The Karol Markowicz Show: Unraveling The Soros Legacy with Matt Palumbo

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Karol Markowicz Show: Unraveling The Soros Legacy with Matt Palumbo

Podcast Information

• Title: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: The Karol Markowicz Show: Unraveling The Soros Legacy with Matt Palumbo
• Release Date: June 27, 2025
• Description: Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics, and current events with intelligence and humor. In this episode, Karol Markowicz delves deep into the legacy of George Soros and his son Alex Soros with author Matt Palumbo.

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Introduction of Guest

[03:46] Carol Markowitz:
"Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Matt Palumbo, author of several books, including The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros and the upcoming Inside the Not So Secret Network of Alex Soros. Hi, Matt. So nice to have you on."

[04:05] Matt Palumbo:
"Yeah, thank you so much for having me on."

---

Matt Palumbo's Interest in the Soros Family

[04:07] Carol Markowitz:
"So the Soros family up to no good."

[04:09] Matt Palumbo:
"It sounds like a bunch of jerks, those Soros people, for sure. Yeah, I've been interested in the father, George, since I think around 2010, back when I was in high school watching Glenn Beck's show, and he would break out all the Soros connections. And he was sort of, yeah, on my radar since then. And then in 2021, my publisher pitched an idea of, 'Why don't you dive into the Soros sphere and try to make a book out of it?' And I thought, well, I know that I remember that guy from, I guess, 11 or so years prior. So I started investigating him then, and it became the only thing I wrote about that anyone really cared about. So I just decided, all right, this is. I'll be the Soros guy from now on. But it culminated in a book. And that book probably got me more opportunities than anything else I've ever written. It really helped me break into Fox and then other media appearances through other people who had seen me there. And now a number of years has gone by. It's been, I guess, four years since I started writing that book. And then I decided, all right, let's look into Alex now that he's taken over."

---

Misunderstandings About the Soros Family

[05:13] Carol Markowitz:
"What do people misunderstand about the Soros family?"

[05:17] Matt Palumbo:
"Well, I don't really think much, actually. It's one of those rare cases where you can be in the Internet comment section and there's something that looks like, you know, a schizophrenic conspiratorial comment about Soros. Then you look into it and you're like, 'Oh, this is 95% accurate.' All right. You know, there's some random capitalization in there we could work on. But besides that, you're totally right. No, he really is, you know, the left calls him a boogeyman and you know, mocking us. But I, I call him a boogeyman because that's what the evidence suggests he is. He's given $32 billion of his own money to this, his so-called Open Society Foundation, of which $25 billion is being left to Alex. And that doesn't mean he's only spent the difference obviously that down with growing money and so on and so forth. And Soros the father has $7 billion still in his own name. But yeah, it's quite the empire and it's, you know, even beyond the money, he has a return on influence with just knowing every politician out there. In the book about George, I went through every person who was either a board member of a Soros-founded or heavily funded organization and what news organizations they've also been on the board of. And it's basically everything minus Fox Newsmax and the Carol Markowitz show."

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Comparing George Soros and Alex Soros

[06:39] Carol Markowitz:
"We can assure you of that."

[06:40] Matt Palumbo:
"Yes, guarantee."

[06:42] Carol Markowitz:
"Do you find that Alex is an ideologue like his father? Like George Soros really believes in this stuff. It's not like he just, you know, found a way to be famous, I think. Right. I mean, you could correct me if I'm wrong. He really does believe in not penalizing criminals or all the other kind of leftist causes that he takes up. Is Alex the same?"

[07:05] Matt Palumbo:
"So he is more, I guess, pragmatic, we could say in that. There was a recent New York magazine article about Alex that actually made him look worse than I was expecting."

[07:14] Carol Markowitz:
"Oh God, that was awful."

[07:15] Matt Palumbo:
"I don't know why they dirty him, they did him dirty, but he kind of deserved it. But they were talking about how under George Soros's leadership, you know, the sort of mission statement of the Open Society vision which was outlined by a philosopher named Karl Popper, that George studied under, everything would be viewed in that prism of 'How does this conform to this? How does this advance this?' Right. Alex is much more general. 'Does it advance our interest or not?' I don't care if it's through this prism, you know, sort of like how, you know, people with more libertarian views might start with the question of 'Does this fit in a libertarian framework?' as opposed to, 'Does it help my end goal, even if the end goal itself is libertarian?' In that way, I guess I would say so. Alex is less constrained by that philosophy than his father, although he wants to advance the same thing. He's just not going to handicap himself in anywhere or box himself in."

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The Potential Dangers of Alex Soros's Approach

[08:12] Carol Markowitz:
"Does that make him more dangerous? It seems like it might."

