We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode Israel/Iran; Immigrants; Demonstrators; Rare-Earth; Tariffs; Hawley; Jobs | Yaron Brook Show

Israel/Iran; Immigrants; Demonstrators; Rare-Earth; Tariffs; Hawley; Jobs | Yaron Brook Show

2025/6/12
logo of podcast Yaron Brook Show

Yaron Brook Show

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
Y
Yaron Brook
Topics
Yaron Brook: 我对以色列可能袭击伊朗感到既希望又担忧,但最终可能不会发生。美国似乎采取了防御姿态,撤离了该地区的公民和军事人员家属。特朗普政府可能试图通过摆出攻击姿态来向伊朗施压,以促使其在核协议谈判中妥协。我认为特朗普最终会尽力避免军事行动。以色列的军事能力经常超出我们的预期。伊朗对美国和以色列都构成威胁,即使它没有直接攻击美国本土的计划,但它支持恐怖主义,并可能最终发展出攻击美国的能力。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This chapter analyzes the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, considering various factors such as the evacuation of US personnel, Israel's military capabilities, and the ongoing nuclear negotiations. The discussion explores the potential implications of such an attack and the role of the US.
  • Israel is poised to launch an attack on Iran.
  • The US is evacuating personnel from embassies near Iran.
  • Israel's military capabilities are often underestimated.
  • Iran's nuclear capabilities are a threat to Israel and the US.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Yaron Brook Show on this June 12th. And we are sitting here waiting to find out, is Israel going to strike Iran? It was kind of a suspenseful night last night. I mean, I...

sat down to do some work, I don't know, 8 p.m., 7 p.m., whenever it was, and I open up and look at Telegram and look at Twitter and, whoa, and it's just exploding. Israel's going to strike Iran. Israel's going to, you know, U.S. is evacuating personnel from its embassy in Iraq. They're evacuating personnel from embassies within striking distance of Iran. So a bunch of Middle East embassies are being evacuated. All true.

Israel moving defense systems around. I don't know if true, maybe true. And then it was, you know, people in Iraq saying they can hear jets in the sky. And it was like crazy.

Israeli saying they're seeing airplanes head towards the Syrian border, which would move them in the direction of Syria and then Iran. And it was like, is it happening? Is it? I mean, I don't know. It would be I was going to start the show today saying, you know, I always say told you so. I was going to say I was wrong. I was wrong.

Well, I'm not wrong yet. I might still be wrong, but I'm not wrong yet because nothing happened last night. By the time as the evening progressed, it was obvious that the sun was going to rise in Iran soon and whatever whatever Israel was going to do, if it was going to do anything, would be done at night and that nothing had happened. So nothing was going to happen. But it does really look like it.

Israel is in a position right now where it could launch an attack with zero imminently, immediately as soon as a decision is made. It really does look like the United States is in a defensive posture, whereas it is evacuating civilians and families of military men out of the region. They also have asked...

American personnel in Israel, so embassy and so on, not to travel outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to stay in the cities and not travel between cities and not travel outside of the main cities.

You know, Trump yesterday put out a little patriotic tweet about American soldiers. And I mean, there was even a rumor last night that it wasn't just the U.S. Israel that's going after Iran, but the U.S. is going to join them. There's going to be a joint operation to destroy Iran's capabilities at the hearing in front of the Senate. I think one of the committees, Hegseth, or I think it was Hegseth, said something about

uh, Iran is moving towards, uh, nuclear capabilities. And Trump said, uh, you know, dressed up in his tuxedo at the Lincoln center. He says something like, uh, uh, we cannot allow Iran to have nukes. So all the pieces seem to be falling into place of the U S and Israel are going at, they're going to do it. They're going to destroy Iran's capabilities. I was hopeful. I was, I was hoping I was wrong and that they were actually going to do it. Um,

And now I think that's probably not the case. So there's also a story saying that the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran around the nuclear deal were off and the meeting that was supposed to be this coming weekend was not going to happen. I think that's not true now. I think the meeting is happening. And I think this is all posturing. This is all an attempt to put pressure on Iran.

I think that everybody kind of put out this vibe of we're going to attack any moment now, I think on purpose to get the Iranians focused so that when they come to the meeting on Sunday, they are ready to compromise because the alternative is now obvious. The alternative is is an Israeli attack on them. I'm not sure this works. I'm not sure it doesn't backfire. It's hard to tell what motivates the Iranians. I don't think they're exactly rational actors, but.

But I do think that's, at the end of the day, what it is. The U.S. evacuating everybody to basically tell the Iranians, look, we're ready to do this. If you turn us down, if you won't cut a deal, if you won't compromise, we're ready to go. Our personnel is out and we are going to attack. We're going to launch into it right now. So we will see if that's actually what happens. And

Again, you know, it's already nighttime in Iran right now, so it could be happening as we speak. I guess I've got Twitter open just in case. But I doubt it. I think we're going to have another round of negotiating between the Iranians and the Americans. If that doesn't go well, if that is a dead end, then maybe then there's a chance. But I really, really think at the end of the day, Trump wants to avoid military action. He'll do what he can to avoid it.

I don't think last night I was thinking, oh, Netanyahu is going to tell Donald Trump to go stuff it and do it anyway. I don't think that'll actually happen. I can't imagine that happening. So I think the only way it happens is it's a coordinated effort. And the only way coordinated effort happens is if if the United States is absolutely convinced Trump is absolutely convinced that he cannot cut a deal with

with the Iranians. And I mean, it's going to be a bad deal no matter what the deal is. But even a bad deal, he wants he wants a deal, even if it's a bad one. So we're just going to have to wait a few more days to see what happens. But it is it is interesting that that Israel, you know, that everything is ready to go. And that got me thinking, you know, if Israel does it alone, what can Israel actually do? It doesn't have

the bunker-busting bombs that the United States have? How much damage can it actually do to Iran? And here as well, I'll just say I don't have any inside information, zero zilch, nada, information about what Israel can and cannot do. I don't know what its covert capabilities are. All I know is what we know. But what I do know is that the Israeli military constantly surprises us.

constantly surprises us in its capabilities. How many times since October 7th have we heard

They can't go into Gaza. If they go into Gaza, they'll suffer hundreds of casualties, thousands of casualties. And then they can't go into Rafah. Rafah, oh, God, Hamas is prepared for them. They'll be trapped. They'll kill them all. There's no way. They can't win. Yeah, I mean, Israel's taking casualties. Any casualty is sad. But relative to the difficulty of urban warfare, really,

relative to what we were promised and told would happen if they went into Gaza and if they went into Rafa, Rafa in the south of Gaza. Casualties have been pretty minimal. And then it was Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a well-trained, strong military force. They're really up to the challenge of fighting Israel. Israel, you know, is going to take real casualties. And all those Hezbollah missiles are going to neutralize Israel's

They'll take out the power plants. They'll blow up the refinery. Real damage is going to occur to Israel.

And then what do we get? We get beepers and we get Nasrallah in his bunker and we get all of that. And Hezbollah basically folds with, again, really, I mean, even more so on the northern front, minimal damage to Israel. That is, all their capabilities overblown, Israel's capability underestimated. And I think the same thing is probably true of Iran.

You know, one thing we do know is Israel kind of has the ability to fly into Iran undetected and unobstructed. Its F-35s did a real, you know, were quite free to do whatever they wanted to in Iran last round, you know, last year. And, you know, can they...

really do damage to the bunkers in which the centrifuges are placed deep inside the mountain. You know, who knows? Those things could be already booby-trapped. We don't know. I mean, by Israelis, they could already have something in there. They might have new weapons that we don't realize they have. They might have special forces on the ground. They might have spies. I don't know. But I do know that

Generally, the world, and to some extent me, and I'm sure you, underestimate Israel's capabilities in terms of what they're capable of doing and what is possible. They have the best trained pilots in the world, and partially because Israeli pilots have flown in combat and have done this and flown over enemy territory and eluded terrorists.

anti-aircraft missiles in a way that no Air Force in the world has done, including the United States. The Israeli Air Force is, I think by a long shot, the best Air Force in the world. You know, the United States is a bigger Air Force, but it just has less combat experience. And so I think it's...

I think it's going to be – I think they can do real damage to the Iranians if they choose to do so. I'm not sure they've chosen to do so. But we're going to be in suspense the next few days to see what happens and whether the nuclear capability of Iran is taken out. I think it needs to be taken out by the U.S., Israeli. I mean, I've seen tweets, people saying, oh, Iran's not a threat to the United States in Iran.

First, it's a threat to Israel. So, I mean, that's obvious. They've vowed to destroy Israel and they have funded attacks on Israel since Tula came to power. So they have acted on their expressed desire to see the destruction of Israel happen. They were the ones behind in the end funding October 7th.

And if they get nuclear bombs, they could use it even if it does mean mutually assured destruction, primarily because they are religious fanatics, whereas the North Koreans and the Soviets are not religious fanatics. They don't believe in an afterlife. Believing in an afterlife of 72 virgins puts you in a different position vis-a-vis using nukes.

And playing into a mutually assured destruction scenario. In terms of the United States, Iran is not a short-term or medium-term threat to the United States, even if it got nukes. Now, it would be a threat to any ally the United States happen to have in the Middle East. But if you don't care, if you're in isolation, it's just the United States, just America, then sure, in the short term, probably not.

