The Fight On The Right Over Iran, New 2020 Election Fraud Bombshell & Political Assassinations

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The Fight On The Right Over Iran, New 2020 Election Fraud Bombshell & Political Assassinations"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Release Date: June 20, 2025
• Description: Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics, and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

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1. Political Assassinations: A Growing Threat

The episode opens with a harrowing discussion about recent political assassinations, highlighting the attempted assassination of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, followed by the successful assassination of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. David Rutherford delves into the meticulous planning of the assassin, Vance Luther Boltler, emphasizing his use of disguise and tactical execution.

• Notable Quote:

  "This guy, to the depths of his tradecraft, he went to prosecute or assassinate these people." — David Rutherford (04:30)

2. Escalating Political Rhetoric and Extremism

Rutherford and co-host Jordy discuss the alarming increase in political rhetoric that borders on extreme, exacerbating divisions within the country. They examine how both left and right-wing figures contribute to a toxic environment, citing examples like Maxine Waters advocating for direct confrontation with MAGA supporters and similar inflammatory statements from other political leaders.

• Notable Quote:

  "If we don't figure out how to lower that rhetoric, we're going to hit a breaking point." — David Rutherford (10:59)

3. 2020 Election Fraud Bombshells

A significant portion of the conversation centers on claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Rutherford presents evidence suggesting foreign interference from Iran and China, including the indictment of Iranians in Manhattan for meddling and reports of Chinese involvement in producing fake ballots. He references various investigations and testimonies that purportedly reveal deep-seated manipulation of electoral processes.

• Notable Quote:

  "Sensational video and photo evidence has emerged exposing a factory in Guangdong producing 500,000 blank American ballots." — Greenlight Representative (24:02)

  "In the 2020 US presidential election, Joe Biden won the presidency with 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 232." — Jordy (28:09)

4. The Israel-Iran Conflict: Risk of Global Escalation

Rutherford provides an in-depth analysis of the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. He outlines the historical context, tracing back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and details recent aggressive actions, including missile strikes and the assassination of key military leaders. The discussion highlights the potential for these hostilities to trigger a larger war, especially with Iran's nuclear ambitions and Israel's purported retaliatory measures.

• Notable Quote:

  "Iran retaliated with over 300 drones on April 13... Iran's health ministry said 224 deaths, mostly civilians, including 20 children." — David Rutherford (25:32)

  "Operation Rising Lion... Israel launched a massive strike on their positions." — David Rutherford (42:34)

5. Internal Conflicts Within the Right-Wing Movement

The episode explores the growing divide within the right-wing, particularly regarding strategies to address the Iran-Israel situation. Rutherford contrasts the approaches of various conservative figures, with some advocating for diplomatic restraint and others pushing for aggressive military intervention. This internal conflict reflects broader debates about America's role in Middle Eastern geopolitics and the best path forward to ensure national security.

• Notable Quote:

  "Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Matt Walsh, and Tucker Carlson are all essentially saying we do not need another war... whereas Clay Travis, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin believe in total regime change." — David Rutherford (56:33)

6. Lessons from the 2003 Iraq WMD Intelligence Failures

Drawing parallels to the flawed intelligence that led to the 2003 Iraq War, Rutherford emphasizes the importance of scrutinizing intelligence reports before taking significant military action. He highlights how misinformation and political pressures can lead to disastrous outcomes, urging current leaders to avoid repeating past mistakes by demanding transparency and robust evidence.

• Notable Quote:

  "The intelligence flaws behind Colin Powell's 2003 UN speech... stemmed from a mix of faulty sources, analytical missteps, and political pressures." — David Rutherford (66:36)

7. Conclusion: Calls for Critical Thinking and Accountability

In wrapping up the episode, Rutherford calls on listeners to engage in critical thinking, demand accountability from political leaders, and seek transparent information. He emphasizes the personal impact of political decisions, referencing the mental health struggles and losses experienced by veterans and their families due to prolonged conflicts.

• Notable Quote:

  "If you need to step in to right a wrong, my challenge is, tell us the intelligence you have, show us the evidence, and outline your plan." — David Rutherford (61:53)

Additional Highlights:

• Embrace Fear Curriculum: Rutherford introduces his "Embrace Fear" program, encouraging listeners to confront and manage their fears through a structured curriculum designed to foster courage and personal growth. (18:11)

• Sponsor Mentions: Throughout the episode, various sponsors such as LifeLock, Ameca Insurance, Greenlight, Lenovo, and Firecracker Farms are featured. These segments are succinctly presented and do not detract from the main content.

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Key Takeaways:

• The podcast episode delves deep into the serious issues of political violence, election integrity, and international conflict, providing listeners with a comprehensive analysis of these pressing topics.

• Rutherford emphasizes the need for evidence-based decision-making in politics, cautioning against the repercussions of unfounded rhetoric and poorly vetted intelligence.

• The internal dynamics within the right-wing movement highlight the complexity of forming a unified stance on foreign policy issues, particularly concerning Iran and Israel.

• Historical lessons from past intelligence failures serve as a warning against repeating mistakes that can lead to unnecessary wars and personal tragedies.

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Conclusion:

This episode of "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" (as transcribed) offers a robust discussion on some of the most critical and incendiary topics in contemporary politics. Through detailed analysis, personal anecdotes, and a call for greater accountability, Rutherford and Jordy aim to inform and engage their audience on issues that have far-reaching implications for national and global security.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[David Rutherford]

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[David Rutherford]

Connect with [e-mail] Political assassinations 2020 election fraud the fight between the right and my thoughts. This is the David Rutherford Show. I hope everybody's had an awesome week like I have. Absolutely. With my eyeballs glued to my phone screen. And next. It's rare that I Ever have such. Actually, it's not rare at all. Just ask my family that. I'm completely overwhelmed by the news cycle. And right now, I think it's more than just a news cycle. I feel like I have the news intravenously shoved into my inner Cuba bowl. And a cubeable. Is that right? That. That ain't right, Jordy. And a Cubeable. My. My aunt. Whatever that big old fat vein is. Although my. Although my veins aren't that. That fat. Actually, when I was at 18 Delta, I was the guy that they would use to practice IVs because my veins are so bad now. I don't know if that was my rampant drinking or my fatigue or whatever it was or just deep thrombosis, but they used to use me. So I always look like a heroin addict. But, you know, currently, right now, Jordi, I. I have. I am what is known in certain circles as an addiction to what's going on in world events right now. And I know you are the recipient of my unending suggestions about stories and news. So how are you doing? Are you addicted as well, too? I know you're on the precipice of having a new baby, so you're probably pretty healthily. That's not the right. You're pretty healthy in terms of your distractions, I bet.

