Episode #199: Making Sense Of Current Events W/David Pyne

0:26 The you're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. David pine #3 man at at #3 you know, I'd like to get a studio and then like, if you've been on three times, we'll just give you your own chair and we we can go that way. So it's been it's been a hot minute since we talked. The last time we talked, it was right before the election and we have now moved, moved well past out. We're six months in now, almost six months to the day of, of Trump taking office and nothing slowed down. We, we are, we are busier now than we were before.

1:11 I, I want to start with Iran and Israel because I feel like that this is the one that that quite frankly could mushroom out the most. And you can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but why did Israel strike Iran? Well, first of all, let me thank you for having me on your show again. It's a it's a pleasure, Israel. First of all, Netanyahu is, you know, he's a bit of a hot head. Obviously, he's invaded and bombed multiple countries in his latest tenure as Prime Minister, unnecessarily for the most part. Obviously, he had to respond literally to Moss. But with regards to decision to bomb Iran, you know, Israeli leaders from Bush onward, Bush to Biden, now to Trump, of course, have been pushing US presidents to give them authorization and support to, to bomb Iran, not just to hit their nuclear sites, but to try to affect some kind of regime change, to degrade them militarily in a very serious, serious way. And Trump is the 1st president who authorized it. You know, George W Bush, he would not give his Israel the friend or foe code, codes they needed to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.

2:31 Obvious. And obviously Obama or Biden would not either. And Trump didn't during his first term. But you know, his his first term was marked by, you know, America first statements and neo con foreign policies for the most part, with the exception of the withdrawal of from Afghanistan. And now, you know, this time around, he had a very promising start, amazing policies and and measures, you know, especially with cutting off aid to Ukraine for just one week, unfortunately, But that was a really bold measure. And now he he's given in to to his the the bad advice of his deep state neo con war monitoring advisors and green lighted the Israeli bombing of Iran. I think that, you know, President Trump's decision to strike Iran was, you know, was based on false pretenses. You know, he had been sold a bill of goods at the by the Israelis and their agents within the US government, within the Trump cabinet that, you know, Iran was two weeks away from developing their first atomic weapons or nuclear weapons and we needed to act.

3:43 I mean this we've heard the same story. I, I'm old enough to remember, you know, the last 20 years we've heard, we've heard that Iran is months or weeks or even days away from getting a nuke. And I. Remember right after 911, George Bush came out and said they are part of the axis of evil. And back then they were five years away from developing a, a, a nuclear weapon. And then I guess it's maintained it five years for 20 plus years until just a few weeks ago. Yeah, and that's and that really destroys their entire argument because if they were true, if if that were true, that if they were that close, you know, 20 plus years ago, they would they would already have a nuke, you know, So there there's just I mean, the chances of them being that close to a nuke, being such an evil government anti Israel terrorist and not developing it or just are really near 0.

4:37 And to any any pretty, you know, rational analyst to believe otherwise. I mean, come on, you know, U.S. intelligence has been wrong about everything since Pearl Harbor, you know, with the exception of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So why should we trust them on this either? It's a, it's just a, it's just hard to imagine the cockpit of dissidents that goes into this, this whole mindset, you know, and, you know, if we didn't do it for, for that, what was the purpose? We know that Israel, you know, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to go for regime change in Iran. And, and I think, I suspect that's probably the real reason for him being able to to get Trump to attack Iran.

5:20 So what do you think lies lies ahead of us now? Do you? Do you foresee more strikes? Do you see boots on the ground? What do you think? Where? Where do we go from here? Well, you know, the hard the hard thing about being a national security strategist is when you have a leaders that don't have a national security strategy. You know, Trump has he actually does have a really good national security strategy with regards to Russia, for example. And that's really his overriding national security strategy was at least we were told is that he wanted to break up the side of Russian alliance and establish A geostrategic partnership with Russia that would be based more, it would be more of an economic partnership, but also to some degree a security partnership. And and that was that's something that he gave up.

6:02 Essentially, he gave that up in late April or early May and decided to pursue Biden's war. And then with regards to the Middle East, you know, he had promised peace there as well. And, and he had this amazing ceasefire agreement, which, you know, was negotiated by the Biden agreement, but it never would have been accepted by the Israelis without President Trump. He was, he was the reason we got to peace in in Gaza for two months and he decided to jettison it. You know, So I guess what I'm saying is, you know, President Trump has a national security strategy. It's a, it's supposed supposedly a strategy of defense prioritization where we prioritize US homeland, a national, you know, Homeland Security as well as the Western Pacific facing China to try to deter their aggression in Taiwan.

6:49 However, he hasn't followed it. He's done almost nothing to follow that this bold, noble national security strategy. Instead, he's getting diverted by pursuing Biden's war, arming the Ukrainians with more and more missiles, you know, a billions more in weapons that he said he wouldn't provide. And then with the Israelis, you know, the same thing, wasting all of these air defense missiles, interceptors and and other weapons that we need to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan by defending Israel or encouraging them to attack Iran. So it makes it very difficult for for me to predict President Trump's next move, especially when he's, you know, he he came out and said, hey, I got this ceasefire, you know, two days after he attacked them. And this is my, he said, this is my legacy. This is what I want to be my presidential legacy. And within days, he's he's like, you know, Israel says, yeah, we'll break it.

7:45 We'll break that ceasefire, you know, at our our whim if we think that Iran is reconstituting those nuclear sites. And Trump? Trump said. Yeah, I might attack them as well. That's a that's a spooky scenario. Let me ask you this question. What do you make of Trump taking Israel to the woodshed? When Israel broke that broke that ceasefire. That is the first time in my and and that I can remember where an American president came that hard against Israel. Well, you know, it's, it was a great day.

8:26 It was a great day for America first. You know, when he did that, it was a great day for America first when he cut off the aid to Ukraine for one week. The problem is he, he's not consistent. He, he has these these episodes of, of the the noble America first greatest president. We all voted for that that is willing to to go up against the deep state and, and, you know, push him down and, and, you know, put us first. But then, you know, I think it was the next day or the day after he he was basically trying to sanction Israeli courts or something like that and trying to force them to stop prosecuting Benjamin Netanyahu for severe corruption charges, you know, as the most corrupt Prime Minister in Israeli history. So, you know, I mean, that's that's as pro Israel as you get. And and I still, I still call myself pro Israel. I I'm a, you know, I've always been a supporter of the state of Israel.

9:20 I am a very strong opponent of Benjamin Netanyahu because I think he's a lunatic. You know, he's attacking A bombing every country insight with no restraint whatsoever. You know, he's he's made Israel a rogue state. You know, Israel wants to was once a, you know, bastion of stability in the Middle East, and now it's it's just creating wars left and right, and it's absolutely against US National Security interests. What changed for Israel to make him go that direction, right? That's look, and and again, I'm like you, I have been traditionally when it came to Israel, right or die, right. I mean, it was, it was that tight. But I'm seeing some things that they haven't done historically, which does make me raise an eyebrow. What do you have any sense of what Israel's long game is here? Well.

10:13 Absolutely. Benjamin Netanyahu has made very clear his his he has a couple, you know, two or three main objectives. The first of which is his Greater Israel project, which he expressed to the president of Egypt, I think it was back in 2009, which he he basically came out and said we, you know, we want to annex Gaza. We want to deport all the Palestinians to Sinai, Sinai Peninsula. And he was offering them various incentives. I think that might have included financial incentives to persuade the Egyptian President. I think it was sushi that to do it at the time and they didn't, you know, they didn't agree to it.

