U.S. Preparing for a Cyber Offensive Against China?

本站添加: 2026-06-05

[00:00:04]Are you heat?

[00:00:41]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:11]Hello everyone and welcome to your morning briefing for Friday the 5th of June 2026. Let's jump into the executive summary for today. President Trump issued an executive order yesterday to overhaul import the import of goods using forced labor. According to a source from the the Financial Times, Anthropic is helping the NSA prepare Mythos AI. That's the new new frontier AI model for offensive cyber operations, including potentially against China. The Trump administration is preparing a policy letter to crack down on illegal alien loans and credit through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. On the domestic side, New York lawmakers passed a statewide data center pause, which is headed to New York Governor Kathy Hokll's desk. Multiple Texas counties declared a state of disaster after a new world screworm infection was confirmed in Zavala County this week.

[00:02:04]And the far left in Eugene, Oregon is according to a leaked signal chat preparing a direct action demonstration at the Eugene Federal Building for today.

[00:02:14]>> Go ahead, Jared. Sorry. Sorry. Technical issues. Uh, out on the global stage, the US is gearing up for another summer of action under the AC while also targeting Cuba for exporting radical left-wing violence and Ukraine is offering more peace talks with Russia outside of a US venue.

[00:02:31]>> Thank you for that, Jared. I'd like to bring Matt on. Actually, our first item for today is your item and this is about an executive order which is directing Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to to tighten requirements on imports that are connected to forced labor.

[00:02:48]>> Yes, this is bad news for all our listeners who buy Sheen and Teimu. Uh, President Trump uh ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol to tighten the requirements on importers. Uh, this is primarily uh aimed at Chinese e-commerce. Uh, this EO this this executive order aims to squeeze foreign direct to consumer shipping model. uh the forced labor enforcement priority that we we we talked about yesterday that the US trade representative reported on forced labor uh forced labor being used in the products in all these different countries. It signals a continued use of trade compliance authority as leverage against Chinese supply chains. Although I believe that this is primarily aimed at at Chinese direct to consumer shipping, the uh that we're seeing some chatter coming out of Canada. This immediately is is going to affect quite a few quite a few of our other trade partners. Uh like we stated yesterday, this this was aimed at 60 different countries. Uh expect a multi-month rule making process here.

[00:03:54]the near-term effects will be limited.

[00:03:56]But once these uh once these measures come into place, expect complying compliance cost and import friction to increase and that will almost certainly that will almost certainly equate to a modest upward price pressure on the affected goods. Thank you for that, Matt. We're going to move on. According to people familiar with the matter, AI developer Anthropic is helping the NSA adapt its Mythos AI frontier model for offensive cyber operations. And a Financial Times source close to this operation said that Mythos would be useful for infiltrating critical infrastructure networks in China. And then there there was also some earlier reporting, I think we covered it back in February, that the United States that the NSA and the US are are attempting to develop a more robust cyber offensive capability. And this is something the Trump administration has been focused on significantly as we've we've reported over the last 6 to 8 months. I think in this case the the hint that mythos from one of the the people involved here allegedly according to Financial Times would be useful for infiltrating Chinese critical infrastructure networks uh is a major indicator here. One of the things we've talked a lot about over the last couple of years is the infiltration and prepositioning of Chinese of cyber resources on US critical infrastructure networks by China linked hackers which was all but confirmed in December of 2024 when the outgoing Biden administration they this did not come out till later in 2025 but the outgoing Biden administration some of their officials met with their Chinese counterparts in December of 2024 after the election.

[00:05:47]And according to those Biden officials or former Biden officials now the their Chinese counterparts effectively bragged about their prepositioning of these cyber resources on US critical infrastructure networks.

[00:06:02]I think this is an indicator a likely indicator that that the Trump administration is trying to play catchup on infiltrating Chinese in critical infrastructure networks. I think it's likely there already have been attempts to infiltrate Chinese critical infrastructure networks because the United States I think it's almost certain the United States already had an offensive cyber capability and was already conducting offensive cyber operations because the doctrine that US cyber command was previously engaged in was called uh persistent engagement.

[00:06:36]Basically it uh uh persistent offensive against foreign cyber threat groups.

[00:06:42]However, I think the idea here is because of according to what different groups that have gotten access to mythos have said that it's it can it is almost perfectly built for finding vulnerabilities.

[00:06:57]In this case, I think the idea is to use it to get the United States a step ahead of Chinese cyber offensive operations, especially with the potential, as we've talked about with this this crisis or conflict over Taiwan by 2027.

[00:07:14]One of the things that officials have warned about for the last couple of years as we head toward 2027, this prepositioning of cyber resources on US critical infrastructure networks by China link hackers would likely be used to disrupt any US military mobilization if China decided some type of police or military action against Taiwan, whether it's a blockade or uh some other type of action.

[00:07:44]And I think the Trump administration is well aware or or is is trying to build up a deterrence here uh by basically a whole of government deterrence. And this fits into the larger grand strategy that the Trump administration appears to be implementing globally with the attempt to bring Iran outside of basically outside of China's sphere of influence, taking control of these strategic choke points across the globe. This appears to be another one of these steps in this larger grand strategy to deter China from taking action or at least gain enough time through these different strategic actions to build up US the US defense and civilian industrial base, secure supply chains and secure US networks against cyber intrusions.

[00:08:41]Moving on, the Trump administration is planning to release a policy statement through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and this would allow banks to consider immigration status as a repayment risk for loans and credit.

[00:08:53]They're planning to issue this Paul, the CFPB is planning to issue this policy statement today on the Federal Register.

