← "YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice
"YOUR WELCOME" with Michael Malice
Jack Posobiec on Erika Kirk, Iran, and The Future of Turning Point USA | “YOUR WELCOME” #408
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- [00:00]
Angie Hicks
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project@angie.com Support
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- [00:47]
Angie Hicks
Hi, you're listening to Meditating with Jan from Toyota. Soften your focus and visualize yourself off roading in a Tacoma. Now engage your senses. What do you hear? A donkey? Because you're driving the kids to a sanctuary in a Grand Highlander. Breathe in, breathe out and go from dreaming it to driving it today.
- [01:09]
Jack Posobiec
Dealer inventory Mayberry. See your participating Toyota dealer for details. Event ends March 31st. Toyota let's go places folks.
- [01:18]
Michael Malice
My new graphic novel Unwanted A tall
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
tale of the old Westland New wave
- [01:22]
Michael Malice
is out for pre order now.
- [01:24]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
I've been working on this for 25 years.
- [01:26]
Michael Malice
It's a dark comedy with a shiny exterior.
- [01:28]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Please check it out@unwantedbook.com.
- [02:01]
Michael Malice
Good afternoon. Michael Malice here. Let that be your welcome for the next hour. We have with us a returning guest, my dear friend Jack Posobic. Jack is the author of Inhumans, which is about communist revolutions. Highly recommend it. You've been one of the most influential people on the right for over a decade at this point. Former naval intelligence officer and you're high up at Turning Point usa. And because of these fields of expertise, there were two big topics I want to talk to you about. I think me and a lot of other people saw you at Turning Point after Charlie passing, standing on stage, holding up that rosary. And I know you have a good relationship with Erica Kirk. I want to discuss that first because you know, as someone who is probably more comfortable as an anarchist who's more comfortable with political violence than the average person. One of the big reasons I against it is the families when you know someone you know is taken out, even if they're an evil person, which I do not think Charlie was by any means. There's a wife, there's kids, so on and so forth. And now for Many people online, Erica Kirk has been made into some sort of a hate object for reasons that I find unfathomable. And the cynical part of my brain would say, well, it's an op to divide the right, and it's being done quite successfully to kind of break apart the coalition that got Trump a popular vote majority and Electoral college large majority in 2024. I'm curious as to your thoughts on that whole situation and, you know, things you've said to Erica. Anything about it?
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Jack Posobiec
Yeah, no, I mean, gosh, a lot there, obviously. And, you know, are there other elements that want to divide the right right now? I think that's clearly going on. I think there's multiple vectors of division that are happening right now. And it's, you know, beyond the specifics of what you just said, it's also a similar dynamic that we saw in 2017. So President Trump gets elected in 2016. It's sort of this surprise to, I think, a lot of people in the mainstream. And then he becomes in power in Washington. And then all of a sudden, almost immediately, you see these elements of the establishment, elements of permanent Washington getting into the administration, in many cases, getting in directly to the cabinet and trying to push apart this, these sides of the movement to say, well, you know, we're true MAGA and you're not maga. And we saw this tension play out again and again and again within 2017 and came to the head, you know, really big. And I'll go back to your original question, but I'm just saying it just reminds me so much of that timeframe that. And now here we are in the second year now, 27, 2026 of the second term. But it's, it's still that same tension playing out. It's the grassroots versus establishment. It's MAGA versus the establishment. Who is maga? What is maga? It's, it's like I'm living through that time period over again because it's like we had these discussions, we had these arguments. We, you know, are we going to go to war in Syria? Are we going to keep troops in Syria? We're going to have serious strikes. All of these conversations and all of these tensions. For those of us who are. You wrote a book about this period in the New Right, fantastic book, by the way. And it's, it's so much of those same tensions coming up now vis a vis Erica, and Turning Point, that's a different situation. But just on the question of division, I think very much you see those similar forces at play when it comes to Turning Point, you know, man. And I was actually just. I spent all day yesterday at Turning Point. We had an event over at asu, so I was, you know, sort of working at a Turning Point headquarters there in Phoenix. And I sit back and think. I can't believe it's still just been six months. It feel. It feels in a way, like it's been so long since. Since Charlie was murdered. But at the same time, you know, on paper, it hasn't been that long at all. As a matter of fact, it's, you know, a couple of months. And it's just. I think the way that our brains are wired now is totally different and that we perceive time totally differently than we did, you know, 10 years ago or certainly.
- [06:13]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Yeah.
- [06:14]
Michael Malice
Can I say something? You see this with vis a vis Iran, where people are like, oh, it's been three weeks. How is this not resolved? And on the one hand, he's saying it's gonna be done quickly, but any kind of international operation, you wouldn't think there'd be. Ten years ago, the idea that it would have a beginning, middle, end within three weeks would have regarded as completely insane.
- [06:33]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. It's like, is that. Oh, is that movie still on? Well, why don't just put it at 1.5x, you know, put it at 2x and then just. Then we'll get to the end, or, you know, I'm getting bored. I want to get. Because our attention spans have totally, totally, you know, been twisted and. And. And myself included, I think just we're surrounded by these types of technologies. And so it's. It's something where I do try to check in when I talk to Erica and I try to reach out. You know, Charlie used to do this thing every day where he would. He would sort of send a Bible verse in the morning to, you know, just over text. And knew with Charlie, it was always. It was always something he had been reading because it would just. It would seem random, but it would, you know, to Charlie, it was like, well, that's whatever section of the Bible he's reading today. A lot of Old Testament. And so I, you know, even if I don't have, you know, anything really going on, I'll try. If I have a Bible verse, I'll just send that off to Erica, you know, like once a day or so. Because I know that that's what Charlie used to do. And it's, you know, it's kind of for me, too, right, to sort of just. Just check in and continue that tradition. But you know, when you see her and when you, you know, when you talk about, you know, whatever the drama of the day is or whatever the, you know, the current viral whatever thing is that's going on. And, and yeah, there's obviously, there's obviously tensions because of that, but you also realize that this is a mom, you know, you know, and a widow and, you know, and, you know, and she's saying, hey, you know, like, has to quiet the kids down so she can talk a little bit. And, and that, that, you know, losing Charlie the way we did it. I've said this before, but it, you know, it, no, it was upsetting. I hate it. But it wasn't, it wasn't surprising in a sense, you know, it was, that was. Of all the emotions I felt surprised wasn't really one of them, because big part of us, I think, all thought that something like this is going to happen at some point. For those who have been following political violence, we've seen the. Right. I wrote a whole book about it. I think it'd be Charlie, you know, that, that was definitely the, you know, something I, you know, I didn't think of. But at the same time, we had all, I think we had all who knew him said something to him at one point or another about those events that he was doing, being outside, being in the eye like that and not having Secret Service level protection the way that the president has or, you know, anyone in the administration. It's just you, you're, you're more of a target because of that.
- [09:00]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
And
- [09:03]
Jack Posobiec
the piece that always gets me the most upset is when I think about Erica and those kids and the fact that this isn't just a news cycle for them. You know, this isn't some. Oh, we got you now. Because you said something on a podcast five years ago that slightly contradicts something that you said. No, this isn't just, it's not just, you know, content. Right? It's, it's. Their entire lives have been irrevocably changed. His daughter will never be able to have her dad walk her down the aisle.
- [09:40]
Michael Malice
Right?
