Gene Editing, IVF Politics & the Billionaire Plan to Engineer the Next Generation | The Tom Bilyeu Show

Summary

Podcast Summary: Gene Editing, IVF Politics & the Billionaire Plan to Engineer the Next Generation

The Tom Bilyeu Show, June 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Tom Bilyeu Show dives deep into the complex, rapidly evolving landscape of global conflict, focusing on the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, the role of the United States, and the wider ripple effects on politics, society, and technology. While the episode's title hints at gene editing and the future of human engineering, the conversation is dominated by geopolitical warfare, the reliability of intelligence, regime change, and the psychological warfare underpinning current events.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Escalation in the Middle East: Israel, Iran, and US Involvement

• Context: The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict with US involvement appears to be reaching a critical point. There are expectations of imminent strikes, high rhetoric about nuclear threats, and deep anxiety about broader war.
• Tom’s Framing: Tom and the panel continuously remind listeners that as commentators, they're outside the "SecDef meetings" and reliant on filtered, possibly spun information.
  • “We are part of the commentariat. We are not in SecDef meetings. Like, we don’t have the intel that they have.” (04:03, Tom)
• Nuclear Fears: Claims that Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons underpin aggressive rhetoric from both Israeli and US leaders.
• Netanyahu Compilation: The podcast plays a "super cut" of Netanyahu repeatedly warning of Iran's nuclear threat over several decades—a dramatic reminder that some talking points never seem to change.
  (09:15–10:03, Netanyahu clip)

2. Spin, Intelligence, and Narrative Control

• Distrust of Narratives: Both Tom and Drew stress that media and intelligence "spin" make discerning the truth incredibly difficult.
  • “I am hyper aware that all I get is spin and I have no idea what is actually true.” (10:18, Tom)
• Who’s Being Spun?: The hosts question not just if the public is being spun, but whether even key leaders, including Trump, are manipulated by intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic.
  • “There’s 100% chance [Trump] is being spun to some degree… follow the incentives.” (30:49, Tom)
  • “The odds that any world leader has to sift through spin, lies, manipulation is 100% and there’s just no way around that.” (30:49, Tom)
• Example: The FBI allegedly intercepted fake IDs for voting but "buried" the case, highlighting ideological bias in intelligence handling.
  (32:32–34:25, Tom)

3. The Trump Doctrine and Political Contradictions

• No New Wars vs. Preemptive Strikes: The show dissects Trump’s vow of “no new wars” against his unwavering stance that Iran cannot be allowed nuclear weapons. Panelists openly debate the logic and contradiction in these positions.
  • “Any country that says, we want to kill America, I’m going to bomb them if they try to develop nuclear weapons. That seems pretty fucking logical to me.” (16:51, Tom)
  • “Is Trump consistent on this? …that is very potentially in direct contradiction of his whole no more wars? Yes.” (17:07, Tom)
• Base Reaction: Tom notes unprecedented division on the American right about deeper involvement, arguing that this isn’t a classic “rally the base” move for Trump.
  (27:10, Tom)

4. Regime Change, Democracy, and Consequence Mapping

• Regime Change Skepticism: Tom is firm in his belief that regime change is generally a mistake—“full stop”—because it's impossible to foresee second and third-order consequences.
  • “People will never be able to predict the second and third order consequences. You have to let the people of the nation decide who’s going to rule them.” (39:32, Tom)
• Authoritarian Drift in the US: There’s a subtle but sharp critique of how America is “accelerating towards authoritarian rule”—noting the role of executive orders and inter-partisan hatred.
  (41:40, Tom)

5. Mapping Cause and Effect (“Don’t Go Team Sports”)

• Method Over Opinion: Tom self-describes as refusing to become “team-based”—instead, he focuses on reasoning out consequences without dogma, telling listeners to “watch somebody map cause and effect in real time.”
  • “This is why wanting yourself to be able to map cause and effect is so critical… The more I engage with finance… there is still that next layer.” (23:31, Tom)
• Challenges of Complexity: He notes that holding back opinions for the sake of accuracy sometimes frustrates listeners who want “clear stances.”
  • “Opinions are traps… it is hard to follow Tom’s thinking sometimes when he’s just thinking through a problem versus having an opinion.” (38:16, Drew, 38:39, Tom)

6. Proxy Wars and Global Strategic Interests

• Big Picture: Questions arise about whether current conflict is really about weakening U.S. rivals (China, Russia, Iran), with reference to a “three-front war” and the way alliances are deeply pragmatic and temporary.
  • “What’s the phrase? There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests.” (43:12, Tom)

7. Nuclear Use & Deterrence Logic

• Likelihood of War and Nuke Use: The hosts agree that conventional strikes are all but inevitable (“10 out of 10”), but full-blown ground war or the use of nuclear weapons remains highly unlikely—unless someone with theocratic motivations controls the arsenal.
  • “I think the only way that a nuke gets used is if somebody believes that God is on their side and telling them to do it or it’s dead hand.” (48:15, Tom)

8. False Flags, Narrative Warfare & Social Manipulation

• Anonymous Files and Conspiracy Theories: The show addresses a viral message from Anonymous claiming an imminent “false flag” designed to drag the U.S. into deeper war. The team is skeptical, noting the performativity and marketing logic even in terrorism.
  • “You have to be a marketer whether you’re a terrorist or a president of a country.” (67:52, Tom)

9. Complexity, Economic Manipulation, and Collapse Narratives

• Manipulation vs. Overt Oppression: Tom riffs on the distinctions between manipulation (slow inflation) and overt oppression (bank account seizure) in maintaining social control.
  • “There is a world of difference psychologically between stealing somebody’s money through inflation and stealing their money in their bank account...” (60:07, Tom)
• Cycles of War and Progress: A philosophical reflection on why colossal conflict seems to always precede major steps forward. Is it an unfortunate necessity linked to economic cycles and human nature?
  • “Why does conflict always erupt before we take a step forward as a civilization?... it just happens to be coinciding with AI because right now AI is only played out as something to ratchet up tensions...” (59:56, Mason & Tom)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Quote | Speaker | Timestamp | |-------|---------|-----------| | “We are part of the commentariat. We are not in SecDef meetings. Like, we don’t have the intel that they have.” | Tom | 04:03 | | “I am hyper aware that all I get is spin and I have no idea what is actually true.” | Tom | 10:18 | | “Any country that says, we want to kill America, I’m going to bomb them if they try to develop nuclear weapons. That seems pretty fucking logical to me.” | Tom | 16:51 | | “People will never be able to predict the second and third order consequences. You have to let the people of the nation decide who’s going to rule them.” | Tom | 39:32 | | “You have to be a marketer whether you’re a terrorist or a president of a country.” | Tom | 67:52 | | “I think the only way that a nuke gets used is if somebody believes that God is on their side and telling them to do it or it’s dead hand.” | Tom | 48:15 | | “This is why wanting yourself to be able to map cause and effect is so critical.” | Tom | 23:31 | | “What’s the phrase? There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests.” | Tom | 43:12 |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Israel–Iran conflict & US Involvement: 00:58 – 12:46
• Spin and intelligence reliability: 10:18 – 16:19
• Drone strikes, boots on ground, and “no new wars”: 16:19 – 21:33
• Cause and effect methodology vs partisan hot takes: 23:31 – 26:19
• Trump’s motivations, base division: 27:10 – 30:25
• Can leaders themselves be spun? 30:25 – 32:30
• Regime change debate (why it fails): 39:13 – 42:51
• Proxy wars/global interests: 42:51 – 46:05
• Likelihoods of U.S. involvement, boots on ground, retaliation risk: 46:05 – 48:15
• Anonymous “false flag” conspiracy: 64:40 – 68:13
• Human nature, narrative/psychological control: 67:52 – 71:41

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Final Takeaways

• Relentlessly Nuanced: The hosts steer clear of hot takes, constantly reminding the audience that real world events are driven by complex, multi-layered motives and information asymmetry.
• Critical Skepticism: Tom’s primary message is one of skepticism—not just of mainstream or alternative narratives, but of one's own beliefs.
• Don’t Go “Team Sports”: Listeners are strongly encouraged to reason thoroughly, map out cause and effect, and resist simply picking a side.
• The World Is Messy: Whether the topic is nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence, economic policy, or psychological warfare, the panel tries to illuminate just how convoluted—and consequential—today’s disruptions are.

