Mr. Global Goes to Washington

- You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Towson, speechwriter, comedy writer, stand up comedian, and most likely to put me in heaven podcast host.

I'm joined as always by our panel of experts

our foreign policy and military expert, Chad Scott, Chad, how's it going? - Going good, got my reflecting pool blue on. If you guys are watching on the YouTube,

“I know it's voice, that's what can do blue to me.”

- Yeah, it's a bit too blue. It's not, I mean, now it's green. If I had the green on, but yeah. - You got to get some liking on that shirt, my friend. - Exactly, exactly.

Also joining us as always, your expert on energy of all forms. You know, Mr. Global, please say hello, if you're listening, out loud, to no one, because they won't hear you.

To Mr. Global, Matt Randall.

- Glad to have lost my temporary swamp creature status.

We've got a lot of exciting stuff to talk about this week. We have a new Iran deal that may or may not be a deal. We have a lot of updates on the electoral cycle, but I want to start with Mr. Global, goes to Washington.

Our very own Matt Randall recently sat in with a Senate subcommittee on energy, and I'd love to hear more about how your trip to Washington went. - Oh, it was just great. It was so great, like, within 20 minutes

of me walking out of that building, I was headed to Pittsburgh. - So to be clear, the highlight was leaving. - I had to exit the swamp. I had to get out of town.

I just couldn't stand being there. - And when you just swamp, you mean bureaucracy or the algae in the reflecting pool? - Yeah, I didn't go to the reflecting pool. I was like, they're arresting people down there.

I'm not even going down there. Someone might recognize me. - You didn't want to sit? You want to just see what it tastes like. - Yeah, I will say the memes are fire.

Have you seen those memes? Like they have some of the memes are using like, it's like they got swamped thing. If you remember who frame Roger Rabbit, they got the shoe dipping into the green.

- Oh, that disintegrates it. - Yeah, there's some fire memes going out there on the green. - I do love the Trump Effectively nickname DC The Swamp and has now actually created like a bog.

If it is not a swamp, a swamp like environment. - So how did you get invited to this thing? Like, did you just get like an email or something or did you just someone reach out to you? - The Senator Martin Heinrich, who, by the way,

wants to join us here, it's a long time in the future. - Yeah, and it's important to note he asked, I didn't ask, he asked, and that's a big thing. That's a, yeah, no seriously. One of his staffers emailed me and asked me if I would come.

“He follows me on a few different social media apps, I think.”

So that's how that happened. - And what specifically was this committee about? - This particular thing was about energy affordability. We did, there was a lot about gas prices, but it was really, just about energy affordability

for everyone, how it's impacting Americans. - You have some really cool conversations.

You took it from an angle that I've never seen anyone

really give to Congress this idea of energy should be draped in humanity and not profits. That's like a direct quote from you. I was like, that's such a great quote. Like, just from your perspective,

how do you see that being more of the reality? How do we make that a reality? How do we focus on the humanity of energy rather than the profits of these companies? Because I think you had some really good points there

that our audience should know if they didn't watch your hearing. - Yeah, well, everything is so expensive these days. Everything, right? And I've always felt like, and I've said this here before, you know, the things that are absolutely necessary

just for us to survive should have, there should be some barrier between us and corporate irresponsibility that shields us. Like, the things that are necessary to just continue to breathe shouldn't be treated

like everything else. And to me, an energy policy that's draped in humanity is one that actually thinks about the people and not the corporations and not the billionaires. And how do we do that?

And under our system, which is obviously capitalism, right? How do we do that?

“And the best way to do that is to be supportive”

of all forms of energy and be supportive of progress in the energy space and investing in future type energies

that'll drive down price.

A lot of people think that I now want some communist or socialist type energy system. I wasn't saying that at all. I was saying how about a little consideration for the people every once in a while, because to me, a lot of it

is in the messaging, we want the government and the media wants us to celebrate the fact that we're the number one oil producer in the world. Why would we celebrate something

“that does not benefit us in any way, shape or form?”

If you're not a shareholder, if you're not in that industry, it does not benefit you at all. It does us no good to be the number one oil producer. If you're going to hear him paying four or five bucks for gallon of gas, I was paying less for that

when we were the number three oil producers. So who cares that were the number one oil producer? Like, and it's not us, it's the companies. So there's this sort of language in our country where we are often expected to celebrate the success

of huge corporations who have no interest at all in benefiting us. And that's the system we live under, whatever. So how do we manage this under that system that we're actually benefits us?

So like, that's all I was talking about. - Yeah, it's so fascinating because it's not just energy that is like that. I personally think objectively having lived in Europe, having lived in the United States,

that we have like the best medical care, but we have one of the worst health care systems. And it's so fascinating because how is that we are so wealthy,

so advanced in our medical care with such amazing stuff

and our healthcare is just so garbage. And you see that across so many industries, whether it's energy, whether it's the healthcare industry, whether it's just basic decency of keeping people off the streets, richest country in the history of the world,

and we have just rampant problems. And again, I just don't think it's a situation where we should be like completely calming. This is socialist, but man, we just are not ahead of it in the right direction,

when we have Elon Musk worth a trillion dollars now, and there are tens of thousands of people that just they can't even eat or can't even get a house. That's just wild to me. And personally, I think that's what the

kind of the underbelly of revolutions, that's where that starts. So it's just kind of fascinating 'cause it's not energy as well.

“And then I think it's just had a question.”

- Oh no, go ahead. - And I just want to put to the points that you're both making, just that I feel like America adopted these ideas. Someone under Reagan of the free market will decide

and ultimately do what's best for everyone.

And we are like decades into understanding that that simply isn't true. It's not true with healthcare. It's not true with the climate. It's not true with energy.

I mean, our energy is wasteful. Like being the biggest oil producers, awful for the world. I understand that oil is still functional for shipping, funk needed for shipping and all these things,

but it's not something to brag about when we should be in the middle of a green energy. Transition. It's also not cheaper for us as a result. And so the free market hasn't solved that.

It hasn't solved our air quality issues. And it hasn't solved healthcare. So yeah, the humanitarian approach. I mean, how do we do it under this system? I think part of it is changing the system,

part of it is the messaging. I know everyone wants these carve outs, where we go, I don't want to be a socialist. I don't want to be a communist. And I'm like, well, this system is exponentially worsening.

Like the gap between the poorest and richest Americans. Or the gap between the 10 richest Americans and everyone else. It's not just getting bigger. It's getting bigger faster every day.

That's how we get really in airs. And I'm sorry, Chad, what were you about to say? Well, I was just going to ask him if-- because we saw what he said. I watched a lot of what you said.

Because that kind of stuff's fascinating. I mean, I'm just such a dork in that way. But when the cameras shut off, were you able to talk to them at all? Can you give us like what you can say behind the scenes? Was there anything they wanted to talk to you at all

about without the cameras being on and the mics being on? Or was it just camera shut off hearing over? And you guys went your separate ways. It pretty much shut off.

“The only thing that they talked to me about when it was over”

was the Senator wanting to collaborate with me somehow. And because he had to leave early to go to a vote. And so one of his staffers came up and apologized to me that he had to leave because he wanted to speak to me about something. And she said, would you be interested in collaborating him

like doing some kind of live? And I said, you know, I think it'd be better if he just came on the podcast, you know, because-- And so, OK. But I did, when I was speaking--

some of those people were looking at me like, this is different. Like, we have people don't come in these rooms and talk like this. And from my perspective,

and that things he's hurt me say. And I'm not going to stray from that. Like, I didn't pull any punches. That's what's needed. So when the Senator says Mr. Randolph,

we're the number one oil producer in the world,

“can you explain why our gas prices are where they are?”

My response is the United States doesn't produce a drop of oil.

Big billion dollar corporations do.

And that is not an answer that they likely would have gotten from anyone, but me in that room, because people talk differently and act differently when they're surrounded by people like that. I don't. I don't care who you are.

I'm not like intimidated by anybody. I could be standing next to Chad Scott, or I could be standing next to Michael Jackson. It would make a difference to me, either both people. You would be surprised if it was alive.

Come on. That would be where one would give you pause. Just a hologram. I'm just saying, I'm not star struck and I'm not intimidated by power. Like none of that.

Nor should you be. Those people work for us. Right. That's how I view it. And so, and another thing I felt like an idiot,

because the woman to my right was Claudia Scham. And I didn't know who Claudia Scham was. She's like this world famous economist that's like, respected by like a lot of people. And I'm like, I didn't even know who she was.

And I felt pretty bad about that later, 'cause I don't follow economists.

But yeah, there was some pretty powerful people.

There was more media people in that room than anybody though. There was what you didn't see off camera was the media, I don't know what they call them, like the gaggle or whatever. It was just, there was just reporters and cameras and stuff. And like, no, I mean, everyone was super nice,

super friendly.

“I think it's interesting because we've talked”

to Democratic legislators before. And I have many times in my personal experience as an activist and speech writer. And I think I used to assume a lot more malice, which is not, I don't forgive people.