[08:16] Matt Palumbo:
"So I argue that at the bare minimum, he's as radical as his father and that I think everything the Open Society Foundation is doing will continue on autopilot. Although I don't know if he can be as dangerous because he leaves a paper trail. And I don't know if it's like that quote from The Big Short where he says, 'They're not confessing, they're bragging,' but every single thing he does, he puts there on social media where it helps so much with the book where I just follow the tweets I went through. I felt like I was almost a cyber stalker, but I went through every single photo he had uploaded to his Facebook. And there was so much I would have never looked into. Like, 'Alright, he's talking to the former Prime Minister of North Macedonia, let's see what happened there.' And I would just sort of look into what his father was doing there. And even if there were things that weren't reported on in our media, I would just Google, like, 'What are the top 20 publications in X, Y, and Z foreign country?' And I would get the articles translated. And there was like a wealth of information in foreign countries that no one had really reported on in America. I got almost a 20,000-word chapter about Albania and I'm like, 'I didn't know.' I know this was a country four or five years ago and now I'm like, 'This is new Soros guy.' But no, he left a pretty big trail for me. And I do wonder, you know, is that 100% of who he's meeting or is it 50%? Is it 10%? I mean, that's the bare minimum, right?"

[09:50] Carol Markowitz:
"He is a millennial. So it's like he does feel like he has to tell everybody everything on his social media. So it does make sense. So what did go down in Albania? Give us a preview."

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Soros's Influence in Albania

[10:02] Matt Palumbo:
"So it's a lengthy story. It dates back actually to the fall of communism. The dictatorship of Enver Hoxha fell. A different socialist communist took his place, but they ended up holding free elections. So the group that ended up winning the first elections was the Albanian Democratic Party, which is actually the right-wing party in Albania. They have a Republican Party and a Democratic Party, and the Republican Party is actually a tribute to our GOP, and they're both right-wing parties and coalitions. Yeah. Which I just thought was an interesting, you know, historical fact. But the current party right now is the Socialist Party that has ruled for the past, I think, 16 or so years. The Socialist Party splintered out of the former ruling Communist Party, but it's taken over anyway. The guy who leads the country out of socialism is a guy named Sali Berisha. I had a lot of access to him, which was pretty cool because of the first book, and he helped me a lot with this one. And I kind of got, you know, his side of the story. And he was saying that, you know, Soros came in very early and, you know, we were the third poorest country in the entire world at the time. You know, more poor than most African countries. You know, we just, you know, stereotypically think of as the poorest, but the third poorest in the entire world. And this guy has all this money. So, yeah, of course we're going to take the money. You know, why wouldn't we, when we have absolutely nothing? So one of the biggest things he was funding there, though, was schools. And it got to the point where by the mid-2000s, the education minister at the time told me there was a joke that George Soros was the real Ministry of Education because more than half of all the schools that kids are being educated at were run by the Open Society Foundation or funded by them. But going back to the '90s, so Berisha tells me, you know, 'We're happy with all the money, but then we're realizing there is a stronger agenda attached.' And they're pushing like this LGBT ideology in a historically Muslim country that has no interest in it whatsoever and just all these things. So they end up having a falling out. And it was, you know, they've kind of traded blows back and forth in the media. But anyway, you fast forward to the Biden administration and one of the first things that George Soros and Anthony Blinken did was pass sanctions against Berisha and ban him from the country."

[12:21] Carol Markowitz:
"Right."

[12:22] Matt Palumbo:
"And Berisha, their belief is that Eddie Rama and Soros, Eddie Rama is the Socialist Party leader who is another rival of Berisha, and he is very close friends with Alex. They post photos of each other on social media. There are more photos of them together than any other politician anywhere on his page. So, anyway, sanctions get passed against Berisha. There is no explanation of why. They just say corruption, but there's no details. Lee Zeldin has inquired, written to the State Department, I think four or so times, saying, 'Please just send us the file on why Berisha ended up undoing these,' by the way. Anthony Blinken himself, George Soros, started a college called Central European University back in the '90s. There is an archive, like a library-type archive near one of the campuses, and it's named after Anthony Blinken's parents because they were very heavy donors to it."

[13:12] Carol Markowitz:
"Interesting."

[13:13] Matt Palumbo:
"So there's a clear Soros connection there. It just seemed like poor Romania, out."

[13:18] Carol Markowitz:
"Of nowhere, they're dragged into this."