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This summary preserves the episode's free-ranging, conversational tone and is designed to help listeners quickly grasp its depth and nuance without wading through unrelated sections or commercial breaks.

Transcript

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[Tom]

Welcome in everybody. It is a big week. Things are getting crazy around the world. The Israel Iran conflict is heating up. Oh boy, do I wish that wasn't so necessary. But it really is getting spicy over in the Middle East. The US involvement seems imminent. We were promised a attack that was going to be remembered for centuries. Last night from Iran. I don't think that we got it, but nonetheless, Trump had dipped out of the G7 early, presumably to help plan the Iran strategy. We will find more out in the coming days. People are expecting some kind of attack, bunker buster bombs perhaps from the U.S. people are saying sometime between Thursday and the end of the weekend, we will see both the US and Israel claim that we have total air superiority over Iran. We being the word used by President Trump.

[Drew]

So I didn't catch that. We have to. Yeah, we're not in this world.

[Tom]

Oh, aren't we, Drew? Aren't we? We really might be. We really might be. Chat. I'm very grateful to have you guys here. We shall see what ends up happening here as this all unfolds. The exiled Shah of Iran, by the way, was giving a message directly to the Iranian people. And then to bring things home domestic today, we're also going to be talking about the FBI and the IRS teaming up to track down whoever is funding the LA riots. Welcome, everybody. It's Wednesday. We are finally here. I'm working on a strategy. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I'm working on a strategy where we can go live Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Always such a big gap between Fridays and Mondays. So excited to be with you guys. So much to talk about. It is really a pretty insane time here in the world, Drew. Let's dive into it.

[Drew]

Chat. How you. How are you feeling? I just want to kind of level set with chat for a second because.

[Tom]

Welcome back, Drew.

[Drew]

Thank you. It's good to be back.

[Tom]

We missed you on Friday. David was wonderful. David really was wonderful. David, if you're there watching, we're very grateful to you joining us, but you were missed. You were.

[Drew]

I appreciate that. I was. My brother got married in San Francisco, so I was out there in the Rice a Roni state. So it was cool. It was nice.

[Tom]

Rice a Roni state or a city?

[Drew]

I'm sorry, San Francisco or Rice a Roni. The San Francisco treat.

[Tom]

Yeah, I remember it. You don't seem old enough to remember that. We're 53. Fair enough, Drew. Fair enough, Drew.

[Drew]

Okay, so, yeah, level setting with chat. I really want to see how everybody feels because I'm in between shots in a tuxedo like, oh, Iran lost, okay. Iran always lose, like, launches missiles, it doesn't hit anything. We get over this by Monday. But we're like in a full on war in the Middle east right now. Trump is debating on getting in. MAGA is split on both sides. It's hard to kind of parse what's real and what's not. Now, we filmed the tight 60 yesterday and you said something and I'm definitely stealing from you where like if I had Trump's information, I would probably have Trump's response. So for all we know, quite what I said.

[Tom]

So what I want people to understand is we are part of the commentariat. We are not in SecDeaf meetings. Like, we don't have the intel that they have. So the only way to know if I would do what Trump is doing or not is if I had the information that Trump has. Now, if Trump, the information that Trump has, which it seems to be given the things he's going on record is saying, is that they, they really are getting close to a nuclear weapon, then I would react the way that Trump's reacting.

[Drew]

I just think that right now on the outside looking in, I don't see anybody that's really excited to get into this war.

[Tom]

I mean, I fucking hope not. Netanyahu, I'd say he's pretty pumped.

[Drew]

He's the, I feel like he's the only one, but I don't, I haven't seen. There's not a lot of sympathy on Israel's side, let me put it that way. And I think that that's something that we've seen kind of change in a Palestine, Israel war. But now with this new thing going into Iran, it's almost like we're Forcing it. So I just, I'm trying to figure out where is this need to. I have to do this right now. June 18th. It has happened today.

[Tom]

Well, okay, so we're always being spun. So I will remind myself of that and everybody else the. That I can tell you what's being said. I can't tell you what's true. What's being said is that they are moments away from nuclear weapons. I am well aware of the video that shows Netanyahu saying since like 1842 that they're minutes away from a nuclear weapon. I get it. But nonetheless, that's what people are saying, that that is very much what Netanyahu is saying. If is Netanyahu, is this all some sort of a master plan to do what he has wanted to do politically for a very long time, which is, I mean, you can read as neutralize all of the people that hate Israel. You could read it as they want to become the Middle Eastern hegemon. You could read it as they really did just lose sight of how big of a threat Iran via their proxies were and that they were actually surprised by October 7th. You could read it as, ooh, this will work for us. We see that it's coming, we're not going to do anything. We're going to let it happen. And then that gives us something really big to push back on. And we always thought we would go after Iran directly first and then take care of their proxies second. But, hey, this gives us a chance to go into Gaza. Absolutely obliterate them. Seeing footage is not so, like, when you look at the way that they've gone after the Iranian leadership where it's like they puncture a hole in a apartment like room and kill a guy that way. And then you see footage of Gaza and it's like matchsticks everywhere. It's like, so we're capable of precision.

[Drew]

Precision is

[Tom]

so that one seems pretty deliberate. And listen, if I put my hat on where I'm like, okay, I'm Israel, and people just will not stop with us. I get it. Like, at some point you just snap. But it's still sinister. And so they've just leveled Gaza now. Okay. Around to find out. But that doesn't make it any, like, from the outside when you look at it, it's just ugly, it's just sinister, it's nasty, it's horrible. Uh, so yeah, now doing that, going after Hezbollah, I don't know how involved they've been with the Houthis, but then turning around and Going after Iran, from their perspective, hey, these guys hate us, they want to take us out. It's basically the same thing. It's all Iran, it's all a theocratic regime that is trying to take out us. This is a religious war that's happening. Which for me, this whole thing makes a lot more sense when you start going, you have two sides that believe God is on their side and God is telling each of them something very different. And so that makes the severity of the war that much starker for me because humans, when they believe that God is on their side, will do the most horrible, horrific. So that seems to be where we're at. I don't know what's true. I know that I'm being spun constantly, but the breadcrumbs seem to point to the. Trump believes that there is that Iran is about to have nuclear weapons. He's been very clear for the last 10 years that he's just not going to let that happen. It seems like he's going to do whatever the fuck he thinks he has to do in order to stop them from getting nuclear weapons. But I, I could certainly be wrong about this, but my instinct, based on his previous foreign policies of like a strike and then you back off, is that that's what he'll do. Bunker buster, make sure that their nuclear capabilities are completely eradicated and then peace

[Drew]

out and let Israel take care of the rest. Yeah, here's the Netanyahu super cut of him warning about Iran.

[Netanyahu (clip)]

Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months. They have the wherewithal, the stored up, preserved knowledge to make a bomb very quickly if they wanted to do it. Iran is so dangerous, weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. They're very close. They're six months away from being about 90% of having the enriched uranium for an atom bomb. Iran is gearing up to have to produce 25 bombs, atomic bombs a year, 250 bombs in a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. Iran will be capable of producing alone, without importing anything, nuclear bombs within three to five years. If not stopped, Iran could produce a

[Drew]

nuclear weapon that he's been saying that. So for the people that are critical of Israel, it seems like we've been talking about this warning for a long time. What do you think is motivating them to do it now again?

