A New U.S. Secret Plan to Destabilize Latin America? Plus, the UFO Files Letdown With Van Lathan

Summary

Podcast Summary: "A New U.S. Secret Plan to Destabilize Latin America? Plus, the UFO Files Letdown With Van Lathan"

Podcast: Wait a Second... (The Ringer)
Episode Date: May 14, 2026
Hosts: Jason Concepcion, Tyler Parker
Featured Guest: Van Lathan

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into two headline-grabbing news stories: explosive allegations of a new U.S.-backed plot to destabilize Latin American leftist governments (dubbed "Honduras Gate") and the much-hyped, but ultimately disappointing, release of declassified U.S. UFO files. The hosts recap America's long, brutal history of interventionism in Latin America, analyze the roles of foreign actors and big tech, question the veracity of leaked evidence, and vent their skepticism and exasperation over the government’s UFO disclosure. The discussion is sharp, irreverent, and historically aware, full of side commentary, pop culture analogies, and personal reflections.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Honduras Gate: A New U.S. Covert Plan in Latin America

(00:06 – 38:04)

Historical Context: "Banana Republics" and American Interference

• The episode opens with a narrative flashback (00:06) describing U.S. corporate colonialism (United Fruit Company, "banana republics")—recounting coups, massacres, and U.S. support for brutal regimes.
• "200,000 dead in Guatemala and the genocide of the local Maya population. 30,000 in Nicaragua... And through it all, the bananas keep sailing north." (00:06)

Current Scandal: The Leaked "Honduras Gate" Audios

• On April 30, Diario Red America Latina leaked audio messages allegedly between convicted former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández and top officials in Honduras and Argentina. (03:45)
  • Hernández, previously convicted of massive cocaine trafficking, was mysteriously pardoned by Trump.
  • Leaks suggest Hernández’s pardon was part of a deal: he would operate as a U.S. asset, run a Miami-based attack-media campaign bankrolled by Honduran public funds and Argentine money, targeting leftwing Latin governments. (04:17)
• The audios were "authenticated" by a Czech forensic tool, Phoenicia Voice Inspector, but the chain of custody is "a little fuzzy." (05:23)
• Incriminating claims involve Trump, Netanyahu, a “council of rabbis,” and Silicon Valley figures like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, whose companies are currently suing Honduras over rare earth mining rights. (05:23–07:35)

Why This Matters: Patterns of U.S. Intervention

• U.S. has a century-long history of direct and indirect coups in Latin America (13:37), with both parties complicit.
  • "Obama was doing this too...We used all these linguistic kind of trickeries to say that it wasn’t a coup." (14:05)
• The purported plan matches old patterns but involves new tools (e.g., digital propaganda, tech VC involvement, resource extraction by multinational tech interests).
• Rare earth minerals in Honduras are a key motivator in the geopolitical scramble with China. (07:35, 21:06)

Cynical Realism and Agency

• The group underscores that both U.S. and local right-wing elites collaborate in such schemes; leftist regimes can become dictatorial too—"Sometimes it's complicated." (17:47)
• The U.S. public is rarely forced to reckon with the costs and moral tradeoffs of resource-based hegemony: "Would I rather have cheaper gas, and at the same time have people in Latin America be dominated?" (16:02)

The Audios' Credibility and the "Too Good To Be True" Problem

• The evidence is widely discussed in Latin America but undercovered in U.S. media.
• The specificity of names/amounts in the audio raises suspicion: "Who's taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?" (31:21)
• "Even if he really said these things... is he crafting a very convenient... is he's laying this at the feet of the Israelis? Because this is a time where [their] reputation...is the most divisive." (32:10–32:35)
• The panel doubts the chain of custody but agrees the story "fits a hundred-year pattern." (34:09)

Migration, Prisons, and Brutality

• Part of the plan appears to be deterring migration by supporting local mega-prisons and suppressing would-be migrants (21:41–23:07).
• Tyler calls out the hypocrisy and empirical reality: record immigration coincided with decreasing American crime rates. (24:30–25:56)

Brutal Consistency Across Administrations

• “It’s an American tradition...” and "an endeavor into power, into hegemony over the world..." (28:43)

Notable Quotes

• “America…on average is involved in a coup in Latin America…once every 28 months.” — Van Lathan (34:09)
• "It's prosperity here at home is connected to brutality and domination in Latin America." — Tyler Parker (16:01)
• "If we can't go into your country, destabilize your government, and take all your shit, how are we supposed to enjoy the NBA without somebody else paying for it?" — Tyler Parker (08:44)

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2. The UFO Files: Transparency or Distraction?

(41:01 – 48:51)

A ‘Groan of Disappointment’ from UFO Researchers

• The U.S. government drops 162 declassified "UFO" documents (photos, videos, case files) (41:21)
• Researchers call it a nothingburger: “another obstacle that’s misdirection disguised as transparency.” — John Greenwald (Black Vault) (41:44)
  • "None of the objects is sufficiently extraordinary to require an exotic origin." — Avi Loeb (42:01)

Distraction Tactic?

• Hosts joke the "transparency" is a ploy to distract from real scandals (e.g., Honduras Gate, Epstein files, gas prices). (43:12)

If Aliens Are Real… Show Us

• Tyler: “This drop convinces me that aliens are real. Not because of what’s in there. Because of how they did it.” (43:48)
• The others riff on what would really convince them: craft behaving impossibly, or aliens just showing up. (44:38–46:38)
• "We want to see some shit the Millennium Falcon could do."—Tyler Parker (46:38)

Notable Quotes

• "They're hiding the real shit. I want the UFOs. I want the aliens to take some pride in themselves. They fucking with us. Show yourself." — Tyler Parker (44:41)

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3. Doom Scroll: News Roundup and Commentary

(51:02 – end)

Justin Bieber, Palantir, and Messy Gigs

• Bieber criticized for performing at a party with ICE/Palantir ties despite prior activism (51:02–54:03)
• Convo devolves into quippy riffs about industry, responsibility, and tech.

The "Plague Ship" and Hantavirus Fears

• Breaking: outbreak on cruise ship, 38% case fatality rate; "If COVID was even 4% more fatal...38% is end of the world movie." (55:13–57:17)
• “You said Nebraska…I'm not going to Omaha…I’m telling you right now, you getting it. Just get ready.” — Tyler Parker (56:05–57:57)

Xi Jinping’s Military Purge: Signals for Taiwan?

• Coverage of Xi’s ongoing military purges (100+ officers purged, including experienced war generals). (58:42–61:24)
• U.S.-China-Taiwan tensions: “I think it could be the mistake that really loosens the grip of Xi's party on China.” — Tyler Parker (62:21)
• Conspiracy: hypothetical grand bargain—Trump does Latin America/Iran, China takes Taiwan, Russia takes Ukraine. (63:02+)

Social Media "Looksmaxing" and the Manosphere’s Evolution

• Discussion of notorious YouTuber "Clavicular," the looksmax trend, and its tech-funder ties (68:00–71:50)
• “He seems to be linked to funding from Peter Thiel and other right-leaning techno-fascist types in Silicon Valley…” — Van Lathan (68:33)
• The group warns about what kids are watching online and the evolution of toxic online influencer subcultures.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Would I rather have cheaper gas, and at the same time have people in Latin America be dominated?" — Tyler Parker (16:02)
• “It's prosperity here at home is connected to brutality and domination in Latin America.” — Tyler Parker (16:01)
• "If we can't go into your country, destabilize your government and then take all your shit, how are we supposed to enjoy the NBA without somebody else paying for it?" — Tyler Parker (08:44)
• “America, on average, is involved in a coup in Latin America once every 28 months.” — Van Lathan (34:09)
• “They're hiding the real shit. I want the UFOs. I want the aliens to take some pride in themselves.” — Tyler Parker (44:41)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:06: Cold open on the origins of "banana republics" and historical U.S. interventions.
• 03:45: Breakdown of the alleged "Honduras Gate" coup plot, pardons, and rare earth mining.
• 13:37: A timeline of U.S. interventions and coups.
• 21:06: Rare earth minerals and U.S.-China tech rivalry.
• 32:10: Skepticism about the conspiracy details and Israeli involvement.
• 34:09: Frequency of U.S. coups in Latin America.
• 41:01: UFO Files segment; researcher reactions.
• 44:38: Hosts vent about wanting "real" UFO evidence.
• 51:02: Doom Scroll: Bieber at Palantir party, plague cruise updates, China military purge.
• 68:00: "Clavicular," looksmaxing, toxic online influencer trends.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is fast-paced, darkly comedic, deeply skeptical, and full of cultural references. The hosts mix biting historical analysis with irreverent humor, skepticism about official narratives, and the occasional absurdist aside ("When I'm president, what am I going to do about Latin America? Have a good time."). They are critical of both left- and right-leaning American administrations, aware of the complexities and ironies of geopolitics, and quick to deflate media hype (especially around UFOs and influencer culture).