But remember, the Iranians are developing long range ballistic missiles that could reach the United States. They certainly can reach Europe. And one day they will be able to reach the United States. You know, we can knock them out of the sky before they reach. Why is that a big concern? They could put one in a boat and sail it into New York Harbor. Why would they do that? You might say, well, I mean, what are they what are they chance in their mosques every Friday?

Death to America. Death to Satan. I mean, Israel is the little Satan. The big Satan is America. They're committed to attacking America, just like the 9-11 people committed to attacking America. It has nothing to do with American troops over there. We stand as an affront to the Islamists. We are an affront to the Islamist world because we're successful and we're secular. And they hate the fact that we're secular. And they hate the fact that we're successful. And destroying our people.

So the prestige as being successful, as being strong, as being powerful is a big part of the Islamist agenda. So and again, the leader, the leader of the Islamist world, the leader of the Islamist movement, it's not a world, it's a movement, is Iran. So it's a threat. It's a threat to Israel. No question. And it's a threat to the United States as well.

Even if you disregard all its allies and its interests around the world, even if you say, no, no, no, are they a threat to mainland America? And then it says, yes, yes. And if they commit terrorist attacks that are not nuclear terrorist attacks, if they fund a future Al Qaeda, if they fund a future 9-11 and they have nukes, we will be very constrained in how we can respond. They will have an up and a hand on us. They will, because we care about life.

You know, we care about them detonating a nuke somewhere. They don't. They don't. So anyway, last night was suspenseful. Nothing happened. I don't expect anything to happen. So far, I'm still right. But I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. And yeah. All right. Let's see. This was kind of humorous. I don't know if you saw this tweet by Donald Trump. The Donald Trump, a president. This is what he wrote.

Just a little while ago. And he actually reiterated it. Actually, not a little while ago. It was this morning. I only saw it a little while ago. But then he reiterated it in a press conference a little while ago. He wrote, our great farmers and people in hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good long-time workers away from them. With those jobs being almost impossible to replace.

In many cases, the criminals allowed into our country by the very stupid Biden open border policy applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our farmers, but get the criminals out of the USA. Changes are coming. I mean, this is amazing. This is like

Trump admitting he's been wrong. I mean, I don't know what Stephen Miller is thinking, but Stephen Miller might be, you know, this might be the beginning of some kind of... We'll see. Stephen Miller must be apoplectic right now. So I expect an executive order coming out soon, basically giving reprieve to illegal immigrants who have been here X number of years and are working. So I expect to see...

a hands-off approach by ICE in the workplace and a refocus on criminals and a focus on recent Biden-era illegal immigrants. That would be a huge shift and a huge change for the Trump administration, a huge step backwards. I mean, he's basically admitting that

that he's getting complaints from farmers and hotel and leisure, that they can't find workers, that ICE is arresting all their employees. And these are people who've been here, as he says, 20 years. And he said this again, 20, 25 years in a press conference, longtime employees. So I expect to see something that basically provides, they won't call it this and it won't be explicit, but in a sense, this will provide some kind of amnesty. Whoa, there's the word, amnesty to workers

Long time illegal immigrants who are working, who actually have work. Stephen Miller won't like it. Many people in MAGA will flip out. But the reality is ISIS actions are not playing well with the electorate. The polls are pretty clear that the country hates the rioters, but they hate Trump's policies even more.

They generally want criminals and gang members kicked out of the country. They're good with that. But really, they're not comfortable with this idea of going into restaurants and going into places of work and going onto farms and arresting people and deporting them. They don't want that. Criminals, they don't care. I mean, the American people are better than this, still, marginally better than this, but they're better than this.

So exactly what this is going to look like, I don't know. And again, who knows? It's Donald Trump. He could change his mind tomorrow. But that's what he seems to be, you know, you know, people who are almost impossible to replace. He wants to protect them because, you know, Trump has an interesting constituency. Right. He brought together an interesting coalition.

An interesting coalition. He's got he's got and this relates to his problems with Big Beautiful Bill. It relates to all his problems. He's got this coalition of farmers. They want lots of subsidies and nobody talks about this. But the Big Beautiful Bill has massive increase for farm subsidies. He's got a lot of welfare recipients, working class people who rely on Medicaid. Remember, 95 million Americans today work.

you know, get Medicaid. A lot of those are Trump voters. He's got generally, if you look at red states, red states are far more likely to be net recipients of money from the federal government. Isn't that interesting? Blue states like California tend to be, tend to pay more federal taxes than they receive. Red states tend to receive more federal dollars than they get taxed.

Not surprising, really, if you understand how the U.S. economy works. So basically, red states are more welfare dependent. So you can't really cut welfare. You can't really cut Medicaid. This is the problem that they're having in the Senate, why the Senate doesn't want to cut Medicaid. You know, but it's also true that

You've got a lot of MAGA employers who and a lot of them are in the in the in their food business, in the leisure business, hotel business. And a lot of them are farmers and they don't they don't want their workers to be arrested and deported. They need them. So a lot of you have to keep a lot of balls up in the air in a democracy, which is what we become to appease all the different pressure groups, right?

That are putting pressure on you to grab here and grab there and take that and take that and preserve this and preserve that. And it's impossible to juggle them all. And you have to prioritize who to sacrifice to whom. And this is the job of politics in a mixed economy. This is why politics is such a horrible job right now. How do you even do that? So,

I mean, this immigration problem is a problem. A lot of people, you know, if if he really clamps down on H-1Bs like Mitty and MAGA would like his his new tech supporters are not going to like it. If he doesn't clamp down on H-1Bs, the Steve Bannon's and the and the Miller's of the world are not going to like it. If he if he goes after.

you know, farmhands who are illegal immigrants. Farmers are not going to like it, but what about Steve Bannon? Anyway, he can't please everybody, and he's learning that. And, of course, the American people are better than Trump, surprisingly, not surprisingly. They're better than Trump, and they don't like what's going on. And his poll numbers are plummeting as a consequence. So he's going to have to do something. He's going to have to get ICE off of the TV screens. Now, of course, as we know,

You know, a lot of his base doesn't like this. So here's Matt Walsh this morning commenting. He posted Trump's thing about farmers. And he says employers who knowingly rely on illegal immigrant labor should be in prison, in prison. Instead, we're going to back off of immigration enforcement for their sake. Hell no. We can't tolerate this. This is Matt Walsh, right? So he's going to alienate a lot of these people.

crazy, you know, MAGA nutcases. Matt Walsh is maybe nuttier than most, but, you know, in prison. So now the government tells you who you can hire and who you can't. The government tells you who's an illegal employee and who's legal employee. I mean, it's just this is not America. Matt Walsh also writes, quote, Americans don't do these jobs. Bullshit. Bullshit.

They won't be on your, they won't be your slave labor. That's the issue here. There are plenty of Americans able and willing, able and willing to work on a farm. They just won't do it for 50 cents an hour or whatever they're paying your army of illegals who can't speak English. People are working on farms for 50 cents an hour. It's complete BS. But yeah, I mean, if you pay the 50 bucks an hour, 100 bucks an hour, maybe Americans would do it.

Would they do it for 15 bucks an hour? Unlikely, given the physical nature of the work. So yeah, people are pissed off. People are really, really upset. You can go talk to farmers. They cannot get native-born citizens to Harvard produce in the summer, regardless of how much money they pay them. And the ones who do respond are typically lousy workers. They're such low quality that they have to fire them. Here they're getting a good workforce,

They're still paying them and paying them enough to justify them illegally coming into the country and remittance, sending money home and living in America. God, these people are so full of it. And so, yes, Matt Walsh is going nuts on this, as you'd expect. And, yeah.

And he's just, I think, the tip of the iceberg. I think MAGA is probably freaking out again. There are two types of MAGA. There's the MAGA that goes, well, if Trump says it must be right, he's playing 3D chess. We don't understand it. This is really a way for him to get rid of all the immigrants or something. You know, it's hard for me to figure out how to rationalize like a MAGA person.

Like a crazy Trump mindless syndrome MAGA person. And then there's another part of MAGA that says...

you know, he's wrong. He's betraying us. And those are the dangerous ones. I mean, all dangerous, right? Because, but these are the more ideological MAGA ones. And they're like, he's betraying us. We need to fight him. We need to let him know how we feel. These are the ones who booed him when he took credit for the vaccines and forced him to change his, to change his tune about it. So, yeah. I mean, in his press conference, he says something like,

They have good workers. They've worked for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great. We can't take all of their people and send them back. I mean, literally, that's what he said today. We can't take all the people and send them back. And there's an order coming soon. Maybe maybe he's firing. Maybe maybe you should fire Miller.

Supposedly Miller right now is at Congress and talking to the senators and supposedly it's a shouting match over there at the Senate. I mean, I'm just seeing reports on Miller and the senators going at each other's throats over some of these policies and what's going on. I mean, I'm glad Trump is not principled. I mean, I am. This is why I don't think he can become and he will become president.

dictator, a furo, whatever you want to call it, because he's not principled. He doesn't really care. He's never cared. Immigration has never been an issue that he cares that much about. Remember, he's married to immigrants. You know, this is not a big issue for him. I mean, he's a bit of a racist, and he certainly knows how to play to the racist card to get people to vote for him. But he doesn't care that much.