And I think some people are fully aware of the harm that they're causing and the disingenuous messaging that they're putting out there. So I don't forgive anyone. But one thing that I've become more aware of

is the degree to which establishment Democrats are only hearing DNC operatives. All the time. And they are, it's like why you can't get through to them about Palestine, where it's like,

the only young people they know are people who want it to work for the Democratic Party since birth. And the only people they're listening to are operatives and strategists who work for think tanks. And it's like, they don't,

they're not used to hearing you say things like, well, specifically because they've accepted a set of foregone conclusions, such as, we need the oil industry, such as, you know, these fluctuations in the market are okay

as long as the corporations are turning a profit. And when you just kind of accept that as the flatline of your reasoning or not accepted, but when all of the reasoning that you're hearing has pre-accepted these foregone conclusions

that are not necessarily true, but they are part of this ideology, you don't even think that people think about that. And obviously, I think these people need to be more in touch, but it's so good that you're able to speak

to them clear headedly because I do think that within the Democratic Party, within the DNC intentionally or otherwise, they end up repeating these archaic points that don't really represent the will

of the people who they work for. - I will commend the Democratic Party for moving late. They are moving late, so I will say that the GOP were the first few decades, because we've seen,

unfortunately, like, let's be honest, the pro-podcast realm was a big part of getting Trump reelected the Rogans and all the different comedians that decided they were going to suddenly become experts in everything.

And then they drove this narrative that now, they're very much against, like, it's very interesting watching them kind of come to this realization that they've made a mistake with Donald Trump, including Rogan, ending up with these pro-podcasters

who are now back calling and claiming

it was just a joke and they never actually endorsed him.

- You had him on your podcast, they out, but, you know. - Yeah, and so what's interesting though is I give the Democrats credit, it's their late,

“but they are starting to, and that's why we are getting”

interest from Adam Smith said, and he, to his credit after you pushed back on him that last, after our podcast with him and the listeners don't know this, he reached out to you and you had a conversation with him.

So I think they're getting more, - Yeah, we're doing, yeah, we're getting more in tune, they're more in tune to the alternate media as a force, whether it's the TikTokers and the podcasters, again, they were late and they had to play catch up.

as, what the traditional media is, and I understand that traditional media was, it was the more credible because they have the resources in that credibility and understandably, but we have the reach now.

I mean, Matt puts out a video, his single video does more views than an entire MS now show. So I will give credit to these Democrats that are coming around and I welcome talking to them on podcasts or videos and things like that lives,

whatever we want to do. But do you think Matt though that anyone,

and here's the, I mean, the million-dollar question,

did they, was it just kind of a playcation? Like, oh, yeah, it's cool to have Mr. Global in the room to generate some credibility, but do you think you actually, they listen, and they cared, or they're gonna make any changes,

or is it just, I, you know, I didn't expect, I didn't go in there thinking that anything I would say would result in anything within the government. But I knew that if I go in there, if I went in there, I knew how many media people would be there.

And the line where I said the United States doesn't produce a drop of oil, it's big billion dollar companies. That clip went super viral. And I don't know how many millions on my channels, probably three or four million views.

And it's being shared by think tanks. I got a notification today that the Century Foundation. Think tank, based out of New York City,

shared that clip, Malcolm Nance was talking about it

on his show, and I'm not seeing a lot of this, but people are coming into my comments section, it's mostly on YouTube, and they're like, hey, this person was talking about what you said in this person.

And some of these people I'm having to go look and see who they are. Like, I honestly didn't know who Malcolm Nance was, but I went and looked him up, and I'm like, oh, that guy's somebody, I don't know if y'all know who he is,

but he's kind of in Chad's room. And he a former intelligence guy. But so that, my overall driving message the whole time I was there was how we need to change the way we think

“about energy, you know, that's what I was really trying”

to drive home is to get out of this corporate mindset, like we do everything else. She talked about health care, like, I don't know how anyone affords health care in this country. And my health insurance is $2,100 a month.

And if we have to use it, it doesn't pay for much at all. And we got to pay a lot of money when we get to wherever we're going to use it. Like it's insane. So I mean, my wife keep having conversations

like do we even keep this? Like in the only reason I'm keeping it is because of my age and like something catastrophic could happen. Like, you know, what if I had a heart attack, you know? I mean, I'm 52 years old.

- Oh, I'm 52 years old. - Oh, I'm 52 years old condition. - Or a crime. - Yeah, that's the problem. You kind of have to keep it around because if you get something they'll hold it against you.

- When you try to apply. I mean, I know we have no pre-existing condition, but like realistically speaking,

“you have to have that insurance because.”

I mean, in some cases, you need a firm plan. - Also, I mean, sometimes it's not an option. - And I really feel like we are being steered towards a lot of this stuff and we don't realize it. Like if you look at the poverty rate in the United States,

it's not reflective of the condition of the United States. You know, it's a lot lower than it was 50 years ago. The poverty rate, I think, is around 10 and a half to 11%. You know, well, there's times in this country when it was over 20%.

But what the poverty rate doesn't show you

is that there's 80 million Americans

on some type of assistance. And so what that tells me is you can need to be on assistance, but not be considered poverty level. Like, and so to me, if there's 80 million Americans on some type of assistance, then that's a fourth of the country.

Roughly, roughly 20, 3, 4, 5% of the country. That's a lot more grim of a picture than saying the poverty rates 10%. The poverty rate, like, a family of four making, I think it's 31,000 a year is, or less is poverty.

And I'm like, I don't know how one person making $30,000 a year is not in poverty. - Yeah. - And I don't think that's a statistic about it. - I think 30,000.

- No, my health insurance is almost $30,000 a year. What are you talking about? - And that's why I'm coming. - And that's why I'm coming. - It means tested all of these, like, the SNAP programs,

food stamps, all these things have been put to the point where, okay, so it's means tested, which means only if you're really, really, you know, qualify for you, you need it. Which means that, if you look at how,

“how, essentially, how poor you have to be,”

let's say in New York State where I live, in order to qualify for food stamp for, like, SNAP benefits, food stamps, that's supplemental nutrition assistance program.

for a housing assistance,

nitra housing, for all these different fair fairs, so you can write the metro,

“you should go write the metro card for cheaper,”

write the subway. All these assistance programs we have in place for New Yorkers are, you have to be, like, pretty low percentile of New Yorkers to qualify at all.

And I think a lot of the people, yeah, there's more people on, you know, assistance right now in eight programs, but there's also these people in, like, the 20% income bracket above, like you said, you know, 30,000 for a family,

the people who are making 30,000 to 70,000 for a family of four, they have no assistance. And so they may not be under the poverty line, but in many ways, their costs are just as high. So they're functionally living,

at the same way the people on assistance are living, not exactly, but like, the costs are still extremely prohibitive for people of that still lower income bracket that doesn't qualify for assistance.

- Well, and that's, what's fascinating is, and quite sad is you have the GOP will, will attack these assistance programs, but also there'll be like raw raw, we support our troops, we support our veterans.

- Yeah. - A hundred and a thousand, yeah, exactly. A hundred and a thousand active duty service members and their families are on SNAP, 120,000. So the basic soldier doesn't make enough money

to that deploys overseas and goes and does whatever. And I'm not saying that they should be, in some sort of special category, but don't sit there as the GOP and say you are the party of the soldier of the veteran,

and then come in here and try to destroy food programs at 120,000 mouths in the Department of Defense rely on. And so it's just a really, again, it's one of those where they love to have the headline, but when you dive deep, there's a lot of people that rely on these,

and there's a lot of people that really should be, if you're really following the GOP line, revered in that realm, and I'm talking to the junior and listed troops from E1 to E4, some of them just can't feed themselves

properly with their families. And so it's really kind of sad. And that kind of was leading me to this. So the committee you went on was a very much Democrat led. Would you have said the same thing as Republicans?

No Republicans. Would you have said the same thing, though? If there was a Republican led, would you have told them the same thing, or would you have maybe been more firm

or told them their policies to jacked up or something like that? No, I would have said the exact same thing. I don't care what party you're in. Like your party affiliation doesn't impact my speech. I don't think I would have been any more harsh.

They actually, they thought I was kind of harsh. They kind of were like, man, this guy's like,

real matter of fact, no, I've never done that.

I've never been that way. But also, when you have the following I have, and people knew I was going, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna go to Washington and be a different person?

- Yeah. - Exactly. Like people were depending on me to be me when I got there. And not that I needed that, but I certainly wasn't going to change for anybody. That's not how I got here.

“- I think that's also a good lesson on messaging, right?”

Like obviously you want to speak to people in language that they can understand. And sometimes party affiliation or political beliefs necessitate adjusting that. But I also think I think it's much more important

to have a core system, both beliefs and understanding of the thing that you're talking about that you can, I don't say Radaloff, that sounds uncarrying, but that you are comfortable to speak to from any angle.