[Tom]

So I just, boy, do I never want my words to be taken out of context. I am Hyper aware that all I get is spin and I have no idea what is actually true. So from a principles perspective, if it is true that Iran is actually getting closer to a nuclear weapon and honestly, man. So the Supreme Leader put out a speech, I've only heard an English translation for obvious reasons. And so I know there's a gap there where things could be tweaked to make it sound in a different way than it really was meant to be. But you've got him just saying like, we're going to control our destiny if we want. He did not say these exact words, but if we want nuclear power, we're going to get nuclear power. And the reality is they've gone so far above and beyond nuclear power that if they want a nuclear power, they could very easily get already enriched uranium from other countries. They do not need to do it themselves. So the odds that they really mean what they say, which is we're going to control our destiny, nobody is going to tell us otherwise. Not Israel, not the us, not Saudi Arabia. We are going to control our destiny. We believe that this is in our best interest. And they've gone so far beyond what you would need for a civilian power. I. It doesn't seem like you can read this any other way other than that they're escalating. Now the part that I have not gone far enough down the rabbit hole to figure out what's true is you've got some people saying that the iea, efg, the international nuclear like regulatory body, has said that, hey, they violated, yes, thank you. They violated their non proliferation agreement. And then you've got Tulsi Gabbard saying, no, no, the IAEA is saying that they're not pursuing it. So I don't know which of those is true. But if Iran is building a nuclear weapon and I can believe them that they want to kill America, Israel and the uk, it's like, yeah, you, you can't have that. So. And I have a personal wild distrust for top down authoritarian rule, as you may remember. So you can imagine that I don't love that. But if they don't have nuclear capabilities and they're not pursuing it, then we should stay the fuck out.

[Drew]

And then J.D. vance to Trump's defense, tweeted this yesterday, Look, I'm seeing this from the inside and admittedly biased toward our President and my friend, but there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media. So I wanted to address some things directly on the Iran issue first. POTUS has been amazingly consistent over 10 years that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish his goal. The President has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways. The easy way or the quote unquote other way. Second, I've seen a lot of confusion over the issue of civilian nuclear power and uranium enrichment. These are distinct issues. Iran could have civilian nuclear power without enrichment, but Iran rejected that. Meanwhile, they enrich uranium for far above the level necessary for any civilian purpose. They've been found in violation of their non proliferation obligations by the iaea, International Atomic Energy Agency, which is hardly a right wing organization. It's one thing to want civilian nuclear energy, it's another thing to demand sophisticated enrichment capacity enhancement. And it's still another to cling to enrichment while simultaneously violating basic non proliferation agreements obligations and enriching right to the point of weapons grading uranium. So based off what JD Vance is saying, to your point, we gave Iran a little bit of a leash to say, yes, if you wanted a civilian nuclear program, that's fine, you can, you know, expand and grow your energy capacity, but just don't proliferate or just don't enrich to a certain capacity. And they violated both of those things. So I understand their uneasiness in response to that. I understand the Middle east is a always in turmoil dependent regardless of who you think is at fault. So I think having a weakened Iran is good in large capacity because that's less of a proxy. There's not other terrorist organizations that could be run through this country. So I understand why it would be strategically appropriate for the US to say, okay, they're weak, let's strike right now. Let's do a regime, a regime change.

[Tom]

Oh, I'm not here in the US say that, that, thank God, I feel. But we had the Israel Netanyahu is, I think, obviously interested in regime change. But Trump literally said the ayatollah, you know, is better than the Ayatollah, you don't know. And so I, I don't think that's what he wants. I think he's perfectly happy to have a guy that's in his mid-80s denuclearize him and then let it be and just let them keep doing their thing. We know, like, hey, we've got one hard line. Don't get nukes, period. And as long as you don't cross that line, we good. We're hitting pause for a moment. There's Plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Nine out of the ten largest banks get it. They get that. VantageScore, the modern credit score, is the leader in predictive power, improving mortgage default predictions and saving lenders billions better predictions. Better for your business with VantageScore.

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[Tom]

All right, thanks for sticking with us. Let's jump right back in.

[Mason]

How do you feel about the US Involvement on the one?

[Tom]

Let's go. Mason jumping in. Come on. Meow. Everybody, Mason is in the house.

[Drew]

Shout out to Mason.

[Tom]

Indeed. Indeed. All right, so on the one hand,

[Mason]

there's no new wars, and then on the other hand, there's the escalation that's happening.

[Tom]

This is. Are people asking me to try to read Trump's mind?

[Mason]

Yes.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Mason]

And so on one hand, what's your thought on where the line should be? Is it simply if they have nukes, go, or is.

[Tom]

I'll make it even broader. Any country that says, we want to kill America, I'm going to bomb them if they try to develop nuclear weapons. That seems pretty fucking logical to me.

[Mason]

How do you feel about him going back on no new wars?

[Tom]

Well, because I am very hopeful that this is a bunker buster bomb that diffuses their nuclear capabilities, I'm going to say that's not. I hope it doesn't become a new war. The whole idea of, like, the thing that draws people to Trump about, like, I voted for him because he promised no new wars. I feel their pain and that they're going to be very sad because I don't think he has any credibility with a lot of the things that he said in terms of I'm going to end Russia, Ukraine, didn't happen. I'm going to sort out the Israel, Gaza thing. Didn't happen. I think he will fucking anybody that tries to manhandle Trump, he's going to big dog them. And so all of that shit, I think, is just political expediency on behalf of a man who will do and say virtually anything to stay in power. So I don't map Trump, I don't map my relationship to Trump the way other people do. So Trump is a politician and politicians are unhinged. Trump may be the most unhinged politician of our time. That's entirely possible. So, like, I'm not saying, hey, Trump is consistent. He's doing exactly what he said. I'm isolating on should. If I had the information that Iran, who has promised to. Has promised death to America, is about to go nuclear, would I try anything, including bunker buster bombs to make sure that they don't go nuclear? Yes, I would. Now, is Trump consistent on this? He's been saying forever that you can't let them have a bomb. But is that in. Is that very potentially indirect contradiction of his whole no more wars? Yes. And so do I understand why people who felt an allegiance to Trump feel betrayed by Trump? Yes, but I never felt an allegiance to Trump. I do not see myself as being on Trump's team or anybody else's team. So I will take one issue at a time.

[Drew]

It does feel like weapons of mass destruction, part two. A lot of people are saying that in the chat right now, like, this is a goose chase. Netanyahu is saying the same thing he's been saying since 95 just to get the community to get rallied behind him in order to empower them to go to war.

[Tom]

Very well could be. That's why I'm saying, you must understand we are in the commentariat. We do not have the information that we would need to have. Like, no one should phone me up and be like, tom, what should we do? I need the information. I have no ide. So I can give you principles based commentary on what's happening, but I cannot tell you what the actual move is. If this is just spin and politicians spin, it's what they do, then bad play. What the fuck, Stay out. Never should have been this all bad all the time. If they really are about to develop nuclear weapons, then, yes, bunker bust, break that shit, dip out and call it a day. But sending like, for instance, oh, God, would I ever send troops on the ground who I'd really have to be convinced that they were like, literally about to press the button to send some nasties our way. So.

[Drew]

But I mean, war is even fought that way, so America being involved, if we were being honest, it's three drone strikes, strikes and a bunch of, you know, fighter jets.

[Tom]

That's very optimistic of you.

[Drew]

No, because I honestly think what Israel is doing to Iran, targeted strikes from across the border, they haven't even had boots on the ground yet. For America to jump in front of us and then put our boots on the ground.

[Tom]

For sure.

[Guest]

For sure.

[Tom]

I was just trying, from a principal's perspective, if I'm saying I would do whatever it took to stop them, I need to ask the question, would I actually put boots on the ground? Not that anyone is suggesting that.

[Drew]

Got.

[Tom]

Just saying as a principled argument, would I go that far? And boy, oh, boy, would it take a lot. It would have to be beyond imminent.