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Jack Posobiec
And that's just, that's just something that's so much bigger and so much more real and so much more human and gutting then. And to your point that political violence absolutely affects the families forever. Absolutely forever. And, you know, with his little boy, their little boy, he's so little. I mean, he's, he's, he was not even two yet. And so, you know, is, I think not even two yet. And it's just not or. No, he'll. Yeah, he'll be too, and, you know, has no understanding what's going on whatsoever. And will, you know, we will have to explain to him at some point. At some point, his mom's gonna have to explain to him all of this. And so it's just something where. When I see the attacks on Erica and when I see these. And they just always feels like these. Like these nitpicking. They seem so small when you're faced with the reality of what they have to live through every single day of, you know, dad went to work and he's never gonna come home again, and now every single moment that you would have had. And I think about it when I'm with my family, I think about it when I'm with my kids. It's just. It's one of those things that's ever present that, you know, we could be sitting on the couch just watching a movie, watching a family movie, and it's like, Charlie's family's never going to have this. And so. So what do I try to do? You know, I try to just. I don't know, I just try to be an ear, if that's possible. I try to, you know, I try to say that. I think that eventually this will, you know, probably get to a point where, you know, I think it kind of implodes under its own weight. A lot of the, you know, ridiculousness that gets spread because it's just. It's so silly and. And that it. And at the same time, you know, you have to try to just be a. Be a good friend, be a person. I don't know. There's no rule book for this. There's no playbook that's. That's laid out for, you know, Know what you're supposed to do when something like this happens. And, you know, I'm not going to sit there and say that everything that everyone's ever done from Turning Point has been perfect or myself or anything like that, but, you know, I would just say that you got it. You got to have grace for people when they're going through something like that. You just. You have to have grace. And I try to have grace for people at the same time, because people. People process trauma in so many ways. It's crazy. You know, a lot of the cliches are kind of real about, oh, it comes in waves and all this. Totally true. And even today, even. Even here we stand six weeks or six months later, and see, I just did it. Oh, my gosh. He just Said six weeks. It's actually been six months. And, you know, you. I like. I think I'm okay with it. And then all of a sudden, something will hit me, and it just. It takes me right back to that moment. And we just did an event last night with. With the Turning Point students at asu, and it. What was cool. I'll put it this way. What's cool is to see the amount of inspiration that's come out of this for the young generation. And, I mean, we had college freshmen coming up saying, hey, how can I be like Charlie? How can I do this? How can I come up? And what do I think Erica's done? I think she's done the absolute best job that anyone could do in a position that she didn't ask for, that none of us wanted to happen. But if she hadn't stepped up the way that she did in. In those dark moments and in those dark days that. I don't. I don't know where Tony Point would be right now. I don't even know if the organization would still be together, but for the efforts of Erica.
- [13:11]
Michael Malice
I'm thinking back to the Kavanaugh hearings, right? With Kavanaugh, who was a choir boy and was humiliated to the point where he had to go on Fox and talk about, like, he was a virgin until 20 or something.
- [13:23]
Jack Posobiec
Really?
- [13:24]
Michael Malice
Completely has nothing to do with his, you know, judicial record. And, you know, they were going through his high school yearbook to find something to stop him about, and he had that moment where he's like, yeah, I liked beer. I still like beer. And then it's like, oh, my God, this man has a temper. He probably beats his wife and kids. He can't be in the Supreme Court. But at the same time, if he had come there calmly, they would have been like, oh, my God, the man's a sociopath. He's being accused of assaulting women, and he has no emotional reaction. He can't relate to human beings. He shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. So no matter what it is, he can't win. And I feel it's that way with Erica. It's like, I don't know what it's like to lose a spouse, especially in such a public way with, you know, that footage. I thank God I'm very, very fortunate. I've never seen the clip. To this day, I've managed to avoid doing.
- [14:17]
Jack Posobiec
So you haven't watched it at all?
- [14:19]
Michael Malice
Nope. Because I was. My friend. DM me. Did you hear something about it? And I'm like, I'm going off social media. I knew, Charlie, I do not need to see this. And from every description I've seen, I'm making the right choice. No one who has seen it has told me I'll be a better person for having seen it. I'm very glad.
- [14:35]
Jack Posobiec
I don't know if this. Because I was, like, in the military or whatever, that may be a cliche, but I've watched it a thousand times. At least it doesn't. I hate it, but it, you know, for me, it's. It's just, you know, trying to. It's kind of how I process things, I guess, try to, to try to understand. So I want all the information, I want all the details, I want all the angles, I want all the, you know, potential footage, et cetera. And, yeah, I've seen all of it. And it definitely hit me when I, I think I just first saw it. I was still on social media. I was actually live, My show was live. So I was sort of just scrolling like, like just regular scrolling, and it just popped up and I thought it wasn't. I was hoping it wasn't real at first. And then, you know, and then we called to some of the, some of the staff that was on the ground and, you know, we found out that fact. It was real.
- [15:31]
Michael Malice
Yeah. And then all the people at the time, it was just. I saw some like, oh, you know, he's at the hospital, maybe he'll be okay. And other people, like, he is not going to be okay. You people are delusional. Like, you know, that's how violent was. But to my point, you know.
- [15:45]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, I had a buddy. Just, just real quick on that I had. Because I was, I was hearing that as well. And I think there, there was a hope at one point that something could be done. And I had a buddy call up, Army Ranger buddy, who said, look, man, I've seen people go down like that on the battlefield. And you, you think you can figure it out, you think they can fix it, but they don't get back up.
- [16:08]
Michael Malice
Right?
- [16:08]
Jack Posobiec
They just, they just don't get back up. Not, not after that, but.
- [16:11]
Michael Malice
But also now people going after Erica like this or that, it's like, oh, she's wearing leather pants. It's like, like Tier said that when you said earlier, there's no rulebook for this or guidebook for this. What's the wardrobe? You want her in a shroud, tearing it for the next year, like, she's a young woman, former pageant girl. No, I don't say that in a disrespectful way if she wants to look pretty or sexy, like, who's going to be grudge for that? Like, I, I have no idea what's going through her head. I can, to that very few people, fortunately, can relate to that horrible situation. So you, like you said earlier, I would think a little grace would go a long way, but the fact that she's been made, you know, this, this target and even been accused of being in on it is to me just as low as it gets.
- [16:58]
Jack Posobiec
No, it's, it's despicable. And I, I always ask to, you know, having seen the video so many times, I always sort of ask and say, well, you know, just as a rubric, you know, well, if, if, if there was, if all of these people supposedly, you know, who were standing around him were also in on it, why were they all standing in the line of fire? You know, why are they all just, they're all just standing right there if they know something's going to happen? You know, it's, there was a, there was a meme of. Because this very same argument comes up from the left or contention, I guess, comes up from the left with Donald Trump with the, the Butler shooting, with Thomas Matthew Crooks. And I think it might, I forget who it is. It's Frasier Payne or someone on Twitter had the meme up. And he goes, he goes, oh, oh, it's Trump talking on the phone to Thomas. He's, Tommy, you're the greatest sniper in the world. And I, and I want to make sure, you know, just the tip, Tommy, just the tip. I'm going to, I'm going to turn my head slightly. That's the, that's the key. Okay? And no one's ever going to know, but don't worry because you'll always be a patriot in my book, you know, and it's like, it's, it's just so ridiculous when you, when you consider the actual situation. And I'm, you know, and like, I also have a little bit of, I try to have a little bit of openness to at least understanding that we've lived through such in 2020, I think just broke a lot of narrative illusions for people that existed in reality. And so for a lot of people, they went through this timeframe that it felt like reality itself was breaking. You have Covid, you have the lockdowns, you have the vaccine pushes. We have Jeffrey Epstein, you know, occurs. And then the 2020 election occurs. And it's like, she's like, was it stolen? Was it not stolen. We're not allowed to check, actually. Haha. You know, and. And so so many of these big things occur that people are suddenly realizing, wait a minute, what if all of my reality is constructed? And so I try to put myself in somebody else's shoes and say, well, when something horrible like this happens, could it potentially be something else? And so I get where people. I get why people would potentially want to, you know, to ask questions about that. And I don't disparage it at all. But what I do disparage is, you know, or I come back on, it's like, well, just because these other things happened, that doesn't mean that this thing also happened. Right. It's the Naxal fallacy, You know, not all extra like this. That. Well, that. You know, we've seen members of the transgender community that have been involved in violence for quite some time, you know, over the last couple of years. And in fact, even just recently, there's been a number of instances. And I always. I always point out, I say, well, you don't have any problem with, you know, saying, oh, this was a, you know, translated thing. This was a translated thing, so why can't this be one? It just. Just fits into that. And then when you see the evidence, you know, and it. It. It seems to point, I have questions, you know, were other people involved? Were there. Were there, like, groups and friends and like your boyfriend?
