250 Denaturalization Cases by October

[00:00:04]Oh, Heat. Heat.

[00:01:10]Hello everyone and welcome to your morning report for Friday the 19th of June 2026. Let's jump into our executive summary.

[00:01:18]Sorry. Um over in the inside the beltway, the DSA backed Janice Lewis George won the Washington DC Democrat mayoral primary election yesterday. Her the second place candidate Kenyan McKin uh Kenyan McDuffy called to concede the election. Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill PY is set to take over the office of director of national intelligence today and begin implementing some of the reforms that have been pushed by President Trump, including downsizing the ODNI. On the domestic side, the DOJ sued Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over restrictions on federal agents, including anti-masking regulations and a block on federal agents using unmarked vehicles in the city. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that Philadelphia District Attorney Lawrence Kraner lied to the courts to get retri for convicted murderers. The USDA and DHS will work together to boost screwworm surveillance now now that there are 12 confirmed cases in Texas and New Mexico. On the homeland side, the Trump administration is planning at least 250 denaturalization cases by October. And according to documents obtained by the New York Times, which they did not publish, DHS is selling some of the warehouses that they have purchased under the the mega warehouse detention center plan and instead are planning to go move forward with some of the warehouses, but purchase outright purchase some of the private prisons that have been contracting with ICE to provide bed space for detention.

[00:02:47]Then we're going to bring Jared on. If you can take us through the global summary, please.

[00:02:51]>> Yep. Out on the global stage, the newly signed US and Iran ceasefire is under threat as Israel attacks Lebanon. Uh Ecuador is preparing for a larger counter cartel operation than what it has been running, but this time with foreign military troops. Cuba and Venezuela are making reforms that the US sought in each of their countries. And Taiwan is stepping into the hottest potential flash point between China, Japan, and the Philippines. We've covered that pretty extensively in the past. Looking forward, the US is likely coordinating a coalition response for Ecuador that could involve US troops being deployed to conduct counter counter cartel missions.

[00:03:28]And I think the US is unlikely to ignore the Israeli operation that kicked off last night and begin threatening security withdrawals from the state of Israel soon. Thank you for that, Jared.

[00:03:36]We're going to move on to the full report inside the beltway.

[00:03:42]the F the uh I'm sorry, district attorney, I'm sorry, the Washington DC mayoral election, the Democrat primary was called yesterday for Janice Lewis George. Candidate Kenyan McDuffy called Lewis George yesterday to concede the primary election. And as I said before, Janice Lewis George is is a DSA backed candidate. They held a a rally for her in March. And the Democrat primary for the DC mayor election is effectively the real election there. It's almost certainly a Republican is not going to win in November over Lewis George. And this is setting up a conflict between the DC city government and the Trump administration.

[00:04:19]The Trump threatened a federal takeover if Lewis George won the primary. Now, he is limited by law to taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department effectively. But Lewis George said LA earlier this month that she would tell the Metrop Metropolitan Police to quote actively resist a federal takeover. Now, how I think this is going to play out going forward is what kind of what we saw with the US Iran conflict that the Trump administration is going to can assert federal control for up to 30 days. If they they can do 48 hours and they have to notify Congress, then they can take control for 30 days. And I think the Trump administration is then going to relinquish control for some amount of time and then take control again for another 30 days. And I think this is I think there's that's a a potential course of action that we're going to see.

[00:05:08]In this fight over the the ongoing federal surge in Washington DC, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Py is expected to take over as acting director of national intelligence today. According to a person familiar with the matter, PY intends to shrink the office of director of national intelligence, fire Obama and Biden era ODNI officials and declassify and release material related to the 2016 election. And uh it is this according to the source this is going to be information related to the Russian interference in the 2016 election investigation crossfire hurricane.

[00:05:46]Over in the Senate Senate Senator Cynthia Lumis of Wyoming Republican introduced what's called the PowerUp Act and this would this would establish clear rules for data centers attempting to connect US grids and give the Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission more authority over the connection process.

[00:06:03]And I in this map, this is a map from a research firm, a data firm called Clean View. And this is as of this month, every data center currently operating.

[00:06:13]The orange dots are operating data centers. The gray are canceled and the green are planned data center projects.

[00:06:20]I will also be providing a link to this map in the report.

[00:06:27]And then finally, inside the beltway, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee announced it will hold a confirmation hearing for Trump nominee James Macy to the National Labor Relations Board. His confirmation would give Republicans 3 to one control over the NLRB because there is one Democrat seat that is unfilled. This does effectively give Trump, the Trump administration, and Republicans control over the National Labor Relations Board.

[00:06:53]And I think it's a likely indicator that there are going to be rules and policies moving from the NLRB moving in a pro business direction and I think likely more scrutiny from the NLRB placed on unions. Now, we're going to move over to the domestic side.

[00:07:11]And the the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia over restrictions on federal agencies. Includes wearing masks during operations, regulations that they local regulations they passed requiring federal agents to wear visible identification, and restrictions on federal agents using unmarked vehicles.

