transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on The DSR Network. And there's no better way to enjoy The DSR Network than by becoming a member. Members enjoy an ad-free listening experience, access to our Discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code DSR26 for a 25% off discount on sign up at thedsrnetwork.com. That's code DSR26 at thedsrnetwork.com/buy. Thank you and enjoy the show.

Speaker 2:
[00:54] Hello, and welcome to The DSR Daily, your favorite daily news wrap-up with added insights from us, your friends, David Rothkopf, Riley Fessler, Minnestein. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 1:
[01:07] Pretty good.

Speaker 2:
[01:09] You guys are young, so you're probably like super excited by the fact that the Trump administration has changed the classification for marijuana, and now it'll be easier to get. Of course, it's easy to get everywhere. I don't know what the impact of this is, but I know that the youngs are really into marijuana and drugs. Are you guys? Really?

Speaker 1:
[01:32] I'm not. I think it's a good change, but I personally will not be taking advantage of it.

Speaker 2:
[01:39] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[01:40] If it helps people, I'm for it.

Speaker 2:
[01:42] That's beautiful. How come you have a big bowl of gummies next to you on your desk though? That's the question.

Speaker 3:
[01:48] Which is helping me.

Speaker 2:
[01:50] It is. It's pain. Pain maintenance. This is not pain-free. Want to know how I know that? Because I've seen most of stories. Okay, start off.

Speaker 3:
[02:01] At least four people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah launched a drone attack, straining a fragile ceasefire with Israel. Lebanon is seeking to extend the US mediated truce ahead of talks in Washington as violence and mutual accusations of ceasefire violations continue.

Speaker 2:
[02:22] Yeah, I mean, this situation in Lebanon doesn't get as much press as it should here. The Israelis are going in, the people on the far Israeli right are like, we should annex these parts of Lebanon. The people of Lebanon are deeply frustrated. The talks that are going on between the Israelis and the Lebanese government do not include Hezbollah, which is obviously an important player in this. And so it's not clear how effective they will be. And it's unclear how committed the Israelis really are to any kind of peace. Of course, they've been going into Lebanon for a long, long time. And we discussed this yesterday on the DSR weekly show, Deep State Radio, the show that we've been doing since 2017, but actually existed before that on another name for a couple of years. So we've been, the group of us that have been doing it, have been doing it for 11 or 12 years. And we had a great conversation about the war in Iran, but also about Israel, about changing US attitudes towards Israel, about how US relations with Israel will never be the same, and how that's probably a good thing. So I really are, you know, I just, you know, obviously all the time, I'm sitting here on a promote and podcast. Go listen to yesterday's Deep State Radio. It is A plus, the best you're gonna hear on this, the main story of the week.

Speaker 1:
[04:03] Oh, to keep going with Iran, US military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker the second time this week, the Majestic X, which is a pretty cool name for a tanker, I have to say.

Speaker 2:
[04:15] That was my name in high school, actually.

Speaker 1:
[04:16] Majestic X, that's pretty cool. You must have been cooler then.

Speaker 2:
[04:20] It was my rap name.

Speaker 1:
[04:22] It's the second seizure this week.

Speaker 2:
[04:24] When I was in high school, there was no rap, but go on.

Speaker 1:
[04:28] It's the second seizure of the week, and the operation is part of their broader naval blockade. But, of course, this comes as a ceasefire is supposedly being negotiated for, despite both sides continuing to do this. So we'll see if that actually...