- [19:58]
Michael Malice
Yep.
- [19:59]
Jack Posobiec
You know, could that, you know. All right, all right, I know I'm jumping around, but. No, you have to ask this. The. The. The. So let's. Let's. Let's stipulate that those text messages that came out were real, right? That you remember the one line in there where. Where it says, hey, you remember those bullets I was etching in the. In the house? And. Well, actually, that was for this. And I remember thinking, sitting there going, you know, imagine if. Imagine if I've got a roommate, and Michael's my roommate. I see Michael over in the corner, and he's etching words into bullets on the couch. I might say, hey, Mike, what are you etching the bullets for? What? Yeah, what are you. What are you hanging out there doing that for? Is that just for. For fun or something? No. You're gonna ask. You're gonna. You would ask, what is that for? Why are you doing that? And it seemed like there were some pretty specific phrases that were used, including bella chow. There's like an antifa phrase, and there's, you know, hey, fascist catch, which is again, very specifically targeted. And this idea that. So people were saying that, oh, he made those text messages because it's, you know, exculpatory, because it's actually like the end of Breaking Bad. And, oh, well, see, it's just a way to show that he was innocent, that Lance was innocent. And I say, well, okay, but then why would you talk about the bullets? And if you said that he knew about the bullets anyway, like, I could. I could. I could spur out on this for hours. But it is something that I have a lot of questions about to say, well, if you knew about the bullets, how could you not have known what they were for?
- [21:32]
Michael Malice
Yeah, no, I agree.
- [21:33]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
I have questions, too.
- [21:34]
Jack Posobiec
That's my point. I have questions, too.
- [21:36]
Michael Malice
I agree. It's very plausible that he was working with others in some capacity. Now, the extent of the involvement is not clear, but, you know, it could be him just doing brainstorming or someone getting him weaponry or something like that.
- [21:50]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
I've also thought back to Gabby Giffords.
- [21:52]
Michael Malice
I mean, there's no claim. You know, she was shot in Arizona. Her husband Mark. Her husband, Mark Kelly, is a senator contemplating presidential run. You know. You know, the New York Times tried to pin on Sarah Palin at the time, and she sued them, I think unsuccessfully. But, you know.
- [22:05]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, yeah, the crosshairs.
- [22:07]
Michael Malice
Yeah. We live in these politically violent times, and it's.
- [22:11]
Jack Posobiec
It's.
- [22:11]
Michael Malice
It's kind of horrific. To your point about COVID you know, I. I think something else that happened that hasn't gone away is everyone saw their neighbors lose their minds. So there were two scenarios. Either my neighbors, who I thought were smart, were taking a medication that had no history, that was innovative, and yet the manufacturers were guaranteed to be immune from prosecution. And I'm supposed to assume that no one is going to have consequence for this, something which is not possible even for something like sugar or water or salt, or. We have a deadly pandemic, and we have a safe medicine, and people are refusing to take it, and they're willing to kill their neighbors just because they're obstinate and stupid. Those are the two scenarios which. Whichever scenario you are, you saw your neighbors acting in ways that were incomprehensible to you and profoundly alienating to your frame of mind. And I don't think we've returned from that. And I think that has become a new baseline where people have been psychologically and profoundly alienated from their countrymen in a way we haven't seen even in the Civil War. You understood each other. Okay, you want to own slaves?
- [23:28]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
I think slavery Was horned.
- [23:29]
Michael Malice
That wasn't the basis for the Civil War, but you could. The mindsets were not at all impossible to wrap your head.
- [23:34]
Jack Posobiec
You remember what I used to get to when you hear in the Civil War, and you'd read Civil War histories, and they would say, oh, oh, it split families and. And father would turn against son, and brother would turn against brother. And I remember as a kid reading about that, and it's thinking, like, how could I ever turn against my dad? How could my brother. Like, I would never, you know, we could argue and fight and beat each other up or do whatever, but I'd never, you know, take up arms against my family members. And that through both Covid and the political moment that we're living in, it's like, I see it now. I totally get. I totally get it.
- [24:07]
Michael Malice
Well, I think also back then there was more of an honor culture. So if you're called to serve for
- [24:12]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
the cause, you know, you have to
- [24:14]
Michael Malice
put family and all this other stuff aside and kind of have courage and the greater good as you perceive it coming first. I think that was probably more of a motivator than it would be now, don't you think?
- [24:27]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, I think that's right. And that this, by the way, and, you know, total side. Total side topic, but that's. That was one of the reasons that a guy like Robert E. Lee was actually respected on both sides of the war and had even been asked by Lincoln to lead the army of the north, the army of the Union, at one point. And he refuses to again, not over the issue of slavery, but. But because he views his honor as a Virginian, that he has to serve his state. And it's. It's, you know, one of the reasons that Robert E. Lee is not, you know, he's not tried as a traitor after the war when many others were, because that, you know, a lot of people thought they wouldn't even be able to find him guilty because so many people had that respect for him. And that's why post war, you know, when so many statues of him were made, that that was done, actually paid for by the federal government as a means of reunifying the country where they could say, all right, well, here's a guy we both respect. So there's this whole anachronism now that, oh, well, that wasn't true, you know, and it's. It's play. It's because our political moment has gone back to that sort of, you know, tension of the time that we can't actually see the nuance anymore. And we can't point out, well, this was. This was honor culture, which is totally different from the way we view things today.
