cause a problem. They're talking about getting pieces of taking the Smotrich line and getting pieces of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, they're not going to have an issue with that at all. It's like, I swear to God, man, we're being run by complete retards. And the last, the last administration was a dead guy. You know, it's just, I, it just feels like the Kardashians, but now it's the White House.

[Frost]

Yeah, I mean this, this Iran situation is really. Did you see our video? It didn't do well. We put it out last week because we, we thought there's about to be war in Iran last week and we put out this video about the Iranians in la. We went, interviewed them on the, on the, on the YouTube.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

And if there is war, I think the video will get picked up by the algorithm. But just interviewing the Iranian community in la, we say in the video, like, it's impossible to know how representative they are of Iranians in Iran. Right. But they are. Dude, it was wild. Whatever. Like, we weren't thinking it'd be like a Muslim immigrant group in America, like going to Dearborn or like, like, you know, Sugar Land. Dude, it is literally the, it is so far the opposite. Not only are they like, not is like Islamic, they are the most anti Islamic people I have ever met. We, we have it in this video. Dude, they have stuff, they have these Arabic words. One guy has the Arabic word for non believer tattooed on his arm.

[Julian]

Can we play some of this, Steve? We get some volume on it. All right, let's pump this. All right, so this is out in la over one?

[Frost]

Yeah, Irvine. Irvine and la. Southern California. We went to understand what they were like. How would you describe the Iranian community? The American dream.

[Julian]

We are the most successful immigrants in the United States.

[Frost]

We have a, a tremendous force going

[Julian]

in, just like we did in Venezuela.

[Frost]

So before school you guys line up and chant death to America. Well, Middle Eastern immigrants are stereotypical as being religious and anti American. Malcolm X said, we live in one of the rottenest countries that have ezra that has ever existed on this earth. We found the opposite in Irvine, an hour south of Journey. Tell me about, tell me about this. Actually, now in the world actually, there are only two nations standing with Iranian. You know, it's just US and Israel. There are 57 Muslim countries, none of them actually stand in Iranian. So it's only this flag that is standing with Iran.

[Julian]

So we have to respect that regional Iranian flag.

[Frost]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Before this Islamic revolution, radical Islamic revolution, you know, 1400 years ago, they attacked

[Frost]

two Iran and oppressed Iran for 1400 years. And again, 47 years ago, this was happening again. The only good Islamic republic was the youth. They're not Muslim anymore because Islamic Republic

[Julian]

showed them the real Islam.

[Frost]

Allah for me is a God of darkness. Communism and Islam only is the same.

[Julian]

The only difference is that is that

[Frost]

Allah is God of everything. And communism and there is no God. This pro American and anti Islam sentiment was totally different from other immigrant communities we've encountered in the U.S.

[Julian]

these are all polites, no?

[Frost]

Yeah, they are. But that's a question, right? Like this is, this is saying that I'm not. I mean, I mean, the question, the question is just how much these people represent anything in Iran. The one lady we interviewed in here, she runs like a Iranian, a Persian language radio show. Radio show, the network. They reach millions of people mainly in Iran. They're like just dissident, you know, dissident radio. And she insists, as does almost everyone we talk to, that the vast majority of Iranians are extremely anti Islamic because of it. Just like communism, Soviet Union, right? The people who came, who came here after the end of, after the fall of Soviet Union, right? Like, they're radically anti Islam, very anti communism. And for them, that was the main thing I took away from this, I thought was interesting. They don't view Islam as, even as a religion, like she said. They, they view it. I'm talking, the people we talk to, I don't know about everyone else in Iran. They view it as the state ideology and which is very different from. It's just a different way of looking at things, right? And it is the fact, I mean, I think all the time here, like, I'm always like, if, if, you know, if you want America to be a Christian country and you think the best way to do it is to legislate Christian laws, I can't think of a better way to discredit the religion than that having the, having Trump standing up there and leading like a Christian revolution in the country. And I think that is what happened in Iran to some extent now, the base of support for the IRGC and for the regime. And in Iran, it's essentially poor, young, poor young people and people in the countryside and what percent that accounts like, nobody know. Just straight up, nobody knows. So you're just rolling the dice with whatever happens.

[Julian]

I've talked to a lot of Iranians recently and they all have. The ones that I've talked to all have the thing in common that they don't like the current regime and they would like to see it go. That is where the commonalities end. Whoa. I mean, the range. Like I just talked to someone the other day who would look at these people like they're out of their fucking mind, yet they want the same thing, but the two things the way they want it to happen. Meaning these guys are supporting, you know, United States going in and doing regime change and putting Palavi in charge. That's a whole separate thing. Versus like the person I was talking to in this example wants the US to have nothing to do with it and wants the Iranian people to do it from within and elect their own leader. Right. And there's a lot of weird stuff going on.

[Frost]

How do they think that's going to happen?

[Julian]

You know, no one ever has a answer to that. It's a great question because when I had Trita Parsi in here, who's someone who doesn't want to see US led regime change, you know, he, he talked about the fact that he made an important point. He's like, in America we always think of, of revolution is like, that's what made this country. Which, which is. He's like, it was amazing what they, what the founding fathers pulled off here was fucking incredible. He goes, look around the rest of the world though. Revolutions almost never work like a revolution, full blown overthrow, like let's burn it all down and stuff like that. He's like, you have to do this more diplomatically, as painful as that is. And that's the closest thing to an answer I've gotten, which I appreciated. Doesn't mean he's right. I'm just saying that's more where he was. Yeah.

[Max]

You know, I think that, you know, I interviewed someone who's on the totally opposite side recently. We did, we did kind of a. Both sides of the Iran issue. Interviewed a Washington Post reporter who's held captive. And then Jason Raison, R A Z

[Frost]

I A I N like two years, I think.

[Max]

Yeah. For a while. And his wife was, she's Iranian. He's half Iranian, but born in America. She was born in Iran. And then also got him Michael Rubin, who's a, who's neocon and more Fanatics guy. No, no, this guy has pupil Michael Rubin, the fanatics guy. The white party guy. He's, he's creeps me out. I don't know about you that guy creeps me out. Like, he's. Weird vibe from him anyway. Side note, this Michael Rubin, though, he, he did make some compelling. He's like, there would be no boots on the ground. And, and you know, I mean, I will say this. I think one good point from the more pro regime, maybe not even regime change, but let's just say the more, you know what group I'm talking about, like more pro Israel, very anti, you know, Islamic Republic. They do make the good point. Like, where are all the protests over tens of thousands of protesters being killed? Like in the US Most people don't seem to care. And I know one of the arguments as well. It's different in Palestine because we funded a lot of the destruction and we were more tied to it. And that's a pretty fair counterpoint. With that said, I do think we have more of a connection to Iran, enough of the connection of Ron for that to elicit more outrage than it has. Like, I'm surprised that the degree of the, of the, of the sort of punishment from the Iran government has been just so stunning and it's gotten so little attention in the US like it is. I'm not saying I'm not arguing for regime change, but I'm just saying I do, I do think people can sort of like, you know, be sort of not whitewash Iranian regime, but that they also don't know exactly what they're dealing with. That's what you might be able to

[Julian]

hold multiple thoughts at the same time. You know, that's an original idea. The Iranian regime fucking sucks.

[Max]

They're terrible.

[Julian]

They kill their own people. They don't allow free speech effectively. When you speak out hardcore against them or try to be a dissonant against them, they are aggressive. When you're talking about the IRGC around the world with dissidents and stuff, we've seen that on our own soil.

[Max]

They're terrible.

[Julian]

They can get fucked. It's not that simple, though. This is not gonna be like, go in there for 28 minutes, you spend some fucking hypersonic missiles and totally the

[Frost]

thing that's animating Trump right now, based on all the reporting, is the fact that when they killed Suleimani, there was no real retaliation last June. Really? Not consequential retaliation, pulling out the Iran deal. No real retaliation. And it's like, you got to wonder why the Iranians did this. Like, just like the. I mean, IR101 is deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. If you do not have deterrence, people will take advantage of you. And the Iranians have lost all former deterrence right now.

[Max]

You're right.

[Frost]

So it's like, it's like, it's like just like any kind of like international relations theorists would be like, yeah, well, obviously Trump's gonna go to war, like,

[Julian]

with the slight exception of Soleimani, which was a direct attack on basically, like their key guy at the time.

[Max]

I remember.

[Julian]

Yeah. And I was like, yeah. And I've cited that before. What did Iran do? Nothing. Right.

[Frost]

They, they, they bombed the one base in Iraq where my friend was. It got concussion.

[Julian]

They.

[Max]

Wow.

[Julian]

I'm sorry that your friend got a concussion, but yes. I'm just saying that's effectively in the grand.

[Max]

No, I'm kidding.

[Julian]

Yeah. Listen, don't turn the lights on too high, but, you know, team called you

[Max]

scumbag, you piece of shit. Classic Julie. No, I guess my point, because you're like, brilliant point Max or Rod's not a great regime. My point there is. I do think that there is this weird current of thought, especially among, I would say leftists in America, young leftists, Zoranite types, and then also young sort of Fuentes. Conservatives. Maybe not even conservatives, but more, you know, right wing young people where there's this sort of like global relativism where they're like the regimes that we think are evil are actually good and misunderstood. And they're only evil because you've been propagandized to believe they're evil. And then, and then that pretty much from our perspective, it's the classic people like, did you know the Founding Fathers were considered terrorists? You know, and they're kind of like, therefore you don't. You misunderstand all rebel. But if you look at objective, like, people do this all the time. They whitewash certain global leaders and they're like, well, you've grown up in the American imperial system, and therefore you view that's just not true. I mean, look at how they handle protests. Look at how we handle protests. Look at how America handles dissent. I promise I'm not sent from whatever that. What is it? Whatever foundation Tucker's dad ran that was like, worked with the CIA and it was like.

[Frost]

Was it Voice of America?

[Max]

I think maybe Voice of America. I'm not from Voice of America being like, we're good, but it's. But like, the truth is that just pisses me off because I do think. I know. Are we connecting dots here? But I do.

