DOJ Attempting to Unmask Anonymous ICE Critics?

Added: 2026-05-31

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

[00:00:24]Heat.

[00:00:46]Heat.

[00:01:11]Hello everyone and welcome to your morning report for Friday the 29th of May 2026. Let's get into the executive summary inside the beltway. The Trump administration is tightening its grip on federal grants. On the domestic side, blue states are considering taxes targeting payouts from Trump's weaponization fund. An Exon Mobile executive warned that global oil inventories are nearing record lows, which could see a price spike in the coming weeks. California passed a law to criminalize seizing ballots. The USDA projects that food prices are going to increase by 3 and a.5% in the rest of 2026. In homeland operations, the DOJ filed lawsuits against states blocking undercover license plates for ICE agents. And California advanced two bills to target ICE contractors in detention centers.

[00:01:56]Out on the global stage, the US the US-led effort against the cartels across Latin America have significantly increased in the last two months and are likely to increase even more. There are plenty of signs that they are they are about to. And China's largely skipping a key annual Asian defense forum and will enter its diplomatic mission to Canada this weekend under tensions after a violation of sovereignty by Canada.

[00:02:19]Thank you for that Jared. Let's move on to the full report. The Office of Management and Budget released a proposal to overhaul how the federal government handles more than 1 trillion dollars in federal grants. And this proposal, which was posted to the Federal Register last night, would give federal agency heads broad authority to halt federal grant awards if they determine that these grants can no longer meet program goals, agency priorities, or the national interest.

[00:02:43]This is really, I think, the legacy of Doge. So, as we I've tal I've pointed out a few times, Musk and Doge went into the Trump administration last year, I think, expecting to undercover uncover massive amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse.

[00:03:01]And as I've my response to that has been that a lot of I think I think a lot of people also expected to find this type of massive fraud. In reality, a lot of the funding that is taken out of the federal government by some of these a lot of these political organizations, these the NGO complex, the nonprofit networks is done technically legally, especially through these federal grants.

[00:03:29]This is this is separate from ma other massive fraud of federal grant programs through through health and human services like the quality learing center in Minneapolis and a lot of this other type of healthc care fraud. Most of this fraud and abuse it uses federal funding through these grant programs for frankly progressive democratic socialist and democrat political projects and is done technically legally through the use of federal grants. And the Trump administration has previously tried to pause a lot of these federal programs and has lost in the courts. But this new pathway that the Trump administration is trying to implement is going to I think the the Trump administration's intent intent here is to increase the authority of the political appointees and the agency directors that are appointed by the White House to g give them more authority to actually step in and stop most of this grant money going out.

[00:04:35]I reading through the proposal, it doesn't seem for I think for obvious reasons to be politically motivated, but I do think this is an effort by the Trump administration to another line of effort they're implementing to go after a lot of the federal money that is being pulled out by this NGO complex. Moving over to the domestic side, Democrat lawmakers in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York are planning to introduce legislation to tax any payouts from that recently proposed $ 1.8 billion federal weaponization fund. They said they intend to tax these payouts at 100%.

[00:05:13]Almost certainly these bill these are not going to survive legal scrutiny ultimately.

[00:05:20]And there's a reason for this. There is a constitutional prohibition on what are called bills of attainer. This is a targeted I think very clearly I I think almost certainly any court above the the lowest level state courts and federal courts are going to find that this is a targeted punitive tax directed at a specific group specifically people who are receiving compensation from this weaponization fund.

[00:05:46]And this is this is what's called a bill of attainer effectively a a punitive tax. I don't think this is going to survive any any court fight and eventually if it were to make it up the Supreme Court. I I'm almost certain that they are going to strike down these these specific types of taxes.

[00:06:05]Exon Mobile senior vice president Neil Chapman said yesterday that oil inventories are going to fall to record lows in the coming weeks. And he said the price of physical oil cargos could spike to $150 to $160 per barrel once oil inventories hit these record lows.

[00:06:20]He did add that demand destruction would likely kick in once these prices spike and start to create some balance.

[00:06:27]I took a look at the at this morning at the latest energy information administration release from last night to keep an eye on where our inventories are going. I don't think Chapman here is talking about US inventories. Again, as as I talked about in the in focus last week, I don't think we are in danger of hitting tank bottoms by July 4th. As I've seen as as uh Carlile groups, Jeff Curry said and a couple other traders have have and and analysts have talked about this is I think go another data pointing towards price increases. So the latest EIA numbers still point to draw downs on gasoline. and distillers that are within a reasonable range of that average draw down rate I calculated for the last 8 weeks.

[00:07:20]Oil releases are this week at least lower than they had than they have been for the last few weeks but mostly dominated by strategic petroleum reserve releases which has been true for the last nine weeks. So, I think he's really warning about record low inventories globally, but this will still put price price pressure on the United States.

[00:07:41]And as I pointed out in the in focus last week, there is a possibility that we see a new price floor as countries that committed to this 400 million barrel SPR release scramble to buy up inventory once a deal is made. This was this was an a an analysis put forward by Mark Mik at Seabbert their their chief investment officer because the straight is certainly going to reopen. The key question is by what mechanism does the straight reopen.

[00:08:10]There's been talk for the last few days about a coming deal between Iran and the Trump administration.

[00:08:18]Trump officials have been saying in on background anonymously that a deal is on the way and publicly saying it is not um or that that there is some distance between Iran, whoever the Trump administration is negotiating with and the White House. But I think there is a likely I think there is a uh I think it is likely that once that happens, we do see a new price floor. I don't think it's going to be $150 to $160 a barrel, but I think we're probably seeing it now where the futures are trading between 90 and $110 a barrel. I think that might be the new price floor. And of course there's the chance that prices do temporarily go higher because a lot of these countries now the United States has committed to 172 million barrels of SPR releases. But the other countries the other 30 31 other countries that have committed to these SPR releases do not have as large of an SPR as the United States does. So, I think it is likely I think I think Mark Mik is correct or likely correct that they are going to start scrambling to buy up oil once the straight reopens.

[00:09:26]And and our next item, uh Matt, if you could come on, you have an item here about California passing a law to criminalize the seizing of cast ballots.

[00:09:37]>> Yes. Uh Gav Governor Gavin Nuome signed SB73 into law on 28 May effective immediately. The law criminalizes the act of taking uh cast ballots from the custody of local election officials. It prohibits any individual from allowing law enforcement access to disruption of taking possession of voting technology without a court order. Uh violations carry fines and up to three years in prison. Uh the trigger was Riverside County Sheriff Chad Biano who seized 600,000 ballots last fall. He claimed he was checking for fraudulent voting.

[00:10:15]Newsome described the law as the first in a mosaic of legislation aimed at anyone thinking they can do the bidding of the Trump administration. Uh the DNC filed a lawsuit in March against DOJ, DoD, and DHS after after those agencies failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for records on any potential deployment of federal agents and troops for the 2026 midterms.