This is not it's not like tariffs. This is not something he is willing to take really bad poll numbers and be ridiculed on TV for. Don't think he cares that much. Miller, again, is an ideologue, is an ideologue. And I would rather have Trump as president of Miller. I'd rather have a pragmatic Trump who's willing to change his mind when the American people kind of show him that they are unhappy with him.

than to have somebody who never changes their mind and is committed to evil ideas all the way through, all the way, no matter what destruction they bring about in their wake. So let's see. Let's see. I mean, I'd rather he build a wall, waste money that way, than send ICE into workplaces and, you know, arrest people. So, you know, I...

If the focus shifts, just building walls. I mean, it's horrible. It's disgusting. It's symbolically offensive. It's definitely unequivocally un-American. But it's better than having a militarized agency going into American businesses and arresting people and deporting them, kicking them out of the country. I don't know if you've seen this clip.

uh viral video that's gone around uh about these demonstrators i think in new york who are blocking the way uh blocking the streets and this this woman happens to be black is pleading with them that she needs to get to work and her kids and get her kids and get to work and and um

And these two demonstrators, you know, just with smokes on their faces, riding bicycles, I guess, holding bicycles, and are just like, work? Who cares about that? I mean, you know, we're demonstrating. You're tough. You know, we don't care about work. Work? Oh, no, not work, he says in a cynical kind of way, sarcastic kind of way. I think the video is worth watching, and I'm glad it's gone viral.

Because while, look, you know, and this relates maybe to a question that I got. Where's that question? Whose question was it? There was a question, a question, a question. Not that, not that, not that, not that, not that. I thought there was a question about demonstrations and going to demonstrations. I don't see it. A couple of critics. Oh, yeah. Brian. Brian Cross. That's right.

Biden says, I'm considering going to one of the no kings protests planned for Saturday. I'd prefer a more on point slogan like no dictator or more positives like upload the Constitution. No kings is too vague thoughts. I mean, here's here's the thing about demonstrations. So on the one hand, yeah, I mean, demonstrating against.

Trump and his idea of being a king, or I agree that a better slogan would be better, but it's good enough. I think everybody gets what no kings means, particularly given that he's doing this military parade and given ICE and all of this other stuff going on. It's a good time to stand up against him. But on that hand, there's this. Here's a demonstration that you at least somewhat can get behind. I mean, they're demonstrating against ICE. They're demonstrating

you know, in favor of these immigrants. But at these demonstrations, they're going to be, you know, people with the keffiyeh and yelling pro-Hamas slogans. They're going to be people dragging around Mexican flags. They're going to be people with communist flags. I've seen a bunch of protesters with kind of hammer and sickle flags. And then there's going to be these obnoxious

just obnoxious, horrific, you know, demonstrators who don't really give a shit about other people's lives and particularly other people who actually want to be productive in their life and actually want some stuff done. And the demonstration is going to block roads. It's going to inconvenience people. It's going to make it difficult for them to get to work and so on. So I'm not saying don't go. I'm saying be very aware of who you're walking with.

To what extent do you feel like you're sanctioning the people you're walking with? Who are these people? And then to what extent are you inconveniencing people by having the streets blocked so that you can demonstrate? Now, if it's a demonstration in front of a government building and it's blocking one road, but you're not moving around and blocking a whole neighborhood or blocking a highway, you have to really think about

Which demonstration are you going to? Who else is there? And what are the consequences of the demonstration? That is, again, whose lives are you inconveniencing? And, you know, this video is a great video because I wouldn't want to be in that demonstration. I mean, this woman is...

She's like, you know, I probably agree with you guys, but I really, really, really need to get to work. And, you know, because of you, I can't. And, you know, kids, she's got the whole stick, right? And these people don't care. They just don't care. We're demonstrating now. Get out of the way. And I think you have to care. So you have to take all that into consideration. So there's probably a bunch of different demonstrations out there. Pick one that is the least obtrusive demonstration.

Pick one that is least likely to be hijacked or dominated by really, really nasty groups that are really, really horrible. I'm sorry, even in my anti-Trump opposition, I'm not an ally of the pro-Hamas or the Marxists or the other horrible anti-American, anti-life people who are going to be at these demonstrations, unfortunately. I'd rather you... I mean...

Again, I'm not saying don't go, but I think it's more effective and better to express your anti-Trump feelings. I mean, thoughts on platform that cannot be hijacked by these horrible people. So, yeah, I encourage people to watch this video. It's all over Twitter and stuff, so it's easy to find. You know, I think one of them, one of the two people, it's a man and a woman. One of the people is a kind of professional BLM.

is a BLM well-known demonstrator. The other one's like a marketing executive somewhere. I hope he gets fired. So, yeah, two anti... They're mocking this black New York mother because she needs to get to work and they're mocking her. One is a senior vice president at a marketing research firm. I hope he gets fired. And the other one is a BLM demonstrator who won a major lawsuit. So, yeah, just...

horrible people. I mean, it's one thing to say we're sorry. It's really horrible. They're inconveniencing you. We're doing this for a good cause. We understand your concern, but that's not their attitude at all. Their attitude is mocking and demeaning and looking down upon this woman. And it really is, really is horrible. This is, I guess, an intersection on Hudson Street in lower Manhattan, Texas.

Yeah, and I don't want to think about, oh, I'm demonstrating and I'm blocking somebody's ability to get to work or blocking somebody's ability to pick up their kids and take them to a soccer game or whatever it is that they're doing. So if it's a demonstration, it has to be kind of legit permits, well advertised and advanced, and ideally not one that's moving, one that's static in one place. Everybody knows what's going on. And then, of course, how do you control who else shows up to the demonstration, who's demonstrating with you?

I personally would be, I wouldn't go. So I don't like demonstrations. I don't believe in them. There are plenty of ways to make your voice heard, but I understand why you'd want to do it. And I'm not saying don't. I'm just saying think about all these considerations. What else? What else did I want to, I think that was it on that. All right. Demonstrations. Rare Earth. The Earth is pretty rare.

I mean, you know, Trump announced that there's a framework for framework for framework for framework for a deal with China. And one day maybe there'll be a deal. Right now there's just a framework for framework. But, you know, whatever. And what's interesting about all of this is what we've discovered because of Trump's, I think, stupidity. What we really discovered over the last few months is just how much leverage China has for

Over the United States and really the entire West. I mean, I think people kind of intellectually knew it to some extent, vaguely. I think it's become real. This rare earth thing is crucial. It's a big deal. And while, you know, over the years, I've mentioned on a number of different occasions and shows, hey, they've just found this big reserve of rare earth material and here and there. I mean, there's tons of them. There's Wyoming and Montana and all over the U.S.,

And then there's in Greenland and there's in, I think, Norway or Sweden. One of those countries found a huge reserve. And really, and of course, there's Ukraine that the U.S. has found a mineral deal with. So rare earth metals are not that rare, it turns out. But here's the problem. The problem is not finding them. There are two problems now. One is mining them, getting them out of the ground. And that's primarily an environmentalist problem. In the United States, it's just impossible to...

in Scandinavia, it's going to be very difficult. I mean, you have to break up the earth, and that means disturbing the environment and protests and environmental impact studies and so on and so forth. And while the Trump administration might be lessening some of the regulatory burden that it would have to fall on mining companies, they're not going to lessen it enough to make a dent in the next few years. This is

You know, there's a lot of work that has to be done to mine for these metals and bring them out of the ground. I mean, China, for example, there are two metals. What are these metals? I forget. Very rare, very rare metals. Dysprosium and teribium. They're important for magnets. Well, yeah.

They're not mined in China. They're mined in Myanmar. And China basically has a militia in Myanmar protecting the mines there. And all the product goes to China. Now, it goes to China. So first of all, it's very difficult to mine. That is number one. Number two, once you mine the product, you have to refine it. You have to

free it from the garbage and get just the material that you need for whatever application you need it for. And that is big industry. That is heavy industry. And that's the kind of industry, again, because it tends to be polluting, because it's big, ugly. You know, that's all being moved to China. So,

If we wanted, even if we mined it out of the ground in Montana, or we bought it from an ally like in Greenland, or we bought it from somewhere else, we don't have, the United States and the West generally, doesn't have the refining capability to actually refine it. Now, here's a real national security issue. These are metals that most of our weapon systems rely on. You can't fly ballistic missiles. You can't fly airplanes. You can't build drones without these rare earth metals.

That means you need a source, one, and two, you need refining capabilities. And refining capabilities don't have to be in the United States. Indeed, they probably shouldn't be in the United States, but they should be with an ally. You know, Mexico, Canada, I don't know, Brazil, whatever. Just not China. And this is where I've been arguing for years now, decades really, that the United States lacks national security strategy.

foreign policy strategy or national security strategy. Because the national security strategy would actually identify certain metals as being required for national security and then figure out how to create circumstances by which those metals can be mined and refined in countries that are not generally hostile to the United States.

