Glenn Greenwald: CIA's Venezuela Coup, Trump Meets Lula & Epstein Whistleblowers | PBD Podcast | Ep. 674fgg

Summary

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PBD Podcast Ep. 674: Glenn Greenwald on CIA's Venezuela Coup, Trump & Lula, Israel Policy, and Whistleblowers

Date: October 28, 2025
Host: Patrick Bet-David (PBD)
Guest: Glenn Greenwald

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode features renowned journalist Glenn Greenwald in a long-form, head-to-head conversation with host Patrick Bet-David (PBD). The discussion spans U.S. foreign policy, whistleblower culture, the Israel-U.S. relationship, interventions abroad, the political evolution of Trump’s inner circle, and major shifts in media ownership. With fascinating anecdotes and sharp critiques, Greenwald offers deep insight into governmental secrecy, power structures, and the realities of modern journalism. Both men approach global complexities with candor, skepticism, and a mutual willingness to challenge prevailing narratives and each other.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Legacy of Whistleblowers: Snowden, Assange & Why No More Have Emerged

(02:00–10:31)

• Greenwald recalls his Snowden experience, highlighting the bravery, vision, and sacrifice of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
• Whistleblower climate has chilled sharply:
  • The Obama administration was unprecedentedly aggressive in prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, seeking to deter future leaks by making examples of figures like Chelsea Manning, Snowden, and Assange.
  • "They were trying to create this climate of fear where anyone thinking about, maybe I'm going to be the next Edward Snowden... had to understand that if they did so, they're not going to just go to prison; they're going to have their lives completely destroyed." (A, 05:45)
• Why risk it? PBD asks if whistleblowers expect their lives to change/destroy. Greenwald confirms they are driven by conviction, but perhaps underestimated the relentlessness of the state response.
• Personal vignette:
  • Greenwald recounts the tense Snowden meeting in Hong Kong and the lack of a real escape plan—“He didn’t really care... He was ready for [being caught].” (A, 08:30)
  • Snowden has said he'd return to the U.S. if pardoned, but real safety is a distant prospect.

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2. Pardons, Deep State, and the Inner Workings of Trump Administration

(11:05–18:48)

• Trump nearly pardoned Snowden:
  • According to Greenwald, "Trump came an inch away, Patrick. He came an inch away." (A, 12:00)
  • "A bunch of Republican senators made clear to him, if you pardon Edward Snowden, we’re gonna let this impeachment proceeding go through and we’re gonna convict you. They had a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over his head." (A, 13:00)
  • Mike Pompeo considered a principal antagonist: "He was one of the worst people in the first Trump administration. Was Mike Pompeo responsible for a lot of the worst parts..." (A, 14:58)
• Washington’s power structure:
  • Both reflect on how military, intelligence, and “deep state” actors operate beyond presidential control, sometimes even directly undermining elected presidents.
  • "Washington is a cesspool... All of Washington is built to make sure that democracy doesn’t matter." (A, 15:15)

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3. Trump’s Evolution & Loyalty in the MAGA Camp

(18:48–24:44)

• Who does Trump trust?
  • “Definitely Stephen Miller.” (A, 19:50)
  • Marco Rubio is positioned as the most powerful in foreign policy but viewed as a potential turncoat: “I think Rubio would turn on Trump in a heartbeat.” (A, 20:32)
• America First vs. Neoconservatism:
  • J.D. Vance is described as a more sincere America First adherent, skeptical of endless foreign war—"That's the kind of wasteful war that MAGA and America First was created to oppose." (A, 23:02)

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4. Top Secret Files America Needs Exposed

(26:08–29:57)
PBD asks: What are the Top 5 government secrets Americans most need a whistleblower to reveal?

Greenwald’s picks:

1. Epstein files – "A window into how corrupted and how deceitful our global elite is... The reasons why two consecutive governments have hidden those files... reveals a lot about how just global elites function." (A, 26:08)
2. Where Ukraine aid money went – Massive corruption likely.
3. U.S.–Israel relationship – Especially American coverups of Israeli violence (e.g., death of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh) and U.S. governmental obfuscation.
   • On Blinken: "Blinken...overrode that and said, no, we cannot publish this. We’re going to come out and say it was unintentional." (A, 29:04)
4. CIA operations and abuses (picked later, see 66:51)
5. NSA domestic surveillance practices (picked later, see 66:51)

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5. The Israel–U.S. Relationship: Leverage, Loyalty, and Realpolitik

(29:57–65:34, with continued callbacks throughout episode)

• Debate on U.S. interests and Israeli power:
  • Greenwald provides arguments both for and against the current “special relationship” (30:29–34:23), noting the frequent U.S. objections to settlement expansions and lack of reciprocity from Israel.
  • “They are not loyal to the United States, which is fine. We are America First, we should be.” (A, 43:17)
• Trump’s unpredictability:
  • PBD views Trump as the “boss of bosses” in the negotiation game, not captive to Israeli interests but using them to create leverage in the region: “I think Trump knows that leverage.” (B, 49:01)
• Acknowledgment of Israel lobby’s power:
  • Greenwald: “You cannot underestimate the power of the Israel Lobby… They destroy people.” (A, 53:10)
  • “After the Jews went through the Holocaust, they see everything in an existential way. For that reason, they don’t fuck around.” (A, 53:50)

Notable Quote:

“Anyone who understands anything about [the Israel lobby] understands that they are not to be trifled with.” – Glenn Greenwald (54:49)

• Is Trump really challenging Israel?
  • Greenwald is skeptical absent concrete actions; doubts anyone could fully “put Israel in its place” without enormous backlash (A, 50:22).
  • PBD opines Trump is “playing the game” and moving towards creating alternatives to an “only child” Israel in the Middle East (B, 60:00).

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6. Interventionism vs. Non-Interventionism: Venezuela, Colombia, and Beyond

(67:42–103:10)

• Greenwald is adamantly non-interventionist, skeptical that U.S. wars/interventions ever serve the American people or even intended beneficiaries:
  • “It’s very hard for me to make a case for interventionism… I think everybody ends up worse except for a tiny little sliver of the military industrial complex.” (A, 68:03)
  • Advocates for audits, transparency, and a refocusing on domestic priorities.
• On Venezuela:
  • “Venezuela is not a threat to the United States... We don’t need to go to war... kill thousands, create instability and civil war there for years to come that we’re then responsible for.” (A, 95:15)
  • Critiques justifications that frame interventions as wars on drugs or on behalf of democracy; refers to these as pretexts.
• On Colombia:
  • Recognizes leaders’ hostile rhetoric as mostly for domestic consumption rather than a real threat.

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7. Media, Billionaires, and the Future of Journalism

(103:10–117:19, Key: 107:51–113:22)

• Barry Weiss’s appointment at CBS:
  • Greenwald is supportive of independent media’s financial success but wary of billionaire control and the specific pro-Israel agenda embodied by new media titans like Larry Ellison.
  • “A major reason [for her hire], obviously, is because she’s fanatically pro-Israel, and that aligns perfectly with the Ellison agenda.” (A, 107:51)
• The concentration of media power:
  • Expresses deep concern Ellison (paramount CBS, possibly CNN, TikTok) wields unprecedented influence with little pushback, especially given his central loyalty: “Israel is his cause, right at the moment that public opinion polls are showing an unraveling of support for Israel…” (A, 107:51)
• TikTok’s new content manager, a former IDF soldier:
  • Hired following demands by ADL and concerns about pro-Palestinian content post-Oct 7; part of wider pro-Israel push in U.S. media. (A, 111:07–111:53)

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8. Brazil, Lula, Bolsonaro and U.S. Foreign Policy Pivot

(117:19–132:42)

• On Lula’s charm and real power brokers:
  • “First time I ever interviewed him...I was entranced.” (A, 118:40)
  • Lula is a figurehead; true power lies with right-leaning Supreme Court and figures like Alexandre de Moraes.
• Bolsonaro’s fate:
  • Likely heading to prison; even Trump may not expend political capital to save him, will probably focus on bigger geostrategic bargains (A, 127:40–132:08).
• Brazil’s role in relation to China and the U.S.:
  • Trump wants Brazil to move away from China, leverage access to vital minerals, and end punitive tariffs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I remember, as a matter of fact...We didn't know if the CIA was going to barge in the door...” – Glenn Greenwald on Snowden’s leak (08:00)
• “After Trump understood what these agencies really were...he had a kind of soft spot in his heart for what Snowden did.” (A, 13:01)
• “With power, throughout history, you have infiltration and snakes worming their way in.” (A, 18:48)
• “You are not going to just go to prison; they are going to have their lives completely destroyed.” – on whistleblowers (A, 05:45)
• “Anyone who cares about things is vulnerable.” – (A, 65:34)
• “If you think about Trump and what he loves most, even the aesthetic of like the Saudi...flamboyant opulence.” (A, 47:08)
• “The concern...is by buying this source of information [CBS]...making sure it's no longer a permissive font for anti-Israel viewpoints.” (A, 115:41)
• “Venezuela is not a threat to the United States...I don’t put it in the top 50.” (A, 95:15)
• “Every country is very complicated. You can't just go and move the pieces around like chess pieces from Foggy Bottom.” (A, 99:10)

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Key Timestamps

| Segment Topic | Start | Notable Moment/Quote | |----------------------------------------------------------|-----------|-------------------------------------------------------| | Snowden, Assange, Whistleblowers | 02:00 | “Trying to create this climate of fear…” (05:45) | | Trump/Deep State, Pardon Drama | 11:05 | “He came an inch away, Patrick.” (12:00) | | Loyalty, MAGA Inner Circle, America First | 18:48 | “Definitely Stephen Miller. Rubio could flip…” (20:32)| | Top Whistleblower Secrets | 26:08 | “Epstein is #1…” (26:08) | | Israel-U.S. Policy, Lobby, Realpolitik | 29:57 | “You cannot underestimate the power of the Israel Lobby.” (53:10)| | Interventionism/Non-Interventionism, Venezuela | 67:42 | “Venezuela is not a threat…” (95:15) | | Media, Barry Weiss, Ellison, TikTok |107:51 | “She’s fanatically pro-Israel…” (107:51) | | Brazil, Lula, Bolsonaro, U.S. Strategy |117:19 | “First time I interviewed Lula… entranced.” (118:40) |

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Episode Tone & Style

• Conversational, probing, sharply analytical, often irreverent but respectful.
• Both PBD and Greenwald are forthright; the tone is honest, sometimes testy but never hostile.
• Anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories abound, especially from Greenwald’s reporting experience.
• Political topics handled both from the hard-nosed “deal making” and idealistic/ethical perspectives.

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For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

• Insider perspective on the rarity of whistleblowers and why mass digital leaks have slowed.
• Deep dive into the psycho-political realities of Washington, D.C. and the “deep state.”
• Excellent primer on current debate over the Israel–U.S. relationship and the leverage game in Middle East policy.
• Illuminates the massive role of media concentration and billionaire influence on news, especially concerning U.S. foreign policy and support for Israel.
• Explores interventionism’s costs, with Venezuela as a timely example, and why even “bad guys” like Maduro matter less than claimed.
• World events contextualized with first-person experience and an eye for the systemic forces often hidden behind headlines.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Did you ever think you would make it.

[B]

Adam?

[A]

What's your point?

[B]

The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here. You are a one of one.

[A]

My son's right. I don't think I've ever said this before.

[B]

Glenn Greenwald in the house. How you doing?

[A]

Good to be here. Good to be back.

[B]

Yes. Except this time it's just you and I. We don't have the whole crew.

[A]

I was saying I missed the whole crew.

[B]

Just so you know, he misses you guys. Okay?

[A]

Absolutely. I'm going to do like a 24 hour binge on the crew, just so. I thought they were going to be here.

[B]

Okay. So how, how are you feeling with everything that's going on right now? I guess maybe the one question to ask is I got a lot of things I want to talk to you about. I want to know what's going on with Brazil because Lula just met with Trump. Trump in Malaysia, if I'm not mistaken. And then, you know, Lula says, you know, looks like some good's going to happen. Venezuela, you got Maduro coming out saying what he's saying. Petro is doing what he's doing in Colombia, Argentina, Melee got the votes that he got. So I'm curious what you think about that Palantir with Peter Thiel, you know, what he wants to do with surveillance and the Antichrist Christ series that he did. David Ellison with Skydance, and you know, how he took a, you know, small company into now buying up all these other companies. That Ellison family's becoming a household name. But maybe let's start off with the following. So for you, you, you were, at least for me, the way I found out about you was in 2013 when you flew out, I think in Hong Kong and he did your Snowden meeting with them conversation, you know, the whistleblowing. Since Snowden, Assange, a lot of things have happened to give birth to the next Snowden and Assange to come out. Right? You got Epstein. We can find out a lot about that. You got Biden's camp. We had to wait till Twitter files to learn about that. You have a lot of different things that's happened. Why do you think we haven't had a Snowden and Assange since Snowden and Assange?

[A]

Such a good question. I think when there was this spate of whistleblowers and, you know, I think Julian Assange is probably one of the most visionary people of the last 50 years in terms of his understanding before anyone else's that in the age of the Internet and with everything being maintained in a digitalized form, that the great leaks. The way we're going to find out the big stories about what power centers are doing would be through mass digital leaks. I think people forget when there was this Pentagon Papers leak in the early 1970s, where Daniel Ellsberg discovered the government was systematically lying to the American people about the Vietnam War. And Danny Ellsberg was working on the inside of that, was originally in favor of the Vietnam War, came to really understand it was a lie, and he wanted to leak. There was this big, massive internal study that the Pentagon did about Vietnam, called the Pentagon Papers, where it basically concluded everything they were telling the public was a lie. They were telling the public, we're about to win. Internally, they knew the best they could hope for was a stalemate, and likely they were gonna lose no matter what they did. You had tens of thousands of American soldiers dying, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese being killed. And he decided very bravely to leak this to the New York Times and the Washington Post because he felt like he couldn't live with himself if he concealed the truth. And his big challenge at the time was, how do you take 40,000 pages and deliver them to the New York Times and Washington without getting caught? He literally went to the pharmacy with a big bag of nickels and used the Photostop machine. And Julian understood that now that everything's digitalized, everything could be transported and sent in a matter of minutes with great ease. And that was the future of reporting and leaks. And set up a system to make it capable of being done with anonymity. And that's what led to so many of the leaking stories that led to Snowden and other ones like it. And it was visionary. And that's why they wanted to set about out to destroy Julian Assange. And one of the things that started happening was, and this was under the Obama administration, is the Obama administration was far more aggressive in trying to destroy this process, destroyed journalism, destroy sources, than anyone else. They took this 1917 law called the Espionage act, which was actually introduced by Woodrow Wilson, to justify the imprisonment of people speaking out against U.S. participation in World War I. And it was an incredibly draconian law. It was intended to be that way, and it was never really used before against leakers, against people in Washington leaking classified information to journalists, which happens literally every day. And. And the Obama administration got obsessed with destroying leakers. You had Chelsea Manning, who was an army private in Iraq. She discovered hundreds of thousands of pages showing war crimes of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, sent it to WikiLeaks in a matter of about six seconds. That was part of Julian's theory. And it was all done. She had no more access to classified information. She got caught. She was out of the military. No more ever a threat. She had no more access to classified information. They, they didn't just imprison her, they imprisoned her in the harshest possible conditions. I visited her in Fort Leavenworth, which is in Kansas. I mean, it was not a joke. Same with Snowden. Snowden leaked to us. He didn't get caught, but he came forward and identified himself as the leaker because he felt he wanted to explain himself. And they charged him with massive felonies under the Espionage Act. And the question was why? Even if you think what he did was wrong, why do you need to put him in prison for the next 50 years? He has no longer any access to classified information. And it was very obvious they were trying to create this climate of fear where anyone thinking about, maybe I'm going to be the next Edward Snowden or be the next Julian Assange had to understand that if they did so, they weren't going to just go to prison, they were going to have their lives completely destroyed. I mean, look what they did to Julian Assange. They tried to break him physically, emotionally, psychologically. And I think that's become a major reason.