10:55 And that's essentially what he's trying to do now. And President Trump is, is served as an enabler for that objective. It's in articulating his own Gaza plan, which initially was a Gaza was a Palestinian free Gaza, you know, which was that's been Netanyahu's goal all alone. And then the most recent one I've heard is that he would only deport about 45% of the Palestinians. He would deport maybe 1,000,000 leaving maybe up to 1.3 million left, assuming that Israel doesn't kill the kill the rest. So, you know, neither one of those are American at all. I mean, you know, the idea of forcibly deporting native populations who have lived there for centuries is something we haven't seen since really since World War 2, which is something that the Soviets did and something that we that we signed off on as part of the Alta agreement.

11:46 So, you know, putting America first is not about, you know, it's not about getting involved in other countries civil wars we're fighting as Israel's wars or fighting Biden's war in Ukraine. It's about, you know, doing exactly what president, what Pete has stated as Secretary of Defense, which is to prioritize US Homeland Security, strategic defenses, President Trump's golden Dome, and while also trying to deter Chinese aggression in the Pacific. Yeah, You know, I'm, I'll be honest, I am very nervous about this Trump administration at this point. There's seems to already be some dissension in the ranks, right? I I know. Look, it's been great for the Internet. I'm not going to lie.

12:29 All the hey, mom and dad are fighting tweets between him and Elon has kept me somewhat entertained. However, it's just not Elon, right? I mean, you got Tulsi Gabbard. Who? Who like on all accounts, I mean, she's got a few issues, but there were times I thought, you know, I'd vote for her for president, right? I'm not going to agree with a lot, but I think she at least loves America and isn't going to look for a bunch of silly wars and, and there seems to be some fractures happening there. Do we know 'cause Trump's last term, like one of his crowning achievements was he brokered a major peace deal over there in the Middle East, and this time it's the exact opposite? Do we know what's different this time? Do we have any inclination on why he's leaving that platform? Yeah, I mean, I, I wrote an article about it on November 13th of last year, essentially entitled Return to the Neocons talked about how, you know, as they say, you know, who you who you appoint essentially personnel's policies, what they is, what is the saying?

13:40 So in other words, Trump's cabinet, who he decided to appoint, they're the ones who set the policy. And you can see that Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio is based basically the modern day Henry Kissinger. He's he's running the State Department at the same time he's heading the national security department as well. So, you know, that's that's a disturbing amount of power. And if it was some like Tulsi Gabbard or JD Vance, I'd be all for it. You know, of course, I'd I'd be supportive of that. But you know, Marco Rubio is essentially the arch arch neo con in the administration, replacing Mike Walls, who previously had that role. In course, President Trump was, you know, very inspired to fire Waltz, but the irony is he fired Waltz.

14:22 And I think it was early. I think it was, you know, just just the 1st of May essentially. And he fired him allegedly because he was conspiring with Netanyahu to bomb Iran. So what was, what was the point of firing his national security advisor when that's exactly what he ended up doing? You know, I, I was really inspired and impressed when, when he did that. I'm like, he's, he's putting America first. He's not going to fight Israel's war. He's not he's not going to attack Iran. And and I've described that as a trap. You know, essentially you can answer your previous question that I didn't fully respond to in the in the last question is that, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu, his his main objective.

15:06 It's not just, it's not greater Israel, it's not, but it's really Israeli hegemony in the region, in the Middle East. And he viewed rightly views Iran as the main obstacle to obtaining Israeli hegemony. And of course, you know, there's legitimate reasons for for him to hate Iran because Iran, of course, has been supporting all the Iranian proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the three HS essentially, I call them and you know, they are all, they've all been targeting Israel. And of course they have some reason to, but they're basically terrorists. And he's trying to basically use the US military as a battering ram to destroy the Iranian regime.

15:50 And unfortunately, you know, Iran has, based on my estimation, they have nuclear weapons and super EMP weapons they could use to kill millions of Americans. And so whatever, whenever I see President Trump, you know, threatening to bomb Iran, you know, that's a complete repudiation of his, of his campaign pledge to never, you know, try to stop World War Three from happening, essentially what I call, you know, prevent Judgement Day or at least delay it. He's trying to bring Judgement Day around. And, you know, there's biblical, biblical prophecies involved in that. And, and I just didn't when I voted for Trump, I thought he would be delaying the biblical prophecies of America's potential destruction instead of speeding them on.

16:35 Right. He it's like everything is still in the balance, right? Like I honestly thought with, with getting Trump back in office, it would be at least a semi look, it's never going to be totally sane while Donald Trump's in office, right? I do think there is a certain level that he does thrive off that chaos. I've often said he seems to be like the Dallas Cowboys of politics, right? There's a lot of money there, but a little bit of dysfunction too. And so I, I tend to look at, at this as a very precarious time, right? And as, as I've looked at Trump, often times, I've wondered if it's not the last guy that has his ear is who's going to win that argument.

17:18 I could be all wet in that. That's just, you know, me looking at it and, and kind of knowing guys of similar temperament and being able to understand, right? It's the last guy that strokes his ego that's probably going to get the nod. And that's, that's a little spooky to have to have that right now in, in the position we're in. Yeah, it absolutely is. And if you look at, you know, like Tulsi Gabbard, you know, she's she's pretty, pretty outstanding in terms of America First. I mean, she's a moderate overall in terms of social issues, but you know, she's a real patriot. She's a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army intelligence. And then there is, you know, Pete Hank said, you know, he's, he's pretty America first. And he was reportedly joining with Gabbard and and Vance, Vice President Vance in opposition to the planned US strikes in Iran, although he doesn't come across that way, you know, but all the reports are saying that that he's he's been, you know, one of the ones that are more shut out of the of Trump's inner circle because he's not a warm honor like Rubio and Ratcliffe at CIA. And then of course, General Kane, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other folks, bad actors within the administration, both political and military. But the problem is, it's just is what you said, is that the the rumor, you know, the President Trump's reputation is that he he listens to the last person that talks to him and kind of follows that advice.

18:47 And presumably the last person that talks to him is, you know, someone like Rubio. Essentially all that should be JD Vance, really should be JD Vance be the last person in the room. But we know that's not happening because, you know, we know that JD Vance was adamantly against war with Iran and he actually prevented it. He stopped it in early April when General Cruella, you know, US commander of US CENTCOM and Mike Waltz were, were pushing it on him. He was able to push back along with with Gabbard and and Hexa and the chief of staff, Trump's chief of staff as well. So he wanted to bomb Iran clear back in April. Who's that?

19:31 Rubio or Trump? Trump. Well, President. Trump was strongly considering it back in April, but on April 7th he he told Netanyahu in the White House that he was vetoing that pending a 60 day diplomatic negotiation with Iran. So basically it just he just delayed what Netanyahu and Waltz wanted him to do from early April to to June, late June. Well, I guess the, you know, it's one of those things then we're just going to sit back and we're going to have to watch. And, you know, I think, I think just be very prayerful. You know, it's probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have some extra supplies around and really get used to listening to the spirit because I, I do think that there is a, at least a possibility, right?

20:26 I'm not a prophet. I don't pretend to be 1, but I, I do see the makings of trouble out on the horizon. And that's just based off of talking to guys like yourself, right? I don't think that, that we're done with this quite yet. And I, I, I think it'll go quiet for a while and I think we're going to have another major flare up. And what that is, I'm not sure, but I imagine that region is just now starting to to catch fire all over again. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think we're, we're facing, you know, 2 fires that Biden helped start in the Middle East and, and Ukraine and another one potentially in Taiwan that I'm really expecting to happen later this year, but certainly no later than 2027. It's been stated that, you know, President Xi Jinping wants to force reunification with Taiwan if we're, if he's unsuccessful in in, you know, achieving that peacefully and diplomatically. We do know that Iran has been a, a state sponsor of terror before, right?