[00:10:42]Uh something I think that we've discussed here at Ford Observer, the the Trump administration is certainly signaling that it that it will place election observers in the in the 2026 election, which of course is a uh it's a practice run for the 2028 uh presidential elections. Uh Governor Nuome used the real incident for political cover to rush emergency legislation through. The law explicitly covers federal agents. Uh SB73 is a legal framework to preempt federal presence at polling places and ballot processing centers. The narrative being constructed is that Trump will use ICE uh CBP and DOJ election observers to suppress or interfere with the 2026 or of course future elections. Uh this represents political faction positioning for escalated action around elections and federal state confrontation over election administration authority. Uh we're seeing quite a bit out of California when it comes to uh positioning themselves in any way against the Trump administration. The the outlook expect a federal legal challenge before the November general election. The law's application of federal agents almost certainly creates a supremacy clause conflict. Thank you for that, Matt. Moving on. Speaking of moving on, progressive group Move On is said it's planning to launch a $27 million election program to mobilize what they're calling skippers. And these are people they say voted in 2020 but skipped the 2024 election.

[00:12:18]And they're attempting to do this mobilization ahead of both the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. and move on said it is plan said it is planning what is calling the largest number of primary interventions in the organization's history and they estimated that there are enough of these skippers to flip 11 toss up congressional races and secure house majority in 2026 there are other groups other progressive groups like Indivisible undertaking their own efforts to mobilize voters beyond the no kings movement this also fits into something else I'm tracking and that is the democrat intraarty fight over control of the future of the Democratic Party. As we reported yesterday, the California DSA or Democratic Socialists of America proclaimed that the battle is on for control of the California Democrat party. And there are insurgent primary candidates targeting for now what they see as the most vulnerable Democrat candidates in California this year. and those happen to be the oldest House Democrats in California, including Maxine Waters.

[00:13:20]The Democratic Socialist and Progressive wings of the party are almost certainly going to attempt to use economic issues to mobilize what what are in effect low propensity and disaffected voters to win these primaries against vulnerable Democrats.

[00:13:38]I think as I said yesterday, there is also this factor which I think is a major factor of the younger Democratic voters who are aging into the base and I think they're going to have a major leftward pull on the Democrat party overall when it comes to economic issues especially. So this is this is this leads me to the the almost certainty that they are going to use these economic issues to mobilize voters.

[00:14:12]And frankly, like I said, I think this is going to pull some of these centrist Democrats leftward like we've seen with Representative Roana. I think he's a a the kind of prototypical example of where I think some some especially in the the younger lawmakers and when I say younger lawmakers keep in mind the average age of the of the of the Democrat and Republican congress member I do think the younger and we're talking like Gen X so in their you know 40s and 50s are I think I think a a good amount of them are going to be pulled at least on economic issues.

[00:14:50]a little bit leftward compared to where the the average centrist Democrat is right now.

[00:14:58]And we're going to I'm sorry, I'm going to we're going to move on to a USDA report. So, the Economic Research Service at the USDA projected prices for all food is going to grow by 3.4% in 2026.

[00:15:13]According to their latest food price outlook this month, the USDA said that food at home prices are expected to rise 3.2% 2%. And this is faster than the 20-year historical average of 2.6%. I'd like to bring Matt back on because you had a you actually had a comment on this item. Yes. Uh so the the end ofear inflation estimates, everybody's got a different number, but they're all, for example, the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office both are projecting around 2.7%, a little bit lower than the the the OM. Uh if the straight of hormones crisis does not resolve in the near term, I expect fuel and fertilizer costs to contribute to food price inflation, uh the approximate 3% figure should be treated as a floor, not a ceiling. U additionally, since we're talking about the USDA here, farm yield reports come out in August and September. In March, farmers were farmers were reporting that they that they were they were projecting they were going to use 25% less fertilizer because of the fertilizer price spikes that came this spring with the with the hormones crisis. If if farmers did follow through and use 25% less fertilizer, that will absolutely affect yields later this year. And while we're definitely not projecting any kind of food shortages, we are expecting that to to be a component in larger than 3% price increases. Personally, my floor on price increases this fall or 6 to 8% on on agricultural products.

[00:16:53]Without more data, we we'll get more data in August than September, but uh that's the that's the number I'm running with, 6 to 8%. Yeah. And this is one of those factors like we talked about yesterday. What are the the the catalysts for mobilization when you're talking like domestic unrest or or a increase in populist political activation. This I think is one of those major factors inflation in general but food price increases especially. So if we look around the world and we, you know, going all the way back to the Arab Springs, the different color revolutions, even with the the instability we see in Bolivia right now, all of these all of these uh civil unrest situations, everyone is unique.

[00:17:44]However, they they absolutely have have uh have elements that are that are similar. And the two big ones are fuel shortages. So if there isn't fuel at your local gas station and food shortages. So if the common person can't get fuel, they can't get food, it immediately develops into largecale protests. So that that is a that is a trigger in the United States. We're not projecting any kind of fuel shortage or food shortage here at Ford Observer, but these elements are building towards that that that could be a possibility in the future. Some something that we're keeping an eye on.

[00:18:22]>> Yeah. And and just to to keep in mind when we're talking like civil unrest due due to price increases or shortages of things like food and fuel, it's not when you're talking things like color revolution or other types of pressure for regime change.

[00:18:41]I think it's better to think about it not as spontaneous but as basically this is a a potential energy that grows that can be harnessed by someone who is organized.

[00:18:53]So but but the what this goes back to the the indivisible no kings movement and 3.5% number from Erica Chennowith is that if they can mobilize three and a half% of a of a given population then a nonviolent movement is almost guaranteed to succeed according to Erica Chennowith but it's not a spontaneous uprising I think this is when you're talking about increased food prices and fuel prices or in some cases especially overseas shortages of food or Shortage of fuel.

[00:19:23]Shortages of fuel. Shortages of fuel.

[00:19:28]It's what actually makes this a dangerous variable for civil unrest is that it creates a potential energy that can be harnessed by an an organized minority. And in this case in the United States, what we're looking at right now are things like Indivisible and 50-51 and the No Kings movement that are pushing toward a potential color revolution in 2028. Things like the antiorganized resistance, the Trump resistance.

[00:19:57]This gives them a potential energy that they can harness and then direct. All right, we're going to move on to >> Robert, actually, if I could just throw one more comment in there. I think that I think your point's really valid in that we we see this with the with the data center protest movements. Uh personally I think that a a lot of these organizers they don't actually they don't actually believe that the data centers are using too much water. You know, for example, when we look at the actual water consumption, it's very low.

[00:20:26]But they're using these popular these popular uh uh uh themes to mobilize people. And then once there is that mobilization, once people are in the streets, the organizers of these of these different protest movements, they'll then steer that movement, that crowd into other actions that align with the organizers and not necessarily the general population.

[00:20:48]>> Yeah. And this is this is part of that larger this is the the objective of this coalition building strategy that like democratic socialists, progressives and the far left engage in. The idea is they take a uh an organic movement on an issue like data centers as we've seen with DSA, PSL, the party for socialism and liberation organizi getting involved in the organizing in some of these local movements. They take that issue which has organic support. They get involved.