[13:20] Matt Palumbo:
"Correct, correct. So one of the effects, though, that that had was within the Democratic Party, there were factions for and against Berisha, some saying this is total BS. It's Soros, it's Rama, this is nonsense. And they were for him. And maybe like 30 or 40% said, 'Well, we can't have a leader who's under sanctions, especially with the US ally.' So it splintered the Democratic Party into multiple parties. Now, there is a parliamentary system in Albania, meaning you don't vote for people, you vote for parties. So in theory, if you get 5% of the vote, your party gets 5% of the seats, and then you have a party list and you count down however many seats that is, and they get sat. So a lot of these fragments of the Democratic Party were siphoning off voter share in the last election, but they weren't getting enough votes to get seats. This was a minimum threshold of a couple percent. So there are a lot of these wasted votes that helped boost the Socialist Party. And then I think it was the Democratic Party's worst ever defeat, was just last, maybe. And part of it was because they fractured the party. And actually, one of the things I missed, and this, actually, I should have led, put this in the middle, was similar to our justice system. The Open Society Foundation pushed constitutional reform in Albania under the Socialist government. And the end effect of it was, and I actually should say this isn't a conspiracy. The OSF has documents that outline everything they had done and all their suggestions and all that. So it's a known fact that the Socialist Party worked with George Soros on this. But the end effect was basically 90% of all state institutions are now controlled by the Socialist Party. And then they started a group called SPAC, which is like an anti-corruption unit and they have made high-profile arrests of socialist leaders. It's just overwhelmingly, disproportionately going after opponents of the socialist government."

[15:20] Carol Markowitz:
"And it's sort of like, yeah, they…"

[15:22] Matt Palumbo:
"Target their own, but only selectively. So like, there have been people very close to Eddie Rama who are known to be corrupt and they get looked into, then nothing happens. But anyway, that was the group that ended up supplying our State Department with the charges against Berisha. So that's where they came from. And they were born out of a George Soros-funded organization. And what else? Oh, the East West Management Institute. Actually, a lot of people didn't know what that group was, but it made a lot of headlines that, you know, when people say George Soros got $270 million from USAID. Almost all of that, like $250 million plus, was that one group. And they are run by a woman named Delina Fizo, who is Eddie Rama, the socialist leader's ex-wife. So a little stay on good terms. Yeah, so they're on good, you know, and I assume they're on good terms. But yeah, yeah. So just a lot of these little connections I kept finding and I'm like, 'Well, that's interesting.' And a lot of weird things going on here."

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Understanding the Soros Family's Global Web of Influence

[16:18] Carol Markowitz:
"Is it hard to get people to understand all of it? Because, look, you just told us like one just one small bit of the Soros funding and corruption and ideology pushing. And it's a lot. I mean, even just following just the Albania story is a lot. Is it difficult to get people to see kind of the web that the Soros family has weaved across the world that really does have them influencing so many different facets of society, not just in America but across the world?"

[16:52] Matt Palumbo:
"Well, I know it has to be because there were parts of my own book where I was getting confused at times where I'm like, 'Wait, was this the guy who did that or the guy who did this?' Especially in a foreign country where it's not like it's not Joe Smith, it's like Dimitri Ivanovich. And I'm like, 'Is he the that guy?' Yeah. So there are a few parts in the book where I have a flowchart annotated saying who's who, who did what. So yes, and I think Russian novels…"

[17:16] Carol Markowitz:
"All have the flowchart so that you can follow Dimitri we're talking about here."

[17:20] Matt Palumbo:
"Yeah, yeah, I, I, that's why I think the written word is the best form. Just so you can reread stuff. But yeah, there are times where when I'm explaining something on TV or in a show, like to me the script is all played out in my head. But I know to someone watching if you miss a detail here and there, it probably makes everything very confusing."

[17:43] Carol Markowitz:
"Right?"

[17:43] Matt Palumbo:
"Yes, I totally get it. But yeah, that's one of the good things. But having it written."

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Personal Insights and Broader Conversations

As the interview progresses, Carol and Matt engage in personal conversations about Matt's journey as an investigative journalist, his dedication to writing, and his personal interests, including learning the Albanian language. These segments provide a more intimate look into Matt's motivations and the depth of his research.

[21:23] Carol Markowitz:
"Did you always want to be an investigative journalist?"

[21:26] Matt Palumbo:
"I wanted to be just a TV pundit for sure. I kind of knew from age 14 or 15 I would never be happy in life if that wasn't what I did, really. And I just decided, all right, well, how do I achieve this? And it seemed like everyone had a book. So when I was 16, the first thing I started doing was drafting a book. The first three went absolutely nowhere. I probably sold, I don't know, 500 copies or less, which, you know, the return on, you know, the amount of hours that takes is, you know, seemingly depressing. But it got my foot in the door for a lot bigger opportunities. And, you know, when you go to apply for a writing job and you have a book, even if no one read it, it's still you. You're at the top of the list."