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For New Listeners

This episode is an incisive, sometimes chilling, and often funny look at intersection of American power, media, conspiracy, and global upheaval—a perfect entry point for anyone looking to catch up on the wildest news stories behind the headlines, without the BS.

Transcript

[Narrator]

It's spring, 1897, and you're sitting on the veranda of a hotel in Trujillo on the north coast of Honduras. You are William Sidney Porter, a writer and a journalist on the run for embezzlement. One day you will write one of the most famous Christmas stories of all time. But today, your mind is on darker things. You're looking for a phrase to describe what you're seeing in Honduras, where boats flying the flag of the Boston Fruit Company fill the ports. Something that captures a country under the brutal boot of foreign business interests. You write two words in your banana republic. In two years, the Boston Fruit Company will merge with the rail and fruit empire to become the United Fruit Company. What United Fruit wants from Honduras and from every country in the region is not complicated. They want land cheap, preferably free. They want the rail lines built at someone else's expense. They want their ships in and out of these harbors without duties, their plantations exempt from taxes, their workers cheap, unorganized and replaceable. They want a government that signs what they put in front of it and stays out of the way. Years from now, an American executive named Sam Zimuri will engineer a coup here. Years after that, across the border in Colombia, banana workers who ask for a six day work week and to be paid in money, not company script will be machine gunned by the Colombian army on behalf of United Fruit. The years that follow are a litany of the same. 200,000 dead in Guatemala and the genocide of the local Maya population. 30,000 in Nicaragua. 184 students, priests and labor leaders disappeared by Honduran officers trained at the United States Army School of the Americas. A Lenka woman named Berta Caceres fighting a dam being built on her people's river, shot by men trained at the same school. And through it all, the bananas keep sailing north. You will not see any of this. When you learn your wife is dying of tuberculosis, you return home, stand trial and go to prison. When you come out, you take the name O. Henry and the story you write becomes famous. The Gift of the Magi. Every American school kid will read. None of them will know about the

[Van Lathan]

phrase you coined or what happened down here.

[Narrator]

This is.

[Van Lathan]

Wait a second.

[Narrator]

Honduras Gate and more.

[Van Lathan]

I'm Jason Concepcion. That's Tyler Parker.

[Jason Concepcion]

Sup?

[Van Lathan]

We are delighted to have back with us the future 48th, 49th and 50th President of the United States, Mr. Van Leven.

[Tyler Parker]

That could happen. I got some water.

[Van Lathan]

And today we're discussing a story that is blowing up in the Spanish language news, Latin American press and the Continental European Spanish speaking press. It is called Honduras Gate. Here's what is going on in honduras gate. On April 30, the Spanish language outlet Diario Red America Latina, which is a left leaning outlet, released audio recordings culled from WhatsApp Signal and Telegram voice notes. And the recordings are alleged to be of Juan Orlando Hernandez. Now you may remember Juan, that name, Juan Orlando Hernandez is the former Honduran president who was arrested and convicted for trafficking vast amounts of cocaine into the US in collaboration with El Chapo Guzman.

[Tyler Parker]

Frowned upon, Right.

[Van Lathan]

Who was very mysteriously, completely pardoned by Trump and let free. So it's voice messages between him and various others as well as the current Honduran president, Nasrid Tito Asfura.

[Tyler Parker]

Nasrid.

[Van Lathan]

Nasrid. Nasri, not Nasrid. Nasrid is doing double duties.

[Tyler Parker]

Nasri, you got a game tonight, man.

[Jason Concepcion]

He's a talented guy, can shoot the three.

[Tyler Parker]

He's also Jellyfam.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Vice President Maria Antoinetta Mieja, Congress President Tomas Zambrano and electoral counselor Cosette Lopez Osario. The audios describe an alleged transnational arrangement in exchange for Trump's pardon. Joh Hernandez would operate as a regional political asset regardless, returning to power in Honduras, running a US based digital journalism cell funded with Honduran public money, including 350,000 allegedly from the Malay government in Argentina to manufacture damaging news stories against leftist governments in the area, including Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico and Gustavo Petro of Colombia. The voice, identified as Hernandez, attributes the financing of his pardon to a council of rabbis and people who supported IS and says Netanyahu had, quote, everything to do with his release. The audios were authenticated using a Czech voice forensic software called Phoenicia Voice Inspector. More on that tbd, because I think the chain of custody is a little

[Jason Concepcion]

bit fuzzy, but it does seem like a lot of organizations and agencies use that, right?

[Van Lathan]

Yes. Okay, we'll talk about why we should take that with a grain of salt and we'll still talk about why even without the audios. I think there's a lot of. There, there's. Hernandez and Zebra have denied the recordings are real. Asphira has not publicly addressed the substance. And the Trump White House, the Israeli government and the Malay government of Argentina have all like not said anything. Now, why is this a big deal? Because there are a lot of. First of all, America has a over 100 year history of direct interventional in Latin American governments, including over 40 active coups that we were involved in or backed somehow. And this would seem to all fit into that. Also going on in Honduras, there are these economic zones, like free economic zones where the government of Honduras is letting certain corporations come in and do business tax free, including like rare earth mineral. This is a big one, rare earth mineral mining. And so one of these zones apparently sits on like what is expected to be a very important rare earth mineral deposit. And the previous president, who is a more left leaning president than the one they have just elected, which that's a whole other thing, was going to revoke the law that allowed these economic zones to happen. And so they are being sued by a consortium of western companies, including Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen. And they're holding corporations that are involved in these businesses for one third of the GDP of Honduras. Like they're being sued for $10 billion of Honduras GDP is 30 million. 30 billion. So there's a lot of reasons why even if you don't believe the audios, this is actually happening. Your thoughts on this?

[Tyler Parker]

Couple of thoughts, yes. Number one, it is interesting to learn about these things in real time.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

Right. Now I was a kid when the whole Iran Contra thing blew up and we realized just the lengths that the American government was going to, to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Right. So like when that whole thing was happening as a kid. But I guess that was in real time that that was happening. But it was a near past look back at some operations that have been going on. Now I'm wondering just how America is supposed to destabilize governments in Latin American countries when there's so much tech. This is un American, this reporting. This is what we do. We go around and we find out what natural resources you have and then we, we drop a political atom bomb into your country and we wait until it sprays its political radiation everywhere and then we harvest you. Now what if we can't do that anymore? What kind of world are we living in?

[Jason Concepcion]

Sure.

[Tyler Parker]

Well, we can't go into your country, destabilize your government and then take all your shit. How are we supposed to enjoy the NBA without somebody else paying for it?

[Van Lathan]

Vice President of Honduras, Nas Reed. Answer the question.

[Tyler Parker]

So when I was reading all of this, I was thinking, number one, of course we all know this is business as usual for the American.

[Van Lathan]

We've been doing this 100 years, right.

[Tyler Parker]

Any hedge of that. Right. Like of course, been doing this for a long time. But number two, like this is actually, I wonder politically how this plays out. So Donald Trump and the entire sort of right leading World Brigade of leaders have been very outward about the fact that they want to destroy left leaning governments everywhere.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yes, yes.

[Tyler Parker]

And you know, obviously Viktor Orban losing his, his election was.

[Van Lathan]

Shouts to Vic.

[Tyler Parker]

Well, shouts, hey, Vic on you, Doc. You know, like huge.

[Van Lathan]

Ben Shapiro had to lay like half his company off as soon as Vic

[Tyler Parker]

was out of office. We ain't got Vic no more.

[Van Lathan]

We ain't got Vic money no more.