[Drew]

Yeah. There's been this Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz clip.

[Senator]

How many people live in Iran, by the way up.

[Drew]

So let's look at this and kind of react to Tucker and Ted's view on Iran.

[Senator]

How many people live in Iran, by the way?

[Guest]

I. I don't know the population at all. No, I don't know the population.

[Senator]

You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?

[Guest]

How many people living around 92 million.

[Drew]

Okay. Yeah.

[Senator]

How could you not know that?

[Guest]

I. I don't sit around memorizing population tables.

[Senator]

Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.

[Guest]

Why is it relevant whether It's. Well, because 90 million or 80 million or 100 million.

[Tom]

Why?

[Senator]

Because if you don't know anything about the country.

[Guest]

I didn't say I don't know anything about. Okay.

[Senator]

What's the ethnic mix of Iran?

[Guest]

They are Persians and predominantly Shia.

[Senator]

Okay. You don't know anything about Iran, so.

[Drew]

Okay.

[Guest]

I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.

[Senator]

You're a senator who's calling.

[Guest]

You're the one who claims anything about the country. No, you don't know anything about the country. You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.

[Drew]

You're the one.

[Senator]

I'm not saying that.

[Guest]

Who can't figure out if a good idea to kill General Soleimani.

[Tom]

And you said it was bad.

[Senator]

I don't believe they're trying to murder Trump.

[Drew]

Yes, I do.

[Senator]

Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation.

[Guest]

And if they really believe we're carrying out military strikes today. You said Israel was right with our help. I said we. Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.

[Senator]

Well, this. You're breaking news here because the US Government last night denied. The National Security Council spokesman, Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity.

[Guest]

We're not bombing them. Israel's bombing them.

[Senator]

You just said we were.

[Guest]

We are supporting Israel.

[Senator]

You're a senator. If you're saying the United States government is attack. We're with Iran right now. People are listening.

[Drew]

When did. What timeline am I in? Tucker is grilling Republicans, like, what's happening right now?

[Mason]

People in the chat are saying, I can't believe I'm backing Tucker Carlson.

[Senator]

Yeah, that's.

[Drew]

I'm literally just thinking that, like, why am I on Tucker's side? What?

[Tom]

Wait a second. How are they making me like Tucker Carlson? This is why you take one issue at a time and you don't go team sports. So those are awesome questions to ask. And it is. This is why wanting yourself to be able to map cause and effect is so critical. And the more I engage with finance, like doing the deep dive on Ray Dalio and how countries go broke, I was like, wow, man. No matter how much I learn about this stuff, like, there is still that next layer. Like, I'll hear Ray talk about it and like, fucking hell. But you begin to understand, oh, this is why this guy's made billions of dollars investing. And as of nobody should take my investing advice. So it is. There are levels to this. And if you're going to get in the game as a senator of saying we either should or shouldn't be involved in a military conflict, man, you really do need to start doing some research because then you can start mapping cause and effect. And I think people will be surprised at how they're thinking on something shifts. And this is why, this is why I don't like the debate format, because it pushes you into a corner to try to be right with Iran and Israel. Like, bro, there's so much more that I don't know about this conflict, about the long standing beef, et cetera, et cetera. That again, no one should call me to ask what we should do. I just don't have the information. But it will be an interesting exercise to see as I get more information. If this conflict remains relevant for an extended period of time, what's that gonna do to my stance on what we should and shouldn't be doing? I was thinking about that when we were recording the tight 60 yesterday is, okay, why would somebody engage with this content? And for me, the reason is that what I'm trying, what I do in my real life and what I want to represent to people who consume content is watch somebody map cause and effect in real time. Watch them dig into an issue, learn about it. Not be team based, not be dogmatic, but try to understand, like, if we do this, what's the outcome? And the way to do that is to come up with a hypothesis and then look backwards because obviously looking forward, you're never going to know. But if you look backwards, you can say, okay, does the thing that I believe in terms of cause and effect? Does it map and explain the things that we've already seen? If it explains the thing we've already seen, it's got a shot of being useful.

[Anonymous]

Moving forward.

[Tom]

Doesn't mean it will be, but at least it has a shot. So I hope that, you know, God forbid that this conflict continues, but if it does, I hope that my, as I learn more, my beliefs will get sharper. So we'll see.

[Drew]

Yeah. Diane Marshall in the chat said this is another resource grab opportunity. You could just toss around accusations, create false flags and takes people shit. And I know we talked about how

[Tom]

the and text people and take people. Right, right, right.

[Drew]

I remember we talked about, you know, history is filled with a bunch of burnt towns, civilizations, cities, states, whatever of just they weren't strong enough, they couldn't handle it, they got their stuff taken. I know that we're on this debt cycle and sometimes war is the thing that helps reverse the traction of that. Do you think even if it's man as political animal, there's a 1% chance, whatever, that Trump is using this moment as a way to kind of rally his base? Since he has it won definitively on tariffs, he hasn't won definitively on the big beautiful bill. Maybe he can win on, you know, security and squash Iran's nuclear plan.

[Tom]

That'd be very shocking if he thought this was going to be something that would unite his base. This from a, on the right perspective seems the most divisive thing that he's done. So I don't super track the right, but it seems like they are arguing about this more than they've argued about anything else. If anybody knows something that they've had more beef over, definitely let me know. But this one feels the most divisive. I think Trump is more, he has a set of beliefs and when something bumps into one of those beliefs, he just acts on it for better or worse. Like if he says for the last 10 years Iran is not going to get a nuclear weapon and right or wrong, he comes to believe that Iran is about to have nuclear weapons, he clearly, clearly is willing to act. So that seems to be like, regardless of base, like, I don't give a. Like, it seems like he's already iced out Tulsi Gabbard, but he was the one that fought to get her in the Cabinet. So listen, he clearly is not afraid to Alienate people. He is clearly not afraid to do things that will divide his base. Now, he's got shrewd enough political instincts that he'll try to repair quickly if he sees, oh, like, going down this path is really putting me in a bad political situation. So if this, like, were to start escalating, I think it would tear his presidency apart. If he really gets us mired in this and I don't know, in a world where boots don't end up on the ground, what does that really look like? I don't know. But there are certainly people are already tripping over him, dropping arguably a small number of bombs to destroy Fordow and all of their nuclear capabilities if that triggers his base and they're like, fuck this. This is not at all what I voted for. How much farther would he go? I don't know. That'll be interesting to see. But Trump has certainly, with the tariffs, shown that when he gets a super negative response that he'll back off. Now, the thing that I still don't know the accurate way to map him is, is he doing that, hitting political pressure and backing off, or is he doing that because of what I'll call my Trump? I don't bluff theory where he will tell somebody, this is what we're going to do. China, we're going to get a good trade deal. And China's like, no, fuck you. And he's like, well, then I'm going to do this. And they're like, no, you won't. Fuck you. And so then he does it. He doesn't plan to do it for long. Again, I don't know that this is true. I'm just saying, when you look at what's happening, it is impossible to discern whether this is him responding to political pressure or if this is him going, when I tell somebody I'm going to punch them, I'm going to punch them. Now, I may not punch them a lot because I know that this is a losing strategy and I'm going to overextend myself, but I am going to throw punches. So that. That's the question that remains. So if he's. It seems pretty clear to me he is going to punch Iran. Now, how far into the fight is he gonna go? That I have no idea. Stick around. We'll be right back after this. All right, let's dive right back in.

[Mason]

AC in the chat brought up something that's kind of an interesting idea. How possible is it that Trump himself is being spun?

[Drew]

You stole my. Luke's about to Read that comment. Yeah, so good.

