Are we really at risk of entering a World War 3!? | Brandon Webb

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a real optimistic person. I remember in the depths of the Great Recession in 2008, 2009, I would go on CNBC, and I was just super optimistic.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And CNBC was almost disgusted with me that I was so optimistic. That's how optimistic I was, because everyone else was saying capitalism is dead.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And after 9-11 was really, you know, I lived about three blocks from the World Trade Center. I had breakfast at the World Trade Center that morning.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, it was very horrible for many, many people there, much more horrible than anything I experienced.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, out of that, even though it just seemed like the worst thing in the world, there were still reasons for hope.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, America had come together. And don't forget, we were in the middle of a bear market then. It was the dot-com bust.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And now there was this terrorism on U.S. soil. There were a lot of reasons to be depressed.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, the market itself didn't recover for another almost year and a half after 9-11.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I lost my home during this point because I didn't yet know anything about investing or trading and

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: just made a lot of bad decisions. But I still had hope that when the dust settled, things would get better.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was very excited about my own opportunities. And right now, we're in a situation where it's pretty scary

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: because I don't know what it is. Like, right now, we're in more wars than ever.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're all proxy wars. It's not like, oh, the U.S. declares war on so-and-so and so-and-so.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, as much as I hate the war against Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, the U.S. was fighting for something.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But right now, these are all proxy wars. So, you know, U.S. involvement in Ukraine and Israel versus Hamas and Hezbollah.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This is all about, you know, obviously Russia and China are fueling Iran,

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: who is providing support and weapons and money to Hamas and Hezbollah.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: For the past several decades, the U.S. and the rest of the world has been giving aid to Hamas and Hezbollah

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: instead of building a magnificent country like everybody had hoped they would do.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: They built weapons and tunnels and so on. And, you know, right now, this is the one-year anniversary of October 7th,

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: where Hamas brutally raped and killed many civilians, children, older people.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I once said this to somebody on my Facebook feed, a guy I know who has a Ph.D. and whatever,

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and real smart guy, and he was like, oh, you must be just reading fake news.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, no, they posted videos. Like, I actually saw the videos that they posted,

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and everybody acknowledged that they posted these. Hamas acknowledged that they posted these.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: They posted these on people's, the parents of the victims' Facebook pages.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it was really horrible. And yes, obviously nobody wants children dead.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a whole other topic.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I really want to talk about is, again, what causes these situations?

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We're entering into World War III. And I don't say this lightly.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think people say this lightly. Oh, we're in World War III, and then the dust clears,

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's suddenly there's no more news. But it's very odd what's happening.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: If you follow the news, Israel's not only fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza,

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: but also now there's obviously missiles back and forth from Iran to Israel. China and Russia are

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: funding Iran. The U.S. kind of lightened sanctions on Iran and released a whole bunch of money,

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: which Iran said they wouldn't use on weapons, and for some reason we believe them. And this is

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: those times when you start to say, regardless of your political affiliation, Republican or Democrat,

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: don't do bad things. Don't do things that are going to lead to a war.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, it's not just the U.S. that hates Iran. It's every other country in the Middle East,

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00]: with the exception of Qatar, hates Iran. And Qatar doesn't hate Iran because Qatar

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: depends on Iran for all the oil money. They ship out the oil the same way Iran does,

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and they're kind of beholden to Iran. But if you look at what's happening now,

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Israel's fighting the Houthis in Yemen also, which are another group of terrorists.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And the rest of the Middle East is helping Israel. So there's kind of new alliances happening. Like

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: when Iran sent a bunch of ballistic missiles to Israel, Jordan actually engaged with those missiles

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and stopped some of them from landing in Israel. And I'm hearing this from my own connections and

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: contacts throughout the Middle East, that the rest of the Middle East wants Israel to wipe out,

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: not wipe out the people, but wipe out the terrorists who are disrupting the oil supply in

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the Straits of Hamos. These terrorists, that's the Houthis, but the Hamas and Hezbollah,

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: there's a reason why no other country in the Middle East wants these terrorists inside.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not all about like, hey, we're all Muslims, so let's band together. No, Hamas and Hezbollah

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and the Houthis and other Iranian funded groups are terrorists. So when they go into other countries,

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: they cause problems and they try to take over those countries and they try to disrupt those

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: countries. The other countries don't want that. They want to move beyond the age of oil and create,