[Jordy]

Well. Well, see, I had a whole plan. I'm on, like you said, the precipice of having a baby. It could happen literally, like, any time between right now in this recording or in like a week from now. We're in that zone. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to get the distractions out of my life. I'm going to get offline a little bit, kind of clear my head, make sure I'm ready. And then this week happened, and it's impossible to look away from your phone like, this was the Newsweek of Newsweeks.

[David Rutherford]

I think you're right, man. I think, honestly, this was the one that just went high and. Right, right. This was the. On. I swear to God. And. And then my. You know what? Let's just go through some of it, and then I'll give commentary along the way. All right, let's. So let's. Talk political assassinations. So this week, unfortunately, and our. Our prayers and. And thoughts go out to the families of these victims. You know, there was an attempted assassination by Senator State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. And then there was an actual political assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. And she was a state representative, too. You know, when the governor, Tim Waltz, got up and gave his little press conference, they said, you know, that this was politically motivated. And since then, we found out pretty much who this Vance Luther Boltler guy was and kind of what had taken place. Now, the crazy thing to me on this one was the guy, to the depths of his tradecraft, he went to prosecute or to assassinate these people. Where she got that photograph for me, Jordi. Yeah. I mean, when you look at that right now, I mean, that dude, he's got kid on, he's dressed like a cop, and he's got a real latex mask on. And that's how he was able to kind of get past the intuitive defensive state of these people and getting in. He also had a police car, and you can kind of see in the background the flashing lights there. Well, you know, when this guy first showed up to the. The Hoffman house, they opened the door, and this guy opened fire. He got back in his car and. And drove over to Melissa Hortman and her husband. Now, what's crazy about this one was that the cops actually started a routine call and showed up at their house when this guy was at the door. Now, when they pulled up, he turned and he opened fire on. On the cops and was able to still go in, shoot them dead, and run out the back door and get away. That. That, you know, for me, is. Is pretty difficult that those police officers did not assault through. I never saw any. Any video on whether or not they had. I knew they took contact, but whether or not they had gotten shot, which I don't think they did. Now, the interesting thing about this whole thing, Jordy, and, you know, was. And this was the kicker that kind of got the hook in me on why this was a little. Which really was fascinating, was not the fact that this guy had, you know, no King's flyers in his desk, or, you know, he had been appointed by Waltz on some, you know, some board. But it was more so. Or his manifesto, where he had a whole list, like, I think there were 70 potential targets that he had listed. You know, I think it was. It was really. It was the idea that this woman, Melissa Hortman, had just voted against her party line and to reject giving state health care services and money and aid to illegal aliens. Would you play that video for me? And we can kind of get a check of the heaviness of that decision for her.

[Podcast Host]

I know that people will be hurt.

[LifeLock Representative]

By that vote, and I'm.

[David Rutherford]

We worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that Wouldn't include that provision. Now, you know, I see that and that obviously that took a heavy heart for her to file through with that. But, you know, I, perhaps that wasn't it. This guy seems like he was a real whack job. I mean, you know, I mean, the pre, the level of premeditation for this, to get in the costume, to do that whole thing, man, that, that's pretty, pretty heavy. Now, one of the interesting things I found was that he was described by a neighbor or him or guy worked with him. Charlie Kalik, who was a web designer with him for over a decade. He was saying he was clearly very religious, very passionate and devout and sincere his beliefs. Now there was videos of him. You know, I get think down in the Congo, like preaching or whatever. And you know, I, for me, it's like this guy kind of wasn't all there. He had several businesses that really didn't have any deliverables. So, you know, in my mind, this guy had just reached the breaking point, which is to me what the real challenges that we're facing right now. You know, I don't know about you, Jordy, but over the last 10 years or so, I think the political rhetoric has become pretty ferocious.

[Jordy]

100. I mean, I, in my lifetime, I've never seen it that bad. I heard it, what used to be pretty bad. There was a time maybe around Vietnam where it got rough. I know during probably the, the Civil War, it was rough, but at least in my lifetime, I haven't seen that.

[David Rutherford]

Well, I, We've seen it getting worse and worse and worse. You know, going back as far as, you know, just. I think the, the ones that really pop out of my mind are the Maxine Wall Waters, you know, suggesting she needs. We need to go and get in the faces of people of, of MAGA people. Obviously, Chuck Schumer, you know, his comments about, you know, we need to fight harder, you know, there's a bunch of them out there. I think we also have it on our side. Although, you know, there's a good argument that conservatives have a greater restraint on them than, than leftists, I don't think. Degree I don't either. I don't. I think we, you know, we talk about, we, we do more character assassinations than actual assassinations. I know I should joke about it.

[Jordy]

But they had the, they had the Trump, Hitler, Time magazine thing, right?