[00:08:59]This doesn't sound at first glance like it's an important action, but this the CFPB policy letter allowing banks to consider immigration status for for home loans, mortgages, credit cards, it the banks are almost certainly going to take this as a hint that they should consider immigration status as a risk for these different financial services because this is basically how the Biden administration did the opposite, allowing banks to give mortgages, credit cards, credit lines to illegal aliens through a policy advisory to banks saying that they were risking violating federal law by considering immigration status.

[00:09:39]This is in my view basically how actual policy is is done and likely how it's going to be done in the future is that especially as the the control the margin for control of the chambers of Congress the House and the Senate narrows to fewer truly competitive seats especially in the House and the margin in the Senate remains narrow.

[00:10:06]I think we're going to see a lot more of administrations white of different of administrations going forward using these more informal tools to to exercise changes in policy. And I I think I do think in the long term this is a political stability risk for the United States. All right, we're going to move on to the domestic side where a ban or a paw one-year pause on statewide data centers or at least one year pause on statewide data center projects in New York is headed to Governor Kathy Hokll's desk who has until December to sign or veto this bill. So, as we've previously discussed, there are at least two reasons Hokll would sign this bill. Both are economic and tied to Democratic politics. One is energy prices, something that Democrats nationwide have been hitting the Trump administration on and trying to turn it into a 2026 wedge issue. And the white collar professional class demographic who is a part a significant part of the Democrat winning coalition or voter base. However, Hokll has signaled that she will not pause data center projects. She said last week, late last week, that this is a local decision for municipalities.

[00:11:22]It's land use. This is the perview of local governments. Also, after this bill passed and is now headed to her desk, apparently there is some strong construction union opposition. One of the construction unions, the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council sent a letter out asking Hokll to veto this bill. And this comes to a I think a topic we've discussed this red state, blue state or red blue bifurcation. And it's not just at the the state political legal level. I think in this case we're seeing kind of a preview of this bifurcation between red and blue economies.

[00:12:04]So the red economy I think being mostly manufacturing blue collar labor is I think headed toward a a conflict with the white collar with the with the blue economy. The white collar economy or knowledge worker economy in this case.

[00:12:19]There's opposition against data center construction projects for the economic reasons I outlined before including warnings from AI developers for the last year or more than the last year that generative AI is or agentic AI is going to eliminate half of all white collar jobs or white collar entry level jobs and on the other side these data center construction projects are bringing money to blue collar what bluecollar likely Republican construction workers So I think this is kind of a preview of a larger sort of economic front in this red state blue state bifurcation.

[00:12:58]Moving over to the department of energy, the DOE announced that the first next generation advanced nuclear reactor in their reactor pilot program we discussed yesterday reached criticality. And the DOE said the first new reactor designed to successfully reach criticality criticality was Ant's nuclear's mark0 which is a liquid sodium cooled micro reactor.

[00:13:18]In other power news, President Donald Trump approved $500 million through the Defense Production Act to support 14 gawatts of coal fired power plants across 10 states. This includes Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Wisconsin, and North Dakota.

[00:13:34]The DOE also announced that they are going to fund two projects to build new coal fired power plants in Alaska and West Virginia and two projects to upgrade existing power plants in Maryland and Puerto Rico. And this will be roughly $350 million.

[00:13:50]This is well actually I'd like to bring Matt on to to discuss this item. But first, my analysis here is that one of the things the Trump administration's been doing that we've seen over the last year. Basically, they've been playing whack-a-ole with the Federal Power Act because they want to stop the the retirement of coal power plants and and gas fired power plants to prevent a loss in base load power generation on US grids. And I this is in my view a significant effort to expand that beyond these individual letters through the FPA to stop the retirements of these plants and almost certainly an attempt to reverse the Obama and Biden clean power plans because these these sought explicitly to take coal from the cheapest to the most expensive energy source to incentivize green new energy.

[00:14:38]And I think this is also likely an indicator that the Trump administration is taking the looming power supply crunch seriously. And Matt, did you have anything to add here?

[00:14:48]>> Well, I just wanted to point out to our listeners that the US has about 250 billion tons of recoverable coal that that's inside the United States. And at minimum, depending on what assumptions you make on the growth of US power consumption, at minimum this represents decades. If coal usage just stays at the baseline level where it is now, uh the the different different estimates are that it could last up to 400 years. This is an almost an untapped resource. This represents centuries of of domestic security, excuse me, domestic power security. And this is critical. This is critical to the United States. You know, we see with the straight of Hormuz crisis, countries that don't have domestic power security, energy security, they're they're at the whims of these geopolitical winds. And furthermore, if we look at Germany, Germany closed down all their nuclear power plants. They are in they are continuing to close down their coal fired power plants and we see that we see the results of that in their economy. You know, Germany has a a very significant renewable power system.

[00:16:02]However, the costs the costs are increased and also they don't have they don't have domestic energy security.

[00:16:08]They had previously been importing their natural gas to fire their power plants from Russia.

[00:16:15]They're not doing that now. They're buying US natural gas. It's much more expensive. It has to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. It has to be cooled the whole way there. And we see this right we see this outcome in the German economy. The German economy is contracting right now. Their energy prices are too high. They're not their industry isn't competitive worldwide.

[00:16:33]And we see the Trump administration not going down that path of instead of denuclearization, closing down coal plants, the Trump administration is doing the exact opposite of the German economy. We're we're paying for these new not only existing power plants. We're not shutting down. We're creating these new power plants. We're investing in coal.

[00:16:55]And I think all of this is a bridge to next generation power systems. All right, thank you for that, Matt. We're going to move on. At least three Texas counties have declared a state of disaster for the new world screworm. And this is after the the case in Zala County was confirmed in a calf. And these counties include Hudspath County where Texas judge Joanna McKenzie declared a local state of disaster. and Uvaldi and Jim Hog counties were county judges also issued a local state of disaster declaration.