[Tyler Parker]

They sent, they sent, they sent JD Vance over there to try to help Vic out. Hey, I have a. Before I even get back to this. Yeah, yeah, I'm being long winded as usual. Before I get back to this, I think Trump is secretly undermining J.D. vance.

[Van Lathan]

I didn't think even not that secretly,

[Tyler Parker]

I think he's putting J.D. vance in positions to fail. Yeah, it's like putting Alvarado at center. You must not fucking like Jose Alvarado. Right.

[Jason Concepcion]

It's like Grand Theft Alvarado. Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

You can google him, but like it's like putting him like, he's like, okay, Orban's in Trouble, go see J.D. all right. Peace talks aren't going well. Go send J.D. and then after it's all said and done, watch what I say. Trump is going to say, listen, I gave JD all these things to do.

[Van Lathan]

I know, you're right.

[Tyler Parker]

He couldn't get any of them done.

[Van Lathan]

Well, if you notice, there's a lot of leaks lately and we'll get back to the topic, but there's a lot of leaks about specifically Iran that say something to the effect of, well, you know, J.D. vance was very much against this, argued against it.

[Tyler Parker]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

And the Source There is JD Vance.

[Tyler Parker]

Just like 2028, I want to say, hey, I said, and Trump's like, don't fuck with me. Okay, so getting back to this though, so there are so many levels to this. To me, part of it is the destabilization of left leaning governments and their rulers and their leaders. Their rulers, their leaders. Another part of it is Trump's pay for play pardon situation.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

And then another part of it is how those governments and those people in those places are going to respond to like obvious efforts to remake their civilization, civilizations, remake their societies into what Trump and the right leaning authoritarian strongman of the world wanted to be. And all those things are happening at the same place. And this kind of blew the lid off of how they do it.

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[Van Lathan]

One thing I want to say is because this has been going on 100 years.

[Tyler Parker]

Just a quick.

[Van Lathan]

Let me just do a quick timeline of Latin American interventions. There was the banana wars of the 19th and early 20th century. The cold open is about that in which US backed corporate interests like the United Fruit Company engaged in warfare, mercenary profiteering, killing of citizens in order to make sure that they could get bananas from Latin America to the US as cheaply as possible. They killed many people doing this.

[Tyler Parker]

This is what I always like. The further you go back, the more the war. The wars are the same, but they're over different shit. There's wars over bat guano. There's wars over bananas.

[Van Lathan]

Today it's rarer minerals. It was bananas.

[Tyler Parker]

The great Collard green war of 1911. You know what I'm saying? I love that.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. 1934, Franklin Roosevelt pledges that the US will no longer occupy Latin American nations. That held for about half a decade. Then there was 1954. We did Guatemala. 1961, Bay of Pigs, Cuba. 1964, Brazil. Operation Brother Sam a good name. Dominican Republic is 65. Chile 73. Operation Condor 75 to 83, Iran Contra.

[Jason Concepcion]

There's like a lot of an American tradition of.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, an American tradition. And just so it doesn't seem like it's all because Trump is definitely much more aggressive than Obama was. But Obama was doing this too. There was a coup in 2009 in Honduras. Left leaning president Manuel Zelaya was elected, wanted to do a bunch of left leaning shit. A right wing general in Honduras was like, you're not gonna do that. Went to the presidential palace, kidnapped him at gunpoint and exiled him to Costa Rica.

[Tyler Parker]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

Now when there's a law that says when a coup happens that America has to put sanctions in. The State Department at that time was run by Hillary Clinton. We refused to say it was a coup. We used all these linguistic kind of trickeries to say that it wasn't a coup. And then we delayed making a decision about whether it was a coup so that eventually everybody forgot about it. And then we just got on with business and we didn't have to sanction Honduras for doing coup. So what Trump is doing is much more active, I think, than we've seen in the past. But like there was like a. It was more lawfare previously and now it's more warfare.

[Tyler Parker]

Right. If Jason wants to continue down the path of anti blackness by bringing up Barack Obama. Fucking with you. Fucking with you. He's absolutely right. I think what you saw with Orban and Milei and all of this stuff like this, I think that you saw over the last couple of years, maybe 10 years, this be a little bit more flagrant just because there was a political ideology that was attached to it.

[Narrator]

Sure.

[Tyler Parker]

And that political ideology was this ideology of this sort of base of right leaning leaders all over the world that the Trump administration has supported Obama, whoever it was like all the stuff that we did in Argentina to bail out their economy so that we were able to do some of this stuff under the guise of this new era of not just American freedom, but world freedom.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

But to your point, it doesn't really matter. The I said that in jest, but the reality is the American political intelligentsia believes that it's prosperity here at home is connected to brutality and domination in Latin America. Yeah, that's just what it is. That's just what it is here. I think what the president and what some of these other leaders have done is they're being a little bit more plain, like they're speaking plainly about it, which changes things a little bit because then that forces Americans to like ask themselves questions like would I rather have cheaper gas? And at the same time have people in Latin America be dominated? And those are questions that prior administrations and prior American governments didn't think that the American public would answer in the way that they wanted them to, so they never asked them.

[Van Lathan]

Yes, that is a great point. I also want to say, like, in terms of conspiracy, because you can look at all this stuff and feel like the dark tentacles of America reaching into all these countries. Sorry about that. The neutrally colored tentacles of America with taupe. Taupe and earth toned.

[Jason Concepcion]

Absolutely.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

It's a khaki, you know, khaki colored tentacles reaching into these other countries.

[Narrator]

But.

[Van Lathan]

And that's true. But it's also important to recognize that there are right wing elements in those countries that have agency that want this stuff to happen. And we're doing this in collaboration with them. They are oppressing other sectors of their societies there, those indigenous right wing groups. But like there's people in those countries who want this stuff to happen. I wanted to mention what the.

[Tyler Parker]

And sometimes that's complicated.

[Van Lathan]

It's complicated.

[Tyler Parker]

Sometimes you have left leaning leaders in those countries.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

That fall into dictatorship and to like sometimes it's complicated like you.

[Van Lathan]

When you. It's not easy.

[Tyler Parker]

It's not easy. Right.

[Van Lathan]

And there's not always good guys. That's the other thing. You could see that with Venezuela where it's like, oh, left lean, left leaning government. It was bad. Those were the bad guys. Here's what the audios say the plan was what you can kind of glean from Juan Orlando Hernandez, if that is indeed his voice. The plan is this one, that Juan Orlando Hernandez would be pardoned and would return to Honduras and the current president, Nasrid Nasri Asfura would serve as a transitional leader until JOH could basically return to power.

[Jason Concepcion]

Two, that pardon happens. He announces that pardon on Truth Social two days before the Honduran election and

[Van Lathan]

directly intervenes in the Honduran election saying don't elect the left leaning guy. We really love the other guy who is a great friend of America. That money from Honduran infrastructure and other sources like Malay's government in Argentina would then be used to create this digital journalism unit based in Miami that would target left leaning rivals like Claudia Sheinbaum, the Zelaya family in Honduras and Gustavo Petro in Colombia. There would be funding and right wing support for these business expanded economic zones where rare earth minerals are supposedly found in abundance. And part of this is because we are in a resource war cold war with China over a lot of these elements that are used for batteries, that are used for cell phone. It's like everything, basically everything you want to do in the modern world, you need this shit. China has control of like 80% of it. And we are desperate to get more by hook or by crook.

[Tyler Parker]

Right. And China, China has expanded their control and relationships with nations that have them through belt and road.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

For a long time and for whatever reason we were asleep at the wheel with rare earths for like a long time.

[Van Lathan]

Long time.

[Tyler Parker]

Now everything that we're talking about when we're the resource war that you're everywhere we go we're talking about resources that are seemingly fundamental to American society. But in some kind of way we're behind either in the mechanism we use to like if you're talking about oil. Right, right. It we make plenty of oil. A lot of people ask the question like we make plenty of oil. Why are we also about oil? We make plenty of oil. We have enough oil. We're energy independent in terms of our production of oil. Where we're not energy independent is the way that we refine the fucking oil that we make.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. There's also different kinds of oil and we don't do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

So like we, we make Shell sweet oil. The refineries are based to, to, to make like you think Trump knows that?

[Van Lathan]

You think Trump knows the difference?