21:33 I had, I was listening to a podcast and I don't know if I can legally say the name here. I'll tell you after we're done. But he's a national guy and a former operator, that sort of thing. And he's, he had a guest on who was from the agency and she essentially said we have upwards of 1000 terrorists across our border right now based off of chatter. So with what where we're at right now, do we as a country need to be worried about terror attacks on the ground sponsored by Iran? Absolutely, Yeah. So Iran announced the morning after the the initial Israeli strikes that Iran was holding his US personally accountable for the strikes and reserve the right to retaliate directly against U.S. military personnel and assets in the region. And basically saying that they knew that there was no way that Israel could have conducted those attacks so successfully without direct, you know, US participation in the terms of it, terms of intelligence sharing and other support. Yeah, 'cause they those were very targeted. I mean, if there's one thing we can say for the attack that that Israel did do, it seems to be very surgical in nature. I do know that that our embassy was just hit, I think last night or this morning and and that puts a new spin on things, right, because now now we got

23:05 got skin in the game, so to speak, right. And and where do we take it from here? How do you see this one all ending? What do you see panning out as far as this conflict over the coming months? You know, I mean, really the, the biggest variable to me is, is President Trump. You know, if President Trump is been giving conflicting messages and, and sadly, he's done the same with Ukraine where, you know, he, he initially seemed to want to genuinely support peace with Russia. Then he gave them a 22 point ultimate ultimatum peace plan. And then when they didn't accept it, he just dropped negotiations all together.

23:48 In this case, he is giving signals where that he wants a peaceful resolution to the Iran nuclear issue. At the same time, he's cheerleading additional Israeli strikes on Iran. So the question is, which Trump will run will win out? Will it be the Trump that that we voted for that committed to put America first and keep us safe? Or will it be the, the Trump that's wanting to Israel to continue bombing Iran despite escalating risks of, of the outbreak of World War three? And to be honest, I, I've stopped trying to, to predict how, which Trump will, will, will prevail.

24:30 And at this point and I I'm increasingly pessimistic based on his latest actions. Dude. 100% 'cause you were on right before the election and you were very bullish on, on Trump a second time around. Look, and I still, I want to say this, I still think he's better than Biden, right? Because you know, it was weekend at Bernie's in the White House and, and the guys, the, the, the guys who were running Biden weren't great guys either, right? However, this, this is worrisome to me, right? When I heard that he essentially greenlit it, I was like, why? Why would we do this? Why? Why go into this exercise? OK, that that takes care of that. Well, I want to move on to Russia and Ukraine now again, And we touched on this a little bit. Trump ran really hard on the idea of I'll have you know, I'll have this wrapped up in two weeks. It'll be perfect.

25:25 You'll love it. And that hasn't been the case. We're six months in now and it's still going, right. So what's the status of that war? Who's winning it? Who's got the upper hand? What what's going on there? Because it's kind of taking a back seat in some ways, right? It's hard to get any sort of news on that front as of right now. Yeah, so Russia, you know, Trump came into office as you mentioned, promising to end the war on day one of the war. He actually, I think it was right before the, the he took office, he said, OK, maybe not day one, maybe six months down the road. And then Keith Kellogg said, yeah, we think we could do it in four months, 120 days.

26:12 And so we had kind of an, an adjustment. I'm like, we don't need that long. We can we can end the first week. And I, I published a whole slew of articles and how Trump could do that. And I actually got one of my articles in the hands of one of his top cabinet members. I never really thought that that, you know, they would implement my full plan, but it for a while it seemed like they were implementing parts of it. But then essentially Trump, Trump never has engaged in any serious negotiations with Russia over how to end the war. I mean, there's been brief meetings here and there. There were, I think there've been a couple meetings between Secretary Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. But Putin, Trump has refused to meet with Putin. I mean, he hasn't said so outright. He said, oh, yeah, we'll meet sometime and nothing will ever get finalized.

27:05 There will never be peace, peace in Ukraine until me and me and Putin meet. And yet yet 6, you know, five months in, there's no meeting scheduled. The Russians have been saying we, we stand ready to meet with Trump, you know, at a moment's notice when he did. But he needs to initiate it. They said he needs to. The White House needs to call them and I'll set something up and they'll have a summit and they'll resolve as many issues as possible, agree to disagree where we can't find common ground and and they're serious about wanting to wrap this thing up. But as I mentioned earlier, you know, Trump foolishly decided to accept the Kellogg peace plan.

27:46 The Kellogg peace plan ended up being a 22 point peace plan, which was first, I think it was first socialized with the Zelensky and European leaders. I think it was April 21st. Around that time, I think Ruby, I went to Paris and basically the Ukrainians walked out. I think if I'm remembering right, what the timeline was. But you know, Ukraine never accepted any of any of our peace proposal. They only accepted the 30 days ceasefire with conditions that they knew Russia would never accept. And that was just a really propaganda measure because they had been the most vehement against a ceasefire prior to that. And basically the Kellogg peace plan mandates that there be a ceasefire before there there are any serious peace negotiations. And in terms of the the terms of the final peace agreement. And Russia said that the only way they'll have a ceasefire is if is if we've reached, you know, substantial agreement on the peace terms.

28:48 So, you know, we've had two conflicting positions ensuring the war goes on indefinitely. And meanwhile, you know, since March 11th, Trump has has been doing everything he can to support, you know, Ukraine militarily and continue offensive intelligence sharing. Maybe not for long range targets deep inside of Russia. I'm not sure about that one. But according to, you know, Germany's new new chancellor Friedrich Merz, you know, Trump has is, is sharing an offensive intelligence authorization for the use of deep strike US missiles. I I think that that is probably not true. But what, what disturbed me is that the Trump White House did not try to rebut that.

29:31 And if, if in fact, you know, I mean that that's a very provocative claim by Mertz merits. And, and if, if they were, if Trump wasn't doing that, I would have thought that the very next day, you know, within 24 hours, the White House would have came out and, and rebutted that. So it gives every impression that Trump is essentially Biden #2 in terms of the Ukraine war. And, and, you know, of course, with the minerals deal that was signed on Zelensky's terms, there's no terms of the agreement that are beneficial to the US whatsoever. They won't pay back a single dime, just as Solinsky promised. Not a single dime of the 350 billion will ever be paid back. They they reserve full control over all their natural resources.

30:18 So we don't have any real claim to their raw materials, rarers. And worst of all, it's according to Ukraine. It's basically a 10 year security pact where we're mandated to continue selling arms to them over the next 10 years. So it's basically almost a blank check. Not I won't say it's a blank check because we're not actually giving them the arms, we're selling them to them. So I mean that's kind of kind of a little difference. We're not giving them massive financial aid back just like we used to I. Guess we won't go broke as quickly. So, I mean, we got that going for us, right? Yeah. But the bottom line is, you know, we're going to keep keep fighting the last Ukrainian.

31:01 Now, in terms of the the other question you asked was how the war is going and, and Russia's been winning the war at an increasing rate. If you look at a map, it's, it's easy to understand why so many people think that the war is a stalemate because, you know, the amount of territory Russia's captured over the last few years has been very unimpressive. Initially, they had massive success. They were at the gates of Kiev, 10 miles away from the city center. And then they they came to agreement on the Istanbul agreement and Putin decided to jump the gun and, and announce a full what's role of all Russian forces from 30% of Russian all territory in three Ukrainian northern oblast, including Kiev. And they were his troops.

31:45 Up to that point, Ukraine has not had not yet recaptured any territory from the Russians at all. And as soon as the Russians departed, they were able to recapture that that huge swath of territory. And, you know, we were forced to, you know, Biden essentially propagandized it and said, oh, the Russians are running away. It's the it's the Ukrainian offensive. And they didn't have any offensive forces capable of an offensive at that time, the counter offensive that was meaningful. But by April 4th, all those Russian troops have been withdrawn. And then, of course, we know that Boris Johnson showed up in Kiev and pressured Szalinski to do what he already planned to do, which was not to show up for the the signing of the Istanbul agreement with Putin in Istanbul on April 9th.

