3540 - The Trillion Dollar War Machine w/ Benjamin Freeman

Summary

The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3540 – "The Trillion Dollar War Machine" w/ Benjamin Freeman
Date: December 8, 2025
Guest: Ben Freeman (Quincy Institute, co-author of The Trillion Dollar War Machine)

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Overview

In this episode, Sam Seder interviews Ben Freeman, the Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy Program at the Quincy Institute and co-author of The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. The conversation explores the ongoing growth and pervasive influence of the U.S. military-industrial complex—from economic incentives and political entrenchment to media complicity and emergent tech-sector influence. They also examine prospects for reform, generational attitudes, and possibilities for change.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Origins and Evolution of the Military-Industrial Complex

[26:06 – 29:33]

• Seder begins with Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the “military-industrial complex,” initially the “military-congressional-industrial complex.”
• Freeman explains Eisenhower envisioned an “iron triangle”—a mutually reinforcing relationship between Congress, the Pentagon, and defense corporations.
  • “In those over 60 years since, we've seen that system expand well beyond those few players and really encompass everything you can possibly think of from sporting events to Hollywood, the gaming industry, the tech sector, you name it.” – Ben Freeman [27:23]

World War II’s Legacy: From Necessary Arms to Perpetual Machine

[28:00 – 29:33]

• The U.S. transformed civilian industry to produce war materials during WWII; after the war, the defense apparatus didn’t shrink.
• “You couldn't just flip a switch and turn this gigantic war machine off... when you have all that infrastructure in place, you need wars to justify it.” – Ben Freeman [28:08]
• The system self-perpetuates, generating new “monsters” or threats to continue justifying its budget.

Incentive Structures: Congressional Districts and Local Economies

[29:37 – 32:49]

• Freeman details how defense contractors strategically distribute production and jobs, ensuring every congressional district benefits.
  • Example: The F-35 program claims jobs in 48 states and almost every congressional district. Freeman calls this the “self-licking ice cream cone” dynamic.
  • “You vote against this program, you're voting against jobs at home.” – Ben Freeman [31:16]
• This widespread economic entanglement makes it politically risky for any legislator to oppose Pentagon spending—even critics of militarism like Bernie Sanders.

Defense Industry Consolidation in the 1990s

[32:49 – 35:12]

• The Clinton-era "peace dividend" period led to mergers, consolidating power among a few “prime” contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics.
• The post-Cold War era saw the privatization of military operations, exemplified by enormous wartime contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • “Now 54% of the military’s budget goes not to the troops, it goes to contractors.” – Ben Freeman [35:12]

Lethal Lobbying and Political Influence

[35:39 – 38:17]

• Massive industry spending on lobbying—over $100 million/year—and think-tank funding crowds out reform voices.
  • “They have nearly two lobbyists for every member of Congress... they're spending tens of millions a year on think tanks.” – Ben Freeman [36:30]
• Media, entertainment, and even sports are co-opted. Example: Defense industry ads in the Super Bowl, military cooperation with blockbuster films like Top Gun 2.

Media Complicity and “Selling the War Machine”

[38:29 – 41:41]

• The mainstream media rarely scrutinizes or questions defense contractors due to lucrative advertising revenue.
• Retired military talking-heads and think-tank staff, often funded by defense contractors, further reinforce the pro-war narrative.
  • “At the end of the day, these are war profiteers... but the reason they're nice is because very often they're making multimillion dollar ad buys for these networks.” – Ben Freeman [40:35]

The Silicon Valley Shift: Tech Enters the War Machine

[41:41 – 46:46]

• Historical Pentagon seed money helped build Silicon Valley, but until recently, tech companies were wary of defense contracts.
• The Trump era and beyond: New “defense tech" entrepreneurs (Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey) challenge the old primes with unmanned systems, AI, and surveillance platforms.
  • "A rising Pentagon budget is lifting all boats. The old guard primes... and the new defense tech startups... are getting more and more money too. But I don't think that can go on forever." – Ben Freeman [45:10]

Soaring Budgets and Political Inertia

[46:46 – 48:02]

• The Pentagon’s annual budget first surpassed $1 trillion in 2025.
  • “Our book went from being prophecy to just being descriptive about the world we live in now.” – Ben Freeman [47:02]
• Entwined interests mean unchecked growth is likely to persist.

Reform—Where to Start?

[48:02 – 54:23]

• Seder presses Freeman for the "weak points" in the sprawling war machine: Overseas U.S. military bases, especially in non-voting territories, are the easiest targets for cuts.
  • “You try to cut a base in [the U.S.]...they’re going to raise hell. You can't make the same argument for an overseas military base.” – Ben Freeman [49:00]
• Expensive, outdated systems like the F-35 and aircraft carriers are also ripe for reduction.

Foreign Lobbying and Geopolitical Pushback

[51:13 – 52:11]

• When U.S. bases abroad are targeted for closure, host governments hire U.S. lobbyists (including ex-members of Congress) to keep the money flowing.

Inefficiency, Oversight Failures, and Boogeymen

[53:14 – 54:23]

• The Pentagon has never passed an audit; billions are spent on contractor stock buybacks rather than defense.
• The justification for the vast budget depends on constantly manufactured “existential threats.”
  • “You can't justify a trillion dollar military budget without having monsters in the world, whether they’re real or imaginary.” – Ben Freeman [54:36]

Generational Change, U.S-Israel Policy, and Public Sentiment

[55:56 – 58:31]

• Israel is the top recipient of U.S. military aid, and Gaza has served as a testing ground for U.S. weapons.
• A generational shift: Younger Americans are more skeptical of militarism, distrusting the system and favoring reinvestment in domestic needs.

