There is cheese.
A new KNOUS-BREGASY has the most delicious cheese.
Now there is a package of meat. That's the best. Now there is cheese. Now there is cheese. Cheese.
Now there is cheese. Now to test the gratis. Time for 18 years. I bought and bought the price in June. But so long the price.
Let's take a look at the production package and the cheese minus action. Now there is cheese. A new KNOUS-BREGASY has the most delicious cheese. Now there is a package of meat. That's the best.
Now there is a gratis. Now there is cheese. Now cheese. Now to test the gratis. Time for 18 years.
I bought the price in June.
But so long the price. Time for 18 years. Now we will take a look at cheese minus action.
“To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know,”
there is no better place than right here on the DSR network. And there is no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member. Members enjoying ad-free listening experience. Access to our discord community. Exclusive content.
Early episode access. And more. Use code in DSR 26 for a 25% off discount on sign up at the DSR network.com. That's code in DSR 26 at the DSR network.com/by. Thank you and enjoy the show.
[Music] Hi there. Welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkoff. I'm joined by Riley Festler and Minestine.
As is usually the case. What's not usually the case. Is that we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon? Not in the morning. Because we were caught up in the president going off to China and doing all this kind of stuff.
You know, that's kind of thing where, you know, we're on top of. We're doing podcasting about and so forth. So if you've been waiting around for our take on the day. Sorry, but, you know, we'll give you a take on what we think's going to happen overnight in China too.
“So I think Minestine is going to kick us off here.”
I am. And before we get into that, I thought it might be nice to start with like a tiny dose of hope. Before we get into kind of the nonsense of the day.
State Senator John Cavanaugh won a narrow victory in Nebraska's second district.
Democratic primary defeating Denise Powell in a race centered on protecting Omaha's blue dot electoral vote. The contest was defined by fear that Cavanaugh's departure from the state legislature could allow Republicans to eliminate. Nebraska's split electoral system potentially benefiting Trump in the general election. Cavanaugh now advances to face Trump endorse Republican Brinker Harding in a high stakes November matchup. But the seat vacated by retiring Don Bacon.
So this is good news. I think so. I mean, like, I think this constitutes good news these days. Like, yay, we could keep the blue dot potentially. Wow, that's what America is about.
How can we rig? How can we rig the election so it helps our side as opposed to their side? Hmm. All right, that's where we are. That's absolutely right, Ryan. You can scheme of things.
I agree with you.
“It's not amazing news, but like, it's better than.”
No, I'm. I get it. I get it. I get where you're coming from on this. Well, Trump has made it to China, specifically Beijing.
The ego has landed. Yes. See what I did there. He goes because he's brought with him as we discussed yesterday. A caravan of millionaires, tabillionaires.
Elon Musk and actually Jensen Juan, who was not originally listed in our story yesterday about attending. He was there as well. And as we. Let me clarify Nvidia CEO. Nvidia CEO, Jensen Juan, yes.
So we can kind of guess a big part of what they're going to talk about and Trump has set as much as trying to. So get these millionaires and billionaires more access to China. Also, seeking some kind of resolution for the Iran conflict. See if China can help with that. And, you know, it's nothing too surprising.
We know kind of what they're going to talk about and talk about tariffs. There's going to be some kind of symbolic deal made that may or may not actually have an impact. And it's going to be pretty much the usual. Yeah, because at we just did an episode of deep say radio or weekly show and part of the episode was about our expectations. And my, you know, one of the things we said that is absolutely true about this trip is.
This is not what most summits between US and Chinese leaders have been.
It's different in a couple of key respects.
And one key respect.
“The most powerful person in the room is not the US president for the first time in history.”
It's the leader of China because Trump is so weak politically because Trump is old because he's a lame duck and because China's gaining influence.
In many ways, on a relative basis, thanks to Trump. The other way that it's different is that most US presidents go into these meetings trying to advance the interests of the United States. They're interested in US China relations. That's not what Trump is doing.
Trump is interested in the relationship between Donald Trump.
And the people's Republic of China. He's interested in Trump, China relations.
“That's why on this trip does he have any China experts to speak up?”
No. Does he have his two sons, Don and Eric? Yes. Is he brought a bunch of oligarchs, you know, who have interest that are aligned with his in ways that we know of and in ways we may not know of. Yes. And so he is practicing not commercial diplomacy, which past presidents have done.
But something a little closer to oligarch diplomacy or techno diplomacy or something like that. And, and, and, and, and it's, you know, him and some billionaires trying to cut the deals they want and not really that caught up in the politics of the US China relationship. Not really that concerned about China hawks in Washington or China doves anywhere. They're just, you know, this is all about the art of the grift, the art of the deal, the art of getting a little bit for, you know, the rich guys and not really caring about the other consequences.
That may sound cynical to you. And I'll tell you what, why don't you just sort of watch what goes on for the next 48 hours and see how you're interest as an average person in America, I've been advanced and then see how many deals for those who are on the trip are announced and follow and see how many follow on this or how many of the issues are raised.
“I think you'll see there's a disparity, unless sitting at home, you are Mark Zuckerberg and if you are Mark Zuckerberg, hi.”
Glad you're listening to the podcast. Menah. For the record, I'm not glad he's listening to the podcast. Okay, sorry Mark, I apologize. The Trump administration is reportedly considering renaming the conflict with Iran operations, sludge hammer as a legal maneuver to restart the 60 day war powers act clock if the currency's fire collapses.