Because ultimately, if you believe what you believe,

you can't be undermined by rhetoric. You can only be undermined by arguments, right? And I think that's a really good strategy, 'cause you don't want to appear too fast, right? And you do mean what you say.

So you can get really lost in trying to speak the way that your audience wants to hear, or you do need to say things that your audience is capable of understanding, is capable of processing, or is possible to go too far and turn things off.

But I think ultimately, you're right that the priority should just be,

“this is what I believe, this is what I would say”

to anyone you need to hear it. - Yeah, someone made the comment, someone said that I was being bombastic or something for the cameras. And I said, go back five years of my content,

and you will find everything I said in that room, in multiple times, I've said throughout the years of my content. I did not say anything that I haven't said a hundred times before. So no, I wasn't being bombastic.

I was being real, and that's something that doesn't happen enough in Washington. - Your whole life is in front of a camera.

every single day, every all week. As if that suddenly, the camera changes and it's different. I would argue that those cameras that were on you got less views than the cameras

that you put in front of your face and talk to you. So that's such a ridiculous argument.

“I guarantee you that that's why it actually matters”

that you maintain that because there is that visual record. So, and I was seen in the comments, and I get these in the comments too, for me,

I always get like, oh, you should be the secretary of defense.

I saw a bunch. You should be the run for office. So, my question then for you is, let's say, you're now Senator Global, not Mr. Global anymore. You're Senator Global, what do you think?

What would you do if you had the power now? What would you do if you were, or what bill would you try to put forward to help the people in this regard with energy wise? - Yeah, with energy.

- So we haven't had a comprehensive energy bill since George Bush, which Bush, the little guy. (laughing) - W? - Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, so that's the last time we had a comprehensive energy bill, and I tell people don't understand how we are benefiting from that bill today.

Like, if not for that bill today,

“the world would need about three more million barrels”

of oil a day than it is using. Without that bill today, our electric bills would be twice as high as they are. And look at your electric bill today. Imagine if it was twice as high.

And this is a conservation from that bill? - Yes, a ton of conservation, fuel mileage standards, energy efficiency with appliances, and at home, just, it was a very comprehensive energy policy that covered every form of energy,

and looked ahead like 20 years. Well, we're like 20 years away from that. That was like 20 years ago. Barack Obama came in, and this was something I mentioned, and this was something that I mentioned in that hearing

that got bit perked up a lot of years, because when I was talking about this bill,

and I said, and you know what happened

after Bush passed this comprehensive energy policy, Barack Obama came in, and instead of tearing it up because he didn't like the name or the letter next to the person that wrote it, he actually took it in and proved on it,

like politicians are supposed to do, right? So Obama took that and he improved on it, right? Just look, my pickup truck, you know, I drive an F-150. If I feel that thing up, I can go about 650 miles on a take.

When that energy bill passed, that same pickup, probably would've gone 300 miles on a take. This is what I'm talking about. The things that people don't see because it just naturally became a part of our life,

like all the benefits of this, and also because George Bush and Barack Obama, they weren't the type of people to stand up in front of a camera every day and brag about everything they ever did.

For, they didn't need that positive reinforcement every five seconds of their life like Donald Trump does. We need another comprehensive energy bill like that that covers everything and future types of investment and research and investment in future forms of energy,

like fusion, things like that. But those are the types of legislation that help us the most, even though we don't realize it and understand it like 10, 20 years down the road, we don't realize it's actively helping us every day,

but it is. - Well, how did a bill like that educate me, please a little in a famously conservative administration, arguably the worst president of all time at the time, how did a comprehensive energy bill get passed

under that administration? - Because the worst president of all time at that time was a thousand times better than the worst president of all time at this time. - Okay, I mean, let's just speak-- - I guess my question

is why wouldn't he go to the energy bill? - I would give anything to have a George Bush back in office. I'm, you know, and I'm not a Republican. I'm just saying he was moderate enough and he worked well enough with the other side

and he understood at the very least like people are gonna need this in the future. It was around the birth of the shell revolution. With the, yeah, or his handlers, I really don't care, the policy was passed

and it's been a fitting as to every day. And I appreciated the fact that we had someone in office that built on it. Now, imagine if the person that came after Obama said, hey, we can build on this again.

Like, you know, and just continue building on it and improve, but that's not what happened. You know, Donald Trump came in and he tore it up.

“He tore it up just like he tore up the Iran deal, you know?”

He tried to row back all of the great things that were in that policy, the fuel mileage standards, the energy efficiency standards, all the things that's saving the average American about $1,200 a month today, he tore that up.

that will continue to build on the improvements

and the foundations that were laid by the presidents that came before them and we simply don't have that anymore. And since we don't, we're losing time because just like any other kind of business,

this country, if it's not progressing and planning for the future, then it's falling way behind, and every day we lose, you know, is really bad. And I feel like right now, we're getting so deep

in a hole of just time lost where we could be passing important legislation that's gonna help us 10 years from now. Are we gonna have to wait for 20 years now to, for this legislation to pass,

that's really gonna help us out?

Like, and I don't think people think that way.

You know, they're too tribal in their thinking and they just wanna, they want their side to win. We need to get away from that. - Yeah, and they, to kind of answer your question a bit, Nat, on how Bush got it through.

He was, it was a moment in time where he was able to kind of ride the co-tails of 9/11. And so there's the post 9/11 energy security concern. And so there was these concerns that we, our energy infrastructure, what if that was hit,

we need to find a way to diversify, we need to find a way to get to a point where we're using less and concessain. And so he was able to kind of build this coalition of republicans along with democrats

that all were in that post 9/11 energy security realm.

But also, to be honest, and correct me if I were on,

he gave industry a pretty good, within that bill. There was a pretty solid, like, package of subsidies that went to the energy industry. So because of that, they got, they had buy into it.

“I think they saw the writing on the wall at a time”

like, where they were like, well, I think green energy is going to at least be a part of this. So we want to make some money on it. So if we can get involved with, because let's be honest, I mean,

exon, and those companies, they have green energy plants as well. I believe they invest in those, if not to run their own systems, but to, they want to make money off of them as well, so I think that was like a perfect storm.

Unfortunately, it took a tragedy to get it through, but I think it was, there was that energy security concern. And we might be seeing something similar now, because we have once again realized, ooh, there's a energy security concern right now

with the straight of our moves closing. And are we really that, quote, unquote, independent when it comes to energy? Because I've heard that we are a net importer, again, because of the energy concerns that are happening.

And so we may see another leap forward, but because of who's in the executive office right now, I just don't, I don't see that happening in at least until 28, maybe if we get some of the right person in. In our last episode, Chad talked about how Republicans

used to be conservationists. They used to believe in energy conservation. I don't know, but that was still a thing. Oh, you said that. I thought Chad said about it.

“I don't know, maybe, I think we were agreeing.”

I think we were talking about 100 years ago, conservatives were extremely pro conservation, more recently than that as well. But we'll 20 years ago, yeah, 20 years ago, a Republican president passed an energy conservation piece of legislation is what I'm saying.

So it wasn't that long ago that Republicans were kind of normal people, they believed in energy conservation. And the cheapest form of energy is the one you don't have to use because you saved it, like, you know, every unit of energy you don't have to use due to efficiency is, like, it's free.

It's cheap. You don't get any cheaper than free. And that was, I think it was George Bush that actually said that, the cheapest form of energy is the energy that's free.

I think he said that in a statement about that piece of legislation. That's like the most coherent quote I've ever heard from him. Well, I'm not going to argue with that. It might have been after someone through a shoe at him. I don't know.

He had a lot of sound bites. They just weren't usually quite so actionable. I was going to ask because we invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. I was curious how that affected the oil industry because didn't let a lot of establish new pipeline.

The data effect, these same companies that were participating in this, or sorry, being regulated by this oil bill or how did that affect the energy industry at the time? Well, this was an oil bill. I mean, when he passed subsidies for, yeah,

he had subsidies for renewable in there, for when solar advancements and EV technology and research and subsidies for EVs, like this was a comprehensive bill that included everything.

“And if I remember correctly, I think the Democrats also”

controlled the Congress at the end of his administration.

Yeah, for the last term.

“So back then, the two sides that get together and, yeah,”

they would get together and they would each give up something

and get something and they would pass big pieces of legislation. They don't do that anymore, right? So yeah. Right, and there's horrible in toxic as he was the spirit of bipartisanism existed at least to some extent.

And you're saying that right now, and I tend to agree, I think things were pretty bad already, but things have been polarized to a degree where it's operating far more out of spite, like you said, I have to undo what the previous administration did

because they did it, which is very different from the way they did it. Well, I would say that it's just one man, because Biden was able to get bipartisan support on some pretty impressive bills. And that was just a few years ago.

The infrastructure bill, the chips act, those are huge, those are huge for our country. And it's just one specific guy. And we all know who it is.