[00:21:20]They build a coalition with these people that they can then direct to other issues. Exactly as you said. And this is this is a well-worn tactic of the far-left and progressive and democratic socialist groups.

[00:21:36]And we we saw this some historical cases recently that we saw this with was like the pro Palestine movement. So after October 7th of 2023, we were covering the this growing pro Palestine movement that appeared to peter out within within probably 6 months. Um but when we dug in to what was actually happening, we saw a lot of there was a lot of overlap between these pro Palestine protests and pro-immigration groups. There was money flowing out of pro-immigrant organizations, NOS's to these protests.

[00:22:10]Uh you we saw this with the anti-is organized resist resistance and that when the I when the Iran conflict the operation epic fury kicked off a lot of these local groups that were part of the anti-C rapid response groups transition to conducting protests over the hands-off Iran protests. So yeah this is a well-known well-worn strategy of the of of these movements. Well, if I could point that out to our listeners, you know that this that this strategy can work uh just as well for our listeners if there are local issues that that motivate uh your local community, building capacity, using that to organize and then once you have that capacity, you can apply it to other issues in your community that are that are important to you as an individual.

[00:23:00]>> Yeah. And we'll we'll move on after this comment, but yeah, this is something that Mike as part of his whole counter organizing thing and I think it's part of the new area study handbook. He posted basically a thread last night on ex former formerly Twitter where he outlined that this is a strategy they use and this is this how this can be used for counter organizing is that yeah, you you basically you want to find out what your what people where you live what they care about. If you can find like a common issue that most people care about, well, that becomes your your organizing center of gravity and that is the strategy that that these groups like DSA, PSL, the all these different the anti-ICE rapid response groups that they they are all engaging in this strategy because it is effective and it can be used effectively for counterorganizing as well. All right. The Democratic Socialists of America said the DSA National Political Committee implemented what they're calling a rapid response protocol. And they say this is fundamentally changing how the DSA organizes in moments of crisis. This includes implementing a temporary rapid response committee with defined roles.

[00:24:09]Again, a repeat of what we saw with the anti-isorganized resistance. Uh defined roles for political direction, operations, communication, and compliance for moving quickly on political developments.

[00:24:20]They were looking at the the hands-off Iran. This was basically an afteraction review of how they implemented this with the hands-off Iran movement. And they said they set up text banks, congressional letter writing tools, and mass calls for emergency calls to action. And they said this is this is intended to help them expand to a mass organization and react to political developments like a coherent political party. Bottom line up front, DSA is implementing a more organized approach to political crisis response to mobilize and organize. I think it's likely we see the DSA have an enhanced capacity and organization in future political fights.

[00:24:59]And one of these could be the resurgence of antiorganized resistance. I'm still keeping an eye on what's happening at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, because I I think that the organized resistance is looking for a new piece of key terrain to force a confrontation with the Trump administration because after the end of Operation Metro Surge, a lot of these guys on the ground were telling were were saying talk talking to Unicorn Riot and Crime Think and saying that they felt demoralized that they that they were not winning despite what a lot of these organizations were putting out about pushing Trump out of the Trump administration and ICE out of Minneapolis and a key part of that organization was the DSA, specifically the Twin Cities DSA. They were a key organizing force for the Minnesota anti-ICE organized resistance. So I think the larger DSA now is implementing a more organized basically a more organized approach to these types of issues and I expect that we are going to see them implement this once they once the organized resistance has figured out where that new flash point where that new key fight between the anti-organized resistance and the Trump administration is going to be.

[00:26:14]Moving over to homeland operations, the Department of Justice is seeking the names, addresses, and banking information of two social media users who criticized federal immigration operations. According to their lawyers and according to records that those lawyers shared, Washington DC US attorney's office, which is led by Janine Pero, subpoenaed to the Reddit and X information for two users as part of criminal investigations.

[00:26:39]Piro's office did not provide details on what those criminal charges are.

[00:26:44]Allegedly, Homeland Security Invasion in Investigations also issued some administrative summons for two other social media users but withdrew them after some legal resistance.

[00:26:55]I looking at what is actually happening here. I think this is being characterized as the Trump administration trying to unmask the identities of anonymous online users.

[00:27:09]But at least one of the lawyers in these cases admitted that the person they're defending posted the address of a of an ICE agent on social media. And I think this was in this was one of the people who posted the address of that ICE agent involved in the officer involved shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis in January and then downplayed it by saying that well this this information was also posted by other people on the internet.

[00:27:36]I think what's actually happening here is that the DOJ is trying to subpoena the information of people who have posted the who have attempted to dox federal agents on social media. This is something we have seen that became very prevalent in the last year in websites and and and wikis put up that include the photos and and any personal identifying information of federal agents online the spread of federal agents PII on social media and in at least one of these cases I I the lawyer I think with the be with the best intentions effectively admitted that that's work effectively admitted that that's what's happening at least in one of these two cases is that the the person who is being targeted with a subpoena shared the personal identifying information of a federal agent on social media.

[00:28:30]Move over also over at the Department of Justice, the DOJ filed lawsuits against Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington over those states refusal to issue undercover license plates to DHS agencies. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch said that these states are unlawfully regulating federal law enforcement because they are issuing these plates to state and local law enforcement.

[00:28:53]When we originally reported on the on the the first local and state level blocks on these undercover plates, I I think it was almost immediately clear that they were done with the intent by local and state Democrat officials to facilitate the anti ICE organized resistance.

[00:29:13]In this case, by not allowing undercover plates to be issued to ICE agents. In some of these cases, like in Maine and Washington, this has been explicitly stated by officials that they they view immigration enforcement as an illegitimate law enforcement operation.

[00:29:33]And in this case, I think I think it's likely that the Trump administration, at least beyond the federal district courts once they get to the circuits and and potentially the Supreme Court, do prevail here because this is they are admitting that they are basically admitting that they are interfering with federal immigration enforcement. over in California.

[00:29:54]Finally, the California General Assembly advanced two bills targeting companies that take contracts with DHS to support immigration enforcement operations. The first bill is called Assembly Bill 1633, passed in a 5818 vote, and this would impose a 50% tax on companies that run immigration detention facilities in California.

[00:30:14]This is I I certainly intended to undermine the Trump administration's capacity. Something we're seeing in other states, New York, their their budget bill that that is on its way to passage is going to end 287g agreements and those intergovernmental service agreements and effectively end all detention space for ICE in New York.

[00:30:35]They also passed assembly bill 1675 and this would block state tax breaks for companies with get contract with ICE and establish and also on top of that establish a state fund to provide legal defense for illegal aliens.

[00:30:49]This is another data point in this blue state red state political and legal bifurcation that is happening.

[00:30:58]Both of these bills are almost certainly intended to undermine the Trump administration's immigration enforcement capacity. I expect there are going to be other sanctuary jurisdictions that adopt similar policies.

[00:31:13]We're already seeing in New York the the block on intergovernmental service agreements that is is effectively ending the detention center contracts for ICE.