[00:17:32]The fifth circuit court of appeals heard arguments in a case brought by a couple of pro-immigration groups including the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a legal nonprofit group called Democracy Forward. And this was against an agreement between Texas and the federal government to end instate tuition for legal aliens. These groups argued that the sue and what's called a sue and settle agreement between Texas and the federal government circumvents the Democratic process.

[00:17:57]First, I think it's kind of funny that they're angry about a quote unquote sue and settle consent decree. This is a common tactic that was used in both the Obama and Biden administrations. This is like we talked about before with the CFPB policy letter. This is one of the avenues for getting policy passed without Congress and was heavily used by both the Obama and Biden administrations.

[00:18:22]And I think the reason why this is one of those tools that is becoming more used by administrations is because Congress is in some ways in a deadlock. The control, the margin for control and the margin for passing bills is becoming much more narrow.

[00:18:42]And I do think in the long run this is a political stability risk for the United States especially as the perception of legitimacy of Congress which is already very low. So the approval approval uh opinion of polling for Congress has been historically low. Obviously there's a compl complication there because a lot of people they like their individual congressmen. They just do not like Congress as a whole. Second, I think this is a likely indicator that the Trump administration is adopting these effective tactics to push policy changes and in this case as part of this whole of government strategy to incentivize self deportations and doing this by making the lives of illegal aliens and their children inside of the United States significantly less comfortable.

[00:19:29]Third, as I said before, I think obviously this is a bad sign for political stability in the long term because consent decrees and other avenues for making major policy changes without Congress, they are not new. But I think there is a risk that the perception of legitimacy of the US political system becomes more questionable to the American public as admin more and more administrations are going to have to are likely going to have to look to these other avenues because of what is effectively a deadlock in Congress on on many contentious political issues.

[00:20:04]over at uh a far-left blog, illegal alien detainee hunger strikes, according to this blog, are occurring at multiple ICE detention facilities across the United States. I want to bring this up.

[00:20:16]Uh there are some I think from this this blog some confusion on some of these facilities because the Adilanto facility and the Desert Annex facility are the same facility in California. But according to this blog, there are hunger strikes happening at at these five detention centers, including Delaney Hall in New York, New Jersey. And according to this the this far-left group and pro-immigration groups, the hunger strikes began as early as April 2026.

[00:20:46]As I talked about before, the anti-CE organized resistance is looking at other potential key terrain to force a confrontation with ICE or andor the Trump administration. And this is a deliberate inside outside strategy.

[00:20:59]These hunger these are hunger strikes combined with direct action demonstrations. I did see I did there is local media reporting on alleged hunger strikes at at least some of these facilities. The theto California desert annex the Torrance County New Mexico ice facility north lake Michigan in the Prairand Texas facility.

[00:21:24]Now this is there are I think there are two things going on here. One, there is definitely a coordinated operation as the the label of organized resistance implies. Um but there are also basically target sets put out by these groups where other far-left affinity groups can effectively autonomously target. And I think that's what's going on here is that there are that this is this this is a a call to action basically for local far-left groups to conduct direct action demonstrations at these facilities.

[00:22:01]In the report, I included a link to a Fox News Fox Digital News report which cited some of the the OSEN accounts that I've discussed before, including Data Republican that outlines a lot of this coordinated network. And this includes the DSA, which we the Democratic Socialist America, which we began talking about back in January because the Twin Cities DSA was heavily involved in the antiorganized resistance and putting that all together in Minneapolis and St. Paul earlier this year and at the end of last year. but other groups including indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, 50-51 and more than a hundred groups that they outline in this report. Moving on to our last item on the domestic side, according to a leaked signal chat, far-left groups in your in a far-left affinity group or affinity groups in Eugene, Oregon are planning a direct action demonstration at the Eugene Federal Building today. Leak messages from the signal chat include calls to action to bring PPE, personal protective equipment, black block attire, and to not speak to the police. And I think importantly they say including the peace police because peace police is basically a far-left derogatory term for peaceful protesters, demonstrators and organizers, especially those organizers that will that openly call for nonviolent protest and try to peace police anybody who shows up to take part in the demonstration. This is a significant indicator that this will not be a nonviolent protest but a direct action demonstration. as we've seen previously at the Eugene, Oregon federal building. And while the anti-Corg organized resistance is organized, obviously that does not preclude parallel self-activated activated efforts from far-left affinity groups.

[00:23:55]Like I said, one of the one of the things that will happen is that a target set is put out. We saw this across multiple over the last few years, multiple different far-left movements, including Stop Cop City, where the National Lawyers Guild released a map of a national map of cop cities, basically training centers.

[00:24:15]And we've seen this with other calls to action put out, including protests of defense contractors over the last couple of years. This is a pretty well-worn TTP or T technique and procedure to release a map u available to any far-left affinity group that wants it and they can pick and choose their local targets.

[00:24:38]And the far left has identified this target set. It's ICE field offices and detention facilities. And I think we're likely to see this as a possible resurgence uh as the icing organi the anti-organized resistance is still looking for the next flash point to force a confrontation with the Trump administration. All right, that's the end of our domestic side. We're going to move to the global sup. Jared, if you could come on and take us through the global s please.

[00:25:03]>> Absolutely. We are going to start off with Matt and we've got an update from the United Kingdom. Uh so the British member of parliament and leader of the restore party Rupert Low announced yesterday that he would repeal British race relation laws on the grounds that they are anti-white. Now Low said that restore Britain his party is committed to rooting out all laws, practices and norms that systematically discriminate against white people. just as as an assessment here. I think the I think what is most important here is that the British have a national level leader that in their government that is acting on the native population's behalf. Uh and this particular set of policies actually does start to align Britain with the US's national security strategy. The NSS derides the civilization, quoting here, the civilizational erasial eraser happening across Europe due to migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife.