[Mason]

The, the idea that they gave is there's a reason intelligence said Iran was behind the assassination attempt. They have been planting this seed for war with Iran for a year now. So like how possible is it that Trump actually sees everything versus zero percent

[Tom]

chance nobody sees everything. There's 100% chance he's being spun to some degree. Now is this to the point where it's just blatant manipulation and it's not tied to reality at all? I have no idea. All I know is follow the incentives. Israel has a multi layered incentive to take out Iran from It could be as simple as we're tired of getting attacked. Okay, still an incentive to take out Iran. It could be all the way to we Israel want to be the hegemon in a world order that is now divided. So you've got China's going to have Southeast Asia, you've got America, that's going to have the Americas and Europe and we want to have the Middle East. It could go all the way to that. So I have no idea. But the odds that any world leader has to sift through spin, lies, manipulation is 100% and there's just no way around that. Now does is all of the intel that we're getting out of Iran coming from Israel? If it is woof, that dramatically increases the odds that he's being spun part. But if some of the intel is US made, then you lower, lower. You certainly don't eliminate it. You lower the risk. Now the really scary one is we know that our own intelligence agencies will spin our own president. So now you exacerbate it a thousand fold.

[Mason]

What's the incentive behind them doing that?

[Tom]

The, the, our own intelligence agencies. I mean now you're getting into deep state stuff. So this is where humans are emotional creatures. They have a frame of reference, it's built on ideology. They, we humans find it offensive when people believe something that we don't believe. And so if people think that, oh, a new president has got elected, cool, I now believe what they believe. If they think that's what's happening, they're out of their minds. That clearly isn't what's happening. What happens is you believe what you believe regardless of who's the president. When you have a president that you agree with and you're aligned, when you have a president that you disagree with and you're, you know, out of alignment and you're going to do and say whatever aligns with your code of ethics. So if you believe Trump is a dictator he's going to destroy our democracy and you're a CIA agent on the ground. Then all of a sudden it's like, well, I'm just not going to pass that on. In fact, we've got some stuff in the spreadsheet today about the Supposedly the FBI learning that China was going to use fake IDs to create mail in ballots to vote in US elections. The FBI caught it, found 20,000 fake IDs, intercepted them, and then buried the evidence because they didn't want the American people to know that it was actually happening because those claims were being made from. Presumably, if this is all true, the side that they don't believe in. So, man, this is where ideology drives so much of this. Even reading the comments, it will never cease to amuse me. How people project the way they view the world onto me and then are arguing with the version of me that's in their head, that is in no way, shape or form representative of how I think about the world. And no matter how many times I say it, we just cannot get outside of our own frame of reference. It is what it is.

[Mason]

Describe the difference between yourself and the way you think. Chat sees you.

[Tom]

Well, I won't blanket chat. So I will say certain people who scream at me in all caps, you know who you are. They are convinced that I'm on somebody's team. They are convinced that I'm saying that this is right. And they lose sight of the fact that I don't trust myself. I know that emotions are likely to capture me, my own emotions. I know that I'm stuck inside of my own frame of reference, and the only way to get outside of it is to try to map cause and effect. And so oftentimes people will hear me mapping cause and effect, and they'll be. They'll say things like, tom's not saying anything. Okay, what does that mean? It means I'm not taking a strong stance on either side. Why? Because I don't have cause and effect mapped yet. So screaming about we should do this or we shouldn't do that doesn't make any sense. Uh, also, I'll say, if this is true, then you would do this. If this is true, then you would do that, which is a mapping of my value system. So understanding the reason that I do that is so I can understand what's controlling my own thinking. Everybody else, not everybody else, but the vast majority of humanity thinks that their way of thinking is objectively right. And life has taught me that my thinking isn't objectively right. That I am never 100% accurate to cause and effect, which means I always need to be open to what am I not seeing, what am I not clear about? And then I'm sure I confused the matter, because when I do things like deep dives, I will. Because I do start to believe things, there's no doubt about that. And because I want to test the veracity of my own ideas, I will step into the frame of this argumentation is correct because I have accurately mapped cause and effect. And I'll yell and scream about it like anybody else, but then I'm always reminding myself to step back outside of that frame that I understand back to. There's something about my belief system that's wrong. Like I'll say right now, for no other reason than to have planted a flag, I know that my views on the economy are not actually right. So they're not actually wrong either. In terms of, I can tell I have a high degree of cause and effect, but I can also tell, like, I can already make the argument for why modern monetary theory exists, but yet if you put me in an FMRI and you just show me like, the letters mmt, I'm gonna have a visceral reaction because I can so clearly map how it robs from everybody and gives only to the wealthy, it, the poor. Like, it's, it's self evident, but at the same time, it does allow you to smooth out some of the trauma that comes from a hard money system. And so I say all of that simply to say life is excruciatingly complicated. When you see an endless collision between two sides, it's because there's some truth on both sides. And life is about saying, this is where I'm trying to get to and when do I like, push on this versus when do I push on that? For instance, direct democracy is a terrible fucking idea, but autocracy is even fucking worse. So where do you draw the line? And that's in that lies all the complexity. But that's not good for clicks, that's not good online. And if you have a mental map that just says, do this. Heuristics, shortcuts, I need to know. I always behave in this manner because it makes life easier. I'm gonna seem crazy.

[Drew]

Ricky Martinez. It is hard to follow Tom's thinking sometimes when he's just thinking through a problem versus having an opinion on something. Something.

[Tom]

Oh, I get it, I get it. And opinions are traps. I mean, look, maybe we start doing segments where I'm like, okay, I'm Going to step into a frame right now and say this is my opinion and I'm going to bang the table and I'll give people the red meat that they want. But I have a feeling that will make the problem of people actually trying to map how I think about the world even harder.

[Drew]

Okay.

[Tom]

It'd be entertaining if nothing else.

[Drew]

Let's level set for.

[Tom]

Let's go.

[Drew]

Let's talk regime change for a second. A lot of people are looking at this as an opportunistic time. On the Iranian side, we have the exiled son of the old Shai who just released a video on X on YouTube and literally told the Iranian people, now's the time to revolt. We have a new the regime, old regime is dying. We don't want to go into another war. This experiment didn't work. Come back to this democracy side. Come back with us. Like come back to the royal family side.

[Tom]

I'll just remind people that Shaw means king.

[Drew]

But yeah, I mean he said democracy though, so I bet he did. He used the right words. So with that happening in the precipice of this war, just in general taking a step back away from Iran for a second, do you have a strong opinion about regime changes in general? Do you think they're a necessary evil?

[Tom]

I think they're a terrible idea, full stop.

[Drew]

If that's another top down, you don't like it.

[Tom]

This is, it's not coming from a top down thing. It's coming from. People will never be able to predict the second and third order consequences. You have to let the people of the nation decide who's going to rule them. And if you don't let that bubble up naturally from the ground up, you create something equally fragile. You create a power vacuum. Into power vacuums usually go the strongest person. The strongest person is rarely the person most interested in the well being of their civilians. They are the person that is just meant for that moment. So take somebody like Napoleon, just an absolute brilliant military strategist and just slaughters, just goes around the world killing, killing, killing, killing. Now he finally broke the weird spell that France was under at the time. The revolutionary spirit that once it gets ignited is pretty hard to snuff out and people just get bloodlust and everywhere they turn they see somebody else that needs to be killed. And so he did a good job of channeling that. But he was, I mean he was emperor, man. He made himself emperor. So the reality of human beings is that it is excruciatingly difficult to get them all pointed in one Direction. And America is known as the great experiment for a reason. It's, can we really create a form of government where the it's for the people, by the people? Is it possible? And I mean, man, I don't know about anybody else's read, but for me, over the last, I don't know, 20 years, like, we've really accelerated towards authoritarian rule. Like, just for me, just looking at how much is done by executive order is like the biggest red flag ever that says, nah, I'm not going to waste time trying to build consensus. I'm going to cram this down people's throats, period. End of story. Seeing how each side hates the other and believes that they need to be jailed, and I will accuse the left and right of that in equal measure. That is horrific. So it's entirely possible that we had a good run of it and it just. Given our economic system, it's just incompatible. So I don't know, man, like, we're gonna see this play out, but it's like, I really can't break people's fever dreams of they really believe that they're right, that they see the world accurately, and I wouldn't want to strip people of that. And that's where it gets complicated. Because at some point you have to fight for something. At some point, you have to be willing to die for something. And that means you have to step into it and say, cool, I'm right about. I'm just gonna go. And I mean, entrepreneurship has given me a battleground over the last 25 years of how to step in and out of that frame but never be stuck in either. Like, oh, God, I don't know what to do. Or I know everything. We're gonna do it just like this. Both of those are pathological and both of those are necessary.