[00:07:29]As part of this lawsuit, the DOJ has also individually sued Philadelphia Mayor Cheryl Parker, District Attorney Lawrence Kraner, and city solicitor Renee Garcia. This is just the latest in these lawsuits that the DOJ has filed targeting these sanctuary jurisdictions that have been passing these restrictions on federal agents. I have not seen yet what Pennsylvania is going to do because this initially started with California and they passed their anti-mask law, visible identification for federal agents, etc. And that has been going through the California courts. It's now with the Ninth Circuit. And those that law is on hold. The the latest was Virginia where the DOJ has filed a similar lawsuit against their their anti-mask invisible identification law and now they're filing against Philadelphia.

[00:08:23]What I have seen from the anti resistance and the Trump resistance has been effectively illegal and political coordination.

[00:08:32]And with the Trump resistance, what they have been doing is when a state passes a law like the anti-mask law, the similar language, almost identical language has been passed in a couple of other states.

[00:08:44]And we've I've seen the same thing with the Illinois Bivvens Act. That's the the law that effectively allows any resident of Illinois to file a a lawsuit against individual federal officials and agents over alleged violations of civil rights.

[00:09:01]I don't think these laws are going to pass legal scrutiny ultimately because I I think likely they are on the wrong side of the federal supremacy clause because they are attempts to regulate the federal government.

[00:09:18]However, I do think the strategy here, the legal strategy is to basically tie the Trump administration up in the courts over these to run out the clock with the idea that a Democrat could take the White House in 2028 and then reverse most of Trump's immigration policies, especially aggressive immigration enforcement.

[00:09:40]Also in in Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court said that Philadelphia District Attorney Lawrence Kraner's office misled a court tasked with reviewing criminal convictions and sentences.

[00:09:53]According to the court, they said that there were numerous instances of quote untrustworthy concessions, lack of cander, misrepresentation to fact, lack of adequate investigation and avoidance of hearings. So what was happening here is that there is a court in Pennsylvania that is tasked with reviewing criminal convictions, murder convictions and sentencing death like like death sentences.

[00:10:20]And Larry Kraner's office was lying to this court in order to get retrials for convicted murderers.

[00:10:29]And the Supreme Court said that the his actions and his office's actions led to the court erroneously granting new trials and murder cases. Larry Crasser provided a response after this this ruling from the the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He said, "Reform can be scary to those who need it." And this is actually I want to read you the full quote from his response. Like all other social justice movements, criminal justice reform follows a pattern. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, and they fight you. And we have been fighting for eight and a half years.

[00:11:05]Larry Krasner is almost certainly not the only district attorney that is doing this, that is deliberately, and this is according to the the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, deliberately lying to the courts, misrepresenting facts, and avoiding hearings in order to get retri of murder, especially those who have been sentenced have been have gotten death sentences.

[00:11:32]A couple months ago or late last year, we covered this group called the Ren Collective. They are a progressive policy group and they basically infiltrate. They they are one of the mechanisms that gets these district attorneys, these progressive district attorneys elected and they connect these district attorney candidates with campaign funding and in return they basically get access to that district attorney and they provide a ready-made media arm, a ready-made policy shop.

[00:12:09]There is almost certainly Larry Krassner's office is not the only district attorney that is engaging in this kind of conduct direct deliberately lying to the courts in order to implement quote criminal justice reform.

[00:12:25]Moving on over at the USDA USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that they are going to sign a memor memorandum of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security.

[00:12:36]According to Rollins, this agreement is going to combine USDA and DHS workforces and technologies to boost monitoring of New World screworm outbreaks. As of the 12th of this month, the USDA has confirmed 12 New World screworm infections. And this is the the latest map provided by the USDA.

[00:12:56]And here you can see that there are most of these cases are in Texas. And then there is the one case in Leia County, New Mexico that we covered. But it looks like there is going to be a ramp up in USDA surveillance.

[00:13:12]As far as I have seen, there's still work on expanding that sterile fly production facility that is currently operating in Texas. And there is a second facility that is still being built.

[00:13:25]But this looks like there is there is an active effort by the Trump administration to address this. I still think it's likely we see more cases that are confirmed.

[00:13:35]They have USDA has still not found the origin of infection. The first case confirmed within Texas. Uh there apparently there have been some tests of wildlife that there have been some attempts to find if there was a a transfer through wildlife. Um but that has not been successful.

[00:13:55]Moving over uh and staying in the a economy, US farmers filed 19 antirust class action lawsuits in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, and they're accusing the world's largest fertilizer producers of colluding to raise prices.

[00:14:11]Now, this has been moved to a single district in Kansas, the the Kansas Federal District Court, by the judicial panel of multi-dist litigation at the request of the fertilizer companies.

[00:14:25]These lawsuits are trying to piggy back on the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission investigations likely because it will make the discovery process easier because the as the DOJ and FTC are investigating, they're they're they have more authority to get a hold of evidence.

[00:14:42]Now, fertilizer prices have jumped significantly since February when Operation Eric Fury began and we saw a disruption in the street for moves, but farmers have also been significantly impacted by diesel price spikes. So, we're seeing farmers get hit in in both directions because they're not only paying higher prices for fertilizer, they're also paying higher prices to operate equipment and higher shipping prices to move goods in and out and and move inputs into their into their farms.