[00:31:23]I expect other blue states are going to adopt this type of law because we saw the same thing with the the Illinois Bivvens Act allow effectively creating standing for anyone to sue federal individual federal agents over im what is really over immigration enforcement um with the anti-mask laws this push at the local level to block ICE and CBP from using city properties for staging operations this is We're we're in the middle, I think, of an expansion of sanctuary jurisdictions and we're going I I expect almost certainly we're going to see more states adopt these policies because there has been within the Trump resistance a coordination and they're you they use the basically the first mover on a lot of these laws serve as a test case and once they survive legal scrutiny, they they we start to see these other sanctuary jurisdictions implement the same policies. And this is this parallels what we saw with the anti-organized resistance. And what is they then they they use this a lot, the inside outside strategy for opposing immigration enforcement.

[00:32:44]in the anti-isorganized resistance as we reported we saw the same thing once they implemented what they saw as a successful tactic that was immediately disseminated. I expect the same thing with these types of laws. All right, Jared, if you could come on and take us to the global sit rep, please can do going to bring Matt right on. We're probably going to go back and forth here. All right, so let's talk about the big thing. Uh the we've talked a lot here about the America's counter cartel coalition and a little bit less about the law enforcement version of it, the shield of the Americas. This is a US-led regional effort to eradicate the cartels using Steven Miller's words.

[00:33:23]Now they they have been steadily eroding numerous regional cartel narcotics traffic networks and this is through interdictions, annihilations as we've seen in the boat strikes and arrests and we'll get into the arrests. uh the US has actually stood up a dedicated task force uh in the southern command which is working with regional partners on these operations and mostly it's the US fighting uh information support sometimes sometimes intelligence as well now to date there have been at least 78.7 tons of drugs that's primarily cocaine and marijuana interdicted and there's been an unknown amount destroyed in the boat strikes there There have also been over 10,000 arrests that are published and likely many more that just have not been uh published and collated.

[00:34:12]And uh additionally, the Guatemalan government had a release yesterday that they formally requested US assistance to combat designated terrorists in Guatemala. And that letter went out on the 23rd of May, so just about six days ago. Uh so actually when I started this project I intended this to be a a um much much more expansive project but basically I ran out of room on plotting everything.

[00:34:39]Um so I I hope that gives some perspective on how much work is actually being done right now kind of in the background by everybody since the primary actors here are actually the the Latin American nations and the ACC or sorry the AC is operating under a a pretty normal training cycle. So what what we're seeing here and you there are two two training uh exercises here plotted the United States shows up trains their trains their local partners on how to do interdictions all all the associated tactics to go along with it and then shortly after that the nations in the area begin conducting counter cartel operations on pretty expansive scales for for their size like in a single operation Panama wrapped up almost 700 guys. Ecuador has been Ecuador has over 9,000 of the arrests that are published.

[00:35:29]Now, where the capability already exists, the US provides information and intelligence to enable local law enforcement to conduct interdictions under the shield of the Americas. That's where you're seeing up in the up in the Dominican Republic. Even as far out as V St. Vincent and the Grenardines, uh basically they say, "Hey, here it comes.

[00:35:47]Go get it." And it happens. Now looking forward, the nations involved right now are primarily Caribbean, hence the pretty pretty tight focus on the map here, despite the fact that there is the uh Lithuanian or sorry, not Lithuania, the uh Lithian triangle down south with Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina that are also involved in this.

[00:36:09]I And most of these, believe it or not, actually started in April and May. They are very recent operations.

[00:36:17]So far, I expect the counter cartel operations really to actually be ramping up, not not slowing down in the slightest here in the next few months.

[00:36:25]Now, Honduras only fairly recently installed its government that's aligned with this. Uh, so they are getting a lot of they are starting to get their feet under them still, but I do think they're they're going to kick off soon, particularly because Bernie Moreno just left there. Uh, and he's overseeing quite a bit of this. And Colombia has had some cooperation with the organization so far, but is also likely to see an increase in action toward the end of the year because we're expecting uh the right-wing government to actually come in after their election here at the end of this really on Sunday um and then run off in June.

[00:37:02]And lastly, there there is one part of this that has been relatively under reportported. The US has requested Europe to help as well. That's not necessarily saying, "Hey, Europe, come over to the Caribbean and start doing interdictions." But some of the cartels, which we'll get into later, like out of Brazil, they actually do operate over in Europe.

[00:37:21]>> So, they're asking for them to step in and where where they are local go in, arrest them. Some of that has happened in Spain with uh with collabor basically uh Latin American nations, I believe Panama had one of their top cartel guys get arrested.

[00:37:40]Uh now this is likely meant likely meant to address cartel presences in their borders. But as with all things Europe, I really expect France to be the major player here. And part of the reason for that is that uh for anybody who watches my Twitter, you notice that you would have noticed that the French amphibious readiness group actually went way off course. They are now in the Caribbean and it looks like they're going to be participating in Tradewinds 2026 un rather unexpectedly if I'm being frank.

[00:38:10]They were supposed to be in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Um but tradewinds 2026 is it's it's an interesting exercise that's supposed to be primarily about disaster response but per Southcom the US Southcom it is also going to practice co coalition command and control. This suggests that France along with all of the regional partners here are going to begin playing a playing a role in countering narcotics uh trafficking abroad soon. And Matt, I wanted to open up the floor being that you're fairly familiar with cartels and see uh if you have any thoughts here.

[00:38:48]>> Well, specifically on the French, I think that I think that you're correct in that this is this is an area that's politically very um it's it's very uh uh easy to pass domestically for the Europeans in that I think the Europeans are looking for an area to cooperate with the United States. There's obviously been some friction about NATO commitments with the Straight of Hormuse uh situation we've got going on and let's you know let's be frank a lot of uh a lot of the narcotics that goes into Europe of course originates in Central and South America. So this is uh this kills two birds for one stone uh w with one stone for the Europeans in that it is it is something that benefits them their their their deployments to the to the Caribbean region. it benefits them domestically and that it's counter narcotics operations and also it's it serves them politically in that there is some cooperation there's some military cooperation intelligence law enforcement operation with the United States so I I think that you're correct we are going to see more European support for this counter cartel operations and then while France might be one of the front runners uh Spain actually so for example uh uh general Hugo Karvajal whose whose nickname is El Poo the chicken. He's a uh he's a cartel of the Sons operative. He's he's associated with the Venezuelan government. He was uh he was arrested in Spain and extradited to the United States. So, of course, with all these Spanish-sp speakaking countries, they do have they they still have strong ties to Spain.

[00:40:25]And we see that with uh Pedro Sanchez's political party's office being raided here just earlier this week with allegations of of financial connections with the Maduro regime. So So the Europeans are absolutely involved in this already and I I think that you're you're correct. That's what we're going to see in the future is Europeans supporting us in this operation.

[00:40:48]>> Just a quick note on the Spanish piece.