And even if 20 years ago you didn't think China was going to be hostile to the U.S., certainly 10 years ago you started to think that, and I remember people were talking about it. Why over the last 10 years has nothing been done, zero, zilch, nada, to figure out a way to get some of this refining capability at a U.S. ally? And again, the way to do this is, I think, fairly simple. The United States puts out a – the Defense Department puts out

basically a woke order. We want to buy X tons of these minerals and we're willing to buy it at a 25, 30% premium to the market price. If it is, if the source is a source that has these qualities and those qualities need to be somewhere that is independent of China and Russia and whatever.

And, you know, go for it. And that way you unleash entrepreneurs to go and build refining capabilities in Mexico, let's say, and then be this number one supplier for the defense department. And maybe you get more than one in more than one countries and you get some alternatives. And you build that way by paying an over market price. You build a competition to the Chinese producers.

But for that, you have to have a long-term strategy. You have to be willing to identify the key things that you are going to need. And you have to be instead of, you know, the temptation is, oh, build in America. We'll subsidize it. Well, you're not going to do that. It's too expensive. And the environmentalists are never going to let you get away with building these things. So recognize that as part of the strategy. This is what strategic thinking requires. Recognize the obstacles.

And recognize that subsidies, you don't want to pick winners and losers. What you want to create is an alternative market. And if it turns out 25% premium doesn't get the entrepreneurial juices going in all these countries, make it 50% premium. Money shouldn't be the obstacle. Much more important are strategic interests. And go out and create an alternative source of these minerals. But the reality right now is that our military supply chain

A military supply chain is completely dependent on China. The magnets necessary. I mean, we're going to have to at some point produce tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of drones in order to if we're going to defend ourselves against China, let's say with Taiwan need you need batteries for that. We don't have the battery capabilities. You need magnets, right?

For all of these electronic instruments in weapon systems, we don't have magnets. We don't have an industry capable of producing magnets because we don't have the materials for the magnets. I mean, put aside commercial uses. We can survive if that gets cut off. You know, the market will have to adapt. But military uses, we need a secure alternative to China.

And again, that's what real strategic thinking and real strategic planning would entail. Right now, what China is doing is basically squeezing America. It absolutely knows it has the upper hand. You know, Trump does not have an upper hand with China. China depends, you know, we depend on stuff from China more than they depend on stuff for us. And so, yeah, I mean, it's...

It really is becoming clear how bad of a, what do you call it, strategic position the United States is in. The United States isn't. They need our money for sure. But much more than that, we need their magnets and batteries to be able to fuel a military force of the 21st century. And that's not good. We need to get out of that. And Trump is just like a blind idiot.

who has no ability to think strategically and has appointed people around him who have no ability to think strategically. And as a consequence, they're not thinking strategically. So he launches this trade war with China where they can just squeeze him. And they did. They just squeeze him. And we get nothing. We get nothing. Every time they want something from Trump, they're going to say, well, whoops, no more rare earth material, no more rare earth stuff. I mean, all these negotiations are

We talked about with this framework for framework for framework for a deal. We're in a worse situation than we were before Trump became president vis-a-vis China. We're paying higher taxes on Chinese goods. We're much more explicitly, obviously vulnerable to their pressure around rare earth and magnets and all this other stuff. And we got nothing from them. Zero zilch, nothing. They're choosing not to buy stuff that is essential. This is why the farm bill is

The big, beautiful bill has a dramatic increase in subsidies for farmers. Why? Because the farmers are suffering because of Trump's stupid trade policies. People are not buying American farm product by merely the Chinese. So we need to subsidize them more, which is making us poorer in every respect.

Trump's trade policies are a disaster for the United States. I mean, not a disaster in the sense that we're going to collapse tomorrow. A disaster in terms of we gain nothing and we lose quite a bit. We lose quite a bit. And it doesn't have to be this way vis-a-vis these strategic materials. It could be done differently. But no, and now it turns out that China is squeezing out

American and European companies who want magnets and batteries and rare earth materials. OK, you can have them, but you need to give us technology. You need to give us IP. You need to give us information. They're using it as leverage against the West. And that's the kind of stuff Trump does nothing about. Nothing about. I mean, they always say, oh, China, they violate IP. We need to go after them because the IP violated. Sure. OK, but what have you done about it?

In the case of Trump, nada, zero. Now, look, trade is win-win. China loses if they can't sell stuff to the U.S., no question. But we lose more. We benefit more from trade with China than China benefits. And we have for decades. I mean, the United States' standard of living and quality of life has risen dramatically over the last 40 years because of trade with China. It's a win-win situation.

It's a win-win. And all this trade war stuff is just a disaster. Again, the way to create alternatives to Chinese dominance of rare earth material is to create alternatives. It's to work on it, strategize around it, figure out mechanisms by which you can do it. I don't see the administration doing any of that. Or any administration, any of our presidents in the last 40 years. They don't think strategically. There's just no strategic thinking about long-term solutions.

How do we deal with this? We did tariffs. Oh, I didn't do that story. All right. That's fine. With regard to tariffs, Trump said yesterday they intend to send letters to trading partners in the next one or two weeks, setting unilateral tariff rates. Now, remember, they were going to have 90 deals in 90 days, 90 deals in 90 days. One deal. No. Do they have one deal? Half a deal? Framework for a deal? No.

One in 90 days, that's what they actually have. They're one framework for a deal with the UK. We don't have deals with anybody else. And maybe a framework with a deal with China, but not kind of. So two frameworks of deals in 90 days instead of 90 deals in 90 days. So now the deadline's coming, July 9th, where he said those wonderful tariffs are going to come into place, the unilateral tariff rates. And there are no deals on the table. So he's sending and he's just going to impose tariffs.

the tariffs on these economies. So, you know, he said yesterday, we're going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, the country's telling them what the deal is, right? At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out. And I think you understand that saying this is the deal. You can take it or leave it. So no deals, no negotiated deals, no free trade, God forbid. He's just going to impose tariffs in these countries. At the same time,

Treasury Secretary Besant told lawmakers yesterday that it's probably very highly likely that Trump will push the July 9th deadline for another three months further into the future so that more free trade deals can be put together. You know, Besant said that there were 18 major partners engaged in discussions right now, not 90.

And in more than 90 days, but 18. OK. And it's just engaged in discussions. It doesn't mean they're even close to real negotiations. So it's hard to tell what's going to happen. But like immigration, Trump doesn't want to offend the people who voted for him. He doesn't want an economy going into recession. He doesn't want unemployment to go up. He doesn't want

thinks to get really bad. He wants his tariffs. He wants his cake and to eat it, too. He would like his tariffs and for the economy to thrive. That's not going to happen. So it's I think in spite of him saying when you send letters, we're going to send letters, we're going to send letters. I think the reality is that

Yeah, they're going to delay this. I think Besant is probably right here. But it is interesting, on the same day, Trump and Besant are saying two opposite things. Trump is saying, we're sending you letters. It's a deadline. And Besant is saying, no, we'll probably delay. We'll probably delay. Now, maybe what they'll do is the 18 countries that are in negotiations, they'll delay. And for everybody else, they'll send letters. We'll see. It's going to be interesting. But the next, yeah, next, it's June, July 9th. It's just around the corner. So we've got a few weeks now.

you know, three weeks now to see how many deals they cut, how many people they're negotiating with, and how many people they push into a corner and impose, you know, 60% tariffs or whatever it is that they aim to impose on people. All right. Yeah, just a quick one now. Yeah, we're good. Josh Hawley, my favorite senator, now that J.D. Vance is vice president, all there is is Josh Hawley. So my favorite senator, Josh Hawley.

Uh, Josh Hawley just introduced a legislation. If you're not familiar with this, I think this was two days ago, introduced legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. So Josh Hawley is an ally of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on many economic issues. He is the face of the new GOP.

He is much smarter than Donald Trump. He is much more principled and dedicated than Donald Trump. And his principles and dedication to a cause much darker than Donald Trump's cause. So, you know, watch Josh Hawley as he becomes more prominent. And, you know, one of the ways in which to appeal to that base is a $15 minimum wage, you know, program.

You know, this in addition to, of course, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, which, again, appeals to the same basic people. Hawley also spent time. He's very active. He's obviously positioning himself to be running in 2028 for president. He's relatively young. He's got a number of cycles of presidency that he can run in to try to get the nomination.

But he reminded me of some Democratic congressmen the other day. He was on a committee hearing with U.S. health insurance companies, and he just went after them. I mean, he says the problem is there is no competition. It's a racket. This is about pharmacy benefit managers that are buying the biggest pharmacies are buying them. It's a total racket.

Why shouldn't we be breaking you guys up? I mean, this looks like classic monopolistic behavior. The patients are getting screwed. Don't you think the competition we really need is to break up this alliance between insurance companies and PBMs? I mean, we're not talking about here liberating the economy and making it freer. He's arguing for, yeah, breaking up American businesses.

The biggest three PBMs are owned by biggest insurance companies. You're like one huge giant pharma industry, a giant pharma series of monopolies. Why is it a good idea for the biggest PBMs to be owned by the biggest insurers? And now you're buying up pharmacies as well. Why should we allow that? Why should insurance companies, PBMs, also own pharmacies?

