transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:33] Hello, everybody, it's Monday, April 20th. Wait, hold on a second. April 20th? I just realized that now. All right, hope everyone's enjoying Hitler's birthday today.

Speaker 2:
[00:44] That's right. This is the official holiday of taking 48 Benadryl. I'm falling asleep.

Speaker 1:
[00:51] Actually, sorry, just like, at the end of today's episode, you'll be hearing a little bonus interview I did with the actor Ben McKenzie on his very funny and entertaining new documentary about the crypto industry called Everyone Is Lying to You for Money. But for the main classic regular part of today's episode, we are of course joined by our good friend, Derek Davison from Foreign Exchanges and American Prestige. Derek, welcome back.

Speaker 3:
[01:15] Thanks, guys. I can't stay very long. I'm taking JD Vance's master class on Catholic teaching. So I have to get back to that, but I'll give you what time I can.

Speaker 1:
[01:28] I'm taking his master class on negotiating.

Speaker 3:
[01:33] Actually, that's the one he teaches with Kushner, right? They co-teach that.

Speaker 1:
[01:37] Speaking of JD Vance and the holiday we're celebrating today, a little digression from over the weekend, something I wanted to share. On Saturday, this is Jermaine, too, whose birthday it is. But on Saturday, Catherine and I went to see the Fort Greene Orchestra perform Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, and it was a lovely experience. I highly recommend it if you get a chance to see the Fort Greene Orchestra, that you check them out. But come to find out after the fact, the rather controversial associations with this particular piece of music, and in particular, the Adagio, the second movement. Brendan told me after the fact that the Adagio and Bruckner's Seventh Symphony was what the Nazis played on the radio in Germany after Hitler had killed himself. I've just been thinking about that over the weeks. I was just thinking about the DJ who had to do that. It's just like, you know, this is Kaiser Kasem. We're counting down the top 40 symphonies composed by Aryan peoples. This one's going out to AH who's in underground in Berlin right now. He's feeling down. Here it is, the Adagio from Bruckner's Seventh Symphony going out to AH in Berlin.

Speaker 2:
[02:53] You know, the guy I like to picture it like it was someone who's like making a playlist and he's like, Oh, my friends aren't going to believe my taste. I'm going to blow them away with it. No one expected me to put this on after Hitler fell themselves.

Speaker 1:
[03:09] An Austrian composer who is obsessed with Wagner, this is that's out there for Nazi radio. Yeah, I know. It'd be funny if they fucked up the record and they put on a recording of Amos and Andy in the radio program.

Speaker 2:
[03:25] Yeah, what else could you put on back then? Because it was either putting on Wagner or a song by one of the 50 Jewish guys who was writing songs that were like, going outside without my hat today. Having a gay jig.

Speaker 1:
[03:44] Let's take a nice long walk together.

Speaker 2:
[03:46] Yeah, remember when Hesse found out that the billboard top 40 hit?

Speaker 1:
[03:51] Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 2:
[03:52] Yeah. Yeah. The one that was like, I know heaven is real because my mother is from Ireland.

Speaker 1:
[03:59] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[04:02] That was like six, nine back then. They're like, yo, he went to New York without checking in with Irving Berlin.

Speaker 3:
[04:09] Dropping some bars. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:12] Or anyway, that was a nice, nice classical music experience this weekend. But now, now to the present, now to the present day. And, you know, how things are going in the Trump and bunker as our world with Iran proceeds. Derek, I guess I'd like to begin in Lebanon because, like, this is obviously a part of the broader sort of labens around war that Israel is conducting right now. But, like, as of Friday, there was a 10-day ceasefire that was announced because you just, like, talk about the parameters of, like, what led to that negotiation, like, and what are the prospects of it holding? And, like, what are the parameters between Israel, Lebanon and Iran right now?

Speaker 3:
[04:55] Right. So there's a few things. I mean, to your comment about the Trump and bunker, I guess, you know, if we start hearing him blare, like, memory from cats and that sort of thing right now.

Speaker 1:
[05:06] Well, he was...

Speaker 3:
[05:06] You know, things are getting bad.

Speaker 1:
[05:08] Well, didn't he post My Way by Frank Sinatra over the weekend?

Speaker 3:
[05:12] I don't know. I didn't see that. But, you know, it's always when things are going bad, he seems to, like, go to the Andrew Lloyd Webber Library. Yeah, so the Lebanon ceasefire was supposed to have happened at the same time that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire happened. I mean, I'm convinced of this now. Like, Trump, you know, later insisted that, you know, there was no, like, Lebanon was not part of the deal, and this wasn't, you know, the Iranians. JD did this thing on the tarmac where he was like, I just think the Iranians had an honest misunderstanding about what was in, like, that's bullshit. The Pakistanis, the Iranians both say they were told when the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was negotiated that Lebanon would be included, and it was Netanyahu who said, you know, fuck off, we're not doing that. And then suddenly Lebanon wasn't included. And I think you can, what happened at the end of last week when the, you know, Trump basically imposed this thing, like he up and announced, you know, two days after they had a very preliminary meeting between their respective US ambassadors that, hey, there's going to be a ceasefire for 10 days. Like, I think that was Trump realizing that the Iran ceasefire wasn't going to hold up as long as the Israelis were continuing to just, you know, kind of massacre people in Lebanon on a regular basis. And so he imposed this thinking it would clear things up on the Iran front, which is what he actually cares about at this point. And it did, I think, lead into the announcement, we'll get to this, I'm sure. But the announcement by the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that they were reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump then completely ruined with like this insane tweet storm or you know, post storm on True Social. But we can talk about that later. But really, it doesn't seem like there was anything that went into this in terms of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. It was Trump, again, after bringing together just the ambassadors from the two countries were very preliminary, like, what are we gonna talk about when we get the, actually get the principles into the room or get them on a phone call? What can we talk about? And then Trump spent the next day, like Wednesday, trying to arrange a phone call between Benjamin Netanyahu and Joseph Aoun, the president of Lebanon. And Aoun said, no, thank you. I'm not gonna speak to him unless there is a ceasefire. And I think Trump just decided, like, he was gonna finally pull the leash and get a ceasefire. It's not really a ceasefire. It's a ceasefire in the same way that Gaza is a ceasefire, which is you cease and the Israelis keep firing, but they have to do it at a slightly lower level of intensity. So you're not getting these, like, you know, we bombed 100 targets in 90 seconds, you know, barrages that they were doing, you know, a couple of weeks ago. But at the same time, they're still carrying out attacks in Lebanon. They're still killing people. They've put up another yellow line like they did in Gaza, which is this magic line that only the Israelis know really where it is, but they're allowed to kill anybody who crosses it or approaches it even in a threatening way as they determine threatening. It could change from day to day where it is. We don't really know. But they've done that again, so they're killing people on that basis. They're still bulldozing houses and villages. We've seen tens of thousands by the reports I saw of people going back into Southern Lebanon despite the Israelis and the Lebanese government both saying, this is not safe. You should do this. Going back, because this is their home. They were displaced from these places, but a lot of them, from what I've seen, have gotten back to what is left of their homes, and it's a pile of rubble. They've turned around and left again because there's nothing. You can't live in the rubble. I mean, it's not changing anything materially about the conflict. It has put Lebanon and Iran on two different diplomatic tracks, and I know that's good from the Israeli perspective. I don't think it's good from the perspective of actually getting to, you know, ending either one of these, or ending the war on either one of these fronts. I think it actually makes it harder to do that.

Speaker 1:
[09:51] You mentioned Gaza, and obviously like their invasion of Southern Lebanon and like the creation of this buffer zone, and their, you know, this larger ethnic cleansing project. I mean, it bears all the hallmarks of, you know, their MO in Gaza. This is something we mentioned on the show before, and I'd just like to read this from, this is from The Guardian last week. It says here, when they received the call to respond to an Israeli airstrike in the city of Mayfadun in Southern Lebanon, most of the paramedics held back, having previously seen colleagues killed by double-tap attacks targeting rescuers. But the medics from the Islamic Health Association rushed to the scene. By the time the other emergency workers arrived at the site, they found that the IHA medics had indeed been caught in a second strike. They started evacuating their wounded colleagues only for their ambulances to be hit in two further attacks. One of the paramedics covered his ears and screamed, convulsing in pain as shrapnel shattered the back window of the ambulance. The rescue mission on Wednesday afternoon had turned into a nightmare as Israel carried out three consecutive strikes on three sets of ambulances and medical workers. I would say one of the key differences between southern Lebanon and Gaza is because Lebanon is not under complete Israeli control. We know more of this because the international press is able to cover it in a way that they didn't in Gaza. I will note that we've also seen the attacks on schools, triple-tapping medical relief workers through three different ambulance crews. I note that because the thing that really crossed the line for the Israeli military this weekend was footage of one of their soldiers defacing a statue of Jesus Christ in one of these Christian communities in southern Lebanon. It's just like, look, I think defacing the sacred religious objects of the people you're fighting a war against speaks to the motivating ideology behind this campaign. But like, it's still just a statue, right? And the fact that Netanyahu has immediately announced an investigation into this and said that the IDF soldier in question, quote, crossed the line or something, in light of the thing that I just described them doing to three separate ambulance crews is really something. But like, Derek, why are they so... Because, you know, like any international reporting on these horrific atrocities or war crimes carried out against human beings is no thing for them whatsoever, and no one calls them to account for it. But like, defacing a Christian religious icon, why is that now like a bridge too far and like something for which needs to be considered from a moral perspective?

Speaker 3:
[12:31] Yeah, I mean, it sort of hits them where they live. I've seen people on social media who are like big time Christian Zionist types look at that or respond to that image with like, they've really, this is horrible. I can't believe the Israelis have done something like this and like, or like, I can't support Israel now that I've seen them, this guy smash a crucifix or whatever it was. And like, really? Like that's the thing that, but there is a population for which like that is a bridge too far. The 70,000 people in Gaza, the few thousand that they've killed in Lebanon, that's fine. But defacing the statue of Jesus is too much. And so they have to be sensitive about that. There's also, I mean, Lebanon is also more sensitive for them in general. And I don't entirely know how to explain this because there's a Christian population in Gaza as well. And they've destroyed churches. They've killed Christian Palestinians in Gaza. That doesn't seem to register.

Speaker 1:
[13:36] Including a relative of a former US congressman, Justin Amish. Right, right.

Speaker 3:
[13:42] Lebanon is this special little colonial, post-colonial case for Europe, for France in particular, but that makes it a special case for the rest of Europe. And so they tread more carefully or they have to tread a little more carefully when they're dealing with Lebanon for that reason, because you've seen, even in the last week or two, like genuine statements of outrage. It never goes past rhetoric, of course, but genuine statements of outrage from Europe, from the French government, from the Italian government, in ways that if they came at all about Gaza, they came two years in and 70,000 people massacred before anybody in Europe really gave a shit. There was, I think, the Trump administration, which has also got this subset of subcultures, foreign policy where it tries to put the US forward as protector of Christians in various parts of the world. That's what they did in Nigeria or are doing in Nigeria. I think there was a point at which they asked the Israelis to please go easy on the Christian villages in southern Lebanon as they were sweeping through destroying Shia villages all over the place. Literally creating situations where you could have Christian Lebanese turning on their Shia neighbors or pitting those populations against each other, just really like heinous kinds of things. But something that I think puts the Israelis on notice that there's only so much violence against Christians that we'll be able to tolerate, or at least against Christian symbols, even if we don't really care so much about the people.