[B]

Why do you think when a whistleblower is doing it, don't you think Snowden and Assange and you're gonna know this better than I would, don't you think they know, like, if I do this, my life's gonna change? We've all seen the movies, we've all seen the documentaries. Don't you think they're sitting there saying, I know if I release this, I feel like they're typically not money driven, it's crusade driven, it's correcting an injustice. They feel the world needs to know this and they kind of know you're gonna suffer the consequences of doing this. Right? So wouldn't that be like the DNA of the next whistleblower to come out saying, I know I'm gonna get in trouble anyways?

[A]

Yeah, it's a good point. It's. For me, it's what makes people like that so admirable. I mean, think about what Snowden had in his hands. He could have sold that to Russia or China or any U.S. adversary and lived the rest of his life extremely rich. He didn't do that. He brought it to American journalists. And when he brought it to us. He said, be extremely careful. Don't publish anything that might be. He was very conservative, Whistler in that sense. Julian, too. Julian was very cautious in terms of how they released, especially the first years of release. They would redact everything. They would withhold things. They tried to work with the State Department to get State Department input. At the same time, of course, they understood they were sacrificing their liberty for a cause. For me, that's what makes them so noble. I don't, though, think they anticipated that their lives would be completely destroyed.

[B]

You don't think so?

[A]

They knew it was a chance. I mean, I remember, as a matter of fact, I'll just tell you quickly. When I was with Snowden in Hong Kong, and I hadn't met him before, I didn't know much about him. And I got to know him and I really became convinced that he was exactly who he said he was, that his motives were authentic. Sometimes with these people, they're like a little crazy. They're disillusioned. They're like on the margins of society. They're disgruntled. He wasn't any of those things. It was almost like he was so pure.

[B]

That's the picture, right? Is that the hotel room picture?

[A]

That's the picture. We went back and visited him. That's myself and my husband David. That's Laura Poitras, who, during the day, directed Citizen 4, which won the Oscar about the work we were doing. And then there's Snowden. So that's about a year after the scene from the film. If you go up into the right hand corner there, that's myself and Snowden. I think that's on the second or third day of being in Hong Kong, where we were going over the files. That was all from Laura Poitra's filming. So I became very convinced of the authenticity of his motives. And it's a great point because we would ask him, what's your plan for getting out of here? The idea was we were going to start publishing while we were there. We had to start publishing as quickly as possible for a lot of reasons. And we were in Hong Kong, and the question was, how are you going to get out of here? And he said, you know what? He didn't want to involve us in that because he knew if we were involved in his escape plan, we could then be criminally charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive or crimes like that. But he didn't really have a plan. He didn't really care. And the whole time I was working with him and becoming more and more respectful and admiring of what he had done. He's 29 years old. He, he has a beautiful girlfriend, his high school sweetheart, making a lot of money, has a great future ahead of him. Sacrificed it all because out of conviction he really believed it was wrong for Americans not to know what the government was doing to the Internet. Not obviously the details of it, that's fine, keep that classified. The methods that you spy on people, but just the fact that they converted the Internet into this weapon, unprecedented weapon of surveillance and coercion and monitoring. The fact that he just couldn't live with himself like Daniel Ellsberg unless he came forward. For me, was so adamant. But the whole time as I got to know him better, as we bonded because you know, you go through something like that with someone, you really. We didn't know if the CIA was going to barge in the door. It was a very high tension. The Chinese, you know, there was a dark cloud hanging over us the whole time, which is I knew that at some point we were going to leave or he was going to get apprehended and the next time I would see him would be on television where he would be wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles ready to go to some high security national security dungeon. And he was ready for that. So you are right. He knew that was a great possibility. And the reason why they hate son so much is because that didn't happen to him. He got away. He was, I mean, by a lot of luck. But he ended up getting asylum in Russia. He can't leave Russia. But I don't know if you've been to Russia, but Russia is a beautiful country, rich in history and literature and culture and architecture and all sorts of fascinating things. But he didn't choose to live in Russia. So it's a punishment, but it's not the same as being in prison. And he's considered a hero around the world, wrote a best selling book. That's what they're so enraged by is that he did have the potential to inspire people just in terms of how he got away.

[B]

You think if either one of them ever got pardoned they'd come back to the States?

[A]

Yeah, I mean Snowden has often said he would come back. Snowden's American. His wife is American. He doesn't want his kids grunted up in Russia. They have two small children now. That was not his choice. They trapped him there. He's always said he would come back to Russia. I think the question is, I mean back to the U.S. the question is, how could he do that? Would he be safe? He is enemy number one. I'm saying in theory, he wants to. How that would work, what that would look like, that's a lot, but we're not really close to that yet.

[B]

What would be the selling point, especially to the government? The government fears. No matter who the government is, whoever's the next administration, left or right, they fear a whistleblower. They fear the market knowing what's going on. They fear even when. Remember when the waltz signal messages, that was going on, the meeting and that was leaked. No president wants that to be leaked. It's a form of a embarrassment. Like you don't have control of your leadership team to leak information to you. Why would a president sitting president pardon Snowden or Assange?

[A]

I'll give you the reason. First of all, in the transition, when, after Trump was declared the loser of the 2020 election, but before he left office. So, you know, that November 6th to January 20th period, I was working very hard to try and convince Trump that.

[B]

Was the perfect time.

[A]

He came extremely close to the.

[B]

That was the perfect time.

[A]

He came an inch away, Patrick. He came an inch away. I'll tell you what happened. As you probably recall, that was when January 6th happened. And after January 6th, it wasn't just Democrats, but also the Republicans who started an impeachment proceeding against Trump. The second. And the question was, why are you impeaching a president who's two weeks from being on his way out the door? And the reason was, is a lot of the Republicans, the establishment types, the ones who are loyal to the security state, were petrified that Trump would do certain things on his way out. They were petrified he was going to declassify JFK files, Martin Luther King files, other files that he was promising to declassify. They were also really worried he was gonna pardon, particularly Snowden. Assange was on the agenda. He never really got close to Assange. And a bunch of Republican senators made clear to him, if you pardon Edward Snowden, we're gonna let this impeachment proceeding go through and we're gonna convict you. They had a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

[B]

Republicans or Democrats?

[A]

Republican senators, you know, sort of the Mitch McConnell crowd, Tom Cotton, the main person leading, because he had a lot of people he trusted in his ear urging him to pardon Snowden. People like Matt Gaetz and Rand Paul, people who are very close to him, kind of more privacy oriented people, because this is a thing that people forget. Trump hated these agencies. Remember These agencies spied on Trump's campaign. The NSA, the FBI, they spied on his campaign in 2016. He was at war with the CIA. He was at war with the deep state. He, Trump. Before Trump ever got into politics, he was one of the people I remember very well when we did the Snowden reporting. He said, snowden's a traitor. Hang him, execute him. But then, once Trump understood what these agencies really were, the abuses that they're capable of, that they inflict this on the American people, that he himself was victimized by it, he had a kind of soft spot in his heart for what Snowden did. He wanted to pardon Snowden, and he got so close to doing it. The reason he didn't.

[B]

How does so close, meaning the fine. So close.

[A]

Well, and by the way, I knew what was going on because I was very involved in kind of lobbying the Trump administration, working with them. But you don't have to take my word for it. After Trump left office, he did an interview with Candace Owens, I think maybe like six weeks, eight weeks after he left office. And she was very much an advocate for pardoning Snowden Assange. She said to him, why wouldn't you pardon Edward Snowden? This is somebody who exposed the very agencies that victimized you, that blew the whistle on the abuses that they aimed at you. And he said, I came extremely close to pardoning one of them, not so close to the other. I knew it was Snowden. And he just said, at the end of the day, there were people on one side saying he was a great guy who deserved it, other people saying he was a bad guy. It was Mike Pompeo, principally, who was the CIA director.

[B]

Wasn't Mike Pompeo the same guy that wanted to kill Snowden or the 2017 Snowden, Assange, Assange, that he wanted to take him out?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, there was a. Yeah, he wanted to assassinate Julian Assange. I mean, that guy's a maniac. He was one of the worst people, one of the worst people in the first Trump administration. Was Mike Pompeo responsible for a lot of the worst parts of the first Trump administration?

[B]

Would you put him as a Dick Cheney Jr type?

[A]

Would he be like, oh, yeah, I mean, that was Trump's. The first administration. Trump, really. And they'll tell you this. Trump had never been in Washington before. Washington is a cesspool. All of Washington is built to make sure that democracy doesn't matter. You have Democrats, Republican presidents come and go, and the idea is it can't matter. So they know how to manipulate I mean, Obama came in, he was in politics for about four seconds. Suddenly he's the commander in chief. They manipulated him in about three days. He came in vowing to undo all these Bush, Cheney programs, the war on terror. And they sent in guys from Princeton, Special Forces guys, guys with big medals on their chest, and they were like, sir, if you eliminate this program, you will have a terrorist attack. It will be on your hands, almost threatening. They know how to control the government. You know, the election. But. And so Trump, in that first term, really didn't know how Washington worked. He ended up having a lot of people in his administration there to sabotage what he was doing, not to advance it. And that was the big difference between the first and second term.

[B]

It's almost as if he's had eight years of experience to finally get to the point that he knows everybody, which now essentially, let's say this is his third term. It's not. It's a second term that he now knows he's full of shit. He's 50, 50. That guy's bought. That guy's honest. That guy's driven by Israel. That guy's driven by war. That guy's driven by this. He finally has a little bit of a sense where everybody's at. Would you agree with that?

[A]

Yeah. And beyond that, I would say that one of the things that I was. There were so many things that made me hate the media more than ever in the first Trump term. Among the leading causes was that you had people in the Trump administration openly sabotaging his policies, the policies on which he ran, the policies that caused Americans to vote for him. We're supposed to have civilian control in the United States, meaning it's not generals that dictate our country. There's a lot of countries, as you well know, where the military dictates everything. That's not our country. We have civilian rule. A commander in chief, a civilian elected official is in charge of the military. Fundamental how the United States works. You had generals like General Kelly, General Mattis, HR McMaster, who were openly telling the media, trump's giving us this order to withdraw from Syria. Trump's giving us this order to do this, and we're not doing it. We're manipulating him. And they were celebrated for that by the media. These are the adults in the room. In other words, you had these unelected military officials there to do the bidding of the deep state and the establishment, undermining the elected president. And a lot of people inside the Trump administration were there to sabotage, not to advance, what he was doing everyone I talked to in that interim period between when he left in 2020 and then was reelected 2024. And close to Trump World, their number one mission was, how do we prevent that mistake? How do we foster a culture of loyalty so that people who work for Trump, whether they agree with him or not, I mean, Marco Rubio, I'm not convinced he agrees with Trump's vision of foreign policy. His whole life has been kind of a neoconservative vision, but they created a culture where everyone understands that you're there to carry out Trump's wishes and orders and policies. And if you don't, you're gone. And that's, for me, the big difference between the first and second administrations. Trump learned how Washington works.

[B]

How much of that is Suzy Wiles protecting it? How much of that is the fact that she is knowing everybody and is telling Trump, hey, we can't do that again. You can't be too forgiving with this guy. We gotta move on with that guy. How much is her protecting him versus if not her, then who is it?

[A]

Oh, yeah, she's super smart. I mean, but you know, the thing is, at the end of the day, whenever you have power and you look at the history of power centers, throughout history, you have infiltration and snakes worming their way in. People just understand. People know how to flatter Trump, how to talk to Trump, how to convince Trump. Susie Wiles is incredibly smart and ruthless operator. But Susie Wiles has been around for a long time. You know, she was a big lobbyist. Her loving friend did work for Katar, for foreign governments, for major corporations. She's not some anti establishment rebel outsider. But Trump trusts her. And I think she sees her job as protecting Trump and she's very good at that. So that is part of it. But I also think you have people like Stephen Miller who is, you know, loyal to the death to Trump.

[B]

Would you put him at number one most biggest loyalist?

[A]

Yes, I think so.

[B]

Who's top three in your opinion?

[A]

Definitely Stephen Miller. I think he's very comfortable with Howard Litkoff, who was the Commerce Secretary, who's. He's known, you know, these kind of people. He's known forever. No, no, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. Lutnick. Howard Lutnick. I'm mixing him with Steve Witness. Yeah, you know, that's like a billionaire real estate guy.

[B]

Understand each other, similar life. New York came up. Yeah.

[A]

Very transactional.

[B]

Who is the least? If those are the top, who are the least?

[A]

Well, I think he gets rid of The.

[B]

You know, if there's anybody there that right now you're like, if things flipped in 2027, 2028, that would turn on Trump on a heartbeat.

[A]

I think Rubio would turn on Trump in a heartbeat. Rubio is very, you know, Rubio wants to be president, and right now, it's in Rubio's interest to. Rubio is probably the most powerful person in the administration, you know, at least in foreign policy. Probably Stephen Miller in domestic policy.

[B]

I mean, ahead of Vance.

[A]

Yes. I mean, you know, Rubio is running the State Department and being national Security advisor.

[B]

He joked about it one time in an interview. I got. I'm working two jobs right now, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know if you remember that or not when he joked about it.

[A]

No, no. Yeah. I mean, the last person to do that was Henry Kissinger. And there's no more powerful foreign policy advisor in American history than Henry Kissinger.

[B]

You saw Trump edified Rubio about a week and a half ago. He said, look, I don't know. I think some are saying that Rubio may be better than Kissinger was. You know, he's kind of. Kissinger leaked. Kissinger was famous for leaking. Do you remember that one?

[A]

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

[B]

So he's trying to. He's doing his part of being a kingmaker as well and trying to see who's gonna run 2028. But you're saying Rubio could flip. You think Rubio could turn on him?

[A]

I don't think Rubio is a true believer in the America first agenda in the way that J.D. vance, I think is.

[B]

You think J.D. is more than Rubio is?

[A]

Depending on how you define America First. You know, it's. You know, when Trump bombed Iran, the idea was America first is whatever Trump says it is. Right. Trump's the creator of the America first movement, the leader of it, the person who brought into public consciousness. So there are no principles separate and apart from Trump's decision. I don't believe this. I think it's a very. That's a cult of personality. That's not a political movement. Political movement is based on principles. So if you look at the principles on which America first is based, I think how the true believers understood what differentiated America first movement from prior Republican orthodoxy. I believe JD Vance is as convicted of a true believer as anybody in the administration, certainly far more than Marco Ruby. Just let's take Ukraine, for example, which for me is kind of a flashpoint. Obviously, Israel is the main one. We can talk about that if you want, but I have a lot to say on that, obviously. But let's look at Ukraine, which people are less emotional about. Traditionally, the Republican position is go destroy Russia. Russia's our enemy. Who's ever on enemy we go to war against, you know, fund American allies till the end. Lots of Republicans got attributed to Biden because that was Biden's policy too. And the Democrats were super obsessed with Ukraine. You go to any like liberal blue district in the United States and you see nothing but Ukrainian flag still. It became kind of a religion, almost like replacing the LGBT flag.

[B]

Pans was absolutely. It was fully bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.

[A]

But a lot of Republicans were fully on board with that as well. Just because that's a standard, let's say neocon war mongering kind of interventionist mindset that has driven both parties since the start of the Cold War. But even then, the end. And one of the planks of America first was, no, we have to stop wasting all our resources on foreign wars that don't affect the lives of American citizens. Who gives a shit who rules various provinces in Eastern Ukraine? That's not something that affects the forgotten man in Ohio or Pennsylvania or that's a waste of money that's going to Raytheon's pocket and who knows what kind of oligarchs in Kiev. And that's the kind of wasteful war that MAGA and America first was created to oppose. And that's why Trump has been so contemptuous of this war. Marco Rubio has been a loud, vocal supporter of funding the war in Ukraine, whereas JD Vance from the start has been highly skeptical. So that, to me, just one example, illustrative of, I think, what differentiates those two and why I think JD Vance is a much more faithful adherent to the America first agenda than say, Marco Rubio. It's not even closed. So you prefer JD on those issues? Yes. Even in that, Even in that chat, remember in that, you know, in that chat that leaked about. Yeah, the waltz chat about bombing Yemen.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

JD was pushing back, you know, he was saying like, are you. This doesn't seem like something we need to do right now. Why don't we wait a couple months? What's the urgency? And then once it happened, you know, he was like, yeah, kill them. But, you know, that's just how politicians are.