[Tyler Parker]

I don't know if he knows.

[Jason Concepcion]

There's no way.

[Tyler Parker]

There is no, I don't know if he knows.

[Jason Concepcion]

If you ask Donald Trump are there are there is oil oil or are there different kinds. That guy thinks that there's oil and that's it.

[Tyler Parker]

So with that you have that and then you have the rare earth thing. The rare earth thing has actually before this, in terms of being a tip of the spear news subject, it had died down for a little while. But it is extremely important like an extremely important thing that in a regular international climate would just be about trade, but now it's about domination.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. And I think you put your finger on an important point which is no matter who is president next, when you are President as number 48 in there, you're gonna have to figure out this rare earth thing like the Biden.

[Jason Concepcion]

So pay attention.

[Van Lathan]

Inflation Reduction act was significantly about access to rare earth minerals as a way to bring down inflation. So whether you're gonna do the more active like fomenting political instability in various left leaning well as like creating corporate colonies that extract resources. Something's we're gonna have to figure out how to get this stuff, buy it, whatever. The other part of this that I think is like more is more ominous. Is the migration part of also seems like part of the motivation for this plan is if you can have, if we can have friendly right wing governments in Honduras, Guatemala, other countries then we can have more prisons like El Salvador's notorious Sea cot prison. Right. That will keep the disaffected people from leaving and going north and coming to America and instead imprison them in these extremely dystopian, brutal and insanely huge prisons locally. It seems like that's also a thing

[Tyler Parker]

that we at the beginning of those prisons Then we will get to a point to where we'll see, in my opinion, naturalized Americans shipped out of the country.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, they're doing that. Yeah, right.

[Tyler Parker]

Like to those prisons, which once again, and I think if the Trump administration has been good about this, they're good at weaving all of these things together in ways that other administrations were afraid to do. They were afraid to do the thing with the government. Then say we want the prison. Then say we're going to send your cousin who got nabbed for a nickel bag. We're sending him to fucking Honduras, right?

[Jason Concepcion]

And this guy's got a Jumpman tattoo, so he's going down there too. Cause these have.

[Tyler Parker]

Right? And so to me, all of this stuff is a part of, not just it's business as usual for America, but then it's, it's novel insofar as it now undergirds a worldview and a vision and version of the world that you're selling that you're saying is the right way. Not only like this is the right way, this makes sense. Also there's another part of this to where they believe that like installing these governments will stop that migration, will stop people from coming to our border in the first place. Right. Which is interesting that in this time that we're talking about, as much as we've destabilized Latin American countries, it's the time that we've seen the boom of people migrating from those countries to America. And it's one last thing I'll say about that.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

All of my immigrants are criminals and contribute to crime. People. I just have one question for you guys. Okay, Just one question for them. Okay. So crime started going down in the 70s in rates that are under discussed in America. We don't even know.

[Van Lathan]

We don't. And by the way, that's not just an American, it's worldwide that the rates started going down. Partly, probably. I think that that's right. That is an active theory that people have. But I think it's because it's a worldwide trend. I think that clearly something like lead in the water is one of the factors. Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

So at the time that this drop in crime happened in American societies was the same time that we got more immigration through the southern border than we ever have before. Right. So we're seeing historic drops in American crime over decades and we're also seeing more people come over. Explain that to me. I just want the explanation. Well, if immigrants are responsible for single handedly bringing all of the crime into American communities, then why has the crime dropped Dramatically at the time where we've seen the most immigration.

[Van Lathan]

Well, let me give you the. Now I'm gonna put on my full tinfoil hat, get you fully into my conspiratorial worldview. America. The president just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras, who was absolutely proven to have been trafficking tons of cocaine to the United States, was on. In those court documents, the multiple witnesses said that Juan Orlando Hernandez said something to the effect of, I wanna put the cocaine right up the nose of the gringos. He wanted. He wanted to. He was like, Justin, get into that.

[Tyler Parker]

That's hysterical.

[Van Lathan]

He wanted. He was like, right up the nose of the green. He wanted to. As a way to destabilize the United States. Like he wanted to do that.

[Jason Concepcion]

And those people are going to go skiing. If he has anything to say about it.

[Tyler Parker]

He was going to go skiing.

[Van Lathan]

And there's like a million dollar payment from El Chapo to him. It's like incontrovertible.

[Jason Concepcion]

The other aspect of this is Joh's brother.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Jason Concepcion]

Was also sentenced to life in prison in 2021 for, quote, large scale drug trafficking. His name's Tony Juan Antonio. Tony Hernandez. No pardon for Tony.

[Van Lathan]

So why let him go? Right? Aside from this, if we care about crime and the drug war, why let him go? Here's the conspiracy. Because it gives us a perfect pretext to go into these countries and do whatever the fuck we want. We want to send special. There was just a story a couple weeks, two CIA agents were killed in Mexico doing some drug raid that the president of Mexico and the Mexican security state didn't know about. Right. It gives us carte blanche to one pressure countries that you have to stop the flow of drugs or else. And it gives us carte blanche to put drones over a country, to insert our special forces in a country, to insert our DEA into a country and muck around in there, impose sanctions when. I don't know, the available evidence kind of seems to say that we don't really care that much about actually stemming the drug tide if we're letting guys like Joh, a massive, A massive drug trafficker, go free.

[Jason Concepcion]

It was hundreds of tons of coke

[Van Lathan]

he was getting active.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know that we. I guess my thing would be, what do we care about? I don't know that. What we care about more than anything is hegemony.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

We care about power. Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

And so, like, whatever leads to that is like what we'll do. And like you said before, really well put it's not a problem that exists in one political sphere. It's a problem that it's an American endeavor into power, into hegemony over the world, particularly over Latin America and the Middle East. Those are the places where you see kind of the most brutal representation of what we're willing to do in order to make sure that we're powerful and we dominate these places. There's one part of this that we have not discussed yet, please. And that is the Israeli part. Sure.

[Van Lathan]

Oh yeah, okay. Now, now let me first say this.

[Tyler Parker]

Preface it.

[Van Lathan]

I'm going to preface it because the Israeli part one only comes from the audios.

[Tyler Parker]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

This is Joh on audio telling various people that Benjamin Netanyahu is involved. Israel wants this to happen. It's unclear why they would want it to happen. Israel sells a lot of arms in Latin America. There could be other reasons. It's unclear why. Secondarily now we have to just to talk about the chain of custody of these audios. These audios were first surfaced by Diario Red, this left leaning news outlet. That doesn't mean they're not real. Could they be AI generated? Diario Red says that they used this check security software to scan it and that within a very high probability they have ascertained that that is the voice of Joh now and by Czech, you're

[Jason Concepcion]

talking about Czechoslovakian software.

[Van Lathan]

Czechoslovakian software. Now that software does exist. It is used by governments, by intelligence agencies. The only people who know that they did that is Diario Red. They've said, hey, we did this. They have not kind of released any proof that they've done it. And currently there are no independent verifications from other journalistic outlets or like open source intelligence outfits like Bell and Cat, et cetera, who have independently verified that these audios are real. And the other thing to note, just on my own like bullshit detector, I'm not saying they're not real. There's a lot of like Joh saying the full name of the guy, the full amount of the money and the full place that the money is going in.

[Jason Concepcion]

It's like, are you taking notes on a criminal?

[Van Lathan]

So that raises my flag a little bit.

[Tyler Parker]

So I could have made a flag joke. So this is what I was going to ask.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Yes, please.

[Tyler Parker]

This is the part about it that is the most convenient. It is very convenient because this is not five or six years ago where the American public consciousness had no questions about Israel and the Israeli government, particularly Benjamin Netanyahu. This is on the other side of that where everything coming out of Israel. Everything coming out of the Netanyahu regime, very divisive.

[Van Lathan]

No trust.

[Tyler Parker]

No trust. All of it. When I'm looking at it and I saw just the direct indictments here, I was kind of like, it's a little

[Van Lathan]

too on the nose.

[Tyler Parker]

It was very, very on the nose. And even if the audios are authentic, there's a part of me that thinks, even if he really said these things, there's a part of me that thinks is he crafting a very convenient. Like is he's laying this at the feet of the Israelis. Because this is a time where their reputation on the world stage is the most.