Speaker 1:
[15:32] You think it's sort of for an American domestic political calculus to this as well, because I think they have written off the support of the US population. I think they consider that pretty well-managed. However, I think it's the right-wing evangelical thing that I think maybe they're more attuned to. Because I feel like they can... If the majority of America is fed up with Israel or is more sympathetic to the Palestinians, I feel like that they can... That can be fairly well-contained within our political system. But for whatever reason, I think people for whom Israel has a very important Christian prophetic element to their support, I think they like... I don't know, I think they're much more guarded about offending those people.

Speaker 3:
[16:18] Yeah, I mean, foreign policy in the US is so far divorced.

Speaker 1:
[16:20] Or rather, there's nothing that they can do that would offend them, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:23] Right, I mean, it's so far divorced. Foreign policy is so far divorced from any popular will or sentiment at this point in the US system that they don't really have to care about that except maybe at election time. Like, you know, it could come back to bite them in the ass in 2028, I guess. But, yeah, on a day to day basis, they're worried about people who have, you know, I was going to say Donald Trump's direct phone line, but I guess every reporter in DC now has his direct phone line. But like people who can get a face to face meeting or get a phone call to Trump and say like, you know, look, this isn't good. You know, we don't like to see images of Jesus being defaced by Israeli soldiers. And that's what worries them because Trump will then respond to that by doing something that works against Israeli interests.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] Well, I think it's an interesting juxtaposition with another recent Israeli PR snafu that happened the other week, which is when the cover of an Italian news magazine called L'Espresso posted that photo on the front page of their magazine that was a photo taken in the West Bank of, you know, how should I describe it? A Hills Have Eyes style agenda of settler military individual sort of leering and bearing his gums in an aggressive manner at a Palestinian woman in the West Bank attempting to harvest olives from her family's orchard. Now, I mean, like the response to that was like, oh, the picture is made up. The picture isn't made up, but it's out of context. Or that like this guy is so ugly that like representing him in a photographic form is anti-Semitic to show his picture. Yeah. But once again, it's like the context of what that picture showed. Like, that's not a problem for Israeli propaganda or their or their, I don't know, allies in this country. It's like it's just that this one guy is so terrifying, so is so ugly.

Speaker 3:
[18:24] I mean, that's literally like this guy was so so unpleasant to look at that it was going to turn people off.

Speaker 1:
[18:30] But he was like, you know, leering and menacing this poor fucking woman. And I don't know, like, I guess this goes into like, like the evolution of Israel, Palestine and from an American, like from a domestic political perspective, because it does seem that like just in the last two weeks that much of the official Democratic Party seems to have sort of like acknowledged the reality that the vast majority of their voters are like are completely at odds with them over the issue of funding Israel's military and, you know, just through military and foreign aid to this country that is, you know, committing war crimes on a pretty much daily basis. What are we to make of like the new tack that I've seen adopted by people like, you know, like the reliable organs of like, you know, the shop stewards of the Democratic Party mainstream have all kind of adopted this take now that like, well, of course, we should cut off military aid to Israel. I mean, I'm going to just use the example of Rahm Emanuel was on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. And Rahm Emanuel, like a guy who was like about as dedicated a booster of Israel and the American government as any other Democratic politician. I mean, he volunteered for the IDF. I think his dad was, you know, big, big time Israel guy. He said, No more US military aid, financial assistance from the taxpayers for Israel. You're a country like all other allies of ours, Japan, South Korea, the Brits, the Germans. You're going to pay the full price. You can buy what you want, but you'll have to abide by the laws that should be that should be it. No more US taxpayer support. I was in the room and President Obama's largest assistance was under President Obama. We did the funding for the Iron Dome. But here the days of taxpayer subsidizing Israel are over. No more financial aid. Derek and Felix, what are we to make of this? What seems like a fairly profound shift in the rhetoric and policy commitments of the Democratic Party? But at the same time, I hear something like this and I think there's all the more reason to be wary because this seems to me way more about preparing for the midterms and a 2028 presidential election than it does with meaningfully constraining the Israeli and the Israeli war machine. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:44] I think they're turning a big dial on a stage that says, aid to Israel and trying to see where they can get it, get the best audience reaction from it. It's not a meaningful change. They're just trying to find a new way to get through what is a downturn in support especially among Democrats for Israel without meaningfully changing the relationship. Israel can certainly afford to buy its weapons from the United States. There are fewer legal headaches. I think Benjamin Netanyahu even said this, like we don't need the aid. We can buy our own stuff from the US or invest in our own defense capabilities. We don't need to continue to get this aid. The aid comes in theory with legal strings like the Leahy laws that no US administration wants to enforce when it comes to Israel, but that could be enforced at some point when it comes to Israel. I think that they feel like in some respects, like this would get around a political problem for the Israelis. It would free them up to just buy weapons without having to worry about the strings that come with aid, and the public sentiment, they can deflect and say, well, look, we're not just handing the Israelis $3.8 billion a year, whatever it is, in military aid. You guys don't need to be upset about that anymore, and then maybe some of this bad feeling will go away. But when push comes to shove, like first of all, the US will continue to sell arms to Israel no matter what. Anytime there's a conflict, even if the US isn't providing direct aid, there will be two carrier groups immediately sent to the region to provide air defense and whatever else the Israelis need. Everything about the relationship in terms of supporting and protecting Israel, oftentimes from the consequences of its own actions, will continue as before. It's just this one thing they feel like is a wedge issue that they can get away with. They don't need it anymore. They can sort of tamp down a lot of the public sentiment by just doing away with it and come off sounding like they're making a fundamental change in the relationship.

Speaker 1:
[23:11] Yeah. I think you're seeing similar things with every Democratic politician now saying like, oh, I'm not taking any money from AIPAC or zero money from AIPAC. There are dozens of other groups that are essentially cutouts for AIPAC that they're still taking money from.

Speaker 3:
[23:25] Right. Or just big money don't, individual big money donors. If you start to ask about that, then you get the like, well, if you're going to check all my donors to see who's Jewish, that's anti-Semitic and like, no, that's not what we're doing actually. But good to know that that's where we're going to draw the line and start calling people anti-Semites.

Speaker 1:
[23:44] Yeah. Like Miriam Adelson, like the hundreds of millions of dollars that she gave Trump just directly, that wasn't because she thought he was such a good guy. I mean, I don't know, who knows? Maybe she thought it was because he's such a nice guy and she admires him so much and wants him to be president that she was just saying, here, here's a little walking around money, Don. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[24:04] You know, I'm a big fan, art of the deal, the apprentice. Love it. You know, here's your money. I mean, this is the move that Slotkin, Elisa Slotkin tried to make at that, you know, town hall where she got all the like, you know, viral clips for, for, you know, pushing back on the questioner was, you know, he was asking about like, are you taking donations from big money, APAC backers and people who support US, you know, the US being enthralled to Israel's interests and turned it into, oh, are you asking me if I'm taking any money from Jewish donors? Which no, like he wasn't, but that became a viral thing because she was like, pushing back against the anti-Semitism of the far left. It's a bunch of bullshit, but that's the story line.

Speaker 1:
[24:53] Well, I don't know if you saw today Trump had a statement on True Social, the first sentence of which was, Israel did not push me into this war. And it's like similar to Melania's public press conference from the other week.

Speaker 3:
[25:05] It's sort of like, my Israel didn't push me into this war t-shirt. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[25:12] But as far as the war goes and there's another big piece from last week, sort of from inside the Trump and Bunker, that basically portrays him as a complete puppet, who the extent of this war is being prosecuted or managed within this White House is being done largely in spite of him. And when those two pilots went down, they had to basically not tell him about anything that they were doing. Right.

Speaker 3:
[25:42] They dangle a string outside the door in the situation room to get them to chase it down the hall so they could lock him out.

Speaker 1:
[25:49] Yeah. Basically, he is so impulsive and mercurial and impatient that any plan that he gets made within your shot of him can be most instantly upended by the next thing he sees or is told. But to that end, Derek, I guess the other question we got to ask every Monday on the show, straight of hormones, open or closed?

Speaker 3:
[26:13] Buy, buy, buy. Get out there and buy, buy, buy.

Speaker 1:
[26:17] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:17] Drive the stocks up and the oil prices down. I mean, I keep thinking this, and the Dullards who trade in oil and keep falling for this shit, I can't believe that they continue to do it. What happened on Friday was so chaotic that I started to lose track. I felt like I was dissociating as I was reading all this stuff. Like it really did seem like for about 10 minutes there, that the strait was going to be open at least for the duration of the ceasefire, and everybody was feeling good about extending the ceasefire, and really focusing on negotiating a deal, whatever, whatever. Again, that lasted for like 10 minutes before the Iranians were shooting at ships that were passing through the strait again. And I really think what happened, I mean, there's been some speculation that this was a kind of moment of chaos within the Iranian government, basically that the civilian leadership or what's left of it was responding to the ceasefire in Lebanon, responding to some signals that they had gotten from the Trump administration and trying to make a good faith gesture, expecting that they would get some reciprocation from the Trump administration. And they announced this in the IRGC, Ahmed Vahidi, the commander of the IRGC, who really is probably the guy who's in charge in Tehran at this point, saw this and said, no, no, we're not doing that. And it was like this chaotic thing. I think what's more likely is that they probably felt like they were at a place where if they made a gesture, the Trump administration would make another gesture, and the blockade or something free up some frozen Iranian assets or something. And then Trump immediately said, not only has Iran reopened this trade of hormones, they've promised to never close it again. And they're giving me everything I want on the nuclear issue. We're getting all the uranium and they're never going to enrich uranium ever again. And they've given me like the head of the Iranian military intelligence is going to gargle my balls three times a week. And everything is going so perfectly. They've surrendered on every front. But we're not going to do anything. We're not going to unfreeze any assets. We're not going to lift the blockade until there's a pen to paper on a deal. And so it was just like he pocketed not only the concession that they made, but several other concessions that they hadn't made. And then refused to do anything to reciprocate. And the Iranians were just like, well, OK, fuck you, we're back to where we were before all of this started. And that's where things are. But again, if I were trading oil, not that I do that, but if I were trading oil, I would just assume that things are going to stay closed for the indefinite future. Because these ups and downs are just ridiculous to me. It's so obviously, either he's delusional, Trump is, or he's outright manipulating the market. But whatever it is, you can't hang on every word that comes out of his mouth. It's clearly not reliable.

Speaker 2:
[29:49] Well, if I were a retail trader, absolutely. But if you are one of these brokerage houses and especially one that has any type of an inside line to Trump, someone who has been like a mega bundler of some type, this is like your ideal scenario. You know that the president or the White House or the State Department is going to say something that has not happened, will not happen and has no possibility of happening in the future. But that once it hits the market, you and whatever other market makers are going to respond as though it is going to happen. And then you know exactly what it's going to do when the enthusiasm will dissipate in after hours trading. Like it is, you know, like card counting for these guys. Yeah, I mean, you know, even like 30 years ago, this would have been a fucking gigantic scandal.