[00:15:12]According to the Farmers Bureau, their latest report, I think it was 94% of farmers that they pulled said that they were either the same or worse off than last year. So this is putting a significant crunch on US farmers.

[00:15:27]Moving over to Los Angeles, the LA city council approved a package of proposed city charter charter changes. And this one of these would be to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.

[00:15:39]And then the other would be one of the others is to give the city council greater authority over the Los Angeles Police Department.

[00:15:45]they have to vote again to approve these changes for ballot measures and then those ballot those measures will appear on the November ballot. So they're these still need to be approved by voters.

[00:15:57]This is just the latest in what is an ongoing push by sanctuary jurisdictions, blue uh Democrat controlled cities to expand non-citizen voting at the local level. And this change in authority over LAPD, what it was really doing is shifting control over LAPD policy from a board that is appointed by the mayor to the city council. I think almost certainly to allow the city council to have more control over how LAPD interacts with federal agents. uh because this was this was explicitly called out during the meeting where they were voting to approve these measures.

[00:16:39]Some of the city council members said that they could have changed how LAPD interacted with ICE last summer if they had more direct control. So I think this is setting up a power shift over control of local police so that they if there is a you know a conflict between anti-isorganized resistance and ICE in Los Angeles again they will have greater control over the LAPD response and this is I think likely to counter what the Trump administration has been doing in other jurisdictions like in Minneapolis and St. Paul and in Newark, New Jersey, where the Trump administration has attempted to drive a wedge between Democrat officials and anti-organized resistance by effectively pressuring and for by effectively forcing local and state authorities to step in to disrupt direct action demonstrations at detention facilities.

[00:17:34]Moving on to homeland operations, a senior Department of Justice official said the Trump administration plans to file at least 250 denaturalization cases by October. The DOJ, according to this senior DOJ official behind the scenes, has pulled civil litigators from multiple DOJ divisions to work on denaturalization cases and is also sending denaturalization cases to the US attorney's office offices around the country, 250 does not sound like a lot, but considering the average from the mid90s until the the early 2020s, there was an annual average of 11 denaturalization cases.

[00:18:13]This is a major expansion of dennaturalization by the Trump administration.

[00:18:18]And finally, according to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to sell or transfer seven of the 11 warehouses that have been purchased so far as part of its warehouse mega detention center plan or give those transfer those to other federal agencies.

[00:18:34]They said the documents showed that the warehouses that are going to be sold are located in Romulus, Michigan, Social Circle, and Flowery Branch, Georgia, Hamburg and Tmont, Pennsylvania. Salt Lake City, Utah, and Roxbury, New Jersey. However, they said the documents showed that DHS is planning to continue moving forward with operations at four of these warehouses have been purchased so far in San Antonio, Soo, Texas, Surprise, Arizona, and Hagerstown, Maryland. Interestingly, kind of hidden in the middle of this uh New York Times coverage, according to the documents, ICE also plans to buy private prisons from private prison operators that currently hold contracts with ICE.

[00:19:12]So, what this looks like is they are selling some of the warehouses due to local political resistance, keeping some of them, and then shifting to outright purchasing some private prisons that currently have contracts with ICE. I think it's likely we see them purchase those prisons in states that are pushing to either block the intergovernmental service agreements between private prisons and ICE and the states that are planning to or at least attempting to implement what are effectively financial punishments on private prisons that contract like the 50% tax uh searchcharge tax in California.

[00:19:51]This is also, I think, a counter move by the Trump administration to the Trump administr the Trump resistance because they have been tying up these warehouses that they're cancelling in in environmental lawsuits. Basically, what they're doing is is suing the Trump administration to in effect indefinitely pause the the renovation of these purchase warehouses by claiming that the Trump administration didn't follow through with legally required environmental impact surveys. And I think part of this part of this idea, the I think the likely intent behind moving to private prisons other than potentially a counter move against some of the state actions targeting those contractors is because the private prisons are already built. They are not vulnerable to these environmental lawsuits.

[00:20:41]There is also the possibility here that as we've seen previously reports that D over the last few months that DHS secretary Mark Wayne Mullen is going to outright cancel all of the warehouse detention center plans can basically roll back all of the immigration enforcement.

[00:20:58]I think there's a possibility this is again some level of inaccuracy in this reporting by the New York Times because they did not publish the actual documents. So I cannot see what the actual documents say.

[00:21:11]But they even I think concede here that the Trump administration is intent on intent on interior removals.

[00:21:21]Specifically, they say that the lack of detention space has already caught up with ICE as it sought to meet the White House's aggressive goals to detain thousands of people a day. As far as I've seen the indicators coming out of the White House is that they are not intending to reverse course on immigration enforcement and the numbers that have come out do not indicate that they are doing that either.

[00:21:44]I think that this points to this likely being an attempt to get around these efforts to disrupt the Trump administration's immigration enforcement capacity because there has been an organized effort to stop these warehouse purchases as we've reported over the last year. Uh this includes local officials have passed local ordinances trying to block non-municipal detention centers filing lawsuits including environmental lawsuits against the D against the DHS and the Trump administration over these warehouse plans and in some cases there have even been direct actions targeting these warehouses including arson attacks. So, I think this is likely an attempt by the Trump administration to circumvent some of these disruptions that have been happening by shifting away from purchasing warehouses and in and sanctuary jurisdictions or jurisdictions that have been hostile to the development of these warehouse plans and shift some of that money, especially from this next this new reconciliation bill over to purchasing private prisons to make up for some of the bed space that they're trying to it.