32:34 Under the terms of that agreement, all Russian troops would have been withdrawn from all Ukraine's supreme war territory and the lives of, you know, terms of killed and wounded of 2 million brave Ukrainian troops would have been saved. And that's really the, the total basically is that we've seen at least 2 million Ukrainian casualties, of which 750,000 are, are dead. The Russians casualties have been 6.3 times less, probably around 120,000 in terms of killed and maybe a lot more than that wounded, but maybe 250,000 plus total. So obviously Russia has over 5, you know, five times more people than Ukraine. They have 16,000 more nukes.

33:20 If you look at a map they have 35 times more territory, you know 11 I think 11 times more greater size economy, 4th largest economy in the world used to be 6th largest before the war. Russia's military has expanded at a breathtaking pace. I think their armies are almost three times larger than what it what it was before. So the winter's not in doubt. Ukraine's suffering near military collapse. They're down to about 350,000 troops Max sack of duty and they're running out of reserves. And when they do run out of reserves to the Russian forces that are outnumber them over 2 to one will likely be able to sweep across Ukraine and and occupy nearly half of Ukraine to the deeper river. I'm afraid of the answer to this next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway because I have a feeling I know what you're going to say.

34:18 What's the biggest obstacle to peace over there in this conflict? Because it's gone on what now essentially 4 years, right? We're into, we're, we're, we're starting the 5th year, I guess 4 1/2 years. What? What's the biggest obstacle there? Yeah, I mean, the war's got on for it's now been three years, almost four months. And the biggest obstacle to peace has always been Boldemore Zelinsky. He is. He behaves like he's the head of a nuclear superpower. He, you know, Trump hasn't been able to persuade him to make even even the slightest concession in terms of peace terms with Russia. He still has maximalist peace terms which entail demanding that Russia pay 300 billion reparations to Ukraine, that all Russian troops be withdrawn from all prior Ukrainian territory, including the Donbas region and Crimea, and also demanding that Russia that Putin should surrender himself to The Hague for, you know, war criminal tribunal prosecutions. So Needless to say, none of those demands are achievable. You know, when you want to, when you think about achieving peace, you, you need to be realistic.

35:34 You can't have demands that are unachievable or else the war continues indefinitely. And and he's he's continuing to fight this war because he knows that as soon as the war ends, he's going to be thrown out of office. The polls that I've seen have him at about 9 to 16% popularity in terms of re election numbers. And so, you know, he's a dictator. He's a, a brutal, murderous dictator and kills his own people, assassinates opposition political leaders. And he's he's doing his best to, you know, embezzle enough US taxpayer money to become a a billionaire oligarch, which I think is his is his real, real goal. And you know, he knows that he's going to have to flee an exile because he would be prosecuted on corruption charges by his his successor, if indeed the war ends and he loses an election to in terms of the presidency.

36:33 Gotcha, gotcha. So I feel like there's 2 two things that are conflicting here, right? One is, is that we, we just got done saying that, you know, Russia's clearly gaining momentum now, right? Momentum's on their side. So if everything stays as is with American support, even with us selling them weapons. And again, this isn't an and it isn't an indictment upon us. We're not fighting that war. But regardless, even with us selling them weapons, it sounds like if if something doesn't change, Ukraine will definitely lose in the next little while, right? So what's what is what is Zelensky's end game? Is it just to write it out as long as he can and then wait for the gates to fall and then helicopter on out to whatever island he's arranged for himself? Is that kind of what we're looking at here, David? So what he believes is that and what I think may he might have been promised by, you know, the UK and France, is that in the event that Russian forces achieved major breakthroughs along the front and drive to the Geneva River, that Britain and France will parachute.

37:44 You know, they'll drive in 10s of thousands of troops and to help defend the the deeper river line to protect, you know, protect the Zelensky regime in the West and western and central Ukraine. And then if necessary, Zelensky can relocate the capital to be which is a much more secure location not far from the Polish border. So yeah, I think that's probably what he thinks would happen. But what he what he really hopes would happen is that is that the US would join the war as well. And and in the belief that if the US were to fight Russia, then that's the only hope for Ukraine ever regaining its lost territories.

38:29 Yeah, I I'm again, another conflict where I'm not sure you could just point to a white hat and a Black Hat right there. I'm not sure there's a good guy in the mix. I, I would like to touch on that exchange that happened in the White House that got so much traction early earlier this year. Was that just kabuki theater? I mean, was that just, you know, Trump kind of grandstanding knowing he was going to go in a different direction, trying to maybe get his base off of his back, so to speak? What what we see there was, was any of that serious, do you think, or was it just theater? No, I think it was all genuine.

39:11 I, I think that President Trump started his, he started his administration with a really clear plan as to what to do. I mean, very impressive in so many ways. You know, again, the biggest flaw that he had was the Kellogg plan, because that that was never going to achieve peace in Ukraine. Russia was never going to agree to that. But in terms of trade and so many other things, I mean, he just implemented his plan like warp speed and and, you know, acted really decisively. But then I think he, you know, he kind of didn't know how to react, you know, to developments. He he just kind of made a policy on the fly in terms of change, you know, new policy. But that no, that was very sincere that that Zelensky exchange in the White House on February 28th. You know, so the way Trump responded, he initially he was, he would placate Zelensky and let him, you know, be verbally abused as a Putin puppet.

40:07 And then and then Vance defended him. And, you know, after Vance defended him, he Trump decided to, you know, tell Solinsky off. And, you know, Zelinsky was swearing in Ukrainian under his breath. I think Ukrainian or Russian, some foul language. That, you know, I can't, can't sit here. But that was, yeah, it was all since here and and it was amazing. Even Lindsey Graham was saying, hey, I think we're going to need to have Zielinski replaced because he told off the president of the White House. It's interesting he had him kind of on the ropes like that and then kind of went the other direction. All right, let's go ahead and and move on to to Taiwan and Russia, because I do don't think that's put to bed yet.

40:56 When we talked last time, it looked like that that could be imminent, right? If Biden was re elected. Now Biden wasn't re elected, Trump was. But where where does that conflict? Well, I shouldn't say conflict pre conflict, proto conflict, however you want to put it. Where's that standing right now? Well, so Xi Jinping, Chinese president, made a very interesting comment. He said the team, he had ordered the PLA to be ready for war by April first. Then on April first, he actually, there was, you know, a massive Chinese military exercise, you know, consisting of naval, air and ground forces with, you know, actual missiles, missile strikes that were, that were practiced not far off of Taiwanese waters. And, you know, I, I thought that might be it. I thought that might, might be, might be the, the big one. And thankfully it wasn't.

41:57 But I think that China's, I think China's really hoping that we, we bomb Iran and you know, and maybe even get involved in a war with Russia. And then they can watch as, as we, you know, our military forces are, are degraded and maybe even the US destroyed without them having to lift a finger. But more probably they would, they would assume that that wouldn't happen, but that we, you know, we would be so bogged down in in wars and with Russia and Ukraine and, and what more likely Iran in the Middle East that we would lack the military capability to, you know, effectively respond to a a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

42:38 Gotcha. Gotcha. So do you think that's still on the table while Trump's in office? I would be shocked. I mean, I would wager 99% chance of of China invading Taiwan by 2027. I think that's I think I actually been predicting that later this year. I mean, for ever since 2020, I've said 2025 was, was the deadline that I, that I read that he was, you know, Xi Jinping was ready to, you know, forcibly reunify Taiwan. But since I've come to the belief that 2027 is the absolute drop, drop dead date. So it's going to happen. It's going to happen the next two years.

43:19 I can't, you know, I'm not going to exactly when. But if, if I had, if I was a betting man, I would man, I would, I would likely say most likely in October, I'd say 50% chance. True. What does that mean for the US if China was to invade and take seize control of Taiwan? Well, again, all of this depends on President Trump. You know, the president United States has tremendous power to determine the fate of the United States. Whether whether we survive long term or whether we, you know, we lose our country is, is really dependent on the decisions that he makes. And nowhere is that more the case, I think then with the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Because, you know, if, if we were to not respond, then I think that China would have no reason to attack us militarily. And, you know, we would just kind of move on and realize that Taiwan was never that important or strategic as as so many neocons have said it was.