[B]

Second guessing himself is maybe the first second guessing is the true who he is. And then second step is I want to be loyalist and get in line.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, once, once he hears. No, Trump wants this. This is Stephen Moore said, you know Trump, this is decided. Trump wants this, then he gets on board. Cuz that's how you survive and you keep influence and power. But his first reactions was, wait a minute, why are we doing this? Same with Tulsi. That was her reaction too. I think Tulsi's a more faithful adherent to the America first agenda than a lot of the people surrounding Trump.

[B]

So, okay, so I got, I got how much time we got? Rob, can you tell Matteo to text me by when I have to finish? Because we got a lot of things I want to go through with this. So, okay, let's go with the conversation about whistleblower. Let's go past that one. If there were, because I have my own list. I'm curious what yours is. If there were five areas that are the most important for Americans to know and there is somebody that's on the tipping point of being a whistleblower that needs to be inspired, what would be five departments, areas of knowledge that somebody has access to information that was like, you know, the Afghanistan, the things that Snowden and Hasan, Chad, Hillary Clinton, all that stuff that came out. What would be the five areas for a whistleblower with access to information? If they're inspired and they're willing to go through the challenges that goes through for them to blow the whistle, I.

[A]

Would start with the Epstein files. Number one, only because it's a window into how corrupted and how deceitful our global elite is. You know, right now there's a huge scandal in the UK because a lot of stuff is emerging despite the Trump administration's concealment of these files with Prince Andrew, that he was far closer to Epstein than he tries to claim, that his relationship extended far beyond the date he did. So there's a lot untold in there. I'm not saying the issue of who was with Jeffrey Epstein for whatever reasons in and of itself is the most important thing, but I think the reasons why two consecutive governments have hidden those files, first Biden administration and now Trump reveals a lot about how just global elites function in general. I just think it would be something that would enable Americans to understand, understand the true depths of the decadence inside global elite culture. So that's number one. Number two, I would say there's a lot of questions about where all that money went that we sent to Ukraine. There's a lot of, I think, massive. I mean, Ukraine was always known as the most corrupt place in Europe before this war started. Lots of evidence about how there's no. Rand Paul tried to introduce an amendment saying before any more money goes to Ukraine, we just should have an audit of where it's going to. And he got accused of being a Russian agent. The bipartisan Senate rejected that. I'd love to have an audit of where that money has gone. Billions and billions and billions. There's a lot about the US Israeli relationship, including the fact that we tried to get Israel to do a whole bunch of things. Both Biden and Trump, they basically stuck their middle finger up at us and we swallowed it. And like why? And be specific. Well, I mean there's just, you know, there's a case that just came out yesterday where the, in 2022, the Israelis shot in the head an American journalist in the West Bank. Very respected American journalist. She had covered that region for a long time and the Israelis first denied it and said, no, it wasn't us. And then it turned out it was absolutely them. They admitted it. They said it was unintentional. The military investigators for the United States who investigated it concluded that the Israelis did it on purpose, that they knew that she was a journalist, that they knew who she was and they shot her in the head because of that. And high level Biden State Department officials overrode that and said, no, we cannot publish this. We're going to come out and say that it was unintentional. Yeah, her name is Abu. If you type US Journalist. Yeah, it's her. It's. I just. Her name escapes me. It's. Yeah, Shereen Abu Akla. There was just an article there. You see the brother of journalist sharing out the shot dead by the Israeli army.

[B]

What I want to know is the higher up of Biden's administration that said we can't, you know, talk about.

[A]

Right, exactly. That's what I'm saying.

[B]

Who was it though? Who was the higher up?

[A]

Blinken.

[B]

Okay, got it.

[A]

Who's, you know, a lifelong Israel supporter. You know, he's Jewish. He grew up in circles where you're taught to love Israel, your duty is to support Israel, to defend Israel. I think the more lights shot shown on that relationship also, you know, even in terms of the west bank, you know, Trump said under no circumstances will Israel annex the west bank, but Israel is annexing the West Bank. Our policy for decades has been it's extremely harmful to American interests for Israel to annex the west bank because the more the settlements expand, the less likely it is for a two state solution. Without a two state solution, our interests in the region are jeopardized. Israel doesn't care. They just keep Ignoring us. Just go back to Reagan and Bush 41 were enraged that Israel is expanding settlements and they just do it anyway. So why, why, why does that happen? Why are, why is this tiny little country who we finance, who we support, who we arm, who we protect?

[B]

Can you do me a favor? And by the way, so far I have three of them and I want to get to the fourth, but let's stay on this because we'll get to the fourth and the fifth. Try to give me the argument from somebody who would be disagreeing with you, but from a noble side, and then give the argument from your side, which is noble, you're a straight up guy. But try to give both arguments, not from the standpoint of I think they're evil, I think they're this, I think they're that try to give both sides of the argument. Why do you think that is?

[A]

Okay, so the argument as to why we do so much for this country, by the way, in a region that, I mean, oil is important there, but Israel doesn't have oil. Israel, you know, is in the Mediterranean. It doesn't. It's not a very geostrategically vital location for the United States. The argument though is, is that by having a ally in the region with whom we work very closely, militarily, technologically, economically, it's almost like a forward operating base. They're like an arm of the American military that does our dirty work for us in the Middle east so that we don't have to go to war in the Middle East. We don't. We rely on Israel. They give us technology that is helpful. You know, they're tech sector is very, very advanced. They do develop weapons, they develop surveillance technology that's among the best in the world that sometimes we don't even develop. They share it with us. So we get benefits from protecting them, from arming them, from financing them. That basically, you know, and it's the only democracy in the region and we benefit for some reason for having democracy in that region. That's the argument, is that we get benefits from it. It's not just a one way street that for all the money we give them, all the arms, all the sacrificing of soft power and global standing that we incur to protect them, we get benefits the other way. The reason that's not true is because as I just got done saying, I mean, look at how many times Israel has done exactly the things we insist are the things that harm us and our interest in the region. You go back so many years back to the 80s, really, let's say the 80s. The position of the Reagan administration, the Bush 41 ministration was your continuous refusal to enter into a two state solution to your permission to settlers to keep expanding in the west bank is destroying a two state solution. And our problem in the Middle east, the reason why so many people in the region hate us, the reason there's so much anti Americanism, the reason why things like 9, 11 happen, is because so many Arabs and Muslims hate us in the region. And the reason they hate us principally is because they know that we are the ones giving you the weapons to kill Palestinians and Muslims in the west bank and Gaza. And we need a peace there. But you're preventing a peace and you're harming. And David Petraeus, lots of generals have said our biggest problem in the Middle east comes from Israel's refusal to stop these settlements. And they, even though they're dependent on us, even though they need our money, even though we give, they just, they just refuse. On top of that, when we did this Snowden reporting, we provide Israel with more raw data, including about American citizens, than any other country in the world. We give them, we just hand them huge amounts of our surveillance in response. On the list of greatest threats to foreign threats to surveillance, Israel is the number one greatest adversary that spies on us with the most efficacy, with the least amount of limits. We publish these articles showing that. So we're financing this country, we're financing this country, we're arming them, we're doing everything for them. And in return they pursue policies that directly harm our interests in very serious ways. And they spy on us constantly. They spy on us all the time. AIPAC has gotten caught working with Pentagon officials to steal extremely sensitive secrets that they passed to Israel. The Pentagon officials were convicted for that. AIPAC got their case dismissed under strange circumstances. You had Jonathan Pollard, who was spying on the US government from inside the US government, handing it to Israel, became a hero in Israel, they shoot Americans, they kill Americans, they're Americans dying in their detention facilities. Where is this allyship? How are we benefiting from Israel? You look at the UN and the UN is nothing. People talk about the UN like it's some Marxist organization. It's just a collection of the governments around the world. The governments around the world appoint the representatives, they go vote the way the government wants. That's all it is. We're constantly isolated in the world to protect Israel.

[B]

Who would be your second? So say you don't have, have Israel, say you stop Israel and all the intel. I think you would agree that Mossad is one of the best intel agencies in the world. So what happens? Say we both say we're done. Forget about the relationship. It's done. America and Israel no longer have a relationship. No longer exchanging of intel, no longer have given intel to us. In the Middle east, pretty chaotic area. Who's our second partner?

[A]

Well, we have a lot of very close allies in that region. I mean, we have a gigantic military base in Qatar. Have you been to Doha? Like you go to Doha? And not just the Emiratis. I mean, we. The thing is, first of all, I'm not even saying cut off our relations with Israel. Why do we have to finance them? Why do we have to send billions of dollars every year to them, Many billions more.

[B]

Maybe it's in exchange for, you know, you said it earlier, they don't have, like, if it was. If we're dealing with Qatari, if we're dealing with some of these other guys, they already have plenty of money. These guys already have oil. They have resources. You said they don't have resources, right? Their resources is what business. I don't even know where they get.

[A]

Their money from, but what they don't have. But the thing is these countries with whom we're allied in the Middle east, and Trump loves them, by the way, like the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, the Jordanians, Trump loves them for a lot of reasons. The problem with them, that they have endless amounts of money because of oil, and they've turned their societies into. You visit those countries and the infrastructure and the architecture is far more advanced than the United States. The streets are cleaner, the airports work better, everything's more advanced. But it relies on extreme levels of repression. They're dictatorships, very brutal dictatorships.

[B]

Who do you trust more?

[A]

Well, but I mean. So I'm just saying that what they need that they don't have is military protection, surveillance technology. We do that. We're crucial to their security. We are like, in fact, when there.

[B]

Is Qatar security or Israel's security, we're.

[A]

Crucial to Qatar security. We're crucial to Saudi. Saudi security. We're crucial to.

[B]

Sarah, can I give you how I see this?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I grew up in Iran and I was born on Mehre Bishishom, October, 1878. Another kid was born a month after me. We grew up like this. That kid, good kid, good family. Both parents are doctors. They did very well. One is a doctor. The mother was an accountant. Brilliant. Very good families. And as we were coming up, I knew I wasn't going to get anything from my parents. They didn't have money. They just brought me to America. My dad was a worker, 99 Cent Store in Inglewood, California. My mother was. She's never worked for as long as I've known her, you know, homemaker. We came here.

[A]

Why did you come, though? Like, what was the reason?

[B]

Khomeini died six weeks later. We escaped 6-3-89 when he died, we escaped six weeks.

[A]

Let him say why. Why did you, if you weren't, you know, like kind of one of those oligarchical families under the Shaw. Oh, Christian family.

[B]

We're Christian family. My mom didn't feel safe. I was about to turn 12. She didn't want me to serve the military in Iran. And she said, we got to leave. My dad agreed. We went to Germany, refugee camp erlang in Nuremberg. 18 months. And we came here November 28, 1990. But here's where I'm going. That kid grew up. The parents built a good business. The kid knew the parents had to give the business eventually to the kid. And it kids like, listen, you guys better take care of my business because it's mine.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Do you understand what I'm saying? So it was almost like a entitled kid.

[A]

Uh huh.

[B]

Because they only had one kid, Right? Do you know that's the reason why I don't believe you should ever have anything less than three kids? I think you should have three kids. If it's only one, guess how they feel. They own you. And I do think there's an element of Israel that is the only child in the Middle East. US Made that mistake by having the only child in the Middle East. I don't know if this is making sense to point out, making.

[A]

No, I understand the point.

[B]

The point I'm trying to say is, like, you negotiated this America. You put yourself in this situation. And I think what Trump is trying to do, which maybe none of these other guys previous to him have done, correct me if I'm wrong, this is your world, is when you have an only child, you don't have a choice. You kind of got to figure it out. Or else go raise two other kids that match your values and principles and pin them against each other. Meaning if you see what Trump is doing with Canada, he pushes Mexico or he pushes China, he pushes Russia, he puts sanctions on Russia, you better not do the oil deal. The couple, the biggest oil companies in China that buy oil, they're like, we're suspending it because of sanctions. And then he's able to pin them against each other. But he's trying to find somebody else to pin against Israel, to hold Israel accountable. And I think he's doing that in the way he did with Qatar when he's like, why'd you shoot up that place? You better come out and apologize? I think that phone call was made. Do you think that phone call was made when he said, you better apologize to Qatar? Never.

[A]

For sure. No. He was enraged.

[B]

He was enraged. But the part where I'm going to is I think they handed him, you have one child in the Middle East. Go make it work. And there's a community of people saying, screw Israel, screw this, screw that. You can't. It's the only child. Wait till you build a couple other children, then let them compete against each other.

[A]

I totally get that theory. It's coherent and it makes sense. And I think there's some truth to it as well. Except after the 1967 war and then 1973 Yom Kippur War, Nixon was the first to change his policies. He became very close to the Arab world, or closer. And then, obviously, we have had an extremely close relationship with the Saudis for decades. Even after 9, 11, when they were by far the country most involved, or certainly with the greatest proximity to the hijackers. George Bush helped the Saudis who were in the country get out. He continued to have a very close. You know, the Bush family has been very close to the Saudis for a long time. They're oil people. They have a close relationship. But one of the things that we did is, and I think this is when you count how much we do for Israel, this often doesn't get counted, is we don't just give huge amounts of money to Israel. We also prop up a regime in Egypt that goes back to Anwar Sadat and then Mubarak and now Sisi, and we prop up the Jordanian royal family as well, to keep not just stability in those countries, but also to keep them at bay and not hostile toward Israel. We do have other allies in the region, and I think one of the things Trump is wanting to do, and I think you're right about this, is he wants to expand the scope of American alliances in the region, but he also wants to foster normalization with Israel.

[B]

But I think that's fine. So the way I process it is with business, and I'll explain it to you from my perspective. Again, push back. When I've given this perspective I'm very comfortable with it, is when at the beginning, I had an insurance carrier, I'm running an insurance company. I only had one insurance carrier. I didn't have four. I didn't have five. I only had one. And the one that I had was aig American General. And I'm coming up. I'm a newer company. They tell me what they want to do. I can't push back.

[A]

You have no leverage.

[B]

I don't have any other carriers. So then I go get a third or fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh. Finally, it normalizes where the negotiation is even. But guess what? I never wanted to lose them because they've been a decent ally to me, and we both needed each other when we got started. I think that's the right way of diplomacy on what he's doing. I think for him to sit there and say, because if I. If I sit there and I think about, you have the best intel. I want access to that intel. Nobody else does a good. Good enough of a job as intel as you in the Middle East. I think that's very valuable to me. How can I use that intel? Now, don't get me wrong. When. When the argument comes back around and it's, your number one is Epstein, you know, my number one is. What do you think my number one is?

[A]

What is your number one?

[B]

What do you think my number one is? I want you to take a wild guess.

[A]

I'm at a loss. So don't tell me.

[B]

It's Epstein. Oh.

[A]

And so we're in agreement.

[B]

Epstein's my number one.

[A]

All right. So, yeah, we hit bingo on that.

[B]

I do believe they've been using blackmail to get information, and that info was being sent to Israel. I do believe all of that stuff.

[A]

But this is what I'm saying. It's like if you take this idealistic view of Israel, they give us all this intel. They're incredibly. You make a better argument. The thing is that the Israelis don't have any sense of loyalty to the United States. The intel they pass to us is often shit. It's deceitful. It's manipulated to get us to do what they want. It's filled with falsehoods. And this is the stuff I'm not saying just the Israelis do. This is not uniquely evil. This is how the intel world operates. We try and manipulate other countries by saying, oh, look what we have here. It's what the Steele dossier was about. Right? That's part of the. Part of that world is deliberate disinformation and lying. The Israelis care about Israel. They are not loyal to the United States, which is fine.

[B]

We are America.

[A]

First, we should be. But I think there's a lot more unnatural loyalty to Israel than certainly Israel has to us. And I think it's important not to overlook the reality that many of the most important people in the United States, the people who wield the greatest power, the people who have the most money, the people who are most indispensable to many power centers, are people who have at least as much loyalty to Israel as to the United States, if not more so. You can't ignore that as part of the relationship. There's a manipulated aspect to it.

[B]

I disagree.

[A]

No, I know. I'm just saying that has to be part of the formula.