[Drew]

Can we tin hat it for a little bit? Please adjust our tin hats. Revi had a really good interesting take. This US China war is very simple. US lost the AI and energy arms race to China and degrading China's allies is all that's left on the table. Now saying this is just a proxy of a proxy of a proxy to China.

[Tom]

I mean, maybe Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, said, and I don't know when he said it, but it was a minute ago. The US is almost certainly going to find itself fighting a three front war between Russia, China and Iran. So my gut instinct is this is the US versus people who see an opportunity to weaken the us they are almost certainly uneasy allies. I will Remind everybody that we were allies. Well, ironically, Germany was an ally with Russia during World War II, then they broke up and then America was allies with Russia. And then as soon as the war was over, we were staunch enemies. So what's the phrase? There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests. So people are going to follow their own interests. Right now, Russia and China and Iran have an uneasy shared desire, which is we would like America to be weaker. And look, I get it. I'm on Team America. I want to be very clear. I want America to be stronger than everybody, a thousand percent. But I get why the other team wants to win. Like, I don't go into a championship game thinking, oh, I bet they hope we win. Like, they want to win. They want the trophy, they want the ring, they want the crown. They want to be the ones that get to tell the rest of the world what to do. So, I mean, that, that is just the nature of things. So Russia, China, Iran all believe. Almost certainly in fact it. From where I'm sitting, it just is true. Their lives would be better if America was weaker. So whether they intend to do it or not is irrelevant. They all want the same thing. This is why so much of the Middle east is quiet about Israel slapping Iran around. Because it's like they're all like, ah, these kids. Like, oil is going to run out. Even if oil doesn't run out, oil isn't the future. The sun is the future. And so what do we have if we've built our entire economy on oil? And then what do we really have if we built our entire economy on oil and people are afraid of us. And remember, the US spends so much money, our GDP is about expenditure, which means the Middle east, if they're going to transition away, they've got to get America, they've got to get Europe to want to go there and travel. And so mbs, remember a guy that had a journalist slaughtered inside of. I think the embassy is like, yeah, we really gotta, like, do something new. That's. It's not like you have to trust him to be a good person. You just have to trust him to follow his interests. And his interests are, yeah, like, listen, the next generation isn't going to be able to live off oil the way that we have. Technology is just not moving in that direction. And follow that

[Drew]

1 to 10. The US joins the war.

[Tom]

What's your, what do you call joining the war? We will drop a bomb. Trump is gonna throw a punch.

[Drew]

I mean, if you let Ted Cruz call. We already are attacking Iran Right now.

[Tom]

So then done. You're in.

[Drew]

We're in. So 10, 10 out of 10 seems self evident.

[Tom]

Boots on the ground, 1 out of 10.

[Drew]

Okay, so you think we'll drone them, strike them?

[Tom]

I hope we drop literally two or three bombs on Fordow and peace the fuck out.

[Drew]

Got you. Mason, what you got?

[Mason]

It's on the ground. Probably a 1 out of 10 as well, US being in it right now. The main thing that I'm thinking about is honestly I'm not so much on that as I am on the re retaliation. I'm worried about retaliation being in la, a bigger city that's closer to that coast. I'm like, I don't want that. And so anything we can do to avoid that. Tom, what's your take on if the US gets involved? Retaliation?

[Tom]

They'll, they will go after our bases if they still have capabilities. But if from the intel coming out of Israel, the rockets going into Israel have dropped by 90%. But yeah, if we, if we drop bombs on. For now, the odds of our bases getting attacked for me goes to like a seven. It just becomes a question of do they want to divide their energy? Probably like at some point they're just gonna be mad about it. And if as a world leader, bluffing constantly is a bad strategy. And so they've already called it and said, if you do this, then we're gonna start hitting your bases and ps, your bases are easier for us to hit than Israel. And so if you do this, then we're going to start hitting your bases. So my gut instinct is they really would do that unless Israel has just completely incapacitated their ability to fire. Doesn't seem like it. They launched I don't know how many rockets last night.

[Drew]

A lot.

[Tom]

So unless that was like their last gasp ditch effort, which I doubt they'll have some capabilities on a longer timeline.

[Mason]

Are you, do you think that we will inevitably start dropping nukes?

[Tom]

We the world? No, like we're saying, like in a hundred years.

[Drew]

Sure. Like you're saying we just get comfortable

[Mason]

dropping nukes, meaning we have them now. When we had the atomic bomb, it got used.

[Tom]

And so I think the only way that a nuke gets used is if somebody believes that God is on their side and telling them to do it or it's dead hand. Meaning take a Putin, oh shit, they're about to kill me. Red button that I could see, but even that man, you're consigning all of your citizens because you know that there's an automatic retaliatory strike that comes your way. And so maybe dirty bombs, like walking the line between what. What would the international community feel compelled to respond to with nuclear force? They might walk that line, but like, big, proper nukes. Unless you believe that life is better after death. Which is why I worry about a theocracy having their hands on a nuclear weapon. Because it's like, yeah, if you guys retaliate, then so be it, But God damn, it just seems, like, so wacky. But that, that's me trapped inside my own frame of reference. But I don't understand, like, would you really sacrifice your entire nation to destroy another nation? Like, I can't. I am stuck in my frame of reference and cannot make that calculus make sense. But yet you see them pushing like crazy for a nuclear weapon. But it could just be, we want to have one so that we know that who is it? Was it Gaddafi that gave up nuclear weapons? It was somebody that gave up nuclear weapons. And then, boom, regime change, like, very shortly thereafter. So they may be looking at it just like we know we need the stability to stay in power. We want the deterrent. They may not, in their heart of hearts, plan to use it. I mean, all that shit's tough to say.

[Drew]

Shout out to Rubsy in the chat for spreading giving us this link. Jeffrey Sachs talked about Iran and if they actually had nuclear weapons.

[Jeffrey Sachs]

Iran does not want a nuclear weapon. Iran's neighbors, like the Saudis and others in the Gulf, do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Iran's major ally, Russia, does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And Iran doesn't want a nuclear weapon. But Iran does not want to be defeated militarily by Israel, does not want to be bombed to hell by Israel, and does not want to be sanctioned to death economically by the United States, which the US has been doing now for endless years. So Iran has said for 10 years, 11 years, 12 years, unequivocally, we don't want a nuclear weapon. We want an agreement with you. We want you to lift sanctions, and we want a no nuclear system and with all verifications and monitoring and safety as well.

[Tom]

So we would need to see what the plan is. So Trump was saying, I told him to sign, I told him to sign, I told him to sign. Was it like everything you ever wanted, Iran, except for the fact that you can't have nuclear weapons and they wouldn't agree to it? Or was it like a poison pill where there were so many other things as well, and they couldn't have the nuclear weapon and so they're like, fuck, man. Like, it's not even the nuclear weapon that we care about. It's these other things.

[Drew]

Things.

[Tom]

But that has not been the rhetoric that I have seen. The rhetoric that I've seen is nobody's going to tell us what we can do. If we want to enrich this, we're going to enrich this, and y' all can back the up. So I have a hard time reconciling that with what Jeffrey Sachs is saying. If somebody goes, I don't want to beat my wife, as they're punching their wife in the face, I'm like, wait, hold on. What? You say you don't want to do it, but I'm literally watching you do it. So again, that comes down to, are they actually developing nuclear weapons? Given they have violated the non proliferation agreement, given they refuse to. Like, people have said, hey, we will sell you the uranium that's enriched to the point where you would need it for energy. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So even if they wish they didn't need one, like, for sure.