Well, I mean, you might look at the structure and the regulation of insurance companies and of pharmacies and of pharmaceutical companies and the whole structure of the industry. You might want to look at the entire structure to discover the reasons why this makes sense for these pharmacies to do what they're doing, for this vertical integration to actually happen. What is it that provides incentives? And maybe it's existing regulatory structure that has to be abolished.

Maybe what we need is more free markets and health insurance, freer markets and pharmaceuticals, freer markets and pharmacies. But he sounds like a regular run-of-the-mill Democratic congressman lambasting CEOs for being monopolistic. Standard stuff. All right, let's end on a positive. Yesterday, 20 years ago, yesterday, 20 years ago, in 2005,

Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University. The 2005 Stanford commencement address was Steve Jobs. And the Steve Jobs archives has just put up an enhanced version of that talk, of that speech, up on YouTube. I'm going to post the URL in the chat. You can find it in the chat. And look,

You know, the talk is not an objectivist talk. And there's a lot of language there that we objectivists would find. You know, why are you talking about that? Why do you say it that way? What are you saying? But in its spirit, in its intention, but mainly in its spirit, it is a truly beautiful talk. And, you know, it's a speech worth listening to, worth being inspired by, particularly if you're young.

Um, this is the speech, you know, this is, uh, right out of Iran's rules for life. I mean, I would change a few words here and present it a little differently, but, but this is good. It's not, you know, he's not a professional speaker and the delivery is not up to Steve Jobs, usual standards because he's reading the talk, but it truly is beautiful. It's incredibly touching.

It's, you know, it's moving, it's touching. He talks about his diagnosis of cancer. At this point when he gave the speech, he thought he was cancer-free. If you know his story, you know the cancer comes back and kills him ultimately, and it adds an element of sadness to the whole thing. But it's inspiring. His segment of failure and why being fired from Apple...

For the first time, when he was fired from Apple, when he was with Apple for the first time, a company he founded, he was fired from it. His little talk about that and how it's probably the best thing that happened to him in his life. You know, probably that, just that is probably, you know, probably worth listening to. Just for that.

His story about dropping out of college, his story about integrating, connecting the dots, you know, pursuing your passion, doing what you love. It really is beautiful stuff. So check it out. If you haven't watched it, it's 14 minutes long. Don't put it on 1.25 or 1.5. This is one you want to just let it sink in. You want to relish it. You want to just, you know, you want to just enjoy it.

So don't did I did I post it? Yeah, I did post it. It's it really is a beautiful speech. So and it hits on a number of really just true, true points and true ideas. You get a flavor of who this man was. I think he's one of the great heroes of the late 20th century, early 21st century.

A man who changed our lives in significant ways and happy to be one of his customers and happy that he helped transform the electronic and the computer businesses. So check it out. Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement address. If you don't have the link...

uh you can uh you can still just if you do a google search you'll find it it's pretty easy and there's a new version out that's that's enhanced the hd uh i guess high definition and where the sound quality is a little better i heard it years ago but i thought of playing some segments but i think it's better to just listen to the whole thing and enjoy it uh fresh kind of fresh for the first time all right um as you know i'm a huge fan boy when it comes to steve jobs i i

He's one of my personal heroes with all his flaws and all the problems that he had. And he definitely was flawed. All right. Let's see. What do we want to do here? I think we're good. All right. All right. Let us shift to your questions. That is the news, guys, for Thursday. June 12th. We'll be very much keeping track of any developments and any of the stories that happen in the days to come.

or in the nights to come. Let's see. All right, I don't know if you saw this. There's this news about a senator who was handcuffed at an event earlier today in California and pushed to the ground and handcuffed. I mean, pretty brutal stuff. Yeah, okay. Let's see.

Super Chat. Yeah. Okay. So as you know, we have Super Chat. You can make a contribution. Nev Feld just did a sticker. He got a number of really, really, really generous stickers. John did $50. Thank you, John. Really appreciate that. And then there was another one that was also like up there. Yeah, Rob. Rob, $80 Australian. So that is the equivalent of around...

So that's great. Thank you. Really appreciate that. And then Neffeld did a sticker and Gail did a sticker and Alan did three stickers, four stickers, five stickers. Thank you guys. So stickers are a great way to support the show value for value. But you can also ask questions and we will stay here to answer them all. Also, I want to remind you that Ocon is three weeks away from

And if you want to still sign up, there's still, what, four days left to sign up for the live events. But you can also sign up for online events. And in any case, if you want to sign up, you can get a discount for being a You're On Book Show listener, a 10% discount. Just use this code, 25YBS10, 25YBS10, and you can attend Ocon, as I've said many, many times. Great event, fantastic event.

phenomenal lectures, really interesting. I think this is going to be phenomenal. It's really all about the Enlightenment and saving the Enlightenment and what we must do to save the Enlightenment. And I'm giving a talk on what is Western civilization, what is it that we're trying to save exactly.

And then I encourage you to sign up. And then there's the whole social aspect and the poker aspect and all the other fun stuff, just hanging out aspect with other people of similar values that is just fun. And you should all consider to do that.

Let's see. And then Alex Epstein. Alex Epstein is a sponsor of the show as well. AlexEpstein.substack.com. AlexEpstein.substack.com is where you can find his work, the best thinker, the best writer on issues of fossil fuels, electricity, energy, energy, energy.

Environmentalism, energy and environmentalism, very hooked into what's going on in the Trump administration, very hooked into the deregulation, also to the big, beautiful bill in terms of the provisions that cut subsidies for wind and solar. Alex is the best source for information about all of that. He is very, very knowledgeable. You will become a better thinker, a better communicator, and just no more.

If you start subscribing and reading on a regular basis, Alex's content. I'm a subscriber. You should be too. And finally, if you want to support this show, the best, easiest way to do it is through a Patreon. It's kind of a monthly contribution. It's really, really helpful because it gives me predictability in terms of what money is coming in.

And so, you know, please consider doing that. Patreon.com, just put you on Bookshow and you become a supporter at whatever level you would like to use. Yeah, I mean, God. So I guess Chrissy Noem was doing a press conference and Padilla, a senator from California, came in and asked questions. He was dragged out, thrown to the floor. I guess he resisted being dragged out, wouldn't you?

and handcuffed. I mean, this is a U.S. senator. You know, Kristi Noem was saying, quote, we are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country. I mean, this is pathetic, ridiculous, absurd, false. It's like, what is she doing, a regime change in California?

You know, the threat is minimal, trivial from these demonstrators. Nothing New York police, you know, L.A. police. You can see the video of him being dragged out that California police can't handle. And yet, you know, this is this is what we're sending Marines and National Guard people to. You know, it really, you know, it increases the temptation to go out and protest. I get it. I get it. Yeah.

I have to, you know, I have to riff you a little bit. Did you see did you see Trump's thing about Russia and Germany and Japan and all this stuff? It's one of the funniest clips you will ever see in your life. You've got to watch this. It's almost like a skit from, you know, the Marx Brothers from Groucho Marx could have pulled this off. I mean, Trump is standing there going, you know, Russia fought with us in World War Two. And now everybody hates them. But they were with us. They were on our side in World War Two.

And Germany, Japan, oh, they were these enemies. And they're fine now. Everybody loves them. What the hell's going on? Why do we love the Japanese and the Germans when they were enemies and we hate Russia when it was our ally? Somebody's going to have to explain this to me. Somebody has to explain that to me. It's like, please, somebody explain it to him. You know, release him from the Missouri of this incredible, sophisticated, difficult puzzle.

You know, and maybe this is what he doesn't understand because he's all about loyalty after all. You know, one, our relationship with the USSR back then was,

Kind of cumbersome and complicated, given that they were Soviets and it was Stalin and we were in alliance with them. So maybe that was wrong. Maybe they shouldn't have been friends with us back then and our allies back then. But even if they were, they changed, maybe, or the circumstances changed, you know, the enemies changed. And Germany and Japan have done a lot of change, right? They're not the same people as back then. Not the same people. Did you see the part where he told Mets that he lost...

that he lost the war, the Second World War, that it was like, yeah, you lost, you. I mean, it's like, no, the government of Germany back then lost it. The government of Germany today is not responsible for the actions of Hitler. It's not responsible for losing that war. Putin is not responsible

Well, he's not Stalin. Close. And Germany, Japan today are not Germany, Japan back then. So, yeah, they can be our friends now, even though they were enemies back then. This is not that hard, Donald Trump. Like, I don't think you need a more than a. Yeah, I know. I'm not supposed to say you don't need much cognitive ability to understand that things change. Somebody should yell at him.

You were best friends with Elon Musk just a week ago. Now you're not. How did that happen? Somebody explain that to me. How can that happen? How to comment on that? Because I'm seeing it all over Twitter right now. And it's super funny. I mean, you got it. You got to watch him actually say it. It's like he's confused. How? Why don't we love Putin? We fought with them in World War Two. They should be our friends. And why do we hate? All right.

Yeah, let me stop looking at Twitter because then I'll keep getting distracted. God, there are big demonstrations now in New York with Gaza to Janine, you know, Hamas leaders and everything. We haven't talked about this crazy New York mayoral election. Maybe we'll talk about that tomorrow. But it does. There's a good chance that the next mayor of New York is going to be a Hamas-loving, dedicated socialist. He's not leading in the polls, but he's a close second.