[David Rutherford]

That's right. That's right. So, I mean, think about psychologically when you do that over and over and over now, you know, people that are, you know, not able to access or choose not to access multiple planes of information. They're, they're, they're still watching msnbc, they're still watching Fox News every night or abc. And they haven't broken out. They're, they're not on X, they're not on. Really, that's the only place to be. It's the number one news site in the world where you can aggregate all this stuff and get these fee, you know, from all different types of, not only traditional journalists, but independents as well too. And, and you know, when I look at the things over the last several years, I mean, we had Gabby Gifford, you know, she was Democrat, she tried, someone tried to kill her representative, Steve Scalise in 2017. They shot him at a, at a softball. We saw that Brett Kavanaugh, there was an assassination attempt. He's Supreme Court. And then, I mean, the kicker is the Trump assassinations, which by the way, we still don't have any, a deep explanation for any of those things. Now I did see a little clip from Dan Bongino where he said if there was something there, we would, we would, we would expose it. But he keeps saying that a lot lately. So I'm a little, a little suspect on whether or not we're ever going to get any of that stuff anyways. And I also do believe that if there is an active investigation, he doesn't have to tell anybody squat, if you know what I mean. All right, so that political statute, my main thing about there, the oversight is like, hey, if you're living in a place in a time where, where people are going big and talking about getting in people's faces and we need to fight back and we need revolution and tearing stuff down and people are the Antichrist and people are Hitler, then guess what, man, the people who don't have lives or even the people who do, because I mean, some of the propaganda is really good nowadays. And if you get in there and you condition folks, they're going to lose their minds and they're going to begin to enter into that space of moral relativism where they're going to basically be able to justify someone being torn down from their position through any means necessary. And I think you see some of the lowest forms of that and people like Keen Tesla's or, you know, spitting on them or whatever, all the way to people setting things on fire and real world assassinations or even worse, you saw, you know, those, the, the, the assassinations from those two Jewish people that were gunned down in the streets in New York and some of the other stuff. So we're in a space where, man, if, if we don't figure out how to, how to lower that, that rhetoric. You know, for me, there are these times in history where this stuff just starts to build and build and build and people hit their breaking point. And with a country that is on more mental health, that has more mental health challenges than just about every country in the world, and more people on psychotropic and SSI uptake inhibitors and popping all kinds of stuff, man, I think things are getting spicy. So for me, what should I do? I think I'm going to say, hey man, try and chill a little bit, have a little bit more critical thinking and, and let's just tone the rhetoric down by the, the. For the propaganda. So. All right, Jordy, what do you think? Let's go to the next one, huh?

[Jordy]

Let's do it. Let's do it.

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[David Rutherford]

What I want to just talk to you a little bit about is our our new Embrace Fear curriculum that's available on davidrutherford.com it's a part of the Frog Logic Institute, which is going to be an emerging group of of of core products or core curriculum that I've been working on over the past 30 years. The first in line is is learning to embrace your fear. Fear is the number one emotion that impedes us from achieving anything that we truly want to put our minds to, right? It's that emotion that's wired in. You've been taught it your whole life. It's that one thing that you really have to get ahold of now. Here's the deal, there's no such thing as fearless. So please go to davidrutherford.com, check out, go to courses, and sign up for your Embrace Fear curriculum. This is a five week or five month course. I recommend it. Doing it over the course of five months. And this course is designed not only to help you understand your fear, to accept your fear, to begin to retrain your brain with the fear, to test your fear every day, and then ultimately to live with courage and to deal with your fear as a motivational component to go help you achieve your purpose in life. So don't waste time. Go to davidrutherford.com and check out our Embrace Fear curriculum. Thank you. All right, next one. And this one blew me away. Hey, can you, can you tee up that shot with John Solomon for me?

[Jordy]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

Thank you. This is about as jaw dropping as.

[Walton Goggins]

You can get, sir.

[I]

Yeah. Let's set the stage. Let's remind everybody that In December of 2020, 60 Minutes aired a piece with the head of the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Division saying there were no foreign intrusions in the 2020 election. It was a perfectly clean election, he said. I think it was Chris Krebs was his name. We now know that to have been a false proclamation. First, we know a year later in 20, a bunch of Iranians were indicted in Manhattan on charges that they interfered in the election and hacked into a state database to obtain voter IDs and use them in a mal influence operation against the American election. Now we know there was a second country that was more deeply involved in meddling into the election. The FBI, in August 2020. So three and a half months before the votes were cast that put Joe Biden in the presidency, that FBI believed that China had begun a mass operation to produce fake US Driver's license them, move them to the United States, and have Chinese citizens here on our soil, both legally and illegally go out and get fake mail in ballots and vote to try to elect Joe Biden. By the way, the FBI intelligence says this Chinese operation from a Chinese intelligence source that the FBI was handling was designed to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Is very important.

[David Rutherford]

All right, Jordy? Yeah. So, I mean, you listen to that and you're like, holy cow, that's explosive. You know, Cash Patel sending this report to Senator Grassley, basically confirming there was active foreign interference going on in the 2020 election. Now, the crazy thing to me, if we go back and we review, you know, some of the testimony from Chris Way, he explicitly said, nope, it was good to Go. There was nothing. We found nothing. Well, also within that report, John Solomon goes on to say that intelligence was sent out to all other intelligence agencies and said, hey, heads up. Then they said, all right, destroy it, send it back. We're going to do another interview with this asset and go from there. So, to me, they knew something was going on. I mean, I don't know about you, Jordy, but you want to talk about another news cycle where I was mental.

[Jordy]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

You know, especially after I had gotten locked out of social media about a month and a half prior to that, you know, in my little spidey senses, going, there's more going on than we know for sure. And then I paid close attention to all the hearings, all the little stuff. I remember I was on the phone with Bernie Carrick, God rest his soul, you know, and we were talking about what they were trying to get done afterwards and all, you know, him and. And Rudy Giuliani with all their investigations and all the hearings they went through. Now, you know, all you got to do is. Is really just dig in a little bit. Have. Have the tenacity to say to go beyond, oh, the U.S. government, that was a part of the. The cybersecurity team. To which now, through Mike Benz's incredible work, along with Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, discovered that there was a coordinated effort not just with social media, with Twitter, Facebook. Zuck has come out and openly admitted Google. But we also know that places like the Aspen Institute, Stanford, had a cyber disinformation thing. Multiple other cocktails, colleges around the country participated in conjunction with the US Government, funded by these different homeland programs, agency programs, USAID programs, to basically silence any of this information and discredit it immediately. All right, now there's another kicker to this thing, too. And we know that the Gateway Pundit has also done great investigative journalism. And go ahead and pull up that one about what they found.