Speaker 3:
[30:53] But, you know, I mean, between the oil markets, which is more traditional and these these fucking predictive markets, which is a new thing, but just like openly a way for like, you know, we had an account that opened 15 minutes ago and posted bet $5 million that Donald Trump would do the Italian chef mwah thing on true social. Lo and behold, he did. Wow, who could have placed that bet? What a lucky guess. I mean, it's just so blatant with these things now. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2:
[31:25] I feel like prediction markets obviously should be illegal. The only thing you should be able to bet on is you should bet on the outcomes of TV shows, like it's sports betting.

Speaker 3:
[31:40] How's the how's the how's the pit going to end this season?

Speaker 2:
[31:43] Yeah, exactly. Like same thing where it's like Dr. Robbie, is he finally going to do it? I like to imagine Davies Catino for The Sopranos, but he's like loses it all betting on TV.

Speaker 3:
[32:02] Or like, do people bet on pro wrestling? Like, I imagine there's somebody out there who's like betting on the outcomes of pro wrestling matches. Like they're there, you know, it's it's an athletic event. That would be funny.

Speaker 1:
[32:13] Tone, I thought my parlay on Dr. Mohan would come through. Get back in your hole! This is just like a sort of a glimpse inside the the Trump and Bunker. And this is this is they're quoting Trump right now. It says here, if you look what happened with Jimmy Carter, with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost him the election, Trump had said in March. What a mess. Trump decided that the military go get them immediately, particularly speaking of the two downed pilots. But the US hadn't been on the ground in Iran since the government overthrow that led to the hostage crisis. And they needed to figure out how to get into treacherous Iranian terrain and avoid Tehran's own military. Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute by minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn't be helpful. Instead, updating him at a meaningful moment, a senior administration official said. One airman was recovered quickly, but it wasn't until late Saturday that Trump received word that the second airman had been rescued in a high stakes extraction. What could have turned into the lowest point in Trump's two terms wouldn't. After 2 a.m., Trump too went to bed. Six hours later, the chest-thumping president was back with another audacious gamble to loosen Iran's grip on its most powerful point of leverage, the Strait of Hormuz. Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell, he blasted on social media Easter morning from the White House residence, adding an Islamic prayer to the post. A president who thrives on drama is bringing even more intense version of unorthodox maximalist approach to a new situation, fighting a war. He is veering between belligerent and conciliatory approaches, and grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong. At the same time, the president sometimes loses focus, spending time on the details of his plans for the White House ballroom, or on midterm fundraisers, and telling advisors he wants to shift to other topics.

Speaker 3:
[34:07] I mean, it is so obvious he wants this to be over.

Speaker 1:
[34:12] It is so obvious, yeah. I mean, like, he wants to talk about the Corinthian style columns that the ballroom will have, which are the greatest.

Speaker 3:
[34:19] The best. They're the greatest.

Speaker 1:
[34:21] They're the best columns. The best columns imaginable. But he can't, and everybody knows it. Everyone knows it, either because he's compromised or because he doesn't want to seem like a loser. It's some combination of all of them. He doesn't want to commit ground troops. But I'm thinking of this in light of Derek. Did you see the public comments made by the head of Iran's negotiating team that were directed to the Iranian people, but also the world? If I could summarize them, he basically said, he was basically saying, chill out, we have to negotiate because we don't want to overplay our hand. Thus far, we have proven, i.e. by shooting an F-35 down and using infrared detection of US aircraft rather than radar, and the straight-up form is that we have had a decisive strategic advantage in this war so far, that we have maximized to great effect because we are fighting asymmetrically, and we have not been forced to concede anything. But he did go on to say that obviously America and Israel has a huge military advantage in terms of just the resources, money, and firepower that they can bring to bear on Iran and its infrastructure, its economy, its people. But Derek, from your perspective, I'm wondering what you made of those comments and what you make of Iran's current strategic position as it regards both their demands and the prosecution of this war overall.

Speaker 3:
[35:48] Yeah. I think it was interesting. The acknowledgement, it was very sober analysis, and it comes from somebody, Ibrahim Ghalibov, who's not ever been known for being one of the more pragmatic people within Iranian politics. I mean, I think he is now by default because the Israelis have assassinated all of the other real pragmatists. So by default, he's the guy left there who is the most cognizant of Iran's limitations. I think there's a message there to the supporters of the Iranian government domestically. There may have been a little bit of a message to very subtly made to the IRGC that, let's be cognizant of our limitations here. Things have gone well, but there are reasons why we need to be flexible here. It shows an awareness of strategic outcomes, or that you fight a war to achieve a strategic outcome, and what kind of strategic outcome would be acceptable to the Iranians in terms of how do they emerge from this, you know, at least without, you know, what can they give up without really sacrificing any of their major priorities, as opposed to the US approach to this war, which has been to just like, we're gonna start bombing things, and eventually something will give. And like, we don't really have a goal, like we don't have an outcome that we can explain. It changes every other day, like one day it's nuclear, one day it's like, the fucking Navy, one day it's their missiles. It's all, it's always different.

Speaker 1:
[37:47] You can't stop talking about how we destroyed their Navy. Every single day, that's the one consistent thing.

Speaker 3:
[37:52] And their Navy was like two frigates that they built in the early 2000s, and then everything else was like 40 years old.

Speaker 1:
[37:58] And the hundreds of speedboats that they would use to enforce the street. Those are fine.

Speaker 3:
[38:04] The IRGC Navy, like you're not going to destroy that. They just use little go-fast boats. Like you're not going to be able to meaningfully wipe those out. But yeah, this like rust bucket, ancient Navy. And he said at one point, like Hegseth or one of them, maybe it was Rubio, said the same thing about the Iranian Air Force. Like they fucking fly F-14s. Like what are you talking about? Like this is not a meaningful thing to take their Air Force out. They've got a few more recent planes, but it's not like they've put a lot of, or been able even to put a lot of resources into like building up a modern Air Force. It's so weird to see some of these justifications. But then you find out, and I can't remember who reported this, but the reporting that like basically Trump's daily briefing on the war is like a two minute snuff film of all the stuff that we blew up the day before. And like that's it. That's all there is to this for him, is cool explosions and wow, we bombed some stuff, aren't we tough? There's nothing beyond that. Like there's nothing going on beyond that in terms of what are we actually trying to get out of this conflict. And that's how you wind up starting a war that leaves the country you're going to war with in a stronger position. They've closed the Strait of Hormuz. They've demonstrated a capacity that had been theoretical at best before this. And now you've got to adjust to this new reality. And get out of this conflict if that's what he's trying to do in a way that makes it look like you won when it's clear that you have lost profoundly on a strategic level. So I just don't know what they're going to cook up here to try and save face. But that's what he keeps talking about. It doesn't look good for negotiations, at least.

Speaker 1:
[39:57] That's why he keeps talking about tomorrow is going to be Power Plant and Bridges Day. We're going to blow them all to hell. We're going to wipe out a civilization. Because those are concrete things that the US military and air force absolutely can do with no problem. Blowing up oil pipelines, refineries, civilian infrastructure, hospitals, girls schools, bridges. It's all on the fucking menu. But those are, I guess, military objectives in some sense. There's things that we can do and have done. But they're not like, what was the goal of this war to blow up every bridge and fucking power plant in Iran? No. They can't even tell you what the goal of the war is. Best I can tell, as we talked for weeks now, the goal of the war now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is open before the war started.

Speaker 3:
[40:50] That's the best one.

Speaker 1:
[40:51] Yeah, and also you keep saying that we've already done regime change. Our goal isn't regime change, but we've done regime change because we've killed so many people, that it's essentially a new government.

Speaker 3:
[41:04] Right. Without any interrogation of is it a new government that's more favorable to US interests or easier to negotiate with? I mean, obviously not, but regime change to what doesn't seem to ever be asked. It really is like they just have never articulated anything. Again, to go back to the question of, did Benjamin Netanyahu drag him into this war? I wouldn't put it that way, but I do think that this is fulfilling an Israeli aim of just decimating the region and decimating Iran without any bigger thing. For the Israelis, yeah, blow up all their bridges, blow up all their power plants. Have people living, drinking pond water or puddle water and cooking over an open flame. They don't give a shit. That's fine. That's great news from the Israeli perspective. I don't think it achieves anything that the US is looking to achieve. And it also opens up because every Iranian reaction throughout this war, and they've been reactions, people were up in arms like, oh, how dare they attack the Gulf States? Or can you believe what the Iranians are doing? Everything they've done has been a measured counter to things that have been done to them so far. And if you start to go after these like, quote unquote, dual use objects, like fucking power plants because the military uses electricity, well, like, OK, I mean, what does that open up for the Iranians to start doing to Saudi Arabia or to Kuwait or Qatar, all of these countries that have vulnerable infrastructure and desalination plants on which they depend for water? You know, whereas the Iranians, you know, after a desalination plant, that's not necessarily going to be fatal to their water infrastructure. But these big plants that, you know, sit in the Gulf on which these countries depend for people to be able to survive. Like it's, you know, it's strategically stupid and tactically stupid to escalate in this direction.

Speaker 2:
[43:26] There's also the other problem, which we have seen to a smaller scale with US policy in Syria, that if you were to fully articulate it, it just, there's no way to make it sound good. The overall Israeli policy for the entire region and, you know, ours too, though maybe not as broad or universal as Israel's because we have our own friends there. It is just to create like maximum chaos. Ideally, a system where every single city block for everywhere that isn't part of Greater Israel and eventually will become that, is ruled by a separate emir, that there are no nation states, no borders, no sovereignty, no borders. Only one entity has the ability to defend themselves and everyone else is in civil wars between different small emirates. A varying intensity forever. There's no way to come out and say like, yeah, we want that. We did everything that you saw in most of Syria for the last 15 years. We want that for every fucking square inch of the place.

Speaker 3:
[44:54] Right. From the Israeli perspective, that's fine. This has been something that's shuffled around in DC, in certain think tank corridors that never gets much traction. But the talk of just dismembering Iran. You take every community in Iran, the Arab population, the Kurdish population, the Azeri population and just let them all go hog wild, which is something that was floated at the beginning of this war when they were talking about arming the Kurdish militias and sending them in to be the shock troops of a ground invasion. But this is something that the Israelis have pushed and Israeli-aligned think tanks in DC have pushed quietly to just kind of take Iran apart, essentially, and leave it as these rump states that would all be at war probably with each other for the next 20 years to try and sort things out. If you actually achieve this, it's just a way of creating chaos and destroying the state as they have done or as they've attempted to do in Syria, as they're constantly doing in Lebanon, which barely functions as a state, as a result. Like it's all part of the same approach.

Speaker 1:
[46:17] There's another piece in the Trump and Bunker article that I shared earlier. It says here, Trump has resisted sending American soldiers to take Karag Island, for example, the launch point for 90 percent of Iran's oil exports. When he was told the mission would succeed and the territories captured would give US access to the strait, he worried there would be unacceptably high American casualties, the people said. They'll be sitting ducks, the president said. I bring this up in light of the fact that it seems like they thought someone else would do it for us. Like, oh, we'll give weapons to the Kurds, the people of Iran will rise up after the Khamenei gets killed. Or if we do enough strikes against the negotiators or military targets, then the people of Iran will rise up and they'll overthrow their own government. But it seems very clear to me that the only thing that could conceivably change the strategic balance right now is some sort of massive commitment of American troops, either to take Karg Island or to physically secure the strait in some way through our Navy or Marines. It would be a massive military operation. And it seems clear to me, knock on wood, that Trump wants nothing to do with that. That no one does.