[24:54] Matt Palumbo:
"I would say that whoever said high school is the best four years of your life is a total loser. It's the worst saying I've ever heard. You know, whatever you want in life, start working towards it now. There is no benefit in holding off on anything. And this could be something like, you know, if you think, 'Oh, I should eat better or drink less,' you know, if you're telling yourself, 'I'll do it next week,' well, 20 years from now it's not going to, what are you going to think? And be like, 'Yeah, thank God I waited that extra week.' No, if you want to, I don't know, if you want to learn a foreign language, like, just start now. What's the point in waiting?"

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with Matt offering practical advice on self-improvement, emphasizing consistency, setting goals, and the importance of starting initiatives immediately rather than delaying. He also touches on his ongoing project of learning the Albanian language, tying back to his investigative work.

[29:28] Matt Palumbo:
"I guess don't get advice from people like me could be something."

[29:31] Carol Markowitz:
"No, don't learn Albanian in a different dialect from your…"

[29:35] Matt Palumbo:
"I mean, to be honest, it's probably not the best use of your time. Channel that to self-improvement in another way. I don't know. I think a lot of the stuff I said earlier probably factors into that. You know, be consistent, set goals. Start everything now. If you don't feel like doing something for some reason is when you should do it. And I mean that when it's, you know, something good, not, you know, not if you don't feel like doing things, not if you don't feel like doing evil. Don't do that. But anything that you know is something you should be. But don't feel like. Just do it and..."

[30:05] Carol Markowitz:
"Yes, pre-order. His name is Matt Palumbo. He is fantastic. The book is called The Inside the Not So Secret Network of Alex Soros. Pre-order it now anywhere you buy your books. Thank you so much for coming on, Matt."

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Key Takeaways

• Matt Palumbo's Investigation: Matt Palumbo has dedicated years to uncovering the extensive network and influence of George Soros and his son, Alex Soros. His rigorous research includes analyzing social media, translating foreign articles, and mapping out Soros's global connections.

• George vs. Alex Soros: While George Soros has built a substantial empire through the Open Society Foundation, Alex Soros adopts a more pragmatic approach, focusing on advancing interests without being confined to a specific ideological framework.

• Global Influence: The Soros family's influence extends beyond the United States, with significant involvement in countries like Albania, where their funding has reshaped political landscapes and state institutions.

• Challenges in Understanding: The complexity and breadth of the Soros family's network make it difficult for the general public to fully grasp their global impact.

• Personal Development Insights: Beyond the main topic, Matt shares valuable lessons on consistency, goal-setting, and the importance of starting initiatives without delay.

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Notable Quotes:

• Matt Palumbo on Soros Influence:
  "He's given $32 billion of his own money to this, his so-called Open Society Foundation, of which $25 billion is being left to Alex." [05:17]

• Matt Palumbo on Alex's Pragmatism:
  "Alex is less constrained by that philosophy than his father, although he wants to advance the same thing. He's just not going to handicap himself in anywhere or box himself in." [07:05]

• Matt Palumbo on Starting Early:
  "Whatever you want in life, start working towards it now. There is no benefit in holding off on anything." [24:54]

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This episode provides an in-depth exploration of the Soros family's legacy, highlighting Matt Palumbo's meticulous research and the pervasive influence wielded by George and Alex Soros globally. For listeners interested in political dynamics, philanthropic influence, and investigative journalism, this conversation offers valuable insights and a compelling narrative.

Transcript

[Host]

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[Carol Markowitz]

Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Matt Palumbo, author of several books, including the man behind the Curtain, Inside the Secret Network of George Soros and the upcoming book, the Inside the Not so Secret Network of Alex Soros. Hi, Matt. So nice to have you on.

[Host]

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

[Carol Markowitz]

So the Soros family up to no good.

[Host]

It sounds like a bunch of jerks, those Soros people, for sure. Yeah, I've been interested in the father, George, since I think around 2010, back when I was in high school watching Glenn Beck's show, and he would break out all the Soros connections. And he was sort of, yeah, on my radar since then. And then in 2021, my publisher pitched an idea of why don't you dive into the Soros sphere and try to make a book out of it? And I thought, well, I know that I remember that guy From, I guess, 11 or so years prior. So I started investigating him then, and it became the only thing I wrote about that anyone really cared about. So I just decided, all right, this is. I'll be the Soros guy from now on. But it culminated in a book. And that book probably got me more opportunities than anything else I've ever written. It really helped me break into Fox and then other media appearances through other people who had seen me there. And now a number of years has gone by. It's been, I guess, four years since I started writing that book. And then I decided, all right, let's look into Alex now that he's taken over.

[Carol Markowitz]

What do people misunderstand about the Soros family?