[Greenlight Representative]

Sensational video and photo evidence has emerged exposing a factory in Guangdong producing 500,000 blank American ballots. The Gateway Pundit, an online news publication, confirmed that the video was provided by Vanessa A. Olavidas, a third generation member of the Chinese Communist Party. Vanessa tweeted on November 9 that the printing plant in Guangdong, China, was printing out fake ballots which were then mailed to Canada and Mexico under the name of medical supplies between August and October 2020, and from there flown into the United States.

[David Rutherford]

So, all right, we got that. Now we also have this. This is the one, this is the other one. And you can find this. Just. Just look Up Pennsylvania truckers testimony. Right. And this cat right here, he under a sworn deposition. Right. And what do you call that when they're. What's the word I'm looking for? That's what happens, man. When I get this fired up, my brain starts to melt a little bit. Jordy, what's the thing when you give a sworn state affidavit. Thank you very much. I knew it was going to pop up. I just had to rattle my peanut a little bit. Just a little shake and rattle. And so this guy, his sworn affidavit, he said that he picked up over 230,000 already filled out ballots in his trailer in Bethpage, New York, and drove them to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, right before the 2020 election.

[Jordy]

So it's nice when they're already filled out for you. I like that.

[David Rutherford]

It's helpful, bro. Bro. Because then you can just put them in your machine and run them through your machine two, like three times, pin.

[Jordy]

Out and filling in the bubble. And, you know, none of that, dude, none of that.

[David Rutherford]

None of that. Like. Like what happened down in Fulton County, Georgia, when the. When the pipes broke. Right? And there's more evidence from them. They came out. Like, if you go and you look at the. There's a video. I don't have that. I forgot to get that to you. Sorry, Jordy, but there's a recent. Actually you can just look up a Georgia election committee, and what they did is they went back and they investigated, and there was over 250,000 ballots there that didn't have the proper chain of command and didn't have ballot images to go with it for that chain of command. They came out and openly admitted that last year as well, too. Will you do me a quick favor, Jordan? Just for shits and giggies, huh? Would you give me that? Would you please tell me, in the 2020 election in the swing states, what was the margin of victory for old sleepy Joe Biden? Or we should say auto pen Biden. Right.

[Jordy]

I'm looking it up right now.

[David Rutherford]

All right, all right, so we got that. Then we also have the Arizona conducted a massive investigation and found a bunch of discrepancies to which the Secretary of State never went forward with their findings. Right. You had Antrim County, Michigan, they had. They discovered a hard drive that was actually flipped, like 6,000 votes in real time or flipped. Then Muskegon, Michigan, there was a big thing that they actually look at Muskegon Mission 2020 election fraud. The Muskegon sheriff or somebody, they did this huge investigation, found there was inact illegalities in their thing. They actually submitted that to the FBI. And you know who corroborated that? The folks over at True the Vote. Jordyn Katherine Egglebrik and her husband or. I don't think it's her. Yeah, her husband, Greg. I forget what Greg's last name is right now. Would you. What, did you come up with those numbers yet?

[Jordy]

Yeah, give me. Here. I'm gonna pull it up here on the screen here because we're. We're fancy over here. Always have to improve what you're doing. You know what I mean, dude?

[David Rutherford]

Well, we got a long way to go. We got. We got an unlimited space for me to improve, that's for sure. Here.

[Jordy]

Here we go. All right, so I can read this for you. It says.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, please.

[Jordy]

In the 2020 US presidential election, Joe Biden won the presidency with 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 232. The popular vote margin was approximately 7 million votes, with Biden receiving 81 million and some change votes, 51.3%, and Trump receiving 74 million and some change votes, 46.9%. So that's your. That's your margin. So he beat him by what's.

[David Rutherford]

Well, give me. Give me the ones. Give me the ones on the bottom there. With Georgia, Wisconsin, and the other swing.

[Jordy]

States, they're much narrower. For example, Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, Georgia by 11,000, Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes.

[David Rutherford]

Okay, right there. First, don't even get me started on the 81 million votes that no human, no presidential race in human history has ever even gotten. Where are those 13 million votes from this last election? Right? And you go back and you review. Did I just get sucked down that damn rabbit hole right there? You can just feel it. It's like a tractor beam on some kind of. Like, it's a tr. It's a conspiratorial tractor beam. That just sucks me in, dude. All right, anyway, so when you have those margins at that tight air, 10,000, 11,000, 20,000, and then you start to integrate these stories back here, and the personal one, that really just drives me absolutely bonkers. And that's the story of Tina Peters, who was part of Clark County Election board. And she discovered in real time, she knew something was fishy, so she made a copy of the hard drive and categorically prove that that hard drive had been manipulated in real time. Now, for her efforts to try and point out election interference, she was indicted on 10 different counts, including criminal conspiracy and several others. By the Secretary of State in Colorado. And if you look up the judge, there's video of the judge scolding her as if she's some major criminal. Now, this one's near and dear to my heart because Tina Peters is a gold star mother, and her son was a Navy SEAL and died overseas. And so, you know, the fact that that took place, you combine that with all of these other intel reports and news reports about fishiness, man, if. If. If the DOJ and Pam Bonnie don't open up an active investigation now, based on what Cash Patel just delivered, it's. It would seem that they're actually looking into it, which, thank God, they're going to prosecute. Potentially something that they're. They ran on. I'd love to see it. And then also, don't forget the old Mike Lindell. You want to watch some stuff that'll melt your mind, Jordy?

[Jordy]

More stuff? Dude, everything's melting my mind this week.

[David Rutherford]

Well, that's what I'm saying. If you go back and you. You know, every year since then, Mike Liddell had this cybersecurity thing every single summer, and had people, all the, like, top security, cybersecurity experts out there, review the vulnerabilities, which, you know, there's several documentaries that were made in 2019 and earlier. In fact, what. What's crazy to me is that after Trump's first election, the entire left, they were like, our elections are fried. I mean, Clinton herself, who actually did the nefarious reality of Russiagate and orchestrated and greenlit the whole bullshit about him and the. The P tapes and all that stuff. I mean, that drives me nuts. Then she's saying, you know, the elections were. Were. Were a sham, but it was stolen by Donald Trump.