- [25:47]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Folks, I want to talk about something
- [25:49]
Michael Malice
that many of us are uncomfortable talking about, but you need to talk about
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Michael Malice
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Michael Malice
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Michael Malice
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Michael Malice
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- [26:51]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
did help protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. You get your free instant', @ethos.com Malice. That's ethos.com Malice it's called ethos because it's the ethical thing to do. Think of your spouse, kids, parents. All sorts of things happen every single day. I just had an episode with Jack Posobec. He's friends. Erica Kirk. I don't need to say anything else. Application times and rates may vary. Please take this stuff seriously, because there's nothing as serious as taking care of your family and loved ones. That's where ethos comes in. Ethos.com Malice. Thank you, Ethos, for supporting the show. It happens to the best of us. And even happens to me. Gray hair. It's in my eyebrows now, as some of you are so helpful to point out. Not that I can miss it. Whenever I look in the mirror. That gray eyebrow hair standing alone against his brethren, mocking me as I slowly enter old age and degeneracy. Further degeneracy. Don't be like me. That's where array comes in. Because what ARRAY does is it stops the growth of gray hair. There's only one gene that causes gray hair and it accounts for 30% of why we go gray. So 70% has nothing to do with genetics. ARRAY is clinically proven to slow the growth of gray hair, support repigmentation and promote thicker, fuller hair in as little as three to six months with consistent usage. They sent me a bottle and I'm excited to try it. I'll take whatever help I can get. Even if you don't have gray hair yet, you will eventually. And prevention works best when you start early. Not only did 88% of arrays users in their clinical studies see less gray hair growth, many reported improved fullness, shine and thickness. Having a full head of hair at my very, very, very, very, very advanced age is one of the few things that keeps me sane. And it is a very slender finger hold I have on sanity, as you know. So join the over 300,000 people who are already using ARRAY and fight that gray hair that's just around the corner. Most people cover grays, I don't. But you can actually slow their progression. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off by using code maliceray.com that's a R E Y.com code malice and you're all set. After you purchase the last way you heard about them, please support our show and tell them that ancient old man Michael Malice sent me. God help him and God bless him and God bless you. That's array.com a r e y.com promo code malice. Let's get back to the show.
- [29:39]
Michael Malice
You brought up nuance and something else I want to discuss about political violence. I remember during Trump's first term, white nationalist Richard Spencer was sucker punched on the face in the streets. I think of D.C. and I wrote an article denouncing it because I'm like, if you're going to be advocating for this so called punch a Nazi, by your logic, the logic of people who would say that, you know, everyone in the Trump administration is a Nazi, right? So are you advocating that people should go up and punch Kelly Conway in the face? And a lot of people would say yes, but if that is your thinking, the natural conclusion is going to be something like Charlie. And we saw this from miles away, me and many others. This is the logical conclusion of where it leads. Antifa explicitly is about using violence against fascists or who they regard as fascists. And when you have these loose definitions of who a fascist is and you know you're going to include Charlie Kirk by this rubric, you know, you know, all bets are off. And I, the, the other thing, you're someone who understands kind of the sociology of politics, you know, in the same way I do. The, the other worry about Charlie is it was a demonstration, it was a flex because leftists could see. They took out Charlie. Yeah, you lost one foot soldier. But there was not this insane right wing reaction or overreaction like there was a January 6th. Right. You didn't have massive media attention, you didn't have mass like the, this can never happen again. You know, a huge apparatus put into place for years to investigate and lock down. There was none of that. So I, you know, I remember Andy no was talking about when he was getting milkshakes thrown at him. But those had concrete in them. But I think there was some celebrities getting glitter bombed and it was, I think it was Andrew Sullivan who pointed out these are soft assassination attempts, these are demonstrations to everyone. Look how easy it is to get to this figure and throw something on them. Someone is going to put two and two together. So I think especially now the threat of political violence is not getting better, it is getting worse. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.
- [31:51]
Jack Posobiec
So I did something a couple months ago, you know, in the wake of all this that I don't think many people, I certainly didn't think I was going to do this. But so when I went to, we had this antifa roundtable and Andy Ngo was there and Nick Shirley and Nick Sordor and Savannah Hernandez, Katie Daviscourt and so many great people that have done this work of infiltrating and exposing these far left violent groups. And you know, sort of the roundtable fell to me and I said, and I said, this is my biggest worry, Mr. President. I said, you look at Thomas Matthew Crooks, you look at Luigi Maggione who is, is celebrated and there's Broadway musicals about him and now with Tyler Robinson. They, by the way, they all fit a very specific profile in terms of age and in terms of downwardly mobile white males, highly intelligent, yet either, you know, dropped out of school or dropped out of like the, the, you know, corporate world. There's similar age band as well. And so, And I said, Mr. President, the situation is not getting better, it is getting worse and we are going to see more assassinations. And I fear that the next person who is assassinated is more than likely sitting at this table right now.
- [33:08]
Michael Malice
Yeah.
- [33:09]
Jack Posobiec
And basically kind of told the President that and as he knows that his life is still at risk because of this and we have seen there was a guy who climbed over the fence at Mar A Lago with, with a shotgun and a gas can just a couple of weeks ago. And it's, it's becoming so bad that we've actually normalized assassination attempts of President Trump. It's like, oh, yeah, there was another one. Oh yeah, there was that guy, you know, that was just, it's just another Thursday, like someone's trying to kill the President. And you know, there's, there's that line in Always with Honor by Pyotr Rangel where he says that even as the Bolshevik Revolution was waging, you could go to St. Petersburg and normal social life would continue unabated as if nothing was happening, and they would not become victims of the violence to come, the madness to come. And I totally get it now because, you know, we're seeing attempt after attempt made on the President's life, you know, conservatives lives. You've got Charlie Kirk murdered and, and yet you see people who sort of just shrug it off, they just, they just kind of shrug it off. And, and it might be that they don't have, you know, second order thinking and third order thinking and don't realize that how bad and how quickly that can spiral out of control. Because as you say, you didn't have that overreaction with Charlie's murder. And I, I always sort of point out from my perspective that that that's because we're, we're just not the people that, you know, the journalists always say we are. That, oh, you're, you know, these guys, these crazy right wing types, you know, we, you know, we didn't pick up arms. We, we picked up like crosses and Bibles and went and held prayer vigils and candles and that's how we responded. But at the same time, because I know how history works and because I've studied this and written about this, that violence does eventually at some point beget violence in return. And I don't want to go to that place. I don't want to be in that place in this country. I don't ever want to go to that place. Somebody asked me last night, they said, well, you've, you know, you wrote a book and you talked about General Franco in that book. And are you saying that's a model for the United States? And I had to say no, I don't want that to be where the United States goes. I don't want to see the Civil War, a Civil War situation like that. It's, I would, I would very much prefer that the way you deal with this is number one, you have to speak out against anyone using this type of rhetoric or condoning or normalizing things like, yes, even punching Richard Spencer in the face or bless you, if it's bootstrap or if it's, or if it's, you know, if it's Nick Fuentes punching him in the face or there was a guy who showed up at Nick Fuentes his house and had a gun and had just killed somebody and was like asking if Nick was there or something just a couple of months ago. I know he talked about it on Tucker as well. And I mean, that's, that's important, obviously important. And I would say that for anyone on the left, Destiny whoever, anyone on the left as well. And at the same time, though, when you find people who are, you know, condoning that type of violence or even, you know, contemplating it, you have to crack down very swiftly. And where I would, you know, where I would definitely give, you know, give lower marks to the, you know, the DOJ here is that we just, as you say, we haven't seen that level of reaction yet. They've talked about it at length. They say, oh, we're going to go after some of these left wing groups and we're going to go after here, we're going to go after there. And I just, I just keep not seeing it.
- [36:36]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
So let's change tracks.
- [36:37]
Michael Malice
You were a naval intelligence officer. I, like many other people, am very confused about why we're in Iran. Obviously, Israel is heavily involved with that decision making. I don't think that Netanyahu didn't have some kind of end game in mind before he went in. If you're going, even if you're going to assume that Trump hadn't. I was talking Luk Rakowski last week on Tim Cast and he had the idea that the vision was okay. Israel backed with UAE and Saudi, become the dominant power in that Middle east and then we can move on. We, meaning America, can move on and focus on China as the big bad threat. And that's kind of the big end. Boss, you speak Chinese. You know a lot about the ccp and it's dangerous in the US and worldwide. I'm curious to hear your thoughts as to that theory and just Iran and our vision, their mission there in general.