[00:26:01]And Matt, you've got a comment here as well.

[00:26:04]>> Yeah, I wanted to point out that uh Rupert Low and Res and Restore Britain are one data point in a broad accelerating shift rightward across Europe. And this is very likely to continue. the vector is definitely moving to the right. Uh the Noak case is the kind of flash point that accelerates this dynamic. Uh populist parties are topping polls in Germany, France and Britain. Right-leaning parties are already governing in Italy and Hungary.

[00:26:33]Uh the consistent drivers across uh the entire sphere here is anti-immigration which of course we see in the Trump it's it's a topic in the Trump administration. Uh that's a it's a sentiment that holds across Europe and the United States and we are predicting that this will this will deeper alignment with this will lead to deeper alignment with the Trump administration.

[00:26:56]You know and I've got to I've got to throw out uh you know there there are countries that are not on this list. You know for example Poland Poland is is is also you know very right leaning and they seek deeper ties with the United States in quite a few of our stories.

[00:27:11]>> Yeah. All right. got some news out of Ukraine as well yesterday. The Ukrainian president Zalinski, he issued a public letter to the Russian president Putin offering peace talks in Switzerland, Turkey, or any of the Arab countries stating that they' previously offered to offered to hold them. Uh, and the main thing he's trying to do here is keep the talks out of the United States because quoting Zilinsky, Ukrainian and European issues are not decided in Anchorage, referencing the Putin visit to Alaska.

[00:27:40]Zullinsky did include that the US must remain involved as the US is going to be going to help shape a new security architecture for the European part of the world.

[00:27:50]Uh yeah, so the core gaps here are still territory and security agreements and they remain unchanged. Uh Ukraine has clearly been deprioritized. Uh there there's a question on what US engagement in the future is going to look like and it's almost certainly going to going to be centered around the United States and Russia's economic uh partnership moving forward and with Ukraine as a European issue.

[00:28:18]All right. Uh now we got a bunch of news coming coming out of uh Southcom. So, the US Southern Command Commander, General Donovan, I'll refer to him as Southcom, he concluded a two-day visit with the Guatemalan president and numerous high-ranking officials down there, to implement a shared commitment to counter cartel criminal activity under the America's counter cartel coalition or AC as we call it. Um now Southcom is an important figure to watch here because right before Ecuador really kicked off its AC actions, Southcom went to visit them, discussed basically this entire agenda as well and then we saw not only Ecuadorian unilateral uh operations under the AC but also a couple of US uh US Ecuador joint operations along the northern border. So I am keeping a much closer eye on Guatemala. And for those who don't know, I got a extra map here. Guatemala is in Central America bordering Mexico.

[00:29:19]And down in Bolivia, also part of the AC, the US Secretary of Defense, issued a warning yesterday that the Department of War and and the AC, so referencing the entire coalition here, reject all attempts to overthrow the legitimate government of President Paw in Bolivia.

[00:29:39]Now, the administration republished this warning to its embassy in Bolivia in Spanish, and I think that's very important for who that's talking to.

[00:29:47]Additionally, Secretary of State Rubio called President Paw to inform him that the US is ramping up emergency assistance and logistics support to help stabilize Bolivia. So, what you're seeing there is a a carrot stick and uh the US publishing the warning in Spanish to its embassy specifically in Bolivia. I that's to reach a Bolivian audience. are not going to beat around the bush. That's for a Bolivian audience and very likely the ones that they think are leading the protest. There have there's been some accusations from the sitting president in Bolivia that it's being led by foreign president Evo Morales. Uh I think the fact that the secretary of or secretary of defense, whichever title you prefer to use there, making this warning public, this is a step up the US escalation ladder. uh because the administration has been very clear that all of its diplomacy is going to be backed up by the force of the United States military. Um for those who don't know, Bolivia is exceptionally important for the AC mission. All the countries here highlighted in blue are part of the America's counter cartel coalition. And then Colombia is a non-NATO ally which were obviously watching watching their election because they're uh their presidential front runner has said he's interested in joining the ACC in the Shield of the Americas which are counter cartel. And anybody who knows Columbia's history knows that they're basically their entire armed forces are geared around, you know, eradicating drug dealers. Um, now it Bolivia is geographically critical to the entire mission here.

[00:31:19]They they hold a literally a central spot in South America that would oversee numerous roads for for drug trafficking from Brazil to the Pacific or Well, really? Yeah. the Brazil to the Pacific.

[00:31:32]And we just saw the designation of the PCC and CV out of Brazil, which would potentially use Bolivia if Peru and Ecuador become unviable.

[00:31:43]Now, I do think that the US is likely to ramp up meetings between Bolivian and US defense officials concurrent to its delivery of aid to Bolivia uh as Bolivia prepares to militarily quell the protest. That actually just went through their their uh legislature.

[00:31:59]>> Yeah. I just want to point out to our listeners here that the United States is using all three of Secretary Rubio at as a representative of the executive, Senator Moreno as a representative of our legislature and we see uh General Donovan and CG of Southcom visiting. You know, it it seems like every day that the that the United States is is using all all of our available different power structures to support these different countries and the AC.

[00:32:31]>> Absolutely. And we have to keep in mind as we saw with Ecuador and we're now applying to why we're watching Guatemala so closely, the US does use meetings between between these officials as a preliminary step to US involvement. um that US military involvement doesn't have to be an enormous amount, but it can it'll be as little as information support. So telling them, all right, here's using the ISR assets of the United States, which are just unparalleled up to potentially joint joint ventures if the Bolivian state needs it.

[00:33:07]>> Well, that's the uh that's one of the core missions of US Army special forces is foreign internal defense. I mean, that's literally one of their their core competencies. It would be it would be very much in line with uh the US Army special forces to to go into Bolivia and just train the trainers, train and support and utilize be the be the point of contact between the the massive US intelligence apparatus and provide that information to the to our local partners so that they can conduct those counter cartel operations.