[Host]

Well, I don't really think much, actually. It's one of those rare cases where you can be in the Internet comment section and there's something that looks like, you know, a schizophrenic conspiratorial comment about Soros. Then you look into it and you're like, oh, this is 95% accurate. All right. You know, there's some random capitalization in there we could work on. But besides that, you're totally right. No, he really is, you know, the left calls him a boogeyman and you know, mocking us. But it, I, I call him a boogeyman because that's what the evidence suggests he is. He's given $32 billion of his own money to this, his so called open society foundation, of which 25 billion is being left to Alex. And it, that doesn't mean he's only spent the difference obviously that down with growing money and so and so on and so forth. And Soros the father is 7 billion still in his own name. But yeah, it's quite the empire and it's, you know, even beyond the money, he has a return on influence with just knowing every politician out there. In the book about George, I went through every person who was either a board member of a Soros founded or heavily funded organization and what news organizations they've also been on the board of. And it's basically everything minus Fox Newsmax and the Carol Markowitz show.

[Carol Markowitz]

We can assure you of that.

[Host]

Yes, guarantee.

[Carol Markowitz]

Do you find that Alex is an ideologue like his father? Like George Soros really believes in this stuff. It's not like he just, you know, found a way to be famous, I think. Right. I mean, you could correct me if I'm wrong. He really does believe in not penalizing criminals or all the other kind of leftist causes that he takes up. Is Alex the same?

[Host]

So he is more, I guess, pragmatic, we could say in that. There was a recent New York magazine article about Alex that actually made him look worse than I was expecting.

[Carol Markowitz]

Oh God, that was awful.

[Host]

I don't know why he dirty, they did him dirty, but he kind of deserved it. But they were talking about how under George Soros's leadership, you know, the, the sort of mission statement of the open society vision which was outlined by a philosopher named Karl Popper, that George studied under everything would be viewed in that prism of how does it conform to this, how does it advance this right. Alex is much more general. Does it, does it advance our interest or not? I don't care if it's through this prism, you know, you know Sort of like how, you know, people with more libertarian views might start with the question of does this fit in a libertarian framework as opposed to, does it help my end goal, even if the end goal itself is libertarian kind of in that way, I guess I would say so. Alex is less constrained by that philosophy than his father, although he wants to advance the same thing. He's just not going to handicap himself in anywhere or box himself in.

[Carol Markowitz]

Does that make him more dangerous? It seems like it might.

[Host]

So I argue that at the bare minimum, he's as radical as his father and that I think everything the Open Society foundation is doing will continue on autopilot. Although I don't know if he can be as dangerous because he leaves a paper trailer. And I don't know if it's like that quote from the Big Short where he says, you know, they're not confessing, they're bragging, but every single thing he does, he puts there on social media where it helps so much with the book where I just follow the tweets I went through. I felt like. I almost felt like I was like a cyber stalker, but I went through every single photo he had uploaded to his Facebook. And it. There was so much things I would have never looked into. Like, I'm like, all right, he's talking to the former Prime Minister of North Massachusetts, Macedonia, let's see what happened there. And. And I would just sort of look into what was his father doing there. And even if there were things that weren't reported on in our media, I would just Google, like, what are the top 20 publications in X, Y and Z? Foreign country. And I would get the articles translated. And there was like a wealth of information in foreign countries that no one had really reported on in America. I got almost a 20,000 word chapter about Albania and I'm like, I didn't know. I know this was a country four or five years ago and now I'm like, like, this is new Soros guy. But. But no, he left a pretty big trail for me. And I do wonder, you know, is that 100% of who he's meeting or is it 50%? Is it 10%? I mean, that's the bare minimum, right?

[Carol Markowitz]

He is a millennial. So it's like he does feel like he has to tell everybody everything on his social media. So it does make sense. So what did go down in Albania? Give us a preview.

[Host]

So it's a lengthy story. It dates back actually to the fall of communism. The dictatorship of Enver Hozier fell. A different socialist communist took his place, but they ended up holding free elections. So the group that ended up winning the first elections was the Albanian Democratic Party, which is actually the right wing party in Albania. They have a Republican Party and a Democratic Party, and the Republican Party is actually a tribute to our gop, and they're both right wing parties and coalitions. Yeah. Which I just thought was an interesting, you know, historical fact. But the current party right now is the Socialist Party that has ruled for the past, I think, 16 or so years that the Socialist Party splintered out of the former ruling Communist Party, but it's taken over anyway. The guy who leads the country out of socialism is a guy named Sally Boruch. I had a lot of access to him, which was pretty cool because of the first book, and he helped me a lot with this one. And I kind of got, you know, his side of the story. And he was saying that, you know, Soros came in very early and, you know, we were the third rich, poorest country in the entire world right at the time. You know, more poor than most African countries. You know, we just, you know, sort of. We stereotypically think of as the poorest, but the third poorest in the entire world. And this guy has all this money. So, yeah, of course we're going to take the money. You know, why wouldn't we, when we have absolutely nothing? So one of the biggest things he was funding there, though, was schools. And it got to the point where by the mid 2000s, and the education minister at the time told me there was a joke that George Soros was the real Ministry of Education because more than half of all the schools that kids are being educated at were run by the Open Society foundation or funded by them. But. But going back to the 90s, so Bersha tells me, you know, we're happy with all the money, but then we're realizing there is a stronger attached. And they're pushing like this LGBT ideology in a historically Muslim that has no interest in it whatsoever and just all these things. So they end up having a falling out. And it was, you know, they've kind of traded blows back and forth in the media. But. But anyway, you fast forward to the Biden administration and one of the first things that George Soros that Anthony Blinken did was pass sanctions against Parisha and ban him from the country.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Host]

