Wednesday Opinions

But we've covered a lot of ground. Talked more Iran. Talked more Graham Platner. Talked about the GOP race for governor and the back and forth there. We talked a little tech with Craig Peterson earlier. We talked with Laura Libby about what's going on in the legislature, some energy bills. They more or less defeated that price cap, price control bill on hospitals and the two tax bills, which are seeking to raise main income taxes. Once again, we did all that stuff too. So, but a pretty full show here. I even dealt with... The passing of Paul Ehrlich and the population bomb nonsense. It's been, we've covered a lot of ground. We've covered a lot of ground. So this and anything else on your mind, wide open, friends, 8799426, Mike from Harpswell. First up, Mike, how are you? Good, good. Let's talk about the Joe Kent situation. Let's talk about the Joe Kent situation a little bit. Now, listen, the guy's got a great military record. There's nothing anybody could say about that. But I'll tell you where he had a problem and why he did what he did yesterday, because they were about ready to fire him. He's been leaking, okay? How do you know that? Where is that coming from? Well, let me get you a little background real quick, short and sweet. What happened was they knew they had a problem with a leaker. So they'd been looking and looking and following. And here's an example. This is what the final straw was. Mark Levin was going to visit the White House. Now, they kept it on a low profile about him visiting. So when he entered the Oval Office with Trump, They made sure a certain circle of people were there. Less than five minutes after everybody left the Oval Office, six minutes later, Tucker Carlson was online talking about Mabin, pushing Israel in the war. Guess where it came from? Joe Camp. They knew it. So they cornered him, and they know he was leaking. Now, when you're the director of National Counter Terror Terror Center and you're leaking to Tucker Carlson in the anti-war groups, you're about ready to lose your job. And I'll tell you something. I don't think they're through with him yet. I'm going to tell you something right now. This guy can face some serious, serious stuff under the espionage act. So I don't know, but this is the information I got out of D.C. And from what I get, this is why he was not included in the final intel briefing the night before they started going into Iran. They didn't trust them not to leak it to the anti-war groups. Well, obviously I can't confirm any of that, but I trust your sources and your commentary about it. Well, it'll all come out. You can bet on it. But, you know, it's just sad. It's sad that a guy with a career he's had and the position he was in would do this.

And they knew they were closing in on him. That's why he resigned because they knew they were going to can him. Well, I think one thing you could say... Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. I think one thing that you could say then, you know, irrespective of the leak situation is, like, if any of what you're saying is accurate, then he very obviously seems like a guy who clearly opposes the Iran intervention and has concerns about the relationship with Israel. Because if he's leaking things to Tucker Carlson about that, obviously, then that's the motivation, right? So, I mean, whatever else you would say about him, I would say the statement that he released on his opinion about things. You know, he might have said that's the reason he resigned and maybe it's not. But certainly the opinions contained therein are probably genuinely what he thinks, I would guess. Yeah. And we can debate those. You know. Yeah. Well, we'll see. Like I say, it will all come out. Yeah. You know, it's just, you know, look, you know, this is the only, it's not the only time I've seen the country be against the war. I was in one of them. They didn't like. And, you know, when you got guys in Arms Way, it's not good, it's not good for morale in the military to see all this infighting going on. And, you know, it's time to, I don't know. I just don't know what to say. Well, you don't want to under. There's a difference between genuine opposition and a discussion about should we or shouldn't we in our. You know, the various things we do to talk about this genuinely and then actually attempting to undermine the President of the United States and the administration's actions. I got to move on, Mike, because I've got other callers. But I think that would be where you cross a line that is ultimately destructive, if that is indeed the case, where you're trying to undermine. See, you can oppose it. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard yesterday. You know what? I'm going to call it up. I'm going to see if I can find it really quickly. She released this statement, and it was bizarre, I thought. But it was also. kind of exactly what you would want somebody who's on the team to say, I guess. Here's her statement yesterday. She released it on her social media channels. And she did this, I think, because there is a perception that Tulsi Gabbard is sort of like on the outs inside the administration. She's not really included in stuff and that she, of course, is a very strong anti-war voice inside the administration. And thus when the decision was made by Trump to ultimately do this, she was. sort of like losing favor and cut out. So she releases this statement. She says Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander in chief. As our commander in chief, he's responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people, and our country. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the president and commander of chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully revealed,

reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion. That is the end of her statement. She does not say, after reviewing all the evidence, I thought, she does not say it is my opinion that. She literally says, We gave the president to the information that we could get as an intelligence group responsible for coordinating it all, and he made the decision because he believes that it is a threat. Now, this is, of course, not only about her and maybe sort of like regaining some sort of visibility to plant a flag that says that, you know, Tulsi Gabbard is. for whatever her opinions are inside the administration, supportive of the president doing what he's doing and is not sitting there like sneakily behind the scenes sniping or knifing him. But of course it was also a response to that resignation. Because in the resignation, as one of our prior callers pointed out, he did say that basically Israel bamboozled Trump into going. Like he was talked into it. He was basically pushed into it. He was dragged into it. You know, some people. who call this show, think that he was blackmailed into it. Whatever your position is on that. What Tulsi Gabbard is saying here ultimately is, no, we gave him the stuff. He used the stuff to make a decision, and then his decision was to do this because of the stuff we gave him. It wasn't some sort of strong-arm tactic from Israel. And I do. I think that's an important thing to chew on for a minute here. Because the discussion about Israel and its role here and its role in American life, an American political life, in American government, the state of Israel is an ongoing vitriolic fight going back and forth right now. And the perception among some is that basically, and I hate to say it this way, but the Jews have... an inordinate amount of control in Washington that they are dictating American foreign policy and dragging us into things that they want to do that are not in our national interest. That is the perception among many. And I do not share that perspective. I don't. There are places where interests co-align, and that's a place I think that is definitely true in Iran. And, of course, it makes nothing but sense when you decide that they're some sort of a threat and you need to do something about it. And they have decided the same, that they will work together on it. So, you know, you see them do this joint action like this. And, you know, that's when everybody's, you know, sort of alarm bells go off and say, see, they did it because the other people said so. And I just find that naive in so many ways. You know, is the lobbying effort. of not only the Israeli government, but also I think a lot of the groups in America who have some kind of fidelity to, you know, Zionism or, you know, the Israeli state or really, you know, Jewish people in general. Are they influential, powerful, have a lot of money and have the ear of people in government? Yeah, they do, obviously. But it continues this very weird misunderstanding about how influence works in...

the halls of Washington. You know, you hear this debate sometimes with the NRA, right? It's like the NRA gives money to a politician, so they bought them off. This could be, you could substitute any interest group, any interest group, for any politician, for any issue. And somebody gives someone else X number of dollars, ergo they've been purchased. and their loyalty is assured because of that money. And it's just blindingly naive because for one, if you give a congressional candidate $100,000 and they run a $10 million campaign, I mean, are they going to miss the $100K? Yeah, I guess. But believe me, that's not something that's, yes, Massa, you absolutely get everything you want because you gave me money. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. And the other thing is that the money doesn't tend to go to buy a politician. The money tends to go to politicians who already pre-existingly support the thing because they want that person to win. So they're trying to help them win because, of course, their interest is served by the person who already agrees with them being in there with a vote. It's not a bribe. It's not a, it's not, you know, some sort of purchase of a politician. But most people in America think it is. And I guess I'll just be the turd in the punch bowl that says, sorry, you're wrong. It just isn't. I mean, has it happened and is that true where somebody is influenced by money and then they buy their vote? Yeah. But I would say 90 plus percent of those kinds of donations that come from interest groups like that don't work like that. They work the opposite of that. They follow people who pre-existingly support something. And with the quote unquote Israel lobby or whatever it is, I mean, you're listening to, okay, so I'm pretty supportive of the Iranian action, at least as it is thus far. And I've been pretty clear about that. Am I bought off? If I am, I have a much smaller house than I should. But that's the kind of thing that I think a lot of people always think. Your opinion is it could never be this unless you're bought off. And I just totally reject that. Donald Trump's action here makes entirely too much sense with the way that he thinks about the world. The logic, and it certainly sounds like Marco Rubio, which is his Secretary of State, who is probably the most influential person in the cabinet right now. So I don't know why this would be somehow confusing, that they somehow needed to be talked into it. I don't really think that they did. Let me go to Jason, who's been patiently on hold, and then I'll take a break after Jason. Jason from Westbrook. Go ahead. Good morning, Matt. Most of the conversation is how, what, where, and why we ended up in this war in Iran. And I get that. That's the new cycle. That's what they have to do, and people want to talk about it. We need to focus on, like, what happens next, like you said earlier, how long is this going to go on, whether we put boots on the ground or not. I think if we don't get the people or a fighting force that belongs in Iran already,