[00:33:39]>> Absolutely. And we're going to round out the report talking on Cuba.

[00:33:43]So, the US issued sanctions yesterday on several Cuban officials and entities for serving as an outpost for our adversaries and exporting radical left-wing violence and terror across our hemisphere, which that is a direct quote from the State Department there. The sanctions include the Cuban president and his family as well as the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the peoples or IAP and the Spanish acronym there.

[00:34:09]Now, the IAAP claims it runs an international solidarity campaign uh with between Cuba and the rest of the world, but the US claims that it supports Cuban intelligence and counter intelligence activities, and those are not necessarily exclusive exclusive missions there. Um, and Matt, you've got a fair amount to say on Cuba here.

[00:34:32]>> Yeah, I've got a quote from President Trump yesterday. Uh, he said, quote, "I like to do one thing at a time. we'll take care of Iran and as soon as that's done we'll take care of Cuba which you know it doesn't require a lot of analysis here that's that's pretty much he's saying exactly what the plan is here we expect uh Cuba here at the shop we expect Cuba the Cuba situation to remain a a Treasury and State Department issue until the military assets are freed up from the Iran crisis. Uh in that in that video that we link in the report, President Trump literally said as our assets come back they can he kind of made a joke. He said they can swing by Cuba and clear it up in a day. So it doesn't take a lot of analysis here. As soon as as soon as the Iran situation is cleared up, expect some uh increased action on the Cuba front.

[00:35:20]>> Yeah. And I've got one more note here.

[00:35:22]Just so we we've been saying for quite some time now that Yeah. As soon as Iran wraps up, expect Cuba sometime between that date and the end of summer. I expect it to be closer to that date than the end of summer. Uh, anybody who's familiar with the map that's on screen right now, you'll notice that Nicaragua is not not colored in there. It is not part of America's counter cartel coalition. They are a uh an adversarial government, I do expect, after Cuba is solved. Nicaragua is next. And we've seen some uh some Treasury and State Department actions on Nicaragua kind of floating in the background. uh we have covered those but I I expect shortly after Cuba is shortly after the US takes action on Cuba we will see a a move on Nicaragua as well >> well and that move might not be military I mean the leaders >> right the leaders of these these central and south American countries I mean we're this is one domino after another the Trump administration is is in the in the mid middle of a process of just running the board and uh with these with success uccess after success, Venezuela, Colombia, potentially Cuba here in the next few months. I I would anticipate that the Nicaraguan leaders would they they'd see what time it is and they'd get on board with with our uh domestic priorities.

[00:36:47]>> All right, thank you for that, Jared.

[00:36:48]Matt, we're going to move on to questions and answer.

[00:36:56]Uh having some kind of technical issue apparently. Uh so first question from the YouTube side. So the cyber offensive thing is what the data centers are for.

[00:37:04]I'm sure AI developers are going to argue that that that they need this data center capacity for these types of things like the the mythos frontier model. Um, but I I am sure I'm sure that's an argument they're going to make is that the this is one of the consistent things I've run into when seeing these AI developers talk about the need to win the AI race against China is uh why we need X amount of new data centers and it needs this amount of focus and X amount of H1B visa workers is we have to win the race AI race against China and I have yet to find one that has was able to give me a a definition of what winning the AI race looks like. All right, next question from Dio Gradius. The 2030 census and the Democrat who are being locked out of power after the 2030 census is that why the left is pushing so hard. Well, you have to understand the the left is not a monolith. There is the Democratic party, the Democrat party that includes centrist that includes its own factions, the centrist factions that would be called blue dog Democrats.

[00:38:07]uh people sort of in the middle of the party and then you have the progressive and democratic social swings. And while and then beyond the the liberal Democrat party, you have the far-left which is they are not the same thing. In many cases, I think as we pointed out earlier this week, many on the far left do not like Democrats or liberals. Uh, and one of the one of the the the most prevalent most famous sayings from the far left on that is liberals get the bullet too.

[00:38:39]They do not like the Democrat party. The some of them will engage with Democrat politics entirely instrumentally, but they have they have different desired outcomes.

[00:38:53]All right. Next from if if true, all the right has to do is not lose in 26 and 28. Yeah, it's easier said than done, obviously. Uh, what is the likely course of action if Democrats claim the 26 midterms are fraudulent?

[00:39:09]Um, I think the most likely course of act, honestly, the most likely course of action is is the the status quo. They'll they'll claim that there was though I think there's going to be they're building up this narrative that if Democrats don't at least flip the House that they that this is Trump attempting to steal the election. I think that's that's kind of a a messaging effort that's meant to deter the federal government from stepping in with federal agents or trying to take control like trying to get copies of voter roles from different states.

[00:39:47]Now, there is a possibility, I think Mike and I discussed this before, that there are efforts to accelerate this this kind of burgeoning color revolution for this for this year's midterms, but that's very low likelihood.

[00:40:01]Uh Mike talked about this before. He he did kind of a deep dive on color revolutions, and they tend not to be around midterm elections. If they do this, I think it will definitely be an effort to kind of accelerate the potential 2028 election, accelerate the messaging around that.

[00:40:21]All right. From handle your face, are EO permanent orders to be followed by all branches of government continue to be on the four years of the occupation?

[00:40:30]Technically, yes. Also, technically, the an incoming administration should be able to reverse an EO. Uh we've seen a couple of cases where that has not run gone as smoothly as ostensively it should with Dhaka for the delayed uh delayed arrival of a delayed action on childhood arrivals uh executive order and some other ones where people have filed lawsuits using like the administrative procedures act to say that the the Trump administration didn't follow like step 25 out of 40 43 steps.