[Julian]

All I know is he spoke fucking Pashtun before he took this job.

[Frost]

I don't know.

[Max]

I know. It is hilarious.

[Frost]

Yeah, I mean, this stuff just becomes. Everyone just sees. Everyone sees this stuff their own political lens. Right? And obviously we should see it through the lens of American interests, but we shouldn't see it through like, left, right lens. And like, if you want to look at the Iran, the at Iran and be like, well, Trump is against them and Israel is against them and I'm against them, so therefore I am pro Iran. Like, it's just stupid. Like, it's just stupid. But it's like the question is, what is good for American interests? What is, what is good for the world, you know, and our role in it? Like, and that's it. And like that. That's it.

[Julian]

Remove all the players, remove your opinions about them. Treat it like a robot. Three things. Iran regime, bad propaganda of Iran regime might even make them seem somehow worse than they are. That's possible.

[Frost]

Yeah.

[Julian]

But they're very bad. And I would, I've said this forever. I'd love to see their people overthrow them. Them, number three in a war with Iran to overthrow them. Do I think we would do it and do I think in the short term we'd be victorious in that way? Yes. Do I think it'd be the biggest disaster since the Iraq war, though? Yes. Because what you're going to do is you're going to go in there, it's going to take way longer than you think to. This is not a 28 minute fucking invasion. Get the guy, take him to Brooklyn and call it a day. That's not how this goes. You are going to give them what they want, which is effectively the last stand of the regime. They are going to kill a lot of our guys. So. So we're going to be bringing home fucking draped coffins again, which is not good for American morale and totally unfair and not worth the fucking struggle right here. And then what the fuck do you do in the aftermath? How good are we at rebuilding nations since fucking Japan and Germany in World War II? Not very fucking good. How good are we at handling the aftermath of, like, situations where people are like, yay, liberators. And then a year later they're like, yo, fuck these guys.

[Frost]

Well, I mean, the other, like, honest consequence of what could happen in Iran is that Iran could break apart. I mean, only 60 or 55% of Iran is Persian. It's like the rest, you have like, you know, Azeris, Baloch, Arabs. You have all these different groups who know. I mean, just who knows? I mean, look, the fact is, if Trump goes ahead and does this, which, for one thing I was reading an analysis this morning about how Trump has backed himself into a corner on this, which is, I think, is. I think is pretty accurate. It was someone in cf. I think it's Council, Foreign Relations or Brookings is one of those things. The. They're getting quoted, I think, as a Financial Times article, and they were. But essentially the analysis, like, by threatening them. By threatening them, demanding that they negotiate, sending this maximum pressure thing to demand that they negotiate. They don't negotiate. Then Trump ends up with two aircraft carriers next to Iran. Yes. Having given all these ultimatums, you have to act. And like, I'm not. I'm not saying, you know, from my own opinion. Right. I'm saying from, like, the IR perspective of it and whatever. Like, that is like, Trump. Trump now is like. Like, regardless of what he thinks, regardless of what he wants, he has put so much pressure on himself to do something. And, like, that's where you can. You can trip yourself into a war, you know, like, it's definitely possible. Trump thought they were going to come to the table. And this gets back to the point from before, though. The re. I mean, think about their mindset. They do not care. The Iran. The people in charge in Iran are like, it. We'll burn it down. Like, that's their mindset.

[Julian]

Like.

[Frost]

Like, that's back to, like, the Middle Eastern, like, people with very different psyches. That's right. Like, I mean, imagine they're like, like, Trump's gonna do it.

[Julian]

Like, Trump.

[Frost]

Yeah. I mean, like, I think Trump's gonna do it. And like, they're like, ah, whatever.

[Julian]

This is the difference, too. Do you know, do you remember Obama's redline comment about Syria?

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Fucking dumbass comment. All right. Barack Obama's foreign policy was putrid for the most part. What I respect about the aftermath of that is he made this absolutely insane comment where he publicly married himself at a time where we're trying to pull out of wars. Married himself to having to declare war on Syria by saying, if you guys do this with the. With the chemical weapons, that's a red line. We're going to come in. So then they fucking. They're like, well, okay, we're going to fucking do it. They did it. And he was pissed. Like, his pride was hit.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And he could have launched some strikes that are not declaring war. Mini. He could have done it without Congress, but he was so pissed off that he backed off and said, you know what? I'm gonna send it to Congress just so that it's done the right way. And he was actually so blind that he thought they were gonna pass it. They voted like 400 to 100.

[Frost]

It's ironic. On that one instance, Obama was like, yeah, we'll let Congress decide.

[Max]

Right.

[Julian]

The one time he did. And I respect it because it would have started a new war.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Do you think Donald Trump's gonna do the same thing? Come on, Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants to fucking strike. He gonna strike like. Like this. This is an alpha, alpha, alpha dog.

[Frost]

I do think there. There's a misconception here, though. Everyone talks about Iran, about Israel, and obviously Israel is the most influence, let's say in the US in terms of like Middle Eastern countries. But it's not just Israel that wants Iran out. I mean, again, in Lebanon, like, they view Iran as holding their country hostage. The people who are. Oh, yeah. The people who are anti Hezbollah in Iran, which is to say most people do. They hate Iran. Sunnis, Sunnis across the Middle east despise Iran. Not just the governments, but the main thing, dude, Iran came in and backed up Bashar Al Assad while he massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people.

[Max]

Saudi Arabia against, right?

[Frost]

Huh?

[Max]

Saudi Arabia.

[Frost]

Saudi Arabia, I think, is kind of a coin flip. No one really knows, but like, in terms of like the average person, I mean, like, the. This is something that comes up time and time and again in conversations, conversations have with Muslims in America, dude, the, The Syrian civil war. Iran and Hezbollah support of Assad alienated a huge number of just everyday Sunnis against Iran, against, you know, against Shia. And it's just. It's just more nuanced. Like. No, like there's. And there's two levels to this. I mean, already the whole Middle east is repositioning itself right now as though Iran is already irrelevant. And like, you know, forever you had Sunni versus Shia. Not forever, but, you know, for. For a while you had Sunny versus Shia. And those are the two main access releases. 1979. And now it's repositioning where you're having the kind of secular versus the. Is like, you know, Islamist, the Muslim Brotherhood, whatever, Turkey, Qatar versus uae, Egypt, you're having this whole new carving up of the Middle east happening. They're already. It's that quick. Since June and really since October 7th when everyone kind of saw Israel, you know, what was going to happen with Iran and Hezbollah, whatever. The Middle east is totally. It's totally different from it was before, from how it was before. It's changing already. You see it in Sudan, you see it in Libya, you see it in Yemen. You see it in Syria, all these countries, it's like they're, they're being, they're being torn between these two new axes that have developed something I haven't seen really anyone talk about it. But again, you go to, you go to Lebanon, you go to Israel, you go to Egypt, everyone, this, this Egypt, they don't really talk politics, but if, if someone will talk politics, you know, they'll, they'll. This is, this is like the, this is the situation right now because it's like Iran forever. It's like you had one Sunni, Shia, and now Shia is not really relevant Sunni. What are they going to do? Sunni versus Sunni. And Turkey wants to recreate their own Ottoman Empire in a way.

[Julian]

Saudi, Turkey, we forget about all the time.

[Frost]

Turkey, we sleep on Turkey a lot.

[Julian]

We sleep on Turkey a lot.

[Frost]

And also, also another funny thing to me, like, do a lot of this stuff. I remember when Bashar Al Assad fell and I remember listening to Tim Dillon at the time and Tim Dillon was like, oh, clearly this is Israel. And whatever dude, Israel does not like is for Israel. Having Bashar Al Assad there, it was like, it was quiet. They were, they, they had their little proxies in that part of Syria, dude. Now it's Turkey. I mean, Shiraz, Turkey's guy, and now you have him trying to seize all of Syria. That's a problem for Israel. I mean, that's why Israel moved in there immediately after Bashar Al Assad fell and they took over that portion of southern, southern Syria. But now you're ending up with a situation where you're having, for the first time in over a decade, you're going to have an actual Syrian government controlling the whole country. Like that's like the threat. Like there's just all these different things now you have the uae, you have Israel supporting like the Druze and the

[Julian]

Kurds and Syria courage down there, bro,

[Frost]

who are getting totally, totally shafted right now. I mean, they're, they're just. But I mean, it's a full blown war in parts of Syria right now that's not even being talked about. Obviously Sudan, Libya, all these places, they're being carved up along new lines because already Iran is kind of fading from the picture.

[Julian]

That's right. God, what a mess, bro. Oh my God. We have officially pissed off everybody today. I love that dude.

[Max]

We've gone out and speaking of pissed off, I didn't need to take a lake real quick.

[Julian]

All right, yeah, yeah, we'll be right back and we're gonna get into some Epstein stuff. When we get back, I just have one more question about Hezbollah, and then we'll. We'll go there, remember? Well, we just had a little podcast in the middle of the podcast right there. But we're back on air now. Before we get to the late. Not great at all. J E. Yeah, I did want to come back to one thing regarding Hezbollah, because you actually were on the ground speaking with what's left of them post pager attack and all that.

[Max]

What?

[Julian]

You know, you talked about this from both sides of the equation, speaking with people there and then speaking with Israelis and speaking with the rank and file regular people and then speaking with the rank and file people in Israel. When you were talking with the Hezbollah guys, what, you know, were you like, oh, I'm with a terrorist right now, or were you kind of like, all right, this is more complicated than I thought.

[Frost]

I mean, it's.

[Julian]

It's.