- [37:36]
Jack Posobiec
Well, you know, thank you. And I have heard that theory and I get if you're saying that's what Luke said, I get that he's not saying that's what he believes, but you know, he's explaining that that could be a potential strategy here at play. And I have heard that said in D.C. as well. I just don't know if this is the right way to get there, though, because when you're talking about going up against. So Iran is an order of magnitude larger and more powerful and more ancient than Iraq or, you know, the current state of Iraq, you know, post World War I Iraq or Afghanistan with, you know, the Taliban's only been in power since the 90s. But, but even then, you know, Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires for far longer than that. And it's, it's a country where you're talking 90 million people, it's twice the size of Iraq. You're talking a country that harkens itself back to the Persian empire of old, of antiquity, where, you know, I think the only guy who was successful there was Alexander the Great. So, you know, if we go back two, 200 years, we found one guy who was able to do it and using methods that, you know, quite frankly, are probably not going to be palatable today in our information environment with Ticket, you know, TikTok and, and Twitter videos and streaming all the rest. So, you know, could this be a play to put China in a box? Yeah, maybe. I mean, you don't even need to directly take out Iran if you want to put China in a box or put a hark on them. You, you, what you would do is you would shut down the Strait of Hormuz the other way. Right? So you would. Because 90% of Iran's oil and petroleum exports go to the CCP. The CCP is not resource rich and they do have some oil stock, but it's not anywhere near compared to what they need in terms of their growth. So they, they need more. Japanese empire had the same problem in World War II for their war machine. That's one of the reasons they evaded Ventura. So, so immediately. And so you would what, what the United States could easily do just again, if this was your strategy, you would, you would sanction Iranian oil. And, and I've said this on Fox News, you could do the exact same strategy that they were using with Venezuela and some of the Russian Ghost fleet and say, hey, we're going to go for those tankers. And, and this tanker comes out. If it broke the sanctions boom, United States Navy boards seizes, turns it around, does whatever they want with it. You know, people, oh, it's against international law. Well, they said the same thing with Venezuela. They said the same thing with, you know, with the Russian Ghost Fleet. And yet the United States did it, did it as well. So I just don't know if it holds water with me because if that really was the goal, that that wouldn't be what you're doing. Plus now that you've gotten into a shooting war with Iran, which currently we're in that, so it's putting so much of a depletion element on the air interceptor. These air defense missiles that are so freaking expensive and so hard to come by, we do not produce them quickly. And now they're even talking about moving some of our air defense systems, including our Thaad terminal high altitude system from South Korea, the Korean Korean Peninsula, and moving that to defend these Middle Eastern allies, which. What does that do? Well, that takes away one of the absolutely critical nodes that the United States had on Beijing because if you look at it from on a map, the Korean peninsula is just adjacent to the Bohai Gulf, right across from Beijing. So, you know, when it was put there, China basically put a ban on all, you know, all trade with Korea for like a year because they were furious. They pointed out that the radar systems, the early warning radar systems associated with that, could easily penetrate into Chinese territory, into the Chinese capital. They viewed it as an act of war. But the Koreans still did it because the Koreans stood by our alliance, they were in fact a great ally and allowed the United States to do this. But now if we just take that away from them, it's like we did all that for, you know, it's like we made them go through all that for, for, for nothing, basically. Japanese are still there, no question. But you know, the Japanese also realize that if they pull all of their, if their ships and you know, they're not aircraft carriers, they are helicopter launchers. It's totally different, totally different. For defensive purposes only. And Japanese Maritime Self Defense Fleet. Yes, only for self defense. And, and so you, you have the situation where if we're going to drop all our military coverage in, in Indo Pacific for centcom, then what does that give China or North Korea for that matter, the ability to do? They've got a free hand if they want to, if they want to go and, you know, try to take Taiwan island or if they want to, which, which I think is probably the, the least likely, obviously most dangerous, but least likely. But what more realistically the Chinese could do is they could go for some of these disputed islands with the Japanese or they've got disputed areas in the South China Sea, Scarborough Shoal with the Philippines, other areas down there where they could easily just push in and say, hey, no one's coming to help you. So we're just going to take more, more, more and more and more and more and keep pushing and pushing and pushing and then eventually get to the point where you guys realize that, you know, your buddies all the way across the Pacific are totally, you know, are totally bogged down and they're not going to come to help you. Which by the way, I think is part of the, was part of the calculus for the Iran operation because Iran's largest military partner of course is Russia. But Russia is totally bogged down in the Ukraine war. They're being aided right now by the high gas prices and high oil prices. So I would absolutely look for a very large summer offensive by the Russians in Ukraine. Ukraine of course conducted a huge attack in St. Petersburg over I guess two days ago now hit their oil supply. So they're, you know, obviously know that something is coming but again they're not able to respond with Iran and they weren't able to respond with Syria. So what I think is more going on is that they looked at the Syria model of how Assad was ultimately driven from power by, you had the Turks, you had the Jordanians were sort of helping some of these opposition groups. Obviously the Kurds up in the north, we saw they were trying to get the Kurds involved here in Iran because that's just on the other side of the border. If you look at it, it's sort of this, this like you know, four corners region in the Middle east where the Kurds live. And you know, they were able to weaken the Syrian state through you know, a decade plus of a dirty war civil war where eventually when you know, these Turkish backed opposition forces came down from the north, they were able to get Assad to flee. And you know, it's left a state that at this point is, is, I would say not really functional and still has these simmering sectarian divides. You see mass killing of Christians and villages, mass killing of Alawites that's going on. Syria still being bombed by the Israelis and, but they're just so weakened that they don't really have any ability to do anything. And you've got this guy Al Jelani who's essentially just, just Erdogan's, you know, Erdogan's guy there in Damascus, but he's not really in charge. So you know, they're thinking, hey, that was so successful, the Venezuela operation was so successful, let's try it at Iran.
- [44:45]
Michael Malice
I, I just, I, I, where do you think this ends? So we're I'm hearing, and me and everybody else not, not unique to me hearing completely different things. The White House is obviously saying, look, you know, they're on their knees. I want someone to surrender, but since I keep killing them, there's no one to take my call. Iran is saying, we've only just begun to fight. You guys have, you know, started something. We're going to finish it. Fafo obviously, the Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed, which is to international oil trade, obviously. So who do you think's winning and where do you think this is going and what's the end game going to look like for all parties?