It was the first administration tearing up the JCPOA,

which is why we're in this quagmire in Iran now, or it's now him refusing to touch anything that it looks bipartisan if it wasn't his idea. And so they have to ram things through. And so when you look at the status quo,

even for the last, let's say, the last Republican that was bipartisan was Georgia B. Bush, that was normal, Obama was normal, Biden was normal, we are in abnormal times. And so it's unfortunately going to require a complete change

over to get back to this bipartisanship. And hopefully, once again, get us, because we're now getting into the point

“where I think our strategic reserves are critically low.”

And as much as I love clean energy for the population, of the United States, we are going to still need oil for the foreseeable future to run our military as an expeditionary force. I mean, you can't have a solar powered battle sheet,

we don't balance it, I mean, destroyers.

We do have nuclear submarines and nuclear carriers, but the military is going to run on oil for the foreseeable future. And if we can make sure that our domestic energy needs are taking care of, whether through green energy,

it frees that up so that if we do need it to deploy somewhere for a good reason, not a dumb reason, like we are in Iran, then we would be prepared for that. So I think like Matt was saying,

if we can secure ourselves with green energy at home, if we do need to use oil, when we need to deploy or go fight, hopefully the righteous fight, if there ever is one, hopefully we don't have to deal with that, or a World War III situation,

we are in a better place both domestically and from a military standpoint. And I just, again, I just don't see it coming out of this administration. He just wants to wreck green energy.

And the more we have to use here at home, the less there's going to be for a potential military deployment elsewhere. And that's kind of what we're seeing right now in Iran. We are strategic reserves are so low

because we have over extended ourselves. - Yeah, and not that I want more military action, but you know, and then there should be an Iran in the first place. But there are instances in which an autocrat

overthrows, eight people's Republican, we try to prevent that. There's also instances where we help the autocrat. But in the hypothetical case, when we're on the right side of history,

and haven't, you know, haven't made decades of deals with the autocrats entire administration, which is hard to say 'cause we don't have a lot. In the case where we are in the right and we'll be on the right side of history,

we don't want to be militarily incapable of aiding the cause of justice because we've used our strategic energy reserve. We've exhausted our strategic energy reserve. I mean, if that's your argument for green energy,

I support it. - Well, I mean, and that's because I can say Russia and China, they're looking at what are levels of oil are. And they make calculations based on what they want to do. If China, one of the calculations,

China would ever have potentially for Taiwan now. I don't think they would invade Taiwan in the near term, but if they were to be crazy enough to do that, one of their calculations is to can the United States sustain itself and part of that sustainment package

is going to be our petroleum reserves. And if we can make sure we have enough petroleum for the military because we have bill stirred, our massive green energy domestically. I think that's all.

Whatever angle we need to take, I'm for it to get, I mean, if it means being raw raw military and they're like, yeah, let's build more solar, so the military's better. - Cool with me.

- Sorry. (laughs) - Yeah, I think. - I support the troops. - Build solar actually. - Exactly.

“- Where does that mean the Bush administration showed it?”

- Exactly. - So what were we doing to support the troops back then? - You couldn't get a platform, so that's all I say. - Now, before we went into Iran, we were told repeatedly,

Like now is the time.

Like Chad said, that is exactly how China and Russia

are looking at us right now, because we're the weakest we've been in a long time because we've exhausted how much of our munitions we've exhausted, but also our SPR and our energy inventories are at historic lows.

So just by definition, we are weaker than we've been in however many decades, just like Iran was supposedly weaker than they had been. Although I wasn't buying this stuff about Iran, I felt like that was an excuse.

But we're no different than anyone else when it comes to how country's view is right now, America is weak from that perspective. - What's the actual tangible threat from China or Russia for that matter?

But specifically, like what are we worried

“about China doing militarily if the U.S. appears weak?”

Just having more power on a global scale or is there a specific struggle that we are, that's the point where we can-- - I think it's more economic, don't you? - Chad, it'd be more economic than military.

- One thing that's really fascinating about this whole ordeal with Iran, and it's going all the way back to October 7th when Hamas conducted that terror attack and it's Israel, it's become abundantly clear that despite the fact that China has presented itself

as this counterbalance to the United States, they can't do a damn thing on the global stage when a crisis happens. When they essentially on October 8th, when something was happening,

the United States was already moving to support Israel and when it came to potentially Iran, China was doing nothing. And so it became very clear that China doesn't have capabilities to deploy expeditionary like the United States

“can, however, within their own backyard,”

they can do things that eventually make it so it's more difficult for the U.S. to operate. They can conduct exercises to cut potential areas of the Taiwan straight off. And if we're focused so heavily

and spending so much money in the Middle East, we can't counter that in the South China Sea or the East China Sea. And so what happens is China will suddenly start shipping away at that region, whether it's through their island building,

through their belligerent, where they spray the coast guards of other countries, whether it's the Philippines, or Vietnam, or whatever. And so because we deplete ourselves in foolish endeavors and think places like the Middle East,

it emboldens China not only militarily per se. I don't think it's necessarily like a kinetic conventional force. It absolutely emboldens them asymmetrically, which by asymmetrically, I mean, they are more willing to conduct cyberattacks. They're more willing to conduct information operations.

“Because the United States isn't going to do anything.”

Look at how they folded when Iran just closed the straight of our moves.

We are the most powerful military in the history of the world.

And we folded the minute things got a little bit hard. And that type of messaging that we have when it comes to looking at not only the actual fighting with Iran, but this absolutely garbage deal that we're making right now is sending messages everywhere that we do not have the staying power.

We can hit you in the mouth harder than anyone in the world. But then we'll back away the minute anything gets a bit difficult. And that's the message we're sending to China, Russia, even North Korea. They're even getting more emboldened with their belligerents

by firing missiles over Japan and things. And I'm concerned that as the United States becomes more weakened, we can get into the Iran deal here in a bit, because I know that's a mess. But the weaker the United States presents itself,

the more cover countries that are allies like Japan, South Korea, the Baltic nations, Poland. They start to wonder if the U.S. is really reliable. Can will they be there when the chips are down? Or do we need our own massive counterbalance

and by massive counterbalance, I mean, do we need our own nuclear weapons? Japan capable of more escalation theoretically. - Yeah, which becomes a proliferation spiral. We have been extraordinarily fortunate

that only like nine countries created nuclear weapons since the first one was detonated. That's a miracle. And non proliferation between U.S. Russia, et cetera.

But if the deal that was made was always

the United States would be the umbrella for the Western democracies to defend them, whether it was Europe, East Asia, et cetera. And if we do not present that, if we do not, if we show that we're weak or we don't have the staying power,

then those countries are not going to rely on us. They're going to say they aren't going to be there in the major crisis, because they can't even handle the straight-of-horre moves crisis. And so because of that, we are going to have potentially Japan

recalculating, well, maybe we need a nuclear weapon. We'll look at what happened to Ukraine.

South Korea, their biggest foe, North Korea, is expanding their nuclear arsenal to become the size of frances. And South Korea has no nuclear weapons, because they have had the understanding

“that the United States will be their umbrella.”

Donald Trump has said, flat out. And I don't think that South Korea, Taiwan, they don't really matter to us anymore. Those types of conversations are really detrimental. And we could see these many cold wars

start forming across the region when the United States is unwilling to, or at this point, starting to become incapable of being the response arm to despotism, whether it is a North Korea China or Russia. So on that note, can we talk a little bit about the most recent

incarnation of the Iran deal? Oh, yeah, I'm sure Matt has much to say about that. Matt, I see him, it's all very good. What are your favorite highlights? My favorite highlights are how there was all these caveats

to this deal where Iran would be rewarded. And it was all performance-based, right? As we move through this, if Iran accomplished certain things

“and proved certain things to us, then they would get a reward,”

kind of like you give your dog a treat. But yesterday, Donald Trump was on social media threatening them, he threatened to kill the negotiators before they got home, because Iran closed down the strait of farmers again, because of the fighting between Israel and Lebanon.

And what happened last night, and I actually predicted this, is we went ahead and gave Iran all of those concessions that were performance-based upfront to get the straight back open today.

It turned out to be 12 billion in frozen assets,

all sanctions that they've had for over 40 years, were dropped, the U.S. Treasury did that this morning. So roughly 85 or so percent of all of the things that they were going to achieve through a performance-based agreement was handed to them upfront based on what happened yesterday

in Iran just saying, "Well, walk out in the negotiation." So we basically could just gave them everything we could to get the straight back open. And what the big question to me is, what do we have to give them the next time they do that?

“'Cause they're going to keep going to that well.”

As long as we keep giving them something, every time they close the straight to the farmers, they're going to keep going back to that well, and getting what they can, we're about out of stuff to give them. So that's my take on it so far.

Well, when you look at the two things that were upfront, when we originally went and started this fight,

the first one was by far the nuclear issue.

And when you look at the language of this document, it's not even as strong as the JCPOA was. The JCPOA contains stronger nuclear language in their preamble. When you, and the fact that the language of this MOU,

which I've highlighted this many times in some of my own stuff, MOUs are not deals. Memorandum of understanding is a framework for who has what are we doing. We don't even know the status of their nuclear material.