[00:22:56]One of the things that the the White House put out and Borders Tommo put out is they're trying to get up to 100,000 detention beds by they were trying to do this by the end of last year and by the end of last year they were at about 70,000.

[00:23:10]With the delays from this, I think they are trying they are still trying to get to having 100,000 beds of detention space for immigration enforcement and now they're shifting to try to get those beds from other sources. All right, that's the end of our domestic side for today. We're going to move on to the global sit rep. Jared, if you come on and take us through, please.

[00:23:31]>> Oh, there we go. Yep. So, we are going to start off with an update on the Middle East. Yesterday, Vice President Vance warned Israeli government critics of the Iran deal not to criticize Israel's only powerful ally, quoting, and that they ha or only powerful ally that they have anywhere left in the world. Vance also warned that over twothirds of the defensive munitions o used over Israel have been Americanmade and American paid for. Um now the US and Iran were originally scheduled to have their first round of negotiations this weekend that has been called off. Meanwhile, the state of Israel has begun a new campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

[00:24:11]And I think most importantly, the Israeli National Security Minister Ben Gave said that, and I'm quoting here, all of Lebanon must burn. Uh this is almost certainly going to violate the ceasefire given the scale of the operation and the stated desires of the national security minister. It is looking forward I think it's unlikely that the US and Iran will immediately return to exchanging fire as all parties acknowledge that ceasefires in this part of the world and once again quoting Vice President Vance here. Ceasefires here mean less fighting and not no fighting.

[00:24:43]However, the administration is unlikely to ignore the Israeli operation and I think begin threatening security withdrawals specifically because the vice president here made it well known that Israel relies on American power in order to affect its own national security. A couple examples of these could be troop drawdowns. There are still ships off the coast of Israel that could be just moved. Uh there could be delayed weapon shipments. Uh and if if none of that works, I think as kind of a nuclear option, if you'll forgive the pun, is uh to threaten the removal of major non-NATO ally status that the designation and removal of that particular status actually lies solely under the authority of the president of the United States and he's only required to give a notification to Congress of the action. So if all things fail, that could be the the final bit of coercion that we see. Moving down to Latin America, much closer to home. Yesterday, Ecuadorian President Noboa released a decree that grants certain immunities for members of the Ecuadorian armed forces, the police forces, and civilians participating in the ongoing quoting internal armed conflict. The decree also permits the deployment of and grants immunity to foreign militaries, taking part in the same. At the presentation of that decree, Nobel also declared that this was part of his last meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Hegsath and that Ecuador no longer fights alone.

[00:26:13]Ecuador is ostensibly preparing for American troops to be deployed. But I think the most likely candidate for foreign troops in Ecuador is actually another member of the America's counter cartel coalition or even Colombian troops operating under the Dea Espria uh government coming in likely coming in August. Um he's expressed a severe a pretty strong desire to join in the counter cartel operations since Ecuador and Colombia share a border and many of the cartels actually are crossber there.

[00:26:44]Uh, moving over to Cuba. Cuba announced the privatization of large parts of its economy yesterday due to the aggressive policy of the United States. This is speaking on the embargo of the United States on Cuba. Cuban President Das Canel said that this is not a renunciation of socialism, but a way to build it sustainably.

[00:27:05]Now, the Trump administration's main critique of the Cuban government has been the utter mismanagement of its resources and economy. If you listen to them, they speak on the incompetency of the government. Not necessarily they do critique the communist aspect of it, but particularly being that they are incompetent communists. Those are the words right from Marco Rubio's mouth, not not from uh not just from mine. The the nature and timing of this announcement, I think, is very important. It indicates that Cuba is attempting to prevent the US government from taking military law enforcement action on Cuban officials as we saw with Venezuelan President Maduro by appeasing that main critique. Uh I don't looking forward I actually don't think that's going to work. I think the US is unlikely to forego its attempts to bring in certain Cuban officials, but it may limit the action and start providing ultimately start providing some sanctions relief once Cuba fully comes on side. And this does track pretty well on the timing for what we've said here at Forward Observer for I don't know what two three months now that as soon as the Iran US Iran war ends Q is going to start heating up a lot more. Uh still keeping an eye on Nicaragua as well.

[00:28:17]Moving over to Venezuela, the US is hosting Venezuelan uh president of the national assembly Jorge Rodriguez and the 2015 president of the national assembly Denora Figer Faggera to develop a roadmap uh for a democratic transition of Venezuela.

[00:28:34]Out in the Pacific, Taiwanese President Lie said that the exclusive economic zone negotiations between Japan and the Philippines will not violate Taiwanese rights. For those who have forgotten it, this has been uh somewhat slow moving given everything else going on in the world. Uh Japan and the Philippines are discussing they're delimiting where the ex exclusive economic zones are between their two sets of outlying islands. This touches the Taiwanese EEZ as well, which China claims. So, China has been making a very big deal, sent several uh Coast Guard patrols in there to try to enforce its own laws. Taiwan is saying that's not going to happen. And in fact, their ocean affairs uh council council deputy minister said that China has no jurisdiction to even do that because it does not own Taiwanese waters and that Taiwan approves of the Japan Philippines negotiations. Sun, the deputy minister there, went on to say that Taiwan already even has fishery agreements with the other two countries. This is Taiwan stepping into what what I'm considering to be the potentially hottest flash point of the Pacific right now.