- [45:27]
Jack Posobiec
Well, so it's, it's, it's a really interesting question of winning, right? Because when you look at it from President Trump's immediate, you know, sort of outline of the war aims, he's been largely successful in, able, in being able to take care of all of them, with the exception of, you know, getting the people to rise up and take over the government. But other than that, the Ayatollah has been taken out. That was obviously the inciting incident in terms of the timing. They knew about this meeting. So that's when, you know, that's when the decision was made. And, you know, and it was Israel who provided that, that evidence. So if you want to, you know, take the joke route and say, well, Israel pushed us to do this, you know, or if you want to look at it and say, well, President Trump used Israeli intelligence. I mean, you know, it's clearly together. There's no right, you know, there's no way you separate that, you know, just intellectually, and the, the what, you know, what came next. The missile, you know, missile depletion. We've seen missile depletion hitting, hitting the military. We've seen hitting the military. So, you know, on down the line, that's, that's all been done. But what Iran realized, I think, after watching the Iraq war and remember, Iran was backing so many of these Shia groups and still does, back so many of the Shia groups in Iraq. So for, for a long time, it was all Iranian intelligence, irgc, that were watching what the United States was doing in Iraq, but they were also watching how Saddam Hussein's regime fell. And one of the steps that they took to potentially take kind of have insurance that this could never happen to them was that they decentralized the regime in Iran. So what you have. So if you remember early on when, when it looked like the IRGC was just sort of bombing everything like crazy, and they were going all out. And they were even hitting the pipelines in Azerbaijan, which that's. And that's where Israel gets their oil from Azerbaijan. And so, you know, why was the IRJC doing that? Well, because that's where the IDF gets their, their fuel supplies from. So, of course, you know, you want to take out their fuel supply, too. And. And then one of the, I think it was the Iranian foreign minister came out a little while later once the situation had kind of stabilized and say, said, hey, we've reestablished direct control over the irgc, but for a time they were operating independently. I was like, wait, operating independently? What does that mean? And I realized that, you know, and as you say, I was a, I was a China guy when I was in the military. So I'm reading up some of Iran's doctrine on this and say, oh, wow, I didn't even realize that the IRGC has a structure where it's totally decentralized, that in a situation like that where they experience loss of leadership, it's sort of a standing order that you just launch attacks. And that's why we saw so many attacks on the Gulf neighbors, on Azerbaijan, on all these other countries, because those orders, which would normally come from Tehran, which would normally come from the higher leadership, it was delegated down to these local unit levels. And you see the same end. And then I started reading some more on this and kind of tugging this thread and realizing that, oh, so they've set up their entire structure. Their whole regime operates like this. Their electric grid operates like this. Their. Their power structure operates like this. Their military, specifically the IRGC, operates like this. So there isn't really one person that you can just get rid of and the regime goes away. And that's. Which is very similar to the ccp, by the way, because they have, they have standing units and standing committees all over the country. So, yes, Xi Jinping is the main guy, but, you know, he's got his supporters and he's got units all over the place. You can't just, you know, take out one guy and expect the entire leadership to fall. Somebody asked me the other day too, they said, well, why is Iran still fighting? And, you know, when we took out the Supreme Leader, I said, well, just for you know, sake of argument, not saying I want this to happen, but just hypothetically, if someone took out Donald Trump, would the United States just surrender? Would we just, oh, well, you got us. We're done.
- [49:19]
Michael Malice
Like, this isn't just.
- [49:20]
Jack Posobiec
No, of course not. You. You do you have the vice president come up and we, we'd go to war. There's no question. That's exactly what we would do. So if that's what we would do, why would you expect another country to do differently like that?
- [49:32]
Michael Malice
That is, I, I, I never, you entered my head that someone would expect. You take out their top guy, and then it's like, all right, two. But that's literally 2D chess. You take out the king, you win. Obviously, he's not literally king, but that is, is really bizarre. But I, I just, I just want to go back. Do you have any, but if you,
- [49:52]
Jack Posobiec
but if you, if you listen, just, there's, there's a version of sort of this caricature, I guess, of the Iranian state that, that, that tells you that that's how it works, that you just, you take out one guy and they're going to fall apart and the people are going to rise up, and that's it. And we've certainly heard people say that, okay, when's it going to happen, guys? When, when is the, where's, where's the popular uprising, even the Kurds, even the Kurds, that Western leaders were trying to get urged to, you know, to launch this ground offensive? They said, yeah, we're good.
- [50:24]
Michael Malice
A couple of points. I said this on trigonometry. My huge concern with Iran is that, like, with Afghanistan, that a lot of people are going to trust the US and they're going to think, okay, the US has our back and they're going to rise up or help us, and then America's going to be like, all right, good luck, and that they're all going to be like pigs to the slaughter. And thankfully, the Iranian people and the Kurds are smarter than that. Realize, I don't know that we can rely on the US to see this through to the end to the extent of guaranteeing all of our safety. Second, again, I'm not at all an expert on Iran, but you have the president, who is the largest secular figure. You have the ayatollah, you have whoever's the head of the military. So even if you did take out one of those, you know, just off the top, just hypothetically, you have two other power centers who could assume and consolidate power. And in any country that's attacked, you're going to have this rally the flag situation, because you're not going to be this whole idea that, you know, the invaders are the good guys, even if, you know, many. I'm sure Iranians do have American sympathies. At the same time, we're bombing Tehran to such an extent that people living there. I heard one resident saying, it's like a dragon is being unleashed. And it's very hard to be like it's the good guys that are bombing us to oblivion, you know, so on and so forth. It's traumatic. I mean, just for the citizenry, war is a traumatic situation that I've not experienced and I wouldn't wish on adversarial anybody.
- [51:52]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. And, and there was Russia kind of made a similar, you know, I think miscalculation in the early Iran or, excuse me, the early Ukraine invasion. They, that, do you remember, they were saying this, Putin was talking about Ruski Mir and the Russian world. And this is about bringing the Russian world together. And we're going to knock out the regime in Ukraine and the people of Ukraine are going to rise up and say we want to rejoin the motherland and rejoin Mother Russia. And they were part of Russia during the Soviet, the Soviet era. They were part of Russia during the, you know, the empire and it's time for us all to rejoin. And that, you know, that just, you know, I'm sure there were some, you know, you know, provincial, you know, leaders and oblasts that, you know, said, okay, well we'll work with the Russians here and there. But by and large, with the exception of the provinces that had already, you know, that had already broken away, that, that had already been separatist, Lugansk and Donetsk, you just, you didn't really see that. And it was, you know, it's kind of like wish, they call it wish casting where it's this, like, I wish this to happen so much and it just doesn't happen. So you don't get this quick victory, quick regime collapse. Now what do you have to do? Well, the, you know, the, and the Russians being the Russians who do not like to quit, they said, all right, well, we're going to dig in and do this the other way. And that's what they have continued to do. And it's been a four year war of attrition since. And you know, I think the question here is now. So I've, the way I've laid it out is this, is that, you know, President Trump is at a crossroads on this where, you know, do we want to dig in and go into this war of attrition with the Iranians, which is clearly going to be costly for not only ourselves in terms of money, we've already lost airmen and soldiers in terms of this. But it's also going to be very, very deadly for the Middle Eastern Partners, including Israel, which is currently getting, I mean, my buddy Trey Youngster I used to work with is there in Tel Aviv every day. And then the ballistic missiles are making it through, and they found ways to recalibrate through the Iron Dome and through that. And again, you know, the lack of air defense is starting to become more and more prescient, more and more prevalent. And realizing that, you know, you're not totally defended 100% of the time now these missiles are making their way through. They are continuing to be more advanced, and who knows, do the Chinese come in and resupply, the Iranians, do the Russians come in and conduct some kind of resupply? You know, it could, There are so many ways, myriad of ways that that could spiral out of control. I think that's obvious to everybody, you know, and then again, if Saudi gets in, etcetera, etcetera. And, you know, then there's also, you know, I think in the news, the biggest thing right now is President Trump looking at some, some formation of a, of a, you know, a light ray, light infantry raid or a special forces raid on this Khark Island. And, you know, will that be enough to, to stop the Iranians from fighting? And, you know, it. At the same time, even if it, you know, even, even if you take Carg island, obviously it's gonna be very hard to defend that because that's, it's. So it's in such close proximity to the Iranian mainland, you're now within conventional artillery range. So they don't even need fancy missiles. They could just lob rockets at you from there from artillery shells. And, you know, it's be like Khe Sanh and Vietnam. But at the same time, you, you know, you, you, you still haven't really stopped Iran. To our point earlier with this whole decentralized power structure that they have, have you really gotten to the point where they can, you know, they're going to collapse? I don't know. However, what did we see the President say yesterday? He said, we have talks. I understand that Steve Witkoff is in Pakistan right now with Jared Kushner. They're trying, right next door. So they're trying to see if they can get some kind of intermediary relationship. By the way, just sending people to Pakistan in a situation like this, that's, it's pretty ballsy, I have to say. You know, you know, you certainly run there, you just assassinated their leader, and you're going to show up right next door in a place like that that's very dangerous. So, I mean, Takes a lot of courage to do that. It really does. And for people not realizing that, you know, that, that it's, that it's, you know, potential, it's just there, it's a potential. And so I would love if, to see if President Trump, you know, he might actually be able to say, you know what, we have this deal, we figured something out for the straight of Hormuz. We've, you know, we set up an oil situation that's going to be better for everybody. We can get to a point of agreement on the enriched uranium, which, you know, is still at the bottom of these, you know, these, these bunkers where it's been locked up since last June. And he could, he could say, look, my initial victory, conditions for the war have been met and we've come to a deal. And that's it.