[Jason Concepcion]

Sure.

[Tyler Parker]

Right. So I don't know why I started thinking about the conspiracy within. The conspiracy within, the conspiracy within. If anybody is listening to me, Israel did this. You know what I mean? I started thinking about all of that stuff.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

So when I was looking at the story, I'm like, huh, wow. Anyone? Everyone's going to want to believe this. That's right, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And I'll just say that, take the audios out of it.

[Tyler Parker]

You could look at Palestine, by the way.

[Van Lathan]

I'm not, you know, you could look at real money that has moved around, including into these economic zones through the Peter Thiel Marc Andreessen consortium, including the absolutely insane pardon of water. Like, why did that happen? This guy's a cocaine trafficker. And you can look at all that stuff and say this is probably happening. The audios are a cherry on top, but they are a real juicy cherry. And I'm, I'm with you. I need more independent assessment because I think that there's a lot of fully fleshing out. It's just who, when you're talking about a criminal conspiracy, says the full name of the person, the complete amount of money that you're getting, exactly what you're gonna do. And also, by the way, this council of rabbis from Israel okayed it. So I'm a little, my flag is up on that. But I think the underlying basis for this stuff is very strong and it fits a hundred year plus historical pattern of the US's involvement in the region. It's kind of what we do over there is.

[Narrator]

Fuck.

[Van Lathan]

Like if you averaged out the amount of coups that we've been involved in in Latin America, historians put the number at about 40. It's like one every 28 months. We do a coup down there once every 28 months.

[Tyler Parker]

Jason, you just said if you average out the amount of coups we've been involved in in Latin America, it's fucking nuts. Yeah. Just there's a double meaning for that term.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Tyler Parker]

But like, but, but, but let me say, let me put you. So when that pardon.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Happened, you knew that there was a reason.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Because once again, flagrant. Right. You knew that there was a reason.

[Van Lathan]

Now, some of it might be that this, that the president or people around him got a little cash.

[Tyler Parker]

Hey. Well, there's been a lot of talk about the pay for pardon system that Trump might be operating. Right. Like he might have, you know, maybe paid $2 million to get a part, whatever, whatever. But also it's such a sore thumb, particularly when put in the context of our operation in Venezuela, that I always was wondering what is the. More. Sure there could have been 10, $15 million that was paid for a pardon. But like, why leave such an antidote to like such a reactionary, whatever you want to call it to. We have to get drugs out of Latin America. Like Maduro is a drug lord. We have to get rid of them. It's such an antidote to that argument. It's such a way to get out of that argument. Is that you pardon this guy. I always wondered what the underlying story there was going to be. And I'm telling you, all of this stuff together gives a very, very compelling reasoning for why stuff like that is happening and why this is just kind of the iceberg with what's going on.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, the rare earth minerals alone I think is.

[Tyler Parker]

That's.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's it.

[Tyler Parker]

And you know what? It's something else, by the way, if you were to tell a lot of Americans that we pardoned this guy, this drug trafficker for rare earth minerals and it's gonna make your stuff cheaper, easier to put your iPhone together, easier to do all of that. That's something that you could probably sell to people that people would probably buy.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. And by the way, I guarantee that maybe 5% of the American population understands that we pardoned this guy and less

[Jason Concepcion]

than that, know that he's living in an unspecified American city right now.

[Tyler Parker]

I didn't even know that.

[Van Lathan]

That's crazy.

[Jason Concepcion]

He could be your neighbor.

[Tyler Parker]

The pardon. I think so. The pardon. I think if you watch the. If you're a Sunday show watcher or if you're a Fox News CNN watcher, you've seen like the, this is Democratic Congressman. You've seen Ro Khanna go in there and be like, you pardon this guy. So I think some people have seen that. Some people are aware that that happened.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

But the extent of Some of this stuff, even I had turned the pace in this story.

[Van Lathan]

It's pretty nuts. It's pretty nuts. And again, this is the biggest story in Latin America and it hasn't really cracked our news ecosphere. I think another way that this administration is really good at doing two track things. One is just saying we're doing. Here's the criminal conspiracy we're doing. We're doing it secondarily and parallel to that. Y' all want to see some aliens? Let's talk about the aliens. Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Before we leave, I want to say one thing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

When I'm president.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

You guys, people might want to know what I would do about Latin America.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Let's hear it.

[Tyler Parker]

I would enjoy it. Yeah.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

I would be in Colombia, Venezuela. I'd be in Brazil. I'd be in Panama. I'd be all over the place. I'd be in the Caribbean. What I would do is I would vacation there. Costa Rica, maybe.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Can I interest you?

[Narrator]

Sure.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Tyler Parker]

Okay. Go down there, hang out. I would enjoy it. That's what I would do.

[Jason Concepcion]

Well, it's important to re. Establish like America. We're a friendly nation now.

[Van Lathan]

That's right.

[Jason Concepcion]

Under the Lathan, we like to relax regime.

[Tyler Parker]

People would ask me, hey, Van, what are you gonna do about Mexico? I would be like, I'm gonna go there. That's the answer to the question, see you guys.

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[Tyler Parker]

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[Van Lathan]

BET Last Friday, May 8, the Department of War launched a new website. The address is war.gov UFO.

[Jason Concepcion]

Which like the Simpsons would have got there.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, but it's like that.

[Tyler Parker]

You could that's a.

[Jason Concepcion]

You know.

[Van Lathan]

And the program is called Pursue. And the first batch contains of these released UFO files, contains 162 declassified files stretching back to the Apollo era. Photographs of UFOs, including FBI case files, short military videos, a handful of new domestic incident reports. Secretary Hegseth called it a program for maximum transparency. And the President's quote on Truth Social when releasing this stuff was quote, have fun and enjoy. Now here is what the UAP researchers, journalists and people who the creators, the people who really study this stuff full time have to say about it. And it's kind of a unified groan of disappointment. Here's John Greenwald from the Black Vault. He described the release as Quote, another obstacle that his misdirection disguises transparency. Ross Coulthard, investigative journalist, said he was underwhelmed by this supposed maximum transparency. He praised the precedent, but pointed out that the lead agency is the Pentagon, while the truly significant material remains hidden within the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO is like one of the great conspiracy subjects amongst UFO people. That's where supposedly a lot of the real material is hidden. Avi Loeb of the Galileo Project, Harvard professor. After the same day of the drop, he concluded that none of the objects is sufficiently extraordinary to require an exotic origin. And on and on and on. A lot of this stuff, sadly, the videos were stuff that's been out there. And so it's just like stuff that's

[Jason Concepcion]

been out there, but it's. It just redacted a little less than it was.

[Van Lathan]

And so it does seem to me that once again, the administration is just trying to be like, here's a crazy thing. Check this out. Look over here and don't think about. I mean, at this point, I don't even know. The list of stuff that we're not to be focusing on is quite long, and it includes the most vile and wide ranging child sex trafficking case in the history of the globe. And gas prices, but certainly those too. And I guess the hope is that we'll just focus on the aliens.

[Tyler Parker]

Well, look, this is the thing.

[Narrator]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

This drop convinces me that aliens are real.

[Van Lathan]

Really?

[Tyler Parker]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, go.

[Tyler Parker]

Not because of what's in there.

[Narrator]

Okay.

[Tyler Parker]

Because of how they did it.

[Jason Concepcion]

Okay, keep going.

[Tyler Parker]

The response to the Epstein files convinced me that there was there there in the Epstein files.

[Jason Concepcion]

Sure.

[Van Lathan]

For sure.

[Tyler Parker]

If there is nothing there, put it all out. Let us go through it and figure it out.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

We were promised UFOs. Christian pastors got together days before this.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, they did.

[Van Lathan]

They did.

[Tyler Parker]

Hey, we have to get our congregations ready in case. In case.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Uwatu the watcher is now. Jesus. Like, we have to get them ready in case. The stuff I've seen. And so I'm like, actually, for me, I was like, oh, that is the

[Van Lathan]

one that made me feel like they

[Tyler Parker]

all were getting together. I was like, damn it, now. And they dropped some bullshit. They put out some bullshit, bro. Yeah, they really, really dropped some dumb shit, which made me believe that because they could just put out the stuff that they have, and they put out the stuff that they have in earnest and with a lot of dedication behind it, we can make the decision about whether or not it was bullshit or not. Yeah, but they're putting out bullshit, which tells me that there's real shit. They're putting out bullshit. They're hiding the real shit. I want the UFOs. I want the UFOs. I want the aliens to take some pride in themselves. They fucking with us. Show yourself.