[Frost]

The people I was with from Hezbollah, like that, you know, that I met there, was. Interviewing. Were not. They're not. They're not the militant Hezbollah members, right? Like that. Like Hezbollah, you got two things. You have the political party, then you have the armed. I mean, you have way more than two things in Lebanon. You have Hezbollah grocery stores, you have Hezbollah banks, You have, you know, Hezbollah everything. I mean, they. It is a country within a country. So it's like, does the person who, who works the desk at the Hezbollah grocery store, like, are they a terrorist? Israel probably say yes? I think that most people would say no. So it's like, yeah, we're sitting there. You're not like, I'm not. I don't. It's not like isis, right? It's not like going in. Going into Hezbollah territory is not like going into ISIS territory. It is night and day different now. The thing in Hezbollah territory is you will disappear if they don't want you there. And you just got to. You just got to hope that they don't care that you're there. But you'll.

[Julian]

You'll.

[Frost]

I mean, you'll go away. We. We spoke to a. Spoke to a Shia woman who was. Who had become anti hezba from a family of staunch Hezbollah supporters. Everyone in her life, pro Hezbollah. She grew up in. In a Hezbollah area. And essentially she was like, you guys didn't have any problems? Like, you. You were in there at the camera, and she's like, yeah. We're like, yeah. And she's like, no problems. I was like, no. I was like, what would a problem be? I was like, would they Detain us. And she goes, if you're lucky, like if we're not lucky. And she goes, you disappear. That suggests that's just how it is now. I, they went. Last year, the last time, I think journalists were killed or shot by them or disappeared, whatever. And during the war, a couple European journalists, I think they're a Belgian, were taking a video of a Hezbollah building that had been bombed by Israel. And they're just there with the cameras doing it. And they were kidnapped and shot. Not killed, but shot, and then left on the side of the road. And I mean, they survive, but did. Wow. Yeah, but, but it's. Dude, it's different. It's. They're paranoid. The, the worst. What you don't want is to be labeled a spy. You know, you don't want. Like, like that is like the worst thing that can possibly happen to you in Lebanon is being labeled a spy.

[Julian]

Don't tell them you worked at the American enterprise.

[Frost]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's freaky, but like, like what the guy said. The guy had a great line who he interviewed, and he was like, he was like. So I'm, I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, this is my destiny. He goes, it is my destiny to resist, and if I die, it is my fate. It was like, like, like that's how he saw the world. And, and it's like. But again, there they, the Hezbollah people have, have a resistance mentality. I mean, it's like the, the ideology, it's not like is, it's not like, think like, like isis. If you'd say ISIS has like a radical Islam, Islamist ideology. That's not Hezbollah's thing. Hezbollah's thing. It's, it's a resistance mentality. It's, it's a mix of left wing, It's a, it's a mix. It's kind of like a left wing, populist, religious, military thing. And this is what Iran has created. This is like it, it comes from this Iranian thing. And you gotta also remember in Lebanon, the Shia, until Hezbollah came, the Shia were like the forgotten. They were the peasants, they were the poorest people. You had Christians and Sunnis who were like traders, merchants, like whatever. And then the Shia were the peasants. And then Iran, they started to mobilize in a group called Amal, backed in the civil war. And then Iran comes in and organizes them and says, we're going to make you guys powerful. And they start giving them guns. Except the training camps. The irgc, all stuff. And then they, and then they emerge and then they fight. They start blowing up, like the US Barracks, stuff like that. Now, it's also worth noting. So before I went, I, I had it in my head. So for context, in the Civil War, I mean, they killed Steve Kerr's dad. He was the president of the American University in Beirut. Assassinated him. Blew up the Marine barracks, blew up the French. French barracks. Believe they attacked the US Embassy. Tons of American journalists were kidnapped back in civil war. Since the Civil War, there's no documented kidnapping of an American journalist. And in Lebanon. So it's different. They've shifted. I mean, that's not their thing. And if you think about it from their perspective, they say they were to kidnap an American journalist. Bro, Trump is going to go fuck them up. Like, that's how they, that's how they see it. Like, it's not, it's not worth it. It. It's like. And that's why being an American can be a huge liability, but it can also be an asset. I think in a lot of, in a lot of places, it was, it was interesting. It's very different from what you would think. He. What it was like before versus now. I, I can't say the difference. I don't know what it was like before, but Hezbollah is much less present, visibly present now than they were before. I know that much. And like I said, we didn't have any issues. Thank God. I think if you are very, very. I think most. I think nine times out of 10, you wouldn't have any issues. I think that it is possible that the wrong person sees you and whatever, and you have issues.

[Julian]

Well, I'm really looking forward to these documentaries. How. How many are there going to be?

[Frost]

I think it's 12 altogether.

[Max]

12.

[Frost]

We got. Well, we got a series. Yeah, we're there for two weeks and we did 12 tried to do one a day. Yeah. So I think four from Lebanon, three from the West bank, one with you

[Julian]

taking mushrooms inside the pyramid.

[Frost]

And that's the secret. That's for the Substack subscribers. Paid premium content.

[Julian]

Oh, my God, dude.

[Frost]

The pyramid. The pyramids. That's a whole nother.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, that's not. We're gonna be stuck on that for

[Frost]

a long time if we go there.

[Julian]

But. Okay, so we're putting. We're recording this on Tuesday. Those will go out, I think, on Thursday. So that means those dogs are probably still to come. So everyone check those out. And if you're watching this right now, we have this Collab so you can subscribe to Roka hitting literally right on the title of the video itself. The content is absolutely great. So. All right. We've been holding it off all day. Story, man. Man of the hour. For all the wrong reasons. Jeffrey Epstein. I gotta tell you guys, I have obviously been covered in this case a lot. It is the biggest story of my lifetime, I think. But for all the wrong reasons, obviously. You know, I've studied it religiously since 2019. And yet when this latest tranche came out on January 30th, blew my mind. I mean, I really, it. I knew this was the worst thing. I knew it was total depravity. I knew there were all kinds of powerful people involved. I knew there were all kinds of governments involved, people above government. I knew that. It's beyond even what I knew. I mean, what. What was your reaction?

[Max]

I think that the first thing that surprised me was the breadth of it, kind of what you're referencing, where you have everyone from Peter Attia to, you know, all kinds of diplomats, all kinds of businessmen, all kinds of elites involved in one way or another. And it was. It was. It was sort of stunning to see, you know, all the post conviction interactions and that jumped out at me. And now there are some, you know, kind of stories we're following right now that I think are important in terms of the Bannon relationship. I guess. I guess my big thing in the. In the larger Epstein discourse that we're focusing on is we're a news company, so we try not to play the theory game. Some people have to, and we think that's an important role. Our role is to focus on the substance. And if I may, I think that it's important for people who really care about this issue to not let the crazies derail it. Because I think there have been some crazy theories that have gained a lot of traction. And you look at them. It doesn't take a lot of research on justice.gov to see how, you know, how wrong or misleading or weak some theories are that I think are getting a lot of attention.

[Julian]

What are those theories, too?

[Max]

DiCaprio eating kids. You know, they're saying DiCaprio, viral tweet, tens of thousands of likes. I think cannibalism in general is weak. From the latest files, I get that, you know, the reference to the cannibal and that, you know, there was testimony from one guy who. Who himself seemed a little deranged. It was post Eptine death where he claimed there was cannibalism. I think that One's pretty weak. I think there are a lot of kind of red herrings that are popping up. So I think that is where you can. But I think there are some aspects that deserve. If you want real change, if you want heads, you have to be adherent to facts, because otherwise, I think you made a great point. I think, like Howard Lutnick, I think that if I were. Now, the problem is the guy in the White House does also have kind of a complicated relationship with Epstein over the years. Where you hear, on the one hand, he's his best friend, and Virginia Giuffre comes from Mar a Lago. And you also, he's regularly calling the pad at the Palm beach house, and then you also have him reporting the crimes to the sheriff, and you also have him talking to journalists, and you also have him sort of, you know, in another sense, kind of being one of Epstein's biggest rivals. So you have, like, he is a complicated. But Howard Lutnick, you know, I thought, I thought you made a good point. Like, why is he, why does he still have a job? You know, I think he lied in such an obvious way about his relationship with Epstein. I think we have gotten to this point of like, you know, not caring enough to issue real world consequences. And for some people, you need criminal proceedings, for some others, you just need adults to step up and go, you're fired. You know, you should not be a leader in a country having kept ties and lied about ties with a guy like Jeffrey Epstein. So I guess, I don't know, there's so much to talk about. I don't know, frosted. What you would say were your initial thoughts and kind of where you are now.

[Frost]

I'd say, thankfully, I was in the Middle east for most of the stuff.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

So, So I always take it from a distance.

[Max]

Coincidentally. Yeah, yeah.

[Frost]

Coincidence. No. Yeah. I, I, I don't know. I mean, I, to me, someone like Howard Lutnick is just ridiculous. It's just absolutely ridiculous. I mean, to lie about this. It's obvious that Trump, the Trump administration's policy with everything is to never show weakness. And if you fire someone and you force a resignation, you're showing weakness, and you can't do that. The fact that Pam Bondi still has a job job like, like all these people, I mean, it's just discrediting to the entire government. Beyond that, I mean, I don't know. I read the stuff, I read, obviously, all the, the pizza references, the grape soda references and everything. And you're like, what the is going on here, the jerky. But I don't know. I mean, that's like. I like, I've read it. I've read the emails. I've read the stuff that our writer Max Hudgins has put a bunch of stuff that's been really good, but beyond. I don't have, like, a comprehensive theory of it. So let me ask. Let me ask you. So, like, the jerky thing. I like, we've read the same emails. Like, I read that. I'm like, okay, this is really weird.

[Julian]

Yes.

[Frost]

I don't know how to go beyond that because I'm like, yeah, it's possible they're cannibals. That also seems like a quite a large jump. So I'm. That's kind of where I am. Like, well, I don't know.