We don't know what we don't know if it's been bombed to nuclear dust is Trump likes to say, or if it's been moved. And even to get to that baseline, we have to have inspectors.

Now, I saw today that Vice President JD Vance came out and said, oh, they've allowed inspectors or they're going to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Iran came out and said,

yeah, maybe we'll see, they haven't confirmed it. And so like you were just saying, Matt, they're gonna want something even just to get those inspectors in. We're gonna have to give them something just to get to that level. And the frustrating things,

I keep hearing like right leaning content creators and right leaning commentators talk about, well, the JC fine, we admit that the JC POA is roughly the same as what Trump is giving them. I'm like, no, it's not.

We got to the JC POA without having to fight a war. We got to the JC POA without having 13 soldiers die, 400 soldiers wounded or spending this level of billions of dollars and it's extraordinarily frustrating. And we also didn't bomb any schools to get the JC POA.

Exactly. And speaking of the bombs, everyone's accounting for the money that they're like, oh, they're not getting a dime of US money. You know what we're gonna have to spend on?

Rebuilding all the bases of Iran struck. Rebuilding our arsenals. That's gonna cost money.

This is not like there's so many second and third order

And we got nothing. In fact, Iran got in the language that all they had to say was we are, we reaffirm prior commitments. That tells me that they are making no new concessions.

They're reaffirming what they signed not in the JC POA, but in the nuclear non proliferation treaty in 1979. This is a country that already signed by treaty that they were not gonna build a nuclear weapon, then reagreed to it in the JC POA.

And now, all's are saying in vague languages, we'll go ahead and yeah, sure, we won't build a nuclear weapon. There's no meaningful nuclear concessions whatsoever. And there's no clear baseline because they don't, the United States just doesn't know what's there.

We have to have verification mechanisms to start with. And so I'm getting tired of these people in the Maga world saying that the JC POA was weaker. It was exponentially stronger because it contained stronger nuclear language in the preamble

and also provided for checkpoints and gateways. And they got this deal without losing soldiers and spending billions on equipment. - And I'm not listening to a lot of those Maga voices,

“but I think, you know, when you say it is one guy”

who's unwilling to negotiate, who's doing everything out of spite, I agree to a certain extent, but also I think that has clearly proliferated into the media space and some of the other legislators

of like, you know, there's always gonna be an argument made

for why what Trump did is, there's always gonna be a huge media apparatus explaining why what he did is actually better for America, right? - That nuclear deal was 1969. - Oh yeah, because I was free in my head,

I have June the first, '69, and I didn't Google it or nothing, but June the first of 1969. The way I remember it is that Iran has promised not to have nuclear weapons since before we landed on the moon.

Like, that's how I remember that. (laughing) - So that's like 50's, what, six, seven years ago or something. - Well, what's fascinating is I think that the Trump administration purposefully made the language vague

in the MOU because there's actually a law that requires the president to push any nuclear deal for Iran to Congress to vote on. And the Iran nuclear review or nuclear agreement review act. And when it becomes relevant is when a new nuclear deal

has to be agreed upon that deals with Iran's nuclear capability.

“And what I think the Trump administration is coming forward with”

is they're like, well, this is such a vague language that they just reaffirmed to not have a nuclear weapon or build a nuclear weapon that they don't, it doesn't require Congress to get involved because I think the Trump administration

rightfully calculates that the Republicans and the Democrats think this deal is so garbage that they're gonna wanna put their stamp of no on it. So the Trump administration just wants to keep the out of Congress.

And so they have to keep the nuclear language very vague. And when you do that though, the Iranians will take advantage of that very much. So they're very good at that. So it's just a very frustrating deal.

I mean, you look at the absence of the human rights. The JCPOA upfront talked about, it's a boilerplate agreement that we have every deal we ever made with Iran where there was the joint plan of action which pre-seated the joint comprehensive plan of action

or any deal whatsoever, always is human rights upfront.

“We have taken that out and we have abandoned the Iranian people.”

What's frustrating is not necessarily that, it's automatically frustrating that we've abandoned the Iranian people. But what's really frustrating is the first tweet Donald Trump fired off is basically,

if you guys remember, Trump tweeting, take to the streets, take your country back, we have your back. So these people were like, oh, look at this, the Americans are coming, the Americans are going to help us.

And then we come out with this MOU and the MOU specifically states that we will not interfere or basically metal in the affairs of that country. And I'm like, that's a slap in the face

of those Iranian people who anticipated some sort of support, any support, whether it's tacit media supporter, giving them starling terminals or whatever, just to help them fight this regime

and now the United States has become so neutered that we're like, oh, we're not gonna, sorry, Iranian people, even though Trump said it three months ago, we're not helping you, period. And it's a part of that deal.

So it's a huge power to sanction them in any way that would help for humanitarian aid. We clearly are losing the idea of a new full-scale invasion as we've already discussed as horrific and we may not even have the power to do.

Like we basically lost the ability

to keep to aid the Iranian people via any form of intervention that we've used in the past. And clearly diplomacy is not at its best right now, our remaining option. - Yeah, because when you say the language

we cannot interfere, that they're interpretation of interfere

“could be good aid, like we could be sending medical aid.”

And they could say, oh no, we're not doing that. You're not allowed to do that, that's interfering because you're undermining the Islamic Republic and the IITOLA and whatnot. It was just, that's just extraordinarily poor judgment

and it's a humanitarian setting up to be a humanitarian disaster is what it's going to be because we've already seen the Islamic Republic emboldened by the fact that the United States has backed off and become so weak in the region

that they are now conducting open trials in the streets with executions once again. And that was something that the United States said stop doing that and we were, for a brief moment, we're targeting that type of apparatus, but now it's gone.

We can't provide any food aid, any medical aid, any aid whatsoever, or assist the people

in overthrowing what is objectively a very,

very murderous evil regime. And this is a regime that killed 30,000 people just six months ago in their own streets. So, and we won't help them in a period according to the MLU. And we kill that many people.

We just sort of let them die via lack of assistance in our country. They just died due to medical behavior, COVID, or all the other ways that we let people die that don't sound like murder, not to undermine

the seconding actions of the Iranian regime, just to be clear, once again, separating the people from their regimes. This is, I mean, I can't imagine that the Trump administration's goal was to end in a situation where we can provide better humanitarian

aid, but this doesn't even really sound like a deal. It sounds like a major concession. I mean, it's a deal. - Yeah. - And so far as, like, it's not like--

- Oh, great negotiation. It sounds like the U.S. took what they could get, which is less than they had when the whole thing started. - That's 100% correct, yeah. They, I mean, we taught Iran that they could use the Strait of Hormuz

as a lever against, not just the United States, but against the entirety of the Western world. We taught them that, again, like I said, I'm gonna work with regard to China and Russia. We taught them that we are not,

we don't have a staying power, which is extremely dangerous in a place like the Middle East. When you look at countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, these are countries that traditionally countered Iran.

And with the U.S. presenting is so weak, they're gonna start making the calculation just like Japan and other countries like, "What?" Maybe we need to have something that is that, maybe Israel was smart to build a nuclear weapon.

And then they'll start having that calculation. And if you think Israel is gonna let Saudi have a nuclear weapon or Egypt or they're gonna cause a spiral effect. And I'm worried that whatever this deal comes from is going to turn into a generational problem

and as Matt has said in the past,

“probably the best thing we can do right now”

is just kind of throw our hands up and walk away and have a better smarter administration, hopefully come in and clean it up. - I would just like to point out

that the deal we agreed to was the first thing

Iran offered us two months ago. It's literally the first thing they offered us two months ago. And after two months of whatever we were doing, we just, I mean, that shows you the desperation of the United States.

We went back and just took the first deal they offered us. - While being told, they were begging for a deal. It's the same, same 14 point deal, nothing changed. - It's the exact same. - And you notice Rubio isn't touching this

with a 10-foot pole. - No, he sees this. - He sees this anywhere. - He sees this poison till a mile away. - Someone commented today, I feel better when I see Rubio

because I know things aren't terrible. When I don't see Rubio, involved in something, I know how bad it is. And someone made that comment. And I was like, that is so true.

Imagine telling that to someone five years ago. - I know, and that's the thing is-- - Not only cover one Marco Rubio's in the room, thank God, a voice of Rubio. - Yeah, 'cause he's the only grown-up is what it is.

And so his policies are objectively not good policies, whatsoever, but at least he's not JD Vance, like Bumble fucking his way through. - No, it's true. - I mean, I'm totally disagreeed with him on almost every political stance,

but he's also sort of the kind of politician, not even, but we were talking about from 20 years ago who can like, yeah, a conversation without getting, you know, I don't want to say getting emotional.

“You should be emotional about your beliefs,”

but without having a tantrum, like most of Trump's accolades seem to treat public speaking. - Well, you just think about the situation he was put in. Like, what would have happened to him if he turned down the Secretary of State Club?

- Yeah, yeah. - Like his career would have been over.