[00:40:50]I am keeping an eye on that. That's a bit of a developing situation. There's a lot of conflicting information going on there. Once I do have uh a solid read on what's happening there, I I will publish. Um it is there there are a lot of accusations coming around but partially from domestic political opposition in Spain. So I want to be careful to make sure that we get the truth here to actually report and present. there are allegations that Pedro Sanchez is associated. And then furthermore, >> furthermore, to your earlier military point, I think that >> the uh the force multipliers that the United States excels at perhaps better than any other country in the world is our intelligence gathering ability. So the that's that's our drones, that's our signals, intelligence collection capabilities. These are capabilities that countries like Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, they don't have them. They they just absolutely can't afford the kind of systems that we have. So by the United States being able to provide that intelligence gathering support to these to our local partners, I mean, that's a classic special forces mission where we're a force multiplier for the local forces. So, we see this in the Guatemalan president's uh statement yesterday where he said, you know, there there are allegations that the United States is involved in in uh there's well, actually, it's the New York Times, I believe, reported that the the United States is involved in some kinetic operations, and that's not absolutely clear, although it's certainly possible.

[00:42:22]We could we do see these types of operations for example in Mexico where the recent uh the CIA operations there's there's some confusion over whether or not that was a clandestine operation that was authorized by the federal government Mexico City or whether that was a side deal with the local uh state governor. That's irrelevant to this conversation though in that the United States absolutely conducts classified operations in support of in support of local partners and that goes all the way that goes back many decades. You know we saw this with uh with operations in Colombia where uh where the United States uh assists perhaps kinetically perhaps not. These these matters are often classified but at the end of the day we are seeing results. We've seen results historically and we're going to see results in the future. it. Right now is not a great time to be a cartel member. Absolutely. All right, we're we're running super long, so I'm going to bring this up and we're going to move move on to the rest of the report. All right, so yesterday, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, which that's basically that entire giant blue blob you see here on on South America, minus the very top one, which is Ecuador or uh sorry. Yeah. Um, yes, they they all signed an agreement to actually conduct joint operations internal to this to this group to counter the counter their cartels that operate in those areas. And they do they do intend to to develop an actual concrete plan with measurable steps per per the release. Uh they're I've got linked in the report in case you want more details there. And over in Brazil, well, the State Department announced that it's going to designate two of the largest cartels in Brazil. I'm going to use their English names because I can't speak Portuguese, but it's Red Command and First Capital uh First Capital Command. These will be designated as they will be specially designated global terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations. Obviously, that opens up a ton of uh legal legal options for how you actually deal with these people. and it goes into effect on Friday, June 5th.

[00:44:35]Uh, and we've got a little bit of news out of Oman, if you wouldn't mind taking that away.

[00:44:41]>> Absolutely. So, something we covered yesterday was President Trump's comments about Oman and that they would they would cooperate with the United States and he jokingly said, "Oh, or we we're going to blow them up." Um, Secretary Bassent uh responded on on Twitter uh where he where he where he stated that he had a phone call with the Omani ambassador directly and was assured there were no plans to toll the straight. Uh Secretary Bet made it clear Omani individuals and financial institutions risked sanctions if they proceeded. Uh Oman has historically refused to condemn Iran's proposed toll scheme that they were the only Gulf state to decline to do that. Uh Trump's comments, while seemingly off the cuff, are a clear indication that the issue of Oman cooperating with Iran on a toll system are being discussed behind the scenes. Uh the current toll level would add about $1 per barrel uh which to to crude that only comes out to about 5 cents uh a gallon of gasoline. The biggest danger here isn't the price increase. It's the potential loss of US hegemony in the region. And because of that, because of the absolute importance of that, expect the US to negotiate incredibly strongly on this issue. I'm not optimistic that there will be some sort of Iranian uh toll or or fee as they as they like to call it.

[00:46:12]>> All right, thanks for that. A couple quick notes out of Asia. So, Canada's transit through Taiwan Straight last week came to light just ahead of Chinese foreign minister Wangi's visit to Canada that's happening this weekend. Uh, China previously had asked Canada to stop all Taiwan straight transit to risk damaging the new relationship. And for those that don't remember, Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, did announce that he wants to have a middle power middle power pull of power, which would mean also being much more friendly with China while trying to maintain a relationship, a strong relationship with the United States.

[00:46:48]Uh, and immediately prior to Minister Wang's arrival, China's foreign ministry declared the transit as an attempt to undermine China's sovereignty. So I will be keeping an eye on that one to see if if anything productive even comes out of that for them. I have my doubts on that.

[00:47:06]And lastly, the annual Shanganger dialogue is taking place this weekend with numerous defense ministers and delegations as it normally does.

[00:47:15]However, China's delegation is only going to be led by a military academic.

[00:47:19]He does hold rank, does wear a uniform, but he's a he's at what's basically their equivalent to uh to West Point and does not ever see the field and a former vice foreign minister. So a very low ranking delegation as far as the Chinese are concerned and this relative absence is notable. The Shangerla dialogue is normally the place where adversarial defense ministers because the entire region is pretty adversarial to itself.

[00:47:44]They have sideline meetings at a neutral location where they can actually have pretty frank talks and you normally see quite a bit of quite a bit of good defense diplomacy coming out of there and that this looks like China is just stepping away from that. They're not going to participate anymore and favoring direct uh direct diplomacy with nations like Canada or going to Russia.

[00:48:08]All right, we're going to bring Robert back on and move on to Q&A.

[00:48:11]>> Thank you for that, Jared and Matt.

[00:48:12]First question I want to address uh and this has to do with Matt's item regarding the California seizing balance law. The federal election federal elections are under federal jurisdiction, aren't they? Will this law actually be able to be implemented?

[00:48:25]Well, there are certain restrictions on federal elections and federal law, but the actual authority for implementing them is actually at the state level. And I at least in my I anticipate that there will be a major fight in the courts between the Trump administration and California over this. But but what's your your take on this, Matt?

[00:48:47]>> Well, I think that's precisely correct that there there will be a a legal battle over this. Um yeah, so part of this, of course, you know, there's multiple elements into Governor Nuome passing this law. So first of all, you know, this is a domestic this is a domestic issue for his voters. So, Governor Nuome likes being governor. He wants to continue being governor. This is, you know, meat for his base. Number two, he's looking, you know, he's looking for a potential 2028 run. This Governor Nuome's office is clearly passing a lot of laws. He's making a lot of he's passing laws that are probably not going to they're almost certainly not going to survive Supreme Court. Uh the Supreme Court looking at the cases, for example, one of the stories we covered earlier today. So, you know, this this is a this is also a a political element in that he is he's he's he's creating ammunition for uh issues that he can run on as president.

[00:49:45]And that's that's one of the components that I'm looking at here is that part of this is just uh it's just politics where Gavin Newsome is building up his run for 2028.

[00:49:55]>> Thank you for that, Matt. And then our next question from Cletus, great name by the way. Does the USDA take fuel costs into account for increased food prices or is that a base increase on top of whatever increases added fuel costs could cause? As far as I understand, they do they do include uh fuel prices.