[Julian]

Well, this. This is exactly what I was going to reply to with what you were saying, toy is that there are things that in the past, even as it pertains to this case, if people brought it up, I would have been like, come on, get the fuck out of here. Please stop. Like, you're. The crazies are taking over. It does not mean that all those things have now happened, though, and people want to run with that. However, there are things, and I have to admit this, that in the past I would have dismissed and ruled out that on a 0 to 100 probabilistic scale. I can no longer say or zero. I cannot say. Cannibalism is at a zero. Do I think it's at a 90%? No, that's where I'm with you. I don't. I, I, I think the people are like. Or the people are like 100. This happened. Like, I need more. Yeah, but what's in those other 3 million documents that they're holding back? Why is timber. I tend not to trust people from congress and government, so let me put a big, you know, asterisk on this. But why are people like Tim Burchette, who have seen some of those files throwing around terms like cannibalism and stuff like that? You know, like, you see these people talk and you're right, the jerky thing could be a lot of stuff. There was a guy I cited on the Kiriakou podcast, Steve, can we look it up? Epstein jerky documentary. It's like Dr. Something Reacts. I really appreciated how this guy broke down the emails because he didn't draw any conclusions. He just said, here's the emails. Here's what they're saying. Here's all the references to jerky. It's weird.

[Max]

I will say part of this. And at the end of the day you have to pursue truth. And so even if it makes you like nauseous, I like reading the discourse around pizza, for example, where on the one side you people saying, well, almost all of it was in conversation. Like most of the pizza references were Epstein talking to his urologist and therefore pizza and grape soda in those contexts were referring to medicines he was taking for like STDs and other things. And most of the pizza references, when you break it down and then you read other ones and it's not as convincing. And so all of a sudden you just sort of feel nauseous having to do the, the due diligence for this story. I also do think a lot of the people on who show up to Congress, I mean there are, you know, a few of them have certainly changed their tune dramatically in the last three years and there, you know, are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. But it's also true that I think that some people who are so micro focused on this story are missing the larger picture.

[Julian]

And what's that?

[Max]

The larger picture being over that from not having a college degree, taking classes at NYU to becoming the most trusted tax estate planner in the world and getting 100, however many million dollars from Leon Black alone and getting the most expensive townhouse in Manhattan for $1 and being friends with Ehud Barack and two presidents that like that journey is, is bizarre. And there are just so many profound oddities about the Epstein case. And I just, I'm still in the, I don't know what to make of it. I really don't. I really, I know that might sound, you know, like everyone's kind of expected to have a theory. I don't, I really don't. Like parts of it lead to yes, there are evil people and they have some friends who may or may not know the, the extent of their evil. And they kept up affiliations for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't want to have an explosion, a public fallout, whatever. Or maybe they were deep in it. And then there were other parts like the Ghislaine Maxwell of all people. His companion is the daughter of Robert Maxwell of all people. Of all people. You know, and it's like in the connecting in his line to Putin and

[Frost]

what do you make of that one?

[Max]

I just don't know what to make of it.

[Julian]

Yeah, well, he was connected. Dave Smith actually had a really good tweet on this that I'm not even saying I agree with, but it's a very interesting point to put out there. And he said, I used to think Jeffrey Epstein worked for Mossad. I now wonder if Mossad worked for Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, I'm not there. But he draws a good point in the sense that it is very, very clear, it is crystal clear that Israeli intelligence is involved with this. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. It's a fucking duck. And that's an issue. It is also clear to me now that our intelligence is involved with it too. That also, that was already clear to me, but it's more than I thought. And it is also clear to me that this guy was a peddler, like a Robert Maxwell, who peddled intelligence, we know, to multiple different intelligence agencies around the world. I have no doubt that Jeffrey Epstein did things like that. That's why I think Tucker is really spot on about this, about a super government where he's like, you elect people, but they work for people who are fixers who work for the real people. And Jeffrey Epstein is the fixer who works for the real people.

[Frost]

But why do you think, I mean, like, Robert Maxwell had ties to Soviet intelligence, UK intelligence, Israeli intelligence, American intelligence? Right.

[Julian]

I don't know about ties to American intelligence, but the first.

[Frost]

Certainly the other three, yes. So then why, I mean, don't you think they share intelligence? I mean, don't you think they just find these, these people and like, I don't. I don't understand the thing of being above them. I've heard Tucker's super, super national stuff. I don't really get that compared to. Yeah, they've got a guy who's, who shares some information and they all identify the same guy.

[Max]

And on the super. I, I know there's always that clip of like the guy on Patrick Bet David who said, here are the most powerful people in the world and you don't know them. I'm like, I get how that's catchy. I don't know if I buy it. And I also think that let's. If you assume that a lot of things about our world don't make perfect sense, it's also true that the Jeffrey Epstein story needs explanation. And there were a lot of bizarre. But, like, there are just so many public dissenters, you'd think that they'd be a little better at weeding them out or at least controlling the system more. I'm saying, if there were super government, what was that? Public dissenters, just people like, you know, would Tucker be able to speak the way he does if there were this all powerful.

[Julian]

Okay, so, so here's the difference. The world has changed in the last two years drastically. You couldn't talk about this two years ago if I put the word Epstein spelled incorrectly in a title. Boom. Demonetized. We've talked about this. You can go Back to episode 39 with Mike Spier. We've talked about this case. And that video is demonetized, by the way. Like it's. It. There was a real lid on this. And what happened is the volume of people rose so large and the story got so out of their control. These people that used to think they could just run the world without any, you know, any of the little people bothering their order of business at all finally got caught with their hands in the cookie jar that they can't put a toy lid on this anymore. The world has changed. And the fact is, and this is, this is just the fucking 500 pound elephant in the room. You have a guy who was associated with Israeli and American intelligence for sure. For sure. That is at this point, if someone does, does not say that as a baseline, I can't really have a conversation with them about the case because they haven't studied the case. And we now have 3 million files that are. Oh, it's locked away in violation of federal law, by the way. We're never going to show it to, to people. We have files that protected people who are tied to these intelligence organizations and now they've had to un. Redact some of those things because they got caught doing them. And the fact of the matter is, when you put this all into context with the fact that the, the Israeli government has had an awful PR campaign for over two years now to where basically the entire world is against the government and what they're doing there, there. They ain't like that no more with shutting people down. I could have put out a video two years ago. Remember Mr. Beast used to do those videos where, when he was young where he would just say the same word. I'm gonna say this word.

[Max]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

I could have done a video where I was like, biden, Biden, Biden. Like over and over and over and over again. And it would have, you know, maybe done a million views or something like that. But if I had said that and replaced the word Biden with Israel, you'd never hear my channel again. That is not, not the case today. That is not the case. You have people who. There is such a volume of people speaking against their actions that they cannot put a lid on it. And sometimes, and this is the 60 chess play. Sometimes I wonder if that's the idea.

[Frost]

Well, I mean just to like we ran a three part or four part series on Epstein back in 2021 on Instagram. It got over 100,000 likes across and we were a smaller page then. We probably had like 600,000 followers. And it was just about, about essentially, you know, the argument for why Epstein likely was murdered. But it got out there.

[Julian]

That's it. Did you get to like the, did you get to the intel stuff?

[Frost]

I Honestly, it was 2021.

[Max]

Yeah. I can't remember.

[Julian]

But.

[Frost]

But it did, but it got out.

[Max]

I mean, I think we covered Acosta.

[Frost]

Yeah. To that stuff I just said like, like when I look at it again, I don't, I just don't know. And I haven't gone through it nearly as closely as, as I will at some point, but isn't it. It's definitely to me, when I look at it, I don't see evidence, I haven't yet seen evidence that the most egregious things that the child sex trafficking stuff to all these powerful people happened. What I have seen evidence of is that he is a lot of people coming to him for prostitutes, coming to him, trafficking other kind of women. Is that diff. I mean, I don't know. Like, like to me, like the whole. You have this, you have this kids in those trafficking. Huh?

[Julian]

There were kids. It's in the emails. He was trafficking young kids too.

[Frost]

It's in the emails?

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Frost]

What's it say?

[Julian]

They're not even the ones in code. I got an 11 year old, I got a 13 year old. The stuff that Michael Tracy forgets how to read.

[Max]

Well, wasn't the Howard Lutnick one? Wasn't that him talking about his own kids?

[Julian]

That's different. I'm not even referred. That was disgusting to me. But like that's, that's different. There are literally emails of them going back and forth talking about this. And then can you pull up the email of Jeffrey Epstein saying I'm that guy about the movie? Just. This is all you need right here.

[Max]

Well, yeah, I.

[Frost]

Can you put up on the screen Queen?

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah. He's. He's going to, he's trying to find it. Where he's like, like, where's the other one? God damn it. I thought this was it. I'm sorry. The other one where he's. He literally says I'm that guy.

[Frost]

Hold on, can you go back? Trying to read that again?

[Julian]

Oh, this email made my blood boil. It's. It's like, you couldn't even write this in a movie. He's like, I. I almost. I almost. He was like, I almost fell over because I'm that guy. She had no idea I'm that guy. And it's from this same time. We gotta find that email.

[Max]

December, a friend of a friend Skype

[Frost]

me because they wanted some advice. She said she was working.

[Julian]

I just had an Epstein survivor in that chair, by the way, too.

[Max]

Really?

[Julian]

Who was trafficked to that island?

[Max]

Damn.

[Julian]

Yeah. This is a case. This is left and right. It is the most bipartisan case of my lifetime. They're guilty.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And. And it is such a red line that makes my blood boil when people cannot go look. Like, when I talk to other people in my life who are like, all right, once. I'm like, you know what? I get it. You're going about your daily life. You don't have time to look into this like I do. But, like, please read some emails. Please just. Just go look at the depravity of what this guy was doing. Listen to the people listening who survived it and are brave enough to talk about it. It's just. It's beyond the pale.

[Max]

But my question that I come back to is, is I feel the outrage about getting some justice, getting some heads to roll, but my question is, whose? You know, you have to start with actual, you know, targeted. It's not enough to say, like, we need the system to fall, like, if we want justice. I always wonder, who do you start with? Like, is it Bill Gates? Well, to my understanding, I don't think Bill Gates went to the island. I think he kept close ties and went to the townhouse a few times in Manhattan. I. I just always wonder, like, who goes down and in what order, because I think that the. My thing is, the collective outrage, I think, is totally legitimate. It's absurd that, you know, this was blocked up for so long. But, like, you do have to be tactical in terms of who to go after. All right, it looks like we're getting another picture up, but I do want to hear your thoughts on that. Like, who do you go after? In what order?