- [56:32]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
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- [57:02]
Michael Malice
And you could be one of them
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Michael Malice
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- [57:15]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
They will not guarantee the plant if it falls into your rain gutter. Learn from my mistakes. It wasn't rooted. What was I thinking? I don't know what I was thinking. It was not cheap either because it's one of those old man of the Andes cactuses and they only grow flowers and they're like six foot.
- [57:29]
Michael Malice
So someone cut off the tip and
- [57:30]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Michael Malice
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- [58:07]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
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- [59:20]
Michael Malice
I am just, I'm worried about incentives. So, you know, one of the big lessons of international diplomacy was Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction. He ends up hanged. Libya gave up their program, Gaddafi ends up sodomized to death. And then you look like you said to Pakistan they had Osama bin Laden there, but they have nukes and they had no consequences for it. Like no one ever talks about them being the bad guys of the enemy. Zero repercussions because they have the nukes. And I'm looking at Iran, not just repercussions.
- [59:53]
Jack Posobiec
They, they, we still pay them. We pay them however many, however much a year.
- [59:58]
Michael Malice
So in Trump's first term, he assassinated General Soleimani. No consequences.
- [60:04]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Iran just recently got bombed by Israel.
- [60:06]
Michael Malice
Was a 12 day war. No, however long that was, no consequences. So Iran was basically telling us, you can do what you want, we're not going to fight back the next time, whatever country that is they're going to learn the lesson. Okay. The first time you do anything, we have to counterpunch harder and faster. And Trump certainly knows about counterpunching. That's basically his M.O. on Twitter and in real life. So this is creating a. I, I don't see how this end.
- [60:37]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
I don't see how if I'm Iran
- [60:39]
Michael Malice
and I know seeing things from another country's point of view is anathema people. I don't know how if I'm Iran, I can cut a deal with the guys who just came in and dropped a however many ton bomb on their equivalent of the White House. It's, it's, it just seems crazy to me.
- [60:57]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, no, I mean, and, and certainly we're hearing that from the Iranian side where there, there's a lot of rally around the flag, there's a lot of chest pounding there, there's. They said we are not having conversations, we are not talking. No, I, I imagine some of that is also for public consumption because are being listened to by their, you know, by their populace. They're getting hit as much as we are or you know, they're taking the conventional hit versus whereas they're hitting us, you know, asymmetrically. So, you know, they're not hitting, they're not able to take out our military. But what can they do? They can make the price of your gas pump go up, you know, go astronomic, go, go parabolic. Right. They can do that very quickly. They can, you know, they can mess with the straight of Hormuz and suddenly, you know, and suddenly everybody's like, why is my gas so expensive, why are my plane tickets so expensive, etc. And so there is this level of brinksmanship. And I don't think, to your point, I don't think a new government wants to come in saying, oh, you know, and their first act is, you know, we cut a deal with these guys who just killed are who. And keep in mind that within the Shia culture, right, within, within Shia Islam, that, you know, the leader and becoming a martyr is, is, it's like the whole thing is based on martyrdom. Right? You want to become a martyr. This is, this is their whole belief structure. So the idea that you've taken a holy martyr and that has made his sacrifice in vain could also be a huge problem for hardliners here. However, I guess the one possibility I could see is, and this, this, I've seen this assessment from some others as well is that the military perhaps could be more pragmatic in terms of this and, and perhaps less, you know, less ideologically inclined to say, look, you know, we want to stay in power. We probably don't want to get into a long war either. That's going to be extremely costly for us. You know, are they going to dislodge us? You know, took The Taliban, what, 25 years. You know, it took, know, however many years in Iraq. So, you know, do we want to do that or do we want to take the quick route out and, and find something that's going to work? That could also happen. And by the way, you saw this in the 1970s in the tanker wars. You saw this with. With other instances where Iran has been willing to be pragmatic. So despite the, you know, public pronouncements of the religious leaders, the secular leaders in Iran do actually have this sort of, like, underlying track record of pragmatism.
- [63:21]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
And, well, there also could be this,
- [63:23]
Michael Malice
this Korean War situation where it's just some kind of weird armistice and everyone.
- [63:28]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. We just sort of agree to stop fighting.
- [63:30]
Michael Malice
Yeah. And everyone's still technically at war. So I also want to know, what do you think are the prospects for the GOP in 2028?
- [63:40]
Jack Posobiec
Oh. Oh, I thought you was gonna say 26. I mean, 28. It's too far to. It's. It's. It's too far away to tell at this point. You know, it will largely depend on the success of President Trump. There's no question about that. You know, whoever runs, whether it be JD Whether it be Marco, whether it be, by the way, rfk, you know, I wouldn't. Wouldn't count him out. We know he's run before. Maha is very strong, very popular political movement, which sort of is part of maga, but also quite separate from MAGA in many ways. You know, it's a very viable movement. I wouldn't count that out for a second. So I think the GOP has a strong field. It's largely going to be contingent on, again, where the President puts his approval, where he gets the country in terms of the next, you know, to two and a half years, where we're at between now and then. And, you know, it's. It's obviously started already. I would say the 2028 primary. I think if you haven't, you know, if you haven't been paying attention to politics in the last couple of months, you don't realize that the 2028 primary has 100% already begun. We're seeing that, and you're already kind of see the chips move in different places. And the chess pieces move in different ways where sort of there's like the Rubio side that's over here, and then there's like, JD Vance is kind of more in the, you know, America first MAGA wing. And then Ron DeSantis, I think, was on a podcast recently talking about his vote. He was talking about his vote share of the primary if Donald Trump wasn't running. I said, well, kind of an apples to oranges situation, because, number one, Donald Trump was running. And also, you know, we hadn't been through the second Trump administration yet. So it's, you know, it's hard to, you know, play that game. But either way, he's, you know, sending signals out that perhaps he's interested in throwing his hat back in the ring. And he's, you know, he's a young man. J.D. vance is a young man. So I certainly, you know, I certainly wouldn't surprise me if we saw any of them running. The Democrats. The Democrats problem, by the way, is they have no benchmark. Right? They have. Who do they have? They have Gavin Newsom. Like, it's, it's an. Or you. Who are James Talarico. Like, are you serious? I was, I was in a debate with a liberal yesterday, and they, and they said, would you think James Talarico is going to flip Texas? And I just started laughing. Like, like this guy. Like, really? Like, well, what do you mean? Don't you think he's gonna win, Christian? But. And I just, I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, I. I can't even answer you with a straight face. Like, that's just too funny. So funny.
- [66:06]
Michael Malice
I feel like, you know, in the same way that the anti war movement in the Republican Party is like Lucy with the football Texas Democrats, there's this bizarre. We're going to get him this time. And this has been like, this took the fourth time.
- [66:22]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
So Wendy, I think her last name
- [66:23]
Michael Malice
was Rogers, she gave this filibuster speech on the Texas, I think, state Senate floor. She was the gubernatorial candidate. And people are holding out sneakers because, like, she gave the speeches sneakers. And there was all this national outpouring like, oh, my God, Wendy's gonna flip Texas.
- [66:38]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, she was like the super. Like, she was like, she made abortion, like a really big, you know, you know, part of her camp.
- [66:45]
Michael Malice
I remember.
- [66:45]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [66:46]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
And she lost by like 20 points.
- [66:48]
Michael Malice
Then you had Beto. Oh, crap. Beto's gonna win all this money, all this attention. He's so photo giving the Annie Leibowitz
- [66:55]
Jack Posobiec
treatment in Vanity Fair cover With the dog and it was like the whole thing and then. Which by the way, you take a guy, Beto, who is a backbench congressman who served however many terms in Congress, he never heard of him before. But it does show you the power of the media. They show you the media does still have its, its influence in a sense. Right. Not over everyone, but over a portion where they can take someone and say, oh, this guy's a star now. He's. He's so great. You're gonna, you're gonna love this guy. He's awesome. You know, he's definitely. I kind of. Some reason, I kind of feel like Timothy Chalamet is like kind of another example of this where you like, we're like, they have no talent whatsoever. But you know, they're just sort of like they're there and they're going to be stars now and, and you know, the minute the media machine turns off, they just vanish.
- [67:40]
Michael Malice
Yeah.
- [67:41]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
So.
- [67:42]
Michael Malice
And so is. Beto is going to. And then Ted Cruz is in danger.
- [67:45]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Oh my God.
- [67:45]
Michael Malice
No one likes Ted Cruz. Oh, there's this poll that shows it neck and neck. And now it might happen at some point, there's no question. But I think Talarico is clearly in that vein. I think he's a shit lives version of what a Christian is. I don't think there's any Christians who listen to him talk who's like, you know what? This guy's on my team. It's bizarre. And it just shows, I think in many ways our media centers out of touch with red state America, you know, I think so.
- [68:15]
Jack Posobiec
And you do see, I mean, you do see examples of the Democrats, you know, sort of trying to course correct on this.
- [68:23]
Michael Malice
Right?
- [68:23]
Jack Posobiec
They're, they're trying to run veterans a little bit more. They're trying to. I think in Iowa they have a veteran running for governor and in, in Maine they have a veteran running with, you know, it's, he's like, I'm this, I'm a, I'm a working man. He's got his tattoos, but he had to cover the one up because it was a little too, a little too German or something. And you know, running against Susan Collins and who. I think Susan will, I think Susan will pull it out. But you do see the Democrats, I think, trying to move back and even, I know this is going to sound weird, but even Tim Waltz was almost an example of this. It was a very failed. He was like, he was sort of like the failed prototype, like the failed laboratory experiment that they were well, we need to find someone who has our values but is also a white male and knows how to shoot and can wear camo and let's try Tim Waltz. Oh, wait, no, sorry. Put that back in the basement. You know, don't, don't ever let it, don't ever let anyone see Igor again. You know, he was like the failed like deformed, like, like Victor Frankenstein's first attempt. It didn't go so well and I think they are going to try to go through that vein. They used to call these the Blue Dog Democrats, by the way, and they used to be sort of like, like they're even used to be crazy enough there were pro life, pro gun Democrats in the party, which sounds totally insane when you look at things now. But I've said to them, and I would say it again, that if the Democrats move to the center on economics, if they move and say, hey, you know, we're going to forget about wokeness and we're just going to deliver for the people, we're going to give you housing, we're going to come in on grocery prices, we're going to come in on inflation. Look, ram war gas prices. That's. Nobody likes that. We're going to help with that too. You know, actually reclaim the mantle of anti war, which they certainly have an avenue towards right now that would probably be their most successful play. And you do see elements of Mandami tries to do this in his rhetoric. But I had the opportunity to sort of get in, get in his face in the White House not too long ago and, and point out that I said, well, what about the time that you said that you're going to focus your policies on white people and that you were going to tax them more from others? And then he just, he tries to, you know, equivocate and he tries to play games. And I think, I think you see the sneering mask of just anti white rage just falls immediately off. And now you got the wife's, you know, social media history is coming out which is also extremely anti white. And it's, it's still in that vein, but rhetorically. There was something that he did that was very brilliant during one of the general election debates of the New York mayoral race, which is last year. And they said if you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be? And some people were saying I'd be in Tahiti. I think one guy actually said I'll be in Israel. And, and then Dami said I wouldn't be anywhere. I'd be Right here in New York City. Yep, genius answer. Brilliant answer. Like home run answer. That was perfect answer. So you see Democrats trying to realize that, wait a minute, this America first thing is really, really popular. Hey, what if we take that over and we say we're the real America firsters and then come in with left wing populism, which inevitably is like these giant centralized government programs. And I'm not saying they're going to work, but they are popular. When you're in situations of economic upheaval
- [71:43]
Michael Malice
and speaking to your blue dog Democrats, what people don't realize is Nancy Pelosi got them all to walk the plank in 09 and 2010 because they're. There were a handful, but enough over a dozen pro life Democrats and they were worried about Obamacare subsidizing abortion. And she talked them into it knowing. And they knew they were going to lose their seats in the midterms and they voted for it anyway. I don't know if you saw Nancy Pelosi's retirement video. She put up a seven minute video about why she's retiring from Congress. I watched the whole thing. She does not mention the word people of color or minorities once. Even when she's talking about aids, which obviously disproportionately hit San Francisco. She doesn't mention the word gay or LGBT ones. She does have how much she loves veterans and a big section I love
- [72:29]
Podcast Co-host or Guest
St. Francis of Assisi.
- [72:31]
Michael Malice
And whatever you say about Nancy Pelosi, she has delivered on the Democratic agenda better than anyone in Congress. So if I were a Democrat, I would follow her lead because that has been success for them. And that lead would have been just exactly what you said. I go to church, I love the flag, I support my veterans. And that would, it worked in Virginia. It would be a winning combination for them.
- [72:55]
Jack Posobiec
Yeah. And then they win. And by the way, thank God Spamberger is just a moderate because could you imagine how crazy she would be if she were a radical? Right? But thank God she told us she's a moderate. So these are all moderate policies, Right? Right.
- [73:07]
Michael Malice
Right. Folks, head over to malice.locals.com where Jack took questions from sporting listeners. Jack, we're running out of time. What has been your favorite part of this interview?
- [73:17]
Jack Posobiec
I appreciated you letting me talk about, you know, sort of the personal side right at the front over there. You know, lately, you know, people want to talk about, obviously Iran and geopolitics and stuff, but it was cool to have that conversation and just kind of go feel like we went deep there a little bit.
- [73:34]
Michael Malice
You are welcome.
- [73:47]
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- [74:18]
Jack Posobiec
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Jack Posobiec
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Jack Posobiec
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Podcast Co-host or Guest
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Angie Hicks
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Jack Posobiec
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