Speaker 3:
[47:27] I mean, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:29] Because they know it will be the gasoline.

Speaker 3:
[47:31] It would be a bloodbath.

Speaker 1:
[47:32] Yeah. So like what we're left with is this kind of like weekly back and forth. This kind of perpetual stalemate where like nothing really makes sense. Like nobody like you can't really suss out what the United States wants. I mean, I talked about regime change, reopening the strait. Another thing Trump has been saying recently is like no nuclear. He was like, I believe for the last 50 years, Iran must never have a nuclear weapon and we need their nuclear dust back.

Speaker 3:
[47:58] And the nuclear dust is my favorite thing. This is the highly enriched uranium that I guess he thinks was blown all over the place by US bombs in the war last year in the airstrikes. And so he keeps calling it nuclear dust for some reason. Again, one of these things is like in his mind palace.

Speaker 1:
[48:20] But it's just like nobody else can penetrate. The question is never asked of him. Like why is Iran? He was like, because they keep talking about it like if he hadn't acted like a month ago, Iran would be like a week away from having a nuclear bomb and they would use it immediately. I mean, this is what we've heard about. Saddam in Iraq is what we've heard about Iran for like the last 30 fucking years. But like he did the 12-day war last summer, in which he stated that we had conclusively obliterated Iran's nuclear program permanently and forever. Like why does no one ever bring that up to him to be like, what happened in those intervening months?

Speaker 3:
[48:54] Yeah, I mean, why does nobody ever bring up like, because they're not smart enough to articulate this in a way that makes sense. But so Trump keeps saying like, well, they have to promise that they're not gonna do nuclear, they're not gonna get nuclear weapons. They've done that so many times over the last 10 years, like in writing, not even just verbally.

Speaker 1:
[49:19] And Trump was the one to undo the JP, US treaty.

Speaker 3:
[49:22] Right, I mean, Trump undid the deal under which they agreed in writing never to pursue a nuclear weapon. Now, maybe you don't believe them, okay, but to keep saying it in the way that they say it publicly, like, well, they've never said that they won't, they've never just said all they need to do is promise that they don't want a nuclear weapon. Yes, they have, they have like so multiple times. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1:
[49:48] Let's stop with nuclear weapons, though, because like as soon as you mention that, like then the next thing that gets brought up is their ballistic missile program.

Speaker 3:
[49:54] Right.

Speaker 1:
[49:55] That their ballistic conventional missiles are a threat to quote our allies in the region and that like they cannot be allowed to have any defensive, like any military capability at all in the future.

Speaker 3:
[50:07] They can't be allowed to defend themselves. I mean, this is the ultimate.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] I guess that is really the Israeli strategic goal here.

Speaker 3:
[50:14] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[50:14] But like we can't say that because like we're supposed to be negotiating with Iran right now. And I guess like that brings us to like this current round of negotiations.

Speaker 3:
[50:22] JD.

Speaker 1:
[50:22] Vance is headed back to Islamabad this week. He was supposed to go today, but apparently he's still in DC. And I'm just wondering like what you make of.

Speaker 3:
[50:31] Well, the Iranians haven't said that they're going to participate is the problem.

Speaker 1:
[50:34] OK.

Speaker 3:
[50:35] Yeah. I mean, they're like after everything that happened on Friday when it seemed like things were for five minutes or so, like things were progressing in a good direction. And then Trump went apeshit on social media and the Iranians pulled back. I think they're once again confronted by the fact that you can't believe anything this man says. You can't negotiate with him because he's looking to double cross you. Like, I can't remember where I saw this, like it's like embedded in his whole ideology, like his whole personal ethos, the art of the deal is like making you make deals with people and then you don't follow through. Like you don't pay your contractors, you don't fucking do anything like you don't uphold your end of the bargain on anything. So it's clearly like if you're negotiating a major geopolitical agreement with this man, like how do you trust anything that he says? And anything that they say that could be interpreted as a gesture or a concession is going to be pocketed and not reciprocated. Like Trump is just going to go hog wild with it and say, there you go, they're surrendering. Like they just have no, I don't think they feel like there's any basis on which to conduct an actual negotiation. And that leaves aside the fact that he's sending the three dumbest men in Washington, DC to lead the negotiating team. And you can't even talk to them, because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. So it's a very hard uphill slog for them. And I think they have said, there was supposed to be maybe something over the weekend, then it was supposed to be maybe Monday in Pakistan. And they have repeatedly, through state media, communicated that the government has not taken a decision whether to engage in another round of negotiations. Which, you know, I mean, the ceasefire ends, the last day of the ceasefire is Tuesday. So the shooting war could start again on Wednesday, you know, at a minimum, if there's no agreement to at least extend things a bit. So, you know, it's really crunch time at this point, but I just don't know that the Iranians feel like there's a credible way forward.

Speaker 1:
[52:55] And like, as far as the Iranians go, like has anything changed in terms of like, what I saw was like, they're basically, they're 10 points of negotiation. Like, has anything changed in the parameters of that change for them at all? Or is like, what are they negotiating? Like, what is their stance right now?

Speaker 3:
[53:13] Yeah, I mean, the most promising thing that I had seen in the last couple of weeks was this reporting that the US had come down off of, you'll never enrich uranium again. And they were talking about a moratorium on uranium enrichment. And the US was asking for 20 years and the Iranians were saying, that's way too long, we can't do that. But we'll give you five. And then maybe they were, there was room to negotiate, to try and meet somewhere in the middle. And I think that was a positive, that seemed like a positive development because it had bridged what was before that, a yes, we will, no, you won't, very difficult to kind of find common ground dispute. And now you're talking about how many years are you gonna hold off before you resume some level of uranium enrichment. And if that's the ground you're on, that's a negotiable thing. What I read subsequently was that they both, were constrained by the 2015 deal. Like Trump wanted a 20 year moratorium because a lot of the sunsets in the 2015 deal expired after 10 years. So he wanted to say he got it, did twice as good as Obama.

Speaker 1:
[54:27] Right, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:28] And the Iranians, but the Iranians feel like they need to get something that has, is better too. Like they want to say they negotiated a better deal. They feel like they have more leverage than they did in 2015 now because of Hormuz in particular. So they want to be able to claim victory there too. So that becomes a whole nother issue. But I don't think that the main thrust of the 10 points has changed, maybe with the fact that the ceasefire in Lebanon has sort of become decoupled. I don't know where they, what their approach is going to be to that at this point. But in principle, like they're still holding on to the idea of, they want to see their assets unfrozen, they want to see an acknowledgement that Iran has a right to enrich uranium, regardless of what the details might be in terms of like, we're not going to do it for X number of years or we're only going to do it in certain quantities or under certain limitations. I think they're comfortable talking on those grounds. But when it comes to the principle of it, they're still not willing to give that up, despite what Trump said last week, which had really no basis in reality. I don't think the 10 points have changed so much as they're looking for ways to find things that are acceptable to the US within that framework.

Speaker 1:
[55:59] I mean, Derek, week after week, we opened the show on Monday to try to figure out what's going on, or is there an end in sight for this? And I guess I don't see any change in anything happening anytime soon. I think we're still like the United States, and the current leadership of this country is totally stuck in this ridiculous and absurd stalemate of their own making. Because they're not going to commit troops to decisively change, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or occupy the country, or really actually take that big a bite of the apple. But at the same time, they're not going to negotiate in good faith on anything. And despite being denied any kind of strategic victory, Israel will continue to just give the full Gaza treatment to Southern Lebanon, and in addition, ramp up tensions against Syria and Turkey and other countries as sort of a consolation prize for not getting the United States to fully go all out for Iran. But I guess if this ridiculous stalemate just continues, who is in a better position to just wait it out, Iran or the United States and Israel?

Speaker 3:
[57:18] I mean, it's not going to be good for anybody. Like the Iranians are... This naval blockade is a serious thing for the Iranians. I mean, it's a really potentially economically devastating step that the US has taken. And it's a question of how much more pain are they capable of absorbing. It's not a question of like, can they, will they or won't they suffer any pain because of this? It's a question of how much pain they can absorb because of it versus how much pain can the US withstand. If it continues in this broken ceasefire blockade type of thing, and the full on shooting war doesn't resume, in which case the calculus changes, but then it becomes a question of how much can Trump stand in terms of gasoline prices and economic downturns and all the things that are going to go along with that. What I've come to feel about this is like, it's not even a question of willingness. I don't think the Trump administration is capable of negotiating an actual peace agreement. Like, and that's not just true of Iran. Like, I don't think that their approach to negotiations, which is to get to a big splashy signing ceremony without any details. They don't have any technical people. They don't want to do the hard work of negotiating the details of a real agreement. And they have the three stooges that they send around to negotiate these things who don't know their asses from a hole in the ground. Like, they're just not capable of putting in the effort and making the, like, complicated negotiations and decisions that need to be made to finalize a real peace deal. So, the best that you can hope for is that they... You know, this is where I was last week. Like, the best you can hope for is they come to some, like, generalized statement of principles, and they agree to extend the ceasefire, let's say, for six months while they negotiate the statement of principles, and then six months from now, they extend it again for another six months because they haven't really negotiated anything. But the statement of principles is still there, and you just stretch that out for the rest of the Trump presidency. I just... There's no competence on that side of things, even if they wanted to get to a deal to actually do it. So, I feel like the best you can hope for is a lengthy ceasefire, and just kind of rioting it out. But even that seems impossible at this point after the last few days.

Speaker 1:
[60:15] I mean, yeah, I guess that is the best thing to hope for. I mean, I guess the way I'll look at it is that, obviously, Iran has so much more to lose in the United States because this is an existential war for them. This is about their survival as a country. It's about their sovereignty. But the American public, military, our government, our ability to withstand pain or even minor inconvenience is just so much lower than theirs.

Speaker 3:
[60:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:38] So I would say that's the imbalance here.

Speaker 3:
[60:41] I mean, but that's part of it. I mean, it's existential for them, so they will withstand a lot of pain. It's meaningless for the United States. So we're not going to be willing to even get our hair must a little bit. It's the same problem that the US encounters all over the world. I mean, it's the reason why the Taliban is still back in charge in Afghanistan, because it just meant a whole lot more to them than it did to the US. So when push came to shove, the US was able to walk away. It's the same dynamic here. The question is whether the US will hit its point where it just says we don't need this, this is too much.

Speaker 1:
[61:24] Well, best-case scenario, if some sort of six-month cease-fire is agreed, any cease-fire that is agreed to even in theory at this point, let alone a six-month one, I'll put my marker down right now. If should that inconceivably happen, get ready for a couple new, I would mouth dropping Epstein docs to be hit, hit the media and the press. Lonnie is going to be giving a few more press conferences. If a cease-fire is even agreed to it, even a half-hearted one.

Speaker 3:
[61:52] But I mean, the real is never part of it.