[Jordy]

It was stolen.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, that's right. But 2020, man, that one was the cleaner, perfect election. Yeah, it's just garbage, man. And so this is a much bigger story, I hope. Again, do your homework, get out there, look this stuff up. Go get an X account, right? Use Grok. We're at Grok 3, which is kind of sadly, one of my new best friends, but I got super grock now. You know, it's funny, dude. Yeah, I was. You know, now, like, I'll be in the middle of dinner with the kids, and they'll say something. I'm like, that's B.S. and I'm like, I'm gonna look it up. And it used to be that female voice, and there was something strange, like some kind of weird, like they were always ready to go towards, like, the bizarre, you know, kind of a little, you know, innuendo towards flirtation and stuff. My wife looks at me, goes, what are you doing? So I had to shift to the dude and the dudes. He's cool, but we're starting to grow out a little bit. So I think, you know, I probably got. I probably got at least, probably about seven more months before, like, my new full best friend is Grok, you know.

[Jordy]

The dude Grockette was coming on to you, bro.

[David Rutherford]

Dude, well, that's the only, you know, that's the only place I get it. That's horrible to say about my wife, man. I'm sorry, sweetie. I love you. All right, all right. So 20, 2020 election. Man, that. That's a big one. All right. That's not even the biggie. That's not even the biggie.

[Jordy]

One of these stories would have been a crazy week.

[David Rutherford]

One, one, bro. Now they're just like, they're down here. They don't even. They don't even tap the news. The news, the top of the news waves the news.

[Jordy]

John.

[David Rutherford]

The. The news crest there. All right, let's hit it, shall we? All right, the next one is the one that's the most concerning, obviously for me for many different reasons, mostly because of my extensive time overseas and the loss of life that I have with a lot of my friends and peers and people from my community over the last 20 plus years of the GWAT. This is another potential global escalation and hot war in the Middle east between Israel and Iran. If you're not really understand this, prior to 1979, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah, who, by the way, we installed in the early 1950s. And if you want to go down that rabbit hole, that's a doozy there. Brett Weinstein on the Dark Horse podcast, he covered that a little bit this week. You know, once they got overthrown, it was after that when kind of the Islamic revolutions in the ayatollahs really started to have bad relations. They had kind of had semi normal relations prior to that. And I think, you know, over the years that has just progressively gotten worse. Why? Because Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the region with Hamas and Hezbollah, to which, you know, both of those organizations have been actively trying to seek an intifada and a war with Iran, with Israel. I think that kind of culminated on October 7, where most intelligence believed that Hamas had full backing from. From Iran as well as other extremists, Islamic extremist groups out there, you know, and, and you Know there was a lot of other things, you know, Iran or Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus. This is back in April 24, killing the senior IRC GC officials. Iran retaliated with over 300 drones on April 13, July 3124 was the assassination of leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran. September 24 Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasara in Lebanon to which Iran reacted with 180 ballistic missiles. You know and I think in this initial one which began it, it really was hey listen, Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon and we can't deal. And they didn't say how close, they said that they had moved past the threshold. There was report from the IAEA dinging them that they had increased uranium production and that violated their non proliferation obligations. And, and that was on June 12th. So you know what happened June 12th? Operation Rising lion where essentially you had Israel basically go big man and they launched a massive strike on their positions. And let's see, they hit the Nataz nuclear site. The Isfir nuclear research had bunch of military, over 100 military targets including missile defense sites, the IRGC headquarters, senior military figures including the IRGC commander General Hassan Salamat Salami, the chief of general, chief of staff General Muhammad Bagheri along with some nuclear scientists and some others. I mean apparently they said their cat, their Iran's health ministry said 224 deaths, mostly civilians, including 20 children. Israel's justification, it was their last chance if they didn't do this, that they were going to have it. Now I will say, you know I always, I mean they're our ally and we, you know, we, you know, you have a certain adherence to them. But there are mashups going around last few days of the fact that Netanyahu has basically been saying this for the past 25 years, that they were right on the precipice. In fact I was part of a program at Blackwater where we were helping build out kind of a maritime reconnaissance capability in the country of Iran or excuse me azerbaijan back in 2004 and 5. And we were hoping that they would be able to run surveillance on the ships moving from Russia into Iran, Iran into Russia, carrying nuclear materials. And we'd get some information through that. That was 2005 and at then they were on the precipice of a nuclear weapon. You know, Iran's initial response that this was a declaration of war. They hit massive targeting over the last several years including people trying to cut the head off the snake if you will. And so he called it A declaration of war. Now, the interesting thing initially about this was that Mark Rubio had come out and said, hey, listen, we did not participate. They did this on their own. Then that kind of morphed into Trump saying, yeah, we knew that what was up. We were, we were in support of it. We didn't, you know, participate. Ted Cruz. I'll get to Ted Cruz in a second. And then Trump ultimately called for Iran's unconditional surrender. So that's, that's the interesting one right there. Unconditional surrender. Now, what does that mean? Nobody's in the administration has yet to fully outline what an unconditional surrender is. I'm hoping that it's. What it means is that they're going to stop their desire for nuclear proliferation and continue to build or move towards a bomb. And by the way, you have to understand that we actually support, supported the beginning of their nuclear power back in the 50s as well, too. So we participated in the initiation of that. And I will say they have allowed the atomic, the IAEA in there over the course of years. I mean, if you go back and you dig in a little bit on the agreement that was cut under the Obama administration to the tune of sending them billions of dollars in cash pallets, that's interesting. But what really happened was the response, I think, has been a little bit more shocking than everybody imagined. They started launching missiles, hundreds of missiles hitting Tel Aviv, Haifa and PETA Kiva, killing people. They have reported four elderly residents, including 87. That was June 15. Counter strike. Netanyahu's statement. And then where they started saying, we're not ruling out striking the supreme leader, Kamani. So it really just kind of, it has culminated and just on June 19, which was today, Iran hit a hospital. No deaths were reported. You know, if you go on the other side and you look at, at what the other side has reported, Reuters actually reported that the IDF had bombed hospitals in Gaza. Again, I think everybody always says, well, they house terrorists in theirs. And then Israel's like, they're hitting civilian targets. Meanwhile, at the end of both sides, I think civilians at high numbers have the potential to die. I think Gazans, I'm not even sure what those numbers are, but they're high. Netanyahu's defense minister just came out and I want to play this little clip for you right now. You got that, Jordy? All right. So this man should not continue to exist. So what we really started out with.