[00:29:46]All right, thank you for that Jared.

[00:29:48]Let's move on to questions and answers.

[00:29:50]I'm going to pull up our first question from Bad Wabbit. How does the council have the power to be able to approve non-citizen voting? Don't they need to have a citizen vote on it regarding the LAPD? Are they hiring non-citizens who enforce the law? So the first one, yes, they do need a they do need basically this is for a ballot measure to be voted on in the November election and then it has to be approved by voters for them to change the city charter. On the second question regarding the LAPD, are they hiring non-citizens who enforce law?

[00:30:21]Yes, they are. They have been that I think I Mike and I talked about this back in 2024. Uh, and this had to do with that second circuit case in Illinois, uh, coming out of Illinois about that illegal alien who challenged his conviction over being unlawfully in possession of a firearm by saying, "Well, illegal aliens have a second amendment right." And the initial judge agreed with that. Now, my take on that was I thought that was setting up a court case under the Biden administration that would basically say, "Yeah, illegal aliens have a second amendment right."

[00:31:01]Uh because that's the holdup for a lot of these police departments around the country. There are there have been seen multiple police departments since the since like 2022 2023 talk about how they were starting to look at DACA recipients. That's the delayed uh delayed action on childhood arrivals or deferred action on childhood arrivals category of illegal alien. And they wanted to hire these people to be law enforcement officers. But the holdup is that by law, while they are on duty, they can carry they can possess a firearm. But when they're off duty, they are not allowed to possess a firearm by federal law. And the solution some of these places had implemented like the LAPD was that they have to turn in their firearm when they get off duty. When they come back for their shift the next day, they pull their firearm out of the armory. The LAPD has graduated, as far as I understand, multiple Dhaka classes.

[00:32:00]uh and they did their first DACA class in 2024. So there are almost certainly right now LAPD officers who are DACA recipients, which is not a category of legal immigration or legal residency.

[00:32:18]Next question from sobriety for reality.

[00:32:20]How can jury nullification be an effective tactic when the odds of being called or being selected for a jury with enough leftist compatriots is very small?

[00:32:28]Well, it depends on the area. So, jury nullification training for a trial in Laredo, Texas, probably not going to be or or or Houston, Texas, probably not going to be as effective as getting people who are politically activated trying to get on juries in Washington DC.

[00:32:53]Now, what I I think their idea here is spreading enough of this around to not just explicit far-left people or progressive activists, but to normal base Democrat voters or Democrat voters in these jurisdictions and getting the idea out there that one of the effective ways that they can resist the Trump administration is if they are called up for jury duty to vote their conscience despite the evidences. This is what this is coming from like free DC slides and slide and slide books and stuff like that. So I don't think they're counting on activists themselves like the the activists that are running this training or or even partaking in the in-person workshops to get on juries or grand juries. They're counting on what is effectively a mimedic recruiting strategy. And this is also what they were doing with the DRS thing. So back when the anti-organized resistance started like the rapid response group started doing the arrests of illegal aliens in Operation Midway Blitz and these these uh local officials going to courouses and trying to disrupt ICE arrests at outside of the courouses.

[00:34:07]I think very likely the intent of getting those videos put out like publicizing the videos of de arrests and the the courthouse confrontations was to get the idea into normal the the kind of c person that shows up as a casual protester at like anti events to have the idea that it is a legitimate action to resist the Trump administration by attempting to arrest or attempting to confront ICE at a courthouse or a hospital or I think the same thing is happening here. They are trying to get this idea out. It's a mime mimetic capacity expansion. get the idea out to the type of Democrat voter who would show up as a casual protester to no kings or the anti-ICE protests that are, you know, that were happening in Minneapolis and get the idea in their head that a legitimate course of action to resist the Trump administration is if they are called up for jury duty or grand jury duty to engage in jury nullification.

[00:35:10]All right, next uh comment from Brian Edminster. They're trying to stop the Haggertown, Maryland warehouse. I'm curious why that one is still on the 2 to be developed list. Yeah, that's my question too and that's why I wish I had access to these documents that New York Times says they got a hold of from DHS because the the Hagerstown, Maryland one was put on pause. The the renovation was put on pause by a judge. It's possible.

[00:35:32]I I think I think the the Trump administration possibly believes that they are going to win that that court case. Um so that might be why that's still on the list. It might also be because the Trump administration's identified it as a strategic basically they have identified a strategic choke point for immigration enforcement in the same way that the anti-ICE resistance has done the same thing by identifying these key detention facilities like the um facility in Newark, New Jersey and the Prairie Land facility and some of these and the the Broadview facility in Illinois. And the Trump administration may believe that this is a strategically important point, a strategic strategically important important detention facility.