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, technologies and innovations the way Israel does, the way the US does.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: They want alliances with Israel. Don't forget the original reason why Iran wanted Hamas to do what

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: they did on last year on October 7th was because Israel was about to normalize relations with Saudi

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Arabia. That would totally be devastating to Iran. So they did what they're doing. Now, the only problem

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: with any kind of war or invasion of Iran is that 98% of Iran is secular. They hate their leadership and

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: they're pro-US and pro-Israel, by the way. And so it's a very interesting situation that's happening,

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: one that could either end very badly. You know, we need strong leadership. I am not saying that's Biden,

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying that's Trump, but you have to look at presidencies in the past where leadership

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: wasn't strong. And in a foreign policy sense, like for instance, I think Jimmy Carter is probably

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: one of the smartest and kindest people to have ever been president of the United States,

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: but he was a weak president from a foreign policy perspective, like Brezhnev and the Soviet Union

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: walked all over him. And then ultimately, Iran took hostages and just wouldn't release them. Guess what?

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: They released them on day one that Reagan became president. Does that make Reagan a great president? No,

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: but it makes him perhaps a strong president in the eyes of the world. Like right now,

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: the presidency is in flux. We know that the reason Biden stepped down from the Democratic nomination,

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: not everybody, but a lot of people thought he was like sharp and still had his wits about him,

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: but apparently he didn't. This is not me saying this is not opinion. All the Democrats said this

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and they appointed a new nominee. And so we know then, and his own party, his own administration

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: admits this is that he is not a strong president. And right now that leaves the world exposed a little

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: bit because the U S is the police of the world. Now, what happens also is you see all these protests

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: at these colleges and all these woke protests, you know, and I'm saying woke disdainfully actually,

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: because we know it's a fringe, just like we don't like the fringe, right. Okay. You all seen the

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: threads on Twitter from, from these fringes, whether it's right or left, they're horrible. As I get older,

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I find I want the status quo plus improvement. And what I mean by improvement is technological

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: innovations improvement. The stuff you've heard on this podcast about AI melded with healthcare,

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_00]: melded with genomics, melded with, you know, better and better robotics and technology and so on.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to change the world, not 10 years from now, but literally tomorrow, it's going to change

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: the world. And if we're bogged out in wars though, wars do not help the economy. Let me just break that

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: myth right here. Wars are horrible for the economy. The reason why world war two was good for the

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: economy is we had been in a depression for 10 years from 1929 to 1939. The U S was in the great

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: depression. Almost anything that hired people would have gotten us out of the depression at that

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: point. This is the longest downturn in U S history. And it didn't have to be that long, but we can go

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: policy by policy to see which ones were good, which ones were bad. But Vietnam is a great example where

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: the Vietnam war actually hurt the U S economy. The U S got into so much debt that we didn't have enough

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: money to pay for the war. And so Richard Nixon took an unprecedented action. You know, previously

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: before 1971, the U S dollar was backed by gold. You could turn in a dollar and potentially get a

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: dollar's worth of gold for it. The dollar was an IOU. In fact, the invention of paper money. It's

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: interesting. The invention of paper money was when people would take their gold to the goldsmith to

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: store it and in the village and the goldsmith would issue an IOU like IOU to James. Oh, he gave me $10

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00]: worth of gold. And then people would use those IOUs as paper money to buy things. And that evolved

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_00]: into the paper money that was backed by gold until 1971. We just didn't have enough gold and we needed

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_00]: more money to pay for the war. So Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard. Of course, every

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: country followed. And that's when the real money printing machine took place, which led to a decade

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: worth of horrible, horrible inflation. And so war is not good for the economy. There's a saying two

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00]: countries either trade bullets or dollars, and you much prefer them trading with each other and

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: trading dollars because that means the world economy, i.e. capitalism. But I don't even like

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: using the word capitalism. Most people don't realize this. The word capitalism is not a capitalist

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_00]: word. The word capitalism was written in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. And it basically means

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: people who accumulate capital essentially at the expense of others. What I think the kind of economy

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: that we actually live in is what I will call innovationism, an innovationist economy. We, the U.S.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and the rest of the world, does well when we invent things. And we don't do well when we don't invent

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: things. And when you're bogged down in war, the only things you invent are things that help in wars.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm hoping we don't get sucked into that. Whoever becomes president next has a real,

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: almost sacred responsibility to not get us bogged down in more wars. Now, I have seen firsthand