44:26 And I say that reluctantly as someone who's been a lifelong supporter of Taiwan. But the balance of power has shifted dramatically. You know, 20 years ago, China didn't have near the capabilities to evade Taiwan. Now they, I mean, they, they, they've had the capabilities since 2020. So for the last five years, there's been a window of vulnerability that it's only a matter of time when, when they decide to to exploit that, that window. And it's likely to be sooner rather than later. So with that, go ahead. Sorry, let me. Just let me just add to that that if we if Trump were to decide to defend Taiwan militarily, then China would execute its plan to destroy the US with multiple vectors of attack.

45:12 They would likely start with a massive cyber attack against the United States or they wanted of major combat operations that would take down our grid, take down our all of our critical infrastructure. They have already have up to 100,000 PLA troops, half of which are probably special forces operating behind the lines in US territory that crossed into our country from October 2019 to January of this year. And those troops are positioned mostly on Chinese owned farm lands which are located near 17 US key U.S. military bases. And if you look at a map of of Chinese owned farm lands, you'll notice that about 1/3 of Utah Utah's land is is owned by China.

45:59 That doesn't bode well. So what, what if what if I keep hearing about the chips, right? The microchips that that it if, if Taiwan's invaded, there's no guarantee Russia that China would sell those to us, right? Well, I think their default position would be to resell them in a higher price. We've seen that with rare earths, you know, with the exception of times when, you know, Trump's threatening China, you know, then they'll temporarily suspend sale of rare earths to the USI think that would be their default. But if we were to, to either have massive sanctions on China, you know, kind of Russia style massive sanctions on China response to their base of Taiwan, where of course, if we go to war against them, then obviously they're, they won't, then we'll stop selling them. And but honest, to be honest, you know, there's a a lot, in a lot of worst scenarios, those plants get destroyed. So in fact, I, I was working for Vivek Ramaswamy and we were deciding on his foreign policy positions and, and we were doing a Zoom briefing and he told me, he said that that, you know, I, he asked me if we should do that. And I, I initially said no.

47:19 But then what I thought later I'm like, yeah, that's actually a good, a good idea. Because I don't think if we were to pop off a bunch of missiles at Taiwan versus China, I think and kind of a now maybe give them like some kind of warning time that, you know, we weren't attacking them. We were just taking out the Taiwan semiconductor facilities. I don't think that would start a war. So I think, I think we could do that. And the mentality in the US is that we should, it would be better for for us to destroy them than to allow those chips to fall under, under Chinese control where they would have, you know, almost a monopoly. Not a monopoly, but but close to it in terms of advanced microchips, given that Taiwan, you know, sells 90% of the the world's advanced semiconductor supply. OK.

48:12 I want to talk about just for a second, right, Because it sounds like we're you're, you're, you're pretty sure that, that an invasion of Taiwan is going to happen in one form or another. Yeah, blockade or or invasion. That's right. So I think it was it Ollie or was it Tyson? One of those boxers said everyone's got a plan till you walk in and get punched in the face, right? To my knowledge, China hasn't really been in any foreign skirmishes in a long, long time, right? Probably World War 2. Vietnam actually they they fought a war against Vietnam in 79, OK. Vietnam still a good chunk of time, right?

48:52 You're we're approaching 40 years on that. Do they have like, I can't imagine that Taiwan would just roll over necessarily, right. I, I went back and I did some research and at the American Revolution, just just as an example, right, not saying that they're anywhere near a Jeffersonian Republic, right? Not not saying that, but just as people go and, and it was roughly 30% were in favor of the crown here. I want to say like another 20 some percent were were neutral, a good chunk were in favor of it, but there was only 3% that were willing to fight in the war right of the revolution. But it was enough with insurgent kind of tactics, right. Do you think China can withstand and hold up to an insurgency like that, right.

49:48 We certainly found out in places in Iraq as well, as, you know, I think, I think you can lump Vietnam in there with that too, that fighting insurgency is a different animal altogether, right? Because you're not going to war like we've been used to. Do you think China has the stomach and the capabilities to fight against a war of insurgency? I think it's very unlikely that Taiwan can mount an effective insurgency to a Chinese occupation forces. They would likely be cut off and blockaded from outside support. Much of their, you know, arm stocks would likely have been captured and, and either destroyed or, you know, taken over by the Chinese.

50:30 So, so I, I do think that China could do that. You know, mostly the estimates that I've seen says that, you know, in a full Chinese amphibious invasion and airborne or rather, yeah, airborne slash air mobile campaign and revision of of Taiwan, China could could take Taipei within by day 15 of the war. So at that point, I think we're, you know, especially with cyberattacks, I, I would envision a massive cyberattack in Taiwan shutting down their, their critical infrastructure. They, you know, essentially causing them to run out of gas. The gas pumps wouldn't work and the communications would be down.

51:13 They'd be unable to coordinate above company level, you know, essentially decapitated. And, and of course there's decapitation plans. Other special forces have plans to decapitate the Taiwan's military political leadership as well as, you know, taking out their air, the Taiwanese Air Force and Navy, they could do that within 48 hours according to estimates that I've seen. So really without effective U.S. military intervention, which we just don't have the forces there anymore, we're completely outnumbered almost 12:50 in terms of naval forces in, in the the Taiwan region. It it would just, it would be likely be a a few week campaign at at most certainly there you know, would be some resistance, but in terms of the actual victory and capitulation, it'd likely be in the the three-week range.

52:04 Gotcha, gotcha. Now one one other variable I wanted to look at here in in terms of Taiwan and China, I did, I did a little bit of my own homework right, because I want to at least pretend to talk intelligently about these things. I I do find them fascinating. Japan seems to be building again, building up its armaments. And I was reading a little bit of the history between China and Japan and China and South Korea. And it was interesting that they look, they still look at those folks as quote, Mongols, right? They call them the Mongols on the the peninsula and the Mongols on the island, obviously going back to Genghis Khan and and you know, that sort of thing. Do they provide any sort of of deterrence at all? If if let's say Japan was to say, you know what, this is getting a little close to home.

53:08 I don't want to do this anymore There. There's a lot of bad blood there, right David from World War 20? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the Japanese were brutal. The Chinese probably killed millions of Chinese during the the Second Sino Japanese War and the Chinese have never forgiven them for that. You know, the occupied obviously Beijing and, and Shanghai and and many other large Chinese cities. And yeah, the Chinese hate, hate the Japanese. And they're, they're, they've made no bones about the fact that if, if Japan joins the war against them with the US, that they would carve up and occupy Japan into five different, different countries or occupation zones or whatever, whatever the case might be with Russia, and that they would use nuclear weapons on Japanese cities.

54:01 So I, I think from what I've heard from most Japanese leaders, obviously none of the countries in that region have have stated definitively that they would, they would ally with the US militarily against China in terms of, of actual direct military involvement. And that's understandable because, you know, the US itself has has, you know, policy of strategic ambiguity that, you know, with the exception of the Biden regime where they said we absolutely would defend Taiwan, US policies been not to state clearly whether we would or not. But I think in in all likelihood, obviously in the case of a just a purely conventional war, Japanese, U.S.

54:45 military bases on Japanese territory would be hit very hard. You know, our ships would be sunk. And, you know, that would give Japan some degree of incentive to consider joining the war. But also perhaps seeing that the rapidity of of U.S. forces being essentially Pearl Harvard within the first few days of the war, they might might sit out peace feelers kind of a separate piece with China and say, Hey, we're we're not involved, You know, just please don't, please don't attack us and we won't attack you. And and I think China might respect, they likely would respect that. But any, any overt moves militarily, you know, Japan would get occupied in short order I think by by Russia and China. And didn't hear not too long ago. Didn't she end up changing some stuff and and isn't he now appointed pretty much for life?