[00:50:11]They call it a vertical price transmission. Uh they started using this model in the early 2010s. basically taking like the the uh CPI and PPI numbers, the the price inflation numbers downstream and including those in their their mathematical models for for food price inflation. So, as far as I understand, this does include the the potential price increases due to due to fuel.

[00:50:40]All right, next question. if you could pull up a question for us please. Jared from Carl M at JJ Jared did you see the post on why using plutonium for nuclear power is not feasible and if so any thoughts so I wrote it during the show here the guy gets very into the weeds if he is who he says he is. Um I have no additional thoughts. I'm not a nuclear scientist. I'm not a construction worker and I'm not a nuclear power plant construction worker and that's all he gets into. Uh but Matt, you said you had comments on this.

[00:51:14]>> So one element here that I wanted to talk about, I'm also not a nuclear physicist, so I can't speak to uh any this any more than uh than the regular person on on the the use of the platonium and the reactors. However, the US historically had a program that they spent $8 billion on to dispose of this.

[00:51:32]It it it wasn't successful. Uh the the United States has agreements dating back to 1994. It was part of the nuclear non-pol proliferation agreements that we reached with uh Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While we're not uh legally required to dispose of this uranium, excuse me, this plutonium, uh it is it is a political it is a political um commitment that we've made since 1994 to dispose of this in a in a manner that it can't be used for nuclear materials. So, I'm going to have to trust that uh the nuclear engineers that are saying they can use it in some of their reactors. I believe it can be used to start uh some nuclear reactions and if it's mixed with so this highlyenriched uh plutonium if it can be um if it can be mixed with other uh uh uh elements uh other u um uh other elements of plutonium um it it can be used as fuel.

[00:52:39]>> All right, thank you for that Matt. Next question from the YouTube side. not elements.

[00:52:43]>> Uh yeah, other other types of nuclear fuel. I think I think we understood what you what you were getting.

[00:52:48]>> Isotopes. That's what I was thinking of.

[00:52:50]>> Uh so from Mick El Mick El Ravies, uh why do people think Roan has a centrist? Well, he was a centrist. He so he is his district is Silicon Valley. He was in when he got elected in prior election cycles very much a technocrat a technocratic Democrat. He took donations from a lot of Silicon Valley people who he has had very public fights with recently, especially over this this $5 billion search charge tax thing that California is talking about. And that's why I think he serves as a great example of where some of the younger and again uh relatively younger considering the average age of the Democrat and Republican senator and uh House member of these younger electeds in the Democrat party in the in the centrist wing who are going to feel a pull leftward even if they're not going fully democratic socialists but a much more populist left economic poll.

[00:53:52]And I think it's because Roana is looking at this younger Democrat voter B this younger Democrat voter demographic that is aging into their become their base voter over the next couple of election cycles and he's following the voters I think and I think there's going to be more of these these centrist Democrats especially in blue states that are going to feel that leftward pull because they're going to have to compete in primaries and as the the DSA and these other groups have explicitly said they are um what we just covered it today move on which is a progressive organization. They are engaging in what they're calling primary interventions.

[00:54:32]They're trying to run their own candidates and that is going to pull some of their opponents leftward. And I think the the real lynch pin there is going to be economic issues in these blue states because they don't the larger issue we talked about yesterday, the pro-immigration versus anti-immigration side. That is a delineation between basically red and blue America. Economic issues I think is going to be the fight within the blue states because they all basically agree that we shouldn't have immigration enforcement. So where is their disagreement on taxation, property, and economic left or populist left economic issues?

[00:55:12]All right, we're going to move on to our next question. This is going to be a Jared and Matt question from Bad Rabbit.

[00:55:18]Regarding Romanian NATO's article 4, what is your assessment of their talk to invoke that article?

[00:55:24]>> Uh, so first off, let's find article four. That is the basically they're calling for a conference to determine if article 5 should be invoked.

[00:55:32]I looked at the event that happened yesterday. Basically, a Russian drone hit a Romanian apartment building, but the apartment building was on the border of Malttova and Ukraine where Russia is active. So, it looks to me like it was an overshot. Um, and we still have to have a full investigation on whether or not it actually, you know, was Russian.

[00:55:55]Uh, I'm thinking back to the Poland incident where a farmer was killed by by an errant missile and everybody started talking about article 5 right away, but then the moment it was looked into it became, if I remember right, it became apparent that it was a Ukrainian Ukrainian one that was shot down. Like it I do not do not immediately jump to we're going to see article 5 in all of NATO's going to war. I don't think that's going to happen here. This does not look intentional at a at first glance.

[00:56:30]>> I agree. This uh that that was that did turn out to be a Ukrainian missile that was um it was an accidental landing in Poland. But as far as this Romanian story, you know, NATO and the United States is talking about a mass, you know, a significant draw down of of troops in Europe. I think that it's very clear that the United States is is in no way wants a conventional fight with Russia and it would take a lot more than one drone. I mean, it's a tragedy and you know, it's a tragedy that that innocent people were were hurt or or possibly killed. I I didn't see any killed on this one, but uh you know, it's a tragedy, but the United States is certainly not going to move into a conventional war with Russia over one drone strike on an apartment building on the border. And uh to be quite frank, I don't think NATO's NATO and excuse me, the EU is prepared for a conventional any kind of conventional war right now with Russia. They would need to move significant forces to the east. Thank you for that, Matt and Jared. Next question from Bad Wabbit are capacity.

[00:57:34]Is there a percentage of local population is recommended before you do a protest?

[00:57:40]Well, I think you have to change your your your frame of thinking here because the protest isn't the protests are not just about showing all showing that you have this 3.5% mobilization. It is about mobilizing people. This is how the no kings pro it's about increasing your capacity. We saw this with the anti-isorganized resistance in this protester activist militant pipeline.

[00:58:06]They used protests to get casual protesters out into the streets with the idea that they could convert some percentage of those casual protesters to activists. Same the same thing the idea this the same idea with the no kings protests. They used the protests to grow their capacity. So they had no kings 1.0 they think they if I remember correctly they claimed like 3 million or uh yeah like three 3 to 5 million. No kings 2.0 they claimed 7 million. No kings 3.0 0 they claimed 8 million and then they transitioned to the Mayday strong the economic actions they were using the protests to build their capacity which they could then turn into other forms of political action in the case of like the no kings movement as I I said the other week when Mike was on I think they they looked at that and they saw that they hit a plateau with the amount of people they could mobilize and Frankly, I think they they had even if their numbers were the were flat or lower, they still had to claim growing numbers. But I think they they likely hit a point where they believe they could not expand the the amount of people they could mobilize and transition to the Mayday strong uh general strike, which I still have not seen an official number from Indivisible on uh other than the millions turned out and the 250,000 number that came out of that Chicago organizer. Um, but it's not about like you don't automatically hit the three and a half percent number.

[00:59:39]It's it's this it's part of a larger movement and the protests are part of that larger movement of building up to that three and a half% mobilization. And that's how these other groups there's there's a I think we covered it last year in DC. There was a group following Erica Chennowith's three and a half% number model just within DC and they were trying to mobilize three and a half% of the Washington DC population as part of an effort to put pressure on the local DC government not to cooperate with the Trump administration.