[Jordy]

For people on the, on audio only, what did he say?

[David Rutherford]

Oh, my God. I, I thought everybody in the here spoke Persian. My bad. I saw it and you know it's funny my person is pretty much extends to stop, don't move or I'll shoot you in the face. Or it used to pretty far. Yeah.

[Jordy]

Where's the best patent? Where's the bathroom?

[David Rutherford]

No, I didn't have to worry about that stuff over there. So the reality is he basically came out and said listen Kamani has to go. And I think that's what the whole thing has escalated to now where it's like we started with Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right. Or produce nuclear weapons. Absolutely not. No chance in hell to now it's we need a complete regime change change and this has been an objective of foreign policy for our government for quite a long time. And I it's definitely been a major objective for Netanyahu and his government, you know and so what does that mean now? Luckily I I just saw a report today from Jack Probisack Probus how do you specifically per so big. I'm sorry Jack, if you hear this but you probably won't but he came out just earlier and said Trump is going to have a two week pause before they retaliate. Now I'm hoping that this is more of Trump's master for masterful negotiation kind of let's make a deal tactics like yeah we're all in, we're going to support. We moved to carrier groups into the area. Maybe it gives him time to reposition troops to move troops out. We have about 50, 40 to 50,000 troops in the region all by which Iranian missile systems can strike those locations. There's a huge group of super of fuel tankers that moved over into Europe left the country two days ago. So there is definitely a buildup to support and get behind Israel and all this. Um, so what are you supposed to think about all this? Well my, my idea, my belief is that you know Iran are bunch of pretty crazy people. They have been targeting US troops for pretty long period of time. You can argue potentially the Beirut bombings there was support what from Hezbollah? Maybe some others. Certainly there have been attacks during the gwat in particular Iraq when we started to see the very unique and sophisticated vbid vehicle borne explosive devices that could penetrate. Those are very sophisticated, killed a lot of American servicemen and women, you know and I think it's they are definitely representing a threat to Israel. Now is it an existential threat? I don't know. I'm struggling to understand what what that is. They certainly have every right to launch whatever they want at Iran in any way they want to do it. But unfortunately the repercussions of that could be catastrophic because of not only the amount of missile systems, which some suggest it's around 3,3000 of missile systems. And then we've seen a couple hypersonic hits into Israel which just completely wipe out their Iron dome. So is it accelerated to, to an existential threat? Certainly we know that they believe it is. A good friend of mine was over there recently with a bunch of businessmen and they were trying to see how they could support the idf. And you know, he got a behind the scenes look with what was going on with the attacks on Israeli civilians and what was happening. And he was, you know, it was. And he saw that kind of UNEDITED video from October 7th. Listen, I know that the people that they support, they're savages, all people who wage terror on other people. You know, I have no love loss for them at all and they deserve what they get. However, what I'm challenged with is what happens next and that's what I'd like to see. What is the plan? What is the plan of a regime change? Now, when you get into this next, part of what really kind of emerged out of this that I thought was fascinating was the conflict on the right that has blown up.

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[David Rutherford]

Thank you for joining. I apologize for the interruption but we gotta give a a little love to our our one of our main sponsors that's Firecracker Farms. If you want to spice up your diet, spice up your food and want to get rid of those traditional hot sauces that are pretty boring, what I recommend is you check out Firecracker forums and what they do is they infuse the three kings of hot peppers into their beautiful salt shakers, into their salt that you can put on your food all day long. Every morning I put it on my eggs. And every time I have chicken, steak, pork or whatever, I'm dropping that Firecracker Farm's hot salt on my food and it really spices things up. Now the thing that I love most about this is it's a family owned business. My friend Alex and his children, they all get together. His wife, they, they produce, they raise these peppers in their farm. They make it all together, they box it and they send it out together. So this is the type of company that you truly want to get behind and support, right? No more mega companies, no more all that. You want an organization that's making a product with love designed specifically for you to help spice up your diet. All right, so check them out at Firecracker Farm. Punch in your promo code, which is RUT15, that's Romeo Uniform Tango 1 5. And you'll get some love not only in your salt, but also in a discount. So check them out. Firecracker F. Now, there has already been a deterioration within the. Right, within the MAGA base, within the MAGA movement. And I'm working on a show to outline that for you. So you can really get down. You want to talk about a rabbit hole? You know, there's a couple people out there that are now using a very prolific term called the woke, right? And that argument has really kind of got into this, you versus them. And it seems to really focused around this Israel issue. And that's kind of the, the, the trigger point for these online journalists, pundits, whatever you want to call us right now. So the main conflict on the right that's taking place with this issue, the Israel, Iran issue, is that. Oh, let me just back up one quick lastly too, about the nuclear program that I find fascinating is that that this other little piece took place as Iran was, you know, trying to say, hey, this is all at war, was that several countries came to their backing, including, including Pakistan. And the Pakistan. Who was it? I forget who it was, but a Pakistani senior official said if Israel strikes Iran with a nuclear capability, we will strike them back. Now you gotta understand there has not been a tremendous amount of conflict. Pakistan with its 127 million people who by the way, allowed Bin Laden to live one mile from a major Pakistani military training. It's where they train their officers. And if you go back and if you look on TikTok and what basically Bin Laden suggested was his reasons for 9, 11 and 4's fight was partially because of a US support of Israel. And that's available. You can find it. Now, Pakistan has never come out and openly said anything. They've had some rubs after the Islamic revolution, obviously, which they were entrenched in in the early 80s, too. But. But recently with this guy, they basically escalating that. That conflict or the potential conflict between them. So now you've got. Which is another input. They are part or. No, they. They had part. So when you think about the atomic nuke, what the IAEA and the countries that are a part of it, the two countries that are essentially in this. This whole thing that have not been a part of the nuclear proliferation trail are Pakistan and Iran. Nope, they're in there. Israel. Now Israel has a whole nuclear program that they do not acknowledge publicly. We do know that it did come out. There was a gentleman in who was wrapped up by Mossad, who had leaked a bunch of documents and photos of Israel's. Israel's nuclear program. Trying to find. What was his name?