Speaker 2:
[61:55] Buy one, get one, freeze the other.

Speaker 3:
[62:00] Like the really grim thing here is that if he concludes this conflict with Iran on terms that's somewhere in the back of Donald Trump's head, he realizes is humiliating, unhumiliating terms. Cuba is next on the list.

Speaker 1:
[62:17] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:17] He's going to go after Cuba.

Speaker 1:
[62:18] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:20] That's a situation where I don't think the ability to resist is anywhere near as robust, and it's just going to be really, really awful.

Speaker 1:
[62:33] Well, rather than ending on that cherry note, how about a little palate cleanser and how about we just turn to the domestic political sphere and domestic law enforcement, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I would like to share now, the Atlantic has a piece out, a new profile of Cash Patel, which he has just this morning announced that he will be suing the Atlantic over. But let's just look in on how the FBI is doing. Let's look at the FBI under J. Edgar hoovering up drugs through his nose. Cash Patel begins on Friday, April 10th, as FBI Director Cash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend. He struggled to log on to an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked frantically, calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a freakout. Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the Bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some quarters of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the Bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI. It turned out that the answer was still Patel. He had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved. It was all ultimately bullshit, one FBI official told me. Now, I got to express some sympathy for Cash here, because how many times have I tried to log back in to a website or a streaming service in which I changed my password because I forgot it months ago the last time I logged in, and then I'm still trying to use the old password, and then I try to change my password, but I can't change it to the password that I already used, so I have to suggest a strong password. Look, it could happen to anyone, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 3:
[64:35] Yeah, I mean, it's like when you use the FBI jet to go see your girlfriend, and you kind of use this trackage jet, like you're drunk on the plane, you go to the concert, things happen. It just, people need to have more grace, I think, for the lived experiences of our public servants.

Speaker 1:
[64:54] Absolutely. I know we mentioned this on the show, I don't know, what, two months ago now, Nancy Guthrie is still missing, right? Yes. What the fuck is going on?

Speaker 2:
[65:06] Well, have we looked at the possibility that like, the family just lost her? And like this whole thing, they're like embarrassed, like the guy who was supposed to keep an eye on her was like, oh, I don't know, someone took her, here's a hostage thing. And it just, it got out of hand, it's a national story. I mean, I'm willing to entertain that possibility.

Speaker 3:
[65:33] I don't, do they even have any idea like who took her? I mean, it just feels like that whole thing disappeared from There was like ring camera footage, and that's it. Savannah Guthrie, but like, they don't have any, like, I mean, there's no ransom, like there's nothing going on, like there's nothing here to like follow up on. It's very strange.

Speaker 1:
[65:54] It's a bizarre story. And like one of a number of very high profile cases that this FBI has not exactly covered themselves in glory.

Speaker 3:
[66:01] Right.

Speaker 1:
[66:03] Going on here, it says, The IT lockout episode is emblematic of Patel's tumultuous tenure as director of the FBI. He is erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence, according to more than two dozen people I interviewed about Patel's conduct, including current and former FBI officials, staff at law enforcement and intelligence agencies, hospitality industry workers, members of Congress, political operatives. It goes on, they said that problems with his conduct go well beyond what he has previously known, and include both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences. His behavior has often alarmed officials at the FBI and Department of Justice, even as he won support from the White House for his eager participation in Trump's effort to turn federal law enforcement against the president's perceived political enemies.

Speaker 2:
[66:50] Isn't conspicuous inebriation way better than like hiding it? Because that's what you do when you have a problem.

Speaker 3:
[66:56] Yeah, I mean, he's being honest about it.

Speaker 1:
[66:58] He's got a water bottle all the time. People say, oh, can I get a sip of that water? No.

Speaker 2:
[67:02] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:05] Look, if you water down gin, you can't smell it on your breath. This is a classic Alky trick. So, yeah, no, Felix, you're right. It's better that he's because like, yeah, he's not trying to hide it. He's chugging beers in the locker room with the USA hockey team. You know, he's getting fucked up. He's loving it.

Speaker 2:
[67:22] It's not like he's putting like liquor in like the upper tank of a toilet.

Speaker 1:
[67:27] Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[67:29] Everyone knows how many he had and it's like, you can disagree with that. You could say it's like not healthy to have that many, but like, that's not like yet problem drinker status. Not everyone who shows up to their job drunk has a problem.

Speaker 1:
[67:45] Everyone's got a different tolerance level.

Speaker 2:
[67:47] A few people.

Speaker 1:
[67:48] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[67:50] That's the other thing. He's small. You know how easy it is for him to like get drunk?

Speaker 1:
[67:57] Several officials told me that Patel's drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Neds in Washington, DC., while in the presence of White House and other administrations staff.

Speaker 2:
[68:13] You're supposed to get drunk at Neds.

Speaker 3:
[68:15] Yeah, I mean, that sounds like a good place to get drunk, frankly. Like if you're going to get drunk, not at Neds.

Speaker 1:
[68:22] Well, also, he is also known to drink to excess at the poodle room in Las Vegas.

Speaker 3:
[68:27] Okay, I mean, what the else are you going to do in the poodle room in Vegas?

Speaker 2:
[68:31] None of these are at the office. None of these are like, oh, he, you know, he was talking to Savannah Guthrie's mom's kidnapper.

Speaker 1:
[68:39] He had a lampshade on his head.

Speaker 2:
[68:41] He had a lampshade on his head and he like pointed the lip of the bottle to the camera on FaceTime and was like, yo, if you were here, I'd be like, you want some of this? He didn't do that or I don't think he did.

Speaker 1:
[68:56] It's just like he is also known to drink to excess at the poodle room in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends early in his day. Okay, parts of his weekends, right? I know the use of the FBI has been a problem, but like this is a job where you work.

Speaker 3:
[69:13] What if this is like a sting? Like what if something's going on at the poodle room in Las Vegas and he's like doing an undercover operation? Like, you know, I mean, remember in an undercover operation as the head of the FBI?

Speaker 2:
[69:24] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[69:26] Like when they were flying the plane around the golf course to keep an eye on Joe Pesci, like, you know, something like that.

Speaker 2:
[69:34] It's having that's I think it's brilliant to have the director of the FBI do an undercover operation because like they would go like, are you aren't you Cash Patel? And you'd be like, no, I just look like him. Do you know how stupid it would be to send the director of the FBI?

Speaker 3:
[69:50] Like the whole thing could be a sting like, you know, somebody goes up to him at the the what is it? The pink room or something with the pool and pony room or whatever the poodle room. And they're like, aren't you Cash Patel? And he's like, yeah, but I'm only here because I'm an alcoholic. And it's all part of his cover.

Speaker 1:
[70:09] It's an undercover operation featuring the director of the FBI, but like he's not really undercover. He just wants to create a situation where someone will say, like, who is that guy? And he can say the name is Cash, Cash Patel. And then like his eyes go across like Jerry Lewis and he goes, why even pretty lady?

Speaker 3:
[70:29] Yeah, like he forgets his name and like gives some similar name.

Speaker 1:
[70:32] Cash Patel.

Speaker 3:
[70:34] My name's Dan Bongina.

Speaker 1:
[70:35] Cash Patel. A second time.

Speaker 2:
[70:37] One of the most storied directors ever of the FBI was notorious for doing his own kind of black bag undercover operations, where he dressed up as a really sexy lady.

Speaker 1:
[70:50] That's right. But, you know, Felix, you bring up J. Edgar Hoover, you know, like, like, you know, you know, I was talking about Louis Free. But like, I think this is I think he's coming in. Cash is coming in and like he's shaking up the bureaucratic institutional sort of culture of the FBI, which is known for being like square jaw G men, you know, like Mormons and fucking like Irish key totalers and Mormon drunks is I think how Matt described it at one point. But like, it's a very, very staid conservative office culture at the FBI. Like if you wear like a tie with like a wild pattern, you'll probably get like, you know, like sectioned or something. But like, I like that this is an FBI director. He's still like, he's not like, look, nine to five, he's director of the FBI. But on weekends, he's like, I'm going out to Vegas. I'm going to spend part of my weekend in Las Vegas getting fucked up in a nightclub.

Speaker 3:
[71:49] Me time is important. I mean, you got to take some time away from the office.

Speaker 1:
[71:54] Yeah. Here is the-

Speaker 2:
[71:57] I'm going to the iguana lounge or wherever, whatever bullshit thing he's going to.

Speaker 1:
[72:03] Here is the best part of the story though. It says here, early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights. Six current and former officials and other officials, others familiar with Patel's schedule, told me. Well, just like, look, he's the director. Like, you fucking-

Speaker 3:
[72:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[72:24] Make the schedule fit him. You know? What are you going to do?

Speaker 3:
[72:27] I mean, first of all, is this briefing, could it be an email? Because if it could be an email, then what are you fucking bothering him with anyway?

Speaker 2:
[72:36] And also, isn't that editorializing to say that, like, oh, he missed it because because of his alcohol-fueled nights? He could have been tired for any other reason. Like, are you his doctor or a sleep scientist for that matter?

Speaker 1:
[72:48] And like, no, you bring up sleep science. Like, I think it's been proven that, like, even if you got a full night's sleep, the human mind is not really even working at maximum potential until about 11 a.m. or at least to keep two cups of that mud, you know? So, yeah, it's probably some FBI. He's like, like a morning briefing on 9 a.m. It's like, fuck that. We'll do, we'll do, we'll do a late lunch, you know? And then by 9 o'clock, we'll be at the fucking hockey game. Like, Nancy who?

Speaker 2:
[73:16] Yeah. What the? All these people who are like, where's Savannah Guthrie's mom? I like guarantee you none of them were into her before this whole thing, too.

Speaker 1:
[73:26] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they, I mean, they had no idea where she was before she got kidnapped. And now they're like, oh, where's this woman?

Speaker 2:
[73:33] Yeah. Like, yeah, like, OK, OK, you're you're you're Savannah Guthrie's mom poster. It looks really new. It looks like you got in the last few weeks. So I don't I do not have to listen to you.

Speaker 1:
[73:48] Here is by far the best part of this piece. Some of Patel's colleagues at the FBI worry that his personal behavior has become a threat to public safety. And an FBI director is expected. Oh, I don't know. Sorry, I jumped ahead too far. On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to the Justice Department and White House officials. A request for, quote, breaching equipment normally used by SWAT and hostage rescue teams to quickly gain entry into building was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request. That is alpha level player baller shit. Getting so fucked up that the next day, the FBI has to get a SWAT team to get into your fucking hotel room.

Speaker 3:
[74:44] Seriously, getting SWAT-ed, but it's just like your wake up call.

Speaker 1:
[74:48] They're putting the shape C4 charges on the wall of the adjacent hotel room. They were setting them in. He's just like, yo, bro, last night was a movie.

Speaker 2:
[75:03] It sounds to me like the real problem is like the FBI is filled with drama queens. Like, let him sleep it off. I don't know. But it's filled with those types of like Gene Simmons people who are like, oh, I'm 53 and I've never had a drink or drug in my life.

Speaker 1:
[75:22] Yeah, and again, we don't know.

Speaker 2:
[75:24] Like, what if he just what if he just he's one of those guys who gets a sort of melatonin hangover? We don't know. We frankly don't know.