All right, to your super chat questions. Stop riffing. We don't have all day. Rob C. from Australia. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. 320 Australian dollars. That is fantastic. And so Rob asks, I think most government regulators would claim they do believe in protecting individual rights just preemptively rather than reactively.

as in they believe it's more moral to prevent right violation via regulations before they happen than to prosecute violators after the fact. Thoughts? Well, you know, they might say that, but if you push them to define what individual rights are, they can't. They don't know what rights are. I mean, almost nobody does in our culture. So what individual rights are they protecting, you know, with all the regulations that they have?

So, you know, there's some regulations where they can claim that. I don't know, certain environmental regulations that say, well, we're preventing you from being poisoned and so on. And some of the laws that prevent poisoning of the air and poisoning of the water are legitimate. But when they, you know, when they regulate every aspect of a financial transaction, every aspect of it, where 99.999999% of the time, no fraud is being, no rights violation is being committed, right?

Again, part of the problem is they don't understand what rights are. But rights are the freedom to act. So how do you protect people from rights violation by limiting their freedom to act? It's a contradiction in terms. So if somebody's, you know, somebody's running at you with a knife, then, yeah, you can you need to shoot him.

that's protecting your right by preemptively taking out somebody who is clearly unequivocally indicated an interest and a willingness to hurt you, to harm your rights. But I'm starting a bank. You know, what are all these regulations about? That maybe some people who start banks, some of them might one day be the knife-wielding guy running at you.

But what about all the rights, the rights you're violating of the people who are innocent, who are never going to wield the knife, but now you're limiting their ability to engage in exchange? You know, I'll give you, you know, an example. We regulate an example from real life recently, like the last few years. In the United States, the regulators do not allow you to bring in baby food from Europe. Baby food, you know, food for babies.

Even though baby food is heavily regulated in Europe and most European consumers eat it and babies don't die in mass in Europe. And you could, you know, you as an individual could go to Europe and check out the label and check out the materials and check out the background of the company and check out how they've been regulated. Come to the conclusion, oh, no, this is safe. I want to feed this to my baby. If you get caught with the baby food coming into the United States, you will get fined. And if you do it in quantities, you will go to jail.

Why? Because the FDA hasn't given their stamp of approval. But I've given mine as a parent. Rights haven't been violated. Now, it's true that this protects us from some European company creating a line of products that they don't sell in Europe, so they don't have to get European regulatory approval, but they only sell to the United States that harms babies.

Really? I mean, how does that even happen? How do you figure that out? So yes, in a free market, people will have opportunities to come at you with a knife. People will have opportunities to defraud you, lie to you, cheat from you, steal from you. Opportunities exist, will exist. The job of the government is not to eliminate the opportunities for that. Indeed, they can't. Even today, there's still fraud going on in spite of regulation. And when they try to

in their words, shrink the possibilities, what they're really doing is violating the rights of all the people who are never going to wield a knife, never going to be fraud, never going to do all the bad things from interacting with one another, from coming to an agreement with one another. Why do you have to regulate wages? Where's the rights violation? Slavery is illegal. As long as slavery is illegal, why do you have to regulate wages? Why can't two adults decide on what wages? Why do you need wage regulation?

Why can't you fire people just when you want to? Why do you have to abide by all the regulations with regard to labor? Whose rights are being violated? How are rights being violated in that voluntary transaction?

You know, what about pharmaceuticals? Why do you have to regulate pharmaceuticals? Not true. If it was unregulated, some pharmaceutical, some company or some individual might try to pass off poison as medicine and kill us all. Okay, when they do that, the government should stop them.

If I want to do my own research, or if I want to rely on some private lab to do a sweet shot, or if I want to believe RFK and gobble down ivermectin to cure my cancer, why is it any of the government's business and whose rights are being violated here? By the way, I do not want to do anything RFK says. And on the other hand, you're violating the rights of pharmaceutical companies and individuals to engage in transactions that they would like to engage in, where there's no fraud.

And you're preventing them from developing drugs and medicines and treatments that are not possible today because of all the regulations. In the name of maybe one day there'll be a bad actor, you're violating a bunch of innocent people's rights right now. And that's just wrong. So, you know, even if they understood what rights were, if they understood what rights were, they'd understand that you can't defend rights by violating them.

You can't defend rights by violating them. I mean, if you want to protect, I've said this before, if you want to protect women from rape, you can have a curfew on men from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Men are not allowed out of the house, and rape would go down. We're protecting the women's rights not to be raped, which is a right. We're protecting the right. Yeah, we're violating the men's rights, but, you know, one of them might be a rapist. So we have to penalize them all.

That's the logic of regulation, preemptive regulation. All right. Thank you, Rob. I really appreciate the support. Hopefully that answered the question. Adam, will you have Dr. Robin Mayhew on your show soon? Probably not soon. Maybe early next year, maybe late this year. I'm not sure. Was Maimonides a better Aristotelian than Aquinas? God, I don't know. I'm not an expert on Aquinas or Maimonides. Maimonides was certainly better.

And Aristotelian, I mean, and I think Aquinas probably read Maimonides. And there was another Aristotelian scholar, Veronese, I forget his name. Anyway, a Muslim, Aristotelian scholars that a lot of people think was better than Aquinas. Those are the three giants, one in Islam and one in Judaism and one in Christianity, who were the big three Aristotelian scholars of the era,

Who is better? Who did a better job interpreting Aristotle? I don't know. Maimonides, by my limited understanding, is very mixed. He has a bunch of, you know, he boiled down the Bible to 573 commandments or whatever the number is, some ridiculously. And a lot of the ultra-Orthodox Jews follow those commandments today.

So there's a lot of bad in Maimonides. There's a lot of good, and he does bring Aristotelian reason in, but is he better than Aquinas? I have no idea. Are Catholics in Protestant and Orthodox countries more Augustinian than in Catholic countries? How influential is Maimonides now? I think Maimonides is very influential within religious Jewish circles, and we as Christians

when we studied the Bible in school in Israel, this was a long time ago, so I don't know how it is today, but at least in my generation, we would study a passage in the Bible and then multiple commentaries on that passage, and usually Maimonides was one of the commentators on the passage. So he's certainly...

influential even in the secular part of Jewish education, but Israeli education, but very, I think, influential in the non, in a very religious education. And if you think about the ultra-Orthodox and how barbaric they are, I mean, they are barbarians in the worst kind of sense of religious fanatic barbarians. Maimonides has not made them better, even though they revere him. He hasn't made them better. They're still barbarians. So,

I don't know. Catholics in Protestant Orthodox countries, more Augustinian. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't done, I haven't thought that one through. I mean, are Catholics in America more Augustinian than Catholics in Italy? I mean, are the intellectuals more Augustinian? Are the Catholic intellectuals in America Augustinian generally? Is Deneen Augustinian? In some ways, yes. City of God, in some ways, probably not.

I'm not sure he's quite bought into as much of the predestination. It's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, in many ways, Protestants are more Augustinians than Catholics. Real Protestants, not kind of the evangelical, God wants you to be rich in this world guys. But like Luther was very Augustinian. Part of his problem was that the Catholic Church had drifted from Augustine's teaching. Thank you for the sticker, Stephen. Thank you for the sticker, Paul.

Gianni, thank you for the sticker. Thank you, Adam. Andrew, you made a couple of critiques about America's past faults lately. Just don't let yourself become too influenced by the statist intellectuals who focus inaudibly on America's past faults and minimize its virtues. Yeah, I mean, but you got to be you got to you got to face reality. You got to you got to face the truth. Right. I mean, I didn't realize that was a Truman, I think.

nationalized the steel industry for a few months and reversed it, but he nationalized the steel industry. You know, we forget that Richard Nixon had price and wage controls, price and wage controls in the United States of America. I mean, what FDR did and the radicalness of what FDR did in some of what he did, what Hoover did, what Wilson did. I mean, these are

Big things. I mean, it just gives you some context for when you think, oh, my God, it's the end of the world because Trump is putting tariffs. It's bad, but the tariffs are not as bad as Hoover's tariffs, not as bad as McKinley's tariffs. And they're still awful. But it's good to know a little bit about history. It's good to know. I mean, as free as America was in the early part of the 20th century, late part of the 19th century, it wasn't as free as I thought it was.

And I always knew this, that the railroads were very regulated and so on. And it's good just to get perspective on these things and to realize we've never, you know, as Ayn Rand said, capitalism is an unknown ideal and America is an unknown ideal. Even America is an unknown ideal. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, regulations, controls of the economy, on and on and on and on and on and on and on. You know, banking sector has never been free in the United States.

It's worth knowing all that, and it gives you context for where we are today. And it reemphasizes the unknown ideal nature of capitalism. But I'm reading this fascinating, amazing, really, really good book on American business and American business, how its structure has been shaped by antitrust and regulations and by the marketplace and the interaction between market and antitrust and regulations and all of this stuff.