[01:00:12]So it's you you implement these protests or they implement these protests with the idea of getting up to that 3 and a half% number. They do not wait until they have, you know, 3 and a half% of the population signing a signup sheet for a protest to actually start taking action.

[01:00:28]All right, next question from Will YouTube side from Will Bass. Did the CIA get all that gold from the vaults of Gaddafi's Libya?

[01:00:39]>> Who knows? Who knows where it came from?

[01:00:41]Yeah, this is not I don't I I don't think we would ever know if this came from I've seen uh jokes about it coming from Saddam Hussein stockpiles from the the Kuwaiti uh sovereign gold that was taken during the war in '91. I don't think we're ever actually going to know where like where this gold came from other than the fact that it was given to him for operational purposes ostensibly and then he just stole it. All right, next question from Bad Wabbit. This might be out there in left field, but will all the crackdown on the cartel with all the crackdown on the cartels, how is that going to affect those specific countries economies? I mean, countries nearer to us fail and we're going to have issues too.

[01:01:25]So, in all the framework for the go to the Americas and the America's counter cartel coalition, they contain an effort to stabilize the entire region. It's working with each individual individual nation to see what they need in order to actually get that done. Yes, this is law enforcement enforcement, military operations primarily, but that it does come along with okay, what are we doing to invest in you? And part of that is not just to make sure that they don't collapse, but also to provide a an incentive for this is to provide a a reason for the the immigrants that are here to go back to where they came from. This is not just about cartels. This is also about getting deportations, self- deportations to ramp up because, oh look, your home is safe. You have no asylum claim. You can go get a job there. You don't have to worry about cartels. Go back. This is this is about a lot more than that. And the US the administration as far as I can tell is definitely they're not just thinking about it. They are taking action to make sure that none of these states fail.

[01:02:35]>> Yeah. I think that uh the number one goal I've I've said this on the show before. The number one goal of US policy in Mexico is to make sure that Mexico doesn't become a failed state. That's one of the reasons that we're we're not as uh strong against the Shambal administration uh publicly as as we could be because we know how precarious her situation is and and the worst case scenario is is that Mexico becomes a failed state and that they collapse into a a complete and total narco state. You know, we see this with capacity building. I believe we covered it a couple of weeks ago. The United States gave 30,000 bulletproof vests to well, Panama doesn't have an army. They only have a a large national police force.

[01:03:17]But we gave we gave us we give large amounts of capacity uh large amounts of equipment. We do capacity building with with many of these countries precisely for this purpose. We we don't want their countries to collapse.

[01:03:31]>> All right. Thank you for that, Matt and Jared. For Matt, maybe Matt is referring to creating an MOX mixed oxide fuel for reactors. Thank you for that clarification, Mad Maybe. Uh, we're going to move on to another Jared and Matt question from the YouTube side from Fox. I'm hearing scuttlebutt about the US realigning away from India toward Pakistan. I always heard India buys Russian arms and Pakistan buys Chinese.

[01:03:51]So, which does the USA back? Very confusing. Historically Pakistan, by the way, because India was a big part of the non-align movement back during the Cold War.

[01:03:59]>> They still like to say they are too. Um, kind of both.

[01:04:04]The US is kind of playing both sides. Um it it >> which is not a divergence from the historical norm either. Back during the cold war we also played both sides.

[01:04:16]There was a huge public diplomacy fight between the Soviet Union and the United States over India. Sorry Jared to interrupt.

[01:04:22]>> Yeah. So is from what I can tell so India has an open border dispute with China. Obviously everybody's focused on what happens with China and China and Taiwan in 2027. And the best way to make sure that China doesn't move is for China to fear that they have to have a two-front war across their on either side of their nation.

[01:04:46]Both of which would suck up a lot of resources by it by themselves. Uh so I think what they're going for here, what the US is going for here is keeping everybody kind of unsure of what's going on. Nobody can be perfectly sure that India won't get involved that frankly Pakistan won't get involved in Kashmir like the entire region could spin out of control along the Himalayas as it almost did in what was it 2020 I think it was where there were tons of border clashes between India and China uh and I do expect I expect the US to continue playing both sides particularly with basically cut down defense equipment that's the best way it Uh yeah, I'll leave it there.

[01:05:32]>> If I had anything to add here, which side is the USA back? I would my understanding of the of the USA's relationship with Pakistan and India are that there the relationship is fairly transactional with a lot of quid proquo.

[01:05:45]So in areas like for example the United States has historically had fairly strong cooperation with Pakistan. uh off the record a lot of a lot of a lot of things that are not palatable to the Pakistani populace, but Pakistani intelligence, the ISI works fairly closely with US national intelligence agencies on on certain counterterrorism uh operations and missions. So areas where they can benefit those countries, we work together. I don't see us as particularly close allies. For example, the relationship between the United States and England is it's just very different than the United States between Pakist United States Pakistan.

[01:06:25]>> Thank you for that, Matt and Jerry.

[01:06:26]Followup from Fox. Also ordered about a mineral deal with Vietnam. Is Vietnam moving toward being more pro- US than China?

[01:06:34]>> Okay, so we just talked about America playing both sides. Vietnam plays both sides. Uh Vietnam has a border with China. For those who don't know, they had a war with China across that border in the late '7s, basically right after the US left Vietnam. China moved in and yeah, it upset the Vietnamese quite a bit. Um the So Vietnam has to kind of play both sides just out of necessity. They are very cozy with the United States for security reasons. They're very cozy with China for in some in the economic realm.

[01:07:08]They do kind of uh they do have some joint uh joint trainings with China. I don't think they're quite as interoperable as they say they are. Uh that said, Vietnam is extremely worried about what happens in all of this because they are considerably smaller than China. China's China's got technically a more a more capable military across the board. Um, but Vietnam also, for those that have ever looked into them, you'll come to the conclusion real quick. Vietnam punches way above its weight. And part of that is that it does have a good relationship with the United States. And it's in a very hotly contested entire region. The the Southeast Asian region is insane.

[01:07:52]That's the only thing I I I have to contribute here is you literally stole the words out of my mouth. Vietnam punches significantly above their weight. And I would encourage our readers if they have some interest in this to look into the 1979 Vietnam China war. It's it was it might be surprising to those of you who are not familiar with that. The Vietnamese did very well in that conflict. And then finally, moving over to the Middle East for another deep dive.

[01:08:21]Whose side is Turkey actually on other than herself? Well, I want to point out that the the theme here with these questions that I'm headed toward is that if you look at this, I'm going to put my Mir Shimemer enjoyer hat on real quick.