And Barisha, their belief is that Eddie Rama and Soros, Eddie Rama is the Socialist Party leader who is another rival of Borussia, and he is very close friends with Alex. They post photos of each other on social media. There are more photos of them together than any other politician anywhere on his page. So, anyway, so sanctions get passed against Borisha. There is no explanation of why. They just say corruption, but there's no details. Lee Zeldin has inquired, written to the State Department, I think four or so times, saying, please just send us the file on why Rubio ended up undoing these, by the way. But Anthony Blinken himself, George Soros, started a college called Central European University back in the 90s. There is an archive, like a library type archive near one of the campuses, and it's named after Anthony Blinken's parents because they were very heavy donors to it.

[Carol Markowitz]

Interesting.

[Host]

So there's a clear Soros connection there. It just seemed like poor Romania, out.

[Carol Markowitz]

Of nowhere, they're dragged into this.

[Host]

Correct, Correct. So one of the effects, though, that that had was within the Democratic Party, there were factions for and against Mauricio, some saying this is total bs. It's Soros, it's Rama, this is nonsense. And they were for him. And maybe like 30 or 40% said, well, we can't have a leader who's under sanctions, especially with the US ally. So it's splinter the Democratic Party into multiple parties. Now, there is a parliamentary system in Albania, meaning you don't vote for people, you vote for parties. So in theory, if you get 5% of the vote, your party gets 5% of the seats, and then you have a party list and you count down however many seats that is, and they get sat. So a lot of these fragments of the Democratic Party were siphoning off voter share in the last election, but they weren't getting enough votes to get seats. This was a minimum threshold of a couple percent. So there's a lot of these wasted votes that helped boost the Socialist Party. And it, I mean, I think it was the Democratic Party's worst ever defeat, was just last, maybe. And part of it was because they fractured the party. And actually, one of the things I missed, and this, actually, I should have led, put this in the middle, was similar to our justice system. The Open Society foundation pushed constitutional reform in Albania under the Socialist government. And the end effect of it was, and actually, I should say this isn't a conspiracy. The OSF has documents that outline everything they had done and all their suggestions and all that. So it's a known fact that the Socialist Party worked with George Soros on this. But the end effect was basically 90% of all state institutions are now controlled by the Socialist Party. And then they started a group called spac, which is like a anti corruption unit and does they have made high profile arrests of socialist leaders. It's just it overwhelmingly, disproportionately goes after opponents of the socialist government.

[Carol Markowitz]

And it's sort of like, yeah, they.

[Host]

Target their own, but only selectively. So like there have people very close to Eddie Rama who are known to be corrupt and they get looked into, then nothing happens. But, but anyway, that was the group that ended up supplying our State Department with the charges against Parisha. So that's where they came from. And they were born out of a George Soros funded organization. And what else? Oh, the East West Management Institute. Actually a lot of people didn't know what that group was, but it made a lot of headlines that, you know, when, when people say George Soros got 270 million from USAID.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Host]

Almost all of that like 250 million plus was that one group. And they are run by a woman named Delina Fizo, who is Eddie Rama, the socialist leader's ex wife. So a little stayed on good terms. Yeah, so they're on good, you know, and I assume they're on good terms. But yeah, yeah. So just a lot of these little connections I kept finding and I'm like, well that's interesting. And a lot of weird things going on here.

[Carol Markowitz]

Is it hard to get people to understand all of it? Because look, you just told us like one, just one small bit of the Soros funding and corruption and ideology pushing. And it's a lot. I mean even just following just the Salbania story is a lot. Is it difficult to get people to see kind of the web that the Soros family has weaved across the world that really does have them influencing so many different facets of society, not just in America but across the world?