[00:41:06]Um, ostensively, yes, they are supposed to be enforced after an administration leaves until the incoming administration reverses an order. From bad wabbit, political stability issue. You kind of slid that in there at the end. How much instability do you expect as a result of the economic crackdown on illegals? It's not the the crackdown itself. there's the potential for one of the things that there that there is a potential for is like economic some some economic disruption especially if we start to see u much larger self-deportations and obviously that economic disruption just means that there's going to be a drought of uh low basically con uh certain certain types of trades uh certain kind certain types of minimum wage labor And Matt actually had a a comment on this. I'd like to bring Matt on.

[00:41:59]>> Yeah. So on the political stability issue, uh how much instability do we res do we expect as a result of the economic crackdown on illegals? You know, there there could be we are seeing some initial reports that this is beneficial to some housing markets in in areas that are that have been historically dominated by H-1B visa holders. and we are seeing uh price decreases. This this hasn't been confirmed outside of a couple of small markets. We're still looking at the issue, but in some local markets, the housing prices are significantly declining as H-1B visa holders are no longer bidding on these homes. Uh and that's a combination of issues. That's a combination of pressure on hiring of H-1Bs and then we also see this with the different banking regulations.

[00:42:48]>> Well, yeah. And when I was talking about political instability earlier, I meant specifically this type of action that the Trump administration is using that has been used by previous administrations that is an basically an attempt to enact policy by going around Congress. And I think that risks >> Congress the perception of legitimacy of the US political system, especially the Congress becoming drastically lower than it already is. And that that presents basically like the potential for something like an election failure where we see like declining turnout for elections as time goes on because people begin to believe that it doesn't matter if who they vote for Congress because the the White House is just going to go around them. Um, but yeah, that that's what I mean when I talk about something like uh like uh increased risk of political instability is just the the lowering perception of legitimacy all around for the federal government.

[00:43:46]Because I'm sure there are many that are going to see these types of actions meant to sidestep Congress as illegitimate. Even though, as I pointed out before, this is basically how it's done now because there are just structural issues with Congress as we see >> the number of truly competitive seats start to narrow. the the margin for control of the Senate starts to narrow >> that this is just the path of least resistance for actually getting policies done. And I think the this administration is probably going to use it a lot more. I think future administrations are going to use it a lot more whether they're the continuation of of the current administration with JD Vance or a potential populist left rise rise of a populist left candidate who takes the White House in 2028. both are going to use this and it has it has already been used in the past that obviously I think the Trump administration took this out of the the Biden administration's playbook. This is how debanking worked back during the Biden administration.

[00:44:39]>> They they don't go to the banks and say you must remove the bank account of this person and then go to every individual bank and say you must not give this person a bank account. They just declare that person a politically exposed person and the banks take the hint that they proactively remove that person from their service and other banks proactively do not allow them to open a new account. This is also how this policy was initially implemented allowing illegal aliens to get home loans and credit cards and credit lines was that the B administration put out a letter saying, "Hey, if you don't allow illegal aliens to use your financial services or you consider their immigration status as a risk for repayment, you could be breaking federal law." That's just how that's just one of these these avenues of how power actually works now. And I I think it risks in the long run a loss of the perception of legitimacy in the US political system. Now I think that's a that's a great point you bring up in that what does you know what what is the United States governance look like once we move through this this period where you know right now there are congressional seats that are competitive. You know, what does the United States governance look like when none of the when none of the seats or a tiny fraction of the seats are competitive? What does governance look like when the Senate and and Congress are locked into the numbers that they're held under under, you know, the once thei the situation kind of crystallizes and yeah, I think that we the executive orders aren't new. Of course, they they've ramped up in recent years. the Trump administration certainly utilizing them and I think it's it's going to become u it's it's almost certain to become an increasing part of governance moving forward. Thank you for that Matt. We're going to move on to our next question from Bad Wabbit.

[00:46:35]Uh this is a domestic question. Hawaii's Hawaii has been officially descertified.

[00:46:38]I think this is in reference to their Medicaid fraud unit being disertified by the Trump administration which I believe happened yesterday. Exactly. How do you see this playing out? This is just the the Trump administration. They they claimed that Hawaii's Medicare Medicaid fraud investigation unit was basically the lowest performing investigative unit in the country when it comes to to looking at fraud. This is just I I think we're going to see the Trump administration. This is probably this is a likely indicator that Hawaii is their next target after Minneapolis and min after Minneapolis and St. Paul after California. Uh this is going this is just a likely indicator that Hawaii is coming onto the the fraud task force uh target list.

[00:47:23]All right. From Tatona, with summer kicking off in TV groups starting their actions and calling for violent direct action, what is the likelihood of seeing shootings or bombings on government or conservative targets? It's not zero, but for the most part when these groups are doing direct actions, it's things like vandalism.

[00:47:43]Uh, and it's they're they're not going and starting out picking up a gun and going to an ICE field office and shooting at some ICE agents or shooting at a conservative uh politician.

[00:47:58]They are doing things like breaking into defense contractor like depots and vandalizing vehicles or in the case in Washington vandalizing businesses owned by local politicians like Marie Glucen Perez. Uh her and her husband's auto body shop and outside of Portland was vandalized by some local Antifa. Uh because again they do not like liberals any more than they like anybody else.