- He was a shunt Trump. - Oh, Trump would have had him investigated by the FBI by now. Are you kidding? - Yeah, I'm not saying, like--

- He's a vinda-- - The mega culture trapped Rubio, like Iran trapped in United States in the state of Formus. Like he was stuck. He had to take that job.

He had to work under double Trump. And he had, like, it was only--

it was either that or just basically disappear forever.

- Well, I think that-- - I'm not just a baddie punty, yeah.

“- Well, on JD Vance, I think, is the fall guy at this point.”

I mean, yeah, Rubio's not touching-- I think Rubio is smart enough to find ways. So I gotta go, I'm gonna go talk at the Ukraine conference. I'm gonna go talk to the focus on maybe Cuba, which is a whole danger on its own.

But JD Vance is now the one being pushed forward as the negotiator, part of the negotiating team of three, which is Whitkoff, Trump, Junior, and JD Vance, the worst negotiating team in the history of ever. And on Junior's in there, good Lord.

- Yeah, and you have Kushner, you have Whitkoff, Dom Junior went briefly, then you had, now you have JD Vance who just left. And this is ridiculous, because what ends up happening is you're gonna have JD Vance look like the failure.

And Donald Trump has already said this.

He's already come out and said objectively. He was like, well, if it fails, I'll just pin it on Vance. It sounds like a good idea. That's a direct quote. He said, and so Vance is like feeling the heat here.

But I just wanna point out how amateurish this negotiating team is.

“So when you look at the joint comprehensive plan of action”

in the final days of the negotiation, which was the most heated, the United States sent a nuclear, a negotiating team that included treaty lawyers, nuclear scientists, intelligence officials, defense planners, treasury officials to talk about sanctions.

They had cultural experts to understand Iranian culture, so they could present themselves as respectful. They have technical experts. They had like nuclear scientists on this negotiating team, helping these guys get to get across the finish line.

And everyone's like, oh, it was an 18 point plan. Well, it had like 140 pages of annexes of extreme detail in the JCPOA. This was an extraordinary feat to get across the finish line. And oh, yeah, it wasn't just the United States.

It was Russia, China. The European Union was involved. So if Iran like blocked, or if they broke the deal, it wasn't a bilateral deal where the U.S. was like, we'll getcha, we'll bomb ya,

which by the way is a tactic, not a strategy. When Trump's like, we're gonna bomb you, if you don't fall,

“that's not a strategy, doesn't solve anything.”

But when you look at the, if they were to back out of the JCPOA, then the Russians, the Chinese, the entirety of Europe, the United States, they would have all went hard against Iran and said, hey,

we all agreed and put our signatures on it. Well, it wasn't, they didn't physically sign it. I get that idea, but they put their backing, they're diplomatic backing. Right now, none of them have that.

And so, when you're just Whitkoff, Kushner, and Vance, sitting there and occasionally trumped junior making some phone calls, no one's gonna take this seriously and the Iranians certainly don't take this seriously and they're running circles around this whole negotiating

team and we all see it in real time. Two questions, one, has Israel confirmed that they have a nuclear weapon? Do we know that for sure? No, he mentioned it.

They, unofficially, they have not confirmed, however we know, they do.

Like, they will never know that Israel does have a nuke.

We have the capability to detect nuclear weapons anywhere in the world at any time, so we know exactly. Okay, so it's purely in name. Israel has not officially policy-wise confirmed that they have.

No, they never will. They have a nuclear weapon. Yeah, they officially say they have, they did, but we know. We don't know how many, we have a rough guess. So, my totally unrelated question,

but it's about the negotiating team is, it seemed in recent days that Vance is maybe trying to distance himself from the administration. Do you see any of that playing? I mean, I don't know if you saw this,

but he spoke out against conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism or conflating, rather, more specifically, creating hatred, conflating hatred of Jewish people, which I think he said, Jew hatred,

which is really not the phrase I would have used. But he was like, it's, he was a conflating hatred of Israel, with, with, with Jews is, you know, his anti-Semitic is the raw is, you know, his inaccurate. If everything is anti-Semitic, nothing is anti-Semitic,

very strange to hear that coming out of the vice president. And it's just gotten me looking at his public appearances more recently, where he does seem to be tracking to a different direction. I'm not saying right or left,

but he's, he's creating space between him and the administration.

- First and foremost, it's too late.

J.D. Vance is not going to distance himself from this. - However, he's trying to say it was a master strategist. Sorry. - No, and he's not, he's not going to. And he's not smart enough to figure that his way out of this.

So what's going to happen is he's going to try to find a different angle that distinguishes him from Trump. - Right now, the Israel U.S. relationship is very much on the fritz compared to where we were just a few months ago. So as Trump and magas seem to go down this path

of the anti-Israel, more isolationism, focus, that's where they're getting this from, is not necessarily their anti-Jewish or Jew or anything like that, or anti-Semitic. They just are anti-Israel in general,

because they're tired of the Middle East wars. Where, however, there is a pretty sizable faction

that is also funded by the very powerful APAC

who still want the Israelis to be a part of the U.S. government-lexicon. And so I think whereas Trump and magas

“go one way, I think J.D. Vance is trying to distinguish himself”

by almost laying himself before the APAC Israel, Jewish community, and say, "Please fund me." I will support Trump as Trump is not. Yeah, and so, but as I, again, I think that ship is sailed. I think he's, he's, I would be not surprised

if he is removed before 28. I won't put a official prediction on that, but I would not be surprised if, because he came out firmly against this war and to his credit, he kinda saw this coming.

That being said, Rubio also was in that camp as well, and Trump kinda just was drug along by Netanyahu, and Rubio absolutely is the more shrewd politician and has found a way to distance himself. And so what's happening is,

because of the, what I would call the divorce, that is not really a divorce, that's a bit strong of a word,

but the, yeah, basically this divide that's happening

between Israel and the United States largely because of the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu and what they assumed between each other.

“I think JD Vance is trying to carve out his niche”

in a way that he supports Israel whereas Trump is starting to distance. And the mag movement is generally kind of that, you know, how Marjorie Taylor Green is very anti. And then now you have Tucker Carlson, I know.

And then on the other side, you have the bench heroes who are pro Israel, and so I think JD Vance is moving into that pro Israel space whereas the Trump maga is moving more into that, Tucker Carlson anti is real space.

- Yeah, and I would say just two quick points. One is that the Trump maga movement while they are anti-globalists are also largely anti-Semitic. There are a lot of anti-Semites in that group. I mean, that's part of why Marjorie Taylor Green,

I mean, it's one of the horrific consequences of the Democrats being compromised by a pack for years and years is that they have been incapable of criticizing Israel to the point where they are getting scooped on it by far-right Republicans who are synced up with anti-Semitic

conspiracy theories. Like there was a way of negotiating with Israel of criticizing Israel without being anti-Semitic, of course.

“However, I think if you scratch just below the surface”

of a lot of these anti-globalists, it's a valid criticism that we're all poor while our money's going to Israel, but then the second sentence out of a lot of those people's mouths are as about an international comal of Jews

or whatever specific hatred or conspiracy theory they have or just specific bigotry towards Jewish people. So I do think it is, in many ways, like largely motivated by anti-Semitism on the right, but there are a lot of people who are anti-globalists,

maybe they aren't, maybe they don't think about it that way. The other thing I was gonna say that I think is interesting is that this skism existed in the Trump administration from practically day one, right? Like his cabinet was split between the more America first types

and the global business types. But I don't think it was stressed in the same way. Quite frankly, we didn't have Trump wasn't invading. He was very anti-military, very anti-war, not necessarily in rhetoric,

but he was very reticent to take military action in the first term. So I think the presence of Israel, and obviously this is all post, October 7th, and I wouldn't say the crisis started there,

but it became front and center in the media after October 7th. I think that's kind of forced the hand of the skism between the globalists and the anti-globalists. And I totally agree with you that fans is too comfortable.

I mean, just look at the previous Trump administration. They're all the entire cabinets gone, not just from the cabinet, like they're gone from politics. Like a lot of these people have completely left the public eye.

I mean, obviously Mike Pence, but JD Vance, I mean, whatever chance he has at capturing the moment, I feel like he'll be chewed up by the time

- Yeah, and I think, and I don't know Matt,

“if you want to jump in, I think just at some point,”

Rubio is going to start chewing Vance up as just because he's Vance wrote a book that resonated with a lot of people in the lower middle class, and that got him elected essentially,

and he was brought in to karaoke Ohio.

And he never really got to had to cut his teeth

the way a Rubio did. And I think Rubio is going to absolutely wreck him when the chips are down. And yeah, so I don't know what your thoughts on and any of that Matt, 'cause I just don't see Vance as a viable.

- I hope so, I hope he'll be, he'll lose faster than any candidate. - Oh, you hope he's the nominee. - Yeah, go ahead and put him up. - I don't think he even runs. Like he's talking, like he probably won't even run,

but what I'm more interested to know is if Rubio vacates his position at some point, like in the next year, to kind of distance himself from the administration to begin his campaign. 'Cause the last thing Rubio wants to be doing

is running for president as part of the Trump administration. - Right, yeah.