[Drew]

Cool.

[Tom]

If what we mean is Iran is saying, man, I wish you weren't making me do this, and now I'm going to get this nuclear weapon because I feel like I have to to protect myself from Israel, then okay, cool, understood your motives. It doesn't mean that it changes my calculus. And some of this comes down to what do p. What do people think Israel would do if the world had not. Not the world. If Iran and its proxies had not said, we're gonna kill you for existing? Like, if people are just like, yo, these kids. But we're gonna take diplomatic things, we're gonna go to the UN and we're gonna protest. They shouldn't have their state versus terrorist organizations being funded and built up. Raunchy, raunching, launching rockets at them, would Israel have become so militaristically focused that they felt like, okay, we've got to be prepared to defend ourselves against anything, because as Israel gets stronger, I get Iran's impulse to also get stronger. But it's like, where are we going to clock this problem? Are we going to clock it at, hey, we founded a state and so we're like, bad Israel. And now everybody should be able to say, you, I'm going to get a strong, I'm going to nuke you. I'm going to get you the out of here. Or are we going to clock it at, cool, Israel exists now. And so anybody saying, death to Israel, they're The problem. And I think ultimately that's where this breaks. In fact, if you're trying to map the way I think about it, has high predictive validity to know that even though I think when people get states the way they do it is they take that. But then, hey, the state now exists. And now all the things that we think of as international law kick in. And so invading sovereign borders, which is a pretty recent thing, by the way, that Europe all agreed upon, I forget, like, in the 1800s, at some point, they're like, hell, like, we're tired of all this, so these are the borders. We're just gonna leave it that way.

[Guest]

So.

[Tom]

And then comes this idea of, okay, we don't invade a sovereign nation to. To take them over. So depending on where you clock that, I think depends will determine your read on this situation.

[Drew]

Seth, in the chat, brought up a good point, said Iran was asking for, you know, ceasefire talks, peace negotiations. They wanted to already work toward the end of this war.

[Tom]

So that you're saying now the new calls.

[Drew]

Yeah, the new cause. Yeah. What do you say to those people that are like, see, Iran is just, you know, defenseless and the big old bully Israel is just trying to find another country to beat on?

[Tom]

Like, yeah, that's dumb. So here's the thing. If I'm Iran and I'm about to develop nuclear weapons, I say, hey, guys, let's go back to the negotiating table. And I'm doing that because I want to drag it out long enough for me to get the bomb, because then I'm in a much stronger position, and I know that I can negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, until, oh, it just didn't work. And I bought myself how much time? A week, a month, two months, six months, who knows? But you can buy yourself a lot of time doing that. If Iran isn't about to get a nuclear weapon, then they still would want to go back to the negotiating table, take this on as long as they can, build up allies, do whatever, so that they can get themselves in a stronger position. So given that from the outside, you would not be able to tell the difference between those two things. I think you have to assume that that's just bullshit. Given if you think you can trust Trump's assessment of the negotiation. Like, if you look at Trump and go, no, fuck this guy. You cannot trust him with negotiations. He doesn't give a about that. He's just a bully. He goes in, he's going to get what he wants, and he's just not going to stop for anything short of that. Okay, then I get it. Then your perspective is going to be that the US is almost certainly bullying Iran, so we should go back to the negotiating table and we should stop being the that are making this impossible. And then the converse is true. So if you think that no, you really can read him well, that if Trump says that he did everything to get them to agree to a deal, gave them every reasonable opportunity to get on board with something sensible, all he really cares about is the nuclear deal. And just like he did with the Abraham Accords, he's really trying to bring people into the 21st century economically. He's willing to do deals with anybody that's willing to be a good faith actor. And so if he pulls out, it's like, yeah, well then him again, depending on which base assumption you make is going to determine how you read the situation.

[Drew]

You would appreciate this comment from Keps. The Israel problem is not our problems. There is no world police anymore. So many trillions of debt. Why get in more wars and debt for Israel?

[Tom]

Doing it for Israel I think would be a mistake. So the question becomes, is Trump doing this for Israel? Now admittedly I have. You can run the thought experiment. So I'm certainly not paralyzed in terms of how I think through this problem. But I'm very eager to see what, what are the stated reasons for the extreme allyship between America and Israel? Is it just Israel funnels money into American politics through Israel directly. In terms of they buy weapons from us with money we give them. I'm well aware of that. But still they spend it back on us. And then aipac, which I have sort of a rough vision of. You've got a lot of very wealthy donors that are like, oh, we know how this game is played. And they flood money into politics and that gets people elected and people are going to do anything they can. Like is it really that? Is it about stabilizing the region? And they were the first signal that we could bring such an oil rich society into the 21st century where it's more about trade. All of these are good questions. Did people read the coming collision? Because I think we have a coming collision of values. Did they? I don't know. That one seems very unlikely. Certainly not starting back when we were toppling regimes, I think that was all about oil. But that will be interesting to see. I will need to build an accurate map of Israel's influence over the U.S. america's influence over Israel, America's influence over the Middle east, whether all of the beef with Israel is territorial, whether it's religious combination of the two. So the burgeoning mental map that I have is one that says the only way to get to the other side of this is to make everybody care economically about their children's future on planet Earth. And that anybody that's like, I'm only worried about my kids future in heaven, that found your problem.

[Mason]

We've got an interesting question in a super chat from V Junks.

[Tom]

Why?

[Mason]

Why does conflict always erupt before we take a step forward as a civilization? We can't chill until we reach AGI fusion and super intelligence. Nope, we need to chimp out.

[Tom]

It's actually, it's probably more of a comment than a real question, but yes, I don't know that the two are directly related, but there is something fascinating about. It's always going to be a weakness in the system that allows people to move. I think this has more to do with the economic system that America has. The conflict between America and China, weak leadership in terms of foreign policy over the Biden administration created this moment. And it just happens to be coinciding with AI because right now AI is only played out as something to ratchet up tensions between China. AI is one of the. I mean honestly, it started economically for sure, but you have now the specter of AI as a thing to solidify the reason to migrate China from rival to adversary. So all of that plays into everybody's calculus as they look at that where China's like, oh, we see an opportunity now. The US is weaker than they have been historically. They must have been salivating in 2008 when, because they understand the economics of it all. They understand what it meant to print that much money at how weak of a position that would put us in. They must have been doubly excited when we froze Russia's assets, knowing that that was going to accelerate de dollarization. So it's. Man, geopolitics is a crazy game. I think so much of certainly the Western frame of reference is because things that we have not lived through just seem fake, they seem impossible. And because we have not lived through a collapsing currency, a world war. Just like those things aren't real and we're now watching it come to an end. I cannot tell you how many times growing up I heard and believed we were at the end of history, that the world was now so perfect and so amazing that you're never going to go back to that barbaric shit. But that is beyond Western. That's because I grew up in America. You're not like experiencing the trauma that somebody experiences, say in South America, where it's like you're being held down by an economic superpower, people don't even understand how they fuck you up. So it's a uniquely Western perspective on what was simply a extended period of calm post a brutal war that gave you a single world copy that brutally kept the peace. But when you're on the side of the brutality, and here, here is a very real thing that has to be acknowledged, and you have a society that manipulates their base rather than outright authoritarian style cracks down on them. And that is a world of fucking difference. There is a world of, a world of difference psychologically between stealing somebody's money through inflation and stealing their money in their bank account, like they did in Cyprus. They literally, you just woke up one day and they took 50% of anything you had in your account. Over 100,000. Can you fucking imagine? Just gone poof. Not yours anymore. Crazy. Now, in the last 100 years, the US through inflation, has stolen 98% of people's purchasing power. 25% of that 98% or 25% of that, the total happened in the last five fucking years. So when somebody does it through inflation, you're chill about it. So anyway, the fact that America, we manipulate the shit out of our population 1000%, but we don't fucking crush them down until Covid. And then we tried crushing them down. So. But that's why people were like, I'm never going to fall for Covid again.