55:43 Yeah, I think it was back in 2022 that it was on the 10 year anniversary of of his his tenure as president of of of China People's Republic of China. And of course, you know, his main role is as general secretary of the of the Chinese Communist Party. But he also holds the office of president of China. That that's, that was a development that happened I think after Dean Xiaoping, where it's become traditional for the for a Chinese leader to hold both those titles. But but he essentially made himself dictator, you know, president for life at that 2000, October 2022 Chinese Communist Party Congress.

56:25 And so so you're right. Yeah, he's president for life. He's a dictator for life. And the only reason I bring that up is that seems to be a clear departure from what China had been going on, right? Because in my research, if I'm not mistaken, it would kind of alternate almost between branches, right? So you'd have the military, then you'd have someone from home and then someone from another department. And it kind of just did a round Robin kind of a thing like you're up, but didn't G come from the the military side of things? Correct me if I'm wrong there, David. Well, Xi Jinping has always been a, you know, Communist Party functionary leader. He's never served in the PLA himself, but he yeah, he's just worked his, his way up through the ranks. And I think it and trying to remember what, who the president he served as vice president under. But obviously he knew a president, President Biden, when he they were both vice presidents, I think during the Obama years, during the first first Obama's first term. But yeah, he's just been a Communist Party functionary. His yeah, I think it was his dad or grandfather. I think it was father that, you know, served as a Communist Party leader at the local level as well. Got.

57:39 You and do you see this more as, do you think he's pushing for more of a dynastic kind of a thing now, a kind of a return to an emperor kind of status? I mean, without calling it an emperor kind of status, 'cause I think that could affect our foreign policy towards China, right? Because if it's a different type of government, you're going to have to deal with it a little differently, I would think. Well, I haven't seen any evidence of that. Obviously that's always been the case with North Korea. Him, Kim Jong Un is, is the grand grandson of, you know, Kim Illinois Sung, the North Korea's first dictator. But no, I've not seen any, any evidence to suggest that's the case. I mean, certainly he, he could do that. He has the ability to do that, but I think it's more likely he'll have a hand picked successor when he's, you know, in his advanced age.

58:30 Gotcha. OK. I got one more question about Russia, the the conflict with with Russia and Ukraine and Taiwan and China and then I want to move on to stuff at home. But the question is this, again, doing a little bit of research, I find it interesting that both of those countries have been facing massive population collapse. I think China, I read that there are 40 million young men who have no marriage prospects. Russia was in such bad condition that they were talking about like really incentivizing childbirth, right, Trying to get the the population numbers up. Do do you see any evidence that a declining population has anything to do with with these these wars happening right now? No, I, I see absolutely no evidence of that. Certainly correct that Russia and China have both been under, you know, undergoing population reductions, but it's pretty gradual.

59:34 You know, in terms of if you were to look at there's a 2050 economic predictor, it shows that Russia would remain. Well, at that point we were it was the 6th largest economy and it was predicting it would stay that, but it showed the US declining I think to the the third or even the 4th, probably the third largest economy. And I think we're currently second behind China. But yeah, so the US is actually, this is something that people realize is the population is not the the key predictor of of economic potential or military power as as it used to be in the good old days like in World War One before the atomic age and before the event of modern weapon systems. But you know, a lot of it has to do with natural resources. Russia is, is tremendous, you know, natural resources, some of which remain untapped.

1:00:27 So that's really the source of the riches. It's not just the oil. The oil is probably the, the key, the foremost natural resources, which they do have. They sell us uranium and, and all kinds of different rarers. China has is a massive manufacturing power. So you can, there's really two ways to become a rich and powerful country. Traditionally it's at least the modern days, it's, it's either through, you know, through natural resources or rare earths or through manufacturing capabilities. And based on the I, I recently did a deep dive into China's manufacturing capabilities and concluded it's likely 3.8 times larger than ours in terms of industrial manufacturing might by purchase power parity.

1:01:11 So I mean, that's just a tremendous, that's like the difference between the US and Japan during World War 2. So if we were to have, for example, a, a Pacific war, a repeat of the Pacific war in World War Two, we would essentially be playing the part of Japan because, you know, China has the ability to out produce this by 232 times to to one in terms of ships. So they could, they could, you know, even if we suck all their ships, they could build a new fleet. Basically, they're building this, you know, the number of ships or the tonnage of the entire Royal Navy every year. Wow. Holy cow. All right, let's let's switch to home because now even home's on fire with those raids in LA.

1:02:00 What? What's your take away on that Because I, I've gotten mixed reports, right? Some were that they were very targeted. They were going after only the, the baddest of the bad, so to speak. Others say they were just rounding them up, right, waiting, you know, going to Home Depot and just put them in the back and, and take them off. What have you heard any intelligence on that? Anything that you can share? Yeah. I mean, there were ICE rates going on in terms of mostly violent criminals. But I did did recently read that some of the raids, and I haven't confirmed that they were in LA, but some of the Trump administration was also raiding some hotels and restaurants. No, they wouldn't raid homes, but they, you know, places of business which were, you know, where it's illegal for illegal immigrants to be employed, they would raid those as well. And that, that of course, and, and by the way, that's something they discontinued.

1:02:58 So they actually ceded something important to the protests by discontinuing all rights against hotels and restaurants and businesses for illegals. That was a recent war since since the war between Iran and Israel erupted. But the early riots were, I mean, that was propagated by, you know, mainly Antifa and Black Lives Matter, likely also supported by the Revolutionary Communist Party, which has been active here in Utah for the supporting the the leftist protests. And that's a group that wants to overthrow the US government. It's a group that wants to establish a Castro white communist, the government or regime here in the US, which would, you know, essentially destroy all rights and communize everything.

1:03:45 So essentially domestic far left terrorists were responsible. And and obviously we saw that in also in was it Minnesota where the state the state senator was was killed and really 442 legislators were shot were shot. Two were killed in a legislator and his wife or her rather her husband and then the other, the other one survived with his wife, but, you know, expected pull out of surgery. But essentially, you know, we're facing all of these, you know, far left extremists and, and they pose A tremendous domestic security threat to to the US.

1:04:30 You know, Biden infamously warned during his, you know, one or more of his presidential addresses that it was right wing extremists that pose pose the greatest threat. You know, and and we haven't seen that, You know, we saw, I guess, I guess we could concede that January 6th was kind of an exception. We saw some violence, mainly just trespassing and, you know, breaking of windows and stuff, maybe some pushes against law enforcement officers, but really nothing else but that there was no no law enforcement officers were killed by the by the protesters slash rioters on January 6th. But if the Black lives matter, you know, there was two dozen police officers that were shot dead and and 2000 wounded during the protests of summer 2020.

1:05:18 And of course there was an attempt to put to lynch the the President of the United States on May 30th, 2020 at the White House, where the White House had to go dark and Cyprus came out and the president and his family were manhandled to to the the presidential emergency bunker to escape potential threats to to their lives. So, you know, there's just no question that, you know, not to mention the trans terrorists and all the, all the crazy left wing and the, the folks that kill, you know, black mass shooters that kill a bunch of white people. I mean, certainly there are incidents on the other side too. So I don't, don't want to suggest there aren't, but most of the incidents have been on the, the far left side. And so, you know, they, they really do pose a huge threat. And, and I I believe they're working with and are funded not just by George Soros, but but in fact enemy, enemy nations as well.