[Julian]

You go after the people that are clearly implicated in this, but you go. You go after the people that start with the ones that already have witness testimony all over them. You. I shout out to the UK for at least arresting Andrew. It's over. Probably the Al Yamama deal and not this yet, but that involves Epstein. But you start with the people who are clearly implicating themselves in here. You start with the Fact that you have a guy who was listed as a co conspirator in the documents and covered up for like Les Wexner, who's in the emails going back and forth with this guy who gave him all his money inexplicably to a fucking college dropout.

[Max]

You start with the people who were

[Julian]

trafficking these girls through modeling agencies. Some of them apparently are already dead because they unalive themselves and stuff like that. But you go and dig into the case like you would dig into any other case, and you don't protect people simply because they pay the right people and are very wealthy. I am with you, Max. That it like my instant reaction, right? Like I'm an emotional guy first and you see some of it coming out right now. I train myself to be logical.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

I usually don't lose it on camera. I've lost it a few times since this case has come out, and I make no apologies for that. But like, like, I have to train myself to get it all out, which is usually on a phone call to someone close in my life. And then pace around, calm down and look at the logic. Yeah, okay, so now I'm calmed down.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And I'll look at the logic now after my little freak out. And the logic is that there is significant evidence against a lot of people who happen to pay all the right people who are wealthy, that has been covered up and that needs to be uncovered up. And we are talking about the most basic thing that everyone should be able to agree on here, which is that you don't, you don't abuse anyone, but you especially don't abuse kids. So the fact that they are not. That they're. Bondi has said they're not going to bring any cases about this already. Are you kidding me? Shut the up about the Dow.

[Frost]

Yeah, the Dow, Julian, are you. Is he pulling up the one about the kids? So this is, this is my, this is essentially my understanding of this.

[Julian]

This.

[Frost]

So, like, the way I've understand it, like the stuff that I've seen and I look at it, I'm just like, okay, what I understand from what I've read and what makes sense to me, Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking women. I'm. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that, you know, whatever. Just like, if I like go through because, like, because I haven't seen. I hadn't seen this one, but I've seen other ones. He's trafficking women to other powerful people. And you have these people, like the, like the Emirati guy, you know, who's saying, who's. I think they're going to Istanbul and saying, you know, can you bring me some girls here? Like, it's very obvious, like, what's on. Going. Going. What's going on there? The kids thing. That's where I look at it and I'm like, I just. I haven't, to be honest, I just haven't seen the stuff. I'm not saying it's not there. And the stuff I've gone through, I haven't seen that part of it substantiated. I. I'm not saying Jeffrey Epstein himself, I mean, he literally went to prison for soliciting a child prostitute. Right? Child prostitute. Raping a kid. But, you know, in terms of the overall thing of, of the, of the cabal of these people, you know, taking their turns with these, with these children, I have not seen that substantially. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm not. I'm not rejecting it. But. Well, I mean, like I said, I've gone through a bunch of them. I haven't there.

[Julian]

I cannot.

[Max]

But. But, Julian, like, deny. I always. I think that with some of this, like, I hate Bill Gates, I would beg you to look for a news company too, that that has hit AI. I think, like, has given it the scrutiny deserves. And all these companies making fortunes and all the leaders behind them and the tech world I'm deeply skeptical of. I'm shocked it doesn't get more coverage. There's part of me that wonders if Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, isn't pushing this issue so aggressively, partly because it's a huge distraction. Elon Musk begging for the file release when he's in them in an embarrassing and stunning fashion, and yet he still wants discourse to be Epstein focus. Like, there's part of me that wonders what their angle is and all this, but I'm also like, I looked at all the Bill Gates stuff, all of it, and I can't pin him. And I imagine prosecutors can't pin him to a crime. Should it be societally canceled? That's another question. Because he associated with this guy. He got divorced over his. This relationship, and people warned him about Epstein. So. So maybe on a societal level, we start to look at Bill and Melinda Gates foundation or the Bill Gates foundation, and just go, okay, we. We. This is no longer a treasured thing. Maybe he shouldn't be speaking at all the Emirati summits or Davos or, you know, or the. What's it called? Sun Valley. Maybe he shouldn't be speaking at all these. But is Bill Gates criminally implicated? I bet Les Wexner, I don't know. I bet he would be, I bet he would be um, Leon Black. I bet he would be J.P. morgan. I'd like to see more there. I mean they, they paid up a big settlement. I think it's like 290 or something. 230 or whatever. But I do want to see more investigations. I just, I guess I'd like to, I don't know, see more and I don't trust Pam Bonnie to do it. Like I don't trust Pam Bonnie to do it. But I would like to see some more criminal proceedings. But it's got to start somewhere.

[Julian]

It's got to start somewhere to start somewhere. And to be clear, there are some powerful people that are fun to talk about about because we hate them for a lot of reasons and we hate the fact that they're associated with the guy where right now we don't yet have evidence that could say definitely was with a 15 year old or something like that. Off the top of my head, maybe people in the comments can correct me if they found something in the emails. But like Bill Gates is a guy that I cannot say right now is someone that we have any proof that he was with a 15 year old or something like that. There's a lot of smoke right around it, I'll say that. But there are other people like Prince Andrew where we absolutely do.

[Max]

But like with Bill Gates too, it's like even the Russian prostitute std. That was an unsent email from Jeffrey Epstein to Jeffrey Epstein. Is it? Do I believe it's true? That's everyone's judgment, right? I tend to think it's compelling. I mean Bill Gates we know cheated on his wife. Yes, that was known. Melinda was very concerned about his Epstein relationship and that's quite a detailed thing to type to yourself if there's not some substance to it. So like to me I, everyone can draw their own conclusion on that one I think. But, but, but like with the underage, that's where I'm like, I mean also those Russian girls, I, I, I think has the FBI looked into how they were procured and what they're, I don't know.

[Julian]

So they would go get 15, 16 year olds from over there.

[Max]

Yeah, like so I, I think there's a lot to look into and I think Pam Bonnie's handling it poorly. I was surprised at how much of Trump world was caught up in this and it made me almost trust the DOJ a touch More and that they were willing to, like. Howard Lutnick would have, you know, probably given his life for all that to not come out. And Elon as well. But still, I would like to see all the files out, you know.

[Julian]

Yeah, they, they. Nancy Mace, who's been one of the few brave people on this, going after it, tweeted out last night that, that they're not. They're not releasing the rest of the files because it would implicate intelligence matters. And kudos to her for doing that. No, Sherlock. But I appreciate someone like, in her position saying that publicly, but it's like, with who?

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Who's it implicating?

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And why is. Why is that such an issue? Yeah. You know, and it's because if there's one thing in society, there's people who have come back from homicide.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

In some cases. But if there's one thing that if it's written in stone, you are not coming back from.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

It's being a pedal.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

It is the ultimate. As it should be. It's the ultimate Scarlet. Scarlet letter.

[Max]

Right.

[Julian]

On all of these people.

[Frost]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And so, you know, sometimes do we try people in the court of public opinion before we have facts.

[Max]

For sure. For sure.

[Julian]

And, and that's. That's not fair. But it is the ultimate blackmail weapon. And by the way, and this is a conversation that, you know, especially right now, people don't want to have because they just want to burn everything down. And I get that, but, like, are there guys who are probably sitting on hard drives and, and probably Tel Aviv that show proof that they had sexual relations with. With an underage kid and had no idea when they were doing it, that that was an underage kid? Yeah, I have no doubt about that. But their proof won't matter. They're still going to be, if it ever came out, they're still going to be labeled that way. And there are so many ways to get people with this. And this guy that you are talking about, a guy like in Jeffrey Epstein, obviously a stage sick, sadistic individual, but it is very clear to me from all the accounts we've heard of him, and, you know, I just had one of them in here personally. He was a master class manipulator. He knew how to. How to be like a parasite on your desires and your biggest weaknesses, your biggest touch points, and just attack them. And so we've seen what he can do to so many people. And it's like the rabbit got out of the hat at some point and these agencies decided, oh, my God, we can never let anyone else know about it. And now people know. And I. I think it's a. Listen, There are enough people who are totally uninformed on this, who haven't kept up with it, which is what the government is counting on to make this go away while they distract us with wars in Iran and all that. There are enough people that if things don't happen soon, sadly, cynically, this will drift off and nothing will happen. If that is not the case, though, and a bunch of people keep their voice loud and proud about this and say, we are not letting this go. This is a civilizational threat of a story. And this. This is. This is the point I wanted to make to give you guys a chance to bite this off. But, like, as much as my emotional reaction is like, burn it all down, I know that that ends really badly if you burn down all of Western civilization overnight because you've decided that a bunch of people are satanic pedophiles and therefore everyone is. Well, the world as we know it ends instead. The harder thing to do, but the right way to go about this is, imagine the greatest, biggest, most historical mansion you've ever seen in your life. Life, like from the Roman times. And it's. It's sprawling and it's got a million rooms in it. And you know that a bunch of those rooms are filled with asbestos and termites and cockroaches, and they gotta go. The easy thing, looking at the task in front of you is to be like, I know it's a story. Just burn it all down and we'll figure it out later. That's the easy thing to do. The harder thing to do is to put on a Hazmat suit and go room by room, one by one, and clean it out. That's what we got to do.

[Frost]

Julie, what about. I mean, all the people who aren't implicated, like, in that. Like, in that worldview? I mean, that. Like, that's to say. That's to say that, you know, you have the entirety of the elite, but it's not the entirety of elite, you know?

[Julian]

Right.

[Frost]

Let's look at the Bush administration. For everything George Bush did wrong. George Bush's name isn't in there, is it, bro?

[Julian]

He bombed brown people for the love.