[Drew]

And now we don't trust anything.

[Tom]

Stuff is so interesting, but it's so dangerous.

[Mason]

We got a 20. Super chat.

[Tom]

Yeah, super chat. Eric, you good?

[Mason]

From Trey Babino.

[Tom]

Let's go, Trey.

[Mason]

I think Trump is saying, look, Iran, I, I told you you should have taken the deal. Now I'm gonna have my boy work you over real good for a little while. And yes, we'll have this conversation again.

[Tom]

Yes, literally. Trey, run for office. Trey, run for office. You. Trey gets my vote. He can sum things up in a no bullshit manner. That is precisely what's happening. A thousand percent.

[Drew]

All right, let's put those tinfoil hats back on because Anonymous has just claimed they have secret files exposing a false flag plot to get us into the war. They have a time ticker of 17 days. This was yesterday or Monday night. So I guess we're on day 15 and a half right now. I'm going to jump to the last

[Anonymous]

minute, but now you know, and knowing changes everything. This is not just about geopolitics. This is about the manipulation of a population through violence, fear, and engineered narrative. In the next few days, weeks, or months, this will happen. It's a guarantee. The irrefutable proof of what's being planned is in this message. You don't have to believe us now. Just know when you see it, who the true terrorists are. It is not who they will say it is. It will come from none other than our own greatest ally. When you see it, you will understand the scale. You will understand the pattern. If we stay silent, we walk into the trap. But if we stand together, share the truth and refuse to be played, we can stop it. Or at the very least, wake the nation and the world up to what's actually happening. You are not powerless. You are not alone. Prepare. Stay alert. And above all, think for yourself. We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forget. We do not forget. Expect us.

[Tom]

I want to know if that guy who can, like, find you no matter like what, because he looks at the type of garage door you have behind you and is like, oh, bro, this is on 32nd Street.

[Drew]

Anonymous series.

[Tom]

Yeah, like, find those guys. We'll see, man. We'll see.

[Drew]

Yeah, this. This reads like a bad movie.

[Tom]

Does it read like a bad movie or does it read like a fucking thrilling, terrifying.

[Drew]

No, this sounds like a straight to tubi.

[Tom]

Do you think it's real or literal? Total bullshit.

[Drew]

If you have the files, drop them. We're in this world of, like, I have secrets that you know, that you would want to know, but I'm not going to give you these secrets. But those. Just drop the secrets, bro. Like, you have a plot that it's going to happen, okay? I would stay out of New York City. Wink, wink, nudge. Like, give a. Like, try to save a life. Try to do something that helps. Maybe they are and we're just not seeing it. I don't get it, but this just seems super ominous at a crucial point in time. And if I was a. On the spectrum, meaning, like, mental health,

[Tom]

not all the who's gonna get the show shut down.

[Drew]

Yeah, yeah. If I was anonymous.

[Tom]

Rolls up click.

[Drew]

If I was somebody that's not all the way there in my mental, this will then motivate me. In 17 days, all right, I got to figure out a terror. Like, you know, I mean, like, we have lone vigilantes gunning down Minnesota leaders gunning down CEOs, trying to gun down the President. I don't know if we need a anonymous group that's trying to help us not say anything except you about to get attacked in 17 days. If Iran released this video, we would have the exact opposite reaction. But the fact that, like, Anonymous says it and they have cool mask on, it's like, ooh, I wonder if it's coming in 17 days. Am I the only one? Everybody's looking at me with blank faces.

[Tom]

Well, so I just want to see how you wrap it up. But what's running in my head is that you these days, you have to be a marketer. Whether you're a terrorist or a president of a country. You actually have to understand how to get people's attention. You have to cut the noise.

[Drew]

That is like a short. If. Could we, like, cut that and, like, release. Like, you have to be a marketer even if you're a terrorist organization.

[Tom]

Correct. And you also, if they end up being right, they will have gained a ton of credibility. And so if they drop the files and then nothing happens, everybody's like, these guys are whack jobs. This is probably fake from the beginning. So I'm not saying that's good. And I'm totally on board with your, like, if you can save a life, go do your thing. But there is a reason that intelligence agencies don't tell you what they're doing. There is a reason that Iran lost credibility in my eyes when they were like, we're gonna do something tonight that will be remembered for centuries. I was like, if you're really gonna do something, you just do it. Like, I don't want anybody to heads up. Like, I want to fucking hit some people. So this is showmanship. Now, what's crazy is how impactful it is, how useful it is, how this is a game of frame of reference. This is a game of narrative control. Like, when you really look at what politics is, it is a game of narrative control. And you know, I'm going to do it like this. That's going to get some people on my side, like, hyped up. They're going to feel like, yo, we're in this. We're really doing a thing. Also, when they post in English, like, you know that who they're actually trying to talk to. So all of this stuff is an utterly fascinating glimpse into the human mind. Now, what scares the out of me is humans are dangerous, man. We are dangerous. We will blow each other up, we will kill each other, we will rape and torture. And it's like, man, did I want to think that we were somehow on the other side of that as we matured as a civilization, and maybe I guess that we're less violent now, it's hard to believe in this moment, but less violent now than we've ever been, admittedly. When I hear about greasing whatever, 20,000 spikes, ramming them up people's asses, this is a real story. And then leaving them to die on those pikes. So that when the invading army comes in and they see 20,000 people dying slowly on a pike, this is Vlad the Impaler, that they're like, yeah, maybe we don't want to fight these.

[Drew]

I don't have beef anymore.

[Mason]

So.

[Drew]

And he said, Greece?

[Tom]

No, no, he is in Romania, I think. So that's how you defeat a bigger army. It's like, it's psychological warfare. And so, sure, some of it feels awkward and clumsy and all of that, but the game is being played on so many different levels. Like, we haven't even talked about the fact that Israel supposedly wiped out, like a billion dollars worth of crypto holdings by hacking a bunch of wallets that Iran was supposedly using to get around sanctions. So it's like, you've got the hacker side of this, you've got the marketing side of this, you've got the posturing from the west, from Trump, from Netanyahu, you've got posturing from the Iranian leadership. So it's like this game that's just being played on all these levels. But the part that I, I am always curious about is step back and tell me, what are you actually fighting for? And if everybody's answer is, I'm just afraid of the other guy, it's like, really? Because that feels solvable. If we're all just afraid of the other guy, then let's chill. But the problem is that you get into the prisoner's dilemma. So someone somewhere is lying. And the way that people feel about this comes down to who they think is lying, who started it, where they start the clock. But I believe we live in a deterministic universe and these are just a bunch of pool balls bouncing off of each other. And it just is what it is, Which I don't love.

[Drew]

Cool. That's all I got. Last words, Tom.

[Tom]

No, that's it, everybody. Thank you guys so much for being here. As always. Appreciate it. We'll be back on Friday. These are crazy ass times. And so having you guys here pushing, getting us to think better about these things is rad. Really appreciate the community that we're putting together here. This is really turning into something. The growth has been spectacular. I could not be more grateful. We've got a deep dive coming up this Monday. If you didn't see the one that we launched this Monday on AI make sure that you check that one out. You guys have made the one that we did on Jekyll island an absolute smash hit. I cannot thank you enough for that. One of our top performing videos in a very, very long time. So super grateful to support there. Check it out, tell people about it at least for now. You're going to get one of those a week. Very open for suggestions. So let us know. And we've got check out the interview

[Drew]

with Rizwan Verk that just dropped yesterday about simulation theory. So if you like this conversation about if we are a code, if how do we reboot ourselves, all these other things. So check that.

[Tom]

There it is. All right. And if you guys haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.

[Mason]

Peace.