Antiwar Alliances Across Political Lines

[58:31 – 61:39]

• Though there are some anti-interventionist Republicans, the alliance is inconsistent; votes matter most, not rhetoric.
  • “If you look at the votes...are they still supporting this system or not?” – Ben Freeman [60:05]
• A few standouts, like Thomas Massie, have cooperated on specific reforms, but overall, antiwar sentiment on the right remains limited.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On self-perpetuating defense spending:
  “When you look at the build up to World War II... what we didn’t realize is that when the war ended, the industry wasn’t going to turn away. You couldn’t just flip a switch and turn this gigantic war machine off.” – Ben Freeman [28:08]

• On congressional pressure:
  “You’re not going to bite the hand that feeds you... you’re not going to go after those jobs in your own district.” – Ben Freeman [31:20]

• On lobbying power:
  “They have nearly two lobbyists for every member of Congress.” – Ben Freeman [36:30]

• On media capture:
  “These are war profiteers. But the reason they’re nice is because very often they’re making multimillion dollar ad buys for these networks." – Ben Freeman [40:35]

• On Pentagon tech and the rise of Silicon Valley:
  “If you think about [the F-35 program’s timeline] in the tech space, we didn't have iPhones when the F-35 first started… for the longest time, the tech sector said, ‘We're not going to work with you, DoD.’ But that's all changing with this administration.” – Ben Freeman [43:20]

• On potential for reform:
  “I love the overseas bases as a good first place to start because... you can’t make the same argument for an overseas military base.” – Ben Freeman [49:00]

• On manufactured threats:
  “You can't justify a trillion dollar military budget without having monsters in the world, whether they're real or imaginary.” – Ben Freeman [54:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and opening news items: [02:14–16:12]
• Freeman interview begins: [25:31]
• Eisenhower and origins of military-industrial complex: [26:06]
• World War II legacy and perpetual war economy: [28:00]
• Congressional incentives and F-35 example: [29:37]
• Industry consolidation and privatization (1990s onward): [32:49]
• Lobbying, think tanks, and media influence: [35:39]
• Hollywood and media capture: [38:29]
• Tech sector’s entry into defense contracting: [41:41]
• Budget growth and current inertia: [46:46]
• Where and how to cut the war machine: [48:02]
• Foreign lobbying and pushback: [51:13]
• Efficiency, audits, and waste: [53:14]
• Creating threats to justify budgets: [54:23]
• Shifts in public opinion and Israel’s role: [55:56]
• Transpartisan alliances and viability: [58:31]
• Wrap-up and closing thoughts: [61:41]

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Final Thoughts

Ben Freeman’s book and this interview argue the military-industrial complex is not just a bloated bureaucracy, but an entrenched economic engine, political juggernaut, and cultural force. It requires continual "monsters" to sustain itself and invests heavily in shaping every institution that might challenge its narrative. While the system seems almost impervious to change, Freeman suggests cuts abroad, shifts in generational attitudes, and targeted legislative cooperation could eventually chip away at this trillion-dollar machine.

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Book plug:
"The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home" by William Hartung and Ben Freeman [61:41]

Listen to the full interview for more details and context.

Transcript

[A]

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The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday.

December 8, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Ben Freeman, director of the democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, co author with William Hartung of the Trillion Dollar War Machine how runaway military Spending Drives America into foreign wars and Bankrupts us at home.

Also on the program today, Supreme Court hears Trump's bid to fire members of independent agencies.

Take a guess how that's going to.

Senate expected to vote on ACA subsidies this week. It's expected to fail. Republicans starting to panic.

As Kushner joins the Skydance Paramount hostile bid for the WB Trump suddenly says the Netflix.

WB deal could be a problem.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

I'm worried about antitrust.

[B]

Where's Lena? Where's Lena?

[A]

FBI making a list of American extremists. And guess what, you're on it.

If you're expressing anti capitalism or anti Christianity or anti Americanism, if you're an adherent to a radical gender ideology or if you are against immigration enforcement.

Also on the program today, China's exports surge despite dropping shipments to the US By a third.

[B]

Sounds like they're doing okay.

[A]

Trump to announce a $12 billion bailout for farmers. Not incidentally, Starbucks strike expands to 145 stores in 100 cities in this country.

Don't, don't buy there.

Three year old is forced to serve as her own attorney in immigration court.

And that boat that we killed all those people with a double tap.

Back in September, according to the admiral.

[C]

Who.

[A]

Issued those orders, it was not headed to the U.S. lastly, death toll in North Darfur, reportedly at least 60,000 in the last three weeks.

All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us at the beginning of the week.

[B]

It is Funday Monday. Yes, yes.

[A]

So fun day. So fun day.

[B]

Yes. Hello, Sam. Hello to everybody in the audience as well. Look at that. I don't know, I'm just trying to workshopping different transitions.

[A]

But this is your, this is like your, your, your Happy Monday face.

[B]

It is, it is. I'm slightly slow. You know, you catch up on the news on Monday. I feel like we really hit like the swing of things tomorrow. But feels so, so I'll see you then. Yeah.

[A]

We need to talk about marketing of the show maybe.

[B]

And if you're the one saying that to me.

[A]

Exactly.

[D]

Stay tuned for the advertisements as well.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Well, to the extent that we have anybody listening to us anymore, welcome. We got a lot to get to today.

The economy again. We are, we're still sort of like driving in the dark as we haven't gotten the, the economic numbers have not really caught up. We saw the private payrolls numbers.

Underperformed dramatically from where people thought they were. I think there was a sense that there was going to be a 40,000 person job increase and it ended up being, I think it was 30,000. Negative. 30,000. And again, this is not, this is just a private survey so you don't get a full sense of things.

But the other issue, of course, is that we have seen the, that the economic numbers, broadly speaking, don't really capture what's going on in the economy because we have such a wealth concentration.

Black Friday was the biggest Black Friday of in history but less in terms of dollars but less products were bought and unclear which suggests less people buying stuff less but more concentrated in the hands of wealth. And here is Fox having to deal with some of like the other indicators that are coming up like bankruptcies which show how many companies are suffering and presumably they're suffering because people aren't buying as much. And here is Fox News doing their best to deal with this information of.

[E]

High debt and even higher costs. Mom and pop bankruptcies are surging. New record. Over 2200 have filed under the subchapter. Is it V or 5? I don't even know rules this year up 8% compared to 2024.

[A]

Hold on for one second. So explain just want to say that this is Fox Business News that that is why the guy did not know.

[E]

That.

Subchapter 5 common pop bankruptcies are surging. New record over 2200 filed subchapter. Is it V or 5? I don't even know.

[D]

Okay, something up with this video. So I'm going to. I was trying to play it from.

[C]

Twitter but it wasn't. Let me pause it there. So we'll just have to play it from here.

[B]

Okay.

[E]

Like a relatively new way to declare bankruptcy. It came about in 2020. Is it representative of trouble among small businesses or not? What do you think?