[01:08:36]If you look at this through a realist framework, analytical framework, states are unitary rational actors, but the important part is in Mir Shimemer's perspective, they are security seeking. they are going to take steps to maximize their sense of security and in that case this this I think this is a strong explanatory framework for why countries will play both sides of an issue for why it going back to the Vietnam example and the Chinese Vietnam war almost immediately after China had advisers in North Vietnam >> there's actually a little bit of overlap >> yeah China had advisers in Vietnam during the war between the US and North Vietnam in the Viet Kong. And you would think why would they turn on their ostensible allies or proxies? Well, because their sense of security after United as the United States was leaving Vietnam was that they needed to control this key piece of terrain on the coast of Southeast Asia. So yeah, the the I think I think an a good way a good framework to use for thinking about these questions is or a way to get to a conclusion of why a country would take certain actions is consider that they are security seeking. So they are going to take ma actions to maximize that security and there are many other international relations frameworks that you can you can dive into but I think that one is the best has the most explanatory power here for these questions specifically. Yep.

[01:10:09]>> If u if I could hop in here for a sec.

[01:10:11]Yeah. So I think if we use uh Venezuela as a parallel, compare it to to Turkey.

[01:10:17]Venezuela very strongly aligned with Russia against the United States.

[01:10:22]Whereas my my understanding of Turkey is that they have fairly friendly relations with the three global powers, the United States, Russia, and China. I I think that it it perfectly aligns with with what Robert just said. this is their way of securing security for their state.

[01:10:39]And a and a misplay a misplay would be to only align with one of the major global powers.

[01:10:46]>> Yeah. And we've touched on this point previously. Geography rules everything.

[01:10:51]Look at where all these states are.

[01:10:53]Turkey is right between kind of three different continents. They're certainly between numerous spheres of influence and they have their own. the Pakistan India border that's right between the Middle East and what we would actually call you know Southeast Asia or even Oriental Asia the o over in Viet uh in Vietnam that is the border region between the Chinese sphere of influence and the American sphere of influence all of these places yeah they play both sides because they're sitting they're literally sitting on the fence they have to play both sides in order to be security seeking um and Turkey yeah Turkey primarily in my opinion is it they try to be independent by being friendly with everybody and they primarily care about themselves.

[01:11:40]And then real quick on this uh from Will Bass that yeah there this is what is signaled but I look at when you implement these frameworks when you're talking like offensive realism from John Mir Shimemer the idea is to try to discern what the motivations of a state are in the international sphere aside from what they explicitly say and I think Mir Shimemer would argue uh in This is according to uh I I through one of his his uh most recent books, Why Leaders Lie that a lot of that specifically about Kimmer Rouge was domestic messaging to justify a military action to increase their sense of security.

[01:12:32]And he made I think I think Mor Shmer makes a good argument for why this happens. Why we see domestically like why we see national leaders signal different different reasons for their actions to domestic and foreign audiences. And if you look at it through the through the realist framework, they can say that there is some some type of anger over h and this is just in a general example, not specifically Vietnam and China, but human rights or uh some type of uh disagreement over over policy. But it is in this framework about increasing their sense of security. And that could mean physical security or it could mean energy security.

[01:13:20]But that's what these conflicts are about. And I think this could apply even to US Operation Epic Fury right now is that there is very clearly an interest if you look at the what the Trump administration is doing with Iran in securing a a strategic choke point that is about US not just US energy security because we're not getting most of our energy out of the the the Persian Gulf, but about disconnecting energy security from an adversary.

[01:13:52]which is also about increasing our sense of security, our our ability and our ability to project force in in the case that there is a crisis or conflict with China.

[01:14:02]All right, and we had a couple more questions. We're running a little long today, but I wanted to address this one really quickly, and I think this is probably going to be in Matt's realm.

[01:14:12]Are we finding more Chinese nationals doing business with the cartels, narco supply, moneyaundering, demand, etc.?

[01:14:20]Anybody want to take it first or should I go?

[01:14:22]>> Okay. Yeah, I'll hop in. So, I believe it was the uh First Capital Command, PCC as as it's known in down in Brazil. Uh they reportedly do quite a bit of moneyaundering through China. This is per Insight Crime, who's a major cartel tracker down there. Uh so, I think I think there very likely is a Chinese connection being found, but not being publicized.

[01:14:49]And I'll leave it there.

[01:14:51]>> Yeah. So, are we finding more Chinese nationals? I'm not tracking an increase.

[01:14:56]I think that there is a significant My understanding is that there's absolutely a a significant Chinese in uh element in in international moneyaundering. I can't speak to an increase. I I haven't seen an increase. I think it's significant, but I haven't tracked the vector on that.

[01:15:14]>> All right. And then our last question.

[01:15:17]Uh, I saw this going around in the last couple days on social media. Peter Teal moved his family to Argentina and rolled his kids in school there, stating our economy was too volatile. I realize Mike is the economist in the group, but I was wondering if you guys had any comments on this. Well, I think it's pretty, if I remember correctly, he explicitly stated this was about the changing political environment in California specifically.

[01:15:38]Now, why would Teal and other there have been other of the especially tech figures talking about leaving California because of the $5 billion search charge tax, billionaires tax, the a lot of the other changing economic and political conditions in California?

[01:15:56]Why would Peter Teal move out of the country? Well, I think it's pretty I think it's it should be pretty well known by now that California tries to reach outside of California when it comes to things like imposing taxes on people who leave. You know, there's been talk about there's there's ongoing talk about like exit tax types of stuff at the state level. But I I've seen stories for the last couple of years of people saying, "Well, California the California government reached into my bank account after I lived in California 5 years ago saying I owed state income taxes." Stuff like that. I think there is a concern with teal that California is still going to try to reach outside of California as these high netw worth individuals start to leave.

[01:16:38]And there's also California is kind of a bellweather for on on many things like economics like like uh in and these types of tax policies and energy policies for other blue states. So I people like Peter Teal, they are not going to want to move to Huntsville, Alabama. Frankly, these are like a lot of these tech guys are still culturally, socially center-left people. They want to be in, you know, the the bustling city with the the bustling metro area where they have the kombucha and like, etc. So, I think he's concerned about a lot of these blue metros and blue states kind of picking up some of these policies that are causing him to want to leave California.

[01:17:31]And that leaves very few places he could move to. Very few places these other tech high high net worth tech individuals can move to.

[01:17:40]So, he I think he explicitly said to this Argentina happens to align with what his his sort of economic and political views are.

[01:17:50]Yeah, my comment on this is actions have consequences. You know, the Californian political system is talking, they keep trying to pass these these wealth taxes and actions have consequences. You know, these billionaires for the most part are not stupid. You know, these these people understand, you know, there there's nothing is hidden here. The California politicians are saying, "We want to take a significant amount of your income."

[01:18:15]Well, you know, Peter Theal is he's not an idiot. He goes, "Okay, well, I'm going to leave." I think I think that this is uh this is one of the most publicized cases, but I've been reading that up to onethird of California billionaires h are already looking at or have already moved out of California because of these proposed wealth taxes.

[01:18:35]All right, thank you for that, Matt.

[01:18:37]That will be our last question for today and that will also be the end of our show and the end of the show for this week. We'll be back with you on in your inbox and on this show Monday at 08 central. Have a good rest of your day and stay out front.