Speaker 2:
[04:44] Yeah, I mean, who knows? Do we even need a ceasefire? Trump doesn't want to fight anymore. He's perfectly happy to leave the troops in the area and to spend billions. I mean, they've got a budget proposal right now for $1.5 trillion in defense spending. And that doesn't include the couple of hundred billion dollars supplemental they want for this war. So if we decide that we're going to fund the US military to this effect, we could just go on forever. Of course, you won't be getting any health care. You won't be getting any federal education support. You won't be getting any research into drugs or other things that are helpful. You won't be getting any federal services of any sort. You'll probably die poor and in despair, but we'll have a big military, nice and big one, bigger than all the other ones added up. It's crazy. It's lunacy. You know, we talk about the war, but the fact that in the past 25 years, the United States has spent almost $10 trillion more on defense than China has. It's where China has been directing its resources into research, development, infrastructure, building the country, building the sources of its strength. Make no mistake, when you invest in the country, you invest in strength. When you spend money on defense, it's not necessarily an investment, especially if the systems you're buying are only for a certain kind of war that you will never probably fight, big world war, global thermonuclear war, et cetera. There's a lot of systems that we're spending money on that either we won't use, are not terribly effective, or are actually obsolete. And so caught up in all of this, we ought to think about that because it's right in front of the Congress right now. And it would be a ghastly mistake for a United States desperately in need of investment in the sources of our strength, rather than manifestations of our military strength to do what the Trump administration is recommending. Sorry, that was my sermon today on defense spending.

Speaker 3:
[07:15] Well, it's funny you should mention investments in strength, which spoiler alert, this next story is still about military.

Speaker 2:
[07:22] Why, because you like had a big protein shake this morning before you had to the gym.

Speaker 3:
[07:26] I'm investing in my own strength and I thought it was funny you mentioned that. Yeah, right. Of all the work I'm doing.

Speaker 2:
[07:32] Cause I have, those of you who are just listening to this, can't see it, but Mena is pumped.

Speaker 3:
[07:37] I've really been working on my strength, so.

Speaker 2:
[07:40] She's ripped.

Speaker 3:
[07:41] Thanks for noticing.

Speaker 2:
[07:42] That while I just, you know, I want to be supportive.

Speaker 3:
[07:45] John Fellen was forced to step down abruptly after clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon leaders over management issues, including shipbuilding. Navy Undersecretary Hung Kao will serve as Acting Secretary as the administration continues reshaping military leadership, which seems like maybe the last thing that we need right now.

Speaker 2:
[08:06] Well, I mean, we don't have military leadership on the civilian side. There are good military leaders in the military. And they have provided some pushback on the president on some of his plans. But whenever they do provide pushback, somebody gets fired. Because loyalty is valued more than good advice here. We've seen that. And in the course of the wars that the president has been fighting, the war in the Caribbean off of Venezuela, this war, we have seen the chief of staff of the Army go. We've seen the secretary of the Navy just go yesterday. We have seen the commander of Southcom, the combatant command that handles vessels in the Caribbean go, because he didn't want to go along with this stuff. We've seen a bunch of generals and admirals fired. We've also seen the attorney general of the United States, who controls the FBI, or at least allegedly controls the FBI. Of course, we have the cash problem, but the attorney general go, and they handle counterterrorism, counterintelligence stuff, and they have gotten rid of their capabilities to track Iranian terror, even though Iran, the country we're now at war with, is the world's leading state sponsor of terror. And on top of all of that, we lost the secretary of Homeland Security, which obviously has a responsibility for protecting us, which you would think was more important in times of war. There is also a very strong rumor circulating in Washington DC that Tulsi Gabbard has been told she's just got months, that she must resign between now and the election. Do I know whether this is true or not? No. Does it sound plausible given everything else and the relationship we know that Trump does not have with Tulsi? Yes. And in fact, she has not been in a bunch of the key meetings. So here we are in the middle of fighting wars, getting rid of the people who are actually supposed to be providing advice and helping us to fight them. It is a, you know, there is a technical term for this in the military, which is clusterfuck. This is a clusterfuck. The worst managed military interventions we have ever seen in American history and with the possible exception of the Bay of Pigs, you know, I mean, it's, which was an intelligence operation as opposed to military operation. But having said all of that, could get worse because the president has fired loads of people, except the one who is most responsible for these problems in the military, which is Secretary Beer Goggles, Pete Hexen, who really ought to go. And frankly, I don't think he's going to be around much longer. I think, you know, at some point in the next year, next, you know, after the election, Trump will get rid of him too because he is just a lightning rod for controversy. And he has been a management disaster since he arrived. Remember last year, you know, he released secret information via a signal chat. He also had his staff lead. I mean, the people he picked to be his, like, you know, special assistants and so on, they left. They didn't want to work with him. The military doesn't want to work with him. I talk to people in the military all the time. There has never been the level of contempt and disrespect for a secretary of state, a secretary of defense in the United States that there is for Pete Hexen. So this is a mess and appears to just get messier and messier every single day.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 1:
[12:38] Well, sticking with the theme of total dysfunction from our government, Senate Republicans have advanced a budget resolution to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the reconciliation process, which they hope will end a partial DHS shutdown that began in mid-February. The measure is now moving to the House, where Mike Johnson has the unenviable task of trying to balance his coalition and get them to actually pass this through, while they're trying to shoehorn in random other bills, including Save America Act and attach those to this, which has been a fruitless effort so far.