[B]

But where I'm going with this is. So I'm sitting there and I'm watching all the criticism that Trump is getting, but I'm also watching what he's doing behind the scenes. I'm also seeing how he's trying to put Netanyahu in his place. And I also see that Netanyahu thinks he can do anything he wants to do with America. Probably he could have done with other presidents in the past, but he's having a hard time with this one guy that's coming in. And this one guy that's coming in is a little bit tougher candidate for him because he has a thing that none of the guys previous to him had. He is so unpredictable. He can't control him.

[A]

Which is why I think, above all else, the establishment had such animosity toward Trump. Exactly what you just said. He's unpredictable, and I love that. And what the establishment wants is Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, people who just are gonna be very controlled. Let me quickly add, though, on the one hand, I understand what you're saying, and of course, there has been these stories leaked that, oh, there's this tension between Netanyahu and Trump. But if you look at the actual behavior, Trump in 2024, he went and spoke before this organization when Miriam Adelson, who's his biggest donor, 100 million. Elon Musk. Yeah. And Trump said not only we're gonna make us great again and we're gonna make Israel great again. That was part of his promise. He also talked about how in his first term, the people who visited him most were Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.

[B]

He said that in a speech at. Before.

[A]

I think there was the Republican Jewish Coalition.

[B]

No, I think he said that in a different way. I think he said it at. I don't know where it was, but it was. I remember the speech that she would call. He would come and say, you realize, I'm the president. I'm coming to the White House. What are you talking about?

[A]

And then he would come.

[B]

Yeah, he would.

[A]

And he would say, you know, this. These are American citizens, like. Right. Scare quotes. And they would come in and they would only want stuff for Israel. That's what Trump says.

[B]

Right? That's. That's the speech. You're right. That's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And Trump said that they would come in and they would say, I want this for Israel, and Trump would give it to them. And then, like, a week later, they'd call back and they're like, now I want this. And he'd be like, give me a couple weeks. I'll do more for Israel. But I just. But he talked about how much he served Israel throughout his. And, you know, I think one of the things that is important to remember is that when Trump was running in 2024, he needed to win to stay out of prison. Had Trump not won that 2024 election, he would be in prison for life. And he was willing to do whatever he had to, the way most people would. And one of the people he needed most was Mary Medelson, and not just her, Bill Ackman and lots of other big, big donors who care most about Israel. I do think Netanyahu understands. The White House released that humiliating picture of Netanyahu holding the phone with his. While Trump was holding the phone, Netanyahu was on the phone with the Emir of Khadr, reading a script to an apology, a deliberate attempt to show what the dynamic in the relationship really is.

[B]

Do you think that was an act, or do you think he really had to call Qatar and say what he said?

[A]

When I see the United States or the Trump administration cutting off aid to Israel, when they do things that we don't want, then I will. Yeah. I mean, look at that picture. I mean, look at that picture.

[B]

Do you think that's an act, though? Do you really think in that position, who had leverage?

[A]

I think this is the thing. This is what I think has changed, is that I think Trump loves. I mean, if you think about Trump and what he loves most, even the aesthetic of, like, the Saudi, there's, like, flamboyant opulence. Right. I think Trump loves Qatar, the Emirates and Saudis genuinely, at least as much as he loves Israel. In fact, I think he's infinitely more. Is that a bad boy in Dubai than he is in Germany.

[B]

Is that a bad thing?

[A]

No, no, it's a good thing. Anything that places Israel more in its place in its proper place is a good thing to me. These are terrible countries. I mean these are hardcore savage dictatorships. But I don't think the United States should go around the world trying to.

[B]

Who's more pro America, you think, between those three, who do you think is more pro America and more an ally between those three names?

[A]

You said probably the Emiratis and then the Saudis.

[B]

You put Israel last.

[A]

Oh, you mean in terms of like ally towards us?

[B]

Like who between those three Emiratis, you know, Saudis, Israel, who do you put most?

[A]

It's all transactional at the end of the day, right? None of them have loyalty to the.

[B]

US who do you trust more though? Who do you trust more that at the end of the day if their backs against the wall, they're going to side with us backs.

[A]

I think the minute it's in their any of their interest to go to.

[B]

China, one above the other. Glenn, you're not a fearless guy, just.

[A]

No, I'm not trying to evade the question. I don't think it's Israel.

[B]

You're not a fearful guy.

[A]

I don't think it's Israel, if that's what you're trying to put.

[B]

So who do you think it is though? Who do you think is.

[A]

I think probably within the DNA of all these countries the most pro US sentiment is with the Saudis. That's been a deeper long.

[B]

Why do you think?

[A]

Just because the relationship between the two is so critical and the Saudis really need the United States to stay in power.

[B]

Perfect. So who needs us the least between those three?

[A]

So you're saying Israel, Emirati, not Qatar.

[B]

Just put Qatar there as well. Who do you think needs the US the least?

[A]

I, I think right now Israel needs the US the most.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

That I think is true.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

No, that I agree.

[B]

But who needs it the least?

[A]

I mean it could be at this point, you know, those oil, those oil. All three oil companies have, have China, have other, have India have other countries they could deal with.

[B]

Do you not think Trump knows that leverage? If the guy, the king of leverage of presidents we've ever had is not George Bush, is not Obama, is not senior, it's not maybe senior cuz he had some experience on the CIA side. It's probably not Reagan. This guy understands leverage.

[A]

Yes, but yes, and there is leverage of the American president when it comes to Israel for sure. And I think Trump does know that. At the same time you think that any president, including Trump, could put Israel in its place, could cut Israel off in any meaningful way could threaten Israel without repercussions. No, no, no. He would be destroyed.

[B]

It's the same way. I think if you run For President as 100% anti Israel, I don't think that's the wise move, not to run that election.

[A]

No, no, forget about the elections. Trump doesn't care about the elections. Presumably he's done right in 2020.

[B]

Do I think Israel. Ask the question again. Do I think Israel.

[A]

No, no. Let's say Trump really put the genuine clamps down on Israel. Like withheld military aid, withheld economic aid, didn't protect them at the UN the way we've been doing any of the things we do with Israel. Because he's angry at Netanyahu, punishing Netanyahu. The hell that would rain down on Donald Trump from all of these power centers that control media, that control politics, that control Wall street, that control Silicon Valley, would be immense. It would be a shitstorm of the highest proportions.

[B]

I see it in a different way, and the way I see it is the following. What else can he do to this guy at this point? What else? Media? What are you going to. You're going to bring up Karen McDougal. What are you going to bring up. You're going to bring up Stormy. What are you going to bring up with him? You're going to bring up Trump a stake. You're going to bring up Trump bankruptcies. You're going to bring up the mugshot. What else are you going to do to this side?

[A]

We've had presidents who had their head blown, their head blown off.

[B]

And where I'm going with. They've tried to do the same thing, too. What I'm trying to say is the following. I think there's a difference between the notion of, you know, like, for example, we're going to do funny skit for one of our channels and say, you know, we'd like to thank our sponsors today. We believe we're the only company in the world that's gotten sponsored from Qatar as well as Israel.

[A]

Congratulations.

[B]

We wanted to kind of do that to say, hey, thank you, Qatar, for the $7,000 and thank you, Israel APAC. We are thankful for you, some of you guys. But the part is there is the noise of social media. They're funded by Qatar, they're funded by Israel, they're from. Okay, set all that was one of the main reasons why I stopped taking sponsorship money. I just wanted everybody to know we're just going to drive our own business. Now. Would I come back and take money from some businesses That I support and I have equity in. Yes. Because I have equity in the company, but we're like nothing. Rob, how long ago was it we took sponsorship money from it? What would you say that timeline is?

[A]

At least two years, I would think.

[B]

I think it's exactly right around the October 7th. I don't want any more money to be given to us. Right. But there is the noise. That's like, Israel controls Trump. I don't think that's the case. I think the way I see it is he truly knows who Israel is. He knows Israel's the only child, and he knows, you know, Trump had five kids and he knows how to steer the pot. I mean, one time, Don Jr. Is in his mid to late 30s, and they ask him, they say, so, you know, you know, you must be really proud of Don and your kids. He says, well, we'll see. I mean, he's still young. He's my baby, and we'll see how he's going to do. But still young. Well, hopefully he. He likes that. He likes the. We'll see what they're going to do. We'll see, you know where. And then he want, yeah, you know what, they're great allies. They're this. But then we'll see. But then. So I think he's playing the game of pinning people against each other to get the best results and the best deals for himself, because that's what you do in real estate.

[A]

I get it. But at the same time, and I think if you will talk to anybody in Washington, which I know you do, and you're a very kind of pragmatic businessman type of person who looks at things in terms of leverage and power. You cannot underestimate the power of the Israel Lobby. And the power of the Israel Lobby is not. I'm not saying you don't, but it's not. Their power is not. We run some negative ads against you. That's not their power. They destroy people. Trump has not just himself, who he cares about a lot, but his family, his people, friends, his associate, his business interests. After the Jews went through the Holocaust, they see everything in an existential way.

[B]

I agree. Can you blame them, by the way?

[A]

No. I mean, I grew up invested in this. I grew up in a very Jewish community.

[B]

Jewish family considered them the most paranoid community in the world.

[A]

Yes, yes, I agree. Yes. Which I don't necessarily think is, you know, the whole, we're 80 years out of the Holocaust, there's a lot has changed since then, but, you know, victimhood mentality is Something that stays with you. It is a victimhood mentality and people get a lot of ego benefits from victimhood. It's the currency in our culture.

[B]

You're so funny.

[A]

It's true, it's true. But yes, they. So that is very much part of the Israel and the Jewish mindset. Whether for, you know, psychological reasons, valid reasons, pragmatic reasons, tactical ones, whatever. But for that reason they don't fuck around. Like this is. They're not a joke. And anyone who understands anything about them understands that they are not to be trifled with.

[B]

Yeah. And you know, it's so funny. You know what? I just googled Andy Grove, who is, I don't know if you know. Andy Grove is. Andy Grove is. Just pull up his Wikipedia. I want to read him who he is. He is known as Hungarian American businessman, engineer who served as the CEO of Intel Corporation. He escaped the Hungarian people Republic during 1956 revolution at the age of 20. He is known as the greatest CEO in that era. Everybody wanted to duplicate this guy. He died almost 10 years ago. Time magazine 1997 called him the man of the year. He wrote a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. And I just asked Chad GPT was he Jewish? He is a Jewish family from Hungary. He wrote a book.

[A]

I could have told you that without chatgpt.

[B]

Can you go to Only the Paranoid Survive? Only the Paranoid Survive book. That's Andy Gro the title, Only the Paranoid Survive. So I, I see that because for me I, I, I relate to that. From the Middle Eastern kid, Christian guy growing up in Iran, dude, we were very paranoid. We're like, hey, you have no idea. That was 40 years ago. Not even 40 years ago. 89, whatever. 89 is, right, 36 years ago. So I relate to that. I relate to the paranoid side, but I also relate that America relate to America's making a mistake having an only child in the Middle East. And I think Trump's trying to get three or four kids to pin them all against each other. And that's how he's going to keep him honest. And I love that strategy. I absolutely love that strategy. Until he had that, he can't fully go like this on Israel. The moment he had that, he's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I think it's still Israel is the favorite child. It's still, that's the case. But the favorite child's kind of like, whoa, what's going on? I think people are maybe realizing, you know, I'm starting to get a lot of pow, pow lately I'm starting to.

[A]

I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I want to believe that, too. I understand what you're saying. I see the same things. I'll believe it when I. I'll believe it when the US Actually takes concrete steps, not leaks to Axios or the Politico. You know that there's tension between Trump and Netanyahu. There was a lot of that around the negotiations over Iran, and I. That ended up being a ruse.

[B]

You don't think there's tension between the two?

[A]

Yeah, I'm sure there was tension between Obama, Netanyahu, and one of the last things Obama did on the way out is sign a $40 billion aid deal to guarantee Israel $3.8 billion automatically every year from the US treasury on top of whatever.

[B]

I don't think Obama's Trump, though. I don't think Obama's Trump. I think the difference is I think Trump is a boss of bosses. I think Obama's a great speaker and a great community organizer and a great politician. Obama, nobody looks at Obama, says he's a boss. Nobody. There's a difference in mentality here. And again, by the way, I could fully be wrong because of who comes.

[A]

After Trump, but also just not to defend Obama, since this is the last person I want to defend. But one of the things he did on his way out, and he was on his way out, but. Okay, was he did sign that $40 billion deal, which is still in the plaque, this memorandum of understanding with Israel, $3.8 billion every year automatically, on top of the 20, 25, 30 billion we give them every time they want to start a war. Plus the money we give to Egypt and Jordan, which is mostly for Israel, all the other expenses. Obama did that. But then also on the way out, there was a Security Council resolution to condemn Israel for its occupation of the west bank, which the UN Wanted to declare illegal. The US has always vetoed any anti Israel resolution. Obama refused to use his veto power, didn't vote for it, but abstained, and that's what allowed the resolution and the Security Council to pass. So that was a pretty.

[B]

I have an opinion on that, though. My opinion on that is Obama never liked Israel. His middle name is Hussein. Obama's never been an Israel fan. Trump has been in business with Jews his entire life in New York. Trump understands Jews better than Obama understands Jews. Obama hates Jews, not hates Jews. Obama's not a. Let me use a different phrase. Israel is not in the top 20 of his favorite countries in the world. Obama. I don't think Obama wakes up in the morning saying, oh, my God, I love the people in Israel. I love what.

[A]

No, but the money flowed. The money flowed under Obama. The weapons flowed up under Obama.

[B]

You said something very powerful. You said something very powerful at the beginning of it, that we don't know. All the conversations. You said something about the fact that, you know, when you were on the inside trying to help Snowden get pardoned, and then you talked about the camp that came out and said, you know, the McConnells and, you know, all these other guys saying, hey, if you do, we're going to make sure we continue this. So who knows why he did that, because what threats he had.

[A]

But that's my point. I think Trump, if Trump were to take meaningful steps against Israel, I think the amount of threats and punishments and attacks that would be unleashed would be almost impossible to overstate. And I understand what you're saying. Look, they've thrown everything at Trump. Not from the Israel lobby.

[B]

Yeah, but I don't think. I don't think you do. I don't think he's trying to. I don't think what you think is success is the same thing as what Trump thinks it's success.

[A]

What is success?

[B]

In my opinion, it's making sure Israel's no longer the only child in the Middle East.

[A]

But toward what end?

[B]

Well, towards having a couple other alternatives that get along with it so that.

[A]

We can reduce age, so that we don't have to give them all the weapons, we don't have to defend them.

[B]

All the time, so we can steer a little bit of competition and little bit of a, you know, literally, like, for example, you say the money. Okay, let me go back to the business side as well. When I'm say, say you're writing $50 million of insurance every year, okay? And you have this one carrier that has, okay, products, not the best products, but they have a very good reputation of marketplace. And you don't want the marketplace to say, patrick, bet David lost contract with aig. Why did he lose contract? Let me investigate it. Right. So guess what? You give that company $2 million of business. What's $2 million of business? Nothing. But you give it to them for them to be happy with the quality. That's called strategy.

[A]

That's called, what do we need Israel for? The Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, the Bahrainis, the Jordanians? They would happily sell their oil to us.

[B]

No, it's not just that, buddy.

[A]

What else? What else? Why do we need Israel?

[B]

I think you need them for the intel. To me, it's purely the intel.

[A]

Intel about whom?

[B]

Are you kidding me? Who is their neighbor? Who are they right next to? Where are they in the middle of. I think there's a benefit to having a good relationship with Israel. I think there's a benefit of having a good relationship with Qatar. I think there's a benefit with having a good relationship with Saudi. I think there's a benefit when having a good relationship with Israel.

[A]

I think the relationship with Israel on the net is more harmful to the United States than it is beneficial. We have, you know, the one thing I know, you know, I spent three years of my life reading through it, is the capacity of the US Intelligence Agency, the nsa, how much eyes and ears we have on every part of the world. We don't need Israel to spy on us.

[B]

How do we have it in the Middle East?

[A]

We have the gigantic. Again, we prop up the Egyptian and the Jordanians. They do whatever we tell us. We have the gigantic military base in the middle of Qatar.