[Van Lathan]

Just land and show it. Here's what I want.

[Tyler Parker]

Juneteenth.

[Van Lathan]

Juneteenth. For the aliens.

[Tyler Parker]

Tell the aliens. Aliens, fuck them.

[Van Lathan]

Is it gonna.

[Tyler Parker]

They hiding, y'. All. They playing y' all like a side bitch. Like, Juneteenth. Aliens land.

[Van Lathan]

What's the one state that's gonna celebrate alien Juneteenth before every other season?

[Jason Concepcion]

I mean, it's New Mexico for sure.

[Van Lathan]

Right? Exactly.

[Tyler Parker]

Like, land and be like, we're here. You can't put. You can't hide me. Thanksgiving. You don't even call. Like, come down. Cause at this point, I really believe it. And the full transparency from the administration is starting to become a little bit of a joke.

[Van Lathan]

I need to see this is the evidence I need. Forget the shape of the craft. Like, it's like, the star thing is kind of compelling, but then it's moving around in this really kind of like, whatever the most phenomenal.

[Jason Concepcion]

Most of the star thing is, when it's. You know, it seems like it's far away at first, and then there's that little, like, kind of. It almost feels like an edit. Like a little cut. And then up close, that. That was the most excited I got.

[Van Lathan]

I want to see the things moving in a way that say, that's not something we built. Like, I want to see it just go from here and then disappear or go, like, here and then accelerate, like, out of the frame immediately. I want to see it go underwater and come back up.

[Tyler Parker]

I want to see the basic shit that I saw. Star Trek 19 fucking 67. I want to see the base. I want to see it do some shit that the Millennium Falcon could do or that it couldn't do. Like, the Millennium Falcon is an alien craft basically, right? Created. So I want to see it do some shit like that. Like, half Chewie, send that bitch into warp speed. But all of that fucking playing around, white dots and stuff. We passed that, man. Yeah, I want to see fucking. I want to see them come out, and I want to see them eat grapes and hang out with deer and all of that shit. And I will. I'm down to believe.

[Van Lathan]

I am down to believe it.

[Tyler Parker]

I'm down to believe.

[Jason Concepcion]

Sounds like, though, that y' all are sort of, in effect, calling out the extraterrestrial population. Particularly their pilots saying, like, listen, step up your game a little bit. Like, get your Maverick on. Have some fun up there. Let's do some barrel running.

[Narrator]

Listen.

[Jason Concepcion]

Some corkscrews.

[Tyler Parker]

Listen.

[Van Lathan]

I'm saying, like, the people of Earth kind of writ large. There's large economic and material forces that are shifting right now and then are causing a lot of chaos across the world. We could use an example of like, hey, we figured it out on our planet. Look at this. We, like, we can zip around and we've got these crap and aren't the craft cool? Land and just say, what's up, bro?

[Tyler Parker]

This is the first time where we're down for it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

If this would have happened like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, it would have been an Independence Day situation, whatever. But now things are so fucked here. What ideas do you guys have?

[Van Lathan]

How'd you do it?

[Tyler Parker]

Do you have a take? If you guys have a take, we're willing to listen to that motherfucker.

[Jason Concepcion]

We are all desperate for a reprieve from today. And if you can just give us something else to think about, that's not all of this bad stuff.

[Van Lathan]

If they are here and they're not from the future or something like that, and I'm not talking. Forget the relativity part of it. If they're not from the future, they traveled from light years away way to be here. Then they must have figured out pollution, global warming, and like, a lot of stuff. And, like, help us figure that out. Right? Yeah. Right.

[Narrator]

Or.

[Tyler Parker]

Or do what I said I was going to do to Mexico.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Just come on vacation.

[Tyler Parker]

Just vacation.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Give us something to talk about.

[Jason Concepcion]

Right.

[Tyler Parker]

Give us something to, like, aspire to.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Like, I don't even want to see the craft anymore at first. I wanted to see the craft because I wanted to create a lifestyle. I don't want a lightsaber no more.

[Jason Concepcion]

Right.

[Tyler Parker]

I would settle just for not existential dread, for a good conversation at this point.

[Jason Concepcion]

It would be so exciting if they came down and started hanging out. Because, you know, at some point you would be like, out at a dinner.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah.

[Jason Concepcion]

And you hear like, Jessica's bringing Imbleek.

[Van Lathan]

Imblique. Jessica's bringing Imbleek from Sirius 25A.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Concepcion]

He's a, like, really cool thing.

[Van Lathan]

Right. His stomach's on the outside. Just don't talk about that.

[Jason Concepcion]

Don't. And. And, like, he's gonna have five eyes. You can look wherever but just, you know. But yeah, it's in bleak.

[Tyler Parker]

You know who brings them? Tommy Alter. Yeah. Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Tommy alter wouldn't have 100%.

[Tyler Parker]

Tommy Alter goes, hey. Tommy Alter goes, hey, Van, we're hanging. We're having. Hanging out tonight. We're having dinner. It's Coop. It's Dylan. It's.

[Van Lathan]

He wouldn't even tell you. You just show up.

[Tyler Parker]

You just show up and bleak is there. He's like, yeah, well, he says. He says earlier.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, he says in bleak. Like you're supposed to know who that is.

[Tyler Parker]

Exactly. Yeah, like. Like he's. Yeah, I'm hanging out with Emble. He's like, dude is. Dude, he's really cool. He gets a bad rap, bro. So he's not from around here.

[Van Lathan]

So what?

[Tyler Parker]

I got a show I'm doing with him.

[Van Lathan]

We just saw a cut of Dune 3 at Sh.

[Jason Concepcion]

They. Him and Tracy Ellis are also really close.

[Tyler Parker]

The dude's awesome guy. You should. You should. Should talk to her.

[Van Lathan]

You should talk to him.

[Tyler Parker]

That's Tommy's thing. It's always, you should meet this person.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. That's what you should. You should.

[Tyler Parker]

You should really meet him. You should hang out with him.

[Jason Concepcion]

You would love him.

[Tyler Parker]

You know, you would love him. What do we call him? You would love Emble.

[Van Lathan]

You would love him. And you, you have that Burberry guy, right? MBLIQUE loves Burberry.

[Jason Concepcion]

Do you still have that connect at Nike? Because MBLI is. Can you get him in the employee store?

[Van Lathan]

Let's go to the Doom Scroll.

[Jason Concepcion]

Welcome to the Doom scroll once again, Van, Happy to have you here. Of course, Justin Bieber is facing a little backlash today after performing at an event. This party that he sang at was hosted by Jeffrey Katzenberg at Rosewood Miramar beach in Santa Barbara, which is this ridiculously nice hotel. The CEO of Palantir was there. The founder of defense contractor Andurl was there. This is interesting for a lot of reasons. Bieber at the grant, the most recent Grammys, was seen wearing an ICE out pin. And now he's serenading the head of the company that makes ICE able to do what it does.

[Van Lathan]

He has the database that allows ICE to have 20 million names at their fingertips. I'll just say, and this is not a defense of Justin Bieber. This is just to say plainly, Justin Bieber doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Like, he doesn't know. He shows up at a place they're

[Jason Concepcion]

going to pay me $2 million to

[Van Lathan]

play, and that's a pool. He don't. He doesn't know what's going on.

[Tyler Parker]

Right, I agree. I guess my question is this. Well, first of all the way. This was first reported.

[Van Lathan]

Was it a. Was a Palantir party? Right? It was not.

[Tyler Parker]

Just not a Palantir party. Right.

[Jason Concepcion]

It was Jeffrey cast, like Nancy Silverton was at this thing, giving a little.

[Van Lathan]

James Cameron was there.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Bob Iger was there.

[Tyler Parker]

You go to dinner and IM is there. And then somebody goes, hey, man, you going out with aliens? I'm like, tommy brought this motherfucker.

[Jason Concepcion]

Me and Blake are going to this dive later that's supposed to be really cool. They got a cool band playing there.