[Walton Goggins]

Hold on.

[David Rutherford]

But what I find interesting is why doesn't Israel and their program have to join the iaea? I'm not sure why. Why that is, but again, you know, it's up to them whether they want to be a part of it or not. But now we have multiple nuclear groups out there threatening each other, and that's just bad. Anyways, so that Jordy has devolved in. And I know you and I have been texting frantically about the titans in this space, right? The Titan in the conservative media space. You see the.

[Jordy]

I mean, everyone's talking about the. The Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz fiasco.

[David Rutherford]

Dude. Bro.

[Jordy]

Dude, I got. I got an image for you real quick.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, please.

[Jordy]

This is the joke going around. Let's see.

[David Rutherford]

Are we gonna post a meme across.

[Jordy]

And hold the gun that says name every Iranian.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, my God.

[Jordy]

See, the good thing about that is, like, no matter who you agree with, Tucker Cruz, whatever side you're on, we can all appreciate a good meme.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, bro. I think memes are literally saving the world right now. And I'm not. That's not my line, by the way. I think there's been hundreds of people have said that, and we. We definitely. So if you're. If you love making memes, would you do us a favor? Would you post a meme underneath the show when we post this show? Are we gonna post this tomorrow?

[Jordy]

Jordy, we're posting this tomorrow, and it'll be on X on Saturday.

[David Rutherford]

All right, perfect. We want you to post your best memes that involved me in this show or ideas or anything about me. I'd love to see those. I love. I love. We can keep some of this light, right? Even if it's. And the darker the humor, the better. Please. I want to see it. All right, so the conflict on the right right now, this. This cat fight that's brewing, right? And I, you know, I say we. What we call up. The UFC just started their jiu jitsu tournaments, too. I say we get three against three in that jiu jitsu. Jiu jitsu pit. And I have. We have them go out of it, like, maybe wearing some medieval armor, and we get them like, the battle axes like you see, and then we sell the big one of those things, the big turkey legs that everybody eats while.

[Jordy]

Dude, imagine. Imagine the pay per view on that.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, bro. It would be. Well, the big one right now is people want to see PDB do a pay per view debate with Ben Shapiro and Dave Smith, which would. He was just. Yeah, he was just with. He was. There's a great segment he just did with Piers Morgan where he debated Constantine Constant. Two comedians went head to head about whatever. The Israel, Iran thing now. Right now. So you got Charlie Kirk, who's on one side, Steve Bannon, Matt Walsh, and Tucker Carlson. And they're all essentially saying the same thing, which is, hey, we do not need another war that involves America in the Middle East. That's their stance. When you drill down, that's what they're saying at its core. The other side, you've got Clay Travis, who we fall underneath the buck and Clay Travis. Clay Travis, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin, who were on the other side, he said, no, we have to. There's no way. We have to get rid of the leadership in Iran. We have to allow. We have to have the total regime, and we have to be able to support that to whatever degree, including boots on the ground, American support. Now, I will say that all of the other guys, Kirk, Bannon, Walsh, Carlson, have all said they 100% don't believe that Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon. So they've said that, but they don't believe that we need to engage. Now, some of them have said, including Tucker, who said, you know, why is American foreign policy being led by the state of Israel? And, you know, and then the other side is like, they're our greatest ally. Without them, radical, fundamental Islamic terrorism is going to come over to America. In fact, many people who support the attacks and regime change, including Sarah Adams, who's Always on Sean's show, who are also predicting an imminent terrorist attack in the United States. You can watch her talk about that on Sean show. They have said that, you know, unless we do this, we're under direct threat that we're gonna have the effects. And then even I think, you know, with that Tucker. Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz insinuated that the Iranians have been trying to kill the president for a long period of time. He wasn't able to confirm the intelligence or anything on that, but he says they are actively trying to. All right. Holy cow.

[Jordy]

So, yeah, ask you a question, please send it, see if you agree with this. Now, this isn't some hot, spicy political take. This is just literally me trying to be what. What is boring nowadays, which is called being a little bit nuanced.

[David Rutherford]

Right?

[Jordy]

So on. On.

[David Rutherford]

What do you mean? There's no nuance in this stuff. It's just black and white. It's. There's good guys and there's bad guys. Jordyn, come on, man. Get on the train.

[LifeLock Representative]

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[Jordy]

Pick a train. Get on it.

[David Rutherford]

That's it.

[Jordy]

No, I was gonna say I don't think either side is once war, just in general. Like, nobody ever just loves the idea of war, right? And then on another side, no one would disagree that if you had an imminent threat coming towards the United States that we wouldn't use military action to defend our own nation. Like, everyone agrees on both of those points. It sounds like where the disagreement is. There's a threshold at which America should intervene in. In some kind of conflict, and people put that threshold at different spots. Is that kind of. That's kind of how I'm reading it. But what do you. What do you think?