involved it's going to be a lot longer than anyone expected it to be they have to get involved themselves They do, but how does that happen? That's one of the things I've been struggling with is you're in Tehran right now, and bombs are falling on your head, and your regime is getting more repressive, and the army has not decided to abandon the regime yet. So, you know, you know that you walk in the street, and just a few weeks ago, 30,000 people who were your friends just got mowed down by machine gun fire, and now you're in the middle of a war, and you might accidentally have a bomb drop on your head. Like, are you really all that juiced up to go protest right now? And you might want to, but, like, I don't know, you could never convince me to do it. You could never, no matter how pissed I was at the, at the regime, you know, I would, I would be like, I guess in a bunker waiting it out. It has to be more than protest as far as the people go. And I agree with you 100% on that. But they have to get involved on a much higher level. And if they don't, it's just going to be us regime changing like we've done. And whether that's a good thing or bad thing, you know, that remains to be seen. But if they don't get involved themselves, it's the same thing with any country, anywhere with immigrants. If the people don't get involved in changing where they're at, then... it's all for not in a kind of way. Yeah. That's good thoughts. Phones are filling up. I'll try to get to you all. Means you're going to have to all be succinct, though. All right, so get on it. 8799426. Let's see what you can do. Roger. Roger, hey, Matt. Good morning, Matt. Great show. I appreciate it. I appreciate your comments this morning about Paul Ehrlich. Thank you. I'm all too happy to say it because I would love to go on a rant about that guy almost daily. Oh, please. Rant more. It's music to my ears. I just got to say, the one thing I want to add to this, and maybe you said this, but that... In addition to him being wrong about virtually everything and having no qualifications to write what he wrote about, he never admitted that he was wrong. Never backtracked. Never backtracked. And he doubled out right up to 2018. He was publishing stuff saying, I just. I was still right. You know, look at all the people who are hungry in the world. It reminded, his whole career reminds me of like the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, like the people that are like, the world is ending in 2012. And then it comes and goes and they're like, oh, we just read the Bible wrong. It's actually 2014. And then 14 comes and the world doesn't get destroyed. It's actually 17. You know, they just keep changing the narrative. I was right the whole time. I just kind of did, you know, I said the wrong word in that one time. But I'm still, you know, I'm still on, you know, spiritually, I'm right.

In the very zone. If you read his obituary in the New York Times, I did actually. They double down on his errors. They opened his obituary with this. He was celebrated as a prescient warning of prescient. He was prescient, he was prescient warning of a coming age of food churches and famine, but later criticized by conservatives and academic rivals. I'm glad you brought that up because that's the whole reason I talked about it is I saw the Times piece on him, and I was like, oh, my God. Jesus, you've got to be kidding to me. It's incredible. And times later in the obituary says, Such bold predictions, some of which turned, some of which turned out to be premature. Virtually all of them. Entirely wrong. All of them entirely wrong. Perfect rivals in business, dirty businessmen. The question. That's great. The doubling down on error, because the truth is he's not a truth seeker. He's not a scientist. He doesn't care about truth. He's an ideologue. And that, we can apply that. observation to so many things, including the COVID thing, we just went through. 100%. Well said, Roger. Yeah, okay. Have a great day. You as well, sir. Yeah, no, he was, he was a villain of the 20th century in my book, an actual villain. I'm not even being cheeky. I actually think he is. Paul from South Portland, you got about a minute ago. Oh, I had two things I wanted to do, but we'll just do one at the moment. Al Jazeera came out in support of the war against Iran, and it's getting virtually no coverage. And, you know, I wonder if it's just, there you go. I don't know what more to say about that one. What was your second thing? You got 20 seconds. Go. Okay. Second thing was Pi Day. We just went through Pi Day 3.14 for the geeks in the room. In, what is it, 1897, the Illinois Senate wanted to change the definition of pie to be 3.2 exactly to save money. And fortunately, they didn't do that. But this reminds me of LD1667 just because you changed the... The definition and a whole bunch of lawyers and senators thinks it's a good idea doesn't make it so. Yes. See that. He got in both. And we have to go to break.