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: pretty recently how much money is made by middlemen, like ammunitions, ammo dealers, I forget what you

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00]: call them. But they make enormous amounts of money when there's a war. Oh, if you could be in the

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: middle when Ukraine or Russia or Iran or Israel is buying all these missiles, you're going to make a lot

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: money. And these people have a lot of influence in the U.S. This is not conspiracy theory. We all

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: know this to be true. Anyway, this is a long intro. I had a casual conversation with my friend,

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Brandon Webb. You might remember Brandon. He runs softrep.com and military content group. He's a

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_00]: former Navy SEAL. He happens to know a lot. He knows a lot of people in intelligence agencies all

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: over the world. He happens to know a lot about war. He's fought in wars. He has many people working for

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: him who report on the wars that are happening now. And so we just had a casual conversation.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, Jay was recording it. And Brandon makes up some interesting points about what's going

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_00]: on overseas. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on Twitter and I will find the right

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: resources to answer them. And also tomorrow, I am super excited about my guests that are coming on,

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova. Maria Konnikova, you might remember, she's been on this podcast many

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: times starting from scratch. She learned the rules of poker and quickly became so good that she became

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_00]: a professional poker player. She wrote a book about it called The Biggest Bluff. And Nate Silver,

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_00]: you might know, he is the expert in the United States on elections. We talk about elections and

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: poker and what it means to live a life of making rational decisions based on the probabilities.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's tomorrow. But today, right now, Brandon Webb, here we go. Here's our little podcast about

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: are we really at risk of entering a World War Three? You know, speaking of like all what's going

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: on around the world, what's your take or what's your company's take on are we in World War Three?

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wrote an article about it this week. Essentially, we're in World War Three. It's like,

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_02]: this is the way the new world war is fought. Like it's in the shadows. It's through proxies.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Where's your article? Is it on SoftRep?

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's on SoftRep. And then we wrote, I wrote another one yesterday because two of my sources

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: confirm that Russia is contemplating arming Iran with nuclear weapons just to make it a major player in

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: the region, which would totally change the game with Israel. I think it probably given the way Israel

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: is being run by Netanyahu probably puts them in like a first strike. Like they would probably,

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: if they confirm the intel, they're going to strike.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I kind of expect anyway, Israel should is going to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and just take

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: them out. But is that enough to stop them from, I mean, there's probably nuclear, I mean, I assume that,

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: why haven't they hit Iran's nuclear facilities before?

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think they're focused on, you know, mitigating this, like basically stomped out

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Hamas and Gaza. And now they shifted focus to Hezbollah and Lebanon. And what's fucked up is

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: they're using the U.S. They're using the U.S. and the fact that we don't really have anyone

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_02]: at the wheel of the ship, right? Like Biden's just kind of lame duck and he's checked out anyway.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of our sources, I haven't wrote this one up yet and I'm trying to piece it together a little

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: bit more, but I heard that Hezbollah wanted to negotiate a ceasefire and Israel used the American

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_02]: CIA asset, like a CIA guy to basically say, look, this is what it would look like. Like we're kind

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_02]: of like pitching this deal. So get together. And so all the Hezbollah leadership and the local handlers

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_02]: from Iran got together. And then that's when Israel just fucking, they just use that. They use

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: the Americans to basically pass this intel on to get Hezbollah to meet with all the, all the kind of like

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: senior regional leaders to meet in one place. And then they just bond the shit out of them

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01]: in Israel and just kind of played. So, so, so they said, yeah, we'll do a deal. Why don't you guys,

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: here's the terms you guys figure it out. So that got everybody, the CIA asset then said,

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_01]: let's all get together and figure this out. And then, yeah, man, that genius.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I know. Well, this was like right after they did the pager and the walkie talkie explosive,

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, and that was all. And they've got to be scared of Israel. Oh yeah. And that's why

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Iran should be scared. But again, it's just like, the problem is it's not Iran by itself,

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: right? It's Iran backed by China and Russia. And that's a problem. But now like with Israel taking

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: out the hoodies also, which is even further than Iran, uh, they bombed a Russian base in Syria.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: That was, was a weapon storage for, for Hezbollah. So they're just, they're not messing around now.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Netanyahu is, is like kind of unchained in America. No one's doing anything. And to be honest,

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I met with my, I had a lunch with my Lebanese friend yesterday who was like work with the UN and

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_02]: like high level contacts and another, another Iranian guy there at the table. And basically