[F]

No, it's not. And so I'm going to take issue with the entire framing of this segment.

[E]

I got up three in the morning.

[A]

To write this segment, not give me breakfast record bankruptcies.

[C]

What?

[A]

No, it's an easy get out of jail card.

[F]

Yes, it. Okay, so it's only been around for five years.

[A]

Four, actually.

[F]

Four. Marcus. That's Marcus in the background.

[E]

I guess he knows something about it too.

[F]

You can write it is a category by definition that made it easier to go bankrupt. Marcus is nodding. Yes. Correct. So why wouldn't this number go up if people took advantage of it?

[C]

Who.

[F]

It may enable people to go bankrupt easier. So so very logic it would go up because of the creation of this category. There's not enough data there even to say anything. It's like, yeah, record high. Even though this, this category has only been in existence for four years.

[A]

All right, all right. Okay. Let's. Let me just explain what she's trying to say here.

[D]

That was two whole minutes on a major news network.

[A]

Good luck with that.

Traditional business bankruptcies, chapter 11. I'm sure people have heard of that. I Hope. I don't know, maybe they haven't. I grew up with a bankruptcy lawyer. So subject subchapter five.

It'S a roman numeral V. For those of you who are vendetta are on business channels, subchapter 5 was instituted and it has been around since 2020. You may not remember 2020, but the economy was shut down for half the year and a lot of businesses went out of business. Presumably could have used subchapter 5 at that time. The point is, is that in the five years subsequent to 2020.

This is the highest number of mom and pop stores to file.

Since the once in.

[B]

A lifetime pandemic that caused a major disruption to the economy and the closure of many, many businesses.

[A]

Now there was, there was also, you know, to be fair, there was payroll. You know, the PPP kept a lot of those businesses probably from going out of business at that time. Nevertheless.

There wasn't a PPP in 2021, 2022 or 2023 or 2024.

[B]

I mean the. Okay, she's annoyed by this metric. How about this? Credit card debt reached an all time high at $1.21 trillion at the end of the second quarter. For example, how month over month in the United States delinquencies on car payments continue to rise to reach record highs like.

[A]

Or you could even look to a businesses that don't have access to subchapter 5 of chapter 11 because that is the small business.

That provision is specifically the Small Business Reorganization act of 2019. Year to date in 2025, over 717 large companies have filed for bankruptcy which surpassed the full year totals of of 2021, 2022 and 2023.

[B]

It's just incredible to say that this metric is not. As she sputters this out, I don't really uncomfortable to watch that this metric does not actually measure the health of the economy when this whole channel is overreliant on looking at the stock market and the wealthiest 10% own over 90% of the stocks in this country. So that those metrics are the ones that have been failures in terms of like actually looking at people's pain. It's part of why the Biden administration wasn't able to connect on this is because they were over reliant on those same metrics.

[A]

There's also another category of bankruptcies called the mega bankruptcy, which is for companies with over $1 billion in assets. And that has reached 32 filings in the 12 months leading up to mid 2025, which is above the annual average of 23 from 2005 to 2024. So only 20 years of data. So what's your point? Yeah, well, can't really. Don't make a clues off of that here. Like she's going to say this is completely overblown.

[F]

In existence for four years.

[A]

All right, all right, hold on. All not.

[F]

This is not evidence of anything.

[E]

All right. Let me try to strengthen the case of this segment a little bit. I'll just add this in.

[A]

All right.

[E]

Chapter 13 bankruptcies. Consumer bankruptcy cases are up compared to recent years. So far more than 180,000 cases been filed this year, nearly 5% more than the first 11 months of last year. Marcus. So maybe the whole thing Dagan was talking about is meaningless, but you got some consumer.

[A]

Well, nothing she says is meaningless. I'll start with that.

[E]

Well, she proved me meaningless. But you now have to deal with this new data.

[A]

We need to acknowledge that high interest rates and tariffs have affected small businesses hard. Stop. We need to acknowledge that. We also need to acknowledge that this subchapter five is an easy, quick, less expensive, keep ownership of your entire business, flush the toilet and move on process. And typically.

The, the idea though that people want to go into bankruptcy even though their, their business is booming.

[D]

It's great actually. So I'm doing it because my business is doing so good.

[A]

People don't go into personal bankruptcy because it's fun. That's not why. There's no, there's no like a personal bankruptcy benefit either.

[B]

Those are the same people that are living in their mom's basement just so that they can collect a Medicaid card.

[A]

Exactly.

[D]

I call it a court flesh.

[A]

They're also business owners.

[B]

Yes. They're also small business owners that are filing and then filing both business and personal bankruptcy just, you know, to live off the government's teeth.

[A]

Virulent.

Just virulent denial going on at Fox Business News right now. We'll see how long that lasts.

We've had these interest rates been up for quite some time. The idea that they're just hitting now is ridiculous. All right, couple of words from our sponsors and then we'll be talking to Ben Freeman, co author of the Trillion Dollar War Machine, How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign wars and Bankrupts Us at home. It is December.

There's a lot of hustle, bustle.

It's freezing cold these days in New York. I mean, it's not freezing, freezing cold, but it's cold for this time of. And the wind, the pond is literally frozen in Prospect Park. Yeah. Well, there you go.

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[B]

Oh yeah, I found my dentist through ZOC Doc.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[A]

At Majority FM we'll put all those links there. And don't forget it's your support that makes this show possible. You can get the show ad free by going to jointhe majorityreport.com okay, quick break. When we come back, Ben Freeman, coauthor of the Trillion Dollar War Machine How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign wars and Bankrupts Us At Home.

[C]

It.

[A]

We are back. Sam Seder Emma Viglund on the Majority Report. It's a pleasure to welcome to the program Ben Freeman. He is the director of Democratizing Foreign Policy Program at the Quincy Institute and co author with William Hartung of the recently released Trillion Dollar War Machine How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. Ben, thanks so much for joining us.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Let's start where I think like the most obvious place to start.

Your book starts there as well. When we're talking about the war machine in this country is with Eisenhower in 1961. As he's headed for the door, he warns people of the military industrial complex, which originally my understanding is the, the phrase was the military Congressional industrial complex. Let's start there and just maybe talk about what it was that he was worried about and what it has become, which is I think even for him would be sort of shocking.