[B]

You think they're as effective as Mossad?

[A]

I don't think that the Mossad. The Mossad isn't there to pass us good information. The Mossad is there to give us information it wants us to have to provoke actions that are favorable to Israel.

[B]

By the way, I don't disagree that they're going to give us the best information because they're going to be Israel first. I fully believe that Israel is Israel first. But Israel sits there and says, we kind of need America to be able to stay here and do our things. And I think that leverage can be used.

[A]

It can be. But there's also a hugely powerful Israel lobby that I think has control and a stranglehold over American politics. And I hope you're right that Trump is trying to get out of here.

[B]

You know what the problem is?

[A]

I hope you're right. I really do.

[B]

You know what? You know what the problem is? Here's what the problem is. And by the way, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you can have this conversation. And I don't even know if we're disagreeing, by the way. I don't even know if the disagreement is that I'm taking a position, you're taking a position. Where I'm going long term is the idea of, no, they're the enemy, they're this, they're that, and I can't change my position because of this. And then, no, third, because of this. Without Israel, we can't do this. We have to do this. No. How about let's kind of go here a little bit. By the way, in my opinion, you know, what's the hardest place to be? You know, it's the toughest place to be. Not here or here. You're here, you have friends. If you're here, you have friends and allies. You ain't got friends when you're here.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

And when you're trying to be here, they're like, well, let me tell you, he's on that side. No, no. Well, let me tell you, he's on this side. I was a kid growing up, you know what they used to tell me? My mother's side would say, he's a bed David, he's an Assyrian. And my father said, we say he's a bohozin, he's an Armenian. I'm like, screw both of you. The only ones I care about is my mom, my dad, my sister. I don't play this politics. I'm here. And it took couple decades for people to realize, well, he was kind of fair, you know, he was kind of fair with being.

[A]

So I think, I think, well, to be clear, like, if you talk about it morally and ethically, I do think what Israel has done in Gaza is one of the worst crimes certainly of this century. So I don't want to pretend that I'm nuanced about that. However, I think when we're talking about U.S. policy toward other countries, toward the region, you have to be analytical about it. It's not driven by self righteous moralism, it's driven by, this is better for.

[B]

Content, by the way, if you think about it. Yeah, this is very effective for content. This is not.

[A]

No, exactly, exactly. If you and I were to scream at each other about Israel and its morality in Gaza, it would, you would. Look, they got into the screaming match. But I think this is much more subtle, much more important, much more.

[B]

I trust that he's doing business. I trust he's looking at this as a business deal. And the only thing is, when I sold my. And I hope he does this, you know, when you leave and you're trying to put certain rules and guideline guidelines in place to make sure some of this stuff doesn't repeat itself, we're going to see if he's going to be able to pull that off, because that's the real trick.

[A]

And that's why I say, I hope you're right. But at the end of the day, I also think among all the other things Trump's weighing, and I think your analysis of his view of the Middle east is exactly right. He's also weighing and he'd be stupid not to. The things that the pro Israel lobby could do to him and to things he cares about. If he were really to take action against Israel. That has to be in his mind. He'd be crazy not to be. You can say, oh, he's been through everything. Trump is a. Trump is self interested. He's human and he has kids and their businesses and his grandkids and things he cares about. And anyone who cares about things is vulnerable.

[B]

Yeah. And by the way, I think anybody who cares about anything is also better for society.

[A]

For sure.

[B]

I think anybody who has nothing to lose is horrible for society. When you have kids, like I tell my kids, man, be friends with other kids who have things to lose. You want to be friends. Kids who have nothing. Let me tell you, when I was 16 years old, I probably wasn't the best kid to be friends with.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Because I was in a very bad place. I had nothing to lose. So I understood a lot of parents of my friends that would say, don't befriend Patrick. Because I had nothing to lose. I was in a reckless place. I joined the army that saved me. Then I got out. I had dreams, I had a vision, then I had something to lose. Then I stayed locked in. I stopped hanging out with the friends that were going to destroy my life. Some of them went to jail, some of them died, some of them went away, like literally deported. And somehow I made it. But because I think it is good to have things to lose. I think it is good to have. That's why God created a certain situation. When we have kids, you look at the world in a different way. I think that's healthy. Totally. I should think that's healthy versus the other side. That doesn't. Okay, so let's go back to it. Number one is Epstein. We're on the same page. Ukraine, us, Israel. What's four and five that you would like to see a whistleblower come? By the way, what a long episode. I don't even know how the hell you're going to cut this clip.

[A]

Good luck.

[B]

So what would you say 4 and 5 is?

[A]

You get into Israel and it's very hard to get out of, but we're out of it now. I would love to see a whistleblower inside the CIA to come forward and talk about the things that agency in particular is doing. And then obviously I would love another NSA whistleblower as well, because I think that spying, you know, Snowden was, what is it, 12 years ago now. I want to know who they're spying on, how they're using that spying, whether there's. I know they're spying domestically, but exactly on whom.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Hi, everyone. I'm Glenn Greenwald. I am a journalist who covers a lot of issues, including civil liberties and foreign policy and the US Security state and domestic politics and Brazil also. A lot of people don't know, but I know literally everything about tennis, everything. So you can ask me about that as well. And anyone who wants to ask me questions or connect with me, you can do so on Minecraft. I have a profile there and I would love to hear from you.

[B]

Interventionists and non interventionists. Okay, the argument for both sides, right? When you think about, hey, I'm a interventionist, I'm a non interventionist, what is the benefit of either? Like, if you were to say, this is why people become interventionists, this is why they make the argument of non interventionist, what would you say it is?

[A]

I'm, to be perfectly honest, after everything I've lived through and I guess my adult child, you know, my adult life in terms of political perception is formed by non 911 and its aftermath. It's very hard for me to make a case for interventionism either from the perspective of benefiting the United States or benefiting the countries in which we're intervening. I think everybody ends off worse except for a tiny little sliver of the military industrial complex. The US Intelligence community, the government, global elites. I think those who benefit from this constant globalistic effort to try and interfere in the world, intervene in the world. I could make a lot of arguments for why I think Venezuela is a good case now where this war is being sold on all the standard grounds. Oh, Maduro is uniquely evil and he's going to pass WMD to the United States and kill us. But not wmd, but drugs. It's all the same rationale. And then of course, we could go in and take out Maduro. It wouldn't be that hard. If we want to fight a war, we did it in Panama. It would be harder than that, but we could still do it, of course, kill thousands of Venezuelans. And then at the end of the day, we're going to impose this puppet regime. We're going to be responsible for it. We're going to fund it. We're going to fund all the overflow of instability and civil war and migration problems that are going to happen all throughout the region. Including probably for the United States. And so you can say, look, we got rid of Saddam and we're so happy because he was a bad guy, which he is, but look at all the harm it did for the United States. Oh, we got rid of Maduro. No one thinks he's a good guy. But all the problems that it's going to get going at the end of the day, I think the main reason why Trump won and one of the things I think Zorra Mandani did that was so good that I knew early on he was gonna be a very effective candidate. Before people knew, is after Trump won, he went on the street, he went into the neighborhoods where there was the biggest swing toward Trump in New York. New York had mostly every community swung toward Trump as opposed to prior elections. And these were working class, multiracial neighborhoods. And all he did was go and interview people on camera and say, well, who did you vote for, Trump? Why? And they would say, I'm really, you know, our communities are falling apart and I'm sick of how much money we're sending to Ukraine, into Israel, into all these wars. Also, immigration was a big deal. Why are these people coming to the country illegally getting more than our neighborhood? And he shaped his campaign around that. And that, I think, was the biggest appeal of Donald Trump, was our elite class cares about everything except you and your family and your community. We spend money on all these other globalistic ventures, on all these wars and all these other countries that have nothing to do with your lives. We should instead put America first. We should put Americans first. His speech about in the inaugural justice, about the forgotten man. Who is that? Those are the working class people in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin where everything has been de. Industrialized and the cities that are falling apart. And so this interventionism is a nice word for war is, I think, one of the things that is most destroying the United States and our future security and our welfare. I just went to Malaysia last month. Not a. I mean, where Trump is now or was a couple days ago, not a particularly like country. A country that's not particularly known for its great prosperity. You can find prosperity in a lot of other countries. It's a Muslim majority country. You go there to Kuala Lumpur or wherever, and you look at the infrastructure, the airports, the road, everything is better than most American cities. Why is that? Why is a country like Malaysia capable of having, you know, cleaner cities, well, better organized cities? It's not a. It's a democracy. I mean, not perfect, but it's democracy. It's not Saudi Arabia. And the reason is, is because we use our resources for everything except what's happening inside of our country and our communities and our people. And I think that's the message above all else that resonated for people with Trump. And I want that message to be fully embraced finally. And I think stopping unnecessary intervention is a key way to do that.

[B]

Okay, so let me ask you. So you'll hear a lot of times people say, wait, you know, the. So you're saying you're not intervention. Mention this yourself?

[A]

Completely.

[B]

Okay, so, so was George Washington. Right. So is Ron Paul. So is Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson. A lot of these guys, Right? Okay. And at that time when that was going on, maybe the argument somebody will make is 1776 is different than 2025. Okay, let me pose this question. How do you, as a non interventionist, make it while your top five other enemies are all intervening? How do you play offense or defense against them as a non interventionist?

[A]

When was the last war China had? Do you know?

[B]

I don't think they have the same wars as we have. I don't think they fight the way you and I fight.

[A]

I'm saying, like, when was the last time they had a war?

[B]

Five years ago, Covid. I think they started that too.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They intervened. That's intervening.

[A]

Okay. I mean, war in its classical sense. In the sense that, I mean, let me just make the point. You can, obviously, Covid, is it was 1979, they had a one month border war with Vietnam. A one month border war with Vietnam. That was 45 years ago.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

We fought. You couldn't count how many wars we've had. Interventions, wars, invasions, bombings that we've done of many other countries. And you look at China, I don't mean politically. We talked about Saudi Arabia, Qatar Emirates, in a favorable sense, even though they're as repressive as anybody, including China. You look at China, they have, their cities are magnificent. They're shocking in terms of their innovation. They're building bridges, their engineering feats. And they released videos saying, this is what happens when you don't spend $2 billion trying to occupy Afghanistan in order to leave and have the Taliban march back in. I'm not saying China, it's not a defense of China. I know, I understand China's aggression, but they don't fight wars, they don't occupy countries, they don't do regime change in other countries. They're not overthrowing other countries. Brazil, where I live, is now China is the biggest trading partner with Brazil replacing the United States, the only thing China cares about. If you're in Brazil and you say Taiwan is an independent country or Hong Kong should be free, they get angry and we'll retaliate. Anything else you do, they don't give the slightest shit about what Brazil does. Your internal governance. I don't care what kind of government it has. It's not their business.

[B]

How do you know that?

[A]

Because I see China and what it functions. I see what they get angry about and what they don't.

[B]

We fully know why they do. You think they buy land all around the world for no reason? You think they're trying to intervene and protect themselves long term?

[A]

Yes. Yes they are. They're trying to protect themselves. Exactly. Or basically nobody is opposed to American wars or intervention designed to protect ourselves. If there's some country that's going to attack us, that's threatening to attack us, we're not trying to. Nobody's against going to war with that country. That's a war of self defense. Everybody is in favor of that. Or a country attacks you or is about to attack you, you go to war. That's not what's happening with these countries that we're involved in wars with. Hamas isn't attacking the United States. Russia is not attacking the United States. Maduro is not attacking the United States. These are basically using interventions and wars and bombing campaigns as a tool to achieve some other end. And eventually a state in constant war, a warlike state, is going to collapse. History demonstrates that you can benefit for a while. There's obviously benefits.

[B]

I agree there as well. I'm not like for example, I'm not for 780 military bases or whatever the numbers we have. Right. I don't know what the number is right now, Rob, if you want to pull it up, I'm not for all of that, but I think to be 100% non interventionist while other countries are. The only way I would agree with 100% interventionist Glenn is 750. Now the only way I would agree with interventionist is if we produce everything. We don't buy from anyone, we don't sell to anyone. And it's 100% internally and nobody relies on us and we don't rely on anybody.

[A]

Okay, but that's like you say to people, why are we. Why do we care about how Taiwan is governed? Why do we care about the extent of.

[B]

We need the chips for.

[A]

Okay, Right.

[B]

Desperately we need the chips.

[A]

Precisely. Which is a good reason why Taiwan is geostrategically important to us.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You're going to tell me we don't have the United States of America with Silicon Valley, with our manufacturing capabilities, we don't have the ability to produce chips ourselves. We just haven't made it a priority.

[B]

There's Trump started, he started with the 5050 deal. He tried to negotiate with Taiwan and they said, no, there's, there's, there's some Biden, then we're going to build all here.

[A]

Exactly. So let's assume though that we are able to do that, which of course we should do. Why do we rely on Taiwan for processing chips? It makes no sense. Why do we have a supply chain that goes through China? Why can't we have that for ourselves? But let's assume we are no longer dependent on Taiwan for these chips. We have American factories, American workers producing American chips as we should, with our ingenuity and technological know how and our resources. Once that happens, should we go to war with China over Taiwan?

[B]

No, I don't think, I don't think you can have an ally without having an enemy. I don't think you can have an enemy without having an ally. I think it's impossible. I think whenever you have allies, you have enemies because somebody's not happy with that person. And now that you create an alliance with that person, the other person's an enemy of yours. So you have to have a, you automatically put yourself in a position to.

[A]

Intervene, which is where you get back to Washington. Jefferson, who warned against things like enduring alliances, you know, have no animosity toward other countries, enduring animosities, but also no enduring alliances that we, we take care of our own country, we trade with other countries, we have good relationships with other countries, but we don't have these enduring alliances where their enemies become our own.

[B]

But it's, listen, you know, it's in too deep, buddy. Clem, we are so in too deep that for us to want to now be non interventionists, it is so too late to do it because of what our history is and what we've done. You would need to be an intervention, non interventionist for 100 years, wait till everybody else dies off to forget that we used to intervene and everything. And then we're true interventionists. To become an interventionist is like, it's such a, you know what it's like, it's like, you know, you know, Ms. Venezuela, what is your dream? I want to see world peace.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Ms. South Carolina, what would you like? That one was fully confused. I don't even know if she knows what she said. Herself, Ms. South Carolina 20 years ago. But world peace, good luck.

[A]

It's not that, but it's not like our entire history has been one of interventionism. It was essentially, Obviously, World War II was a war that everybody in the United States, for the most part, not everybody, but agreed, was a just war. But then after that, that's when the security state got created. That's when Eisenhower warned of the emerging military industrial complex. And then from there, it grew with Vietnam. From there, it grew with the Cold War and the Reagan years. And then after 9, 11, it grew even further. This is not an inevitability in the American experience. I'm not saying we're gonna have this. Ms. Venezuela, I want world peace. That's not real. That's not human relations. But there are a lot of countries that are doing extremely well that don't have 750 military bases around the world, that don't debate every year, which of the four countries now should we bomb this year. It is not something that can't be changed. Trump ran on a platform of radically transforming country in that way.

[B]

But it is truly probably the toughest thing to accomplish, to do that, but.

[A]

Also, I think, the most important, because as long as we continue to be.

[B]

This country, you know what's the toughest to accomplish? You know, what's the toughest to accomplish. So if you ever notice, when you ask people where you're from, they say El Salvador. And you know, something, like, the other day we're at this restaurant and my wife now, where are you from? I'm El Salvador. Oh, wow. Okay, cool. She says, yeah, I know most people, when they think about El Salvador, they think about gangs and all this stuff. Ms. 13. I bought my first car by my own money from an MS.13 leader, Mara Sabatrucha from San Bernardino Valley in LA. But, hey, what's your last name? Gambino. Go ahead, try to clean up that last name of yours. What do you guys do? I'm a pastor. Yeah. We'd like to bring up our next. Today he's going to read Teach Us out of Corinthians. Pastor Gambino. Hello. You know, I'd like to start off with a prayer. You're a member of that church. You're sitting there saying, babe, did he just say the guy's name is Gambino? Yeah. And he's got a strong Italian accent, like a New York. Yeah, babe. Let me Google this guy.