- Yeah, I'm gonna damn it if I will every day.

- I'll just say it, like, that's not a good start.

“- I think that's a realistic prediction.”

I just also think Vance has not accepted to himself yet that he's not running. - I think he'll get chewed out by the magma machine by the time it's time to run, but I think he's making pivots right now

that look like he's trying to sell it. - Maybe he just wants to sell it, other book, who knows? - Yeah, I agree with Matt, I think what's gonna happen is Rubio's gonna, he's already doing it. He's finding a way to look confident

while distancing himself. He finds the avenues to get in front of a reporter and sound like the guy that's like, oh, yeah, this guy kind of knows what he's talking about. Real, it's up to the craziness that comes out of Trump

and I talked about this before when he came out and said, "Trying not to listen to stupid people." And he was talking about Trump. Like, he came out and said that and he may not have realized it, but then again, he may have.

He may be playing this game where he is simultaneously looking like he's at the Trump, he's like the mastermind of what's going on when it's great, but distance himself when it's falling apart.

And so, what to see? Because I think I do think that Rubio is going to present himself as the very much front runner and all the predictive markets show him currently ahead of Vance is largely, you can't lose Maga

and be hated by the standard regular publish. It's just not gonna happen. And I think the writing is on the wall

“and I agree with Matt, I think he's gonna,”

I think by the end of this, we might see sometime in late 27 middle mid 28 before the presidential elections a Rubio who's distance himself, maybe still a part of it, but it finds a way to say, I got some family thing going on

or whatever and gets out, but then roars back as a candidate and then you have Vance, may not even be Vance president. Hell, you might even see Rubio as Vance president if Vance screws enough things up. I don't know, I was, again, conspiracy theories on that,

but yeah, it's all very, very much as the popularity of Trump wanes and as the, which is happening day by day, as the, the popularity of Rubio grows because he just looks more competent. I think you are going to see a bit more pushback

or not just not necessarily pushback, but you're going to see a bit more of the kind of, well, let me reframe what Trump said, whereas you wouldn't dare do that before. So yeah, and again, it's one of those, as we see this,

and I think it'll be a great talk and another show is this, this riff, that is absolutely coming between definitely Netanyahu and Trump and the implications for what that's going to mean because they have a polar opposite goals

when it comes to this war, moving forward and diswarner on. So, but that's a, that's a whole other discussion. - I want to take us to our last segment of the show where, and this has been, not our most uplifting show, but it was important to talk about all this stuff.

So I do want to go to our final segment where we discuss, if not the best, the least bad thing that happened to us this week or a story that we particularly want to highlight in a segment we call the least worst part of my week. And now there's a sound effect for that, if we want.

I don't know, just saying we could. - Well, we should go on. - We get a little jingle there. - There, no. - Considering we only do work, check every few episodes.

Chad, do you want to go first?

- I'm hoping, I'm hoping I'm not stealing someone's, but I have caught the world cup fever.

but man, I just am falling in love with scrolling through TikTok or Reels or whatever

“and watching Europeans come to the United States”

and experience American culture. And it's just so, it's almost starting to be like, they call it, they're calling it the Great American sleepover. And it's almost like we're getting a sliver of taste of what New York may feel like right now

after the next one where this kind of magical thing is happening. And all these, all these countries are coming to the United States and I mean, whether it's Kansas City or Phoenix or Los Angeles or Seattle or whatever. And they're getting to experience all this cool American culture

that they wouldn't have, would have never experienced.

And you're seeing just some absolutely hilarious videos, everything from TSA having to put out a warning that you cannot smuggle ranch dressing back to Europe. That's not allowed. And so now, a company that says,

- And they see her how we make it, right? - And that's what's funny is it's like, I lived in Europe and I never realized 'cause I'm not a big ranch fan of ranch dressing, but they don't have that.

They don't really have root beer either. And so like, they try things like root beer floats and they're blown away, the Europeans are. And so now, it's so pin-up by surprisingly. - Business. - Business.

- Yeah, I know, it's so fascinating because, but this company is making TSA approved ranch carriers. So they can take their ranch back with them to Europe. - Like a nether, like you would with liquor. - So like that, a little ranching.

- Three ounces of ranch, there you go. And so, you see them, they're going to places like,

I saw one amazing video where this,

they're American friend took,

“I think they were Belgians or something.”

They took 'em to Walmart and they were blown away by Walmart. And then she's like, wait a minute, and then take some decosco, which is a whole other world, is just ridiculous. And so it's just really fun watching.

And they're talking about how Americans are, everyone's been so nice to them. And everything's been so great. And I want to just point out that a lot of the reason that's been great is because this is all taking place

in blue cities where, yeah, diversity and all of those things are even in Dallas. Like, they went to a rodeo and they were welcomed. They went, like, use the scots that came in and they drank Boston out of beer.

They ran out of beer. And then, like, you know what they were doing? - They were drinking drinks. - I know, it's like, apparently they ran out of, or they both didn't use their tools.

They were breaking the rules when it came to, like how you could, you're supposed to drink. So instead, the scots rented boats, so they could break the rules.

“So they're like, we're in international waters,”

we're in a drink more or something like that. And it's just, and so it's just, this is really fun, they're going like buckies and this British guys, like, they have 65 petrol pumps at this one, this ridiculous, and it's just like,

and I'm getting a kick out of it. And it's because they were like, there's one where they went to, I don't know if it was eye hop or something, and ordered one, an order of pancakes, and it was like a stack, and if you're on the YouTube video,

it's like, it was like a, it's like two feet tall, and he's like, this is one order of pancakes and that weighed the weight of it was like, oh yeah, welcome to America. This is the reason we're not skinny anymore.

And so it's just, it's just been this really fun world cup thing.

And I've never been a soccer or football fan,

but they got me like looking for American, the team USA World Cup jersey, and so on, and I'm getting in on it, and it's just a lot of fun. I'm really happy because you look in the comments and the people are like, it's not us, it's our parents.

- Our government, and when they're really like, our governments aren't getting along in the suck, but the people are cool, and we're cool with you if you're cool with us, and it's just a great time. So I'm just really happy that's happened.

It's this extension of the mix, winning in the magic there, and now we have the magic of the World Cup, and it's a lot of fun. So that's my least worst part. - I love the Xer team, you're rooting for you,

rooting for the US. - Well, so I root for the US, but if the US fails a part, I'm gonna go for Germany, because that's kind of where I was a big fan of soccer, because I lived outside of Munich when I was there.

- Right. - I say outside of Munich, it was like, I live like an hour from Munich, but it's like, Bayern was Bayern moonshine, I think, and I'm saying that terribly, but that's their team out of them.

And so I was like, I'll go for Germany if the US, but the US is doing pretty well. They beat Paraguay, and they beat Australia, and they weren't supposed to beat Australia, and Australians are pissed, and now everyone's like, God help us if the US wins,

we would be insufferable. - That is one thing I'm thinking about. - Yeah, so, yeah, so... - Are you going to watch, though? - I'm really enjoying it.

- And Japan has got a really interesting team too. They're coming from there, like surprising a lot of people,

- The Japanese, they're clean up the stadium after they, but they do that in their baseball games too. - Oh, yeah, I've been to a Japanese baseball game, it is a different animal. Everyone stays the entire time, everyone shares,

all the time, there are horn sections in every part of the stadium, and yeah, everyone picks up their trash with the end of them leaves. And there's a section for the opposing fans, and they have their own flat, oh, huge flags and everything. Oh, each, a little bit more about how we treat some of our sports,

but I just want to double on what you said, which is, it's not us that's our parents,

“it's not our, it's not our, it's not the government, it's the people, right?”

I think I think there's a really good book about this, called How Socker explains the world, and I'm not going to summarize it's thesis, but if you're interested in looking through looking at Socker, or if you call it football, as a lens through geopolitics,

it's really interesting. But one of the things I think, you know, I talk to a lot of people, and you know, I think a lot of reflexive millennial liberals roll their eyes at sports, and I think that culture's coming

direct around a little bit, and a lot of leftists actually really enjoy sports and team sports, especially. And I think it's both a really good example of collaboration. I mean, it's pretty straightforward, but more importantly,

you know, I'm always going off about how isolated everyone is

and how isolation is effectively pro-capitalism and keeping everyone online and arguing with each other as a way of making everyone feel isolated. And you see all these people who, you know, would be enemies, or told to their countries or enemies,

or told that, you know, America's evil and America's actions globally, very evil. But American people watching sports, a lot of fun to hang out with.

“And I think you're, you know, maybe it's ridiculous.”

Maybe some people think it's ridiculous to see sports as political, but ultimately it's like the largest populist motivator in the world. It's one of the most eyes in the world are on, you know, these events and these things like you said are like really beautifully bringing people together.

And I'm not above how wholesome that is. And like people finding, not only finding essential humanity between each other, but like doing things for the pure sake of having fun, which is just, you know, put it on costume. You know, making FG's like floats, like it's not just wearing a jersey.