[00:36:18]And then I believe this is a question for Jared from Wayne T. Hex Seth orders review of US force posture in Europe.

[00:36:25]Warns NATO lagards of consequences by the USA reducing dues paid. Just how is this going to work? One dues pot, several dues pots.

[00:36:34]Well, so part of that is likely going to be similar to what we're seeing uh out in the Middle East there is if you are a nation that is that is dependent upon the US for for being the security guarantor and you have a large a large um US troop presence that is a point of leverage for the United States. Uh for those who don't know the any any troop presence by the United States in a peacetime mission is not only a security guarantee but also a major boon to the local economy. It is considered basically an act of charity for the US Navy to deploy a strike group to a port because it just provides I think it's somewhere in the order of millions of dollars to the local local economy. So that is where I think it will go. So uh when he speaks on Lagards the poster child for that right now is Spain. Spain has a couple of major bases including a major naval base in Roa that okay well there has already been some talk about potentially taking the ships out of Roa and putting them over into Naples where there is another base and Naples is over in Italy that would afford the US the ability to still oversee the Mediterranean. uh it would have to find a new way to to move to uh have oversight over the streets of Jialter. But nevertheless, that that would be the way to do it is say, "Okay, we're pulling out a roa and we are going somewhere else and you can deal with your economy that is built around servicing American service members." Uh, additionally, that obviously that has severely weakened the security of that state because you want to have American troops there to be basically sacrificial lambs. If there is an attack and they get attacked, the US is getting involved. All right, thank you for that if you could stay on. We got there's a comment and a question that I think are related. So, from Bad Wabbit, didn't Hisba attack Israel first? Um, I think what's happening here and that be the same thing that is happening with Netanyahu and Israel in my analysis that this is that a lot of the decisions that Netanyahu is making are based on his domestic political realities and pressures. The same thing is happening with Hezbollah. So, we talked about this probably two months ago uh and we might have even talked about it off offline.

[00:39:06]Basically, there have been some moves being made. Lebanon exists in like a tripartite, a triumvirate. Basically, you have the Christian, Sunni, and Shia, and they have a a power sharing agreement. The Christian and Sunni parts of the government have been going after Hezbala trying to get them trying to disarm them. Uh part of that, I think, is to take pressure off of like basically give an incentive for Israel to stop conducting operations in Lebanon. And the second I think is an internal political dynamic where they are they see an opportunity. They're going to try to grow their part of this power sharing. So Hezbala is under Hezbollah and the the Shia parts of the Lebanese government are under pressure because Hezbollah is is basically the army of the Shia party under domestic pressure to maintain basically relevance and legitimacy. One of the ways they can do that is say that they are the resistance to Israel.

[00:40:00]Israel is under domestic or Netanyahu specifically is under domestic pressure to maintain I think to maintain a state of readiness for actions in the region because Netanyahu is facing some potential criminal charges >> in this qu let me address that comment real quick because >> uh I actually did see the statement by the Israeli prime minister and it cuts right to the heart of something that President Trump himself identified as an issue in in Israel's actions. He he is concerned. He's not saying don't defend yourself. He said you you defend yourself in a radically disproportionate manner. Specifically, what almost derailed the entire US Iran ceasefire before it could even get started was according to President Trump, two Hisbala drones hitting the desert and killing nobody, followed by Israel leveling an apartment building. That was from President Trump's mouth. Well, what has happened here? There were four IDF members killed. What happened? What did the Israeli state do? They per Benjamin Netanyahu struck 80 targets that are Hezbollah Hezbollah line and killed an unknown but well and undisclosed but dozens of Hezbollah members. Well, yeah, that is radically disproportionate. That's the thing that that is the very thing that the United States has said this will not stand. This to quote Vance yesterday this is unacceptable.

[00:41:36]So I expect to see action on there. It does not matter and this is going to sound cold but it does not matter that Hisbala attack first. It matters the response that Israel gave. If if if the state of Israel had just, you know, attacked the Hezbollah members that had attacked their soldiers, that would have been proportional and there would be no threat to the ceasefire. That's this is going to be an issue between the governments of the United States and Israel.

[00:42:07]Well, I think this is also a I think all these statements are also a signal from the Trump administration to Netanyahu that basically the Trump administration is going to put the US interest in this conflict first and that is to get a deal with Iran that as we as we outlined yesterday as far as the memorand of understanding shows basically US control over Iranian oil sales in return for I I saw that uh there were reports of like some of first ships to be allowed through the blockade were food. We're carrying grain and food because Iran imports like 60% of their food. So basically they are this is I think signals from the Trump administration, Trump officials, President Trump and JD Vance themselves that they are putting the US interest in this deal first.

[00:42:57]And then our question that I think is related to this from Cordelano with Israel already saying they will not withdraw from Lebanon. How long until Iran takes action?

[00:43:06]>> Well, that's why I'm expecting a US government response. The US is prioritizing a ceasefire with Iran to leave the straight of Hormuz untouched.

[00:43:16]I do see the comment from William there about uh the IRGC closing the straight.

[00:43:21]I did see that, but I haven't been able to confirm it. I just haven't had time this morning yet. Um, but I expect the US to try to do what it can to coersse Israel into stopping its actions in order to keep Iran a party to the ceasefire.