[Frost]

Yeah, well, but, but, sure, but like that. But I'm not. I'm not talking about that. But just like, his name's not there, right? Or Obama's name isn't there. And, like, that's right. There's a huge number of people who aren't there. Which is to say. Okay, then what's the. If, you know, if there is a. So for me, like, look, I guess I struggle to put together the coherent narrative, because if the coherent narrative is everybody's compromised, the idea here was to compromise everybody with power. Well, there's a lot of people who aren't. So you're making my point.

[Julian]

This is what I'm saying.

[Frost]

What, that you got to go after those ones who are.

[Julian]

That's right.

[Frost]

Yeah.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Room by room. But I guess find the rooms that actually have asbestos.

[Frost]

But how does that.

[Max]

If.

[Frost]

If. Okay, because if there's two ways of looking at this. One is that Jeffrey Epstein is a, you know, essentially a rogue individual who loved being at the center of the social circle. Here is pedaling women to all these people or girls or whatever it is for the love of. Let's just say if you're saying George Bush is bombing them for the love of the game. Epstein's doing this for the love of the game. Right. If that's. If that's one worldview and then the other is that it's a co. A concerted effort to blackmail everybody. Right. Monster Energy, everybody knows White Monster, Zero Ultra, that's the og it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava, and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe, and every single one is Zero Sugar Tap the banner to learn more. And yet most powerful people are not implicated. I mean, there are legions of super, super, super powerful people. I talk about Jamie Dimon. Right. Talk about there like, there's all these people who shape the world in many ways who aren't. Who aren't involved here.

[Julian]

Jamie Dimon is implicated.

[Max]

I was gonna say J.P. morton, but.

[Frost]

But J.P. yes. Yeah, okay, sure.

[Max]

But.

[Frost]

Okay, but, you know, I mean, whoever. I mean, there's lots who aren't.

[Julian]

Yes.

[Frost]

So. So how does that just. Like, I'm not. I'm not saying this like, whatever, but how does that. Like, in your view, how do you explain all the people who aren't implicated?

[Julian]

Yes, you're making my point. For this is what I'm saying. We are seeing so many powerful, huge names across culture, across different levels of society, be it politics, be it banking, be it tech, be it international diplomacy, whatever it may be, who are implicated. And the easy, angry response to that is to be like, therefore, all of them. I'll give you another example on this. On November 22, 1963, the United States government whacked the sitting president. That's a fact. Let's say there was 100,000 people working at CIA and Pentagon at the time. You think it's reasonable to say 99,000 fucking 985 of them had no idea that was going to happen?

[Max]

I would say yes.

[Julian]

Okay, meaning like it was a small group of people, a little cabal, if you will.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

That decided to make that decision.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Therefore, and there's a lot of other things CIA has done very wrong. And that's a long conversation, but if we're just looking at this issue, does that mean that you should, therefore, the next day, bulldoze CIA and bulldoze the Pentagon and not have them there?

[Max]

No.

[Julian]

Exactly. This is my point, and you're making the same point as me. We are in agreement. I want to go room by room and find the people who actually are guilty.

[Max]

But my, my point, just because I also, I'm not a big. I think, I think Tucker is. I don't trust him in many areas. I think that first of all, he himself, I mean, talk about it, but he loves to analyze people and their incentives and they're like sketchy background. I mean, talk about him like a frozen food heir whose dad ran the biggest propaganda foundation. Got him his start in media object. Worked with the CIA for decades. Voice of America. Yeah, his dad, I mean, in like, he remained very close with them. He goes up the ultra establishment route, calls out people who are pseudo populists and dress like populace even though they're of the elites. He's kind of done that reinvention. Some people say it's an authentic conversion. You can sort of read the man for yourself and his biography for yourself and see when he made the pivot, it was after Fox News and getting fired and all that. There are a lot of things about his deep biography where I just do not trust him. I do not trust him. And I think he's bad faith in many ways. Doesn't mean everything he says is wrong. I think like a lot of people, he, he may cover things very well. And he's a smart guy. He's a very smart guy. He's a good writer, all that. But when he talks about this super government, I'm like, I, I then start to read American history through that lens. And on the one, on the one hand, it's unfalsifiable. Like, if that's your worldview, you can probably justify every event through that lens. You can say well they, they planned it this way and yeah they wanted you to think it wasn't really one the of but I'm still like really? You would have picked Trump of all the leaders like to come out now you make the really good point of the world has changed. So that to me is an interesting theory where like this entity may have had more authority 20 years ago or 60 years ago. I'm of the belief that the CIA used to be a lot more treacherous and the like 60s and 50s I think they were a lot more emboldened and it's harder to pull some of these things off these days. I guess my entire point there is like Frost as Frost said like Obama. I mean Katherine Rummler the top lawyer in the White House she wasn't mean Obama's implications exactly. It doesn't mean he surprisingly Biden pretty clear I mean Hunter all that crack and no epsy but he you know like he had like in Bush pretty. The Bush is pretty safe. So you have a lot of people and I know people will say well some in their orbit were but still the meat of the operation wasn't so I'm like I still think there's a, there's a group like this Larry Summers, Bill Gates across Harvard Davos. Like I do think there's something there. I am not saying there's not. And again we've covered this story since the beginning of Roka aggressively. You can look at everything from our memes to the, the number of times we've covered it as a deep dive, all this. I. My point in that is there's a ton to this story. I just am still like I, I still feel like it's. It might be. I, I just haven't personally pieced it together and I'm, I'm stuttering over my words just because I, I want to like have some theories and every time I think it's it. I, I just feel like you have to have a really good case before you, you launch it. And I'm still like struck in that, stuck in that spot of like piecing

[Julian]

it all together when, when I, when I had John in here the other day, the third hour of that podcast 388 is essentially me and you know, John's looked at this case for a long time. Yeah there's new information stuff. He's looked at some of it but it's just the third hour really shook me afterwards because much of it is essentially me narrating emails and Looking to John, whose head was just turned to the screen like this with his hand like this. And John Kiriakou, the man who. I mean, he never runs out of things to say. The first two times I ever had him here, they were both two podcasts, a piece. He was sitting there for six hours, and I had to, like, stop him. You know, he was speechless. He was genuinely speechless. Like, I knew this was bad. I have talked about how bad this is for a long time. I've talked about how much deeper this may go than we think for a long time. This is worse than even I imagined. Yeah, and you are absolutely right. This. And. And it's not a popular thing to say. And I don't care. I won't just say the popular thing to say. Burning everything down at once is not the answer because there are plenty of also people who might like, if you want to use the sake of argument, who might be really bad people, right? Dick Cheney was a really bad guy. Dick Cheney's not in these files right now. He's also dead now. But think of the people who are alive, right? Like, that's where you have to say, even the people I don't like. If there's not a there there, then don't create one, because that's where they win. That's where the people who pull the strings win. They want you to believe everything without evidence so that they can discredit you. And that's why, like, I get really firm on the stuff that very clearly does have evidence.

[Frost]

Can you find the email, the one you're talking about with kids on that guy? Or is that this one?

[Max]

The. The. By the way, as. This. As we look for that. The tech pl. The number of tech people in the email surprised me. If you want to talk about, like,

[Julian]

by the way, it is that I. I was frantic earlier reading this. It is that. Let me read this again, Max. It is that bottom email right there. I want to read this because I read this too fast, but this is damning. It's from December 28, 2018. A friend of my. A friend of a friend Skyped me because they wanted some advice. She said she was working on a sex trafficking movie. She said she met this really beautiful girl that used to be a sex slave for a guy with a private island. She met this pilot slash girl at Burning Man. I asked her if she had ever met Epstein. She said she hadn't. And I said, yes, you have. She almost fainted.

[Frost]

So it sounds like Epstein's sending this to a woman, to another to a

[Julian]

woman he was trafficking, I believe I had seen somewhere. He was talking about. He was talking to Masha Dragovich.

[Frost]

Who's that?

[Julian]

She was like, I. I don't really know what to call her. So actually huge shout out to Sean Ryan and their team because this was a unbelievable call. He recorded a podcast with Masha Dragovich who's like this Russian dissenter Putin who's involved in a lot of. I actually have to look more into her, to be perfectly honest. But he records this podcast whether maybe a year ago, eight, nine months, something like that. And you know, Sean just had a gut, something's off, something's wrong here. Never tells anyone, never puts it out. She comes out in the emails as not only being tight because then he asked her on camera about Epstein because he, after the emails he put it out for people so they could see it where she denies really knowing Epstein much at all. She talked with him a couple times, but whatever. She was one of his main people. She's one of the most cited people in the email. She's talking with him about racial supremacy and getting DNA tests and then only having parties with people who match a 98%, in this case Jewish blood or more so they can procreate together because they're smarter than everyone. And she was extremely, extremely tight with this guy. And Sean had an inkling that something was off and he never ran the episode. And that is a God tier level gut feel. So shout out.

[Frost]

Sean, do you so. But sorry, Julian. Do you think all these people, like. I'm just asking, just. I'm not. This is not a leading question. Just. Yeah, curiosity. Do you think all the people who he corresponds with were involved with the sex trafficking?

[Julian]

No, absolutely not. And that's not. People want to believe that. The problem is. I'll give you a personal example. Lawrence Kraus is sat in that chair.

[Max]

Yeah,

[Julian]

Lawrence Krause. And I asked him about it when he was here. I got connected to him through another guest on the show, brought him in here and like when he was coming in, I'm like, we, we already knew at the time he was friends with Epstein, but Epstein funded everyone in the Edge Foundation. I'm like, whatever. So I asked him about it and he answered it. He was, he was kind of. It was quick on the podcast. He was like kind of flipping about it. But he was like, he came in and funded stuff. We take money from people that fund stuff. He was like very direct about it and we got along well. 7,500 emails. Wow. Trying to get Jeffrey Epstein on the Joe Rogan experience after, after he went on himself in 2017. Like the chances of him not knowing something are low. Does that mean he's guilty?

[Frost]

No.

[Max]

7,500.

[Frost]

7.

[Julian]

500 emails.

[Max]

That's a lot. Okay, that's a lot. Like that's a lot.