Speaker 1:
[75:36] You remember when there was that shooting at Brown University and they were just like announced that they have a suspect and it was just like completely the wrong guy.

Speaker 2:
[75:44] Yeah. OK, well, you've never like you've never been. You've never been like watching TV and been like, oh, is that is that John Slattery and it's a different guy?

Speaker 1:
[75:53] OK, here's another good part. Days before the United States launched its war with Iran, Patel fired members of a counter-terrorism squad that was devoted in part to Iran. The director said in testimony before Congress that the agents had been let go because of their work investigating Trump's handling of classified documents and placed them in violation of the bureau's ethics roles. But multiple officials told me that they were concerned that the firings had been rushed and would leave the US shorthanded at a crucial moment. Once again, OK, this is the FBI counterintelligence unit dedicated to Iran. Well, good fucking job that they've done so far. Now we're at war with Iran. So you're going to tell me we need these guys in there?

Speaker 3:
[76:33] You know, something's got to give.

Speaker 1:
[76:36] Yeah. I love this part. Patel has publicly proclaimed that the FBI needs to demonstrate that it is, quote, fierce. A lot of people think the F stands for federal, but it actually stands for fierce. I mean, this is like teenage girls say about each other. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[77:03] That is what J. Edgar Hoover wanted to make this one for, also. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[77:09] The FBI needs to demonstrate that it is fierce. And officials I spoke with said that he has fixated on that image in private as well. He recently expressed frustration with the look of FBI merchandise complaining that it isn't intimidating enough. Officials have grown accustomed to such behavior and they have learned to roll their eyes at it. But they said that the absurdity masks real concerns about what Patel's leadership has meant for an institution that the country relies on for national security and the safety of its citizens. Part of me is glad he's wasting his time on bullshit because it's less dangerous for the rule of law, for the American public, one official told me. But it also means we don't have a real functioning FBI director. OK. The detail about the FBI, like using a SWAT team to breach his hotel room because he wouldn't wake up after his alarm went off 20 times and everyone's calling him. But the detail that he's concerned that the FBI's merchandise isn't intimidating enough.

Speaker 3:
[78:08] Do you think he feels like he's in a manhood competition with Pete Hegseth over at the Department of War and they're going to start trying to one up each other? But instead of doing AI videos of him bench pressing like five thousand pounds, it's going to be like an AI video of him on a Stairmaster or something like, look at how many steps I climb.

Speaker 1:
[78:30] Cass seems like a funner drunk than Pete Hegseth. I'll say that.

Speaker 2:
[78:33] Oh, my God.

Speaker 3:
[78:35] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[78:36] Hegseth is like the most annoying, weepy, like aggressive drug, like the guy where it's like, this is the year that I start raising my kids.

Speaker 1:
[78:45] I, I fucking love my kids so much, man. Like he's saying this after he's come to like his eighth divorce, hasn't seen him in months, you know, basically order of protection. I just love my fucking kids so much.

Speaker 3:
[78:58] Cass is like, Cass is like, I mean, Cass is getting blackout drunk and taking the jet to go hang out with the US hockey team.

Speaker 1:
[79:05] Yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, it's like doing bumps in the fucking Team USA locker room, fucking like doing keg stands. He's at the fucking he's at Ned's in the poodle room. He's taking the fucking FBI jet to WrestleMania. But like I just like on the issue of FBI merch not being intimidating enough, like what does he want like them to be rocking like affliction t-shirts with like skulls on it and shit? Because like I thought the whole point of like the kind of faceless bureaucracy of federal law enforcement is when you see like a dozen very boring looking guys approaching you wearing those windbreakers that are just Navy blue and has the big yellow FBI letters on the back of it. That's pretty fucking intimidating for me because it's like the intimidation comes from the fact that like they don't need to like have tattoos or fucking skulls. They're the law enforcement arm of the federal government. They can do anything to you.

Speaker 2:
[79:58] I think that the official merchandise for the FBI, it should be like all gore photos.

Speaker 1:
[80:05] It should be like, it should be like hypey supreme style t-shirts, like a photo of the fucking David Koresh compound is just printed on it.

Speaker 2:
[80:13] Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like Thomas Crooks' head blown off, like, yeah, no. Yeah. You know, this is a shocking time we live in.

Speaker 1:
[80:23] Well, one more thing. I know Trump is a teetotaler and apparently in the Atlantic article, it talks about how Trump was very upset by the video of Cash chugging beers in Milan with the Team USA hockey. For a guy who's disgusted by alcoholics and whose own brother succumbs to his addiction to alcohol, Trump does surround himself with a lot of drug addicts and drugs.

Speaker 2:
[80:46] Yeah, it reminds me of Strauss in Red Dead Redemption 2, how he's a money lender, but he's always lending money to people who live in a hole they dug into the ground and subsist on selling animal pelts to other losers. It's like, why are these loans so bad? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's probably just bad luck.

Speaker 1:
[81:13] I just gave a loan to a guy who's suffering from tuberculosis, who's bleeding from his mouth. He's like, can you pay me back next week? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:
[81:24] Yeah, yeah. No, exact same thing. He's just like, oh, my God, you can't like it's people are always letting me down and like fucking off on their work. I don't know why.

Speaker 3:
[81:35] Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, everything for him is about who's kissing my ass the best. And so, you know, you get a weepy drunk guy who's constantly telling Donald Trump he's the greatest, greatest person. Oh, yeah. That picture of you is Jesus, sir. That was spot on. I think you are Jesus Christ reincarnated. Like, you know, that's the guy who gets the job.

Speaker 2:
[81:57] Do you think that's it? That it's like people who are also like drunks are usually pretty emotionally needy and are going to fight each other for his validation?

Speaker 1:
[82:07] Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. I just think like Pete Hegseth is the kind of drunk who, you know, will not get a good high hang will will get on stage at a strip club and attempt to dance with the strippers like embarrassing fucking like amateur level shit, crying, weeping, doing sex crimes. Cash is like he's posted up in the VIP and the baddies. He's just like they come to him. He's just like, let him in. Yeah, let him in behind the velvet robe. You know, he's like, you know, you're you're at Ned's. You're you're in poodle town now, honey.

Speaker 2:
[82:41] Let's do a cash is cash is one of those guys where it's like he comes out with you. He disappears for 45 minutes and he comes back with like a bunch of the adults that he met at a Kinsan era. He stumbled into he's always like adding like unexpected new people to your party. He's making it more fun. He's very gregarious. You know, you may know where your night is going to begin with cash. You never know what's going to end.

Speaker 1:
[83:10] It's going to end in a key. It's going to end on a ride in a government helicopter with Becky Lynch of the WWE.

Speaker 2:
[83:18] Yeah. But with with Pete, it's like two hours in. It's like, OK, I'm going to show you exactly what you what I mean about like how my wife always brings this shit up. I'm going to FaceTime her. I need you guys to stay in the background and watch this argument between me and her.

Speaker 1:
[83:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[83:39] Well, really, like he brings his baggage everywhere, whereas Cash is like he's always expanding the party.

Speaker 1:
[83:46] Can you imagine, like, being on Molly with Cash Patel, like how fun that would be?

Speaker 2:
[83:50] Think about what his eyes would look like.

Speaker 1:
[83:52] Oh, bro.

Speaker 2:
[83:54] That'd be really scary.

Speaker 1:
[83:56] It would look like a fucking like a like a slot machine. It would be awesome. Yeah, the moment over. So, I mean, once again, I think this is like the institutional conservative, boring culture of the FBI. They're all turning on him and giving these anonymous quotes about what a dangerous alcoholic he is because, like, they don't know how to have fun. They've never had fun. No, it's like they're trying to put him on double secret probation right now. And it's like the boys of Cash Patel's Delta House, it's like they're here to have a good time. And if some crimes get solved in the process and Americans are made safe and protected from evildoers, then well, then shit. That's just all part of the party. I'm all right. Don't nobody worry about me. Why you got to give me a bet? What can't you just let me be? That's right, Cash. We still fuck with you. If Trump fires you, oh, fucking on God, son. Like, it's over for him. It's over for him. He's the greatest FBI director of all time. And like if Trump succumbs to this kind of fucking this gutter, sniping and fucking gossip from from people who aren't in the club, who are outside hating and giving anonymous quotes to the Atlantic, then he's fucking finished. Cash Patel, he's the greatest FBI director of all time.

Speaker 2:
[85:09] Yeah, easily, easily.

Speaker 3:
[85:11] We stand with cash.

Speaker 1:
[85:12] We stand with cash and like, you know, and speaking of our merchandise, I once again, I apologize to everyone who ordered the 10th anniversary shirts and the 10th anniversary helium. There has been some shipping problems. So check back next week. We'll see if the Strait is open or not. But if you bought helium or t-shirts to us that were printed by the printed in Iran, I should say, I mean, look, union is important to us, but you know, like the blanks come from Iran. The printing happens in Iran. It's going to be a few extra weeks and especially also if you ordered helium from the Chapo Trap House dot store. So but pre-order is still available. But like whether you get them depends on, you know, if this war shakes out over the next year or two, several months.

Speaker 2:
[85:55] Yeah. Yeah. It's a hard time for businesses out there.

Speaker 3:
[86:00] You know, everybody's scrambling.

Speaker 1:
[86:01] Yeah. Well, that does it for the main part of the show, but stay tuned for a little bonus interview I did with the actor, Ben McKenzie. You may remember from such TV shows as The OC and Gotham. It was a fun conversation I had on, like I said, a movie and documentary about his that I very much enjoyed. Everyone Is Lying to You for Money. But that does it for us on the main episode. I want to thank once again Derek Davison. Everyone, please subscribe to Foreign Exchanges and American Prestige.

Speaker 3:
[86:32] Yes, and check out our new series, Mark's Prestige. It's a mini-series. You can buy it or get it with a subscription, but we're very happy to do that with Andrew Hartman, historian.

Speaker 1:
[86:43] Excellent. All right, everybody.

Speaker 2:
[86:45] Very nice.

Speaker 1:
[86:46] Till next time. Bye bye.

Speaker 3:
[86:48] Bye bye.

Speaker 4:
[86:50] Thank you so much for coming. Wow. This is a big house. This is Will. You know Will? Chapo Trap House.

Speaker 1:
[86:57] Hello, Alamo Drafthouse. I am Will Menaker and I'll be interviewing Ben McKenzie, the director and star of Everyone Is Lying to You for Money. Let's have one more round of applause for Ben and his movie, everyone.

Speaker 4:
[87:14] Thank you. And a quick applause, Chapo Trap House 10th anniversary. Ten years since 2016, they've been making fun of how stupid everything is. And I really feel a lot of thematic resonance here with the movie.

Speaker 1:
[87:28] Ten years, no ads, still no video, audio only. One of the realest podcasts of all time.

Speaker 4:
[87:34] That's right, baby.

Speaker 1:
[87:35] All right, Ben, to get into the movie, first of all, I really enjoyed it. But I want to begin with what I thought was like some of the most charming and interesting parts of the movie were your own tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of your own celebrity and how that colors like every interaction you have in the movie, whether it's the talking heads you interview on TV, the customs agents in El Salvador, the guy in the London Tube. Everyone knows you and likes you because of this beloved TV character you portrayed. But outside the sort of disarming sort of sense of humor that that brings to the movie, how do you see this idea of how celebrity connects to these larger themes in the film about trust, how trust is created through storytelling, and how that trust is a key element of fraud?