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_02]: he said that Trump is much better for this global conflict that's happening than Kamala.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I don't, I can't stand Trump. He's like the rhetoric and this, but he's like,

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I would take all that in spite, in spite, because I know that he's better for global stability

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_02]: because Kamala is just like business as usual. Right. And that really hasn't worked out very

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: well for America the last, the last 50 years. And Trump is not beholden to any party. He's not

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_02]: beholden to the super hardcore conservative Christian groups. He's not old into the hardcore

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Israel lobby groups. He's kind of a, that's why they fucking hate him. And they, he freaks people

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_02]: out because he's not even, you know, he's totally reshaped the whole Republican party. So,

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: but I do think he's a tougher negotiator and he, people don't, they know he's not bluffing,

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: right? He assassinated that Iranian Suleimani. Yeah. And so from what I hear too,

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: the Arab countries are all supporting Israel, like, because they don't, they all hate Iran,

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_01]: except for Qatar, the whole GCC hates Iran and Qatar, their wealth depends on Iran. So they can't

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: hate Iran, but they are rooting for Israel to just destroy Iran's leadership and take out the

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: hoodies and do everything they're doing. Yeah, I know. And that's, that's, and, but again,

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_02]: back to the problem, it's not Iran by itself. It's backed by Russia and China and Putin's loving

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: this. Cause it just takes all the visibility away from Ukraine, right? It's like great for him.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And that's a whole nother like human catastrophe, right? America lost, I think 56,000

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: lives in Vietnam and Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other little conflicts in the last 20 years,

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: we lost maybe, I think less than 30,000 lives. You're talking almost a million lives, each side,

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Russia and Ukraine, just in this conflict. Like it is a massive body count, man. That will

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_02]: completely reshape the demographic. Yeah. They already had a pretty good male to female ratio,

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_02]: or, you know, it was like definitely like two more women than to every man. And then Russia,

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and that's because he was more, I'm going to move to Moscow and get a wife.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I know. Your next stop is Kiev. Why would Putin risk arming Iran? Like he knows that's going to

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: start World War III. Well, I don't know. I mean, why did he invade Ukraine? Cause I,

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did they invade Israel actually knowing that Israel would retaliate? Maybe they thought public

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: opinion would be such that Israel wouldn't be able to retaliate.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think, I mean, I watched a lot of interviews. Like I think Hamas didn't expect that

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the fighters would go totally unchained and rape women and like kill civilians. I think they thought

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: they were just going to like attack military targets and the sheer extent of like, cause I also

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: thought it was a huge mistake for Israel not to release that footage. Like if they had really shown

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_02]: the brutality of like raping, killing pregnant women, raping a ton of women at that festival.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was like all the brutality was just not exposed cause it was so visceral. But I think,

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and that's something on the flip side and Hamas does a very good job of exploiting any civilian

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: casualties, but Israel should have released everything and said, look, this is like a massive atrocity.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why the reaction was so brutal. They're just like, this was an

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would say I'm guessing, but 90% of the Calvities were civilian, not military. They're

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_02]: killing innocent civilians. And then you add to the dynamic that Netanyahu is kind of being pushed

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: out. And now he's like got a way to stay in power. It's like the old Roman emperor playbook. You want to

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_02]: be in power, go win a war. So I don't know. And so Israel, I don't think Hamas,

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I think they bit off more than they could choose what I'm trying to say. That's the short version.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they're like, oh shit. You know, you end up with this situation where it's just like a perfect

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: storm, right? It's like perfect geopolitical storm with where you have like a weak sitting president

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_02]: while Biden and his prime, you have this perfect political storm where a sitting U.S. president who's

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: now a lady duck, but also like not, not all there with his mental faculty.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is another reason why it emboldened Prudence to invade Ukraine in the first place.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And then it's so funny by the way on that, I just want to say, I have friends who are

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: liberal Democrats who insist that having a weak Biden is not why Russia invaded Ukraine.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Ukraine. Like they just insist. And I'm like, you know, yes, they wanted to invade Ukraine,

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: but do you really think if Trump was there, they would have invaded Ukraine? They wouldn't have.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no way.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no way.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the situation and everyone's kind of now taking advantage, right? Netanyahu's doing

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_02]: whatever he wants. And that you are to, I mean, you can read between the lines in the New York

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Times, like he's frustrating the U.S. Secretary of Defense and everybody because he's just like

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02]: kind of double talk and then he just goes and bombs whoever he wants. So, but I think obviously

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Iran is, has always been a major regional like proxy supporter of has been him up and even back to

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_02]: funding Osama bin Laden. And so it's now it's just like this perfect storm that you have all the

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_02]: components for potentially a, what I would say we're already in the world war three. I write that in

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: article. We just don't, it's just like, this is the way the war is fought today when you have a

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: global supply chain and all these, you know, interests because China is like very good at

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: just kind of being playing the game of go, right? It's just like quiet sitting down and they

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: write like bombs. But I mean, you think China will invade Taiwan before Biden gives up?