[Julian]

Had 1100. Had 11,500.

[Frost]

Dude, what was she doing all day?

[Julian]

Your, your question is exactly what you should be asking journalistically. The thing is when you're so caught up with this guy many times post conviction.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

You have to be like, it's just the burden of proof is on you to prove that you didn't.

[Max]

I, I, I, I. But yes, maybe in a social setting, but in a criminal setting. That's why like the, the proof to me I have like a laundry list of stuff to look at new. I still think his tech ties are crazy especially in later stage Epstein like the number of people one area. Like if you look at presidents, it was actually like you know, I mean Trump and Clinton, but again Obama, Biden, Bush. Pretty clean. But if you look, if you look at the wealth list, it's pretty surprising. It's pretty surprising how many of like the tech people are implicated or at least involved. So to me like Les Wexner is on my line of like the people who need a closer inspection. Steve Bannon. Oh my goodness. I mean that interview.

[Frost]

Well, I just say what's your guy. I haven't watched it. What's your guys take on the Steve Bannon?

[Max]

Well, he's rehabbing Epstein and trying to get him through the system now to what, what. You know, Steve Bannon also seems to have like this weird streak of wanting to be a villain. So maybe this was I think the most ironically the most generous reading is he wanted to be like an edge lord and get involved in that. I think though that the degree to which I saw an interesting read that the Epstein belong intelligence line because that wasn't Alex Acosta on a mic. That was a senior White House aide saying Acosta said it and that they now think that maybe Bannon originated that and that basically he deserves a closer inspection. I mean if you're his PR guy

[Frost]

down the stretch, that's pretty dentist Bannon standing with with his audience.

[Max]

I would think so it should have. I mean he talks about the global elite all day and he's working like advising. That is insane to think about. I think Leon Black.

[Julian]

I think I thought Leon Blacks you just want to about optics. Leon Blacks. And, and by the way, sons are not guilty of what their father is. But from an optics perspective.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

These allegations have been out against Leon Black forever. And his son works in the administration. It's like a.

[Max]

It's like, dude, yeah. The. The William Barr dad.

[Julian]

Yeah. By the way, who's in charge of the transition team of the administration? Howard Lutnick.

[Max]

Lutnick. Lutnick. To me, I think we have like overthought some of this too where like that was a big lie. He should get fired. You're fired. I think some presidents say what you want about like Obama and Bush. They would move people out of there if there was like a scandal. And I know people are like, they were so deep state. I mean Eric Holder, I guess is an exception.

[Frost]

Trump too.

[Max]

Obama. But no, no, I'm saying Trump Acosta. Acosta moved on. That's true, that's true, that's true.

[Julian]

But I'm saying lasted 10 days.

[Frost]

Well, Trump term won. Fired everybody. But.

[Max]

But yeah, this term he's like, what. What does Cash Patel have to do to lose a job?

[Julian]

That's what. That's my question.

[Max]

I think the weakness point is one reason he doesn't want to be perceived as week. I'm saying he should be moving them out. Like, I don't.

[Julian]

Why is he not.

[Max]

Why Pam Bondi? I think it's probably either the weakness point or he doesn't want them to rat on what they know and maybe they know more than he'd like us to believe. Like if Bondi hit the podcast circuit, who knows what she's seen that they don't want out there. Who knows what tell all book she could put together about what Trump said about releasing the files and calling the American people. I'm sure like Trump was like, these fucking idiots won't drop this story. Guess what? I was friends with them. Everybody was friends with who knows what quotes he has. I'm making these up, obviously. I bet you Pam, Bonnie could write a pretty explosive tell all. I think that's another reading. Um, I'm sure the audience will have some more theories, but I don't know. But I, I think that like there should be some basic accountability. Elon Musk on this. I'm not looking past that either, by the way.

[Julian]

I don't.

[Max]

I don't think he's an answer for that. I don't think he's like criminal per se, but like to want the epic parties girls for the win and to consistently insist and they get rejected from the pedo party. Not that, not that it was a Peter, but I do I do. Again, we're in a different position. Like, I don't want to say things that aren't true, but going to the island is like, it's, it's like that college party where like whatever house it is, whether it's the wildest frat or like my college didn't have frats, but there was always a house where like you didn't know what was going on there, but you knew the hardest drugs were happening. You knew the girls that ran around there. It was a little weird and whatever. Like when you walk into that house, you kind of know what you're signing up for. You don't know exactly what's going on. I think a lot of people knew vaguely what Epstein was known for. Like Trump in the early 2000s saying that younger women, even younger than I like them. You know that line like in the New Yorker profile. Yeah, I guess. I guess a lot of people knew what he was about and just still ran in his circles.

[Frost]

No, not to. So we, when we last weekend in our app. Every, every weekend we do. We do five deep dive stories on the weekend. Three of them last week were about Epstein and the. I was looking at the feedback from our, from our readers and it's very, very, I'd say like 70% want more of the content.

[Julian]

They're.

[Frost]

I mean they're horror. They're just horrified by everything. They think it's a story of the year and all, you know, story of the century and all this kind of stuff. And then the other 30 are essentially in the. It's a cover up, it's a distraction red herring thing. And I do say, I mean the point that Tui made before I do so again, I like, I really, I'm not at all. I'm. I just don't know what to make of it.

[Julian]

Right.

[Frost]

I want to learn more about it. I want to, I want to keep re. I want to keep attaining information, just figuring out where it is. I mean, I don't think obviously nothing should be off limits and we should be pursuing the truth in every single aspect. I do worry about, dude, I think this AI stuff, man, it is terrifying. It's terrifying. It's happening just in the period since like say July when this epine stuff really started popping off. Dude, like the AI stuff, it's become everywhere. I mean it's starting to shape everything and this is what everyone's talking about. So I do, I think two things can be true. I mean there, there can be smoke and fire and it can also be that this is all everyone's talking about. Do I like, per. I mean, I'll just say my own, this is my own opinion. I'm terrified, terrified about the AI stuff. I think the economic ramifications of it are massive. I think the social, the control for the government, everything. I think we're looking at a potentially the most destabilizing period ever for, for the U.S. i mean, like, maybe since the Great Depression, but in modern, modern times. And instead, people don't even, People don't talk about it. And it's, and it's just, to me, it's like. And I know a lot of people think if you put it up on YouTube, it's going to get censored and everything, which I definitely, I mean, certainly one video we did not do well,

[Julian]

so AI in the title.

[Max]

Yeah, it's done, dude. It's done. Here's why I'm kind of of that opinion of. Well, well, two opinions. As we just said, we did a little 600% or we bet 600 on Epstein stories last weekend. Like, we're gonna keep covering this. You have to walk and chew gum in our business, especially when Trump's president. There are 15 million stories going on at once. I think that I, I. So these stories shouldn't be competing. They're separate. I do get skeptical about why Ro Khanna. I mean, why weren't they clamoring about this in Biden?

[Julian]

Oh, listen, I don't give Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie and Nancy Mesa, I will admit, because of how hard they're going in on this. There they are a separate entity. For me, that is a separate thing.

[Max]

But, but, but don't you think they may have their own motives? Like, I don't doubt that. Like Nancy Mace. I look at her record and how little I trust her and how, like, full of shit she seems in the reports.

[Julian]

Go watch her in the Tommy G documentary about Epstein four or five months ago.

[Max]

It's worth watching.

[Julian]

Yes.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Because you can tell she's still trying to tow. She tried really hard to tow the Trump line. Then look no farther than Mark Twain. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who talked about this, is a woman who, when they were forced to wear masks at Congress, wore a fucking Trump mask on her mouth. She was the biggest MAGA person ever. And she talks about that conversation with Trump where she's like, I'm trying to help you guys. I believe you. I don't think you're guilty. Get out in front of this. And he's like, you don't understand. I have Friends who are gonna get hurt.

[Max]

You have pedo friends who are gonna get hurt.

[Julian]

You're covering up Lex Web, like calling Lex Wexner a friend, which we now know that's one of the people he's referring to in the year of our Lord at the time 2025 is fucking insane, bro.

[Max]

But Marjorie Taylor Greene allegedly did the pivot after she didn't get the Trump endorsement for Georgia Senate.

[Julian]

Why didn't she get it?

[Max]

But I don't necessarily buy. Because she's politically unpopular.

[Julian]

I'm not a Marjorie Taylor's fan.

[Max]

I know, I know, I know. But my point is, my point is I think that, that those three are, I think, have a grandstanding track record.

[Julian]

I, I don't think Thomas Massey has that. I, I. And he Row Con is a guy I actually like. When the Ukraine war broke out, like, I felt like, actually looked at it somewhat diplomatically at the time. I don't know his voting record on all of the.

[Max]

But it's like he supported the insider trading bill. And then it turns out he has traded, I think, second most of any sitting congressman. And it's like Thomas Massie. There's always been a history of a libertarian who loves the spotlight. Does it mean everything he does is wrong? No, not at all. But it does mean, like, I do wonder when people are so vociferous about this and, you know, I just do wonder why they're doing that. I think if you're going to examine motives, you got to look at everybody's motives.

[Julian]

You do.

[Max]

Nancy Mace has, like, the most insane track record for her ex staffers, and I don't take that lightly. My point on all this is that I think that, like, AI is like, in the last week, let me put it this way, there have been some disturbing Epstein revelations. There's also been Sam Altman talking about humans guzzling up more resources than AI when it comes to acquiring new knowledge. And that comes on the heels of him saying in 2015 he thinks that AI will end humanity, but a lot of great companies will be created in the process. That's the CEO of Anthropic Dario, who also himself has this weird track record of talking about AI destroying humanity. I mean, and we're like, I think that that to me is more top of mind, personally, I think both are massive stories. And I do wonder about those pushing this aggressively.

[Julian]

Everything is a distraction for everything, bro. The Warren, the potential war in Iran here is a distraction for Epstein, which is a distraction for AI, which is a distraction for some other Government takeover. Everything is a giant circle and a distraction. And I agree with you. You have to look at everything. And the soup du jour is whatever the moment is. And. And some people know more about other things than some other things. But, like, yeah, I'm not gonna let this go.