And it's fascinating. It's really, really interesting. And it tells a story from the mid-19th century to today. And I just didn't realize the extent of state involvement, even in our economy, throughout those years and 50s and 60s that everybody harkens back to were terrible in many, many respects. And in many respects, I, you know, did you know, do you know who led the push in Congress in the 1970s

to deregulate all those industries. I mean, trucking and railroads and airplanes and brokerages. Who was one of the leaders of that, at least some of these? Which senator do you think led that push? And I was surprised. Well, it was Jimmy Carter was president. But who was the senator who led the push? Jimmy Carter was president at the time. But who in the Senate kind of helped us along and really advocated for this? Edward Kennedy. Edward Kennedy.

Edward Kennedy. So, you know, how the world has changed and the extent to which Republicans supported the regulations because the pressure groups, the interest groups that were benefited from the regulations benefited Republicans. And it was actually certain Democrats that saw how these regulations were hurting, I don't know, consumers and workers and so on and wanted to deregulate them.

I mean, Democrats were different back then, but Democrats were still hated. I mean, we dine random on how awful the left was back then and how awful Ted Kennedy was. And yet they go. And not Edward Kennedy. Sorry, Ted Kennedy, maybe Ted Kennedy. So pretty. It's really the history is just interesting. Interesting.

You know, or that OPEC was really founded, OPEC, the oil cartel, was founded really as a backlash to, you know, the American government trying to control and regulate oil prices. And the oil producers were fed up with that. And they joined together in order to counter a statist U.S. policy. So, you know, a lot of things I just didn't know. And it's really interesting. Ted is Ed. I think it's a nickname. OK, Ted is Ed. So.

Michael, once that Nazi momentum gets going, it is impossible to stop. Is it impossible to stop? All resistance efforts in 1920s Germany were pathetic and had zero influence. It's like when a dog had rabies and is fixed on something, you can't stop it. Well, but yeah, you couldn't stop it in Germany because of the particular circumstances that affected Germany. And, you know, it's important to note what they were and how they worked and all of that. But

You know, there was there were Nazi efforts in America and they were stopped. I mean, there were literally I've seen these protests in the streets of New York in the 1930s supporting Hitler, you know, really arguing for the United States not to enter the war, not support England, not to supply England with arms. And yet they fizzled away and went away. So I don't know if that is a that is a principle of politics that once Nazi momentum gets going, it's impossible to stop.

But again, Nazism is a particular ideology. I don't see Nazism as a driving ideology today anywhere in the world, including in the United States. So, yeah, you know, so I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's true. I'm not sure that's true. It was true in Germany. I'm not sure that's true anywhere else. Jeffrey Miller. Hello. As I jog past the George Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Yeah. Yeah.

That's where he used to holiday. Probably still does. The family still does. Thank you, Jeffrey. Enjoy your jog. Have a good jog. All right. Clark, Ron DeSantis passed a law saying it's legal to run over rioters if they surround your car. I believe he's going to run against Newsom in 2028. Could DeSantis bring the GOP back on an acceptable party without going after Trump? Um,

I don't see how, again, DeSantis is pretty bad on so many things that I don't know if you think this running over protesters redeems him of all the rest. I don't think it does. He's bad on a lot of stuff. He was pandering to MAGA.

Much of his administration has been pandering to MAGA. He was starting to treat, you know, illegal immigrants really, really badly. So I don't know that he's a big, I mean, he's a big improvement. I don't think he's a good guy. He's not the guy I want to run the Republican Party. I don't like him. I also don't think he can win as a Republican. He's flat. He's just not an inspiring candidate.

And again, he has a lot of redeeming to do from his terrible pandering to MAGA if he's going to be a legit candidate to run against whoever the Democrats put up. It might be Newsom. It might be somebody else.

in 2028. I'd rather have Kemp from Georgia. There's probably a number of others. I mean, there's probably a number of others I would rather have than DeSantis. I'd certainly prefer DeSantis to J.D. Vance or Josh Hawley, but I don't think that's, but hopefully there'll be better choices than any of those.

Andrew, it's important to feel excited about things, a project, a trip, an event. One has to control one's excitement to be effective, but to experience regular excitement is necessary to happiness. Yes,

in one's work ideally yeah i think it is i think it's a excitement passion uh uh energized uh however you want to categorize it yes you want to feel energized around your work or on something that you're doing in life uh you want to feel excitement about your relationships excitement about love excitement excitement about what you do in life i think it's crucial absolutely i think it it keeps you motivated keeps you focused and uh and it it provides you with the energy to to

get through all the stuff that needs to get done in order for you to achieve your goals. JJGB says, you've said elsewhere that recent US presidents have been too frivolous and lax with executive orders, and you don't like this trend. Absolutely. FDR, however, still has the record for most executive orders signed, and it's not even close. Thoughts?

I mean, that's possible. I haven't looked at the numbers. They went way down after FDR. And indeed, then they started increasing with Bush and then Obama, then Trump, then Biden, and now Trump again. And Trump might beat FDR by the time he's done. He's doing so many executive orders right now. But yeah, I mean, FDR was really, really, really bad. The system corrected, I think, after him. He was the most authoritarian president we've had.

And the system has tried to correct since then, and now we're reverting back. So it's really, really bad. And it would be nice if we got rid of executive orders, you know, unless they are very, very narrowly defined and on areas that relate to the executive function of the executive and nothing else. All right. I like numbers. Yes.

I found an older two-part video of yours on open immigration policy, but the second part is no longer available on YouTube. Is it still available anywhere? I don't know. You're going to have to tell me what this video is. Was it like a debate I did or a talk I gave at Berkeley University maybe? Yeah, I think I did a debate at Berkeley, and that might have been split into two parts in those old days when you couldn't upload a big video online.

All at once, you had to split it. I have no idea if it's available. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you'd probably be as good as me in looking for it, in searching the internet for it. Michael, other lessons we learned from the rise of Nazi Germany not penetrating. How are judges and congressmen and other intellectuals not seeing this? What lessons?

The only real lessons we should have learned were the lessons in the ominous parallels. And we certainly never learned those. And that is why Leonard Peikoff in the ominous parallels predicts that we're heading towards authoritarianism again. But what lessons? I mean, that's the lesson. It's the ominous parallels. And no, nobody's learned that lesson. So maybe people learned superficial lessons.

about the outward appearance of Nazism, but not about its fundamental philosophical foundation, which is what matters in the end. And that lesson is not being learned. And again, that's why Leonard Peikoff twice now, in both Arvinas Parallels and in Dim, has predicted we're heading towards authoritarianism. Harper Campbell, I'm seeing a lot more videos of commercial airlines crashing. Is this a sign civilization is unwinding? No.

No, I mean, an airplane crashed today or yesterday, whenever it was in India. Tragic. Over 200 people died. One survived. One person survived. Seat 11A, if you're interested. Not that that matters. But he survived. Everybody else was killed, I think, on the flight. Nobody knows why it crashed yet. There were going to be a million conspiracy theories around it.

It does look like it crashed immediately after takeoff. So it never gained altitude. And then it started just drifting downwards. It's a very strange crash. It doesn't look like anything I've seen in the past. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see what the conclusions are. It's also, it was a crash of an airplane that is the safest airplane that we've had, the 787, that's never had a fatality in its history. It's relatively, you know, it's been around for over 10 years and never had a fatality.

This is the first fatal fatalities. And it's a it's a it's a big crash. My guess is it's going to be pilot error, but we will find out what actually happened. Either that or both engines went out because of a bird strike right at liftoff. I just don't know. We'll find out. But no, you know, you're seeing you're probably seeing right now a lot of videos because of the crash of the India airplane.

And then, you know, a lot of people are playing with AI videos. And one of the things they do is put up airplane crash videos. But it's still unbelievably safe to fly. So, no, I don't think we're seeing the end of it. I don't think it's a sign of anything other than people's fascination with destruction. People are always fascinated, it seems, with things falling apart.

James says, from a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you the courts can stop this wave of statism? That's too vague of a question. They'll stop some of it. I'm pretty confident some of it will be stopped. Will it stop all of it? No. Some of it will be stopped. So I don't know how you want to rank that. I think it's a 7 for some, but certainly not all the wave of statism. A lot of the statism, the courts cannot stop.

Liam, part one, you say evil people go crazy because they can't hold their own evil in conscious awareness. What exactly do you mean by go crazy? Is Putin going crazy? Did Hitler and Stalin go crazy? Well, Hitler committed suicide. But I don't think he ever realized how evil he was. They may have been paranoid and miserable, but Hitler was still making decisions even in the bunker. They didn't have to throw him in the psych ward. Yeah, but do you know that he realized how evil he was?

What does it mean to hold in consciousness? I am an evil person. I am doing this out of hatred. And that's the only thing that I care about. So, you know, at the end of the day, I don't know exactly. I'm not a psychologist to what extent. I just don't think people can hold that. But we have no evidence that Stalin and Hitler ever held that. We know that they're miserable, but we don't know how they held themselves.

Hitler could have died still thinking that the goal was a good goal. You know, ridding the world of Jews was a noble, noble goal. And it would be good and the world would be a better place for it. And he was a moral hero for it. I don't know how he died. I don't know what he was thinking when he died. So, again, how do you identify them bringing it to awareness?