1:06:13 Well, that was going to be my next question. I know for a fact that if there's a country that's teetering on the brink, we will drop assets in to either give it a push or stabilize it, right? And not necessarily military kind of actions, but more Agent Provocateur type things. So you do think we're seeing that from foreign, foreign actors as well? Absolutely. And it might not, it's likely not direct, but probably indirect funding certainly from China, communist Venezuela, other other nations, maybe Cuba. And as you mentioned, there's likely at least 1000 Iranian or Iranian allied terrorists, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and other groups operating right here in the United States ready to, you know, if we we get into a direct bombing strikes on Iran, they'd likely be be activated and we could and they could, you know, conduct sabotage operations and terrorist attacks throughout the country. Got you.

1:07:16 The other thing that that has got me worried about this and I and I was wondering if you could speak to this a little bit. I remember back around, I want to say it was 2010 when the Arab Spring happened and we just saw country after country go through massive turmoil. Could we be looking at something similar happening to us here? I noticed that that these, I only want to call them protests, they're riots, right? Could we be looking at something similar here happening to us right now? No, I don't. I think the risks of that are pretty limited. Short of, you know, regional or, or massive cyber attacks, I don't see our society breaking down or, you know, revolution occurring. I, I think despite the fact that we only have 50% of law enforcement officers today that we had when Biden took office, I, I think that that's still sufficient to, to maintain overall order.

1:08:16 Obviously we can't makes it much more difficult to counter like violent criminals and, and you know, individual riots. But I, I think, I think the chances of that happening are, are pretty low. I think of the chance of a revolution without outside help, such as invasion or cyber attack or something even worse are pretty low. OK. My other question on the on that is, I know that Trump mobilized, I think 500 Marines did. Did their boots ever touch ground in in that conflict? Yeah, yeah, there are actually hundreds of Marines have been deployed by the Trump administration to to keep order in in Los Angeles. And I recently learned that there there was a presser for that, that George HW Bush actually mobilized 1200 Marines to keep order, restore order during the the Rodney Keen riots back in 92.

1:09:10 So, you know, I, I think that that's, that was a smart move and I think it sends a good, good signal. And they were deployed with their weapons and ammo, but that, you know, the ammo is not in the chamber. They're around the magazines are unloaded, you know, on their persons, but not not actually, you know, in, in the, the firearm. Is there? This is where I get nervous, right? Because on one hand, I agree you got to restore law and order. On the other hand, it's another thing to have American warriors trying to corral Americans, and that's not necessarily because of who's in office now. I worry about the next go round, right? Let's say it's another COVID kind of situation where, you know, do they use the military to keep people socially distanced?

1:10:03 I, you know, lock down that sort of thing. I worry it's a bad precedent. The only thing I really have hope on there and, and I think you can speak uniquely to this, is the oath that that that everybody takes when they join the military, right, That they're going to defend and and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Do you think that that's misplaced? Do you, do you think that that maybe do our soldiers have a firm enough grasp on what the Constitution is to make sure that they do enforce that and that alone? You know, I think the question to that is a little nuanced.

1:10:44 There were, there was, there's been some surveys of our troops that have indicated that over half of them would be willing to pull the trigger on US civilians if ordered to. Obviously not it wouldn't, it would be some kind of riot situation. They wouldn't just say they'll shoot someone randomly. So I, I don't think most of them were, were in the position where they would disobey orders, but certainly there'd be some some good ones that may be the lower officer level that would, or even the mid to high officer level that would, that might refuse the illegal orders. OK. All right, good deal.

1:11:25 Finally, I want to move on to Trump and, and I'm glad you said what you said because it's been some of my concern here. I looked at Trump and, and look, I, I was always pretty nuanced, right? I was like, well, he's probably better than anything we got now. But certainly I wasn't necessarily calling him the savior of the Republic, right? I, I think he did come with some, some issues, but, but again, heck of a lot better than what we had before. But I looked at Trump and and I am surprised a little bit that he was able to be corralled as quickly as he has been. Is there any indication of what happens to A to to someone like Trump, who it looks like by all accounts can't be bought, can't be bullied, but yet somehow finds himself where every other American president has been? Well, I think it starts with the deep state. You know, the deep state has is burrowed in inside U.S. intelligence agencies.

1:12:23 So regardless of who the president is, they kind of propagandize the same neo con imperialist war wreck rhetoric and politicize the intelligence. Interestingly there, you know, our intelligence agencies are certainly before Trump took office and likely still they're pretty pro China in terms of the, you know, traditionally have greatly underestimated the Chinese threat, you know, in terms of China's nuclear arsenal by 4 to 1 historically. So where they're saying it's like 600 warheads, it's likely at least four times that they likely have more warrants than we do.

1:13:03 But yeah, I mean, they just they push this globalist agenda. And you know, the more the more times you hear a lie and the more time it's reinforced by the mainstream media. You know, you if you're not strong, strong minded in terms of critical thinking, then you're you're likely to begin to accept it at some point. And I think that's what happened. What's happened with Trump. And and you know, I say that reluctantly because, you know, Trump has tremendous, tremendously good instincts when it comes to foreign policy. Like his usually his initial opinion is the right one. And then but he he's known for the fact that he can be swayed by whichever of his advisors talk to him, talk to him at last.

1:13:48 So if you have the a neo con, you know, it's the last briefer and then he goes out to give a speech, then he's likely to pair it a lot of the things that the the neo con advisor says. And so that's why you have him saying really good stuff when one day with Russia, not so much anymore because we haven't really heard any any anything good on Russia from him lately, but earlier in his administration. Then the next day he's saying, oh, we need to support Zelensky and we're just going to shovel arms to him, you know, sell arms to him indefinitely. And if he doesn't want to, you know, let them, let them just try to make peace when he knows there's zero chance of that. And really advocating all attempts to try to accomplish what he wanted to do initially, which was to his brilliant plan to divide the sign of Russian military alliance by transforming Russia from an adversary to a strategic partner.

1:14:41 And really sad that that he's decided to give up on that, that noble dream. OK. Just two more questions and then I'll let you go here. What do you think the next six months holds for the globe at large, and what does it mean for us here at home? Well, I have to say that this, you know, this bombing campaign by Israel against Iran has just got me a little bit on edge. I'm ready, you know, personally, I'm ready to face what's coming. You know, I think it's inevitable. It's going to happen. Eventually the US is going to face collapse due to the foolish policies of US leaders provoking World War Three. But obviously most of me would would prefer that happen later than sooner.

1:15:33 And my hope was that President Trump could delay judgement day, I guess, to use a Terminator terms. But it it doesn't seem like that's likely to be the case. I mean, he's actually, you know, he's, I wouldn't say that he's escalated the war in Ukraine, although in some respects it's, he's simply propagated the, the dangerous level of escalation that Biden had done with the, you know, the, the long range US missile strikes in Russia. But certainly in terms of Israel, I mean, he's poured flames on the fire without a doubt. And you know, he not only started the two-month war with Yemen, he restarted the war, helped Israel restart the war in Gaza.

1:16:18 And then they abandoned a bunch of other countries, obviously Lebanon mainly, and then now a strike in Iran, you know, leading to potential nuclear escalation and all kinds of existential threats that we we likely would not be exposed to were were not for US support for those strikes. So I'm pretty pessimistic. You know, when we last spoke, I was really bullish. And I'm like, you know, Trump's going to make peace. He's going to save us from World War 3. This is a blessing. This is what the kind of what the Lord wanted and intended or planned. And and now I'm kind of I'm kind of done to 180 in terms of based on Trump's performance, you know, his about face on on, you know, forever wars and his willingness to go to the brink of World War Three for no reason. So you think you think more global unrest is is for sure to come?

1:17:12 Oh yeah, yeah, I think the situation will continue to get worse and worse over the course of the Trump presidency. Unless, unless he changed his course. I mean, really, he's, he's a free agent. He can, he can tell us he can fire all his neo con advisors in one day, replace them with JD Vance. And you know, Tulsi Gabbard, he could point Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State and International Security advisor tomorrow and, and make peace with Russia, force Israel to make peace with Iran. And we, you know, we could and refuse to defend Taiwan militarily and make a deal with China over Taiwan and, and we could continue having peace almost, you know, at least until someone, someone like Kamala Harris, you know, come gets elected president.