[Host]

Well, I know it has to be because there were parts of my own book where I was getting confused at times where I'm like, wait, was this the guy who did that or the guy who did this? Especially in a foreign country where it's not like it's not Joe Smith, it's like Dmitri Ivanovich. And I'm like, is he the that guy? Yeah. So there are a few parts in the book where I have a flowchart annotated saying who's who, who did what. So yes, and I think Russian novels.

[Carol Markowitz]

All have the flowchart so that you can follow Dimitri we're talking about here.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, I, I, that's why I think the written word is the best form. Just so you can reread stuff. But yeah, there are times where when I'm explaining something on TV or in a show, like to me the script is all played out in my head. But I I know to someone watching if you miss a detail here and there, it probably makes everything very confusing.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right?

[Host]

Yes, I totally get it. But yeah, that's one of the good things. But having it written.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're gonna take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

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[Carol Markowitz]

Did you always want to be an investigative journalist?

[Host]

I wanted to be just a TV pundit for sure. I kind of knew from age 14 or 15 I would never be happy in life if that wasn't what I did, really. And I just decided, all right, well, how do I achieve this? And it seemed like everyone had a book. So when I was 16, the first thing I started doing was drafting a book. The first three went absolutely nowhere. I probably sold, I don't know, 500 copies or less, which, you know, the return on, you know, the amount of hours that takes is, you know, seemingly depressing. But it got my foot in the door for a lot bigger opportunities. And, you know, when you go to apply for a writing job and you have a book, even if no one read it, it's still you. You're at the top of the list.

[Carol Markowitz]

An author. Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. So it was one of those things where actually I heard this saying. It was. I don't know if it's like a parable where, you know, a guy is talking to us. He gets his pictured on by a street artist in New York City, and the guy says, you know, it's gonna be a hundred bucks. And the guy says, 100 bucks for 30 minutes of your time. And he goes, no, it was, it was 10,000 hours in 30 minutes of my time.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right.

[Host]

That's kind of the principle is you have to do a lot of things up front that seem to have no payoff, but then when it does pay off, you realize, oh, well, I would have never been here if it wasn't for everything before it.

[Carol Markowitz]

What do you worry about?

[Host]

The unknown. So I think there are sort of known unknowns and those are things that are inevitable in life. Like, you know, on a long enough timeline, everyone is probably going to be. Have an unexpected job loss or something at some point. And I try to hedge against everything like that and you know, in whatever realm of life. But the unknown unknowns are things like, you know, someone getting into a car accident or just some low probability event. And, you know, I know you and I, I think, are both poker players, and we know that 5% and 100% are basically the same number for some reason. So, yeah, just things like that that you cannot control is absolutely not. Like things like, even if I was the best driver in the, in the world, like I can't control someone else driving drones or things like that. So just any unknown. Unknown really.

[Carol Markowitz]

Has poker helped you at all in your work? Do you feel like you could read people better?

[Host]

I don't know, I'm, I'm, I don't know if I'm good or not is the thing. Like whenever I'm reading, I'm good, I.

[Carol Markowitz]

Feel like it's helpful. I, I feel like it's helpful in my everyday life. Like, I feel like I could read people in a way that, and I don't know if I could read people. And that's why I was pretty good at poker or, you know, the poker skill is what I use in life. But that definitely has helped.

[Host]

It made me realize you have to bluff in life. And you, I don't know, it's like you have to realize, like, when does a bluff make sense? Like if you're gonna make a le. If you're gonna make a legal threat, it's like, well, in theory, if you have a legal case, you just do it anyway, so doesn't make as much sense there. But if I can't think of another scenario. But, but there are just times where you strategically, you have to kind of BS in life to get what you gotta raise sometimes. Yeah, exactly.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sometimes, yeah.

[Host]

If you don't want to fold. Yeah. So yes, no, it definitely is a poker Is sort of a metaphor for life in different ways for sure.

[Carol Markowitz]

I used to keep a running list of all the ways that it was. But then a professional poker player said I was a dork and to stop doing that.

[Host]

It's the only profession where you can lose money and be a pro.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's amazing. What advice would you give your 16 year old self? Like, what would Matt Palumbo of 16 years old need to know?

[Host]

I would say that whoever said high school is the best four years of your life is a total loser. It's the worst saying I've ever heard. You know, whatever you want in life, start working towards it now. There is, there is no benefit in holding off on anything. And this could be something like, you know, if you think, oh, I should eat better or drink less, you know, if you're telling yourself, I'll do it next week, well, 20 years from now it's not going to like, what are you going to think? And be like, yeah, thank God I waited that extra week. No, if you want to, I don't know, if you want to learn a foreign language, like, just start now. What's the point in waiting? I remember it was a story from a friend whose, it was like on the fence about being a doctor. Like, you know, his mother was like, you know, you really should go for it. And he's like, yeah, but it's going to take eight years. And she says, well, eight years is going to pass anyway. Like you're gonna. Okay, so in eight years you're not a doctor. You are like, the time doesn't make a difference.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's gonna happen that on my kids actually.