Speaker 4:
[88:23] Wow. That is a great. Wow, you're a professional. That is a great question. I think I can approach that from a number of different angles. The angle I immediately go to because I'm an econ dork is that money is trust. Money is this fiction that we made up, a social construct like government or religion, and it relies on social consensus. All currencies are effectively collective hallucinations. And we just agree that they have value because they work in the best of cases in the case of the US dollar, quite frankly. So it's interesting that trust is such a big part of our monetary system. It's also a big part of obviously a con man, right? Like they're getting you to trust them in order to steal your money. Being on television was such a, it was like my superpower. It was like I could talk to anybody. I could talk to Alex Wyshynski or Sam Higman Fried. I could, you know, I could end up testifying. It's because, I mean, I guess the testifying I had done some work, but like it really was like, oh, wow, we like you because you were Ryan Apple at the OC. And it's also was great because in terms of the trust, like they, I think, implicitly had some, you know, perception of me that they the fraudsters that they underestimated me, I think. I don't think that they expected me to ask them, you know, some more pressing questions. So it's really good to be underestimated.

Speaker 1:
[89:56] I think like where you're hanging out at South by Southwest with the Celsius guys. And they're like, well, you're like, what is Celsius? They're like, Celsius does everything the opposite of what a bank does. And you're just sort of like, keep rolling, keep rolling here. Exactly.

Speaker 4:
[90:09] I'm like, how do you make money? I can't answer that question.

Speaker 1:
[90:11] I'm like, oh, my God. Blake, what is this idea of like celebrity and trust and how that relates to currency? I think of the sort of the fake out opening of the movie where you're like, it's like Mesopotamia. And then I hear like the the twangs of some like vaguely Middle Eastern sounding music and like you're sort of like looking profoundly at these ancient ruins. And I was like, oh, no, Ben, you're doing a cringe. This is so cliche. And then you're like, oh, no, this is just outside of Austin. This is just Texas here. But what I liked about that is that like you announced in the very opening of the movie, this kind of fake out. But like, isn't that kind of like all the celebrity advertising for crypto? Isn't that like that in a microcosm where you're like, oh, here's a guy like on TV and I relate to that and you immediately you buy into it?

Speaker 4:
[90:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[90:56] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[90:57] And I and I really enjoyed that was an idea. The opening was an idea of my editor, Drew Bladman, who is fantastic. And it was kind of loosely based on like, how can we really do a misdirect like a real hard misdirect? If the movie is about lying, how can we like lie off the top? Incidentally, when I'm sitting in the audience, like the most nervous I have ever been in my life is that first minute because I can, I watch the audience and I could see people just go like, oh, fuck, you know. We're in for the BBC.

Speaker 1:
[91:30] I was like, oh, God, I have to talk to them. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4:
[91:33] Wait, had you agreed before you saw the movie?

Speaker 1:
[91:35] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[91:35] Oh, fuck, yeah, that would have been bad. But on a more substantive, creative note, you know, obviously the movie is about lying and so we wanted to sort of, you know, fuck with the audience, you guys, collective audience, not you guys particularly. Although you did get fucked with. I wanted to be very playful in the form and I was sort of inspired by, do you know this really weird Orson Welles movie, F for Fake?

Speaker 1:
[92:01] Oh, yeah, oh my God, yeah, of course you do. That's one of my greatest.

Speaker 4:
[92:04] It's this insane movie. I don't even necessarily recommend it, but it's really crazy and he's just like sort of constantly tricking the audience to the point where it's hard to follow at times. But this is later Orson Welles, he's quite large and drinks a lot. But there's this playfulness with that that I think sort of fits the age a little bit. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[92:28] Just back to Mesopotamia briefly, I was thinking about currency and as long as there has been currency, what do we associate with it? A face, right? You know, like Alexander the Great, his face. He was one of the first people that a significant percentage of the world's population could be like, I know that guy, he's great. That's the kind of celebrity. And like for money, that face represents trust. And I guess, like, I, like, how did you, like, and then in the modern world, we need like our version of Alexander the Great or, you know, Ben Franklin or Alexander Hamilton, you know, the shacks of the world, Matt Damon. But like, how do you see your role as kind of like a counter face to use celebrity to be sort of a public citizen rather than a shill for cryptocurrency? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[93:13] Or and or, I mean, in terms of faces, Donald Trump, right?

Speaker 1:
[93:16] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[93:16] He like literally trying to get his face on the coin.

Speaker 1:
[93:19] It's gonna happen soon, folks. Yeah, yeah. Just get ready.

Speaker 4:
[93:22] Yeah, totally. In terms of like, yeah, my role, I mean, this has just been so much fun. It's so much fun. Not the most lucrative thing in the world. Writing books and making documentary films that you self-finance gulp. But, you know, I had a little fuck you money from TV and I've blown it pretty much on this movie, so hopefully it goes well. And my wife's doing a TV show, so we'll be all right. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, man. Appreciate it. Nice. Fuck you money or what was the... Anyway, it's been super fun and really freeing. Obviously, I'm privileged to be in a position to do that, but, you know, one of the interesting things about like, so I read all these books on fraud, and one of the observations, the guy Dan Davis that I talked to on the London Park bench, who wrote a great book on fraud called Lying for Money, one of the things he talks about in the book is that, so how do frauds keep happening if like we've seen, you can't keep doing the same fraud, because eventually the regulators get hip to it, and like people just kind of know the con, and they can assess it. And so all new sort of, all the ingenuity of a con is like trying to do basically the same shit, but in a different way, right?

Speaker 1:
[94:37] Never tell the same lie twice.

Speaker 4:
[94:38] Right, and crypto is like such a perfect illustration of it, where you just sort of like make up all this nonsensical language, like currencies that aren't currencies, stable coins that aren't stable, decentralized means centralized, like all that nonsense. But in order to, Davies makes this point, in order to actually counteract that, you need someone else to come from outside the system to see it clearly, because otherwise, you're just like, the accountants are like, oh, looks fine to me. Like it doesn't, it needs a different perspective. And I felt like, wow, that was really, maybe that's me. Maybe that's sort of like what I'm doing. I don't require to Ryan Atwood from the OC to do this thing.

Speaker 1:
[95:22] But like, I was fascinated by that conversation about fraud. And there's sort of like a sleight of hand, because it's like, if you rob someone with a gun, you know you're stealing from them. But if you rob someone with a lie, then you can tell yourself that you've in fact not stolen from them, and that they've given you the money. And in fact, you're helping them. But like, it takes sort of like, it's a dance between like the Mark and the fraudster. But I think like an important part of your movie is you talk about how people want to believe this. Because they want the freedom that comes with money that will allow them to do what they want to do, spend time with their kids, or just do nothing. But like, it's responding to also the reality of how badly screwed up our financial system is as well. So like, how do these people prey on the like, understandable skepticism people have about government, and then like, their own very real financial needs, like to sort of liberate themselves from the nine to five or the grind.

Speaker 4:
[96:23] Yeah, totally. I mean, probably the most heartbreaking moment for me really was what you see in the movie, where I'm just talking to that dude from Texas, and like, he's just trying to make a little money, spend time with his daughter, and then he feels like he's failed her, and like, I'm a father of three, I'm like, he's crying, I'm crying. It's just like, Jesus Christ, how do we create this, I'm sorry for all the swearing, how do we like, end up here? What was I gonna say about, how do they pray? I think they pray in a lot of different ways. The psychology is interesting. So, one of the ways a fraudster will pick your pocket is by pointing to somebody else, and being like, we hate that guy, right? And everyone goes like, yeah, we hate that guy, and they can kind of like, they form an emotional bond with you, and so I think they use the financial system and all of its myriad failures, which I agree with, or which I have many thoughts on, I guess. We all have our bone to pick with the financial system. It's funny, I feel like crypto's story is basically like, it's two parts, it's like, do you hate the current system? Everybody raises their hand. Or do you have a bone to pick with it? And then the second thing is Bitcoin fixes this. It's literally become the meme, right? Bitcoin fixes this. And so it's a super simple story, and because we all pretty much agree on the premise that our system does suck, or has deeply flawed, let's say, as all social constructs are, as all things that people make are, crypto saying, in a sort of vague techno-babbly way, we can fix all that, is just sort of appealing from jump. And then I think they're, of course, obviously taking advantage of people who don't have a lot, or don't believe they have a shot at real wealth, at like, you know, like the wealth that they see on social media, and the wealth they see. Like, we fetishize wealth so much in this country. It is so disgusting to me. It's like, and it's particularly for young guys. It's like, they're just getting these, I see people nodding, like, they're just being told over and over again. Like, if you don't have the Lambo or the, you know, the girlfriend with the fake breasts, you're like, you're not a real man. You're not a successful person. And guys internalize that. And this industry preys on young guys. It preys on them. 42% of men 18 to 29 have bought used cryptocurrency, almost half. And guys, young guys, are, have always been gamblers. I was a young guy once. I used to like to gamble. But the reason is, in part, because our prefrontal cortex is slow to develop. Literally, like, we just don't have, we don't make the right decisions often. That's why guys drink more, smoke more, young guys drink and drive more. They die earlier on average. And so, you know, they're exploiting that, right? And they're kind of basically, like the Matt Demon ad, like, fortune favors the brave. I mean, it's basically, don't be a pussy, buy crypto.

Speaker 1:
[99:16] Well, yeah, I mean, one other thing you talk about is this sort of, this realization of this sort of cult-like feeling to Bitcoiners. And I think an example of that would be this idea that through a new technology or a new thing, that you've gained access to some secret truth about the world that you need to evangelize. But that comes simultaneously with this kind of threat that if you don't invest now, you're gonna get left behind. And you mentioned young men and gambling, and I'm wondering if you see those similar psychological patterns both in the behavior and also the way the marketing of something new like AI or something very old like gambling that's now been largely legalized everywhere.

Speaker 4:
[99:54] Totally, yeah, there's a thing called the grift shift, which was like the guys that were grifting in crypto.

Speaker 1:
[99:59] That was the original name of my show at the podcast.

Speaker 4:
[100:02] It also could be just like a guy working at a grift and having to go to the show talking in and out, talking out of the con man factory. That's what it's like working for a crypto company. Sorry, not all crypto companies are griffs. Yeah, sorry, where was I gonna go with that? I totally lost my train of thought.

Speaker 1:
[100:22] I don't know about you, but I personally feel like a similar, this weird hearted cell about things like AI, where they're just everywhere and you're like, oh, well obviously this assumption that it's changed the world, that everyone's using it, even though.