[A]

Babe.

[B]

How does this guy. You're gonna go, we are so into deep.

[A]

It's a little Defeatist, though.

[B]

I mean, I didn't say defeatist. I don't mean by defeatist. What I'm saying to you is I think we can. I think we can work on de hassling and getting out of the way of a lot of things that's going on. I think we can. I think we have our hands in way too many things in everyone's business. I think it's like a friend that's trying to solve every one of his friends marriages. Dude, relax. But if one of the cousins, she's getting beat up by her husband and she's got black eyes every other week.

[A]

You see, you don't think that's why we intervene though? You don't think. We don't believe we intervened to go help the poor and oppressed peoples of the world be liberated, do you?

[B]

No, I mean, I've had the guy Perkins on a couple times. You know, he wrote the book called the Economic Hitman. Economic Hitman, right. John Perkins. I don't know if you read his book.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah, he wrote a book called Economic Hit. Economic Confessions of an Economic Hitman. You know what he used to do? He used to go to countries. You actually would like talking to this guy. He used to go to countries and he would sit down and he would say, hey, we're going to come here, we're going to put a few billion dollars here. We're going to make it a massive announcement and it's going to be great. And we're going to create jobs. Then after about 10 years, you're not going to be able to pay it off. We're going to get some minerals from you or whatever resources we need from you and you're going to say nothing. And we're going to do that. And if you don't, we're going to kill you. That's what this guy did for a living.

[A]

Yeah, that's the reality. This is why. But this is why. This is why nothing drives me more insane. We just talked about the US close relationship with the Saudis and the Emiratis and the Egyptians. And we don't just embrace dictatorships. We actually sometimes overthrow democratic governments and install dictatorships. I agree.

[B]

We did that to Iran.

[A]

We did that to Iran and it's one of the reasons why people in that country hate us. I'm not trying to explain your own country to you, but you know that. I've heard you say that before and you're absolutely right. Lots of. I mean, there's anti American resentment in Brazil. We did the same thing. We overthrew their government in 1964, put a military dictatorship in place for 21 years. Obviously, when people think United States and Brazil, they remember that it's true. Every continent, every country. And so this is the reality. So the one thing that drives me crazy is when it's time to go to war, hey, we need to go fight in Ukraine because we want to save democracy and fight authoritarianism. That was the, we're going to go liberate the Iraqi people. Now in Venezuela, we're going to go liberate the Venezuelan people. This is why we go interfere in other countries. That's the real politic of it. The pretext is we're going to go help and liberate the people of the world. This is fairytale bullshit. I don't care if a country is dictatorial.

[B]

I agree. I agree that this is happening, and I'm not for this. I agree. I agree that this is. I had him on a couple times. I agree. I don't call for it. I don't agree with it. But at the same time, the job of being a journalist, the job of being a businessman, podcaster, the job of being a mother, the job of being a director of CIA, the job of running NSA or president, they all look at the lens. They all have a different lens on. All have a different lens on. And each one of them sees nobility in their jobs, and each one of them sees nobility in what they're doing, which, by the way, you ought to be proud of the job that you've chosen. Now, this job isn't for everybody. It's not. You know why that job isn't for everybody? You know what I love about the fact that Trump said, I'm probably not going to go to heaven no matter what I do?

[A]

Yeah, I love that, too.

[B]

You know why I love that? I love it because it's honest to me. I love it because it's like, look, man, do you know what things I've done? Do you know what things have. If God allows me in heaven, I'm going to ask him, what were you thinking?

[A]

Not just as president, his private life and his personal life and his business life. I love Trump for that.

[B]

I love that because to me, me, it's a form of honest. I don't.

[A]

You know what my favorite Trump thing is? I don't know if you remember this, but when Trump first got elected president, Bill O'Reilly interviewed him as part of the super bowl show in 2017, and Bill O'Reilly was pressing him quite aggressively and Angrily on his fondness or desire to have better relations with Putin. And Bill O'Reilly said, what is it with you and Russia? Putin is a killer. And Trump said, you think we're so innocent? You don't think we have our killers? Yeah, it's like Bill O'Reilly's on the air for 30 years, you know, the most rated show on Bill, and he doesn't know this. It's not part of his thinking. You know, if you don't know that, you don't understand anything about the world, if you believe that fairy tale, if that's what shapes your worldview. So I. But here's the thing. If that were helping Americans, if that were redounding to the benefit of the American people, I think you could have a debate about it. The problem is it's redounding to the benefit basically of everybody except the American people. You look at the lives of the American people, you look at their economic security, just look at, look at the reality of life in the United States for the working class is disappearing, the middle class disappearing. You can't have a family without both parents working. This is horrible.

[B]

Glenn. Glenn, let's do this. By the way, quick shout out to Rob. He found that clip. So if you want to play.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I love this clip.

[B]

You can come back to this. Putin, I do respect him.

[A]

Why? Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I'm going to.

[B]

Get along with him.

[A]

He's a leader of his country.

[B]

I say it's better to get along.

[A]

With Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against isis, which is a major.

[B]

Fight ant Islamic terrorism all over the world.

[A]

Major fight.

[B]

That's a good thing. Will I get along with him?

[A]

I have no idea. He's a killer, though. Putin's a killer. A lot of killers. Got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? You think our country's so innocent? I don't know of any government leaders that are killing.

[B]

Pause it right there. But going back to what you said, you said something very interesting. You said, you know, most of these things that we do, it doesn't benefit the American people, it benefits all the other people. Right. And I said, you can't say something like that. And he said, look what's going on with middle America. Right? Middle. I think you were going talking about how financially where we are right now. I can take this problem and link it to this, but maybe there is no correlation between this and this. I would link the middle class to listen. There's a website called 1971. I am sure you've seen this, where everything of American problems links back to 1971. Economically. Single mothers finances, middle America collapsing. The debt market all of a sudden skyrockets. Us no longer building three bedroom homes. All we want to build is four bedroom homes. We no longer build small starter homes. All of these things that you go through, what happened? We got off the gold standard. We are reckless in our debt today all across, not only individuals, companies, stock market, the government. So if you link those two, I get that. Why do we get off the gold standard? I mean obviously created a ton of wealth for us, but holy shit, we're in a.

[A]

Would we be able to fund our wars without that? Here's that.

[B]

Isn't that a good thing?

[A]

Yes, no, I'm saying but, but that's part of. I know, but it's a little too monocausal for me. Only because there are other countries that have not decimated their working and middle class and there that are in fact making progress toward bringing people out of poverty and to bring more prosperity for their people. This is not inevitable. These are the byproduct of choices that we're making. And at the end of the day, the only metric, maybe not the only metric, but the primary metric of whether a political class is succeeding or failing is how much it is benefiting the people whom they're supposed to be serving. It may be idealistic or theoretical, but it's also true. And if you, I mean I'm American, I've lived here most of my life, I grew up here. I look at how things were in the 70s and 80s and things are just worse now in every way the country looks worse. It looks worse. Families are worse, literacy is worse. People are less educated. People have less of an economic future. The idea, I think the idea that you can't raise a family without having two incomes and ball parents having to work out of the house is absolutely devastating.

[B]

But 1971 we got off the gold standard. When we got off the gold standard, we started, hey, trust us.

[A]

I'm just saying that's monocausal. I'm saying that we could, could even with that, there's a lot more we could be doing better and I think using our resources.

[B]

This is massive though. This is massive because this opened up the recklessness spending and we kept saying, hey, don't worry about it. Another bailout, another bailout. Like you think we're not going to be bail. When do you think we're Going to stop bailing out. Do you think the bailing out concept is going to stop? You think this is it with bailing out?

[A]

We're bailing out Wall street industry, where, you know, all.

[B]

And the wars never, never for it.

[A]

No, I know.

[B]

Let them go out of business. That's part of capitalism. But that goes back to this move. Nixon did a lot of things right, but Nixon is the reason why China is as big as it is today. Nixon opened up a lot of stuff. Some could give a lot of credit to that, but we could have gone to a different place. Nixon is, you know, he was. I don't know if you. Sure. You read a lot on Nixon, for sure. But to me, Nixon was a complicated character with. Yeah, very complicated character. But. So let me. Let me go to Venezuela. Maduro. So what do you think we do? Maduro comes out. I don't know if you have the clip. Rob, one of the clips. Maduro comes out. I own peace. Peace. And you know, whether he's being sarcastic or not, 90. I'm thinking he's being sarcastic. Please, please don't do anything. I want peace. I want. You've seen this clip, I'm assuming, right? Yes, right here.

[A]

Go ahead.

[B]

Not war, not war, just peace. Just peace. Just peace forever. Forever. Forever. Peace forever. No crazy war.

[A]

No crazy. No crazy guard. No crazy war.

[B]

Please, please, please.

[A]

Yes, peace. Peace forever.

[B]

Peace forever.

[A]

Victory forever. Depends on.

[B]

Victory forever.

[A]

Defeats.

[B]

It. So you've seen this?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What do you think about it?

[A]

I don't think he wants war with the United States. Why would he? I think. I mean, he's. I mean, he's maybe a little tongue in cheek in terms of how he's saying it. His English is not exactly great. He's reading. But I'm saying, of course he doesn't want war with the United States. Why would he want a war with the United States? He doesn't want the United States bombing and invading Venezuela. Would you. Look what happened to Noriega. Look what happened to Gaddafi. Look what happened to Saddam Hussein. No one in their right mind would want that. And the thing is, we were talking before about people in the United States who are inculcated from birth to love Israel. I grew up in this area. There was a huge Cuban community. Still is. Those people never learned English because they were only here temporarily in their minds, because they thought once the United States got rid of Cuba, they were going back. They wanted this government to get rid of Cuba for them. Marco Rubio emerges out of this. Lots of people emerge out of it. They're very focused on the Caribbean and Latin America. They think the United States has to go and fix that region. If you look at fentanyl, which by far is the worst drug entering the United States, that kills the most people, it doesn't come from Venezuela. Nobody ever talked about Venezuela as the source of fentanyl. It was China and Mexico. The Trump campaign was talking about bombing the cartels in Mexico. It doesn't come from Venezuela. Cocaine, in some minority sense, I think it's 7 or 9%, according to government reports, passes through Venezuela. Has to do with Venezuela, but it really comes from Colombia. And Colombia has been governed until a couple years ago by right wing governments that were close U.S. allies.

[B]

It's the first liberal president they've had ever.

[A]

Yeah, first left wing president. Yeah. So, I mean, Trump's now saying, oh, it's his fault. Columbia has been the source of drugs forever. All that iconography about Pablo Escobar and the Colombians and everybody, this is a pretext. This is not. If you want to stop the flow of drugs, you have to close the borders, deal with the Mexican cartels. It has nothing to do with Venezuela. It's the WMD of the war. They want to change Maduro because they want a puppet government in Venezuela. But it's not going to be that easy. We've been trying Cuba for seven decades to bring down that government. We've used all our might militarily, economically. We've suffocated that island like we're suffocating Venezuela. You know, you can go and change the government of Venezuela if you want, but what is Venezuela doing to the United States? We closed the border. Trump did succeed in doing that. There's no influx or basically no influx anymore across the southern border. So the argument is not they're sending, you know, drug cartels or immigrants to enter our country. And if you look at everything that has been said about fentanyl, which is what's killing people, it's not cocaine, it's fentanyl. It doesn't come from Venezuela. This is a disconnect. If you want to solve fentanyl, changing the government of Venezuela is irrelevant. And even if you did change the government of Venezuela, do you know the kind of instability you're gonna have there? You think the drug cartels are gonna disappear? Like I said, we controlled Colombia for decades with our alliance with the right wing governments. It didn't stop. We helped. In a civil war, you can't destroy the flow of drugs. The drug war doesn't work. What you have to do is why is there so much demand in the United States for drugs? That is one crucial part of the equation.

[B]

Why is there so much demand?

[A]

Why is there. Yes, why in the United States? Why do so many Americans get addicted to drugs, use drugs, want drugs? Why is there such a big market in the United States for drugs?

[B]

Yeah, but I don't think, you know, there's a demand for it. I think you create those customs. How, how do you think you do it? Oh, so you're gonna put, you're gonna go back to war on drugs with the US Government being involved?

[A]

No, the war on drugs is, the war on drugs is a failed model. And that's what they were on. Venezuela would be right. We're gonna use our military, we're bombing drug ships. This does not work. Drugs are too easy to smuggle. Drugs are too easy to. And the profit is too big to destroy it. With military, you have to eliminate the demand for it. That's the way to stop the war on drugs.

[B]

So you're saying leave it. You're saying leave Venezuela alone. You're saying let Maduro do whatever he.

[A]

I think if you look at the, if I were to say, here's a list of the top 50 things that are creating problems for American, the American people. I don't put Venezuela in the top 50. Venezuela. I, I mean, it's like to me, like, who's gonna, which warlord, which warlord is gonna run, is gonna run? You know, East Venezuela will sell oil to us. Well, they'll happily sell oil to us. We don't buy oil from them because we sanction them. Them. They'll sell their, of course they'll sell their oil to us. Trump said that Maduro offered everything. He said, here, here's oil, here's mineral rights, here's whatever you want. Marco Rubio is lifelong obsession is changing the governments of the region that his family comes from. That's a big part of it. Venezuela is not a threat to the United States. There are bad people who come from Venezuela. We've closed the borders. We're deporting them. That's of course part of what we should be doing. That's what Trump ran on and is doing. We don't need to go to war with Venezuela, kill thousands of people, create instability and civil war there for years to come that we're then responsible for.

[B]

For, so I understand, for, for you as a non interventionist that you would take that position.

[A]

It's not a principle, it's a pragmatic view.

[B]

Yeah. I, but I understand what you're saying, but also how many Venezuelans do we have living here? One million. What's the number? How many people do we have living in the States that escape Venezuela? The number could be 1 million, 4. What is the number?

[A]

903,150.

[B]

So what percentage of those would go back if Venezuela became, you know, ran under a different regime than Maduro? I don't think you agree that Maduro is a good leader for Venezuela.

[A]

No, it's not my, but it's not my, it's not my role to choose Venezuela's leaders.

[B]

So if Maduro, if Venezuela stays like Cuba for the next 40 years to you, it's like it's not my business, their problem.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Why would. I haven't even been to Venezuela. Have you been to Venezuela?

[B]

I've not been to Venezuela.

[A]

How are you going to choose their leaders?

[B]

I've been to Panama, I've been to a lot of places.

[A]

Yeah. I live in Latin America.

[B]

I've been all around, over.

[A]

Yeah, but administrative. How am I going to choose their leader for them?

[B]

No, it's not, it's not about that. To me it's again, this goes back to that. That's why I went interventionist, non interventionist. Then I brought this up. This goes back to a potential future crisis that could happen. That a leader has to sit there and say, is this in the top 20 worst things that can happen to us 10, 20 years from now, now if there is more. Colombia was a conservative country for many, many years and then all of a sudden they're flipping. Now they have that petrol guy that said like this. Did you see what he said? Like this?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so you think that's okay for him to do that? You think it's okay for somebody to say something like that and then he's friends with those guys and.

[A]

Yeah, but like I said, Colombia was ruled for decades, for the long, remember by a US close US ally that did what we want, basically a puppet government. We had military base in Colombia. We helped them fight that war, that civil war against FARC and militias. You think it reduced the supply of drugs in the United States? It did not. It did not. And like also you can look at Venezuela. Okay, well Venezuela will be a future problem in 20 years. Do you think if we go in, remove Maduro, I'm not saying he's popular among his people, but he has huge numbers of very, very armed followers. Fair enough.

[B]

51, 59%. Whatever the number, 60.