Speaker 2:
[13:18] Yeah, and Save America died in the Senate. It's not going anywhere. That whole thing is off the table, but the margin in the House is so small right now, and the Democrats lost another member who died yesterday, a Georgia representative, and so nonetheless, Mike Johnson does not automatically get a majority on this thing. Of course, are we overspending on DHS? Oh, yes, because the big, beautiful bill gave DHS a budget that's larger than the budget of most militaries in the world. So we've got this domestic military that is under the control of the president and a bunch of rogue operators, and expect to see them again around the World Cup, expect to see them again around election time. We have not seen the end of overage and abuses by the folks at ICE or the folks at DHS. And by the way, just as an aside, within ICE, within the detention facilities they've got, people are still dying, people are suffering. These places are mismanaged. It's a scandal. That will surely be investigated by the Democrats retake the house in just a matter of months. I mean, today is April 23rd, which means in a week, it's May. So we have May, June, July, but notice I have to do this on my fingers, May, June, July, August, September, October, November. So we're about half a year away from big election. Hope you folks are donating, working, volunteering, getting out there, working if you're in a primary season in your state, on getting the best possible candidates on the ballot, candidates that will produce change, accountability, who will stand up and fight when they need to fight, and then focus on the future, which is what we really need to do. I was quite interested yesterday. I mentioned this on the pod yesterday, but I saw the story in the FT, which said that a big Chinese battery company had introduced a battery with a long range and six minute, it was 1500 kilometer range and six minute charging. And it also pointed out that Chinese battery companies, this company plus BYD, control the majority now of the global battery market. And I thought, geez, you know, China's living in a different world. We're having a discussion about Trump and dysfunction and corruption and wars and all this other stuff, and they're investing in their future. And I just threw it out there because it just triggered me. Well, it became, the post on Blue Sky kind of went viral. I mean, you know, to the extent my posts go viral. But I don't know what it is now, eight, nine, 10,000 people have shared it, because it triggers something in everybody. You know, we've lost the plot as a country. We are focused on the wrong things, spending money on the wrong things, not investing in our country, not investing in our people, not investing in our future. And it shows up in every poll that there is out there. American people are deeply frustrated. So, what are we going to do today with this? Like Riley, what are you going to do to make the world a better place today?

Speaker 1:
[17:02] I don't know. Probably just sleep some more. It'll make my world a better place.

Speaker 2:
[17:06] That's great. That's really great. Adaptive behavior. Menna, are you going to like go out, do something?

Speaker 3:
[17:14] I'm going to eat this entire bowl of weed gummies and hope that it makes me see a better future.

Speaker 2:
[17:22] Yeah, see something. See something. Well, look, please, these are good people, but don't use them as your examples. Do more than Menna and Riley are doing today. Get out there, make a difference. We will do the same. We've got not one but two podcasts being recorded today in addition to the podcast we do with the New Republic, but we've got your fan favorite, Words Matter with Norm Ornstein, who always provides new and special insights into what's going on here in Washington. And we've got a new Siliconsciousness coming up, talking about a topic that I think is a very, very odd, very underestimated topic, which is the politics of AI. And I have to say, if you haven't listened to Siliconsciousness, you really should or you haven't watched it. So give that a listen today too, because it is gonna be a subject that everybody's talking about. Anyway, thank you, Raleigh. Thank you, Minna. Thanks, everybody. Bye bye.