[C]

Yes, Sam, you're exactly right. In Eisenhower's explanation of it, there was this sort of iron triangle, this collaboration between Congress, between the Pentagon and between corporations who were profiting off the Pentagon's budget. And he saw this system as being circuitous and sort of self reinforcing, that if you played by the rules as a member of Congress, then you would go on to work for one of these firms either as a lobbyist or directly for them. They would pay you a lucrative salary to drive more and more contracts back to those firms. What's happened since then is really the reason why we wrote this book. And then in those over 60 years since we've seen that system expand well beyond those few players and really encompass everything you can possibly think of from sporting events to Hollywood, the gaming industry, the tech sector, you name it. Wherever you go these days, the military industrial complex is there.

[A]

Talk about sort of like what was the impetus? I mean we gear up to fight World War II and.

Essentially.

That impetus becomes like a self licking ice cream cone.

[C]

Yeah, that's a good word for it. I mean when you look at the build up to World War II, we needed a lot of equipment and we needed it really quick. So we turned to the industries that we had here in the U.S. you know, we turned to the automotive industry and we said, well, you know, instead of making just cars, can you make some military equipment for us? Can you make things that can get our troops over to Europe? And you know, we turned the industry on its head then. What we didn't realize is that when the war ended that the industry wasn't going to turn away. You couldn't just flip a switch and, and turn this gigantic war machine off. And so especially because that war machine was very lucrative during World War II and in the wars after. So what we saw was this system then that ultimately gets created where you have all of these jobs, all of these economies that are surrounding these wars and it becomes self perpetuating that when you have all of that infrastructure in place, you need wars to justify it. You need a, you need a conflict or you need a monster overseas to destroy, to justify all that spending. And what we talk about in the book is that again, in these last 60 years, since Eisenhower gave that message, we've just been doing that over and over and over again, creating more and more monsters to justify all this.

[A]

Let's, let's start with like the, the, the.

The, I guess, incentive structure. There's parallel incentive structures for all of this, which is, which is why it is, it exists in the way that it doesn't is expanded how we have military contractors in every state in some fashion or a base or something to that effect.

Talk about that. Because I think at one point like even the, you know, Bernie Sanders, you know, was talking about like a base in Vermont. I mean he is traditionally very anti war.

Politician, one of sort of the rare ones. But if you've got a, an employer who is the foundation of like a, you know, one of your cities or towns, it's very difficult to say we should close that one.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, right. I mean, over a hundred years ago, another guy, even before Eisenhower there was a guy named Smedley Butler, famously said, war is a racket. And he's right. He was right. Then over 100 years later, he's still right. War is a racket today and unfortunately everybody's in on it. You know, as you mentioned, every state, every congressional district, they've got some jobs to one extent or another tied to the US Military, tied to Pentagon contractors. And this is really, really a key when it comes to the lobbying in the military industrial complex, Pentagon contractors can tell you exactly how many jobs are in your congressional district tied to any one of their specific weapons. You know, one of the, one of the greatest examples of this is with the F35 program. The F35, this is just one aircraft program. The F35 claims jobs in 48 states in the US in almost every single congressional district as well. And they can come into any congressional office and tell you exactly how many jobs in that congressional district are from this program. And what they're doing when they do that, they're sending a clear message to you. You vote against this program, you're voting against jobs at home, you're voting against your constituents, your voters. And if you do vote against that Program. Lockheed Martin is sure to let those folks know. So it becomes this, you know, as you previously said, a self licking ice cream cone. You know, you're not going to bite the hand that feeds you. You know, you, you're not go after those jobs in your own district. So what we see year after year then is all of these members of Congress supporting this F35 program, not because it's a well performing fighter jet.

[A]

You know, this is like 50% fail rate, isn't it? Something like that. I mean like it literally has a 50% fail rate.

[C]

Right, right. My, my friend at the Simpson Center, Dan Grazer, he put out a report, he called it the part time fighter jet. You know, it can only really work to its full capacity about a third of the time. And yet every year we spend billions and billions of dollars buying more and more of these planes. So it's not, it's another reason why we wrote this book, Sam, is that the system isn't making us safer. We're spending more and more and more on the military every year and we're getting less and less security from it.

[B]

Where do you see that beginning to turn? I know that like, you know, in the aftermath of World War II, you have the explosion of like even the aerospace industry and that expands really quickly. Right. And it's almost like the industry begins to grow in these areas of the country until it gets so big. And you talk about this in the 1990s where there were these mergers, where then they're able to leverage that and maintain their size to a point where now it's just basically like they're kind of running the show. Would you say the 90s is the tipping point when there was all of this consolidation?

[C]

The 90s was a huge point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great question and a great point. The 90s is a key, pivotal moment in all this. The 90s, you know, it was the so called peace dividend eras. Right. Like you know, or the end of history, you know, whatever we want to call it. We'd won the Cold War, you know, peace was breaking out everywhere. And so, you know, Clinton's reducing the Pentagon budget and you know, there was a clear message he was saying, you know, some of you contractors might go out of business. And what, what ended up happening was a period of extreme consolidation. And the ultimate result of it is you get the primes that we talk about today. The Lockheed Martins, Boeing's Raytheon, General Dynamics, these are the prime contractors that really control a lion's share of all the contracting money coming out of the Pentagon, then what happens? I think another key point in this march towards the privatization of the military is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Really if you look at those conflicts.

Those were the first two conflicts where we really saw the privatization of war. We saw wartime contracting just going wild. We saw the rampant corruption, literally bags of cash, piles of money just disappearing in these conflicts. And a big reason for that is because we had slashed the active duty military and we had this idea that we were going to rely more and more on contractors. We learned over the years of those conflicts that that was a flawed system and yet we kept going anyways and we got, that helped us to get to the point where we're at today. We're now 54% of the military's budget goes not to the troops, it goes to contractors.

[A]

So, all right, there's a lot to unpack. That one did that consolidation. Ostensibly it's about paring things down, but all it ended up doing was creating five behemoths that are in some respects, because they're so concentrated, they, they control so much of the billions and billions and billions in dollars we're up to almost basically our, our annual budget is about a trillion dollars now.

Hence the name of your book.