[00:43:38]All right. And then uh a question from Bathwater Basin. Has anyone checked on Rams on Kadarov lately? Rams on Kadarov is the Chetchin basically the leader of of Chetchna. As far as I understand, he's still alive. I think this morning, early this morning, he posted on his own telegram about his son's visiting Saudis. Um, but yeah, as far now, I think this question is getting at something bigger because reportedly Katarov potentially has a terminal disease and he could be dead in the near future and that is going to present a major problem for Putin in in Chetchna. I not to not to pull a Putin in say 500 years ago in CH in Kean Roose but uh Katarov is an important figure uh for this because he's the leader of Chetchin. He was previously fought against the Russian government back during the first and second Chchin wars and was put in into power. he turned and and when Putin was prime minister in 99 when the second Cheschin war launched and Putin has basically like put him into power and he's been kind of Putin's proxy in Cheschna but there's not really a successor for him. I think his son his his 18-year-old son is his designated successor as a leader of Cheschna. Um and there are a lot of Chetchin clans and tribes that are not happy with Katarov. Uh, so there's a potential for some type of flash point there when he dies, possibly in the near future. But as far as I know, he has not died yet. I think he I think it was early this morning he posted on his his telegram.

[00:45:14]All right, let's look. Let's see if we got any more questions that came in. I did see there was something that I that I think is a kind of in your wheelhouse, Jared, to address here uh from Jeff Burgess. This is in re relation to to China and saying that basically China will zoom past us in GDP or gross domestic product after the Iran fiasco.

[00:45:36]>> Okay.

[00:45:40]Do we want to have a conversation about cook statistics?

[00:45:43]>> Well, and this is this is why I brought this up because >> I wanted to address this. I I think China gains GDP through and one of the methods they do that is subsidy of production. So this whole overp production issue that has been identified even by Janet Y multiple times by Janet Yellen during the Biden administration. China uses over production obviously to try to get to corner the market on like key key production key goods, port cranes, electrical infrastructure components, all kind solar panels, all kinds of stuff. But I think the the natural next conclusion to jump to is that they also subsidize a lot of production and they subsidize their real estate their their domestic real estate industry to cook the books on their GDP numbers.

[00:46:36]>> Yeah. The okay so >> which gets back to the key question what is GDP for as Michael Every asks.

[00:46:42]>> So yes we have to ask what is GDP for?

[00:46:45]First off, they their GDP is it not reflective of that mission, which is to be a proxy for what you can make in war.

[00:46:56]There is an enormous amount of their GDP that frankly is just false. They they also part of the way that you move up and we're going to get weedy here, but that's how you answer this question.

[00:47:09]Part of the way that you move up in the Chinese Communist Party is that you have to be the biggest, the best, the most grandiose. You have to be the thing that shines the the best in your province if you want to move up. So when you see items like the three gorgeous dam or this uh there was a bridge that was just enormous, spanning a vast chasm and it was one of the you'll see the largest in the world over and over and over.

[00:47:37]Doesn't really matter what system you're talking about. You will see that phrase.

[00:47:41]Um I I already addressed that by the way. Uh but yeah, >> uh but that is because they are seeking promotion. That is why you end up with things like the tofu drag phenomenon where these things are done inside of a couple of years. They are not built well and they fall apart very shortly after.

[00:48:01]Frankly, the three gorgeous dam is probably the one exception to that rule.

[00:48:04]it has stood up fairly well. Um, but that aside from being a major promotion uh promotion bullet point, it is also a driver of their of their GDP. You'll see the same thing with the ghost cities that show up. That's GDP driving. That's not it's not meant for it. That is not going to be something that's able to be used for just going to war. That's something that is meant it is cooking the books with practical work that results in nothing. There's much of the Chinese economy is fake. This there's no other way to put it. It's fake. However, China does also it does have a real economy. It does produce a lot of stuff.

[00:48:51]I'm not going to say it won't it doesn't. That's part of why you see the subsidies, by the way. But it needs to find somewhere to put them.

[00:48:59]And the Trump administration, specifically Scott Bessant, has been crystal clear. You can't they are their numbers are not as real, not as big as what they say they are. They are in a form of recession. We cannot let them export their way out.

[00:49:15]That was what basically 18 months ago.

[00:49:20]And just earlier this year, the Chinese downgraded their economic expectations for I believe it was the next five years. uh I they are expecting I I want to say it was a 4.5% growth when year-over-year when they initially were going to project 5% growth. That is first off they can never ever say that they're going to go negative. The Chinese cannot permit themselves to do that. That downgrade though indicates that they are looking at their numbers going there's no way we're even going to come close or being be able to have this be remotely believable that we hit that number. So, we need to downgrade it.

[00:50:00]>> All right. And then a comment here from Ron.