[00:48:25]Um, but uh that's not that doesn't mean that there's not a 0% chance or that there is a 0% chance. We've already seen within the last 18 months the Prairie Land detention facility shooting which is being characterized by the far left as I've seen on their blogs and some of their their sort of sympathetic media outlets like the Intercept as a noise a nighttime noise protest gone wrong basically. No, that if it was a nighttime noise protest, why was there a cop shot in the neck? It was it was almost certainly it be before the my analysis was that it was almost certainly direct a a complex attack attempt on an ICE facility and this was even before the DOJ secured the the conviction of those involved including Benjamin Song. Um, then there was the Dallas Ice Field Office sniper attack. And there there have been, as I pointed out multiple times, anthrax hoax letters sent to ICE field offices as well, including in New York City. So, it's not it's not 0%. I just think that based on the direct action demonstrations, the the the overall picture, I think those types of deliberate attacks are probably far less likely than other direct actions. No other direct action demonstrations, but they are a low likelihood, high impact event.

[00:49:50]All right, this I think this is a Jared and Matt question. What's the status with Greenland?

[00:49:54]>> I haven't seen an update recently.

[00:49:57]I not not beyond the Europeans putting putting a few extra troops up there. Uh I think as the Trump administration gets closer to actually fielding the Golden Dome, which we have seen some progress on that. uh not not a lot and not a lot of it made public, but they at least are getting air interceptors. Uh at least they claim to have them deployed. Um that I think as that gets closer, there will be more scrutiny on Greenland and Canada to bring them on side.

[00:50:29]>> Yeah. The last thing I saw was was just an expansion some some expansions of of current bases uh in in Greenland. I hadn't seen any. Uh, we we aren't preparing to invade. That's the last thing. That's that's the last thing I've seen.

[00:50:44]>> Yeah. One quick note because she says, "Yeah, you know, we need Greenland."

[00:50:47]Yes. For we'll pull up the favorite map real quick. Um, yeah, Greenland lies directly between really Canada and Canada and the US and uh the Russian Federation and China. So if you are going to conduct a a ballistic missile intercept over the Arctic, you pretty much need Greenland.

[00:51:08]It gives you an enormous amount of early warning potential and also intercept potential.

[00:51:14]>> Well, in addition, you know, as the Arctic is is developed for energy resources, it Greenland will will absolutely prove critical for oil and gas exploration and and for trade shipping.

[00:51:26]>> Yeah. Yeah. And on that map, there are two critical trade routes noted there as well. So >> yeah.

[00:51:33]>> All right.

[00:51:34]>> All right. Thank you for that, Matt and Jared. Move on to our next question from John F. Do you think the Trump administration will fall into the trap of being being set in California due to the fact that only 30 something% of votes have been counted? Seems like they want the Fed to step in. I don't think that they actually want the federal government to step in. So there's this California very heavily uses mail-in ballots.

[00:51:56]Most of our listeners are familiar with the the the idea of the the concept of ballot harvesting. But there is another process that happens because mail and ballots like obviously some percentage of them are going to have be disqualified. They're people are not going to fill them out correctly.

[00:52:15]They're not going to they're not going to put their name and address on the outer envelope in the correct manner or they're not going to their son their signature is going to be illeible.

[00:52:24]There's a process called ballot curing and there are activist groups like Common Cause who engage in ballot curing operations going back multiple election cycles. They did it here in Florida in 2000. And what this process is is basically they go through these ballots.

[00:52:41]They basically volunteer for local election officials to go through these disqualified mail-in ballots and cure them by trying to contact the person who turned in the mail-in ballot.

[00:52:52]Common Cause claims that they are a nonpartisan pro-democracy group fact because they they like to tout that they were founded by a Republican who was a cabinet official for the Lynden B. Johnson administration by the way. Uh and then now they are ran by the CEO of the League of Women Voters who is very heavily involved in progressive political activism.

[00:53:16]I think it's I think it's plausible that one I think the long timeline for California elections because they are so heavily mail-in ballot weighted that part of this multiple weeks to count the vote has to do with the ballot curing process. Basically, they want enough time to go through these disqualified mail and ballots and cure them. get the go contact the the alleged voter, get their signature fixed, get their address fixed, whatever information they need.

[00:53:47]And considering that there are activist groups that volunteer for this ballot curing process in multiple states, including here in Florida, I I think it's plausible that they are more likely to focus on curing mail-in ballots for a party they support over one they don't.

[00:54:05]So, I I I think that's I don't think this is a trap being set by the California by California state and local election officials because I don't think they actually want the Trump administration to come in and and and start investigating or the US attorney's office. I think it's Trump put out on True Social claiming that the US attorney's office office for Los Angeles is investigating. I don't think they actually want all that much scrutiny on California elections.

[00:54:31]All right, next question from Frozen Nomad. I think this is a Matt and Jared question. Does Zinsky proposing peace talks represent a significant shift and what Ukraine is willing to compromise on or do you read this more as just trying to stay in the headlines and keep attention on their conflict?

[00:54:46]>> I I don't have a good good read on his actual intentions there. We've seen both from him. It and the we were actually talking about this before the show. Um, when Rubio announced that the US would be stepping away, he did also mention that there have been numerous attempts at peace talks and there just could not be any middle ground found which okay, if there's no middle ground to be found, I don't frankly I don't know what Zalinski is going to compromise on because he claims the entirety of Ukraine and Russia enforces that enforces law over parts of Ukraine and neither the line hasn't really moved.

[00:55:26]>> Yeah. So, with the most recent um the most recent Ukrainian strikes deeper into Russia, this does represent an increase in Ukrainian capabilities. I I don't think an increase in Ukrainian capabilities coupled with with this indicate any kind of softening on on Ukrainian goals. You know, for example, I think Crimea would be would be a really reasonable compromise for Zalinski. Uh Crimea is that's a tough road to ho for the for the Ukrainian army. Uh the the other provinces, you know, they're obviously being fought over right now. That's that's maybe less negotiable for for Zalinski, but if he's not even willing to compromise on Crimea, I I don't see that there's any real commitment to negotiation on the Ukrainian or the Russian side. They're letting this they're they're negotiating on the battlefield. And my read on this is that both sides are they're still in the the hot phase right now. they are positioning for what the piece is going to look like moving forward. Uh I I don't see that this is really going to be negotiated in a any kind of reasonable way. Most likely there's going to be uh some sort of modified Korean, South Korea, North Korea cooling of the conflict where where we don't see a negotiated peace settlement.