That they become too powerful on some level to rein in like that concentration. It seems like they're just wielding too much power because, you know, I gotta imagine the amount of money they could spend on lobbying. I think you in the book say there's about a thousand of these war lobbyists and there's about, for lobby, like anti war lobbyists, I guess, I mean, maybe less, I'm sorry, maybe just slightly more. But so is that also like an element as to what keeps this machine going, that, that level of concentration there on these things?

[C]

I think that's absolutely right. The way we describe it is that these firms effectively operate like an autoimmune response to any sort of change at the Department of Defense. And that, you know, if any new technology comes in, any new players, they have a built in system to suppress change, to fight anybody that wants to cut these programs. They have, you know, as you mentioned, they have nearly two lobbyists for every member of Congress. So you know, they, they can double team your member of Congress just about any time they want. They're spending over $100 million every single year. They're just on lobbying. But that's just the beginning of it. You know, they're spending tens of millions of dollars a year on think tanks. You know, My colleague Nick Cleveland Stout and I at the Quincy Institute, we've chronicled this a lot. You can't sleep on think tanks influence in this space either. And it goes beyond that. You know, again, it goes into sporting events. The Pentagon's working directly with Hollywood. You know, if you've seen Top Gun 2, you might have noticed that Lockheed Martin's logo flashes on the screen in the middle, in the middle of Tom Cruise, you know, crashing a plane to the ground. You know, wherever you go, they have this influence machine that's just baked in now to make sure that the money keeps flowing to them and it keeps out the change. What's going to, what's interesting now And I think to Emma's question about the 90s consolidation, we're in another change period where we have the defense tech Bros who are coming in and really challenging these prime contractors right now. And the prime contractors are resisting them tooth and nail. But whether they like it or not, you know, the Elon Musk, the Peter Thiel's, the Palmer Lucky of the world, they're here and now they're getting a bigger and bigger slice of the Pentagon pie every year.

[B]

Well, I do just. Yeah, go ahead.

[A]

Okay. I just wanted to stay. Before we get to the, to the tech stuff on this and we should say the book is in three sections.

[C]

Or.

[A]

One being the cost of the war machine, the second being the selling. Let's just, I want to just touch a little bit more on the selling of the war machine because everybody is so invested in it. It's, it's like too big to fail on some level. You mentioned like the relationships that they're developed in Hollywood and this ongoing. And this is something Greg Mitchell, we've had on a couple of times about some of his documentaries where he talked about the war efforts and the use of propaganda in the context of the bomb, of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The, the. Our entire media it seems is beholden to a lot of these companies in particular because of just from advertising revenue. Like there's nobody who's not getting paid by them. And in some fashion or another you have the congress people who, their districts depend on it, on this financing media. There's no. Is there. Do we even have like a, like, like a pillar of society that is not sort of like infected by this?

[C]

I think you and I.

The American public, frankly, it's really to your point, it's really everywhere you go. And I didn't even talk about the media yet, but we have a chapter in the trillion dollar War machine that's explicitly about media. And when you look at mainstream media coverage of questions of war and peace, my God, man, it's so biased towards these defense contractors. And whenever they happen to interview one of these folks, a CEO of a defense contractor, they just bend over backwards to be nice to them and not be critical. At the end of the day, these are war profiteers. But the reason they're nice is because very often they're making multimillion dollar ad buys for these networks. You know, there's the, the new stealth bomber, you know, got its own super bowl commercial. You know, that's a couple million dollars just right there. You know, major mainstream media newspaper outlets are running full page ad from these folks. And so, you know, the media is on the tape. Mainstream media is on the take from this too. So you're not getting it there.

[A]

And the military, the former military that they interview in any type of war or, you know, any type of like sort of military situation, the vast majority of them sit on the boards of these companies.

[C]

Exactly. And in cushy board seats where they're making six figure salaries to do very little else than talk to the media. And, and it's not just them too. I mentioned the think tank funding issue before. A lot of the think tank experts that appear regularly on mainstream media outlets, they work at organizations who get a majority of their funding from the Pentagon or from Pentagon contractors. So do you really think they're going to give this purely objective vision of what should happen in this conflict? No. They're going to tell you that we need more arms going to these countries, more arms sales, more US Military involvement and when.

[B]

Just to talk about the tech piece of this, it's not necessarily anything new. Right. I mean, I believe that this was written about in the book Palo Alto by Malcolm. I'm forgetting his last name. Harris. Thank you. When they spoke a little bit about how Cold War spending really built up Silicon Valley and those tech companies, I think Steve Wozniak wasn't his dad at Lockheed Martin or something like that. I might be incorrect about that, but there's a lot of ties with the growth of the tech industry out west and these defense contracts. So like, how does that play into your analysis? Because a lot of this is very fluid and it seems almost like now with the, with the technology Palantir piece, it's just, it's almost the same dynamic that we spoke about. Where they consolidated in the 90s, they're big enough now that they run the show.

[C]

Right, right. It's Such a good point. And if you look at this over time, there's real ebbs and flows to it. It's exactly what you're saying. You know, a lot of the seed money for some of these firms, you know, originally came from the Pentagon. You know, you look at darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, you know, a lot of that technology finds its way into Silicon Valley and you know, vice versa. So they had a very good relationship there for a while. But, but that really changed, you know, prior to, prior to the last few years. I would say in the last, you know, two to three years especially there was, there were kind of frigid relations between the Department of Defense in Silicon Valley and the tech sector. You know, there's some famous incidents where tech companies were just flat out saying they didn't want to work for the Department of Defense. It just wasn't worth it. DoD wasn't operating on the timeline of tech companies. You know, we hate to keep beating up at the, on the F35. I don't, I love beating up in the F35, but I'll keep doing it again. The F35 has been in development for almost 25 years and that's just insane. You know, if you think about that in the tech space, like we didn't have iPhones when the F35 first started. You know, that goes so far back. So for the longest time the tech sector said we're not going to work with you dod, it's just not worth it. But that's all changing with this administration. Especially when you look at the Trump administration. You know, Trump's biggest backer, Elon Musk, huge force there. JD Vance, one of his mentors is a guy named Peter Thiel, founder of Palantir. Other firms, the Secretary of the army is another VC guy too. So you have all these just high ranking officials in this administration that are coming straight out of the tech sector. So that's why I think we're at this really pivotal moment for tech where if it's not an outright tech takeover, there's at least going to be a huge chunk of the pie. That Pentagon budget in the coming years, that's going to the tech folks.