[Max]

No, fair, fair, fair, fair.

[Julian]

So, like, it is so black and white at this point. And again, there's some stuff that is not at the worst end of the spectrum that I. True. By the way, as much as I hate Epstein, I. I'm not rooting for it to turn out to be like, yep, there was cannibalism. I'm not rooting for that. But, like, the fact that I can't rule that out. Reading this stuff should shake people to their core.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

And it's just. God, I'm just. I. This, this one is really.

[Max]

This.

[Julian]

Really? Really?

[Max]

Yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

I mean, look, look, I don't. I don't know what Donald Trump's. The full extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I've defended him in the past as it pertains to Jeffrey Epstein and things that he did out in front. Talking to Brad Edwards, the Victim's attorney, in 2007, and going on the record being the only guy who would do it, talking about him offhanded during the 2015, 2016 campaign about the. He got problems at that island. Now he's coming out there going, I like Bill Clinton. Why?

[Max]

Yeah, why?

[Julian]

Yeah, that is why. You guys are journalists. Why? Yeah, you guys are actually real journalists. Yeah, like that. If you are not asking, why is Donald Trump suddenly saying that about a guy who he stared in the face during a presidential debate and said he raped people? Why is he now like, ah, I still like Bill Clinton. Right. When Bill is going to go talk like,

[Max]

I mean, there ain't a defense

[Julian]

attorney in America who will. Who won't tell you off the record that not to say he's guilty, but that the behavior doesn't look guilty.

[Max]

Yeah. I mean, Trump is not someone. If I were defense attorney, I would not want him as my client personally. No matter how much he pays you. Because. Because a lot of what he does is inexplicable. I don't view his moral track record as favorable even before all this. So, like, I'm not, I'm not a Trump defender by any means, but. Yes.

[Frost]

No, I, I mean, Trump has the power to free, to release all the files. It comes out of him. It's not Pam Bondi, it's him. Right. So. So it's just. It's clear. But like, that's, that's it. I mean, so, so what's it. What's going to take to get him to do something? Nothing.

[Julian]

Well, and also every administration before this since Clinton has covered this up. They deserve absolutely no credit for this.

[Frost]

That's the thing.

[Julian]

I don't give any political credit to people. People right now. I told you, those three are kind of a separate category. Everyone else can off. They get no credit. They covered this up forever.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah. They, I think a lot of people, they love the game of noble lies. We saw this during COVID where they'd rather hide the truth from the public so as to not make them look bad or their institutions look bad. And I think that, you know, a lot of people, like, trusting government's low, trusting Congress is at a historic low, which it is. And then they're like, so you know what we can't do? We can't show that we've been hiding this for a while. And so, yeah, I think there's been this, this. They are way too comfortable with noble lies in the government. Like, let's hide this from the people. I mean, I do think there are state secrets. Like, I think it's dumb to just, I think some people are like open source the government, and you can't do that. But there are issues where they don't trust the public, and that feeds the public's distrust. And so that is outrageous. I think that's why a lot of people, we see it around the country and rural white communities and they're just like, I, I just don't trust the authorities. I, you know, and that's a big freaking problem right now.

[Julian]

Yep. You just there hat there's certain things that need transparency and a light shined on them, especially when it's done.

[Max]

Yeah, Right. Right.

[Julian]

And this, this, this stuff has happened. We cannot change that it happened. Yeah. But we can try to prevent it in the future and we can try to prevent the environment that allowed this to happen. And anyone who's involved should, should be called out on that. You know, if I can't help but thinking if, if, if China were involved with this, these, these documents would have been released six years ago. Yeah, but they're not.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

I mean, the thing that, the thing that honestly scares me, I think we talked about this last time, but it's like, okay, well, if this is happening, then, like all these people, we're talking about 2000 and tens. 2000s, 2000s.

[Julian]

Right.

[Frost]

Well, since then, it's like, obviously it's not like this kind of stuff stopped. So it's like then and then. I can't remember, as you said it, when we were here last time or someone else I was talking to, but the person made the point. They're like, well, you don't really need a Jeffrey Epstein now because everything is recorded on your phone and literally everything.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Frost]

So it's like. It's like. It's like. It's like there's not. Nothing's private. If you're doing something illegal, if you're doing something, you know that's gonna put the scarlet letter on you, somebody knows. And it's just. It's. It's disturbing, bro. I mean, all this. All this stuff is extremely disturbing. But, like, again, dude, the combination of this stuff, the tech stuff, every. I mean, it's. Dude, it's a. It's a dark time. It's. It's.

[Max]

Yeah. What gives me hope are people. I think traveling the country, you see great people everywhere. I think of my loved ones and, like, all the. There is, like, a lot of. Of human decency and so much value to life beyond, you know, your view of your governments and politics and culture war and all this stuff. So, like, I do kind of rest on that. I think this is a great reminder of not placing too much faith in government and. And instead recognizing the, you know, deeper truths of life and the more valuable things. And I, you know, on AI And I still remain hopeful. I really do. I think that, you know, we don't see the unseen sectors that'll be created, and we don't. We may underestimate the resilience of our species. Like, I saw yesterday that it was the 20th anniversary, the iPod mini coming out, and I'm like, dude, that was only 20 years ago. Think about life today.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Max]

And I'm like. And we're okay. I mean, you know, more or less okay. Yeah. And. Yeah, so I guess. I guess I get some hope from that. But, yeah, dude, insane time. I mean, it's.

[Julian]

Look, it's a good time to be in the news business.

[Max]

It is.

[Frost]

We didn't even get to talk about El Mencho.

[Julian]

We did not. I'm gonna be having a podcast coming out right after this with Katerina Schultz. She's coming back into town, and let's just say she was. She's on this story, put it that way. She's covering it inside. But, yeah, there's. There's so much going. It's like you can't even decide. I appreciate you guys. Guys being good sports. About this. I get worked up about this.

[Frost]

Well, dude, I just, I mean, I should be more informed on it. Like I said, I got back Sunday and I was like, well, yeah, yeah. But I mean it was just. Honestly, it's like I was gone and just like being in the mountains in Lebanon, I'm like, yeah, shit's going down.

[Julian]

Yeah. One of the things the Epstein survivor talked about when she was in here was she came from the modeling world and she was, she was just talking about how obvious it was really. Like the whole. And it's not just Epstein seen.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

At all. Like, like, like she's like, obviously, like he's the worst guy new. But they just traffic you everywhere, you know, and then she, she just got out of the modeling business. She was a modeling scout for 15 years after she was a model.

[Max]

Wow.

[Julian]

You know, and, and she's like, listen, there's aspects of the industry that I enjoyed that, that are great. But then there's like this underbelly dark side that's just totally wrong.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

You know, and when you see that and, and what, you know, she was traffic to him all kinds of times. And she was one that was of age. But you know, she would. She talked about the one time that she saw like a 13 year old girl in the car when she got in there. She talked about when she was on the island, there were girls who were underage there with Prince Andrew.

[Max]

Jeez.

[Julian]

You know, like just inviting the prince for the views.

[Max]

Yeah, yeah.

[Julian]

It's just. Is what it is, man. But to your point, you gotta go piece by piece and real. You know, if you want to shun everyone who's in the files because they shouldn't have been associated with them, that's fine. When it comes to the criminal prosecutions, which I want to see, which apparently they're not going to do, but I want to see them and push for them. You have to get evidence on it and you have to get direct evidence on, on the people involved. And we have evidence obviously on the people that were running it, but we got to find the evidence on the pe. On the powerful people who were clearly. You know, it's like running a RICO case with the mob. That's effectively what this is. They're talking in code, they're doing these things. I want to assume it's not. I mean, it is the worst stuff. I want to assume it's not the crazy stuff that you used to be like, all right, that's not even proper for a 4chan article.

[Max]

Yeah.

[Julian]

But you know Or. Or chat room, but I don't know. I mean, you got John Kiriaku going. Yeah. I used to rip everyone for Pizzagate. Who would talk about it like, what are you doing? And now it's like, maybe there's something there. And that is what. Oh, my God. That is wild for me to say. Wild to say out loud. It's like not even comfortable to say.

[Max]

Yeah, but here we are insane. I mean.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Max]

Again, last thing for me on this is like, I think that, you know, from our perspective there, there. I think you have the rank order issues to look into. And I think that. I think some of those VIP relationships still need more scrutiny. The less Wexner. I don't think there's been enough reporting on how Epstein got wealthy. You know, the. The New York Times did that really long, deep dive, but still, it doesn't really answer everything. I think Leon Black, I think Steve Bannon, that. I think the future files release. Will there be the remaining files? Will we see them? I think there are a lot of things that, like, we're gonna stay focused on and then also, you know, take the new theories as they come and start to give them serious treatment. Yeah, that's kind of how I view it. And, you know, and I. I hope that the public's fury scares any scheme like this from happening or at least people to walk on eggshells more and more. I think people are going to be more careful with the meetings they take, I hope. I mean. I mean, we'll see. Because like, this guy. I'd start doing Google searches, you know, email. Yeah. You know, the four commas between everything I love. Torture, vid, comma, comma, comma, pizza.

[Julian]

Yeah,

[Max]

just a weird way of writing. Anyways.

[Julian]

Yes, it is.

[Max]

Julian, thank you for manning the watch. Yeah.

[Julian]

And thanks for seeing there with me on this. I get worked up about this.

[Max]

Yeah. What's the cash for? Down.

[Julian]

God.

[Max]

Thank you. We got the watch and I'll see you in Valhall.

[Julian]

Oh, God. Everyone subscribe to Roka. We got him linked in the. In the literal title.

[Max]

Let's go, baby.

[Julian]

Peace. Give it a thought. Get back to me. What's up, guys? Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave. As well as leaving a like on the video. It's a huge, huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description and you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below. See you for the next episode.

[Frost]

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