Speaker 4:
[100:36] Totally. I mean, I will say that they're not necessarily in conflict. Like AI to me, a lot of people, after I did the crypto thing or what I was doing, was like, you gotta do AI next. And I never really did, right? I mean, I sort of have as much understanding as probably you do. But my takeaway is, both things can be true. Like AI can be, so the story of crypto is not a story of technology. Because blockchain is old. It is 35 years old. It doesn't work very well. And the evidence of that is that try to name a company that's not in the cryptocurrency business that uses blockchain. Like in 2021 and 2022, blockchain was gonna change everything. You know, do you remember this? Of course, I think I got a pitch for pet insurance on the blockchain or something like that. I mean, it was just crazy. Now they don't talk about blockchain. Now they call it digital assets, which is a wonderfully vague phrase. Really kudos to the marketing team. So, but AI is a thing, right? I mean, I don't love it, but to be mild about it, but like it is changing things already. How much it will change things, I don't know. How it will go, I don't know. I'm a little scared. Did you read the The New Yorker piece on Sam Altman?

Speaker 1:
[101:52] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[101:52] Okay, so there's this quote in there from an unnamed Microsoft exec who's like, who's obviously had dealings with his company, and he says something to the effect of, there's a pretty reasonable chance that this guy is the next Bernie Madoff or Sam Beckman Fried. And I was like, oh fuck.

Speaker 1:
[102:09] Well, now that you brought up like Sam Beckman Fried, he's like, you know, one of the stars of this movie. Want to give a, have you had any contact with him recently?

Speaker 4:
[102:18] I wrote him in jail. He did not write back.

Speaker 1:
[102:19] Well, I mean, I see he's like, I see his posts. I mean, obviously I think he's getting messages out to people to like author it for him. But I got two things about Sam Beckman Fried. The first one is like, how do you see it? Like the guy you talked to about fraud talks about how like psychologically it's a very distinct crime because the people who do it rationalize it to themselves. How do you see Sam Beckman Fried and this kind of effective altruism philosophy that he was like, him and a lot of people in Silicon Valley are espousing like, isn't that just like the perfect rationalization for stealing?

Speaker 4:
[102:54] Yes, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:
[102:55] Cause you're like, oh, I'm not like stealing, I'm actually just trying to get as much money as possible to help as many people as possible at an unspecified future date.

Speaker 4:
[103:02] Exactly, you know about effective altruism. It's like make money, two things, make as much money as you can so you can give it away effectively, efficiently. And first of all, it's incredibly arrogant to be like, I can give it away because I'm rich, I know better than everybody else. And so, but it's also, yeah, it's a rationalization justification for, for, and it's really funny that Silicon Valley loves effective altruists because guess which part they're good at, the giving away or the getting the money, right? Guess which parts they're effective at. And Sam is interesting. Yeah, one of the things I do find fascinating is the, the mentality of fraudsters because I couldn't understand for the longest time, like, why did he agree to sit with me, you know, like Jacob Silverman wrote the book with me. We weren't exactly hiding the ball. Like our Twitter bios read writing a book about crypto and fraud, right? And he still sat down with me and I was like, why is he? I mean, I know he's not that smart, but like, he's not that stupid either, but it was more, I think that he, fraudsters are the ultimate method actors. Like they really have to believe that they are, Sam still says, no, it's all wrong. I'm innocent. We were solvent. We just didn't have the money at the time, which begs the question, does he understand the word solvency? But, but they really believe it because I think it's probably too painful to acknowledge the reality that they're stealing, right?

Speaker 1:
[104:34] Yeah. And I mean, that's galling to imagine in light of like the victims, like the people of the neselcius thing. We're like the one guy who said like, it's just more than losing the money. It's the shame I feel about, about getting rocked, you know, about getting conned.

Speaker 4:
[104:48] And that pisses me off.

Speaker 1:
[104:50] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[104:50] Really infuriates me as a man because I know what they're doing. Like men, we have a hard time. I have a hard time admitting what I'm wrong. We carry around this thing. And if you're of a certain generation in particular, hopefully, we're raising our kids differently, you're sort of implicitly talk. Like, don't don't talk about your feelings. Don't talk about when you lose, you know. And thank you. And and so they're using that to silence them. Like one of the biggest tricks of crypto is this thing called is basically you're responsible for your own decisions, DYOR. Do your own research. And the way I've come to understand it, which sounds good, right? Like everyone's responsible for their stuff. Sure. In the abstract. But like if when you get conned, it's your fault. That's like such a genius, evil thing to do to make the guy turn it back on himself. That like it wasn't somebody else doing it. I fucked up. Yeah, I find that despicable, but also very smart.

Speaker 1:
[105:53] Well, listen to this easy segue to the next thing I want to talk about is Ben, like obviously like we've all seen the movie now, but like the movie is one of the last images of the movie is Donald Trump saying, enjoy your Bitcoin folks. Everybody loves the Bitcoin. I mean, the sequel is right there for you because I'm sure you've been following like the second Donald Trump term in office is like the crypto presidency. And like I was wondering like, how do you imagine Sam Bankman Friedfields about the several other very high profile crypto fraudsters who have been straight up pardoned by Donald Trump? Yeah, you just like give too much money to Democrats or something. Yeah, I mean, I remember when like he was like in trouble, he immediately like was like, I should become a Republican now. Yeah, flip and like suck up to Trump.

Speaker 4:
[106:37] Yeah, he wrote his diary leak during the trial. And one of the things he wrote down a list because, you know, he is that guy who writes lists of everything. And it was basically like, what happens if I get caught? And one of the points he made, bullet points was, turn Republican, go on Tucker Carlson. He then went on Tucker Carlson from jail to like, so, you know, it gives me a little, people ask, are you sympathetic to him? And I'm like, I'm not really, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, that's pretty cold in calculating however you want to describe it.

Speaker 1:
[107:09] But like, okay, but in Trump now, like there's what the World Liberty Financial is a crypto exchange that's like controlled by his sons. There is the Trump meme coin that like he probably made like hundreds of millions of dollars off of, but it's estimated that the Trump family holdings has expanded by like five to seven billion dollars just since he was inaugurated and its holdings all in crypto.

Speaker 4:
[107:33] Yeah, it's crypto. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the amount of grift and graft is really incredible. And I think that's actually a really good illustration of the point that I was making earlier about the cost of private money. So if money is not issued from a government, then where does it come from? It comes from corporations or individuals. And that's very dangerous because the ability to manipulate is sort of off the charts, right, especially for the most powerful man in the world. And so, you know, the fact that he can just like issue these currencies, lines of code on a blockchain and, you know, a sheik in the UAE can invest $500 million in his stable, invest $500 billion in a stable coin and at the same time coincidentally got NVIDIA chips and also got a pardon for CZ, this convicted money launderer who has founded an exchange called Binance, which also helps Donald Trump set up his stable coin company. I mean, it is just like griffin after griffin.

Speaker 1:
[108:29] Whether it's the pardons or just like him being given directly cryptocurrency by like by these exchanges, like hundreds of millions of dollars worth of it. I think it's amazing to me is like in the movie, you talk about the power of a story and how like people need to believe in a story to like have trust in something either for good or a crime or for corrupt reasons. With this, it's like there isn't even the barest pretense that this is anything other than just outright corruption. So like, yeah, have we as a society like. Evolved past the need to be told the story to be stolen from anymore.

Speaker 4:
[109:03] We just sort of accept.

Speaker 1:
[109:04] Yeah, we just kind of accept it.

Speaker 4:
[109:06] I mean, I do think that's the down one of the really darkest downsides of this whole thing, is that if he's actually effective and in turning us against each other so that we don't trust each other, which is already a tenuous thing. I mean, I think the Internet and social media and all that stuff is not always great for our ability to actually communicate in real life and to form actual communities, real communities as opposed to like the fake crypto communities. And that I think is one of the most dangerous things, right? It's like he's gonna, by being so flagrantly corrupt and awful and also cruel, he might make us all go, and like, what can I do? And maybe I shouldn't trust my fellow citizen, you know? Like, he's so narcissistic and arrogant, and he only cares about himself to such a degree that he just sort of makes everyone else, because he's been so successful at it, question like, is it me? Am I, like, am I naive to believe that we are better than this? Am I naive to think that we can do this together? Because I remember feeling that at certain points in my life. And maybe, but now you're going, maybe I, maybe it was all wrong, you know? Maybe it was all a lie. Anyway, I don't think that. I don't believe that all is lost. It is a bad time. There's a lot of bad stuff happening. But maybe the tides are turning back. I mean, you know, he's not that popular. He's now apparently the Antichrist, the Evangelicals, which is sort of an interesting.

Speaker 1:
[110:41] Well, to me as well. Well, I mean, what I mean is like, the sequel is here. Everyone is still lying to you about money. The fraud continues.

Speaker 4:
[110:52] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[110:52] And, you know, like, obviously, the OC is the television program that hangs over the proceedings of this movie. You got to get on that Southland, Jim Gordon, Gotham tip and just, you know, get on that real crime fighter shit for the next movie.

Speaker 4:
[111:05] I definitely do. I'm into it.

Speaker 1:
[111:08] We don't know myself. Just the last comment I want to make, I don't know about how the audience felt. But for me, like the biggest pop on this movie, like the biggest laugh for the movie was from this movie was the scene of you and Gerald Butler. Yeah. What's his secret? Like how did he make so how did he get so rich off crypto?

Speaker 4:
[111:27] Yeah. Yeah. He he's great. I owe Jerry a lot. So my wife's shooting that movie and it's London and he hears about what I'm doing. And I kind of like sheepishly like, yeah, he's like, I can't do his accent. He's like, you know, I hear what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Crypto is like, I made a lot of, I was like, oh really? He's like, I don't, I don't understand it. We, I was like, can I please get him to say this on camera? Like, will he like, please do me a solid? And so like for weeks, I sort of like, would just show up at the set to just like hang out. And then I finally worked out a way to like, yeah, he's agreed to do it verbally. Cause obviously we couldn't pay him. And I think that got him money. The 10 million dollar jerry can be over the dugout. And, and he's into it. And, and then, and so there's no script. And so we have like five minutes between setups and, and we are actually on the set. That isn't a fake set, that's a real set. And he's like, okay, what do I do? Like, what do we do? And I'm like, it's extras. You're Jerry Butler, I'm Ricky Gervais. And he's like, got it. And he crushed it. He crushed it. Like one take, right? Maybe two, like flipped angles once. The whole thing took five minutes. And I really want Jared Butler to be in a comedy now. Like I really, really, I want to do a buddy comedy with him actually. That's actually what I want to do.

Speaker 1:
[112:49] Den of Thieves 3?

Speaker 4:
[112:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[112:51] What's that? Den of Thieves 3. Are you a fan of the Den of Thieves? Den of Thieves is actually a good name for this movie.

Speaker 4:
[112:56] Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Also a great book. There's a great book called Den of Thieves.

Speaker 1:
[113:00] I think we are getting the hook here. My apologies. But can we have another round of applause for Ben McKenzie and his film, Everyone Is Lying to You for money.

Speaker 4:
[113:09] Thanks guys. Thank you so much for coming. Before you leave, my only ask is that if you like the movie, please tell someone about it. Word of Mouth is the only marketing we can afford, quite literally. Well, that and me like annoying you on Instagram. So apologies. There's going to be a lot more videos. But like, yeah, if you like it, tell someone. Obviously, you post on social. Sure. But like it really like so basically the way it works is for a truly indie movie like this, like it's about the first weekends per theater average. And if that's high enough, then other theaters look at it and book it. And so my goal is to beat the Melania per screen out. And guys, with your help, we can get there. All right. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 1:
[113:55] Thank you everybody.