[A]

Still you're talking about millions of armed people loyal to Venezuela. And even if they don't like, like Mar Duro, it's not like everybody loves the United States coming in and intervening and invading. It's like, oh, the Iraqis are going to welcome us as liberators. Right? That was the theory. That proved not to be true. Not because people love Saddam, but because people don't like the United States coming in. We're going to go in and we're going to kill a bunch of. We're going to lose. Even in Panama, we lost hundreds of soldiers who died, American soldiers. Venezuela is a much harder, bigger country, more armed. It's going to be a lot harder. But then. And once you remove Maduro and you prop up this regime now you're responsible for this regime, responsible for propping it up, this government. And you're gonna have civil war. You're gonna have civil conflict for the longest time. It's gonna spill over into neighboring countries, including Brazil, into the United States. We're gonna take refugees, we're gonna take whomever. That's also gonna create massive problems. It's not like we're gonna surgically remove Maduro, put them into a US Prison or kill him, and then everything, just democracy and peace and love flourishes as well. We're gonna responsible for that country. You. You own it. That's what Colin Powell said about Iraq, and it was true about Iraq. Why are we gonna take on the. The Venezuelan people have every right to hate Maduro. I don't contest that at all. We're not gonna help. We're not there to help. That's not our goal. Even if it were, we can't help. We don't understand these other countries. Every country has a. You know how long it took me to feel comfortable even talking about Brazilian politics? Like, at least a decade of living there. And even then I realized, like, it's never gonna be in my DNA the way the U.S. you know, like, I'm always gonna understand the U.S. the best. Every country is very complicated. You can't just go in and move the pieces around like chess pieces from Foggy Bottom in the State Department and think you're gonna succeed.

[B]

I don't disagree. However, the job of a guy running the greatest country in the world is to identify future threats that could potentially happen that's brewing in different places.

[A]

What is that threat? They don't have nukes.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think it's. I don't think it's that threat that, you know, the traditional threat that we're looking at with Russia or somebody else. I don't think it's Iran that, you know, you're doing what you're doing there. But I do think it's something that it's right next to us. It's a neighbor, it's close to us. It's still on this side. Here's Petro, by the way, from Colombia, saying, I'm sure you've seen this as well. Go ahead, Rob.

[A]

Say no.

[B]

Okay, so the translation is not there, but what he says is, if not we get rid of Trump is what he says. How do you think us should react to something like this? Nothing. Just kind of let it be the president of Colombia saying something like that. We get rid of Trump.

[A]

It's Colombia. You know, it's like, it's like those chants in Iran. Death to America. Okay. They chant, death to America. Is Iran going to invade the United States? Is Iran going to bomb the United States? Is. No, these are words also. Trump has trash talked the Colombian leader quite a bit as well.

[B]

Death. Saying, we'll kill him.

[A]

No, he said we'll get rid of Trump. But yes, Trump did say he's a drug. What did he call him? He's a leader of a drug gang or he's a drug trafficker. He was. And if he doesn't, who.

[B]

His background. Petro's background.

[A]

Yeah. Here's the thing, like, at some point, you know, first of all, there's a lot of countries in this world that hate the United States. And political leaders benefit domestically by talking about the United States, by railing against the United States. We're the strongest country in the world. We have to have the security to know that people can talk all they want. You know, so kind of, you're the biggest, you know, strongest person. You don't get upset when I think.

[B]

This is what you were talking.

[A]

Yeah, look, I mean, he's an illegal drug leader. Strongly. I mean, this is a threat as well. I mean, Congress coming from Trump, it's intended to be a threat. It is a threat. So these leaders, there's people in their country who want to see their leader standing up. When Trump says something like that. These are words. Colombia is not a threat to the United States. Venezuela is not a threat to the United States. And war should be reserved for. I believed in the. I was very associated with the left my whole career. And then Trump comes and starts talking about the evils of the deep state and America first and how these wars are all wasteful. And he runs against Bush, Cheney, foreign policy and Reagan economics and the bipartisan swamp. And this is music to my ears and I'm hoping it's true. I want to believe in this. I think that was the potential of Trump and still is. These kind of wars, like bombing Yemen, going around feeding Ukraine weapons, regime change in Venezuela. These were all the things we were told that we would should be expected that would end.

[B]

Okay, so journalism, yes. Talk about Bari Weiss. Barry Weiss just got. I want to say, I don't know if it's finalized yet or not, but $150 million deal.

[A]

Finalized.

[B]

Finalized $150 million deal with CBS. And I even think she called Brett Baer. $150 million deal. Editor, Chief, role acquisition, position wise as the top editorial voice at CBS News overseeing a historic program like 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning. She reports the directly to Paramount, Skydance, David Ellison, which we brought up briefly earlier. And this is a she. She had, I think she has a hundred and forty thousand members at the time paying 10 bucks a month. So you got $1.4 million, give or take times 12. Say 20 million out of business, 18 million out of business.

[A]

I think it's 15 million.

[B]

15 million out of business on reoccurring membership base, which the valuation she probably got is higher because the cost is probably not going to be that much. What do you think about what happened with her, the success story and her going to cbs?

[A]

So first of all, I know Barry. Anyone who knows Barry will say what I'm about to say, which is she's an extremely charming, nice person. Like interpersonally impossible not to like Barry Weiss. Same with her wife Nellie. Like just great people. I'm also a huge proponent of independent media. I like when independent media succeeds. I like when it grows and thrives. I think more competition, the better. No issue at all. Bariweiss can get $800 million if she can find somebody to give it to her for the free press. Don't care about that at all. What I care about is the following. We're talking about David Ellison. It's really Larry Ellison who's behind all this. Larry Ellison is either the richest or second richest person in the world depending on his neon's fluctuations in net worth. Larry Ellison, he has one main political cause and that's Israel. He's an American citizen. He's the single largest donor, private donor to the idf. I don't know why it's legal for an American citizen to donate money to a foreign army. I don't even know why it's illegal for American citizens to go fight In a foreign army. A lot of Americans go fight in the idf. He donates to the idf.

[B]

How much does he give to the idf?

[A]

He gave, you know, just on one night, he gave $20 million. It's, you know, over the years now, you know, in the scheme of his.

[B]

Wealth of like direct to IDF or.

[A]

Whatever it's called Friends of the idea, it's for people to donate money, they provide services to the idf. You know, like new this for the idf, new housing, new benefits for the soldiers, whatever. But yeah, it's supplementing and funding the idf. Like, why not do that? He's an American citizen. Why not do that for American soldiers? But he's choosing to do it for Israeli soldiers. Whatever. That's not my issue.

[B]

By the way, I didn't know this, but in his mind he could say I pay billions of dollars into the US Military through taxes. He may say that, but still, American.

[A]

Veterans are not doing that well, but still. Okay. In 2017, Ellison made a record breaking single donation of 16.6 million to the Friends of the IDF.

[B]

I did not know that.

[A]

So he's donating money directly. 2014, he 10 more million dollars. Okay, so he's the single largest donor of the idf. But beyond that, you know, he's a major, major, major fanatical supporter of Israel even though he's an American citizen in the country that gave him his wealth is not Israel, but the United States. Whatever. But that is his cause right at the moment that public opinion polls are showing an unraveling of support for Israel in the United States unlike anything I certainly ever anticipated or expected to see in my lifetime, especially with the younger generation. And you had Nick Fuentes on your show. I think I interviewed him like a week before or after he was on your show. He was just on Tucker Carlson's. Kind of representative of not everybody, but kind of under 30 conservatives who for the first time are questioning his. It's a big threat. As we talked about, Israel needs the US and they look at public opinion polls where there's an unraveling of support for Israel and major conservative influencers, not just people on the left, which has been a case for a while, but major conservative influencers and politicians are now saying, why are we giving all this money back? This is a. They're panicking over this. Larry Ellison at exactly that point goes and buys CBS News, one of the most storied news outlets or brands in the United States history. Not a lot of people watching these days, but still has that imprimatur. But also Paramount, which is a major entertainment product.

[B]

Massive purchase. Eight billion bucks. Massive.

[A]

Take somebody who has never run a newsroom, never even been a reporter. Bari Weiss is an opinion columnist. She's worked on the opinion page of the Washington Post, New York Times, which. I love opinion journalism. I do opinion journalism. I have a lot of respect for it, but it's not. I wouldn't expect anyone to make me the editor chief of cbs. And I think I have a lot more accomplishments in just hardcore journalism than Barry. I think she would say that, too. But still, I would consider myself unqualified. A major reason, obviously why, is because she's fanatically pro Israel, and that aligns perfectly with the Ellison agenda.

[B]

Is Barry fanatically. Oh, God, is she Jewish herself?

[A]

Barry's totally Jewish. And her main cause, Israel.

[B]

Okay, I didn't know that.

[A]

Oh, Barry is. You wind Barry up and she spouts pro Israel propaganda. She grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household. She's not Orthodox now. She's married to a woman, obviously, but she's still very Jewish, very pro Israel. The free press pro Israel, too. That's part of what David Ellison likes about her, by the way. It wasn't like Israel was owned previously by Palestinians or Muslims. It was owned by Sherry Redstone, who also was Jewish, the heir to the daughter of Summer Redstone, who was also very pro Israel. In fact, Sherry Redstone, the previous owner of Paramount cbs, said the reason she decided to sell Paramount CBS is because after October 7, she lost interest in journalism and she only wants to devote herself to Israel. So it's not exactly like it was a hotbed of Palestinian activism before, but now they're taking over that. He also wants to buy Warner Brothers, which owns Discovery and cnn. So CNN could also be under the control of David Ellison. And in this deal that Trump engineered, Larry Ellison is one of the major players in the consortium that just took over TikTok, even though nobody watches cbs, obviously huge numbers of people get their news from TikTok. TikTok installed a former IDF soldier as the content moderator for all matters Israel. And literally, she's a woman. She's an American woman, but she went to Israel, made Aaliyah to Israel, and then fought in the idea.

[B]

What did she do?

[A]

She's 28 years old, but what is her job? She's the content moderator in charge of all questions Israel and anti Semitism, which, of course, anti Semitism means criticizing Israel. You can TikTok IDF, I think. Is that her? Yeah, I think that's her. She was fighting in the IDF as there you go. TikTok appoints ex Israeli soldier as new hate speech manager Go a little bit.

[B]

Lower up Mendel go to the quote. Let's see what the quotes say. No above above right the Mandel will be tasked with formula Tiktoks h speech podcast of relevant legislative and regulated framework monetary trends particularly those related to anti Semitic TikTok's appointment as extra Erica Mindell previously worked with the U.S. department of under Ambassador Deborah Lipsad who was the.

[A]

Envoy of anti Semitism for Biden.

[B]

So she's a little.

[A]

She's 28. She's making $400,000 a year at TikTok. The reason the TikTok hired her is because the ADL demanded it. The ADL was a major advocating shutting down TikTok but you know know this is so important about TikTok. Trump was the one who originally proposed shutting TikTok. The argument was because of of the influence of China. It went nowhere. It didn't get anywhere near the votes. No one wanted to close TikTok. The only reason why the TikTok ban ended up succeeding Biden White House got on board with it was after October 7th. Democrats became convinced that a major reason why American young people were turning against Israel was because there was too much pro Palestinian content permitted on TikTok Tock the sponsors of the TikTok ban will say that's the reason finally passed. Biden got behind it. The ADL demanded TikTok be closed or forced to sell to it. So they forced a sale to it and it ends up in the hands of Larry Ellison who now controls cbs. Now controls is about to control CNN and also TikTok along with others has this former IDF soldier as the censorship czar as Minpress calls it. Pretty much what it is. She's 28 making $400,000 a year in the IDF.

[B]

Go to. Did she go to a. Can you go google her name and see where school she went to? Erica Mendel Mindle.

[A]

Mindle Just as a way of what.

[B]

School she go to Zoom in University of Michigan 16M Republic politics John A.

[A]

Masters from John Hopkins. You know decent decent schools for sure schools but that's not why she got that's not why the ADL demanded Tik Tok put her in charge of censorship and then there she.

[B]

You think she's there.

[A]

I know she that of course she's there too. After graduation from the University of Michigan Mindel moved to Israel and served an instructor with the idf. And she has lots of videos of her talking about the centrality of Israel in her life. She served under Deborah Lipstadt as a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. I mean, this is. She's young, she's only 28. This is all she ever done.

[B]

So this happened May of this year. This is pre. Well, they probably already knew who was gonna own the 80% because they kept the 20% for ByteDance. Right. They said. Said ByteDance get to keep 20%. Non board member. They don't have any kind of influence, but they get to keep 20%, the equity at a $14 billion valuation, if I'm not mistaken.

[A]

And the idea always was, like I said, the impetus, though, the original impetus was China. That was the argument. That's not why it passed. It passed because of the concern that TikTok was only too much pro Palestinian content. Young Americans were feeding on it, turning against Israel. Obviously, Trump was going to. He wanted it to be controlled by Trump allies, but also obviously people who are. And it just so happens to be with Larry Ellison. This is what concerns me. You have a ma. Why should it even be illegal for one person to control CBS News, CBS Entertainment, Paramount, Warner Brothers, CNN and TikTok? That's a lot of information and media centralization in the hands of a single person with a very pronounced agenda that's in favor of a foreign country, not the United States. But okay, it's legal. I'm sure there's lawyers who cleared it, whatever. But nonetheless, it's, I hope, a basis for a lot of concern that. Exactly. At the time that this pro Israel bipartisan consensus is unraveling. You have a fanatical donor to the idf, a foreign military in control of these media outlets now. And then elevate somebody. Barry Weiss, whose entire life is about defending Israel.

[B]

So instead of a Larry Ellison owning it, who would you rather own? Own these outlets. It's free enterprise, right. If they want to come out. I don't think there's a monopoly law on this because, you know, he would be one of five or six. I think he's. He becomes overnight the number one media power player in the world. For sure. I put him at number one.

[A]

And by the way, maybe with Rupert Murdoch, you know, but probably he's leapfrogging, frogging him.

[B]

I put him ahead of him. Now, don't get me wrong, Murdoch has Wall Street. He has a lot of good assets that they bought over the years as well. But Murdoch doesn't have Ellison type of money. He does not. Ellison has the type of money to buy small countries if he wanted to.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

There's only a couple people that have that kind of money. Yeah. So, okay, so the concern here is maybe he's sitting there and saying, look, how are you fighting against Soros? This is how I'm fighting against Soros. Why are you not happy about it? Glenn, if I don't do anything, what are other people gonna be doing? Soros is going out there buying all these other assets. Soros is going out to give him money to a bunch of different people. Soros is going out there agitating people. You want me to just sit on the sidelines and not do anything with the money that I have? What's wrong with it? What would you say for that?

[A]

First of all, these are not. He's not a counterweight to Soros in the sense that he's some right wing idol. Larry Ellison was a very, like most Silicon Valley, very good relationship with the Obama administration. You know, Elon too, a lot of these guys have had very good relationship with Democratic party over the years. Trump, Trump included. It's not that the right wing ideologues, it's that there's two questions. You know, I founded a media outlet, the Intercept, and it was funded by a billionaire, Pierre Midiar, who was the founder of ebay and eventually the owner of PayPal as well. So when you have a billionaire in control of media outlets, which if you know that's just going to buy media outlets, people, it's not going to be, you know, labor syndicates going to be billionaires. The question is, are they going to interfere? Do they have a hardcore political agenda that is causing them to buy it and will they interfere? And I think, you know, like I said, Sherry Redstone previously owned Paramount and CVS and yet 60 Minutes caused a lot of controversy when they published. They did some investigative journalism about the atrocities in Gaza. It upset them, but it was still done. The concern, and I think it's a very valid one. You know, Larry Ellison is, I think 82 years old. So you're kind of at the end of your life. You want to use your money. You know, you bottle the plane. He's a pilot.

[B]

I think he's going to live close to 100. I think he's a young 82, insane.

[A]

What he looks like. And yeah, no credit to him for that. But still he's in the last stage of his life. He's uncancelable, obviously. And you want to leave your mark on the world. And I think if your main cause is Israel and you see the United States the country on which Israel depends. Turning against Israel, you're going to do what you can to reverse that trend. And one of the ways you do that is by buying this source of information and making sure that it's no longer a permissive font for anti Israel viewpoints.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, this Pierre guy who was a. Where is he from? He's from Iran and he's a Islamic faith background of many Iranians.

[A]

Pierre Midiyar, he left Iran when you did. He left Iran when He was like 6, I think he moved to France.

[B]

Got it. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. So, okay, this. This him right here. Is he a billionaire or is he. Yes, he is a billionaire.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Net worth of 8.7 billion. Billion. Yeah, man. Compared to Ellison. He's struggling financially.

[A]

There, you see. In 2013, he announced he would create a and finance first look media journalism venture to include Glenn Graham.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Or Poitiers and Jeremy Scale. Yeah, he made good on his word. I never heard from Pierre about. You know, I used to. Pierre became a fanatical anti Trump hater, a Russiagate believer. I was one of the leading voices knowing that Russiagate was bullshit. I wrote every day about how Russiagate is horrible. He started financing never Trump organizations like Bill Kristol and the Bulwark. I attacked those groups every day that he was financing. He was kind of like the US Funding both sides of a civil war. Never once heard from him not to do that. Never had any problem with him. Really kept to his word that he would stay out of our editorial process. Credit to him for doing that, but that's the exception and not the rule.

[B]

Got it. Okay, let's do a last story here before we wrap up with Brazil. They meet. Rob, if you can pull up the clip. They meet in Malaysia, Trump and Lula. And you know, Trump was somewhat complimentary until one question was asked and he told that one reporter, none of your business. Where she said, are you guys going to talk about Maduro? Not Maduro, I'm sorry, Are you guys going to talk about Bolsonaro, previous president? He says, none of your business. I think right there at the bottom, Rob, that's the one.

[A]

One.

[B]

Go up a little bit more. Is that the one that. How many days ago is that? October 25th. Is he talking about Bolsonaro? No. So they met together. Now, you know, Brazil has a guy that I would say, some may say more powerful than Lula is Alexandra de Moraes, who comes out and kind of figures out who can beat Bolsonaro. Goes back Operation Car Wash. You reported on it many times times the few hundred million dollars of money that was stolen. Couple billionaires, I think, went to jail. A couple guys that were worth 10, 20 billion dollars. One guy was worth a couple billion dollars and brings them out. They beat Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is now in very, you know, dying.

[A]

Prison.

[B]

Yeah, going to prison. What do you think about this relationship with Lulan Trump today? And they're saying something's going to happen. We're going to get a deal done.

[A]

All right, so a couple things. One thing is, regardless of what you think of Lulu's politics, he's a generational political talent. Kind of like you can say that of Obama. I mean, he's been around for a long time. He was hated when he first ran. Brazil was not a left wing country. I've never met a person with more visceral charisma than Lula. The first time I ever interviewed him, after five minutes, I was like entranced. I was like, wait a minute, you can't. That's not your role here. This is what you do. I had to fight against it. He's incredibly personally charming, like insane. And it's real. He comes from a genuine background of poverty. He was one of nine kids. He worked in a factory, lost a finger, the whole iconography. He's not to be underestimated in terms of his interpersonal skills. And he charmed Trump. Trump didn't like Lula because Trump loves Bolsonaro. Lula's putting him in prison. Trump, Lula is a left wing figure. After one phone call with Lula, Trump totally changed his tune and just saying like, yeah, he's a really nice guy. He goes and met with him and the whole tone changes. The thing is, Rule is not in charge of the country. Lulu's a puppet, he's a symbol. There's a center right faction, kind of like a never Trump faction. It would be like if, you know, it would be like if Kamala won. A lot of the people who would be running foreign policy would be neocons. You know, it wouldn't be like anything left wing. And you have Alexandra Miraish. He's a center right figure, got appointed by a center right president, not by the left who's in charge of the country censoring people, imprisoning political opponents of Lula's law's, you know, acquiescing to it. He's fine with it. But that's Lula's not where the power resides. Lula is the only person who was in prison. And the Supreme Court let Lou out of prison. They used my reporting as a pretext. But the real reason they let him out is because they wanted Bolsonaro gone. And there was only one person in the country who had a chance to be Bolsonaro, and it was Lula. They had to invalidate his conviction to do so, let him out of prison. That's what they did. The thing is, is that Brazil is a very important country. Geo strategically has tons of oil, has tons of minerals, and Trump wants those. Trump also, as I said, Brazil has moved toward China. Brazil is always, it's in our hemisphere. It's the Monroe Doctrine, you know, we control Latin America. Brazil has moved toward China. Brazil is a founding member of brics, which Trump hates and sees a threat. And also they're imprisoning Bolsonaro in a way that Trump identifies with. He looks at Bolsonaro and sees him as a victim of the same kind of law affair that victimized Trump. And they're censoring a lot of people on the right, including people who there's a lot of ties between Maga World and the Brazilian right, between Bolson and Arisha. So you have people in the State Department, in the White House who hate ULA and Mirage. And so they've imposed sanctions on Brazil, tariffs on Brazil that were kind of punitive, but also I think it was because of brics. But also they sanctioned Alexander de Maris and his wife as human rights violators. So the question is, is the US really going to follow through with this antagonism toward Brazil or is this going to just all get resolved? Lul wants to resolve it. He's running for reelection next year, needs to resolve it. These tariffs can hardly of Brazil's economy already are. And I think Lula is on offensive.

[B]

What do you think Trump's going to ask for?

[A]

I think they want Brazil to move away from China to move more toward the United States in terms of commerce and trade. Lula is a very shrewd political. Here's the thing. On the one hand, rule was alive, and not just alive, but politically active in the 60s when the US overthrew their democratically elected center left government and imposed a right wing military military dictatorship. And the entire Brazilian left views that as the worst thing that ever happened to Brazilian history and blames the United States for it for not unreasonable reasons. So Lula naturally has an instinct toward resisting U.S. involvement, resisting U.S. interference in the country. That's why when there were tariffs, what really helped Lula is he raised this nationalistic flag like Brazilians determine Brazil who cares what Trump says about our. We're gonna let our justice system go against Bolsonaro. He adopted this very nationalistic posture, which helped them politically. On the other hand, he's always had very good relationships with the us Very close to the Obama administration. Obama loved him. Biden loved him. The CIA went to Brazil.

[B]

Obama said something extremely complimentary to him. He said, basically, you're the greatest politician of our generation.

[A]

Because when Lulu left the presidency after being terminal office in 2010, his approval rating was like 86%. Brazil. Those two terms under Lula, Brazil exploded economically, passed the UK as the sixth largest economy. Not necessarily because of Lula, but you're the president, you get credit. Also introduced some really interesting social benefits. It's called Bolso Familia. The poorest people get a monthly payment, but only if they prove their kids are going to school every day. Like, they have to get vaccinated, they have to go to the doctor. You know, the mothers have, like, an obligation in order to get the money. It's not just a free handout. And, you know, even kind of like neoliberals praise this kind of social program because it's not just a handout. It's forcing citizens to demonstrate responsibility, but it helped lift people out of poverty. So, yeah, Obama went and said, this is the guy who is the greatest politician on the planet. Figured out. Exactly. And so the US has always done business with Brazil. Very close relationship, despite all this anti American rhetoric. So I think Gula is gonna, you know, he's gonna get these tariffs gone. He's gonna give Trump what he wants in combination with charming Trump. The question is, I think Trump's just not very worked up over Brazil. Like, it kind of bores him is the sense I get. There are a lot of people I know very well at very high levels of the Trump administration who are fanatical about the abuses in Brazil and want US Power applied to stop it. I just don't know if Trump is going to override that, if he's going to care enough, if he's going to just delegate it to Marco Rubio and Scott Bessett and let them try and figure it out without. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know Lula is going to absolutely do everything possible. It's funny, when Lula meets with Trump, it's barely noticed in the U.S. it's like headline news in Brazil for the entire week because it's such a crucial part of the relationship for the U.S. absolutely.

[B]

Especially those who to if Lula meets with Biden, who cares? Lula meets with Trump. So, so, so the question. I'm actually really curious to know what the asks are going to be in exchange to make the tariff relationship better. I'm actually very curious.

[A]

They have minerals, like, you know, vital minerals.

[B]

Do you think anything's going to be. You got to let leave Bolsonaro out. You think anything's going to be with that? Because everybody knows Alexandre de Moraes is running Brazil. Everybody knows he's the most powerful guy.

[A]

And he's, he's, he's crazy. He doesn't care about. Oh, I mean, hell sacrificed the whole country to continue his crusade.

[B]

So who cares what you agree with Lula? Alexandra is not going away. Yeah. How old is Alexander? 63, 64.

[A]

Yeah. He's young. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

How old is he?

[A]

Yeah, he's maybe in his late 50s. Oh my God. 56.

[B]

Yeah, 56 years old. This guy's good.

[A]

He was just appointed five years ago. Yeah.

[B]

I mean the story of how it was conflicted because at one point some people are like, well, I think he's good. I don't know. And a boom. He comes out of nowhere. And then, then now they got the control of Supreme Court. I don't even know what the number is. 80% they got control of the Supreme. They own majority of Congress, majority of, you know, Senate and Even.

[A]

Even. But again, this is not a left wing faction running Brazil. This is a center, center right faction, but the kind that hates Bolsonaro in the way that that center right faction hated Trump.

[B]

What's the guy's name that they can always be bought. He's on the middle and he can flip either side if they give him something. Something. What's that party called in Brazil?

[A]

Well, it's a central. It's like the fact.

[B]

Who does the main guy, Campos. Who's the guy at the top? The, the guy that's at the top of that party. Who is, who's. What's the political party called?

[A]

Well, there's, there's, it's central. I was composed of many like Union, Brazil, psdb. Can you go to Rob pnbd? I don't know who you mean by like the main party.

[B]

Not Liberal party, Workers Party.

[A]

No, Brazil. Union. You know, Brazil is part of. Is part of the central. Is part of the central. You know, they have like a Speaker of the House and a president of the Senate who are both pretty transactional. Part of the Central. Central runs the. The Congress.

[B]

That's what I was talking about. Can you click on it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Gilberto Cassaba is like a deal maker that depending on which political party, he typically ends up becoming a final decision maker.

[A]

The PSD is like the center left party. It's not really a center right party. It's a center left party. I wouldn't put it that way. But, yes, he's a very important, powerful figure. But what I want to stress, like Bolsonaro's, Lula's vice president, is Geraldo Alckman, who is the former mayor of Sao Paulo, ran against Lula, was part of this center right party, kind of like the Republicans, Democrats. It would be like if Biden chose Paul Ryan as his vice president. It's an establishment union against the Bolsonaro movement, and that's who really is in control.

[B]

What's going to happen to Bolsonaro?

[A]

I think he's gonna go to prison. I think Trump's gonna. I don't think Trump is willing to sacrifice everything in the Brazil, US Relationship to save Bolsonaro. I think Bolsonaro's going to go to prison.

[B]

Are you kidding me?

[A]

Bolsonaro is, by the way, he is extremely ill. You know, he. In 2018, when he was running for president, he got stabbed, became very close to dying. His entire intestinal system was cut up. He's very physically ailing, psychologically ailing. I think he's gonna go to prison, and I don't think Trump's gonna save him. Trump, probably. Maybe Trump. I mean, of course Trump could.

[B]

He has to. What I mean by has to is not like I'm coming from an emotional place. What I'm saying is he has to. Is Bolsonaro's camp. Everywhere you go that there's a Trump event. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. And they're very much supportive and good to Trump.

[A]

Totally. No, the Brazilian. Right. But let me.

[B]

Nicolas Feharia, you got Eduardo, you got.

[A]

Absolutely. They love Trump. But let me ask you this. Just be honest, like I know you will be. Let's say you're in a foreign country and the political class wants you imprisoned. And Trump says, yeah, I like that guy. You're friends with Trump. You know that Trump likes you. But the political class is saying, hey, Trump, let's do deals. All these deals here. Money, money, geostrate advantage. Advantage over China. Forget that guy. He's old. We need to send him to prison. Do you trust Trump? Do you feel like 100% you're not going to prison because Trump's gonna stand in your defense? Or do you think you're gonna be possibly thrown to the wayside.

[B]

I think it all depends on.

[A]

What.

[B]

And who he needs for the next phase and who has been very loyal to him. He'll protect the guys that have been very loyal to him. You know, and what I mean by this is, you know, even if you think about some of the guys, because he's very like, like we talked about earlier, the unpredictable side. I put him 50 50, but I would be. If I was him trying to do the deal, the deal for me would be I would do xyz. You have to leave Bolsonaro out. Here's why. If Bolsonaro is sick, as you say he is, who cares if you let him out, he's not going to be able to compete with you anyways. And the reason why I would trust that, that he would do that is because I do think in 2036, Nicolas is going to run. And if he is around, because they really. He gets a lot of threats if he's around. Do you know what kind of views Nicolas gets when he gets out there and talks on Instagram?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's mega. I mean he did one video that single handedly tanked Lula's approval rating about this proposed tax on this system of.

[B]

One of his videos got 350 views.

[A]

Probably that one. No, Nicholas is. Nicholas is incredibly. He's a superstar in terms of social media.

[B]

The way I see it is. I see it as him protecting Bolsonaro, knowing his health is not going to allow him to run is indirectly helping Nicholas. Because Nicholas is going to come out and play the role of a flag carrier and the Bolsonaro camp is going to go to him. I think this guy's. Yeah, once in a generation.

[A]

Unquestionably. Yeah, unquestionably. But his political talent maybe even better.

[B]

Than Lula, by the way.

[A]

No, I mean, it's different. I mean, but like. No, he. And he's very shrewd. Very shrewd, Very, very smart. But the thing is, just quickly, I'm not saying Bolsonaro is terminal. I just want to be clear. Like, I think part of why he's so ill is because of the psychological stress that he's about to go to prison. I think a lot of the Balsam movement wants him to run in 2026 and polls show he definitely would have a good chance. That's why they're not going to let him run. That's precisely why he's not. I think they would easily. Right now he's declared ineligible to run for the next eight years, he was already declared ineligible for. He was found guilty of attempting a couple. But I think he would obviously trade. All right, let me at least serve prison term at home or not go to prison in exchange for not running. They do have a pretty formidable guy who's sort of one foot in Bolsonaro movement, one foot in the center. Right. He's the governor of Sao Paulo. Tarcisio Fredos, who could defeat Lula, was about to be 80. So there are people who could defeat Lula besides Bolsonaro, but Bolsonaro would by far be the biggest political threat. I just, just last time when I heard Lula with Trump, Trump seemed a little bored with Brazil, is how I would put it.

[B]

Could be.

[A]

There's a lot on his plate, obviously.

[B]

And what you're saying with him putting it on as, hey, you go, Rubio, you handle it. You do that again. You said something about a lot of these guys that come here who are maybe born here, but their families escaped Cuba or Venezuela, whatever. To them, they have an offender. I'm from Iran, so I'd like to see Iran be free for me to take my kids over there. And I see that. That, as you know, of course, it's natural. It's very natural. I totally get that. And balancing that out, you still, as the individual, have to be America first.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's like, look, I get it. I understand the nostalgia, I understand emotion. I understand the members, your grandpa, grandma, all this stuff. But guess what, man, you're here.

[A]

This is your country.

[B]

This is number one.

[A]

This is your. Where you're benefiting from. This is the. The country to which you owe loyalty.

[B]

I fully get that argument, Glenn. I'm glad we did it, just you.

[A]

And I. Yeah, it was great. I really enjoyed it.

[B]

We've never had this. It was typically.

[A]

Not that I wouldn't love Vinnie and the gang being here, but next time.

[B]

We'Ll do it as a crew for sure, because they really enjoyed last time as well. And Glenn, folks, if you're watching this, Rob, do we have this in the. In the comment below? I'll put it in if we can follow his sub stack, follow his videos on Rumble. I think I see yourself on YouTube as well now.

[A]

Yeah, we put the Rumble show segments. The rumble show on YouTube that are doing well. So, yeah, we put those on YouTube as well.

[B]

Is there anything you're working on right now that you want to share with the audience?

[A]

No, that's pretty much it for the moment.

[B]

Fantastic. Awesome.

[A]

Great to see you. Thank you.

[B]

Take care, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye bye.

[A]

Hey, everyone. I'm Glenn Greenwald. I am a journalist who covers a lot of issues, including civil liberties and foreign policy and the US Security state and domestic politics in Brazil. Also, a lot of people don't know, but I know literally everything about Tennessee. Everything. So you can ask me about that as well. And anyone who wants to ask me questions or connect with me, you can do so on minec. I have a profile there, and I would love to hear from you.