[A]

Do you think that's going to eat into the tradition to the so called prime ones that those the big five or are they just going to expand the pie essentially and sort of complement each other? I mean I'm old enough to remember when Google's saying was do no evil or something and so, but.

It feels like particularly when you're talking about Palantir and Musk. Doing evil is sort of almost like the business plan.

[C]

Yeah, it's funny you say that, because I'll bring up another tech guy, Palmer Luckey, who has had some really tricky. If you use the Oculus, the origins of the Oculus lie in Palmer's lucky garage. So he's a brilliant tech guy, but he founded a company called Anduril. And, you know, he's really gotten into the cutting edge of this defense tech space. And he has a lot of choice quotes about exactly what you were saying there, Sam. And, you know, one of them is like, you need guys that are sick in the head like him. This is him talking about himself who are willing to create these devices that he knows well, tech that he knows will be used to kill people. And the sort of morality of Silicon Valley has kind of followed along that path. You know, 10 years ago, if somebody said that in Silicon Valley, you know, they'd have been booed out of the room. You know, that would not have been okay. But nowadays in the defense tech space, that's perfectly commonplace. So to your point about what, you know, my prediction going forward, what we're seeing right now is that a rising Pentagon budget is lifting all boats. The old guard primes, they're getting more and more money. And the new defense tech startups, like companies like Andurils and the Palantirs, they're getting more and more money too. But I don't think that can go on forever. I think you're quickly going to see, as these tech folks get in, they are producing better equipment, they're producing unmanned systems, they're producing more of them quicker than the old guard primes are. So at some point, I do think they're going to start displacing them.

[A]

Interesting. I mean, we have had such an extraordinarily large increase in the military budget, it feels like, over the past four or five years, I mean, maybe less than 10 years. I feel like it's. It's increased by 30%.

[C]

Yeah, it's been extraordinary. And then this is why we. We had the title for our book, Trillion Dollar War Machine. Believe it or not, we had this title two years ago, and we thought, we. We thought we were being very clever and that this was going to be a prophecy. We're going to write this book. And then eventually it hit a trillion dollars. We didn't realize that when Trump passed the big, beautiful bill this past summer, there was over $100 billion in excess Pentagon funding in that bill. So for the first time that put the Pentagon budget over a trillion dollars. So our book went from being prophecy to just being descriptive about the world we live in now. So we really have. You're spot on. We've seen an extraordinary growth in the Pentagon budget and again, unfortunately, because of all these forces that we're talking about here, I don't really see that changing anytime soon.

[A]

Well, let's talk about like, you know, you do have a.

Section, a final chapter of the book that.

You know, we're at a crossroads in some respect when you talk about the future of the war machine. And at one point you do write about, you know, how we would get from war machine to peace machine. What would be the. Where is the weak point in this sort of like.

Non benevolent cycle I guess that we have.

And in terms of players and, and then secondarily like where, like where is the first cuts located? In other words, you know, we have 750 some odd bases around the world.

[C]

That's a good start.

[A]

Well, I mean, because that seems to be the, I guess I'm asking is like where's the easiest place to cut in terms of the various stakeholders that, that are making money off of this?

[C]

I love the overseas basis as a good first place to start because you know, look, at the end of the day, overseas bases are more expensive than US US military bases here in the US it costs a lot of money to get a people over there. It costs a lot of money to get things over there. You know, all that's more expensive. And there's no constituency over there that's voting for Congress that benefits from those bases like we were talking about earlier. You try to cut a base in anywhere in the US and the two senators from that state and the local representatives, they're going to raise hell about it because they don't want to lose the jobs and all the economy that surrounds their space. You can't make the same argument for an overseas military base. You know those, you know, voters in Guam, you know, they're not, you know, those folks don't get a vote here in the U.S. and so what, what I think the easiest politically palatable place to start cuts are in those overseas military bases. You know, at the end of the day we have tens of thousands of military personnel overseas. Some countries have over 10,000. You know, Germany and South Korea and Japan specifically have right around 10,000 folks. And just in a single country and you know, those are good candidates to start for cuts beyond them. You know, I'd say some of These big legacy programs that are just chewing up a lot of the budget. The F35 is a prime example. You know, we've already talked about how this is a plane operating on, you know, 2000 level technology. So that's a great place for cuts. I think aircraft carriers are another place. You know, one, one aircraft carrier is costing around $13 billion now and China is creating hypersonic missiles and drone swarms, things like that, to counter them. And so, you know, for China, our carriers are largely very expensive targets for them to take out. So I think that's another candidate too. It's programs like that, I think, where it's clearly a cold war era technology, that there's plenty of savings to be found in the Pentagon budget.

[B]

Well, there's, there's also. Go ahead.

[A]

Who are the stakeholders in the, those, those foreign bases though? Like who, who's going to give the most pushback if you were to close.

Those bases?

[C]

And what would they say, those foreign governments? It's a great question. And this is when, when I'm not analyzing the Pentagon budget. My, my first book, which is also over my shoulder, was on the foreign lobbying industry in the US and what I've seen now for decades is that whenever you go to the US goes to close a foreign military base, that foreign government starts lobbying like crazy to make sure it doesn't happen. And a very similar system to what we have with the military industrial complex takes place. That foreign government hires big time DC lobbying and public relations firms. Those firms have former members of Congress on their payroll who then they get paid big, big bucks to go in and lobby their former colleagues to keep those military bases open. So what we need, we got to push back against that, you know, because again, there's no constituents there. So members of Congress can say no to some of those lobbying and PR firms.

[B]

Well, it's also very similar to how the United States has made its empire in the past, I don't know, hundred years or so where you make these countries that maybe are developing dependent on our sort of investment and then when that goes away, then that creates some sort of chaos and things like that. But it is, I think, notable that the United States is overextending itself kind of in two separate areas. One, with the continuation of that kind of foreign policy needing to have a footprint everywhere. And then two, it's also the idea that like there's this massive middleman taking out so much value versus what China is doing, which is much more direct state control of these kinds of things and not having this major like profit incentive that's taking all of the value out. It's wildly inefficient too, as evidenced by the Pentagon failing an audit literally every single year. But we keep giving them more money. So it's just really, it's like, it's like a criminal racket. It's the most expensive one that I can think of.