The Congress never thought of that, you know, launch a war, but just change the name every 59 days and you can do it every one clever, super clever.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims the initial operation epic theory has concluded the Pentagon maintains a bolstered military presence in the region with officials stating they now possess more fire power than at the war start. Meanwhile, in a narrow 4950 vote, the Senate rejected a democratic resolution to limit Trump's war powers in Iran, though the ever gained a new Republican defector and Senator Lisa Mercowski as bipartisan debate intensifies over whether the administration has illegally bypassed the 60 day constitutional deadline for congressional authorization.
That is so debate about it. I mean, the administration has. It's not whether they, yeah, that's whether the Congress or the Senate cares about it. And the Republicans don't care. They want to give them as much, you know, latitude as he requests. You know, having said that. It's not turning out very well for them. And if it continues to go this way, they're going to own this and it's going to have a negative effect at the polls in November. And I've been wondering sort of how people cover these things and whether the message gets through because the media loves picking up on.
You know, like the defense department calling this operation epic fury and that sounds kind of like, you know, a John Wayne movie or something. It sounds very military and dramatic and and good and you hear eagles. You know, calling in the distance when words like that are spoken. But what would happen if we actually gave these things names that drove home the message of like.
What they were really like, you know, because I think it would be a lot more ...
If this were called operation epic fuck up because it is an epic fuck up. It is, you know, I mean, there are people. There's a story by notable historian.
And then appear just the other day who are saying, this is a bigger fuck up than Vietnam. Now, personally, I don't know, that was a long war 50,000 Americans died. It had a lot of consequences. We have to see whether the consequences of this are that bad.
“But in terms of presidential mismanagement of a conflict, this is really in a class by itself. And that's why I dub this.”
Operation epic fuck up. And I encourage you to use the terminology. I know something, you know, it's NSFW, but, but you know, sometimes you've got to use the strong language to make the strong point. Well, my personal hero and favorite alcoholic in the administration FBI director Cash Patel had a. There's so many, there's so many issues from, right, but he has a special place in my heart. Yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, you do have Cag's breath. Oh, sir. Yes, that's true, too. But, you know, my, my boy had a pretty heated Senate budget here in because I guess they're not as big a fans as I am.
And he categorically denied allegations of workplace alcohol abuse and poor leadership, which was reported in a recent article by the Atlantic get a particular and obvious to anybody with eyes.
Yeah, but yeah, going. He had a particularly testy exchange with Senator Chris Van Holland and dismissed the claims as baseless and retaliated by accusing the Maryland Democrat of his own professional misconduct while abroad. Yeah, he brought up his bar tab. He said you had a $7,000 bar tab. It's a, I mean, it was pretty, it was pretty extraordinary. Considering that every American who cares about such issues has seen him guzzling beer with the US hockey team and has seen all the stories about him and anybody who knows anybody in the FBI knows that they absolutely despise this guy and think of him as a loose candidate disaster.
And bringing shame upon an agency that they value. And, you know, I just can't imagine this can go on much longer. It's very bad for Trump and cash. But, tell us, just not ready for prime time. You know, cash is not money when it comes to this kind of here.
“My favorite cash, did you see what I did there? It was really funny. I was very funny. I think.”
My favorite cash to tell stories when he thought he got fired because he forgot the password to his email. Yeah, no, that was a, that was a great story. Hopefully, we'll be actually fired. Soon, I hope he certainly deserves it. Yeah, he certainly deserves it.
Well, okay. Well, you've got, you've got the chance to deliver the final story here.
“I'm going to take that chance. David Venturella, a former executive at the private prison firm.”
Geo group has been named the next acting director of ice effective June 1st. His appointment comes as the Trump administration shifts its strategy towards expanding detention and deportation capacity, rather than high profile urban enforcement surges. While Venturella inherits an agency with 12,000 new employees and a massive budget. His selection has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats who cite a conflict of interest due to his decade-long career with a major federal contractor.
A major ice contractor? Fair criticism. A company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year from contracts with ice. But you've got to give it to this administration. Every single day, they are innovating, working hard and breaking new ground in overt,
repugnant, government, corruption. I mean, even as this story is happening, you know, there's another story where the president is apparently pushing hard
to get the DOJ to work out a settlement with Donald Trump on his $10 billion lawsuit that the IRS released his tax returns
and, at that damage to it, and that part of the settlement that Trump is seeking from the DOJ,
Which is working on his behalf to get this done before, you know, changes in ...
make it impossible. There's also court cases on it.
“Is that he also wants part of the settlement to say that all audits of his family will be ended,”
and there will never be any audits of his family.
It's like, holy crap. I mean, I couldn't even, I mean, that is like the boldest kind of corruption I've ever heard of.
Have the government write you a check and grant you a free pass to steal from the government in terms of tax evasion.
Literally, you could take a dump truck, drive it up to Fort Knox, go inside, load it up with gold from the OS gold reserves, drive away, and it would be no more corrupt, no more overt kind of theft than what this thing is.
“We'll see if it happens, we'll see if the country is outraged, and the only thing I can say for sure,”
is that when Mike Johnson is asked about it, he will say, I don't know anything about it.
I haven't read about it, and I am only here to handle issues in the Congress, and you'll have to ask somebody in the executive branch about that.
“And by the way, I know that because he said something just about like that with regard to this already.”
That little elf of corruption. Okay, well, that's it for today. We'll be there at the usual time tomorrow. We'll give you updates on what's going on in China. And if you want more on that, go listen to deep save radio, where we do a whole discussion up.
Until then, thank you, Riley. Thank you, Mera. Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye. [Music]