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I, my personal theory is they've already, they've kind of already have control of Taiwan from probably

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: like a, a covert intelligence perspective. They already kind of like have their claws in Taiwan.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So they really don't need to take it over, but they could and the U.S. would do nothing right now.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's the reality. They could do it tomorrow. What does the U.S. do? Nothing.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_02]: They just, it would be a talking point in the election is all it would be. And they have probably

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: even helped Trump more if, if they did that, because I generally, it's back to my conversation

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: yesterday with my friends from Lebanon. He's like, I don't like Trump. He's like, I think he's an asshole,

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: but for like global security, I think he's better. Like, cause he's the one thing that Trump

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: is that I like about him is that he's recognized that we've made kind of a mess the last 20 years

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: with these wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, overthrowing Gaddafi and Libya, just like messing around

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and causing problems in the world. He's like enough, there's enough. And he's not in the pocket of any

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: lobby group. Like the most politicians, right? They owe favors. That's just the way it works. Even when

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: my first startup was getting a racetrack approved in California, we had to show up and donate to the

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: board of supervisors campaign fund and get through a party and make people donate less than $200 in a

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_02]: little envelope because they don't have to disclose the donation if it's under a certain amount. And

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: you have this political favor to leverage to play. And we played it. I played that game at a very

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: local level, but that's how it works. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I really, he's better for,

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: global security. That's, I mean, and you look like Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard,

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Jr. Like this is like the legion of superheroes or something. Like why do people think Kamala

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: who's really just seems so fake, but people tell me, Oh, Trump's going to dismantle democracy.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, well, why hasn't he already done it? He was president for four years. He could have

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_02]: easily done it. They love that's the talking point that, and look, he, you know, there's

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: plenty, I mean, he just talks and says whatever the hell he wants. And, and if, if someone followed

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_02]: you and I around with a tape recorder, we'd, we'd be in trouble, you know?

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely. Definitely. I would be.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Same with me. And he just doesn't care. He doesn't have carefully crafted talking points.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: He says whatever the hell comes out of his mouth and they take it as like, well, they take

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: it literally. And it, he doesn't mean it literally. Like if you just look at the facts, he doesn't

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: mean it literally. And guess what? Elon exposed a ton of, a ton of media bias on X. Like he

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_02]: was, the Democrats were pulling the strings, like, Hey, pull this down, pull the Hunter laptop,

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_02]: suppress this. Even the New York times suppressed that Biden laptop story. So, you know, it's

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: just an interesting interview I watched was the Pavel Durow, the telegram founder. Yeah.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Tucker Carlson interviewed him. It was a good interview. Tucker Carlson gets some good interviews,

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_02]: especially the blue, the proven one was super revealing, but yeah.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Pavel was like, I thought I would come to America and be free. And actually the NSA and FBI were

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: trying to get a back door on the telegram that then when I wouldn't give him one and we

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_02]: had to move to Dubai, the NSA went after his, one of his senior engineers to try and bribe

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_02]: him with cash to give him a back door. And it's so crazy. Like, and is he, is he going to get

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: out of jail? I think so. I think there's some weird dynamic where they're using him to kind

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_02]: of like talk to Putin, I think in power. And I have a talk about my crazy expat friends. I

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_02]: have a Russian friend here and he was saying this at a poker game we were playing. He's

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: like, I think that Pavel generally wants to get back in the good graces because he just

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: wants to be all the travel to see his family and friends in Russia. And he really can't now.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, if he does is, he's like this middleman negotiator and put back in Russia's

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_02]: good graces, Putin's good graces. He can go back home. You know, he can not have to like

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: hide out in the United Arab Emirates. So yeah, but it's crazy, man.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope Israel just takes out Iran and if Iran falls, I think we're in a new, like how we were