[Tyler Parker]

So. So I guess what I would ask is, are people saying that Justin Bieber is responsible for knowing if you're responsible for taking a stand? Is that fair is what I think it's fair. Okay.

[Van Lathan]

But I do think it's fair. I think if you're going to wear an ice out pin, which I support, that you should also like have a very kind of like general 30,000 foot understanding of like the players involved, just

[Jason Concepcion]

in case, or have someone around you

[Van Lathan]

that is like, hey, that's. That's the main Palantir guy who helps ice do stuff. You said you didn't like it.

[Tyler Parker]

And my most charitable, like you earlier, I would say that he's probably been doing these, like, to your point, he's probably been doing these gigs for like almost 20 years now.

[Jason Concepcion]

Right.

[Tyler Parker]

And so like, he's. It probably did feel wrong when he was performing for Facebook. It probably didn't feel wrong when he was performing for Amazon. Probably didn't feel wrong when he was performing for. From performing for performing for him. If I ever saw like, Justin Bieber was performing at like, I don't know, the north of Grundman, whatever you be, you'd be Deloitte.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

You'd be like, yo, dawg, what the fuck?

[Van Lathan]

North of Grumman shouts out to a

[Tyler Parker]

Long island company, you know, like, whatever. But you'd be like, whatever. And this one I do think is, this is good for him so that he understands Palantir, he understands some of this stuff. I think it's good for him to understand also the stakes and what people are going to expect from him as far as if you're going to wear the pin and be in the middle of it and shit like that.

[Van Lathan]

Plague ship update.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, we've got a little plague ship update for you guys. There are nine reported cases right now. There's seven confirmed, two probable, that are linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship.

[Van Lathan]

They're now Cory's over here coughing in the corner, which makes me wonder if he has the Honda.

[Jason Concepcion]

These numbers are as of early Tuesday morning before we recorded. Eighteen passengers from the cruise ship are back in the US and being monitored at medical units. Sixteen, including one who tested positive, are in Nebraska at this specialized facility. And then two others are in Atlanta. And one of those people is experiencing symptoms. This comes as health officials have warned that the hantavirus is, quote, more contagious than thought. And it was already thought to be.

[Van Lathan]

No, but they. That's true. They also are saying like that the risk is low, although how can we trust it? I will say that the case fatality rate is a shocking 38% for people who develop. Who develop respiratory symptoms, which is again, as I said last time, that's a. That's a good three point shooter.

[Jason Concepcion]

That's Ray Allen.

[Tyler Parker]

You go fucking crazy. Yeah, bitch, what the fuck. Yeah, you out of here. Yeah, like, let me tell you something.

[Jason Concepcion]

First of all, if you experience the respiratory symptoms, if Those hit you, 38% survive.

[Tyler Parker]

People experience the respiratory symptoms.

[Van Lathan]

Unclear right now. And it does seem like, listen to kind of contrast with COVID If it was Covid, It'd be like eight to 10 people on the boat got sick. Right now it's like 2.5 of 10. Right. That said, the long gestation period, which could be up to six weeks, and the 38% case fatality is a concern. But right now everybody keeps saying it's low. I will just say that as I said last week, everybody had to stay on that boat. Why are they off the boat?

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

I'm gonna tell you straight up. You said Nebraska. I was gonna try to go to the College World Series.

[Jason Concepcion]

You're not gonna head to Omaha?

[Tyler Parker]

I'm not going to Omaha. Let me tell you how I feel about hantavirus. We getting it, everybody. This is how I feel about haunted virus. We getting it. Everybody getting that bitch. We running it back. This is the sequel, man. This is. This is frightening to me.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, it's number one.

[Tyler Parker]

We always get these viruses pop up when we have the less the least serious motherfuckers in place to do this.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yes.

[Tyler Parker]

We got the virus popping up and the guy who barbecues bears is the head of National Health. We need. We need serious people.

[Jason Concepcion]

We need somebody who's not. We need somebody who's not cutting dicks off raccoons to be in charge of 40% fatal.

[Tyler Parker]

Do you understand what would have happened if Covid was even 4%?

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

Even 4% more fatal.

[Van Lathan]

38% is like end of the World movie. Yeah, that's like the Greenland. Too much society. Society falls apart, the walking dead really

[Tyler Parker]

touch it like 40% is Jason. I got 15 guns I know how to plant. We have to leave now.

[Van Lathan]

You have to leave now.

[Tyler Parker]

Be calling everybody. Guys, we have to leave now. We have to go to a place. We have to leave now. Cormac McCarthy, the road type bullshit ash

[Jason Concepcion]

is falling from the sky.

[Van Lathan]

Even the human to human version, which it seems like this is, is much harder to transmit than Covid. So like masks. Hey, masks. It'll work.

[Tyler Parker]

Covid is like, was like legitimately so elegant in its transmission.

[Van Lathan]

So if you're worried about it, just mask up. Yeah, and I get it. I understand why you're worried about it.

[Tyler Parker]

Hey, you getting it? I'm telling you, right? Just. All right, now you're getting it. Just get ready. It's coming for you.

[Van Lathan]

And secondarily, why'd you let him off that bus?

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, we didn't even talk about you getting it.

[Tyler Parker]

Because I know the reason why they let them all is no reason. First of all, these cruise ships, I don't give a fuck how many. Don't put no cruise ships commercials on the tv.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it.

[Tyler Parker]

I'm about to change my focus from MAGA to Caribbean cruise lines. Like, no cruises. What's the point? The cruise, you go in there, eat shitty food, be on a casino. Like, what's the point? What's the point?

[Jason Concepcion]

I went on one, the most exciting thing was the bread bar. I was pretty. You know, you get rolls. I'd get rolls at all. Pretty excited. A bunch of Chinese generals have been fired. The New York Times ran a big piece this weekend on President Xi Jinping's unprecedented purge of the People's Liberation Army. He's expelled at least nine generals, with many more dismissed from their posts. Overall, it's 100 plus officers that are gone in death sentences. For two ex defense ministers, it's unclear

[Van Lathan]

that they actually did execute them.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yes, okay. It's happened over the past. Since 2022, this sort of purging. It includes people that have disappeared from public view with no explanation. The Times piece has this quote, pretty ominous quote. The military must never have anyone who harbors a divided heart toward the party.

[Tyler Parker]

So it's a. It's an eological purge.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, well, it's. Yeah, yeah, it seems like that. Obviously there's not a lot of direct information unless you're a spy agency. But it does seem that there's a couple things going on. The first is that Xi some years ago set a target date for 2027 for China to be able to invade Taiwan.

[Tyler Parker]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

And it seems like at least some of these generals were fired because they weren't appropriately moving towards that goal or was felt that they were not energetically moving towards being able to do that with whatever portfolio they were involved with. One of the generals fired was General Zhang Yujuo, who is like, China hasn't fought a war since Vietnam in the 70s, and General Zhang was in that. So he's one of the very, very, very rare, like Chinese military leaders who knows combat. Like they. One of the things that the Chinese are kind of anxious about is the fact that they have this huge military and they've never tested it and they haven't fought in a war and they don't. You know, America's been in wars continuously for the last 30 years and they haven't.

[Tyler Parker]

So even in the case of Taiwan, that's gonna be a very hard day.

[Van Lathan]

It's not gonna be easy and like

[Tyler Parker]

you don't know the resolve of your troops.

[Van Lathan]

So that is a thing they're anxious about. And the fact that that guy got fired says that whatever the reason, some of it might be corruption, some of it might be again, not focusing on the goal of 2027, some of it might be being spies for the U.S. all of the above. It certainly seems like Xi is focused on 2027. And if you're not saying, yes, I'll be ready, then you could be fired too.

[Tyler Parker]

Couple of things. Number one, didn't they do this in last fall? Like they got rid of a couple

[Jason Concepcion]

of gentlemen they've been doing since 2022.

[Tyler Parker]

Right.

[Jason Concepcion]

So they.

[Tyler Parker]

So it seems like he sets a standard and either people jump that standard, he gets rid of people that can't jump over the bar. Last thing, watching this and just a couple other things also watching even the relative silence of the Chinese lets me know that the Taiwan invasion is real.

[Van Lathan]

True. Well then they're planning to do it. Sure.