[00:57:01]I I'm projecting that there will be some sort of limited conflict moving forward possibly for decades.

[00:57:09]>> Yeah. And real quick, Carl Ms. Hey, what do you how do you see the sending?

[00:57:13]>> Okay. So, >> see previous answer.

[00:57:15]>> Yeah. Um it's it's going to be it's it's I think that uh the Russians are going to I think they're going to slowly conquer as much territory at at whatever cost that that that is. Uh there's there's no doubt that this is creating casualties for the Russian military. At some point, the Russians are going to say this is this is as far as we want to fight. Uh and and that's that's honestly my um my take on this is it's going to be pretty close to where the front line is right now. Uh not within like a mile, but somewhere within the vicinity. I think that the I think that the the Russians have over 90% of the dawn boss and that is one of their that's always been one of their primary asks. So those four provinces plus Crimea, I think the Russians are pretty close to where they want to be on territory. They certainly don't have the security situation that they want as the Ukrainians demonstrate with strikes deep into Russia. Obviously that the Russians don't want that. So what does that look like moving forward?

[00:58:19]That's tough. That's tough to tell. But I think that we're going to see a halt to the forward the the forward line of battle moving and then there'll be some negotiations on on security guarantees moving forward. And with with the Ukrainians and Russians so far apart, your guess is as good as mine on what that looks like. I'm I'm not sure. I think that the piece is going to be ugly. I think it's going to be ugly. I think the Europeans are they're not going to they're not they don't have they don't have a lot of motivation to bring Ukraine into the EU while this conflict's ongoing. That would be a disaster for the EU economy. It would be detrimental to the EU security situation. You know, once once the active shooting phase stops, uh you does Ukraine have a path into the EU? Almost certainly. you know, Germany, East Germany reunited with West Germany. That was very difficult from an economic standpoint. And we're going to see the same thing. You know, a lot of Ukrainian industry is is very damaged right now.

[00:59:23]Uh their economy is obviously in shambles. They're in a they're in a war for, you know, they get missile strikes every day. You know, does the EU help rebuild Ukraine? Oh, most certainly.

[00:59:33]Where does that money come from? Well, you know, there's there's a lot of Europeans arguing over that right now.

[00:59:38]I'm sure that President Zalinsky wants the United States to contribute to that, but uh yeah, it's an it's an ugly it's an ugly war right now and it's going to be an ugly piece. All right, thank you for that Matt and Jared. And one last question before we end the show from Bad Wabbit. The number of politicians calling for mobilization such as such as Rashida Tab and many more is increasing. They are advocating for the overthrow of the government. Why is it we never use 18 USC 2385?

[01:00:06]Well, these people, as as we've pointed out, they are not idiots. They know which side of the line, the legal line to remain on, and they will push right up to the edge of that. We've seen this in multiple training calls with like the anti-organized resistance when it comes to accompaniment patrols and like the the whistle mania as it came to be called in Chicago. um the the people involved in like the Trump resistance and the anti-organized resistance, they are there are many trained legal experts that know what how how far they can get up to the line of things like this.

[01:00:47]Calling for a mass mobilization to for a nonviolent demonstration is not going to fall on the wrong side of 18 USC 2385, the advocating for the overthrow of the US government.

[01:01:00]Now, this this is the same problem I think the Trump administration is running into with the unlawful orders video with Senator Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin and the some other Democrats.

[01:01:12]We all know what they're actually saying.

[01:01:16]Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin are actually basically imply are actually implying when they say that US military personnel and intelligence community personnel are obligated to resist unlawful orders. The implication is there is that any order that the Trump administration gives that they don't like is unlawful. But they don't actually say that like they don't they don't actually try they try not to actually cross that line.

[01:01:44]So, this is why a lot of these these legal tools that I've seen a lot of people call for Trump to use, things like the Insurrection Act, the different the different US criminal laws to to crack down on on Democrats and activists and far-left.

[01:02:05]They the problem is that they don't often do not cross the line into that being a crime. Now, where we have seen that happen, the anti-isorganized resistance with their rapid response groups have in many cases fallen on the wrong side of 18 USC 111.

[01:02:22]That's in that's impeding or interfering with a federal agent.

[01:02:26]Now, the other obstacle the Trump administration runs into is that the Trump resistance because they are smart people, many of them legal experts, they know what jury nullification is. And as we've seen with the Chicago US Attorney's Office, some of these grand juries are suspected by the Trump administration to be very clearly showing signs of jury nullification efforts. We've also talked about the deliberate training classes that these people have done like free DC and a couple of these other movements on jury nullification and grand jury nullification. So, we're talking about a coordinated effort of people who are familiar with the law.

[01:03:03]Many of these people there are lawyers involved many such cases. They know where the line is. So I think it's unlikely we will see the Trump administration use 18 use the law in a way that maybe we all know what they're saying, but they're not actually crossing that line. And that comes to the other the other thing that the Trump administration has to likely has to deal with is public perception and the anti-organized resistance and the Trump resistance. They are they want an overreach.

[01:03:33]They want the Trump administration to invoke the insurrection act for Minneapolis and St. Paul or Newark, New Jersey. They want the Trump administration to to try to arrest elected officials for alleged violations of law where it's very unlikely. It's very likely that they knew where the line they could walk up to was because that is a direct attack and and it creates an avenue for more direct attacks on the legitimacy of the Trump administration. All right.

[01:04:05]Well, that will be our last question for today. We'll be back with you on Monday on in your inbox and on the show as you're central. Have a good weekend and stay out front.