[Host]

That's very good. Just start everything today. There is. And also whenever you don't feel like doing something for some reason is when you should do it. Like if you're on the couch and you're feeling lazy and you're like, the last thing I want to do is go to the gym. Yeah. For some reason going to the gym feels better when you do that. And I guess the last thing would be consistency with anything. And this is more of a mental thing, but like I'm trying to learn a foreign language right now and I.

[Carol Markowitz]

What are you learning?

[Host]

Albanian.

[Carol Markowitz]

Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense, right?

[Host]

My wife is fluent in it and I'm learning, I'm learning a different dialect though than her. So we might.

[Carol Markowitz]

Amazing.

[Host]

We'll both speak it and like barely be able to talk to each other. But. But I try to you off 30 minutes to an hour a day and I have an app on my phone that kind of gamifies it. But even if I can't do that, if I have. If I'm waiting in line for three minutes and I know that's all the free time I'm going to have, I bust out the app and just do it while I'm waiting. Like, just to have mentally that I was able to do it every day in a row for some reason, when I reset that timer, the incentive to then do it, it's as if I'm starting from zero. And that might just be my psychology, but I don't know. I just feel like repetition and I don't know. It's like having a high score in your head, sort of.

[Carol Markowitz]

I can't believe you're learning Albanian. That is.

[Host]

I've been studying it for years, but I've been only doing it not related.

[Carol Markowitz]

To the sorrow story.

[Host]

Well, to talk about the book in 2022. So I took maybe 10 hours of lessons before I went there, and then after, I figured, like, I'm not ever going back, so what's the point? And then I coincidentally met a woman who's Albanian. That's so funny. So. So I kind of started going hard on it again. So I, you know, met up with my old tutor, and she's like, you have a thing for Aldani?

[Carol Markowitz]

You're back. Yeah.

[Host]

And I'm like, no, it's a coincidence. But, you know, I guess I do, but. So I don't know. I think I probably log like 100 hours of online lessons, and then a lot of it I'll just. Like, when I'm playing poker, I just have a lecture on in the background, and I don't know how much of that I pick up, but it's better than nothing. I just.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. As well.

[Host]

I try to learn at least one word a day, basically, you know, if, you know, if I have no time for anything, it's. Or I'll even. Like, when I'm looking around the house, I'm like, all right, I don't know what paper towel is called. I'll look that up later. Like, I just try to identify every possible object. So any little thing I try to look up.

[Carol Markowitz]

But why wouldn't you learn the same dialect as your wife?

[Host]

Hers is. So. She's from Kosovo, which is. Was part of Serbia for a while, but it was an autonomous region. And the dialect that she speaks is more of like a sort of rural, mountain countryside dialect that not very many people speak. And I speak. That's the Most common. It's called gag.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's the most commonly spoken cosmopolitan city dialect.

[Host]

Exactly. I talk like Shakespeare. But. But the, the biggest city in Kosovo, her home country, speaks the same. So she told me. And this is her words. She said it's like speaking like the ghetto version, but.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Host]

So, yeah, I don't know. I guess it'll work.

[Carol Markowitz]

I love it. That's awesome.

[Host]

It's. I don't. I'm kind of enjoying it. I don't know, I just feel like it's, I don't know, like more impressive than learning like a commonly spoken language. Even though it's, you know, you're still learning one.

[Carol Markowitz]

Definitely. And. And the fact that you and your wife will speak different dialects of it.

[Host]

Yes. Our kid will speak.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes.

[Host]

English and then two different versions.

[Carol Markowitz]

Well, I've loved this conversation. You're super interesting. This has been really excellent. Leave us here with a tip from my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

[Host]

I mean, I guess don't get advice from people like me. Could be something.

[Carol Markowitz]

No, don't learn Albanian in a different dialect from your.

[Host]

I mean, to be honest, it's probably not the best use of your time. Channel that to self improvement in another way. I don't know. I think a lot of the stuff I said earlier probably factors into that. You know, be consistent, set goals. Start everything now. If you don't feel like doing something, do it anyway. And I mean that when it's, you know, something good, not, you know, not. Not if you don't feel like doing things, not if you don't feel like doing evil. Don't do that. But anything that you know is something you should be. But don't feel like. Just do it and.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, that's it.

[Host]

And also pre order my book.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes, pre order. His name is Matt Palumbo. He is fantastic. The book is called the Inside the Not so Secret Network of Alex Soros. Pre order it now anywhere you buy your books. Thank you so much for coming on, Matt.

[Host]

My pleasure went very fast.

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