[C]

Yeah, no, no, completely agree. And the Pentagon, to be clear, the Pentagon has never passed, not, not once. It's not like, oh, you know, it just failed the most recent one, you know. No, it is literally never passed one. So we know it's not auditable and we know to, to your point about the middlemen, I think that's, that's such a good way to describe this system because these contractors, they're getting hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money every year and the reporting record profits, and they're using some of their profits more and more for stock buybacks to keep driving up their stock prices. Lockheed Martin, for example, just a few years ago, spent billions of dollars, billions with a B just on stock buybacks and just to drive up that price. Nothing about that helps you and I be safer. Nothing about that defends us from China, Iran or any other boogeyman that's out there. And yet that's the system that we're sitting in when it comes to military spending, where you have billions of dollars that stem from it just going to stock buybacks.

[A]

How much of our understanding of those boogeymen is a function of this industry.

Wanting to sell weapons?

[C]

So much of it. And I think one of the points that we make in the book is that you can't justify a trillion dollar military budget without having monsters in the world, whether they're real or imaginary. You have to convince the American people that there is a threat out there, a very, very serious threat to their life and livelihood, to their children, to their family, an existential threat to them. Otherwise, if you don't convince them of that, then suddenly people start to ask, you know, really hard questions like, well, instead of spending on defense, should we maybe spend more on health care, education, child care? I have a one in a three year old. And the cost of childcare is just absurd these days. And you're getting families out there just getting so little help with that. And so if you don't have those monsters, then people start asking those questions. And so what? The military industrial complex does an extraordinary job of, is creating those monsters abroad for us to destroy. And you know, whether it's China, whether it's Iran. You know, whether it's Russia or whoever the enemy of the day might be, they have to have that to justify the system. Once the, once the veil is pulled back and you realize, you know, wizard of Oz moment, those monsters aren't so evil after all, then the whole system can crumble.

[B]

Well, that is where we're talking about. We can bring in Israel here. I think that's important just to modernize this. Like I think it's very important as us on the left to not speak about Israel as controlling our foreign policy, but as it being more of a function of the trillion dollar war machine and an outpost for us in the Middle east operating in that manner. There's another great book, the Palestine Laboratory, I cited all the time by Anthony Lowenstein, that talks about how the weapons are tested in Gaza and had been prior to the start of the genocide. And like when you see how younger people, and it really is even younger Republicans, they talk about it differently than we do. But in the voting population they've lost like the military industrial complex has lost that messaging battle as it relates to the Middle east for Everybody over under 40. And so I guess I'm just wondering if you could reflect on how, you know, there's no historical parallel between it with, to the relationship between the US And Israel. It's very, very specific and it feels very specific to your thesis as well.

[C]

Right, right. I mean, at the end of the day, Israel is the number one recipient of U.S. arms abroad and has been for decades, has the special relationship, you know, has U.S. military backing. And to your point, that's such a good point that I think folks don't recognize that Gaza has been a testing lab for arms makers for years, not just since October 7th. And so you kind of have something of an experimental lab that's part of an offshoot of the military industrial complex there. But I'm hopeful to your point too, Emma, there about the next generation when it comes to the military industrial complex, I think it's trite to say but the children are the future because they don't trust the system anywhere near to the level that folks did who grew up during the Cold War and kind of had this blind, you know, top gun level, you know, support the military no matter what. I think they, they're seeing more and more how money is being wasted here, how, where the corruption is, you know, how we're, how we're just wasting so many taxpayer dollars on this. So you know, to Sam's earlier point about, you know, what can happen next you know, how do we, we tried to spin this in the last chapter of the book to provide a glimmer of hope that the next generation is much more opposed to this than previous generations were.

[A]

How do you, what's your, your, your perspective on the sort of a trans ideological or partisan alliance on these things? I mean, how, you know, because there's a lot of folks on the right who appear on some level to be anti war, though it seems also rather selective in certain instances. But what is your sense of like how, how of the viability of that and in how it would work? I mean, it's one thing for Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul to bring up legislation to stop something that to me seems, you know, like there's a real material benefit to Sanders pairing with, with Rand Paul. But I'm not so sure that necessarily like there's value in us joining forces with libertarian YouTubers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because they can't necessarily do anything.

That, you know, they can operate on their own and we can operate on our own. I'm curious as your perspective on that across the sort of the spectrum of different possible alliances.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, a lot is made kind of about the anti interventionist right, the, you know, the rise of the anti interventionist right and you know, folks like Tucker Carlson, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I do think some of that we're making more of it than it's actually there because if you still look at the way to your point, Sam, look at the votes. Don't look at what people say, look at how they vote. Look at the legislation they're introducing. You know, when, when it comes to put pen to paper on this stuff, are they still supporting this system or, or not? And I, I actually had a good, a really good conversation with, I'm going to name drop another member, Thomas Massie, who I think has actually been just excellent on these issues. And we presented, the Quincy Institute presented an award to him along with Ro Khanna as being just two wonderful voices for peace in Congress. And he's supporting AUMF's authorization for use of military force. And.

He has been a voice that's really questioned why the US Is involved in war. He's coming at it from a different angle than a lot of progressives are. Right. You know, he's coming at it from more of an America first angle, like what are America's interests when we get involved in these foreign conflicts? And so it might be a different justification for it. But I think folks like him have proven that they're, they're they're willing to vote in a more restrained direction. And so I, you know, again, I say like there's still a minority, there's still a minority in the Republican Party. So there's still not this real upsurge of, you know, Republican non interventionists, but maybe that'll change. And now Marjorie Taylor Greene's leaving. So now there's, there's one few.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ben Freeman, the book is the Trillion Dollar War Machine, How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign wars and Bankrupts Us at Home, co written with William Hartung. We'll put a link to that at Majority FM and in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

[C]

Thanks so much. Take care.

[B]

Thanks, Ben.

[A]

All right folks, that's it for the pre show.

Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible.

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[B]

That's great. Nice.

[A]

Nevertheless, you could avoid those ads.

And the audio portion of the program might be becoming a [e-mail] also just Coffee Co op right now it's their 30% sale. You can use the code coupon code majority but you don't need to but drop it in there anyways to know that to let them know that you you came from us. But also buy the Majority Report blend. Try different blends, try different single origin coffees. Now's the time to do it at 30% off. I know Matthew film guy. He goes and buys a five pound bag right now.