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_01]: in the 90s post-Cold War. Like it was just this great time. And yeah, for the Middle East,

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: it would just blow open. Right. But if Israel could take out Khomeini, I think, I mean, the

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Iranian people would love that. Yeah. Nobody else in the Middle East supports Iran.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. You saw the, they almost, the civilian population almost did it. They almost did

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_01]: but they just cracked down hard. Yeah. They're just not strong enough for civilians. Like Iran's

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: got too much experience, you know, squashing them. Yeah, exactly. But it's interesting times.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think Trump's going to win, but just barely. And then I think there's going to be chaos. I think

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the Democrats are going to dismantle democracy and try to prevent him from taking office.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. I mean, they've already kind of done that in a sense with the legal system, right? Like they've

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: weaponized the legal system for politically. Yeah. Like now that cat's out of the bag.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And they want to get rid of the Supreme Court. Like it's crazy how fascist the Democratic Party

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: is here and they don't realize it and they accuse trouble being fascist. No, it's in our, I think

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_02]: that what people need to realize is like our, our political system is broken and that we need to fix that.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And historically, the only way that gets fixed because the people in power have no incentive to fix it.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's some type of revolution, violent or nonviolent. You saw it with the, the transition of like

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: the monarch, monarchies and Europe and Eastern Europe, they either made a deal with the people

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_02]: that rose up or they got their heads cut off. Yeah. And that in our country is really not, we are not

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: as free as other places in the world. Like, it's just like I, when I published the Benghazi

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_02]: book on software, we had like full insider sourcing. And I remember getting, I was in San Francisco

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: picking up my airplane and I got a call at around 11 PM from a friend that used to work in the CIA.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was warning me, don't publish this. Like you're going to be in trouble. Don't publish,

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: putting pressure on me not to, and that just made me want to do it more because it exposed this whole,

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_02]: it really wasn't even like a Hillary Clinton thing. It was more of this Patrick Kennedy at the State

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Department. He's this career bureaucrat that, that hid the, hid evidence, hid this laptop

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: of Ambassador Stevens for a month before turning it over to the FBI. Just manipulated all this,

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_02]: this process for his own self-interest and as well as Hillary Clinton's in the midst of the second

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Obama, second term Obama election. And I was just like, I was just like, you're threatening me?

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Like with just publishing a book? Like I was blown away. But once you really like look at

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: America and it's, that's one of the reasons I, I liked that Pavel interview that he did on Tucker

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Carlson, cause he talks about this. He's like, I thought me and my brother would come to America

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and come to San Francisco and we're going to be free and do whatever we want. And in reality,

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: he's like, it was very similar to Russia. All the government agencies coming to make,

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_02]: making demands, telling us to like do this and do that, or we're going to be in trouble.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So he just left. He went to UAE.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't imagine. I mean, it used to be that there would never be any consequences for starting a

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: company. Now you could like go to jail for life. Yeah. Like it's crazy.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Right? Yeah, it really is.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is fascism. Like when the government doesn't own the businesses, but controls the

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_01]: businesses, that's the definition of fascism. So, and that's what, and the Republicans don't do

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_01]: that. Like, I don't think they've ever done that. Like with the Democrats are like doing that all over

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the place. Yeah. It's crazy. And then once you kind of like point the ship in that direction,

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_02]: it's hard to, hard to change course. And yeah. And again, it's like our, everyone complains,

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_02]: like why, how is Biden, Trump biting or Trump comma the best American has to offer? It's just like,

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02]: that's, that's what our broken system produces, like bad choices.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait till Vivek Ramoswamy runs for president again. Like he's, he's made the public,

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the public knows who he is now. He's like a really smart guy. I think he would be good.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I like Tulsi Gabbard too.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. I thought Trump should have picked, um,

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley. Yeah. I think she's smart. I don't agree with everything she says.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But it would have been a unified ticket though, then like they probably would have dominated.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_02]: She was supposed to interview, give us an exclusive for software. But I wrote an article about

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Netanyahu using a, like taking a play out of Hitler's playbook. And she was like, refused.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_02]: She refused to go. They had to grieve and everything. Cause I wrote this article. She's

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_02]: like, no, you're like, not like just blindly supporting Israel. And I'm, I'm not coming on

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_02]: your show.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God. That's too bad. That would have been a good interview.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. But all right, sir. Well, look, let's, let's keep in touch. I'll play chess anytime you want.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, buddy.