[Tyler Parker]

They've talked about it for a very long time. Like for a very long time they've talked about the fact that we have to go in and take Taiwan. But I think it's happening and I also think, think that it could be the mistake that really loosens the grip of Xi's party on China.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting.

[Tyler Parker]

That is an incredibly difficult invasion for what is an untested military force. It's going to end up becoming a bogged down battle of attrition that takes a very, very long time Time. And I think that with the most important thing for. For Xi and for a lot of people inside of China is mainly control of maintaining control over China.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Tyler Parker]

And I think that, like, there could be a significant blow to their power if that doesn't go smoothly.

[Van Lathan]

I think they're aware of that. Can I give you a conspiracy theory? Trump made a deal with Putin.

[Tyler Parker]

Absolutely.

[Van Lathan]

Believe you, where he said, listen, I'm gonna do stuff in Latin America. I might invade Iran. I might do some crazy shit. You can have Taiwan, Russia, you can take Ukraine.

[Tyler Parker]

What does that put to you, though?

[Van Lathan]

You stay there. You stay there. I'll stay here.

[Tyler Parker]

I guess my question is, in that scenario, we talked a little bit about this the last time. All roads lead back.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know if it's real, but that has been talked about.

[Tyler Parker]

Let's game it out.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Tyler Parker]

In that scenario, will we also have to have a deal that once they take tsmc, which might destroy itself before the Chinese had the opportunity to come and take over the factories and all the files and stuff? They might.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, they might.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah, they might destroy themselves in that. Do we have a deal with them to continue to continuously get the semiconductor economy of Taiwan in the same sort of way that we're getting it now?

[Van Lathan]

I think the idea would be we build a parallel logistics chain to our own manufacturing somewhere or create some deal where we share tsmc. I think the rare earth minerals is another part of this where it's like, we want to be able to be independent of China's web of logistics controls.

[Tyler Parker]

If we made that deal and China reneged on that deal, you'd almost have to fight World War iii.

[Van Lathan]

You almost would have to do it,

[Tyler Parker]

because you almost would have to fight the Chinese. Either you'd have to fight them, or you'd have to initiate a really dark type of overt economic and maybe hot warfare with them. Because if you give them control over that, then you give them control over so much tech, the AI stuff. China has it on.

[Van Lathan]

Well, here's the thing. If we did want to bang it out over Taiwan, let's say we did. And there's a lot of elements, China hawks in the U.S. government and defense establishment that want to do that. You're almost guaranteed to start World War Three for this reason.

[Tyler Parker]

That's World War Three.

[Van Lathan]

Because, first of all, it's going to take a while for the ships to get over there. When the ships go, let's say the invasion's been going on for a week now. When the ships go, in order to Create a defense zone around the ships that safeguards them against Chinese missiles. You're going to have to hit the missile batteries. The missile batteries are on mainland China. So we're gonna have to hit mainland China in order to fight for Taiwan. And that's where you're just like, fuck, you don't know what could happen next.

[Tyler Parker]

And then China's gonna have to hit Japan because a lot of the stuff that jumps off is gonna be coming from Japan. Japan's gonna be assuming that Japan would be involved, which it almost would have to be. And then China's going to have to it all. It becomes a regional war like that if the US Is involved. And then you have to wonder how it spreads.

[Van Lathan]

Now here's the other part of it. If you're Xi, aren't you looking at like and going, I don't even need to invade. I just hang out for like three, five more years. That shit's gonna fall apart on its own over there. Yeah, I just surround Taiwan with like all my ships, all my forces, and just show that I could do it. And then wait for a friendly government. Which is part of the reason things are so heightened is it does seem as if the governments that Taiwan has been electing have been much more anti Chinese. So maybe, you know, we wait for friendly government and then we just get it anyway without fighting the war. There's also that.

[Tyler Parker]

Right. That could happen. Like, people always say that. Like it's. It's one military operation away, but it's also one election away.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. What else?

[Jason Concepcion]

I hate more than anything that I know who this guy is, but Shane

[Tyler Parker]

Joseph,

[Jason Concepcion]

How dare you. We don't talk about my best friend like that. You don't come onto my podcast Clavicular.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, okay.

[Jason Concepcion]

AKA this.

[Van Lathan]

So not as bad as Shay.

[Jason Concepcion]

I mean, Clavicular is not going to give you 35 in a close out. He's not going to do that in crypto. He's not going to give you that.

[Van Lathan]

He's not going to give you 35 efficient points and defense as well.

[Jason Concepcion]

All right, March 26, he's on an airboat at the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area in the Everglades. He livestreams himself shooting an alligator at least 25 times. The alligator is already dead. It's belly up in the water.

[Van Lathan]

So it had been dead.

[Jason Concepcion]

It was already dead. He gets charged with a misdemeanor for unlawfully discharging a firearm in public. The other people facing charges in the incident are friends of his. One guy known as Cuban Tarzan Okay, Another guy, another guy known as Baby Alien.

[Tyler Parker]

Oh, baby Alien.

[Van Lathan]

Baby Alien.

[Tyler Parker]

Maybe aliens done some scenes.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Jason Concepcion]

He knows. Oh, I was gonna say if you wonder if he knows in Bleak.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Jason Concepcion]

But the. Yeah, it. This clavicular guy is. If you don't know him, is this like he's the guy who started doing this looks maxing, right.

[Van Lathan]

He, he had a lot of plastic surgery.

[Jason Concepcion]

He takes a hammer and literally like breaks part of his face to try to reshape his jawbone and stuff. Doesn't seem like the best hang in the world, to be honest with you.

[Tyler Parker]

Seems like a physical human manifestation of every grotesquerie that currently exists in our society.

[Jason Concepcion]

Absolutely.

[Van Lathan]

And he also seems to be linked to funding from Peter Thiel and other kind of right leaning techno fascist types in Silicon Valley who honestly, it's a broadcast play. It's like guys like clavicular or Mr. Beast, who is in a different category than clavicular, but obviously much more popular. That's the version of Hill Street Blues of today. That's what young dudes are watching, which is why these billionaires and the Saudi investment fund and money from the UAE are so interested in guys like Clavicular MrBeast, etc, et cetera. Because that's what, that's how you influence public opinion, specifically amongst young men here.

[Jason Concepcion]

This clavicular guy has gone on the record encouraging kids, or not kids, but teens, young adults, go into debt, get plastic surgery, you'll up your, you know, value as a person and you'll make all that money back. Like.

[Tyler Parker]

But it's just sort of the whole looks max ethos. Yeah. You know, it's. I don't know, I guess with him, I'm starting to wonder. So look, this is what I'm starting to wonder. Every fucking five months there's like a new one.

[Jason Concepcion]

Yeah, they keep, they keep spawning.

[Tyler Parker]

And while. And there's an evolution that's happening, if you notice the manosphere guys are quieting down. Like, if. I don't know if it's the Louis the Road thing or if it's the fact that Andrew Tate got the shit kicked out of him, or if it was the thing that happened in the club in Miami, the manosphere thing seems to be flailing a little bit. But then there is an evolution of the manosphere into the looks maxing thing. Right. We have him the looks maxer. We have a legitimate N word influence. Like it's starting to become white noise to me. And that's probably dangerous. Yeah, it's starting to become just almost like this Internet menagerie of, like, vauvillian freaks.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Because this is. I mean, the success and popularity of figures. Like, this happens. It's like mold. It happens, like, under the rug. Because you don't know what kids are watching on YouTube and the algorithm will feed them stuff like this. Depending on, like, what type of videos are in their pipeline, it's very easy to get to slip into this world. And it happens kind of like when you're not watching. Like, there's a whole world of, like, young persons and kids entertainment that is just, like, characters that I've never heard of. Like, my nephew will be like, oh, I'm into this. Like, it used to be when I was a kid, it was like, Spider Man, Batman, whatever, whatever. And then he will have, like, I don't even know, like, what these YouTube properties are. So watch what your kids are watching on YouTube, man.

[Tyler Parker]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Make sure they're not watching Clavico Van Lathan, future President of the United States. Thank you.

[Tyler Parker]

Thank you. Thank you, guys.

[Jason Concepcion]

Thank you, man.

[Tyler Parker]

What am I gonna do? Latin America, Have a good time.