[B]

Oh wow.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

All right. That's a good, good investment. Before you go, Matt, I just want to I remembered this we're supposed, I'm supposed to plug when I'm doing shows. If you want to check me out on Abby Phillips show tonight from 10 to 11pm Eastern. I will be on CNN tonight. So there's that first time.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

So check it out folks.

[A]

Open conversation is the way of humans connecting.

[D]

That's what we believe over here. Yeah.

David Griscom and I had some open conversation about the people that call betting prediction markets in order to make a lot of money off of it.

[A]

And also we got to have somebody on to talk about this relationship with CNN because it is.

Nuts.

[B]

Yeah. Should I call that out tonight? Right off the rip?

[D]

Yeah. So what are the odds on here?

[A]

Yeah, you should use the word like, I'm gonna bet you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That like you just preface everything with that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

What are the odds? I'll bet you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We need to parlay this into something greater.

[D]

And we also got into the Somalis trolling Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. I don't think that like all the people who are saying, like I saw Neo Berg Zionists saying, like, what are the Somalis getting at with these jokes? Like not understanding what they're meaning when they say Minnesota was promised us 3,000 years ago.

[A]

Oh my God.

[D]

And the amount of humor in the Somali Minnesota population is greater than both the Christian fascist and Zionists put together.

[A]

Oh my God.

[C]

Astounding by far.

[A]

Also, I should say in full disclosure, Kalshee. Is that what it's called? They reached out to us. Did you know this?

[B]

No.

[A]

They reached out to us to, you know, to partner. Partner with us. This is before like I think we've ever. Like I had ever even. I had never even heard of them. Like, I think it was cereal. Like healthy cereal. No, Kashi, wait. I like to do any healthy cereal around it.

[D]

I vetoed it.

[A]

No, but they, you know, because I had. And I had to click through to find out what it was and I realized it's like a, you know, poly market and you know, we don't. I didn't. I don't know if I ever wrote back to them and said not interested. I think I just ignored the email from them. But they were making a big push. This was probably, I think I saw this like a month ago before the CNN thing, so probably last month.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

It takes.

[B]

Not seen any of our coverage of this kind of thing.

[A]

No, no, the, the. That happens a lot. Like I. We think we may be great partners for you guys. Oh, it's because you are making so much fun of poly market.

[B]

Probably right.

[A]

You're looking for a competing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Way to gamify everything.

[C]

Those people just. Just look at attention metrics. They.

[D]

No content.

[A]

No, not at all.

[B]

I mean they just run it through an AI probably.

[D]

What are the views?

[A]

What exactly. And look, you know, if, if you like to gamble, that is all well and good, but the idea this kind of stuff. Not on this well, but the idea that.

[B]

That just sort of like genocide.

[A]

I mean it is the idea that a news Organization.

[B]

Yeah. Would partner with them.

[A]

Partner with them. Is psycho.

[B]

Deeply disturbing. Yeah. They're going to incorporate odds into their coverage.

[A]

Like, I mean, even like, like, obviously, like a progressive news organization. I think it's more problematic because.

We. I think our values are such that this is not a good thing for society. Yes, CNN promotes a lot of things that are not good things for society, but the idea that they would integrate it with their news is psycho. They're gonna bring Jimmy the Greek on to be like, what's he over under on ACA deaths? Exactly.

[B]

Well, I think that's when we'll fall out of love with Harry Emden is when he starts doing call she odds in the middle of his polling segments.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[D]

This is the first year I don't have mba League pass. And I'll say, like, it's because of watching these games live and the amount of even on the screen real estate they give to the betting line. I don't want to hear about it. I don't, like, get this off of my screen. Don't talk.

[A]

Is it on the screen? Yes.

[D]

They put the betting lines on the effing screen now.

[B]

Yep.

[D]

And the announcers talk about it and.

[A]

The Celtics games that.

[C]

All of it.

[B]

Well, it's on the crawl on the bottom, and then they do in game ads that like. Yeah, overtake it.

[A]

I mute.

[B]

I mean, but you have to be on your remote. So you mute these ads and it's just like exhausting.

[D]

It's crazy. It's the end times, literally.

[A]

Yeah.

With that said, let's head into the fun half.

[B]

It's the end times.

[A]

We'll see you in the fun half.

Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

[C]

What?

[A]

What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second.

Emma, welcome to the program.

[E]

Matt.

[A]

Fun path. What is up, everyone?

No, M. Keen, you did it. Fun Pat.

[B]

Let's go, Brandon.

[A]

Let's go, Brandon. Fun hack.

Bradley, you want to say hello?

[C]

Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.

[A]

It's all the boys today.

[B]

Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry.

[C]

Women.

[A]

Stop talking for a second.

[B]

Let me finish. Where is this coming from? Dude?

[A]

But dude, you want to smoke this C. Yes.

[C]

Hi. Me is me. Yes.

[A]

Is this me? Is it me? It is you.

[C]

Is this me? Hello? It's me.

[A]

I think it is you. Who is you.

[C]

Up?

[A]

No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm just going to lie. Libertarians.

[D]

They're so stupid.

[A]

Though common sense says of course.

[B]

Gobbledygook.

[A]

We nailed him.

[B]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[A]

Challenge. Man.

[C]

I'm positively quivering.

[A]

I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 0, 3, 5, 5. Oh, 11 half.

[D]

3, 8, 9, 11. For instance.

[B]

$3,400. $1900.

[A]

5, 4, $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.

[B]

Actually. You're making me think less.

[A]

But let me say this.

Call it satire. Sam goes to satire.

[C]

On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just.

[B]

Like every day, all day, like everything you do.

[A]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, folks, folks, folks.

[B]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Sun's out, guns out.

[C]

I, I, I don't know.

[B]

But you should know.

[C]

People just don't.

[D]

Like to entertain ideas anymore.

[A]

I have a question. Who cares?

[C]

Our chat is enabled, folks.

[A]

I love it.

[B]

I do love that.

[A]

Gotta jump, gotta be quick. I gotta jump.

[C]

I'm losing it, bro.

[A]

Two o', clock, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him.

Sent to a gulag.

[B]

Outrageous.

[A]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[C]

Love you. Bye.

[A]

Love you.

[B]

Bye.

[A]

Bye.