Michael, is L.A. part of the Trump experiment to see how far the federal government can go in reaching in and taking over power from a government governor? Probably. But again, you know, to some extent, I think that's assuming Trump is smarter than he is or more strategic than he is. You know, I think he he's wanted to deploy troops since 2020 and the riots. Now he got the opportunities. He deployed them.

He'll learn from it. He's on a power trip. It's cool for him. Chrissy Noem goes to California and land blasts the governor, and he can joke about arresting the governor of California. But has he got a plan? Is this a move towards deploying troops all over America and turning us into an authoritarian state? Nah, he's not that strategic or that smart. This is why he's not the dictator to come, because he's not that strategic or that smart. If it was somebody else, I'd say, yeah, maybe.

And I think a lot of potential dictators are looking at this and saying, let's see what he can get away with. Let's see. Wyatt, is deportation a valid penalty for illegal immigration? Yeah, I guess. I don't think it's the appropriate penalty. I don't think illegal immigration...

You know, particularly if the illegal immigrant is not working and sustaining themselves is something anybody should care about or be concerned themselves about. But, yeah, if you catch somebody at the border sneaking in and they haven't gone through the process, deport them immediately. But should you be going out there rounding illegal immigrants up and deporting them? No, no. Waste of money, waste of time, waste of resources and a violation of the rights of Americans and immigrants and so on.

Catch them at the border, send them back. Fine, fine. But the whole thing is, how do we fix the immigration system so people don't have to come here illegally? That is the real question we need to ask ourselves. You need to have a positive vision, not just a negative one. Jacob, general support and a fun question. What makes a good beard? The style, shape, hair color. How full the beard is the person's jawline?

I don't think there is such a thing as a good beard. I don't like beards. I don't get beards. I'll tell you what makes a bad beard. A full beard with a shaved head. It makes you look like a jihadist. Anything that makes you look like a religious fanatic is out for me. So like big beards make you look like a religious Jew or religious Muslim or some other religious cult. Out. Don't like it.

Like when, you know, they all look like, you know, particularly when they shave their head and they have big beards, they look like jihadis. And just the fact that you might look like a jihadi should be enough to wipe it out. Now, a mustache is like worse than a beard, right? Having a mustache is like... Now, none of that is philosophical or objectivism. It's just my... I'm just telling you what I think, which I have no... I don't like beards and I don't like mustaches. My wife...

My wife would never allow me to grow a beard. I don't understand women who like beards. It's like, why would you want to, you know, lean into something as, you know, anyway, as gruff as a beard and as unsmooth. But yeah, so I'm now going to be very unpopular with Nikos and Don and all the other objectors with beards. But what can I do? I don't like beards.

I get why they do it. I get why they do it. Because, you know, I also hate shaving. I don't think it looks masculine. I really don't think it looks masculine. You know, I don't think a beard looks masculine. I get why they do it because shaving is a hassle. I don't like shaving. I don't like shaving. Thank you, Jacob, I guess. You got me in trouble now. John likes beards. He obviously has one, I think, so he likes beards.

Beards also look more masculine. I don't get that at all. Yeah. I mean, what else? Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of you like beards. What can I do? You're forgiven. It's masculine by definition. Yeah. I guess guys have beards and women don't. So it's masculine by definition. You know, it's like, no, no. Iron Man didn't like beards. Didn't like any facial hair. Hair. Any facial hair.

And, you know, if you're going to do it, then I would say like an afternoon shadow, like a little bit of a thing. But anything grown out, really grown out? Nah, no, no, don't like it. All right. Roland says, I'm glad you've reached peak woke. I'm glad we've reached peak woke. Looking forward to reaching peak MAGA. Me too. Well, I'm looking forward to being beyond peak MAGA.

Not your average algorithm. Thoughts on Peter Schiff's tweet that sleeping with underage women should not be a crime. I think he's retracted his tweet. I think he's retracted that and actually apologized for it. So I don't want to, you know, look, I think it all depends on context, right? If you're

If you're 17 and you sleep with a 16-year-old or you're 18 and you sleep with a 16-year-old, it's different than if you're 35 and you sleep with a 15-year-old. It's not the same thing. But generally, I think having sex with somebody underage when you're clearly in a position of...

power and quite a bit older than her, yeah, I mean, that is really bad. That is really problematic, really problematic. And look, attitudes towards this have changed dramatically over the last 40 years, 50 years. So it used to be much more acceptable. I think it's a lot less acceptable today because I think we understand today how vulnerable 15-year-old girls can be.

and how easy it is for old, experienced guys to groom them and do that and have sex with them. So I think attitudes have changed a lot, and I think changed generally in the right direction. But I wouldn't go after a teenager for doing it. So context, context, context, context, right? And I certainly wouldn't criminalize sex per se, right?

You know, for 15, 16, 17-year-olds, I wouldn't criminalize it per se. But yes, if somebody older is exploiting them, and I think somebody who's enough older is almost by definition exploiting them, then yeah, it shouldn't be allowed.

And I think there should be an out. A girl can claim, no, I'm old enough. I can make my decisions for myself. This wasn't exploitation and an appeal to a judge on that basis. And that should be considered. But she would have the burden on proof.

All right. Secretary Kristi Noem has put sitting U.S. president, Senator Alex Padilla of California under arrest for asking a question at a press conference. Well, she didn't put her under arrest. They detained him and then they let him go. But they did. They were pretty rough with him and they did put him in handcuffs and stuff. Pretty ridiculous. But she's a she's awful. I mean, she's the one who couldn't who had no idea what habeas corpus meant. No idea. And she's.

In charge of habeas corpus, you could argue. All right, Subkasky, update. He wasn't arrested, just cuffed, removed. Okay, yeah. James, how come he answered, will Israel attack on Iran B? Why did Trump give them a green light? Are they doing this now because they know Iran is a nuclear weapon? Will Iran launch if it is attacked? Well, I mean, they haven't been given a green light, as far as I can tell. I don't think they've been given a green light.

I think they might be given a green light if the United States decides that the negotiations are going nowhere or that that Iran is not intimidated enough. So they'll be given a green light if if they need Israel to intimidate Iran.

So I don't think they've been given the green light yet. But again, if they have, it's to intimidate Iran so that they can push them more on the negotiating table. I don't think the attack will be comprehensive. It depends on Israel's capabilities and depends on what the United States has approved. And it depends on whether the United States will participate. And no, Iran does not have a nuclear weapon yet.

And Iran will attack if it's attacked, but not with nukes because they don't have them. Esoteric dichotomy is 20 to 40 percent of the country fascist. I am having trouble seeing a pathway to sanity. Tech progress is super cool, but feels like everything else is bad. No, I don't think 20 to 40 percent of the America is fascist. I think 20 percent of America would tolerate fascism.

Maybe, maybe more, maybe 30%. But would they, 20% of Americans ready to advocate for fascism? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think that, would they allow us to slip into fascism without resisting? Yes. Maybe 20 to 40 of that, but not advocate for fascism, go into the streets, riot in the name of fascism. I don't think that is happening. I don't, I think generally guys, as bad as things are, they're not as bad as some of you think they are.

And this is coming from me, who keeps saying how bad things are. Fender Harper, episode ideas. Scroll through Twitter and react live. Maybe screen share it or repost stuff so listeners can check out the articles too. I think it would be fun. Make a members-only show. Yeah, it's a good members-only show. Let's do that. I like that idea. WCZN, despite all, it's still the best time thus far to be alive. Can't watch.

the super chat segment anymore. Too much objective whining. Sad. Yeah, but it, you know, there's something to whine about. There's some real problems, some real issues out there in spite of everything, in spite of how good life is. Still a lot of a lot of good stuff out there, not a bad stuff out there. But yes, you can't let it get you so down.

Andrew says to Matt Walsh, is there anything one's community can do that would warrant standing against one's community? Or does he view Robert E. Lee a hero because he was loyal to the cause of white nationalism? I think he views his loyal to community. I don't think he would call himself white nationalism, white nationalism. I think it's a nationalism part.

He was born in Virginia or lived in Virginia and he should be a Virginian. You should watch Shenandoah, the movie Shenandoah, about a Virginian who chooses not to join the fight. It's an interesting movie, very depressing end, but overall really good and very powerful and a lot of really good anti-statist stuff in the movie. It's quite amazingly anti-statist.

Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart. Shenandoah. Jennifer says, I can like short, neat beard or clean shaven. I do like star souls stashed. She laughs. Okay. I don't like mustaches. But I agree. If you're going to have a beard, you know, pretty tight, you know, light beard. Nothing too overgrown. Don't like overgrown beards. Islamist. And mustaches, I don't know. There's something...

Unseemly about it. All just, you know, I have no rational argument about any of that. Does exploitation exist in a free market society? No, not in a free market society because I don't know what exploitation means. Do some people take advantage of others? Sure, but it's minimal exploitation.

And it's easily reversible. And if it's rights violating, it's eliminated. If it's not rights violating, it's just somebody being nasty and taking advantage of other people. He won't survive for very long. So basically, no. All right, guys.

Thank you. I appreciate all the super chatters. Thank you for the support. You are being great. And I will see you all tomorrow. Tomorrow, Friday is a little later. Like the show is 4.30. Friday, the show is 4.30. So, you know, please take that into account and have a great rest of your Thursday and rest of your week. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, everybody.