AI Takes Control - September 14, 2026

0:00You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. For the first time ever, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving away a new Rolex watch for every Club Serrano card deer. Play with your Club Serrano card and on September 20th, you could be one of five winners of a Rolex watch. Plus, all winners will advance to the finale at Palm's Casino Resort Las Vegas for a chance to take home a rarity. The second Mustang dark horse ever produced on September 26th. Two properties, six winners, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, your California to Vegas connection. Details at Yamava.com must be 21 or older to enter participate. Please gamble responsibly. Just do with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the

1:00moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at AA.com. Much news in this insane news cycle that it is impossible to cover everything that's going on today,

2:02but have no fear. We're going to go through the most important stories if you ask me, including updates to some of the disastrous foreign policy decisions that President Trump has made, what that means for the global oil market, what it means for energy shortages. And I'm sure Saudi Arabia is thinking what it means for the future of Saudi Arabia to help us kind of parse through those topics today. Mertaza Hussein, reporter from Dropsite News, will be joining us at the top of the show. We're also going to have Daniel Besner, who is just a wonderful foreign policy analyst, also a professor, and the host of American prestige. He will be co-hosting with me in the second hour of the show today. So as always, given the moment that we're in, it will be a very heavy foreign policy show today. However, obviously we're going to discuss artificial intelligence and all the various CEOs and executives who are now coming out to say, yeah, we've got a lot to worry about here. We need to slow down. But how credible are those claims? Is there an ulterior motive?

3:04We're going to talk about that as well. As always, just want to encourage you to like and share the stream. If you're watching us live, it's a free and easy way to help support our show and keep us independent. You could also become a paying member by going to tyt.com slash join or just hit that join button if you're watching on YouTube. All right, well, without further ado, let's get into the first story. Like he's on top of things, neither does the whole of the United States government. Now VP Vance also claimed that the US has been engaging in direct negotiations and talks with Ansar Allah, which the West refers to as the Houthis, but for the purposes of being accurate on this show, we will moving forward refer to them as Ansar Allah. So what comes next now that Ansar Allah has

4:11essentially taken control of the Bab al-Mandab straight. Obviously, the Hormuz straight remains problematic for the West, considering the fact that Iran is able to carry out strikes against vessels transiting through it. And Saudi Arabia seems to be in a lot of trouble. Now, let's go through the big updates from over the weekend and today. Over the weekend, Ansar Allah continued carrying out strikes against Saudi Arabia, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, desperately reached out to President Donald. Does this sound like you're lying in bed? And suddenly you realize it's 2 a.m. and you've been doom scrolling for hours. That late night doom scroll doesn't just wreck your brain. It spikes your internal temperature. And when you're overheated, your body never hits that deep restorative sleep. The fix isn't in a new mattress or a renovation. It's your bed temperature. That's where chili pad 2.0 comes in. This water-based topper slides right over your current mattress and runs from 55 to 115 degrees. While fans just push hot air around, chili pad uses actively chilled water

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6:21Saying that we will assist when it comes to intelligence sharing, but that's about it. Now, how do we get here? Well, over the past two weeks alone, Saudi Arabia has faced Iran-back attacks from the east, the south, and the north, according to the New York Times, a Saudi oil tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz at the end of August, killing two sailors. Obviously, they've been trading strikes ever since. And then on Friday, on Surla, which had already declared a blockade on Saudi oil shipments through the Red Sea, seized territory along the Babal Mandeb Strait and defeated Saudi Allied forces in Yemen. Then on the exact same day, the Saudi authorities announced that they had been forced to shut down a critical oil pipeline known as the East West pipeline after an Iraqi militia carried out a drone attack. Now, this is the exact scenario in which Saudi Arabia thought the United States would spring into action in order to provide security, protection, military intervention for them.

7:22That's the whole point of Saudi Arabia investing so much in military bases in their country, US military bases in particular. They've spent a lot of money on US manufactured weaponry, and they've also spent quite a bit of money trying to appeal to the Trump family. If you can recall, they invested $2 billion into Jared Kushner's hedge fund. So they were under the impression that, hey, when a day like today comes, we can rely on the United States for security. However, MBS called Trump, that's Mohammed bin Salman called Trump on Friday, and then again, Thursday at first, and then on Friday, begging for help. But when the Crown Prince asked Trump last week to take military action, as I mentioned earlier, Trump declined. And in fact, here is what Trump told reporters during his trip to Ireland on Saturday. They called us and they don't want to fight with us. They don't want to let us know. They don't want to fight with us. They don't want me to go after them. They don't want us to go after them.

8:23But they've called and they've talked to us and they don't want us to. They were much preferred not having us involved. And they're letting have more ships go through this is one country that they're not too happy with. And we'll get that straight down. Okay, so there are two major problems with what you heard Trump say there. First, Ansar al-A'ad denies that they ever reached out to the United States telling them that they don't want the US involved militarily. And I look, you shouldn't take anyone's claims at face value, but President Donald Trump in particular has been caught lying again and again and again. In fact, later in the show, there's another huge lie involving Ukraine that we'll get into. But the other thing is, let me read you their statement. So, an Ansar al-A'ad political official says quote, we did not communicate with Trump. Nor did we ask him not to attack us. Now, the second issue with what you heard Trump say in that video is if domestic or diplomatic,

9:23I should say, negotiations is how Trump intends to solve Saudi Arabia's issues. Well, there's bad, there's more bad news for the Saudis because there were supposed to be a meeting between officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf countries. We're supposed to take place today. But yesterday, we learned that that meeting was canceled. Michael Ratney, who's a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told the Times quote, right now the Saudis are really frustrated. In some sense, it's their worst case scenario. So, what comes next? What does this mean for the future of oil trade? How is it going to impact the United States economically or the global economy economically? Luckily here to answer some of those questions is Dropsite reporter Murtaza Hussain. Murtaza, thank you so much for joining us. Great to be here, Anna, thanks. So, let's get started with what I think is a really important contextual question before we move forward with other questions. And that really has to do with the way Ansar al-A'ad is depicted here in US media. You know, they've really been

10:27described almost like this rag tag team of unorganized radicals who don't really know what they're doing. And I think that that downplaying of their capabilities and the influence they have in Yemen kind of put us at a disadvantage because they were underestimated. So, can you talk a little bit about what Ansar al-A'ad is, the type of power they have in Yemen, and why it is that the United States, including our media apparatus, has decided to kind of downplay their capabilities. Sure, so, you know, to your point, Ansar al-A'ad is the government of at least part of Yemen and northwestern quadrant of the country in their zone of sovereignty is expanding as we see over the last week or so. But you know, very crucially, you know, like a government, it has technocrats, controls, major cities and so forth, it ministers them. But very crucially, a lot of the senior military officers, I think the majority, a significant majority of senior military officers,

11:30from the former Yemeni government when it collapsed, they defected to join Ansar al-A'ad in this movement, and they used their training and so forth to rationalize to certain degree, its military operations. They have, you could say, a preponderance of a professional military officers in the country who were part of the former government, and that actually means that they are much more sophisticated than, you know, people may have the misconception. People think that they're just wearing sandals and so forth and running around the AK-47s. It is a poor country in general, and obviously they don't have the same level of equipment that an aerial country would have in so forth. But despite that, they have a military professionalism and organization and commanders and so forth. They have tremendous fortifications, and by some accounts who told me they have significant manufacturing capacity in the mountains of Northeast, not western Yemen, where they're based. So this is really like a proto-government and a proto-state. And, you know, very importantly, it seems like they have more professional military officers, more state capacity,

12:31perhaps than their rivals in the international recognized Yemeni government, just based in Edden, more eastern parts of the country. They seem like most of the military forces are people who are paid, or they're mercenaries, you could say, people who are working for DUE, or people for Saudi Arabia, they're not as invested ideologically in what they're doing and so forth. So that was a matter of tremendous disadvantage when they're fighting against Unserullah or the Houthis, some people call them. So I think it's not surprising that they were able to roll over these forces in the past week, and it's offensive that they launched. Really, the success that's been taking place in containing Unserullah the last decade or so, because it's been a global coalition, more or less, aligned against them. Not just regional countries like Saudi Arabia or the U.E., but the United States, the U.K., the U.S., the Serf Trump's turn fought a very sensitive air campaign, a very brutal air campaign against Unserullah and Northwestern Yemen. And that did not succeed,

13:32that actually ended in operational failure. So when you played that clip of Trump really demurring and claiming falsely it seems that he was communicating with them and they didn't want to fight, they just want to talk things over. That was really recognition that the back of the U.S. is not wanting to get back into a conflict with Unserullah because that last conflict, while failing to deter them and also put at risk several U.S. aircraft carriers, several aircraft for loss during the conflict. Many majorones were also lost, which are running in short supply of reaper drones and so forth. So that's a real problem. They really don't want to fight this war with them again. And they are a significant formidable force, which also has another advantage over the Yemeni government. And even over the Saudi government, a way is that their cause, some degree, is seen as a legitimate by a significant number of Yemenis. They were firing Israel, they're firing its United States. They were aligned with Gaza. That really did draw a lot of popularity in Yemen and throughout their world really. So they do have that more of a

14:35zealous sort of faction supporting them. And that really does manifest, you can see in this offensive. And the success it seems to have achieved in controlling the capturing the coastal areas around the Babel Mandem and potentially even capturing the city of Taiz next as well, which is being in circle, which would be another significant victory for the group. So yeah, it's really not just a Ragtag group. This is really a proto-state. And if they do consolidate, they could hold over more of Yemen. It could be much more influential and powerful government in the years to come if that were done the past. But you know, what's really fascinating is, you know, I recall last year, President Donald Trump ignored the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu, which is rare as we all know, when it came to continuing conflict and war against the Ansar Allah in Yemen. And Trump said, no, we're done, we're pulling out, we're not dealing with this anymore. He knew that this is a formidable force. Yet my understanding is the West encouraged Saudi Arabia to reignite warfare

15:37against Ansar Allah. And that led to where we are today. Why would the West pressure Saudi Arabia to do this? I mean, it's been a disaster. Well, you know, it's really related to the Iran war. And the Iran war has really been a catastrophe for the Gulf countries, the Gulf Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, but others as well. So this current fighting with Ansar Allah, it actually started in July. And it was not initiated by Ansar Allah, it was initiated by the Saudis, the Saudis in response to actually a flight that arrived at Sana'a airport from Iran, which contained a delegation of people from Ansar Allah, maybe some Iranians and others who would attended the funeral of Iatul Al-Athamini. So when they came back from the funeral, the Saudis were trying to stop them from landing or send a threat that people should not be flying to this airport because they've been maintaining a blockade of their territory by air and by land and sea.

16:38And so forth, the Qar-Sawr of a quarantine around them for many, many years. And they were afraid that the quarantine would start breaking if flights started landing freely from Iran or elsewhere in Sana'a. So they bombed Sana'a airport and they used very expensive British munitions, storm shadow missiles, which are extremely exquisite as the word they use, they take a long time to manufacture and they're very expensive. And they're really in great need but in Ukraine, actually. And they used them to destroy not any facilities at the airport as far as we know, but basically bom the shoulder of the runway to send like a threat to the Ansar Allah movement not to try to break this blockade. And it was kind of funny because I can't say anything else but it's kind of like darkly amusing. But Ansar Allah didn't just retaliate for that attack in a proportionate way by doing a symbolic attack in Saudi Arabia. They really escalated to a tremendous degree immediately. They started bombing Saudi oil facilities inside Saudi Arabia hitting pipelines,

17:41hitting refineries, hitting storage facilities for oil. And they started launching this offensive inside Yemen against the Saudi back groups. And fast forward now, September that offensive has made tremendous progress. And they've captured now a city of Mocha on the Red Sea and the Bob Al-Mandab captured these islands, which I think J.D. Vance was asked about earlier. Those islands, several of them, but they're literally in the Bob Al-Mandab. So if you were one of the islands, Param Island, you could actually stand in the island. You don't even need sophisticated radar equipment or sensors and so forth. You could just use the AK-47 or a RPG or something and hit ships just by eyesight from the island. It's tremendously useful if you want to shut down the Bob Al-Mandab, they may decide to do now. And the Bob Al-Mandab is even more narrow than the straight-of-war moose if I remember correctly. Yeah, it's narrowest point, especially where Param

18:41Island is. It's tremendously narrow. It's a real choke point. So for them to be able to control that or even to have the ability to credibly threaten it, it's a tremendous shift in the war. And now what they've done in addition to that as part of this offensive is that they've hit really hard, Saudi, a particular Saudi pipeline called the Petro Line, which is the east-west Saudi bypass for the straight-of-war moose. So the reason of Saudi oil production exports didn't really drop that much during the wars because they had the Petro Line. So when the straight got shut down, they started pumping things across the country, entire constant entire breadth of the country, and you're sporting it through the Red Sea, through the Petro Line. From what we see from open source information, at least three major pumping stations of the Petro Line were completely destroyed by UnSerla in the last week. Several parts of the pipeline itself were also hit. And it could be even more damage because one thing has been a common theme in the wars in the GCT country. The baddest like totalitarian censorship regime to try

19:43to keep any information by the damage out. But we're seeing a lot, despite that from satellite images. So what that means is, you know, it's really unlikely, it'll be very difficult for them to continue exporting oil as long as the straight-of-war moose and may remain shut. It doesn't look like the U.S. is going to help them defeat the hoodies or push them back and save this part, make their pipeline defensible again. So I think it's going to incentivize those voices calling for a compromise with Iran to put some sort of new regime on the straight-of-war moose, such that because I think the Red Sea and the Battle of Mandir may now become too dangerous to export oil going forward. That's amazing. I mean, I have to hand it to the Iranians in regard to their whole strategy with the access of resistance because it's been pretty effective. I mean, even when it comes to Hezbollah, and you know, obviously Israel hasn't defeated Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, despite the fact that Israel continues to wipe out entire villages, dozens of villages in Southern Lebanon, including

20:43Christian villages, by the way, have been totally wiped out and leveled. But Hezbollah remains likely because the types of military actions Israel takes only furthers, you know, a desire to join the resistance. I mean, how could it not? But last question on this before we move on to other things. So what does this mean for the future of, I guess, the multi-polar world that we're already living in? There's no question about that. I think the multi-polarity, though, becomes a little more complicated with the rise of Iran as a potential world power, considering how much control they're going to have. And I do have on the global oil and liquefied natural gas supply. What are your thoughts on that? And if that is the case, what do you think the next move is for the United States? Sure, and everything I say I'll add with the caveat that this is still a fluid situation and we don't know exactly how it's going to shake out. But I will say that if you were to live a situation from the end of February till today and you would have

21:48told anyone that at this point in the war Iran is not just still in power, at the same current still in power and they're still hitting American targets and still fighting in the straight elsewhere. But they also control another waterway now effectively. They've actually increased their level of control since the war started. That would suggest operational failure and strategic defeat in the war for the United States. And then by extension, despite the tremendous losses that Iran has taken, within human losses and infrastructure and economically, their strategic position has actually improved at now this point in the war. And I do think it's quite notable now that there was this intended to be a foreign ministerial level conference between the GCC states and Iran today. It was postponed because of I think the more chaos caused by this houthi offensive, Ransar Allah offensive in Yemen. But I do think it's going to happen at some point in some form. But the GCC states, these are the states which were alive very much on the United

22:49States. And that's just very much the same. We're like primarily on the United States for everything for security, for stability and so forth. At the start of the war, I know from just the talk to people before the war, it's not like there were keen on the war happening. Maybe there were nervous about it or they didn't fully feel like they were the ones driving decisions. But they did acquiesce to it. They didn't go along with it. Didn't you exactly what was going to happen? And what I've been told to them was in effect that just give us a month, like give us America and Israel a month. And then we'll make this Iran problem go away for you forever. And then they'll be a painful month and there'll be some sort of discomfort and unrest in that period. But once that month or so was over, you'll have a completely clear strategic landscape going forward without this problem you had with Iran for so many years. So we're like six, seven months into this now. Iran, this invention is not going anywhere. They would never have imagined that the straight would be, it's not completely blocked, heavily contested and disrupted for all that time.

23:54It's a catastrophe for all these countries. So now they had me with Iran to sort of try to figure out something that would give a new modus for Vendi. That's going to be a significant part on Iranian terms now because from the Iranian perspective, whether you made the decision or not, you went along and supported and facilitated attacking us, new neighbor for one that are worse. And now you're going to need to do something to rectify that relationship. But if you were buying planes for Trump and driving Trump for all these years and his family, maybe you'd have to make something nice for us now to make us accept and renew a new modus of Vendi where we continue to get along and have some deals with each other. And now I'm one final point that at the BRICS conference, we mentioned multi polarity at the BRICS conference that happened over the weekend. There was a significant meeting between the Iranians and the UAE and they made some conciliatory statements, they're pictured together, leadership of the country and so forth. So I do think that despite the fact that situation not settled, we are going to see a new

24:56status quo where Iran has more influence over the Gulf Arab states and more influence over the state of foremost and the American bases and the American presence that were there. It was really gamble than this war and the gamble regardless what happens, it did not pay off. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. And strategically speaking, Iran is making good decisions when it comes to its involvement of reaction to this war. So their goal has been to push the United States out of the region, which is why while the US seems to ham-handedly just strike civilian infrastructure and elementary schools, Iran has focused on striking US military bases in the region, thus destroying them. And now there are all sorts of discussions underway in the US where it appears the overwhelming decision is going to be to no longer rebuild those bases because it's going to be too expensive. And rather than serving as a way of providing security to these countries, it has actually made these countries a

25:59target by Iran. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, after having two conversations with Trump urging him to help with military intervention, Trump says no, he declines and Saudi Arabia starts reaching out to other leaders in the region. I know that they have a meeting set up with the leader of Egypt, but more importantly, they're apparently engaging in negotiations with Iran to try to get their oil through the straight of hormones, which is exactly what Iran wants. They want to be the, you know, essentially the dominant power in that region that's making decisions alongside Gulf Arab countries and Saudi Arabia. So we'll see how that all plays out, but so far it looks like it's going in the direction that, you know, Iran was hoping for. We have to take a break because we're out of time, but Mretaza, it's okay if the answers don't. Would you be willing to stay for one more segment because there's one other story I'd like to cover with you. Yeah, I can say. Okay, perfect. We're going to take a quick break, everyone. We'll be right back to talk a little bit

26:59about some new reporting about fracturing within Iran between the moderates and the hardliners. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. What's up, everyone? Welcome to our first social break of the day. Art Guy writes in in our member section and says, I'd say it was pointless for Trump to be trying to lie his way out of the situation, but the market still seemed to be taking everything he says as true for some reason. Yeah, I mean, if anything, how this war has played out and how the markets have reacted to it gives you a sense of how broken the stock market really is. So we'll talk about that later in the show. Janks left tricep of fury says, you only gave him a plane and billions Saudi Arabia. What have you done for the orange buffoon lately? Yeah, I mean, Trump is a con man and

28:05if you're putting all your eggs in the Trump basket, you're probably going to run into some trouble as Saudi Arabia is realizing right now. Jack Callahan says, the hell would Saudi Arabia, the hell with Israel just get out of the middle east. I think that would be the right course of action. And we should actually engage with Iran diplomatically, especially since it is a problem that we have a shortage of energy right now. So I think the only path forward is to in good faith engage in negotiations. The problem is Trump has lied so many times the Iranians don't trust him. And so it remains to be seen whether Iran would even want to engage in negotiations with the United States at this point. But overall, I agree with you. We should leave the region and we should negotiate peacefully. All right, we've got, let's go to our members on youtube.com where daddude says, should I feel bad rooting for the hoothies? Trump's administration is authoritarian,

29:09so I'm not going to answer that question honestly. Let's move. Welcome back to TYT everyone. Anna Casparid and Murtaza Hussein with you. Murtaza is one of the incredible reporters over at Dropsite. So please support Dropsite and the work that Murtaza does. Before we get to the next story though, just a quick note about one of our partners and it's chapter. So there are a lot of scams out there when it comes to Medicare. And if you are worried that you're not getting the best possible, you know, Medicare coverage at the lowest possible price, all you need to do is go to chapter. So we put the graphic ups. You can call them their numbers right there. So chapter is an independent Medicare advisor. They're the only ones who compare literally every

30:11single plan nationwide. The best plan for you is out there and chapter will find it for you. So people who switched with chapter last year actually saved an average of $1,100. And chapters advisors are honest, they are not paid to just steer you in certain plans. They're not brokers, right? So they're fiduciaries essentially that are looking out for your best interest as opposed to earning a commission. So if you're interested, it's free under 20 minutes. And you can skip these scams and call chapter today. It's 805-201-2275-805-201-2275. All right, everybody. Let's get to our next story. I want to talk a little bit about something that caught my attention in the New York Times over the weekend. So the New York Times is alleging that emboldened hardliners in Tehran have essentially started making certain decisions without authorization from the moderates, if you will. The pieces titled How Iran's Hardliners Pervailed

31:12and Sabotaged US P-Steel. So the whole thesis of this article is that the more hardline faction with any Iran worked independently to skirt the possibility of a P-Steel with the United States, which they understandably do not trust. They do not trust the US. Iranian forces opened fire on three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz that were transiting through an unauthorized route closer to the coast of Oman. And if you guys can remember, that's what kind of reignited kinetic action between the United States and Iran. The attack set a Qatari LNG tanker on fire and also damaged other vessels. Iranian President Masood Pzezhezhkin was outraged by this and tried to figure out who was behind the strikes. So he reached out to General Ahmed Vahidi. That's the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He denied it. Others in Iran denied that they called for these strikes to be carried out. And then it turns out

32:15that a fringe hardline faction had decided to act on its own. Ultimately, those clandestine efforts derailed a push by more moderate pragmatists in Iran to reach an end to hostilities with the United States and repair their nation's ailing economy. Three Iranian officials said inquiries by the government and security forces traced the decision to strike the three commercial ships in July to the cleric, Khosin Tayyip, an influential spy master who had opposed the peace deal with the US from the outset. Tayyip also had been telling the new supreme leader that Iran had made a mistake in ending the war and agreeing to the deal. So that's the memorandum of understanding that kind of ended kinetic action between the United States and Iran. But obviously it was re-ignited later. Now in a recent speech, Tayyip said that he was not opposed to diplomatic negotiations. You know that feeling when you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing, eating healthy, working out, getting sleep, taking supplements. And you still

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34:21body is aging faster or slower than your actual age, this is one of the easiest ways to find out. Right now, go to truediagnostic.com and use code TYT for 20% off your entire order. That's true diagnostic.com code TYT for 20% off. With the United States, but that negotiations that ignore the rights of our people and concede to the excessive demands of the enemy have no place in Iran's politics. And it seems that this hardline approach has some favorability among the Iranian public. So the Times also reports that on the streets and on state television in Iran, meanwhile, the hardliners openly attack the negotiating team and its peace deal, Abbas Araqshi by the ways part of the more moderate wing and at nightly rallies crowds chanted for a return to war. So this is the New York Times and as with anything reported by legacy media, you shouldn't take anything at face value. And I didn't, which is why I have

35:26Murtasa Hussein reporter from Dropsite News joining us to share his thoughts on this. Because Murtasa, I don't deny for a second that there are hardliners in Iran. But what I'm having difficulty really buying is that the way this whole thing is framed is like, oh, the United States really wanted diplomatic negotiations and they wanted a peace deal. But it was those pesky hardliners in Iran who reignited kinetic warfare with the United States. I don't like that framing and I don't believe that framing, but I'm curious what you think. Yeah, I think there's reason to be skeptical of the story. And with the caveat that obviously everybody would have full inside transparency into how the sourcing and things like that. But there are a couple of things about which kind of strike me as notable and give me some sense of pause. The first and most important point is that literally since the war started, this narrative has been promoted very vigorously that there are significant fractures in the decision making apparatus of the Iranian government. I think I heard that pretty much from maybe the second

36:31day of the war. And there's a particular reason that one would want to promote such a narrative, which is that if you consider the Iranian government's losing capacity to control, it's different state organs, losing capacity control, the actions of military officers, individual units, then you're getting somewhere closer to a Syria or Libya style situation where the country employs. So that's actually been the goal of the American is really work, the beginning to have this kind of fracturing and dissolution basically of the Iranian government, such that no one's able to really exert political control over it anymore. And then it can just kind of flood us all that way. There's really no indication of that. And quite the opposite, the Iranian government has surprised everybody by the man level to which they're able to maintain its institutional coherence. They actually successfully even carried out a succession, a leadership succession in the midst of the active phase of the war. And then one of

37:32the heaviest part of the bombing was happening in April. And if they could survive that period, it's less and less likely that the dissolution will be coming a little out of the pipe. So I kind of see the story is almost very familiar and sort of like a bit of a tired narrative at this point. And if you look at some of the personalities involved too, it just seems unlikely that they would strike out on their own and contravene a policy which had been approved by much the Bahamini and had the buy-in of senior IRGC officials. There is a difference in the people in the Iranian government. There are different factions and different views. But I actually think that the governing faction right now is almost pretty solidly consolidated around a particular approach to the situation. Like you mentioned Abbas Araqji and people say he's a moderate and so forth. I don't even know if that's even an appropriate term in this case because he's a former minister, he himself and the IRGC person and so it was Mohammed Baghad Ali Baif and so forth.

38:34And most of the senior decision makers now in the country, the people who are more of the, you could say, reformist view, the reformist parties and so forth, they're really excluded from decision making right now. And they've lost their credibility to a degree because they advocated detent and conciliation with the US for many, many years. And they kept getting punched in the face over that with the nuclear deal, assassination of Kossum and so on, money last year's war. Now this year's war, no one's really listening to them anymore. And their opinions don't really have much weight for good or ill. So I don't think that there are these divisions that are being laid out here. It strikes me as somewhat unlikely in the present case. But it does seem like it would be an narrative that if one were to try to promote it right now and he got traction, it would be politically useful to the US and the Israel dissuade because it would suggest that the war is not completely in a failure. If you could say the Iranian government is completely dysfunctional now, then you'd say great that at least the war accomplished that. I'm very skeptical, and with respect to individual reporters that all these institutions,

39:37some of them who are good and so forth, in general, I have view all these reports from institutional media at this point with a degree of skepticism because they're based on these anonymous leaks and the leakers themselves have motives and they're trying to shape the coverage. And unfortunately in many cases, the institutions have been quite treaseless or willing to allow themselves to be used as it be shaped as coverage, which we've seen at this point now does not seem to correspond to the reality in many cases. I mean, it's foreign policy reporting 101 when it comes to these institutions. So you're absolutely right about that. They're so excited to get a scoop that they just simply regurgitate what the leakers are telling them without really questioning. Whether the leakers have that ulterior motive, they have their own agenda. And to be sure, this particular piece in the Times did rely solely on anonymous sources. Now, with that in mind, you mentioned Mochdaba Haminay, and he was mentioned in the context of this article because apparently he is the individual who tapped this cleric to move forward with this attack in the

40:42straight of Hormuz back in July. And what I thought was really fascinating in the article was Masoud Pzezschian's frustration over the fact that no one has seen or even heard the voice of Mochdaba Haminay. In fact, some wonder whether he's even alive or if this is just a group of hard liners who are pretending like he's alive and giving them orders in order to carry out with they've been carrying out in the straight of Hormuz. What do you make of all of it? Because I do find it a little strange that we haven't seen or heard the Grand Iatola. You know, of course, is it? Sorry about that. Yeah, yeah. No, of course it is interesting and curious. I will say that today, apparently, Masoud Pzezschian said that he had met him and he is alive and the country's benefiting from his leadership. But I think there are a lot of people inside and outside of Iran who have questions about this. I think, and this is corresponding with American intelligent assessments, which we made public that he's likely alive, but likely seriously injured. You know, the war in the fighting,

41:46the initial bombings, his wife was killed, his daughter was killed, and his father was killed. It's very likely he may have been in the same vicinity and he was injured in that time. I think that's the most, uh, Occam's razor, the most sensible interpretation of where the situation is, such that his presence in the public before he'd been sufficiently healed or able to be in public, may not be in the interest of the Iran government or maybe he's not up to it. Also, it's possible that they are concerned about him being assassinated and so forth. The two things may correspond with one another. But I think it would be unlikely that they'd be claiming he's alive to this level at this point if there was not some truth to it because, you know, even if they can suspend fragility for the broader international public and even a section of the population, they have their own base to be accountable to in some respects. And had he died in the war, he would have been useful as a martyr as well too. There are other people who could have played the role of Supreme Leader. They didn't need him per se and many

42:48of these controversial choice. Maybe it defied choice you could say given the way the war early phases went down and what happened was family. So I think that it's probably like these what injured are we going to see in the future? I don't know, maybe we won't. The funny thing is that if you look in the context of Iranian culture and the Shia culture that's been prevalent in Iran for over millennium or not over millennium, maybe five centuries since it converted from Sunniism, the idea of occultation and someone who's a leader, a spiritual leader or a political leader not being seen is sort of a part of the ideology in a way. So it's kind of drawing on consistent themes in Iranian cultural history, such that maybe it's very strange to outsiders, but it's not as unheard of as they may be within a certain interpretation of Iranian history. So that's my two sense about it. I do think it is likely he's alive, but I do also do think that in the absence of him being very invisible and playing a visible

43:52public role in managing the country, the country probably is being in significant part governed by consortium of individuals who are associated with the IRGC. And between whom I do not think of there's tremendous ideological differences to be honest. I think that they, for the most part, I agree about the big picture of questions about how to manage their relationship with the United States at the stage. Final question for you is about Israel because some who are furious about the fact that the United States was persuaded into starting this war on its behalf are irritated that you see oil and gas infrastructure being bombed, you see our allies getting bombed, you see US military bases in our allied countries in the region being bombed, but Iran has for the most part stayed away from bombing Israel directly. So I actually think that Iran is carrying out their strategy exactly right because their whole point is to push the

44:52United States out of that region and the United States is only there in that region not to protect Gulf countries, but specifically to protect Israel. So if US bases are destroyed, if Iran continues to succeed in pushing the US out and you have a more hard line approach in Iran, what does this mean for the future of Israel? I'm asking you to predict so there's a lot of speculation here nonetheless. I'm curious what you think. I want to tell you about a new podcast series I'm enjoying from Future Hindsight, Occupy, and Unfinished Uprising. Occupy Wall Street is the story of the improbable becoming possible. In 2008, millions of people were devastated by an economic crash caused by Wall Street greed, but it wasn't until 2011 that there was a master's response from the left. A call to protest went out and thousands of people responded. I know I was there. They raged against the system that was rigged against them and tried to create their own anti-capitalist village in a small Manhattan park. The movement quickly spread across the country

45:54inspiring hundreds of occupations and a new generation of activists. Occupy and Unfinished Uprising is told through the voices of activists who camped out in Zakatipark for almost two months, getting inside the drama of a movement that grew rapidly, felt both transcendent and chaotic and then violently flamed out. Occupy changed the national conversation about capitalism, popularize the language of the 99% and inspired a generation of activists. As we approach Occupy's 15th anniversary this September, this series offers a reminder that collective action can reshape what seems possible. To listen, search for Future Hindsight wherever you get your podcasts. Current former US military officials talk about this quite openly now. Are that these Persian Gulf military and naval bases will likely not be rebuilt? For some of the reasons you mentioned earlier

46:56in the show, but also because politically it'd be difficult to rebuild them after what's happened and how they've proved to be a liability and so forth for the countries that are the hosts. But also in those bases, they're just not useful anymore. If there's a military or naval base, which has now been demonstrated and proven that it can be rendered inoperable or unsafe to operate within about 48 hours or less, because of the new technological nature of war and the capacity for strike capabilities that the Iranian government now has, the drones and missiles and so forth, then there's no point in rebuilding. Why would you set all the money to rebuild something which is going to be useless within 24 hours of a war starting in any way? You're going to abandon it. The issue is that if you abandon some of these bases, especially the Bahrain fifth fleet naval base, it becomes very hard to exert control over the state of foremost and exert control of the Persian Gulf because you won't be able to have a logistics chain which is sufficiently durable to allow ships to maintain a permanent and a thoroughgoing naval presence

48:00in that region. So I think that that naval presence really may come to an end. Analyze air bases also will be shut down. They just not safe anymore. What will likely happen is that Senkham will relocate further away from Iran and I think that they'll consolidate themselves in Israel in the end. So instead of this huge network and real thick forests of bases and sensors that they built throughout the region, Senkham will limit itself much more so just to Israel. Maybe Jordan, maybe parts of Western Saudi Arabia, but I think that the heart of Senkham and the US military presence will be Israel going forward. And that also raises problems because if you destroyed or evacuated your bases and the rest of the region, Iran won't have to invest in so much in medium and short range ballistic missiles anymore. They can focus all their efforts and reconstitution their program on long range missiles that can hit Israel. And Israel in some ways is a very defensible target

49:02for missiles because the population centers infrastructure so bunched up that you can really cluster your anti-missile defenses around those. But at the same time, they're all clublished up. There's not that many of them. And if you can drain the interceptor batteries or disable them, then a couple hundred ballistic missiles can do a tremendous amount of damage. So I think that it'll be very difficult to continue the containment policy against Iran going forward. The real wildcard question now is what do the Gulf Arab states do? And I think it's really a pivotal moment for them in a way because if you look at the history of these states, they were created in effect by Britain. And they're created by Britain to facilitate the British imperial presence in that part of the world. When the British Empire started collapsing at the end of World War II, they handed off these imperial possessions to the United States. And they didn't do formally in name, but in effect, that's exactly what happened. Now, if the American Empire is no longer able to hold onto them because this nature of wars changed and US powers in relative

50:02decline will bleed the can't hold onto everything at once, then are you going to try to be independent out for the first time ever? Can you stand on your own feet? Can you live without the US? Can you make new alliances? Can you come to a moderate to the venue with your neighbors? That's going to be a tremendous question. And I think that they're struggling with an answer at the moment. I've heard different things. Some of them just feel that no matter how bad the US is, no matter how much it's growing, it's over. We just have to keep doing what they say because we don't know what else to do. That's been expressed publicly and privately by many Gulf officials. Some of them have tried to think of new ideas like this Mecca pack with Turkey and Pakistan. I think that's very, that idea is interesting, but it's very much in its nasancy. But what can they do really? I think that they're really caught in a really difficult place. And I want one final point that this whole situation, the petrol dollar and the Saudi relationship with American elites going back many, many decades up to the current Trump administration and their ties to Trump and his sons and Jared Christian and so forth. It was all based on preventing this. Preventing this exact

51:03thing that's happening. You're not supposed to let us get bombed. That's why you have these bases here. And if we do get bombed, you're going to jump in and save us immediately and make that stop. It turns out that the US cannot do that. They cannot live up to their end of the bargain. So are you going to keep riding and paying off American officials and funding their antics and wasting billions of dollars on this thing, which is actually engaging you even more. Or are you going to come up with something? Can you come up with something which allows you to be independent, allows you to have a peaceful relationship with your neighbors, some sort of compromises you may have to make. Can these countries do that? I think if they can do it, maybe they can survive and still thrive in the years to come. But it will require them to become something other than that what they have been throughout their history literally since they're founding. You'll have to orient themselves to something towards something other than London or Washington, which has been their nature literally for a century or more now. So that's a telling question. If this conference happens between Iran and the Gulf of the US, you may see some of that happening.

52:05Ritaz, your reporting and analysis is indispensable. Thank you so much for joining us and for being so generous with your time. Have a great night and hope to see you soon. My pleasure, Anna. Thank you. All right, everybody. We have to take a break. When we come back, a giant segment updating you on the AI related chaos that's ensuing in our country, I'm going to do my best to go through the most important elements of it. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to our social break. Pocket full of WTF says, is it true that YouTube

53:11is removing TYT channel from its streaming service streaming service, meaning YouTube TV, which is distinct from YouTube.com, the online version. And the answer is yes. And it looks like they might have taken out two other random channels to make it appear as though it's not due to our anti-Israel commentary. This is my speculation. I don't know for sure, but I'll just leave it there. All right, Moongoose Drap, by the way, the hardest thing for me to do and everyone at TYT knows this because we have internal discussions about what to do about our financial woes. I hate asking for money. Like it is the most painful thing for me to do. I don't even like reading live reads as you guys can probably tell. But I care about covering what's happening in Gaza in Lebanon. I care about it so much that I'm going to have to get over my hang-ups and just ask you guys if you can,

54:11please consider becoming paying members. Please consider supporting our show because we want to continue doing this reporting. And as you know, there is an orchestrated effort to destroy us, you know, financially speaking. So we won't be able to do what we're doing. So special thanks to our members, special thanks to everyone that's helped carry us through hard times. We are experiencing hard times yet again. And your help means the world to us. Back to the show. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Danicae Sparion. Before we get to the second hour of the show with my good friend, Danny Bessner, I wanted to talk a little bit about artificial intelligence. In fact, we're going to kind of dissect an episode of Tucker Carlson show in the bonus episode. He actually interviewed an expert on artificial intelligence and what the actual threat or risk is.

55:18So tune in for that if you happen to be a paying member to yt.com slash join to become a member if you're not already. But for the purposes of this segment, I kind of want to talk about what happened over the weekend with these AI executives essentially coming out to say, yo, the whistleblowers are right. Let's get into it. In a post overnight, open AI CEO Sam Altman writing, where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination. But first, we should do what we can ourselves. Echoing Anthropics CEO Dario Amade's call to slow down the technology before it overtakes human control. If we build in the right way, I think the probability of something bad happening is very low. If we build in the wrong way, the probability of something bad happening is very high. You've probably seen our band in the UK shirt, the one we dropped after the UK government tried to silence the sun on me. And thanks to our partners at Shopify, we were able to get that shirt up on shop T-Warty quickly and painlessly. We've been running our store through Shopify for a

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57:20That's Shopify.com slash T-Y-T. Now on Saturday, the chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amadeh, wrote an essay arguing that the AI was advancing too quickly for researchers to continue building it safely. He proposed that independent auditors monitor AI labs, safety work, and that regulators allowed the labs to work together to coordinate safety standards. Now some of the new details that we're learning about in regard to the threat of AI has to do with Dario Amadeh's model and Anthropic being able to have

58:30a different AI company. So that kind of rang alarm bells for him. But others did co-sign the message from Amadeh, including Sam Altman, open AI's chief executive, which immediately made me think that questions about ulterior motives are valid. We'll get to that in just a minute. Elon Musk signed on. That's of course, SpaceX's chief executive. And the head of DeepMind, or Google's DeepMind's chair came out and agreed with Amadeh's message as well. So they all agreed that there is a need for a slower pace. And they also provided some specifics as to why they believe that. Take a look. In an essay, Amadeh, whose company runs Clawed writing a swarm of rogue AI agents could be capable of taking over the entire internet in just six to 12 months and saying AI could be used for cyber attacks or to create biological weapons. Amadeh pointing to an incident in July where open AI models went rogue,

59:33escaping a secure environment controlled by humans and hacking another company called Hugging Face. Altman posting, I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. Elon Musk and top executives from Microsoft and Google also saying they agree. So is it actually true that artificial intelligence could lead to the development of, say, biological weapons, right? Like that sounds absolutely terrifying. Well, the truth is there is some evidence that it could happen, and that's according to some biosecurity experts. So in June, scientists and AI executives signed an open letter calling for new controls on the fabrication of DNA because AI can now speed up the design of toxins and viruses. And as we know, that's better left to Anthony Fauci and the gain of function research that he's behind. It's not a good joke. I'll move on. In August, scientists reported that they had used AI to build viruses not seen in nature. And on Thursday,

1:00:37anthropic announced that it had blocked several attempts to use its models by people who might have been trying to weaponize pathogens. So, Amide actually touched on this in his open letter regarding AI safety, writing that quote, it would be wise to ban using AI for the production of biological weapons or allowing users to do so. And so, I mean, it's kind of shocking. Like he's calling on lawmakers, regulators to regulate artificial intelligence and implement certain bands. Now, not everyone agrees, and that's important to keep in mind as well. So, for instance, there's a guy named Drew Endi. He's a synthetic biologist at Stanford University. He co-authored a report on biosecurity just last year. He thinks that the risks that we're now hearing about from these AI executives are a bit exaggerated, but he doesn't entirely dismiss the claims that are being made. He says the current chat box only pose a modest risk when it comes to biological

1:01:38weapons. Oh, only a modest risk. Like this is a guy who's pushing back, and the best he can do is say, there's a modest risk. Now, he does have a point for how AI can, you know, so, okay, how AI can retrieve, you know, certain information quickly, or find connections between previous findings that had gone overlooked by actual human scientists, for instance. But currently, these AI chatbots do not have a deep understanding of biology beyond what researchers have already discovered. So, that's the claim that he's making. But Endi does admit that that could change with further development of like AI superintelligence, right? Or artificial superintelligence, I should say. So, he says that scientists are building new AI models that can, to a certain extent, teach themselves biology. Instead of books and other texts, these models are

1:02:40trained on raw data about DNA and cells. And already these models can generate genome, genomes for viable viruses that are not found in nature. So, it is possible that these models may eventually be able to use these new genomes to create new weapons, okay, biological weapons. For example, scientists at Stanford University and the ARC Institute built, built one such model. It's called the EVO2, which they trained on the DNA sequences of millions of species. EVO2, leaned or learned, I should say, learned hidden patterns in genes, enabling the creation of new kinds of enzymes. Then the researchers put EVO2 through an additional round of training on genomes, from one group of closely related viruses. And here's what happened. Known as microvirus, they are harmless to humans, only infecting the bacteria that I'm not even going to try to

1:03:40pronounce. I think that's E. coli. EVO2 offered up hundreds of thousands of new microvirus genomes, 16 of which gave rise to real viruses. To safeguard EVO2, its creators have not trained it on viruses that infect humans or other related species. But in theory, such a version of EVO2 might be able to produce a variation on smallpox viruses. So like look, this isn't, you know, random AI CEOs who might have an ulterior motive claiming this. This is what the researchers have been able to find through their research. And it does seem to pose a threat. Still, Thomas Inglesby, who's the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, argues that this provides far more to bad actors than could gather with like simple Google web searches. So he says that it aims for the information to be usable. It allows users to go back and forth infinite numbers a number of times to troubleshoot

1:04:46and explain in more detail while providing just the right technical resources to back things up. With enough training data, these AI systems will be able to make predictions of more lethal, contagious, immune, evasive variants. So as a result, Inglesby is concerned that one day, these AI models could create viruses that are novel, not just variants. And indeed, Anthropic has warned that its AI chatbot received queries for information about influenza and other pathogens appear to have come from state-run labs rather than loan biohackers. So look, regardless of these dire warnings coming from the very people who would profit handsomely from the rapid development of AI without the government getting involved with safeguards or regulations. President Trump seems undeterred in his quest to rapidly develop these AI models. House Speaker Mike Johnson, for instance, has double down, saying that AI companies

1:05:48should not be regulated by our lawmakers and should regulate themselves. And in fact, here's Trump speaking to reporters on a golf course in Ireland. Take a look. I think we can put guardrails, we can do this, but I think you have a lot of negative forces and bring it up. That shouldn't be bringing it up, and then bring it up things that won't happen. But whoever wins with AI wins. Trump's former AI czar firing back at the Texan Eos, saying, you guys are the frontier. Stop pretending you need anyone else's permission. Stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You need proven experts who can execute on what you need right now. I know I run a small business. Upwork is where businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work from software development and AI implementation to marketing and design and business operations. Upwork gives your business fast access to highly skilled specialists with deep expertise so you can fill critical scale gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support

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1:07:58shows that he's willing to move forward knowing that AI could be less safe by this rapid pace of AI development. But when it comes to US adversaries using AI to harm Americans, the Biden administration actually put rules into place for DNA synthesizing companies to screen orders for suspicious sequences. The Trump administration suspended them last year and has yet to issue new standards. So it gives you a sense of how far Trump is willing to go in order to accelerate the development of AI, even knowing that that accelerated development could make Americans and just the globe, the world population less safe. David Sacks, as you saw in that last video, is Trump so-called AI's R. And he suggests that these AI executives should just, you know, they want to slow down. There's really nothing stopping them from doing so and they should

1:08:58regulate themselves. Now, some believe that Amade and others, by the way, are sensationalizing AI risks in order to make it harder for other companies to compete with leading AI companies. Essentially, what's being proposed here would solidify the power that the already existing AI models have and it would freeze out some of the other AI startups. And, you know, there is some concern about that. Sacks questioned why tech companies needed government intervention to slow down their AI development when nothing has, you know, stopped them from doing so on their own. In other words, regulate yourselves. He says, quote, the easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it, demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. And so far, several Republican lawmakers have signaled that they have absolutely no interest in regulating artificial intelligence. So let's go to John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas. He says if developers of artificial

1:10:03intelligence wants to want to slow down development of their product they're free to do so. One thing is for sure, their competitors won't including our nation's adversaries. And in an essay published on Sunday, Aiden Gomez, who's the chief executive of the Canadian AI startup cohere also expressed concern about possible ulterior motives saying, should a handful of select market dominant AI companies from Silicon Valley get to define the rules and safety standards of a generational technology for the entire world. These oligopolies, he argues, are now requesting to bend competition rules and be permitted to dictate the terms for everyone else, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a cartel by any other name. Now, Amade suggested in his essay that AI companies accept scrutiny of their products by embedding evaluators from third party organizations. But critics point out something that I think is legitimate, which is the fact that, you know,

1:11:07the companies that he suggested happen to be companies that are very friendly with Anthropic, that have a good relationship with Anthropic. So, Redwood research is one and the other one is meter. And so Bill Gurley, who's a venture capitalist, noticed that and said, if we're going to regulate, it can't be anyone that they know and they can't write the rules. Meanwhile, China has waited on all of this. Of course, we're all supposed to be terrified of China beating us in AI. And here's what they had to say. So China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to a question about Amade's essay saying that all parties should work together when it comes to making sure AI is safe, all companies worldwide that are working on AI, fear-mongering, confrontation, and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no one's interest. So, Trump saw that as, no, no, no, no, like they want the United States

1:12:11to fall behind when it comes to the development of AI and we can't let that happen. We got to go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I mean, look, China is treated as an adversary to the United States. So you should be skeptical of what both sides are saying. China's really presenting itself as, we want to pursue this in a way that's safe for the globe. At the same time, it is very likely that these AI CEOs based in the United States do have ulterior motives. I certainly don't trust Sam Altman of all people, but calling for regulation has led to a massive dip in the stock market when it comes to these AI companies. So by coming out and saying these things, financially speaking, they are at least in the short term harming themselves. But one thing that I don't doubt at this point is that there are real risks at play and we are not proceeding with caution. Unfortunately, whatever effort there was for the Biden administration to implement regulations to proceed with caution have been thrown out the window by the Trump administration. So I don't have much trust in our

1:13:14institutions or our political leadership. We're going to have to wait and see how this develops. But while I want to leave you with something optimistic, I can't. I'm not optimistic when it comes to the development of AI and I don't think we have actual adults in the room. So we'll see what happens. For now, we got to take a break. Daniel Besner joins us for the second hour. Don't miss it. I don't care if you're Christian. In fact, I will fight for you to have your religious liberty and practice your Christianity. I believe in that. I don't believe in Christianity, which means that you do not get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion. I don't care what the Bible says. You have every right in the world. All those women who identify with your religion have every right in the world to not get an abortion, to not take birth control. But they do not have the right to dictate my life. And what I decide to do with my body, I don't care about your goddamn religion. I'm so tired of having non-stop conversations

1:14:19about what the Bible says. You live your life in the way that you interpret the Bible. Again, I don't care, but you don't get to take the Bible and tell me, well, the Bible says this and this chapter and this verse, I don't care. I don't care. I don't believe in it and I have the right based on our Constitution to not believe in it. No part of God's will test when we're on skate. Ain't a whole lot left. I don't know why. I need any more mom. Let us do clear. The United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. Netanyahu and the skrimminate apartment have killed more than 50,000 civilians, 60% of whom are women, children, paramedics and journalists. All of this is against basic human decency. You don't stop children with absolutely no humanitarian aid getting into Gaza.

1:15:21It is a war crime. It is illegal for the United States government to provide Israel with more offensive weapons. History will not forgive us. We've been on our phones too much. I feel like we just need to touch grass or something. I told you. I mean, you know what? Let's actually do it. Let's touch the grass. Andrew Yang, it's not racist, right? It's him. Yes, it is I. Andrew Yang, out here giving money away, as usual. Wait, but literally do you use a phone? Noble mobile will cut your wireless bill in half every month and you get paid even more if you log off, look up and touch grass. Oh, I actually have some grass if you don't think that's a kind of grass. Not that kind of grass unfortunately. Well, I guess that kind of grass works too. All grass works. All grass,

1:16:23and we get cash. Did you see that? Noble mobile will make it rain. Make it rain. Make it rain. It didn't rain so good, but now it's raining. Good. Corruption, injustice, the system is rigged against you. Every day we're blasted by a flurry of terrible news from every angle, which can make it challenging to stay positive and know how to fight back. The damage report is your solution. I'm John and Rola and my daily morning show cuts through the noise and exposes the real damage being done to our country, the world, and how we can fight back against it. Corporate greed crushing workers will name names. Politicians selling you out for the corporate overlords. We've got the receipts, climate disaster, economic collapse, the rise of fascism, no spin, no establishment talking points, just the truth that you need to survive and resist. But it's not all doom and gloom. We'd love to have you join the Dragon Squad, our community of positive-minded activists who turn the days news into positive action. With new episodes every

1:17:24weekday, listen to the damage report to get honest news, unflinching commentary, and daring coverage you won't find anywhere else. Listen to the damage report on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, because understanding the damage is the first step to fixing it. Music Welcome back everyone for those wondering where's jank it's not Wednesday. Don't worry, jank will be back on Friday. He's traveling for work. He's given speeches and I don't know, don't political stuff, but I will be hosting a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show.

1:18:24I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I'm going to do a show. I think it's something I like about political stuff. But I will be hosting throughout the week with co-hosts. I'm very excited about it. Switches things up a little bit. Before we get to our next story and my co-host for the second hour, I just want to thank James anyway. We've got a lot more news to get to and luckily joining us today to cover that news with me is Daniel Bessner host of American Prestige and just an all out wonderful person to comment on anything foreign policy related or politically related. Daniel, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me and I'm really happy to be here. So there's a story we didn't get to in the first hour that I think your commentary on would be really useful. So let's get into it. Let's talk about the economic ramifications of everything that's transpiring right now in the Middle East. Well, I mean, it's coldly, sorry, sorry, sorry.

1:19:28Should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world regardless of their formulas. I know more about formulas than anybody and with the best credit in the world. We make other countries rich. We can turn that off in two minutes. You understand that. And the market see about a 90% chance of a rate hike announced on Wednesday. A rate hike by the Federal Reserve kind of goes against what Trump is saying about how wonderful our economic situation is here in the US. In reality, inflation is up and the Federal Reserve is in fact likely to raise interest rates this week. But President Trump, as you can imagine, has warned his hand-picked Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Don't even think about it. But Warsh is kind of backed into a corner. Let me explain. The problem is, according to the CPI inflation report, inflation has run up above the Fed's 2% target for 66 months in a row. And it's not getting any better with the ongoing war in the Middle East. So the latest report

1:20:31showed that year over year inflation is at 3.4% at the same time. US consumer prices rose more than expected in August. So the reason Trump wants to lower rates makes a lot of sense. Lower rates for you for normal Americans means lower costs in borrowing, lower costs when it comes to your auto loan, your mortgage. It also translates to a lower cost in servicing federal debt, which has now passed $40 trillion. So Trump, he's addicted to debt. And he has spent a lot of money while also cutting federal revenue by giving massive tax cuts to AI companies, corporations, the top 1%, you guys get the picture. So Trump even made this point recently while speaking to reporters about we got a lower interest rates. We're in so much debt and we got to cut the costs in servicing that debt. Take a look. Each point in interest in this country that we pay costs us $650 billion. We should be at 1%

1:21:37or a half percent. We shouldn't be at 4%. We have other countries that are half percent. And yet, if it weren't for us, they'd be bankrupt countries. Okay, so as always, Trump exaggerated in what he just said there, although the general point he's making is correct. So the fact of the matter is if interest rates come down by a mere 1%, it will save the federal government $60 billion in interest. So he's right in wanting the interest rates to be lower, but you actually have to, I don't know, implement foreign policy that would be conducive to allowing for the Fed to lower interest rates. You would want to do something about inflation and engaging in a war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel, which has now jeopardized global oil supply, obviously leads to an inflationary environment. And by the way, unfortunately, the President's foreign policy decisions continue to be terrible. The Iran War has led to major disruptions in the straight of Hormuz, in which of course,

1:22:41a ton of oil and liquefied natural gas would transit through Saudi Arabia, deciding to reignite kinetic warfare against Ansar al-A'a, has allowed Ansar al-A'a to take control of the Bab al-Mandeb straight, thus shutting that down. And it has already resulted in a shortage of certain fuels that are incredibly necessary for our economy to run smoothly. Take a look. market. We're seeing a 4.5% increase for Brent today above $109 a barrel flirting with the

1:23:42highs of late last week. Now this oil jump today reflects the latest violence in the Middle East. Particularly this East West pipeline shutdown. Now this is not a household name, but this is a big deal because Saudi Arabia has been using this pipeline to bypass the straight of hormones. Normally it's oil goes through the straight and out to the rest of the world, but because the straight hormones has been stuck due to the war they've been using this pipeline to get out to the Red Sea through the Suez Canal and to the rest of the world. But now the pipeline is shut down. This is a big deal because the pipeline, its capacity is 7 million barrels per day. That's about 7% of world supply. All right, so we can expect according to economic experts, a 9% spike in the cost of heating your home this fall and winter. If you use natural gas, you're looking at a 6% spike. However, if you use heating oil, that percentage actually jumps up to a whopping 31%

1:24:46increase in the cost. That's insane. And higher energy prices obviously translate to overall inflation in the economy, especially as it pertains to diesel, which is incredibly necessary for the transport of goods and services. Okay, all of that in mind before we talk about what the experts are saying about the Federal Reserve this week and how they're likely to increase interest rates. I want to bring in Daniel Bessner, host of American prestige, a wonderful podcast that you guys should all be subscribed to if you're not already. Also has a sub stack page that you should be subscribed to. Daniel, I want to get your overall thoughts on all of this. Okay, what do you think? I mean, the overall thought is that the United States is playing an increasingly destabilizing role on the world stage. And I think the role that China played there was very crucial because one of the reasons that oil hasn't been even higher, guess hasn't been even higher priced is because China was releasing part of its own strategic reserve to try to play an international stabilizing

1:25:49function. But so many months into the Iran war, it's essentially no longer able to do that without threatening its own domestic supply. So you have this moment where the United States led by Trump, I mean, to some degree, the United States has always been the gorilla in the room, but with Trump, I don't know, it instead of a 600 pound gorilla, it's a 2,000 pound gorilla is going around totally destabilizing the global economy. And the whole sort of concordat, the deal that the United States made with the world in 1945 after the end of World War II in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union is that it was going to be a relatively stabilizing force in international relations. And you know, that wasn't always the case, obviously, with the various wars that we fought over the course of the last 80 or so years. But to some degree, particularly if you were living in central Europe or Western Europe or Japan, that has been true. But what is now happening is that that deal that the United States made with the world is coming apart. So I think this is really crucial when you're thinking about what are the next 10, 15, 25 years going to look like when most nations around the

1:26:53world now view the United States as a country that is able to be just incredibly destabilizing, almost doubling guess and oil prices in the span of less than a year. So I think this is the big macro thing that's happening. And the sort of other thing is that it shows countries like Saudi Arabia, which have long been American allies, you know, are famed allies and partners that they're not able to rely on the United States in the way that we were because, correctly, from wrong, but what destroyed that pipeline was an attack from Iraq, the country that we went to defend democracy. So you can see a lot of chickens coming home to roost in this one event. And I think what you're going to see going forward are our countries like Saudi Arabia beginning to, if not to tats themselves from the United States because that's almost a decades-long project. But to begin to look elsewhere for countries that they can rely on not to totally destabilize their entire economy. And then there's the domestic factor, which we could talk about, but I'll throw

1:27:55it back to you. Yeah, I actually do want to weigh it. I want you to weigh in on the domestic factor, but before you do one more question about the international ramifications of all of this. I was kind of shocked to learn that Israel, which pushed for this war, obviously against Iran, actually has a pretty okay economic situation, especially as it pertains to inflation. Apparently, their fed isn't increasing the money supply and that's keeping inflation relative to the United States certainly in a much better place, which was infuriating to me because I think out of any country on the global stage that should suffer the ramifications of what's going on right now, it should be Israel since they're the ones who wanted this war and somehow they're scourting responsibility or the consequences. But talk to me about what you envisioned for the future of Israel, especially with emboldened Iran, with hardliners in charge, with US military bases

1:28:57being completely destroyed in Gulf countries and other countries in the region. Those bases were basically there not to keep those countries safe, but to keep Israel safe. Then you have on Surah Law really increasing and solidifying their power in Yemen and their influence when it comes to the straight, the Bab al-Mandab straight. Is Israel in a lot of trouble right now? Or do you think no, this is exactly what they wanted and somehow they're going to use this to their advantage? My favorite fact about Israel is that they have universal healthcare and also heavily government subsidized college, as we both know, does not exist here. I think there's a couple of things going on. I was recently reading a poll about Israeli public opinion and there's actually increasing concern that Israel's becoming what is called and the literature, quote unquote most people know a pariah state. There's significant concern amongst the Israeli public, even as many people there still support the Warren Gaza and still support the Warren Iran that this cannot go on forever.

1:29:59So if we're just thinking practically, I think what is likely to happen is that the Israeli government and the military is going to try to quote unquote finish the job in Gaza, continues to do a par tide in the West Bank. And if I had to sort of look out five, ten years, is that whoever's coming next is going to try to blame this on Netanyahu and the Netanyahu regime. As it means to try to reincorporate Israel into sort of normal politics, normal international arena, because just from a material level, Israel cannot survive in the way that it did without a powerful patron like the United States. And I don't think that China is going to be on the verge of supporting Israel. So the question for Israeli politics in the next five, ten years is, are they going to be able to do that? Are they going to be able to prevent becoming a, generally as a state that's a pariah in the international system? Because if they don't, I think you're right. I think that it's going to be very difficult for them to rely on future American administrations. There's obviously

1:31:03a more far right group right now, the Nick Fontes' of the world that are extraordinarily anti-Israel. There's a cohort around Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor, green that is also anti-Israel, but it's really in the Democratic Party that this has become a sign of something. And I think it's become a sign of whether or not you can trust a politician. I think it's correct. And the people around Biden would argue that Gaza isn't at the top of the list of Americans' concerns. And you and I might want that to be otherwise, but I think it is true. But I think Israel has become almost a synecticky for whether you're able to trust a politician. So even if the Democratic Party establishment might want it to be otherwise, I think it's going to be difficult for Democrats to win not only in quote unquote blue states, but at the national level more broadly if they align with Israel. And so Israelis aren't silly. They know what's going on. So I think this is the problem they face. So let's get back to what's likely to happen with interest rates because while

1:32:08there's some interesting polling I want to get to, but also the economic experts who are getting interviewed in various media outlets are saying, yeah, it would be insane if the Fed didn't increase interest rates. So the inflation data led traders to boost expectations for a Fed hike with 86% chance of a move in September and to increase his price in by the end of the year. And so unusual whales, which is a fun ex account to follow if you want to keep tabs on what's happening with stock market and things like that. They write that Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan say that they now expect the Fed to hike rates this week. And then Reuters also pulled economists on what they think and a majority said that a rate hike will happen. An 85% majority of economists, 86 of 101 in the Reuters survey conducted after Friday's inflation report said that the Fed would raise rates by a quarter percentage point to 3.75% to 4%

1:33:13at its September 15 through 16 meeting. And that would actually be the first rate hike since July of 2023. And just to kind of put that in perspective, okay, that's a dramatic reversal of last week's survey results showing more than two thirds expecting the Fed to hold interest rates, not hike them. 53% of forecasters, 37 out of 70 expect at least one further rate increased by end March. And so I think increasing the rates actually makes sense in the context that we're currently existing in. But I also think that the big problem here is the financialization of our economy, our obsession with debt. There's a lot at play that our media has not really explained to the American public. And I'm hoping briefly you can explain what's going on. Sure, you know you're in a good economy when there's a total flip in what people think are going to happen within the span of basically a week. So in effect, what traditional and small

1:34:19see conservative economic knowledge or learning would say is that you're trying to prevent inflation by increasing interest rates. This is a way to make it more money more expensive to borrow. And so through doing that, you're going to prevent inflation. However, the Trump administration's entire promise was that you're going to decrease interest rates because that is the way that you could do things like purchase houses for cheaper and purchase these goods because that basically when you take out a loan, the interest rate will be lower. So that over time, you'll be paying less. So this is why Trump is I think so vehement about not raising interest rates because this is the entire, you know, the way that I joke about it, the quote unquote, socialistic elements of the national socialist project that he is trying to promote. But traditional economic knowledge says that you can't do that. So then the question, what you're I think to look for here is that what is going to win out? Is it economics or politics? Because obviously Trump appointed Warsh because he wants someone who's friendly to his quote unquote America first agenda of low interest rates, which you know,

1:35:20are good for certain things like I would like to buy a home and have it be cheaper. But our bad for other things because then it allows companies to do things like spend a ton of money cheaply and buy every other company like we know has happened in the media. So the big problem though is of course is that our entire economy is based on a financialized system, which is effectively outside the hands of ordinary Americans. One thing that you'll note is that there's no discussion. No one's polling Americans about what they want. It's totally polling extra than people who work for basically high finance finance, you know, Goldman Sachs and whatnot. So I mean, this is the big political thing for Trump, particularly in the advance of the midterms because if it just comes and becomes increasingly clear as it already is to most people, but even more clear to Trump's base that he's not able to pull the levers that would allow them, for example, to borrow money to buy a home. That's going to have a significant effect on the midterms. And so I think this is what's going down right now, the fight between politics and traditional economic thinking. Yeah, I think you're absolutely

1:36:22right. And as always, President Trump never likes to take responsibility for his actions, especially when it leads to inflation, something he swore up and down on the campaign trail that he was going to prioritize fixing. Obviously, he did the opposite. And what I think is really interesting is obviously the inflation that we're experiencing right now is tied to his foreign policy decisions in the Middle East. His ill-fated decision to go to war against Iran. Yet he is deciding to find a scapegoat and blame it on that scapegoat instead. And that scapegoat happens to be Vladimir Zalensky, the president of Ukraine. So on Sunday, he insisted that his war with Iran was not to blame for the price rise, saying that this isn't done by the Middle East. This is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. And look, to be sure, it is contributing to this issue, but I wouldn't say that this is the main culprit, okay? Trump also told reporters in Ireland, Mr. Zalensky has to do one thing. He has

1:37:23to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia, let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel because he's causing a shortage. Now, Ukraine has carried out drone strikes against refineries in Russia, which again, does contribute to the issue here. Later, Trump claimed this, though. He said, Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian energy targets. Russia has agreed to do likewise. The world's diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia Ukraine war, not Iran. Okay, except Ukraine denies they ever agreed to this. If Ukraine denies it, I have a hard time believing that Russia actually agreed to what Trump claimed. And yeah, I mean, final word from you on what's transpiring here with the blame game. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously lying. And the real question is, like you said, it's not to say it has no effect, but to compare it to the straight of Hormuz and then to compare it to the Iran-backed

1:38:24destruction of the Saudi pipeline. It's not even comparable. It's like an ant and a mojo. So the question, of course, as always, if we're thinking domestic politics, is obviously the independence have already abandoned him. But is this going to be so ridiculous that it's going to eat into the proverbial 33% of people who support his BS? I don't know. Or are we just in a world where nothing matters and those people are always going to be behind Trump or whatever Republican, which is a depressing world, but it does seem to be the one that we're in. But like, obviously, that's a lie. I think everyone knows it's a lie. I think he knows it's a lie. But this is the world of the House of Mirrors that we presently live in where it just doesn't matter. If you do see something that we haven't seen in a very long time, which is the eating away of that proverbial 33%, that would be, I think, a good sign of something that there could be an actual transformation in American politics because we are kind of approaching to borrow Malcolm

1:39:25Gladwell's infamous phrase, the tipping point. It's so obviously caused by something that was totally purposeless that he had gotten high on his own supply from Venezuela and he tried to do it to capitation strike in Iran. And if you know anything about Iran, that was going to be a very unlikely thing to happen. And now oil prices are through the roof. So one hopes that we'll see some change in maybe we will. When we come back from the break, I want to kind of talk a little bit about Trump promising to alleviate the economic pressure Americans are feeling with these $5,000 dividend checks as he likes to call it. What is the reality that you will be receiving a check for $5,000? And more importantly, what are members of Congress saying about it since they're the ones who would have to allocate the money? By the way, where would the money come from? We're $40 trillion in debt. That and more when we come back from the break, don't miss it.

1:40:44Welcome back to the show everyone. James Kelly writes in and says so crazy, so crazy theory, but for some reason, I feel that someone or a group of people are trying to create a virus that will take out a certain group of people targeted by DNA. I really hope that's not the case. I don't have that fear at the moment, but I can understand why you would have that fear at the moment. Elliott writes in and says meanwhile, Trump promises to put $5,000 on our children's credit card, so he can fight Netanyahu's war. It's not his money that he's paying out. It's our and our next generations money. Well, Elliott, we are going to weigh in on that topic in the next segment. So stick around for that. YTP renewed says, imagine where we'd be if we swore off OPEC oil. Well, I do think that a case can be made that may be nationalizing one oil company that's given the task of replenishing our strategic petroleum reserve might be a good idea.

1:41:49I do think we need to rethink the way the global oil trade works and what the United States does with its own natural resources. Viva, Viva, Samud, PAC resistor says, IDF whistleblower say, troops were told to shoot civilians and children in kill zones at aid lines and across unmarked lines and then shift blame that Iran chance death to America and Israel. I'll read the rest of it when we come back. Welcome back everyone. I was reading Viva, Samud, PAC resistor's super chat, but then we ran out of time. So I'm going to read it again here in its entirety. IDF whistleblower say, troops were

1:42:50told to shoot civilians and children in kill zones at aid lines and across unmarked lines and then shift blame to Iran because they chant death to America and Israel even anonymous deranged officers describe industrial scale killing AI targeting, whereas where's daddy? Striking homes, knowing children were inside. Everything you're saying is correct. In fact, if we have time today, we're going to talk a little bit about that film made by Israeli filmmakers called Naza. And in that film, they talk to IDF whistleblowers who describe all of this horrible stuff that you're describing. Anyway, but for now, I want to go to our next story, which of course has to do with Trump's $5,000 checks that he's allegedly going to send to American adults, no one should believe. Anyway, let's get into it. 5,000. But those are going to happen 100%. And the reason is because our country is taking it

1:43:50and it's going to happen because the people deserve it because they were treated so badly by the Democrats and by a fight. President Trump insists that he's seriously going to send American adults $5,000 dividend checks as he calls it. If Republicans keep control of the House and the Senate after the midterms, which sounds like a bit of a bribe if you ask me, but nonetheless, even with the $1.3 trillion price tag that comes along with sending $5,000 dividend checks, he claims it would be a simple thing to accomplish, simple thing to achieve. But it's really not. And in my opinion, it's not going to happen. So if it's so easy and affordable to send American checks, why after the midterms, why not right now? Well, he talks about that in the next clip.

1:45:04All of that money will be thrown out. If the Democrats get it, they won't be able to pay it. With me, I've always paid money. Now I make a lot of money because they just. You've also gone bankrupt six times, but okay, look, there are 270 million American adults. So again, if each person gets $5,000 checks, that would amount to $1.3 trillion in it. And we're in an economic situation right now where the cent treasury secretary's scoff percent is like desperately trying to manipulate the bond market by doing bond by backs. And it's not working because investors aren't interested in buying US treasuries when we're $40 trillion in debt. So how does going into further debt make any sense in the scenario? And more importantly, where would the money come from? Because members of Trump's administration swear up and down, we are not going to rely on tax revenue to do this. And that makes it really difficult to figure out where the money would come from.

1:46:07Honestly, Daniel Bessner, I think this is all BS. And I don't even know why we're having a discussion about it. I thought this story would just go away by now, but we're still entertaining it. But do you think he might actually try to do this? No, I thought he had said some at one point it was going to be from the savings from the tariffs. Yes. No matter how you slice that doesn't work. I mean, this is really outrageous. I think you're right. We should underline he's just doing political bribery. It's like actually outrageous. One more norm bites the dust. But in that clip, he's literally just saying, I'm going to bribe you and the only way you're going to get your monies at the Republicans when they midterms, which is definitely illegal. There's no way that elected politician is able to do that. Even in the Supreme Court ruling where the executive and the executing of their functions cannot be held accountable, this seems to be like not really in that, but whatever. And this is what I think is actually important to bring to something more important that might actually happen is this is the Democrats need to start holding people accountable for stuff like this. Like this is just so outrageous. Not only did he go bankrupt six times on it, but he also has

1:47:11made so much money and his families made so much money off these crypto exchanges and these businesses that have been getting getting sweet hard deals. Like Obama got a Netflix deal, which is like obviously not great, but at least he was out of office. Trump is just running rampant. Like a tin pot dictator, which is what he wants to be, but it doesn't even care about the dictator party. Just wants to be, you know, eat y'know mean at the end of his life, just super wealthy. But no, I don't think it's going to happen. I think it's the sort of dead cat bounce of the socialistic elements that are the populist in this country elements that he came into office. Promising that aren't ever going to happen. He's most interested in making money for his family and finishing that ballroom. But I find it unlikely that we're all going to get a $5,000 check before November. Yeah, I think you're right. And to your point about how tariffs would not pay for this, keep in mind again, $1.3 trillion to hand out those $5,000 dividend checks. The president's tariffs have generated roughly $341 billion in net revenue since the start of 2025.

1:48:17And that's according to the Treasury Department's data. So it's not like, you know, some random anti-Trump analysts put this information out. And remember, the Supreme Court also struck down some of his tariffs, ordering him to refund $166 billion of what was collected. And of course, the companies were able to get those refunds, not the consumers who did bear the burden of those taxes essentially on international imports. Trump also claims that over $20 trillion has been invested into the United States under his second term, which is complete and utter nonsense. It's a lie. In fact, the White House's own website claimed that there had been $11.2 trillion dollars in major investment announcements. This term, not over $20 trillion. And even the White House's figure was a major exaggeration of actual investment. So how did he even arrive at that number? The White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges

1:49:17that were about bilateral trade or economic exchange rather than investment in the US. And vague statements that didn't even rise to the level of the pledges. And then I'll give you one example. The White House figure includes pledges from US-based companies as well as foreign entities, federal data shows that new foreign direct investment in the US was about $232 billion in 2025. And even without a dedicated revenue stream for these $5,000 checks, some in Trump's cabinet absolutely insists that it will happen. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, I mean, just what I want you guys to get from this next video is how effortlessly this guy lies. Take a look. There are so many ways that President Trump can use our economy and the amazing value that we have that he can make money not from tax money. And this is key. This is not tax money. This is going to be non-tax money. You know, one of my favorites, as you know, is like the Trump platinum card, where

1:50:20people can extend their visa up to 270 days and pay us $5 million. We have a wait list of more than 100,000 people want to come. That's $500 billion. We can earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers. I just feel like we're being ruled by like the slimyest group of stereotypical used car salesmen, which I will say use car salesmen don't necessarily fit the stereotype. But if you think of the stereotype, this cabinet is like full to the brim with those types of people. Thoughts, Daniel. Well, that's the guy who stopped paying 9-11 families quite soon after September 11th attack, as we talk on the wake of that. I mean, I genuinely don't know how people like this sleep at night. They're just lying to everyone's faces. They have no interest in anyone but them in anyone but themselves. And frankly, they think everyone else is an idiot. And given their success, I don't know,

1:51:21maybe they're right. And so this is why I do think we need a transformation in political culture and to actually hold people who broke the law and actually hold them accountable. I'm not saying does it go after people who are in the opposite political party. But if you broke an American law, then you should suffer the consequences for that. And somebody tells me that almost all of these guys have broken American law. So I could only hope that the Democratic Party does something. But again, it's just more and more outrageous. And as we kind of come to the end of the Trump era, he's an old guy. I don't think in seven years we're going to be talking about him. I think it's now time to reassess what elements of our political culture allowed this to happen. And the sort of the blanket lying, the disdain for ordinary people, the lack of interest in actually allowing people to live meaningful lives. It's something that really needs to be taken seriously. Because otherwise, you're just going to have like you said, these slimy guys, hashtag not all used car salesmen. Use car salesmen as people. Just mind us over and over again and just spit in our face and

1:52:26tell us it's raining. And I hope that comes to an end. Yeah, I agree. But you know, I'm going to push back on one thing because I'm really curious what you have to say about this. In 2020, the Democratic Party had dangled $2,000 COVID checks when it came to the special Senate races in Georgia. So if the Democrats win in those two Senate races, we're going to send out those $2,000 COVID checks. Biden eventually did send out $1,400 COVID checks. But what would you say to those who are like, okay, you want a whole Trump account about accountable for bribery? What about the Democrats? No, yeah, absolutely. I have no friends of the Democratic Party. No, absolutely, hold them accountable as well. The Democrats just do it worse and less than the Republicans. And there's elements of here, not so much in what we've talked about so far because it's so connected to Iran. But there are elements of what's going on that are connected to the Uniparty. You know, Nancy Pelosi stock trading where if you put $1,000 in that app that just traded what

1:53:27her stock trades were, you would have made a ton of money, stuff like that. So we're all sort of swimming in the same septic tank of American politics. But the Republicans, particularly on the Trump have just become more brazen about it. They're more PT Barnum-esque. And the Democrats who do it like with Nancy Pelosi and then sort of in a nice pantsuit. But no, absolutely, hold, I'm not limiting this only to the Republican Party. I don't think there's going to be any genuine change for all of us who are in this together, which is everyone who's not in the lead unless people in both parties who broke the law are held accountable. Absolutely. So I want to skip ahead to G block because I'm so curious what your comments are on this. Tucker Carlson of all people has been pretty vocal in defending Abdul-Al-Sahed who is running for a Senate seat in Michigan. So let's get into the details on that. Turns out Mike Rogers, who is the Republican challenger to Abdul-Al-Sahed for a Senate seat in Michigan, has been torn to shreds in Friday's edition of the Tucker Carlson newsletter.

1:54:34And look, Carlson even defended Dr. El-Sahed in his podcast and he got a lot of heat from Republicans on that. And it's notable because Mike Rogers is a Republican who's running against Abdul-Al-Sahed who is the Democrat. So here's what you need to know. Last Tuesday, the New York Post published the following piece, Abdul-Al-Sahed condemned US response to 9-11 that scarred millions in resurfaced podcast comments. So the piece dug up remarks that Al-Sahed made on his old podcast, America Dissected in 2021. He said in it 9-11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9-11 scarred millions of other people. When we talk about 9-11, we often fail to center them. There's more. El-Sahed contended that after the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, the US wasted trillions of dollars

1:55:35to wage war that we could, or that we would ultimately lose and condemned what he called an era of death destruction and destitution. Mike Rogers responded to this by saying it is disqualifying for a US Senate candidate to believe that Americans should center their grief from 9-11. Abdul-Al-Sahed's attitude towards the worst tragedy in American history is disgusting and makes him completely unfit to serve in public office. Now, of course, he would say that. He wants to win that Senate seat. I happen to believe with what Abdul-Al-Sahed said. And I think we should actually learn lessons from our failures. However, Tucker Carlson puts out a newsletter and he wrote at length about how he actually agrees with what Al-Sahed said. Hold on a second, disgusting. Understanding that the Bush administration was wrong to kill hundreds of thousands of people and waste trillions of dollars in Iraq, even though again Iraq did not do 9-11 is disgusting.

1:56:36We are really not sure who Mike Rogers is, but if anyone in Michigan Senate race is unfit to serve in public office, it is him. Slottering thousands of innocent people is atrocious, no matter who is responsible. If Rogers is deranged enough to think that Gihadi's are evil for murdering enough Americans to fill a Division III hockey arena, but that the Pentagon deserves two thumbs up for killing enough to pack Ohio State's football stadium multiple times, that he cannot possibly have the judgment necessary to adequately serve the needs of American voters. One more excerpt. He writes, there is nothing remotely crazy about Al-Sahed's remarks. They are approximately as scandalous as a weatherman declaring that clouds carry rainwater. Al-Sahed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead al-Qaeda. He simply said that the U.S. conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9-11 was not exactly an appropriate reaction.

1:57:39He is obviously right. One more excerpt. We hope the good people of Michigan keep Rogers far away from Washington. Okay, so again, this is Tucker Carlson's newsletter. This isn't Bernie Sanders's news letter. This is Tucker Carlson's. And many people, including individuals in our own audience, are still incredibly skeptical of Tucker Carlson. They think that he's angling for a potential presidential run. But in researching his show, Daniel, before deciding whether or not I would go on his podcast, I realized he's kind of had a slow and steady evolution on foreign policy matters that is very favorable to what the left believes on foreign policy. What is your take on this? Yeah, I mean, with Tucker, my understanding is that it emerges from this Christian notion, because so many Christians were killed during the war on terror, which I'm fine. I mean, however you get there, I'm glad you got there. And I think the statement of Rogers, again, is just another example of this infantilization of ordinary Americans that sometimes Americans allow themselves to

1:58:42be infantilized. And I think it's just important to run down the facts because the numbers of this of the global war on terror have actually been crunched and they're really abominable. So the war on terror, which ultimately just very quickly, it really focuses on five countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan, roughly between 2001 and 2023. And 940,000 people were directly killed by post 911 operations. And of these, 432,000 were civilians. So about a little less than half were just civilians. Beyond that, wars don't result in nothing. You get wounded by wars, you become ill, drinking water gets contaminated. So in addition to the 940,000 people that just died directly between 3.6 and 3.8 million people died of indirect costs in these post 911 war zones. Due to like water contamination, you're forced to move famine,

1:59:47you can't get food. So that means that the total cost between 2001 and 2023. And I should underline as calculated by Brown University's Watson schools costs of war project where they have all of the data between 4.5 and 4.7 million people died. And that number keeps on going up. That's almost equivalent to the Holocaust of the Jews in World War II. So I think it's really important to just confront that reality in what that says about the use of American power abroad. And exactly like you said, if we don't learn from that, then what are we doing not only as a country and not only as Americans, but as people that the death and destruction that was rained down on these five countries is terrible in every person. Regardless of political affiliation, regardless, if you thought that the United States should have had an active military response to 911, which many Americans did. And I understand that argument. This was not that response.

2:00:48Four between 4.5 and 4.7 million people killed as a result of post 911, war zone activities is really atrocious. So I think that I'm glad that Tucker Carlson here is on the right side of history. And this needs to become the common sense. After Vietnam, people were in like, oh, Vietnam was a good war. There's been various attempts to try to claim that, but there are always really nipped in the bud. And something similar needs to happen with the global war and terror. People who were alive during that could never forget to borrow the phrase that was used about the Holocaust in 911. We should also never forget these victims who were the victims of American hubris and American military might that was used abroad really one way. I've always wanted to see you on Tucker Carlson's podcast because I think you'd be a really, really great guest. And you'd be a great guest on a topic that he discusses regularly, which is why I'm a regular listener to his podcast specifically for that reason. And he has a lot of interesting

2:01:51guests on to comment on these things. But a bigger question, broader question that I have for you, has less to do with policy and more to do with how the left should think strategically about accomplishing some of its goals, some of its policies. And for me, obviously, there's the economic component of all of that, which to some extent, Tucker Carlson would agree with the left on a few things. But when it comes to foreign policy, even though he's very much a conservative, he hasn't moved away from his social conservatism, he went from being a neocon to now being one of the most important voices on the right in pushing back against neoconservatism. And so I understand the discomfort people on the left feel in forming any type of coalition that includes voices on the right on any issue. But on this, I just feel like it's so incredibly important to find common ground with Americans across the political spectrum and work together to apply pressure to our politicians.

2:02:56Because I don't see this as something that should be considered a partisan issue. There's no reason why Republican voters should be in favor of this, right? And in fact, younger Republicans, younger conservatives are very much against neoconservative foreign policy. So, how do you approach something like this when you have someone like Tucker Carlson who has, let's say, a perspective on immigration that we do not agree with. He's a hardliner anti-immigration but on issues like this, we do agree with him. How do you approach that? To me, it's actually not that difficult because politics is not a realm of philosophical pure morality because obviously you're going to have to make coalitions. This is just the nature of politics. Max Weber, the German social theorist, wrote about this just after World War I or his World War I was winding down. There's like different morality's operate in different spheres of life. The morality of the seminar room is different from the morality of politics. And how many bills has Bernie

2:03:57Sanders co-sponsored with people who are on the right? To me, it's not even a serious area of inquiry. You're not able, if you are to engage in politics, to maintain that type of pure morality. So, of course, I mean, of course, you have to build coalitions with people on certain issue areas if you want things like the American empire to be drawn down. And it's interesting because I always have a response to the anti-immigrant conservative argument, which is that your anti-imperialist, right? Tucker, you recognize that we did this abroad. Of course, people are going to be coming to this country. It has destabilized Latin America for centuries upon centuries at this point. It's not like people love leaving their homes in Central America and Mexico to come to the United States. The American empire has literally forced that. So, to me, that is actually the ethics of allowing immigration is that you can't be a world-best writing empire and then just cut off the borders. It doesn't work that way. You're literally causing the immigration. So, that's always my response to the conservative anti-immigrant position. Well, actually, to his credit, he has

2:05:02connected those dots. And I think that might actually be part of what's motivating his takes on foreign policy to his credit because most people in media don't connect those dots either intentionally or because they're morons and just aren't smart enough to do it. But true, true. Final part of this is what Tucker Carlson said on his own podcast. This is him in his own words, talking about the whole debacle with Abdul Al-Sahead. Take a look at this. Abdul Al-Sahead who's running in Michigan against Mike Rogers who, as you and I know, probably the most pro-Intel, Neocon. They couldn't find anybody else to run in Michigan for the United States. I couldn't go by the way lost already. Why are they running him again? Anybody want to tell me that? Mike Rogers is really, I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint. Right. And so that's the candidate, the guy, a literal loser who lost when Donald Trump won the state just to show you how much of a headwind he had at his back. He's basically a total

2:06:03of Israel in the intelligence. Right. How would you run someone like that? I don't even, it doesn't make sense. No, Abdul Al-Sahead was on POD Save America and he was asked to respond or react to that clip. Let's see what he said. Former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson was talking about your opponent, Mike Rogers recently and he said, quote, I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint. Would you make it at? And is that an endorsement of you? Are we going to do a Tucker event maybe in Detroit sometimes in unlikely? But by unlikely, I mean, no. I'm just imagining all the ups big like wait, wait, so there's a possibility. Wait a minute, Tucker, you see this week. But look, I mean, I think what you get in Tucker's call is into somebody who's seen up close, a lot of the corruption inside mega. And what I think he sees in Mike Rogers is what all of us see in Mike Rogers. Somebody whose only interest is power and the money he can make off of power.

2:07:05So at least say what you will about Tucker, there are a lot of things that Tucker and I are going to disagree with. But he can see the corruption and the cowardice in the man. And it's just so off putting when you actually have to look at in the eye. So why not include Tucker Carlson in a rally, given the fact that he does have a giant following, mostly independence and some conservatives couldn't that potentially help Abdul-Alsayat in his campaigning? What are your thoughts? I mean, he's clearly afraid of the liberal media, right? I mean, this is what I read that. And this is again, this infantile media that we have, this moronic media, as you aptly refer to them, this is what he's worried about. Because if you did something like that, how many op-eds would be written about how this evil coalition he's making? And because we live in a capitalist democracy, he's worried about donors if that was, if that were to happen. So he himself, not a stupid guy, he's making his own political calculation effectively, that the Tucker,

2:08:07the alliance with Tucker will not be worth, I think probably the potential money that his campaign would lose. And he might be right. This is a classic cost-benefit calculation. I wish we didn't live in a country where he had to make calculations like that. But I mean, that's clearly what he is doing. Yeah, I think you're right. All right, well, that does it for the main show. Before we head on over to our members-only bonus episode, I just want to thank you, Daniel, for being generous with your time and co-hosting with me today. Let everyone know where they can find your work and support you. Sure. I mean, number one would pee to check out my substack imperialist realism. We wrote a really fun free piece today on the Coyote versus Acme Movie Anna, where we talk about monopolization and like how the movie basically says, monopolies are here to stay. I think it's a really interesting read. And then of course, please check us out the podcast American prestige on any of your podcast apps. And it was a genuine pleasure, always a pleasure to see you. And thank you so much for having me on. Of course, my pleasure. We'll do it again soon. Have a great night.

2:09:09Bye. All right, and good night to everybody else. If you're a member, stick around. We're going to have our members-only bonus episode for everyone else. Have a wonderful night or consider becoming a member TYT.com slash joint. We'll see you there.