[00:50:04]Trump screwed up and the next five years will be held. The only way Ron's IRGC is out of power is to be out of breath, dead. That will take boots or nukes. It is coming sooner or later. I I again dis I appreciate the cander Ron, but I disagree. I don't first many IRGC officials have been killed but I I think part of this part of this memorandum of understanding in this deal that Iran specific figures within Iran by the way are negotiating with the Trump administration that came out with who signed the memorandum of understanding and who's been negotiating it. I think part of this deal specifically the you know development money that is going to come from regional partners to Iran the allowing US corporations in the US control of the oil industry and the food shipments. I think this is actually this is likely an attempt by the Trump administration to bolster the people they've been negotiating with domestically who are not the IRGC because they basically what they need to do what they would what they would need to do is similar to to get a similar result to Venezuela the the regime acquiescence uh strategy is to bolster the domestic legitimacy of the faction that is willing to negotiate and that means economic that means they need to bolster their economic power and their their internal and external sovereignty.

[00:51:25]I and I think that's what's going on here. I think that's likely what's going on here based on who signed the memorandum of understanding with the Trump administration. So I think the the idea here is that they are doing this to avoid exactly that situation of having to have boots on the ground.

[00:51:44]I think it's worth noting that the I the office of the Ayatollah, I'll put it that way because I still have not I would like to see the Ayatollah. Um but uh Mashtabaka Kamani issued a statement saying that he disagreed with the ceasefire after it was signed but gave permission to sign it. That to me says that yes, those factions still are very real. They are still very divided but they are getting more practical just plain and simple.

[00:52:17]And if you are looking at what's what is the power structure inside of Iran, the IRGC nominally reports to the to the uh secular government as they are an official military, but they really respond to the Ayatollah. Well, and I think there's there's a compelling argument here that the current Ayatollah Kamani former Ayatollah Kamei son is not the same person as as his father. He does not have the same level of legitimacy. Kamani was a major figure in the 79 revolution. So, he has he kind of has that street credibility, so to speak. I don't think his son actually has as much power as he did. I think I think there's an assumption that the office has the power but I Kmeni and Kamani the the previous two Ayatollas I think they actually had a lot more personal power a lot more of the the power and legitimacy was vested in them as individuals than in the office necessarily.

[00:53:17]So I think the the factions that have that I think that that has been a key part of actually getting this this other faction that has negotiated with the Trump administration moving forward has been his the the less power that the current Ayatollah has personally uh because he he was he was only uh like he was he was younger than 10 years old I think when the when the 79 revolution happened and so he just doesn't have the same credibility and power and personal power I think as his dad did.

[00:53:46]>> Yeah. And we we do I know we're going to sorry that we're dwelling on this. For what it's worth, the statement the only way Iran's IRGC is out of power is to be out of breath or dead. I I completely understand where that's coming from. I don't think that's inherently wrong.

[00:54:04]Um I've been very frank here that I am not particularly behind the scenes. I think there is a there's a path that is not taken yet where we could see the Iranian government basically say they don't support the IRGC. That's a tough cell. Um, but it depends on the IRGC's actions and it basically that would require the United States to point to the Iranian the actual Iranian government under President Peshkin and say the IRGC are a threat to you remaining in power. Well, at that point they he has a call to make on whether or not he continues to make the IRGC state sponsored or let them be non-state actors. Um, yeah, that that could still result in the IRGC IRGC being made dead.

[00:54:57]However, as we've seen with Venezuela and I think we're about to see with Cuba P and actually what we have seen in Iran itself is that personnel changes also are a way to achieve that end. You could legitimize the IRGC by telling Peskian, "Take over reforms. Get rid of the most radical people. Get rid of the people that you think are most likely to strike out. Do it however you need to do it and install guys that will work with you.

[00:55:30]What that what that would do, and I think part of the reason that I am willing to go into the the depth there is that frankly we're dealing with dealmakers. That is the kind of thing that that the Trump administration would do because that is a hard deal to make, but it's one that would give the Iranian government options while allowing the government of Iran to maintain legitimacy internally, which is what they want. That that's what survive means for their victory conditions that I I think we could see potentially a reformation of the IRGC. It would take years, but that would reduce the overall security threat to the region. And none of that, by the way, is even beginning to get into the ceasefire issue with Yeah. with Israel.

[00:56:15]>> Well, yeah, I've seen comments of uh I think there's there's also misunderstanding here of how the parallel IR like the parallel religious and secular governments work.

[00:56:26]Excuse me, because I've seen comments of like, well, the Trump administration didn't actually destroy the Iranian military. and they'll post chain of commands for the IR or the the the Iranian army, Iranian Air Force. Just have to keep in mind these are two separate entities. There is the IRGC and there is the Iranian military and they have equivalent parallel branches effectively. And I think the Trump administration has avoided targeting the leadership of the secular military in order to advance this in order to advance the spec in order or order to advance the domestic position of the people they're negotiating with the secular government officials and the secular military while effectively depowering depower deowering the IRGC and taking away their military capacity as well.

[00:57:24]Uh, real quick, I want to address a comment. Um, so we're being accused of deleting comments. We've both been on screen the entire time. Um, is I've noticed that YouTube tends to hold comments and quite a few times has just not permitted people to post certain things. We do touch on hot button issues here. The only comments that will that will delete or will get you banned in our chat is calls for violence. That's it. So, if your comments are disappearing, that's YouTube. That's not us.

[00:57:52]>> All right. Well, with that then we also that will be the end of our show for today. We'll be back with you on Monday at 08 central in your inbox and on the show. Have a good have a good weekend and stay out front.