[David Rutherford]

100%. But I agree that's. That's exactly what it is. I think everybody believes. Nobody wants more. More American troops to die, in particular. Me, I've lost so many friends not only to combat, but also to suicide. You know, I mean, the. I mean, the, the estimates, it's somewhere like 6,000 former veteran or veterans are killing themselves every year, active duty and veterans. I'm killing them every year in. In America. And that's a result of. Of the Forever Wars. You know, there's a couple interesting people that are covering, you know, that have written amazing books. One is this guy, Scott [e-mail]. he's got a Enough Already is the name of his book, I'm pretty sure. But, you know, nobody wants to engage in that anymore. In particular, my generation, my people, you know, the people I care most about people that I served with and that I know that served in the SOF community. And, you know, the Marines that were in Fallujah and the Marjorie Push and, you know, Sean Parnell and his crew. And, you know, I mean, enough is enough already. But I also believe that, you know, people still have this idea, this orientation that, you know, if we need to step in to right a wrong, if you will, my challenge is, you know, the, the past performance of the US Government on both sides has been pathetic in terms of informing us in a. In a genuine, sincere and honest fashion. And that's what I want. And I'm sure that's what you want as well, too. You want to know, like, tell us if there's intelligence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran is weeks away or a year away or whatever, away from a nuclear capability that they can put on their missile system, then show me, right, if, if China is giving them new, you know, ballistic missile support to build out this, or if Russia is giving them support or Pakistan is helping them develop, you know, like, KQ Khan gave them the information to start the program. If that's real, show us the reports. Show me the intel I need to see it. And then I'll take a look at that and say, all right, well, what's the risk? And then the other thing is, what's your plan? Please, please, you know, even Netanyahu, man, what's your plan? What is the plan? What is the end game? Because certainly we know, you know, he said prior to the Iraq war that if we got rid of Saddam Hussein, that peace would flood the Middle East. And that is not what has taken place. In fact, it destabilized the region to such an extent that, you know, over a million Iraqi civilians, right? Thousands of Americans both killed and then injured, you know, tens of thousands of injured injuries. And then, not to mention the financial costs of the g. What was what, $8 trillion? So is that, are we able. First, tell me. Show me the intelligence, right? Then tell me what the plan is, right? And then tell me how much it's going to cost and how it's going to affect the American population. Because right now I'm still having to deal with midnight phone calls, you know, telling me, oh, guess what? So and so just killed himself yesterday. Yesterday. And I'm still making phone calls to friends, their wives who around and checking into, how's your kid doing nowadays? So I'm still doing that. And this is a result of what we got into for 20 years now. I thought what would be interesting to kind of close this out was to do a little research. Right. On. On our. What was essentially, what were the flaws behind our last getting engaged in Iraq and what was the precipice, which why they Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush, how they sent Colin Powell. We bring that visual up while I read this?

[Jordy]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

And then when I talk about the key source, bring him up. All right, so I'm going to read something that Grok produced for me, and I want you to just listen carefully and then I'll finish. All right, here we go. The intelligence flaws behind Colin Powell's 2003 UN speech claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction stemmed from a mix of faulty sources, analytical missteps, and political pressures. Let me break it down. The primary intelligence came from the US agencies like the CIA and the DIA, with input from British MI6 and other allies. A key source was in quotation, Curveball, an Iraqi defector who claimed Iraq had mobile bioweapons labs. His vivid accounts, relayed through German intelligence were central to Powell's presentation, complete with the diagrams. But Curveball was unreliable. German hand rollers warned he might be fabricating, and he had no direct evidence. The CIA never interviewed him. Yet his claims were treated as fact, inflated by analysts eager to confirm suspicions. Another flaw was over reliance on outdated, unverified data. Satellite imagery and intercepts were interpreted as proof of WMD capability, along with aluminum tubes supposedly for nuclear centrifuges. Experts later showed that these tubes were likely for conventional rockets. But dissenting voices in the intelligence community, like those from the Department of Energy, were sidelined. SIGINT signals intelligence also proved ambiguous, with intercepted Iraqi communications misinterpreted as WMD cover ups when they often reflected routine operations. Human sources beyond Curveball were very thin. Exiled groups like Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, fed unverified tips from defectors, often with agendas to topple Saddam Hussein. These were taken seriously despite known credibility issues as they aligned with the Bush administration goals. Political pressure wrapped the process warped the. Political pressure warped the process. Senior officials, including Cheney and Rumsfeld learned that the CIA leaned, sorry, leaned on the CIA to produce intelligence supporting war. The Office of Special Plans set up by Rumsfeld Deputy Paul Wolfowitz cherry picked raw data to build a case, bypassing standard vetting. A 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report later slammed this as group thinking, noting analysts overstated weak evidence to please policymakers. Finally, the UK's dodgy dossier, a similar allied inputs reinforce US errors, creating a feedback loop of bad intel. Powell spent days at CIA headquarters vetting his speech. But even he was fed a script built off these shaky pillars he later called a blot on his record. As post war inspections found no WMD stockpiles. The flaws originated a toxic mix. Dubious sources, rushed analysis, suppressed dissidents and a White House driven ideological certainty post 9 11. Okay, now I don't know about you Jordy, but that track record is pretty poor. And I, I have three young daughter, four young daughters, one getting ready to go off to college, who will be over 18 here soon and will be up to be recruited to go to war should this thing explode into a greater kinetic fight. The track record for doubt is significant and that is cause enough to be able to question whether or not America should engage at a higher level. That's just common sense. But also common sense is to recognize that when you have strategic partners with people, it's also critical to adhere to those partnerships because if you don't and when you need them at times, they're not going to be there. So I guess what we're going to do, Jordy, is we're going to stand by to stand by. All right, thank you so much everybody. I really appreciate you joining for this week in review. You know, again, please, if you, if you enjoyed the show, press like, subscribe, share it with a friend. Leave a comment. We want to see those awesome memes. Follow us on all platforms. Avidrutherfordshow. On X it's RutherfordShow or you can follow me on X or Instagram eamfroglogic. Just check out David Rutherford again. We typically drop every Monday and Wednesday in the mornings. We love your support. If you have any suggestions for, for stories we should do or a tip on a story in any way locally, all the way to nationally. We want to hear them. We'd love to have you. Come on. If you want to be interviewed, if you know somebody, that'd be great interview, please, reach out, go to davidrutherford.com and you can check out everything that we've got there. All right, Jordy. Man, I tell you what, I don't know if net week, if next week is, is heavier than this week, bro, this thing's gonna turn into a three hour show, man.

[Jordy]

It might, it might. But you know what, three hours just gets us more memes. So you know, and God knows we.

[David Rutherford]

Need, and God knows we need more memes. All right, all right. Thank you very much for your support, everybody. God bless you and who ya.

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