People are getting creative. - They don't do statues. - They don't do statues. - Putting, throwing cones on statues. - Yeah, this is Scottish, it's in Boston, there's cones all over statues. - Yeah.

(laughs) - So, Mr. Glove, you got a least worst story for us? Or a family, or actually have a party. Or a favorite world cup team? - Yeah, I don't know anything about world cup stuff,

but I do have a couple of things, actually. Sometimes laws are going to be passed

that you always thought would have been a law,

that your shock to find out wasn't a law. And that you may or may not know what I'm referring to, but this is actually a law that I may or may not have been signed today in the state of New York, Kira's law. And I don't know if you're familiar with Kira's law,

but it just passed the state legislature, the Senate, and it's a law that says, "Hey, we're gonna consider child abuse "in child custody cases." And I'm like, that makes sense, like that's a good idea. Why wasn't that a thing before?

I don't know, I don't know all the particulars of it, but I read that story, and so it's going to elevate child abuse to be like the most heavily weighted thing in child custody cases in the state of New York. Another one of those things you just thought

would have always been a thing. Sometimes it's shocking to find out what laws are not laws, if that makes sense, like things that aren't laws, like I would have thought that would have been a law. So really good news for the state of New York.

And the other thing I have, which I just found out last night, there's going to be another little global in the family. I'm going to be a grandfather again. My beautiful daughter isn't in the law.

Emily is, who is a third year medical school student.

- Wow. - My little school. - Is pregnant, so she has a lot on her plate, obviously coming up in my son Grant. So congratulations to you both. Again, love you guys very much.

Looking very much forward, also my other daughter, Dellian, who is in the air force out in Sacramento,

“is now, I think, in her seventh month of pregnancy.”

So there's two coming really fast. So that is my worst or best news of the worst week. Is that one the second? - I know, that's what it's called. - You got perfectly clear.

- Mr. Global's daughter, this is the worst news of the week. - This is the worst news of the best week. - I have a grand daughter. - Are you going to be, are you going to go? Are you going to go by a pop-a-global

or are you going to be a grand pop-a-global? - She's Emily, close up, right? - Well, right now they all call me pop-a.

- Some say pop-a, some say pop-a. They're just, they're moved that day.

“I don't care what they call me, honestly.”

But yeah, I don't have a global.

- No, I'll never be a second.

I don't know why people keep saying it. - That depends to me on your knee. I can be a senator. - I know, but as I say, and I believe this, the best politicians are the ones who never wanted it

and had to be forced into it. People who grow up with aspirations of being a politician, I'm like, no, that's a suit. So we're going to force you as well, I'm saying. - They said I looked like a senator

in my suit that I wore in Washington, D.C. by the way. - Did you wear a hat? - Is it really? - No.

- Do you want to do it full mark, Kelly? - Yes. - Did I? - Is that how you suit straight? - Glory is bald, and I'm partial, obviously.

So, a lot of rings. - Yeah. - What's you got, Nat? - I don't think it's going to shock anyone to learn what my least worst part of my week is.

If you listen to the podcast lately, 'cause the New York Nix have won the NBA Championship for the first time since 1973, they were in it for the first time since the '90s. Oh my God, of course, I'm happy that the Nix won.

Of course, there are several Nix and Signees on camera if you're watching this on YouTube, and are finally rewarded for that,

and other than my amazing facial expressions.

It's not just that the Nix won. I like the Nix. There's a lot of bandwagoners, and I think it's really nice that people have decided for the most part,

that that's fine, and it's okay to not like something, if it hasn't been fun in your entire life, and then start liking it when it becomes fun. But more than just the Nix winning, it is the insane solidarity I've seen in this city.

And there's a quote from the mayor gave an amazing, let me get there. I watched the parade from the Woolworth building. I had to fight my way through a crowd. I was attacked by police multiple times

for trying to get to it office building that I was invited to go to. I also watched an enormous number of people behave largely, non-violently, just have fun, and at the end of the parade,

the mayor gave this great speech, and he said this line, I want to read it to make sure I get it right, but he said so often when the city comes together, it's because we're forced to, by a moment of pure tragedy, or adversity, what a gift it is to be brought together

by pure unfiltered joy.

“And I think that's so important, because again,”

sports culture can be seen as frivolous. I certainly thought about it that way for a long time, in my life as, and I do still think it's odd when the head coach getting replaced has the same type font size as a Iran deal headline.

But this was a huge demonstration in the value of community, of local culture, two million people came to that parade, with basically no major consequences of a little property damage, which given the amount of people is inevitable.

And a man, oh, deed on top of a scaffolding and EMTs climbed up and saved his life like-- - I still have it. - I mean, it was incredible. I mean, the police were trying to prevent them,

and you can watch the clip, I'm not making this up. And the EMTs said, this man will die if I don't go up there. They climbed multiple love, people were climbing out subway platforms, subway entrances, scaffolding. It was everywhere.

We're lucky nothing collapsed, but it was this really amazing moment where people took care of each other, not just the EMTs, but in general, people were banned. I saw people handing water bottles around,

'cause it got too hot, people were helping each other in and out of the crowd, and gathering for this really amazing collective moment. And I think, you know, I've seen a lot of negative takes of like, oh, you could show up like this,

but you couldn't show up for Palestine. And I will have you know, or for your candidates, I'll have you know, I and a number of people left directly from the nicks parade to go canvas for Congresspeople and other politicians in our area.

And I think if anything, I don't think a lot of this will directly translate into direct action, but I think a civilian population, largely of people who are not politically involved, realizing how important it is to gather,

realizing how much power they have when they gather, because I mean, I know I talk ill of the NYPD a lot. They do have the fifth largest military budget in the world, if they're a military, they're drastically overfoot. I mean, these guys just don't know how to handle a crowd.

I mean, they're used to pushing around tourists and New Yorkers are not tourists. And they literally overheard on a other radio, someone saying, we can't lose Broadway. Like, they treat it like it's the military

and they're all from Long Island. But it was amazing to see all these people gather. Most people have seen since 2020 gathered in one space, again, largely non-violet, fully joyous, every person decked out in blue and orange,

whether or not they owned nicks gear, just to celebrate something.

“And I think that's ultimately more important”

than winning the championship, which is, as I've already established,

one of the most important things that's ever happened in the world.

Or my world. - So Broadway was like the bridge on saving private Ryan. - Broadway, yeah, we can't, we can't. - My Broadway, are they even in the high ground? - I can't, we can't, we can't, we can't.

- We can't, we can't, we can't, we can't. - We've got a whole Broadway. - What am I favorite moments? I'm in this crowd and I'm with a group of people who have to get to work.

And they're like, we've to work in the world of building.

They'll let us through and I said, they will not.

We're all kettled in here.

“And they had put a barrier in front of us,”

but what happened is people had come in and gotten stuck. So you couldn't get back out in the other way. And I was talking to other people and I said, I don't know, man, I only see 20 cops. Like, do you really wanna, and I didn't cost this?

I promise I didn't cost this, but everyone was saying the same things. That all of a sudden I started hearing people go, 10, nine, eight. And I was like, what's happening at one?

And at one, you just hear the barriers, collapse. And people go, it's just the horns have taken off. That's when the cops naped me, but I got away. But it was just like, the people's army as united at 16, and there's nothing they could do.

Everyone moved into Broadway, it's so funny. It was just this moment of like, I don't know who decided to count down to 10, but by the time they got to one, everyone in that little pen was counting,

not knowing what was happening.

And then one second later, just moving on out,

and it was like, that's people power in a way that you don't see that often. And if sports fandom is what it takes, that's awesome. I love it, go next. Hopefully we can do this.

Hopefully the U.S. can have kind of the same experience with the World Cup. Yeah, and then I think it's kind of, it's good that the nicks just have this because I'm loving scrolling nicks,

celebration footage like you were saying with World Cup, but I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, that felt so good, what do I do now?

“And it's like World Cup, that's what you do.”

And the World Cup is international. So if we can redirect that energy towards, like, international solidarity, I think that's awesome. And I, it gives me, you know, I don't want to be a polyan, but it gives me a little bit of hope

that people, you know, when they're given the opportunity to express joy and meet each other, rise to the occasion. Better world for Mr. Global's future grandchildren. (laughs) 20 cops where I live is like the cops

and the force surrounding counties. If I saw 20 cops, there's bad stuff going on. I mean, that was 20 cops around that one barrier. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, I don't understand.

But there were two million 20 cops.

So what are they going to do? Yeah, New York, people do not understand just how many cops there are in New York until there's like a parade or a police brutality march. When the cops often outnumber the protesters,

that's a very real thing that happens in New York. So sorry, I don't know, a dowren out there, but I am glad that nicks fans are more powerful than the police, and that's been our episode. I'm Nat Towson for our Chad Scott and Mr. Global.

You've been listening to American Power

“from Findout Media, and always remember, power corrupts,”

but American power corrupts, American League.