1:17:58 Gotcha. That's my hope. But I just think that's that's an unlikely possibility. And. And I, I don't want to call them theaters because I don't think that's a fair word. But, but in all three of those regions, the Middle East, the Russia and Ukraine and Thai and and the Pacific there with China and and Taiwan, all three of those things get worse. So, yeah, I think, well, I don't, I don't think that it's, I think the situation is fairly stable with regards to Russia and Ukraine because despite our attempts, you know, Western attempts to escalate the war and Ukrainian attempts to escalate the war, Russia's, you know, Putin has been very restrained in his response. So.

1:18:40 But at the same time, obviously he's probably likely tiring with the Trump administration's refusal to make peace or restore, you know, normal economic relations with Russia. So obviously he still views the US as the main adversary with regard. But, you know, with regards to China and Taiwan, I still have some hope that, you know, based on all of Trump's statements, I would, you know, you'd have to conclude that Trump would not defend Taiwan militarily. But the possibility for accidental escalation to a full scale war, I think it's high because I think he'd be pressured into sending our, you know, the US Pacific Fleet within striking range of the block of the Chinese blockade.

1:19:23 And there could be some interactions in terms of, you know, missile launches or warning shots that were misinterpreted that could could lead to, you know, escalate to a full scale war. So I guess I'm more hopeful with regards to the Taiwan theater. But yeah, I I view that the the Iran conflict is as the most likely trigger for World World War Three at this point. And Trump has recently stated that the US might join the war. It might join a bombing campaign against Iran with Israel. And and again, Iran has a compact with two of our biggest. I don't know antagonist at this point, right, With with Russia and China.

1:20:06 So that that that does have the ability to blow up. In terms of look, a large portion of why Trump got elected was because things were really good on Wall Street, but really crappy on Main Street. He has instituted the tariffs, right? And I go back and forth on tariffs. I'll be honest. Part of me is like, yeah, we got to do something. The other part of me is like, this isn't helping. Where, where do we stand economically, right? Because I do think as, as we go economically, we'll also end up going militarily, right? So if we in your, you know, just as you said, if we drop down to 4th in, in middle in, in economic power, I think we could go down to second or third militarily, right, Just because we don't have the money to fund it. Any any idea if, if the tariffs are having the impact that Trump was hoping that they were having? I can tell you my grocery bill hasn't gone down. And I know people are still suffering out there. And when Trump got elected, the thought was, well, he's got a blank check for four years.

1:21:13 And I was like, that's not true. He's got a blank check for two, right? And it's not even really a blank check. He's got to start showing some sort of production in these next two years or the midterms will come around and he'll lose his majority. Any idea which way that's going to fall in the in the next year and a half here? Well, I think the midterms, Democrats are likely favored to retake both the House and the Senate. Unfortunately, if you look at the polls today, I think we'd hold both House in the Senate unquestionably. So things would have to change. But you know, the average midterm loss in the House, I think it's something on the order of 25 seats, 24 seats at least we currently have 220 or 221.

1:21:59 I think it's 220 House seats against like 213 because there's a few Democrat, you know, 2 Democrat vacancies, maybe even 3 in the Senate. We're a little bit in better position there, but I would say it's a 5050 chance at this point whether we would hold the Senate. So you're right. And, and not only that, but we can't even corral our own Republicans together, you know, and a lot of all this big beautiful bill, we, we passed it by a narrow marching out of the House and the Senate's, we don't even have near the votes we, we need to pass the House version. So they're redoing that. During the first 100 days of the Trump administration, Congress passed 6 bills, which is an all time low and in modern history from the number of bills passed by, you know, party in power. So in terms of legislative victories, Trump, Trump administration has done poorly in terms of their executive orders.

1:22:56 I think they've done amazingly well, really great executive orders. A lot of executive measures have been really good. The tariffs have been really good. Unfortunately, the problem with the tariffs is, is that we need higher tariffs, we need to reciprocal tariffs. The Trump tariffs didn't go far enough, but most of they were only 50% reciprocal. So if Vietnam for example had 96% tariff on us or 92% I think and we had 46% back at them, the the new deal he negotiate with China is is not too bad. Basically, they have 77% effective tariffs on us. Ours I think are about 50%.

1:23:38 They're about so much more equitable than before he came to office. So I, I'm the problem is that they don't, they don't actually honor their agreements. So, you know, it's extremely unlikely that they'll, they'll honor what they, what they signed up to, but at least we have 50% tariffs back on them overall. But the other tariffs that we had have have been suspended, you know, pending pending talks. And so basically, you know, tariffs I think are one of the most effective ways to build your industrial base. And I don't think he's using them enough. But I'm, I'm really happy. I, I'm very pleased with the, the, the direction that he's taken us and his realization that tariffs are what built us and the greatest manufacturing industrial power on the planet in the early 1900s. So I'd like to see more of that.

1:24:31 And obviously there's, there's a price to be paid in terms of some higher consumer prices, which I haven't really seen because just because the tariffs have kind of been on and off. But I, I think that is a very important key, key tool in the President's arsenal to rebuild our economy and mainly our industrial base so that we can be in rebuilding our own weapons again. Because currently we we have to import Chinese parts in foreign parts to to build our advanced weapon systems. Has there been any moves that you've noticed start producing that more at home? So the key is to invoke the defense.

1:25:12 I'm trying to think with what it's called, but there's kind of an Emergency Defense Industrial Production Act that was, I think it was invoked by Biden for like, you know, COVID measures, masks and different stuff like that, medical supplies. I think the Trump administration has invoked that for certain things. I'd like to see him do more more that. So I I think we're moving in the right direction in terms of, you know, defense, industrial production, but we're still woefully behind China. Gotcha. OK. And do you see that changing much at all the, the, the, the way things are right now? Do you think that'll hold pretty much through through at least the next year and a half?

1:25:52 Yeah, I think, I think there'll be incremental progress on that front during the remainder of the Trump, Trump term, but not, not sufficient to be able to credibly deter Chinese aggression, OK. So I, I want to take all these things we talked about now, right? We got the conflict in the Middle East now with Israel and Iran, the ongoing stuff with with Ukraine and Russia and finally Taiwan and China. We're not in great shape financially still. It's going to take a long time to, I think, to get that back on track, what with with the threat of war either escalating or breaking out even further.

1:26:39 What can the average family do to kind of prepare for for harder times should they come? Well, I think you want to have a year's supply of food storage also, you know, medications, prescriptions, the Max extent water. You want to have a lot of water storage or else live by, you know, by lake or something like that. But obviously ammo, you know, guns and ammo are important as well. And you want to, you know, to, to kind of paraphrase a popular term, you want to, you want to get right with Jesus. You want to, you know, draw closer to God because ultimately you can have all the preparations, the physical preparations of the world, but if you're not spiritually prepared, you, you may not, might not survive what's coming. So, so that would be my, my advice or recommendations to your viewers is to is to, you know, keep the commandments, draw closer to, to the Savior and just help your family do the same.

1:27:39 And, you know, that's really the greatest insurance that I see to to tribulations that that might be ahead. Awesome. Well, David, as always, I appreciate you coming on, man. When this sort of stuff breaks out, you're my go to. You break it down in a way that even a guy like me can understand and that's impressive. So put that on your resume. You were able to talk down to Dave Sanders and get him all squared away. So that's, that's worth something. OK, let's just stay in touch and as we'll plan on touching here, you know, maybe latter part of this year unless something really breaks. But other than that man, I really appreciate you being on. Sounds great, thanks a lot for inviting me or show all.

1:28:22 Right man. Thanks. Bye everybody. Hang out for just 5 minutes there, Dave. You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast.