Cover Your Caracas - November 24, 2025

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Do you got a message for John Idroll? Nerd. Tell him to be nice to me. Vertigo? Not very good. Jake Ugranate is with you guys on the online news show. So we have good news on Ukraine. Maybe we might be going towards peace, but are we? Are we? We'll talk about it. Right. Meanwhile, we're going towards war in Venezuela, okay? Yes, I mean, that's exactly what the American people need, right? Another war. Yes, I mean, you can't. begin to close up a couple of wars without starting a new one, right? So what would the military complex do? How would they make trillions of dollars off of the innocent American taxpayers? All right, and then, but speaking of war, lots of war throughout Marjorie Taylor Greene versus Donald Trump continues. What are Marjorie Taylor Greene's plans going forward? That's an open question. And then Benjamin Netanyahu and Neftali Bennett, another very right wing Israeli official. at war over Epstein's involvement with Israel. They seem to, everybody in Israel is discussing about how Epstein was involved with Israel. But in America, you're not allowed to discuss it because of course then you would be smeared by mainstream media as an anti-Semite, which is later going to be lead us to ask the question of, is all of Israel anti-Semitic? Okay, because I'm just using mainstream media logic. So we'll get to all those stories and more because we've got a hell of a show ahead for you guys. All right, Anna, what are we starting with? Starting with Caracas. Let's do it. With a designation of that cartel associated with Maduro, does that mean that the U.S. government target Maduro assets or infrastructure inside Venezuela? It allows us to do that, but we haven't said we're going to do that. And we may be discussing, we may be having some discussions with Maduro. Is there anything you're ready to rule out at this point? Are you ruling out U.S. troops on the ground? I don't rule out that. I don't rule out anything. President Donald Trump has moved the United States even closer to a potential hot war with Venezuela by designating Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro, the leader of a foreign terrorist organization. Now, Maduro's allies are also now classified as terrorists, giving the Trump administration a little more authority. to go after Maduro militarily. Now before we get to the details, including how exactly the American people feel about a potential regime change war in Venezuela. And hint, it's not good. Jank, your two cents? Yeah, what are we nuts? What are we going to a war with Venezuela for? So this violates every promise Donald Trump made. I want you guys to see how far along we are on the war path and come back and discuss. How is it going to affect them politically here at home?

Now, the alleged terrorist designation was given specifically to what is referred to as Cartel de Los Solis. And if you're wondering, what is that cartel? I haven't really heard much about it. It's because it's not an actual specific cartel. In fact, it's a phrase that experts say is more a description of allegedly corrupt government officials than an organized crime group. In other words, Venezuelans used the phrase to refer to all forms of corruption within the government, it's not an actual drug cartel. And as we know, what's happening right now between the United States and Venezuela is not over narco-terrorists. It's not about drug trafficking. If you're actually concerned about the drug overdose deaths that are obviously destroying lives and families in this country, it has to do with fentanyl. Fentanyl does not come from Venezuela. It comes from China and it's funneled to the United States through Mexico. Now Venezuelans began using this term back in the 90s to refer to high ranking military officers who had grown rich through drug running. But as corruption expanded in the country, basically started to be used as a way of referring to all sorts of government officials and all sorts of public servants like police officers and the like as corrupt, right? So that's what it's really about. Now, as the State Department tries to classify this loose network of corrupt politicians as a literal cartel, they claim that Cartel de los Solis by and with other designated foreign terrorist organizations, including Trenda Aragua and Sinaloa Cartel, are responsible for terrorist violence. throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe. Again, just to repeat myself for the billionth time, Venezuela is not a major player in trafficking drugs into the United States. However, they are known for smuggling drugs, particularly cocaine into Europe. I would venture to say Trump is not all that concerned about that, but he is interested in a cover story to justify a potential hot war between the United States and Venezuela in an effort to overthrow Nicholas Maduro. I've got more details, but Jank is chomping at the bit. So go ahead, Jank. So real quick, I just want to give you a sense of the absurdity of this. So it's like saying that money and politics in America is a cartel. or the establishment is a cartel. Okay, look, you're gonna get some sympathy for me. They do act like gangsters. But really, if we called the establishment terrorist, what would that mean? Who's in the establishment? And what do we do with that? So you can see how absurd this thing is and how desperate they are to come up with a fake excuse for going to war when we all already know this is largely about oil. and Marco Rubio's personal beef with Venezuela. I don't even think it's about oil jank because, look, Maduro made abundantly clear to Trump. This is weeks and weeks ago, I will give you whatever you want. You want access to the oil? I'll give you access to the oil. I just don't want to go to war. And Trump's like, yeah, yeah, I know. I know he said that. I don't care. So is it, so you're saying since oil lobby has been removed from the equation, because they'll get what they want, all that's remaining is Marco Rubio hating Cuba and hence hating Venezuela.

Plus the military industrial complex always gets rich from war. Very likely. So those are the two main factors left. But what is not a factor is a made up cartel called the the corruption in Venezuela. Exactly. And by the way, I should note that up until last year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for actual foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, who apparently now. are totally fine with the United States. And in fact, we'll get invites to the White House. As we learned with a former al-Qaeda terrorist who's now the leader of Syria, I'm supposed to pretend like all those terrorist acts that he engaged in, including against our own soldiers and military in Iraq, never happened. Okay, sure, as long as Israel's happy. But anyway, and by the way, there is currently a militant group in Gaza. Okay, Abu that's led by a guy by the name of Abu Shab, who has ties to ISIS that Israel with the permission of the United States is currently arming. Why are we arming someone who has ties to ISIS? Yeah, what about al-Shabaab? He's still, you think he's gone? Abu Shabab. Abu Shabab is a separate terrorist organization. Okay, you think a Shabab is gone? No, he's still here. Say no to Shabab, yes to kebabs, okay? That's the way to go. So guys, again, more details to say. But as you're seeing here, what's new about this story or about these type of stories is now it's being revealed. Right? Before mainstream media would just go along with this and be like, oh, Venezuela has terrible problems with the cartels and maybe weapons of mass destruction or whatever, et cetera. And they would just lie us into war wholesale. But now the truth is coming out in a thousand different directions, left, right and center. And so it's much harder for them to lie us into wars. So what they'll have to do instead, if they choose to go down this path, is just go, oh, we don't care. We're just gonna go to war even though we said we were anti-war and even though we obviously have no justification at all. Now look, in defense of your point about oil, there was an easy way to obtain the oil, which is, okay, make a deal with Maduro diplomatically, Maduro's willing to give the whole pie away. But why would you do that when you can make the defense contractors rich? Risk the lives of our soldiers and attempt to oust Maduro and then obtain the oil. In fact, in defense of the point that you made earlier, Jank, on Fox today, Representative Salazar says, quote, we're about to go in, meaning about to go into Venezuela. We need to go in. Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day. Just saying it out loud. So all the Trump supporters who really bought his line about how this is about narco traffickers, can you just at least be honest with yourselves and with the rest of the American people? This is not about narco traffickers. Trump didn't care about drug overdose deaths in America in his first term.

Biden didn't care about drug overdose deaths in America during his one and only term. And there's no way in hell Trump gives a damn in his second term. That's the reality of the situation. If one thing should be abundantly clear to the American people right now, especially with the backdrop of everything that's been going on with Israel, it's that our government, regardless of whether it's run by a Democrat or Republican, doesn't give a damn about you. They never do anything for you. What they're doing is to line, is in order to line the pockets of their lobbyists, of their donors, of themselves, that's all this is. It's like a looting competition. Starting something new can be terrifying. When we launched our shop, TYT store, I was drowning in what ifs, what if no one buys anything, whatever it doesn't look great. I nearly talked myself out of it. But I took the leap anyway, as we usually do. And I'm glad I did, because Shopify made it incredibly easy to turn those what ifs into real sales. Shopify is the commerce platform powering millions of businesses globally, and it handles 10% of all US e-commerce, which is a stunning number. It's behind brands like all birds, Jim, Shark, and yep, our very own shop, TYT. They give you one all in one dashboard for inventory, payments, and analytics. So you're not juggling 10 different logins. Need product descriptions. Shopify's AI tools, crank out copy, and even polish your photos. And if you get stuck, their 24-7 support team has your back, as they did with us. So if you got an idea for a business or a side hustle, stop what if you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash t-y-t. Go to shopify.com slash t-y-t. That's Shopify.com slash t-y-t.

Yeah, another thing that I love is now with our members, I can't tell who's on the left and who's independent or lean right. Matt Man 63 on YouTube wrote in, give us you're tired, you're hungry, your oil rights. Okay, that is our new slogan. But really at this point, that kind of criticism can come from the right or the left because the right doesn't want to go to war for ExxonMobil either. What happened to energy independence, Jenk? Uh-huh. What happened to energy independence? We're gonna drill, we're gonna drill baby drill. And America's gonna be energy independent. No more wars. We don't need to go to wars. We have all the oil we need. What happened? And in fact, we are number one in producing oil and energy in the world. And we are under Trump. So there's absolutely no need for this because as you all now are beginning to realize now the veil of mainstream media is beginning to end is that we don't ever go to war for the American people. We go to war for different donor classes. Oil, military, industrial complex. Israel, different sets of lobbies, force Americans to go and die in wars and certainly to pay for all those wars. Now, as has been reported, the military buildup off the coast of Venezuela has been significant. So in addition to strikes on boats that have killed dozens of people extra judiciously, or judicially, the U.S. military has amassed. More than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon has branded Operation Southern Spear. Trump has been briefed by top officials on a range of options for action inside Venezuela, including strikes on military or government facilities and special operations raids. The White House also proposed that US military planes drop leaflets over Caracas in a psychological operation designed to further pressure Maduro to step down. time possibly to Sunday to coincide with his birthday. And that's according to what the Washington Post is reporting. Now how do Americans feel about this? Looks like a lot of people voted for Trump because they believed him when he said that he wouldn't start any new wars. And now that it looks like he is poised to start a new war, they're not so happy about it. Let's look at some of the polling here. A new CBS news poll found that 70% of Americans oppose military action against Venezuela. Only 30% would be in favor. And that number is preposterous. Why would 30% be in favor? The only reason is that 30% watches media that tells them, dangerous terrorists. We're bringing in fentanyl who's going to kill your grandmothers being brought in by Venezuela. Kill all the terrorists. Come on, guys. Is it Melania who says be better or be best? Be best. Yeah, okay. Be way, way better than this.

Best is a stretch. So most Americans do not see Venezuela as a threat to national security. They don't even see Venezuela as an enemy, right? So let's take a look at this. Only 13% see Venezuela as a major threat, 48% say minor threat, and 39% say not a threat at all. Then you move on to the next. data point here. The poll also found that 86% of independence and 64% of Republicans say Trump needs to actually explain his policy regarding Venezuela. So big ups to the American people, it looks like across the board, they're not really buying what Trump is selling here. They want a better explanation. And again, they're just not believing what Trump is saying because the story, by the way, changes depending on which day it is. And it just doesn't really make any sense. The math isn't mapping when it comes to Trump and the claims that he's making about Venezuela and the threat that they pose to the United States. Now some Republicans are even trying to warn Trump that the American people are not interested in a regime change war in Venezuela. Senator Rand Paul happens to be one of them and he argued just yesterday that military action against Venezuela would fracture the Republican base, even more than it's already fractured. Take a look at that. But I think once there's an invasion of Venezuela or if they decide to re-up the subsidies and the gifts to Ukraine, I think you'll see a splintering and a fracturing of the movement that has supported the president because I think a lot of people, including myself, were attracted to the president because of his reticence to get us involved in foreign war. He also accused the Trump administration of pretending as if we are at war to do what they want. When you have war, the rules of engagement are lessened. I don't think there are any rules at all at this point. I don't believe in rules because none of the rules are followed. None of them are valued, especially when it comes to alleged international law. Even when it comes to rules of engagement that the United States purports to believe in, all of it is fake. All of it is made up. That's just the reality of the situation. I think the last two years makes that abundantly clear. I think the last decade, two decades has made that abundantly clear. So let's talk about the political consequences, which is Rand Paul's alluding to. In the old days, if you said, hey, we're going to likely going to go to war over a confluence of donor interests. So for example, look at the places where we threaten war. Iraq, Venezuela.

and Iran. So we've already done Iraq, we threatened, we already bombed Iran and we bombed boats off, Venezuela threatening more. And the places that are also dangerous and terrible that we do not threaten war against, like North Korea. Or even Syria. There'll be a little bit of bombing to help Israel, but not a full scale invasion of Syria. Yeah, we just armed terrorist groups. Yeah, that's all we did. So right. Yeah. But no one, but we're not threatening boots on the ground in Syria, et cetera. So when you look at that, what you see is crystal clear, okay, which is if you have a lot of oil. Well, ding, ding, ding, we've got, you know, like in the slot machine, 777, war, war, because then you got the oil interests, oftentimes the Israeli interests, believe it or not here, Israel is also implicated, talking about how Venezuela is helping with the Esblah. I don't know if that's made up and just to rile up the Israeli lobby, like, oh, you better, or this driven by the Israeli lobby, I don't know, but somehow they got involved in this, right? And then you got the military industrial complex. So when all three line up, We're going to war. So now when I used to say that in the past, the mainstream media would say, conspiratorial nonsense. Lunatics think that we go to war over oil and defense contractors. And it's really interesting. Ridiculous. Now it's completely flipped. If you're a schmuck who goes around going, no, I bet oil is not relevant in this equation. People think you're kind of an idiot, super naive at best. But who really thinks, oh, no, it could have been Paraguay or Venezuela. It's just random that Venezuela happens to have the largest oil reserve in the world. Come on. You really got to be super low IQ or a mainstream media reporter to believe that. So now, how is it going to play out for it? Well, look, on the one hand, I look at these Trump voters, the Republicans, and 36% say, no, that's okay. Trump doesn't have to explain anything. If Trump says it, I say Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, okay? Ooh, on the other hand, on the other hand, holy cow, 64% of Trump voters go, no, no, he's gonna have to explain this because I don't know what this is and I don't think I like it. Okay, if he's at a point where he might lose two thirds of his own voters. let alone 86% of independence, right? That means this is not a winning political issues, a massive loser as a political issue. So now Trump usually gets his way out of that by just bullying everyone. Oh yeah, Rand Paul's a tiny little guy. I hate him, he's stupid. He's a rhino, right? Republicans love war. Oops. Now, that's not what you were saying earlier, brother, right? And so, I imagine you tell the Queen's a traitor. Yes, we would do everything Israel assets. Otherwise you're a rhino. That stuff's not flying anymore, right? And here you see it in the numbers crystal clear. So if they go and do this incredibly dumb war for no damn reason at all other than to make their donors rich, what's going to happen is a massive backlash. I mean, the minute that thing gets messy,

I mean, maybe they get in and out somehow, whatever, right? They did like they did with Iran. Oh, don't worry about it. It's a mini war. It's a 12 day war, right? But if it gets messy in the least bit, then Rand Paul's gonna win that debate within the Republican Party, let alone in the Pence, let alone Democrats. Good, I hope he does. Yeah, this is gonna be an epic disaster for Trump. When we come back from the break, we'll move over to a different foreign policy nightmare. And that is the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Trump administration is proposing a peace deal. Will Russia and Ukraine accept it? And there's a wrinkle in the story involving corruption in Ukraine that you should all know about. So stick around for that and more. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jenk, Anna, John Ferrari, and Al Crawford, 837. Thanks for joining, guys. We appreciate you. You're now part of the Young Turks and part of the show, and we love you for it. So it's panic time because Medicare enrollment is going to end December 7th. So you got to call 707 TYT help. If you're already in Medicare, you're about to go into Medicare or you have family that's in Medicare, help them out. People are saving on average $1,100. Make sure you're on the right plan. If you are, they'll just tell you, you'll have perfect peace of mind. It's a free call, doesn't cost you anything. And in fact, it saves you per year, $1,100. on average. So it's really a little bit crazy not to call. Make sure you're on the right plan and save a lot of money if you're not. 707T help, 707 TYT help. All right, Anna. Well, let's check in with Ukraine because the war is raging on, but the Trump administration seems to have a plan to try to stop it. Maybe as soon as this week. A massive corruption scandal in Ukraine could end Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's political career. And in the backdrop, you have President Donald Trump and his administration, absolutely eager to get a peace deal signed between Russia and Ukraine. But again, Volodymyr Zelensky could be even more unpopular if he signs on to this peace deal. In addition to the fact that he is caught up in this crazy corruption scandal, Jank, your two cents? Yeah, so I read the whole 480 part peace plan. There's two problems with it. Other than that, kind of crossed fingers that it passes. So yeah, I'm curious what you think about. I think one of the rare instances in which Trump is correct is that Ukraine doesn't have the card. We don't have the cards. No one has the cards other than Russia. Russia is winning the war. So like, why are we pretending as though, like, all we need to do is wag our fingers and be like, you stop it right now, Vladimir Putin, and he'll stop. Yeah, I want to get into that conversation a little bit more after you tell everybody the facts. Sure. But also, we have kind of an Israel-Palestine situation here because like the Palestinians might regret, for example, not taking the 2008 deal. And I don't want that to happen to the Ukrainians.

So on the other hand, an invading country doesn't really get to have any moral standing. So it's complicated. Let's give you the facts and then don't worry at the end, we'll solve it. So we'll get to that corruption scandal that I referenced in just a bit. But first, let's get to the basics, and they are really just the basics of this proposed peace deal. So it was reportedly drafted by Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who apparently and allegedly consulted with both Russian and Ukrainian officials, also included in drafting this. proposal was Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, really the who's who of real winners when it comes to diplomacy. Now the plan has 28 parts and is honestly too long for us to get into the nitty gritty and minor details of, but I'm just gonna do a quick summary of what you need to know about this proposal. So in this proposal, Ukraine sovereignty would be confirmed. Ukraine would get security guarantees, which is something that they desperately want from both the United States and NATO. If Russia attacks Ukraine again, it will face a decisive military response from the United States and NATO. Okay, that's the security guarantee that's baked into this proposal. I think that's pretty damn good. Honestly. Yeah. So it's it's a tiny bit vague on purpose. It says that response will come from the transatlantic community. Okay. So now the whole point of going to NATO is to have a security guarantee. So if they get this an actual security guarantee without going into NATO, it kind of gets the job done on both sides. Because Russia wants to be able to tell its home audience, see, we prevented them from getting into NATO. And the Ukrainians want to be able to say, see, we got a. security guarantee from America and Europe. Yeah. So that part I like, that's a good way of resolving a tough issue. I agree. And in fact, Ukraine, this is what Russia really wants. Now, Ukraine wants the security guarantee in case Russia thinks about invading again, right? So this deal would give them that security guarantee. However, it also gives Russia what it wants in that Ukraine would be permanently banned from joining NATO. Yeah. So I think that's a good middle ground because you get the security guarantee of NATO without joining NATO. Yeah, and I don't care if Ukraine's banned permanently. And by the way, newsflash, nothing's permanent. They could change it 12 years from now, 18 years from now. That's very true, right? And so, oh, it's in the charter. So what? You changed the charter, right? That's true, although that would be a provocative move. Yeah, I don't want it. You should do it because it'll probably lead to more war. Yeah, I don't want it, but I just want to say it's not a provision that's too onerous, in my opinion, for us or the Ukrainians. There are two other parts of the peace plan that I don't love.

But also remember that Ukraine would also be in talks to go into the European Union and would immediately get the same status as if they're in the European Union. So they get the economic benefit of joining Europe without the technical NATO part of it, the military part of it. But again, they're getting the security guarantee. So that part is pretty good for Ukraine, if you ask me. Yeah, look, Russia doesn't have to worry about NATO military exercises on its border. Right? It doesn't have to worry about that if this is the deal that ultimately gets signed. Here's some more details though. There would be a global effort to help rebuild Ukraine. As you can imagine, it's been just devastated by this ongoing multi-year war. And the United States in particular would help with rebuilding Ukraine's gas infrastructure. Now sanctions will very gradually be lifted from Russia. Those economic sanctions didn't destroy Russia's economy as the United States had hoped. especially because Russia is aligned with the bricks countries and was able to kind of skirt some of the damaging impact of those economic sanctions. But nonetheless, as part of this deal, the sanctions that the US and Europe have imposed against Russia would gradually be lifted. Now, Russia will state in law that it will not attack Ukraine or Europe, and Ukraine will permanently forfeit nuclear weapons, something that they actually did in the 90s, and I think that was a big mistake. They did it at the behest of the United States. Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days. So that's been another sticking point for those who have been critical of Ukraine. Although we all know that the lawmakers in Ukraine have passed laws ensuring that during wartime, they will not be holding elections. An increasing number of Ukrainians are getting frustrated with the fact that this ongoing war has prevented them from engaging in a democratic process, especially if they're not happy with the way of Volodymyr Zelensky has handled this ongoing war. Now, then there's the most contentious issue of all. And that's territory, of course. Let's take a look at this map. This is a graphic of Ukraine, or this graphic is a map of Ukraine from the Guardian. And the light red areas are controlled by Russia. The dark red areas have recently been taken over by Russia. So those tiny little red spots that you see, you know, right alongside the light red. Those are like the newly obtained regions or areas that Russia was able to take control of. Now Kershon and Zaporisa will be frozen at the line of contact, aka where troops are currently stationed under this peace deal, and Russia will forfeit the rest of the disputed territory it has captured. Likewise, Ukraine will forfeit the Russian territory they've captured, which will become a demilitarized zone. But technically Russia.

And then the territories of Crimea, Lujansk, and Donetsk will now belong to Russia. So that is definitely the more provocative element of this peace deal. But going back to the argument that I made earlier, Jank, if Ukraine and Russia don't agree to this peace deal, let's say Russia does, right? And there's been. I don't necessarily trust Russia because there have been other instances, previous instances where they pretend like they're gonna accept the peace deal and then they pull the rug out from underneath Trump. So I would proceed with caution in trusting Russia when they say that they're warm to this peace deal. At the same time, let's say we're in a scenario in which Russia does accept it and Ukraine says no, well who are you to say no, you're losing the war? Well, so here's where it gets super complicated, right? So one of our members, Boomer Dragon Cat wrote in on t.com, Russia's economies and tatters, the troops aren't even getting paid. A strong U.S. would rip the rug right out from under Vladimir Putin. So Kat and Anna, guys, I've now read so many things. on both sides. I read the Russians are on the brink of economic collapse, two Russians are perfectly fine economically, and because of bricks, et cetera, they've recovered, right? So, and I've heard, oh, the Russians are in retreat, oh, the Russians are on the march. So it's so hard to know what's propaganda and what's real news and what the current situation is. I'm not sure our government really knows, let alone the American public and us. Now, obviously, the most Telling part is who is gaining territory and who isn't. And right now, the Russians appear to be gaining more territory. The Ukrainians do have some areas that they took, right? But it looks like the Russians have regained the upper hand. So which leads me to some of my issues here, which is, yeah, you don't like the moral responsibility is on Russia completely. And but unfortunately, With the way that the world is shaping up now, we now have a new world order. The old one that George H.W. Bush tried to put into place when Iraq invaded Kuwait was, you are not allowed to invade any sovereign country that didn't attack you, right? I like that a lot. But now the new world order is if you're a larger country, especially if you have nukes and the other country doesn't, you're basically allowed to do whatever you want and take as much of Kill as many of their people and take as much of their land as you want. But if you're a smaller country, you're not allowed to do any of that, okay? So that's what Israel did to Gaza. That's what Russia's done to Ukraine.

Right? So that's just a reality. And I hate that these wars have now started where the bigger country just swallows a part of the other country and goes, that's it, I'm keeping it now. And if you don't agree to the deal, the people that I've just slaughtered, if you don't agree to that deal, I'm gonna make the deal worse. I'm gonna kill more of you and take more of your land. Now, of course, the difference is with Israel, we're being made to pay for those atrocities. We're paying for this too. We're paying for this. We're paying for everything. But we're at least on the side of the good guys, the Ukrainians, who are trying to defend themselves against an aggressive colonial empire in the form of Russia. I understand that. I understand the dynamics are totally different. We shouldn't give a single cent to Israel, period. But how long are we going to continue funding Ukraine's failed defense? Well, I don't know, I wouldn't necessarily call it a failed defense. But but. Let's be real here. 38 trillion dollars in debt. Ukraine is losing. More and more territory. Have you guys seen the videos? Look, what changed my mind about this entirely was seeing like literal elderly civilians in Ukraine getting snatched from the middle of the street by the authorities in Ukraine because they're forced to fight this war. And they go to the front lines, they die. I mean, this is gonna, this is already destroyed Ukraine in so many different ways outside of losing territory. Okay, but Anna. Their male population is getting wiped out. But Anna, I totally agree with you. And that's why this is so hard, but the Ukrainians don't want to stop. The Ukrainians, it's not like we're doing the Ukrainians a favor by saying that's it. Stop the war now and give that all that territory to Russia. They're furious about it. Of course they're furious about it. I know. So it's not like we're necessarily helping the Ukrainians by forcing this deal on them. It's complicated. So for example, if China were to go into a number of countries, right, they decide. Forget it, not only were taking Taiwan, we're taking Vietnam and Malaysia, right? And we were told the Vietnamese, well, you're on a losing end of this war, the Malaysians, right? Well, how long can we help your failed defense? Are we just supposed to let China take them all, right? So that's why it's hard, it's not easy. So how long is it going to go on? How long is the American taxpayer going to be responsible for funding Ukraine's fight against Russia? So now that gets to my opinion on this. Okay, go ahead. Okay. So by the way, it also has a lot of economic benefits for Russia. It says you get a lot of the, some of the money that we froze goes towards rebuilding, but some goes towards economic deals with US and Russia that ties together more, mineral rights, gas goes, it starts flowing again. So we get. helped economically, Russia gets helped economically, Ukraine gets helped economically. So those are all good parts of the deal. Bad parts are giving up a ton of land. So three whole territories are gone as Anna described, parts of two others and some areas get demilitarized zone, but they're technically part of Russia, okay? So that's a ton of territory to give up. Second problem is it limits the size of the Ukrainian army.

I don't think that's in anybody else's business, how big Ukraine's army is. Yeah, I agree with you all that. Yeah, so those are two terrible parts of this peace resolution. Now, all of the things I said to Anna and you guys is in prelude to me saying, easy for me to say, since I'm not a Ukrainian. But I think I would take the deal, okay? Number one, the deal might just get worse and worse, the more you lose leverage in the military. I hate that that's true, but it is true. And look at what happened to the Palestinians. So look, a lot of those deals that the Israelis offered throughout the years were totally fake. They were meant to go, ah, ha, ha, we offered you a deal. Now you didn't take it, that's it. We're back to occupying you, enslaving you, et cetera, right? But I think one of them was real, the 2008 deal by Ehudorah, And since then, the Palestinians have lost more land and gotten more people killed. So as painful as these peace deals are, especially for the victims of the invasion, at some point you're better off taking it than not taking it. And so at this point, it's not my place to say how much territory they should give up, but from an outside perspective, I would try really hard to get a little bit more land and to remove the provision on the Ukrainian army and then take the deal. Now when it comes to Volodymyr Zelensky though, there is something that kind of complicates this matter, namely the fact that his political career and popularity could really suffer as a result of accepting this deal, at least. That's what the corporate media in the US says. So there are a lot of Ukrainians who want this war to end as well. They've seen far too many of their male family members get slaughtered in this ongoing war. So keep that in mind. That doesn't get reported much here in the United States, unfortunately. But at the moment, Volodymyr Zelensky really has no safe harbor. Without a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Russia will continue pushing further and further into Ukrainian territory. That has been the pattern. That will continue to be the pattern. There's no reason to believe otherwise. he accepts the deal his political career could be over, which Honestly, if you ask me, that's the least of my concerns, but you have to think about it from the aspect of the major player here, Volodymyr Zelensky, who ultimately gets to decide whether or not to accept this peace deal. So knowing what his ulterior motives might be is important in understanding this ongoing conflict. So there are two main reasons why his popularity could suffer. For one, according to the Wall Street Journal, not their editorial board, this is actually their straight news reporting, they report that the Ukrainians are not interested in making concessions. to Russia. They claim that there could be a full on military uprising if Volodymyr Zelensky puts his weight behind this so-called unpopular deal. Again, this is the Wall Street Journal's reporting. They also report that they spoke to a military analyst who visits the Ukrainian front lines. And this individual stated that forfeiting the cities of Donbos could lead to a crisis in civil military relations. And apparently, U.S. officials are aware of the problem during the negotiation.

Please, let me just read the rest. He also says that rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America's interests, and a capitulation like Biden's abandonment of Afghanistan would be catastrophic to a legacy of peace through strength. Oh, come on. And I'll give you one more. The vice president of George W. Bush's presidential center wrote the following. The 28 point plan should be dropped and replaced with a simple one point plan, Russia get out of Ukraine. Wow, really hard to understand how Iraq turned out to be such a debacle. Yeah, and if you don't know, the neocons are animated about this for a couple of reasons. One, they love war. That's not surprising. Two, they think that this is depleting Russia and helps us, although it helps us how they never defined. So, oh, if Russia is depleted, then Americans get higher wages, lower drug prices? No, they never clarify that. And then the third factor, unfortunately, is since Russia is allied with Iran, Israel would love for that war to continue forever and ever and ever and to have Russia greatly weakened and distracted so they can't protect their allies like Bashar al-Assad, a bad guy. But Russia was on his side, Russia was distracted by this war, Syria and Turkey decided perfect. This is a great time to knock off to- Israel and Turkey, you mean. I'm sorry, Israel and Turkey, yes, decided perfect time to knock off to Syrian government. Yep. And to bomb Iran because the Russians can't protect them. That's exactly right. So Israel wants us to keep going. The neocons want us to keep going. That's another good reason to not keep going. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about how our federal government is full of traders and in fact does favors for traders to this country. This story is amazing. We've got that and why Mark Levin's stepson has an outsized role in influencing our foreign policy when we return.

Who is David Milstein? He is the senior advisor to Ambassador Mike Huckabee. Oh, did he work for Ted Cruz? Yes. Yes, he worked for Ted Cruz? Okay. And he is the stepson of your best friend, Mark Levin. He's Mark Levin's stepson? Yeah. He's working at the State Department? Correct. Interesting. So David Milstein is a political guy working now for Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem, and he was going through your lines. Correct. Okay. In fact, Mark Levin' stepson, David Milstein, was present for U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee's meeting with a literal traitor to the United States, and that's of course Jonathan Pollard. Interesting. So you have this guy who's literally just an aide. to Mike Huckabee having an outsized role and influence over US foreign policy. And nothing makes that clearer than the fact that he's the one who got the gentleman that you saw on that screen talking to Tucker Carlson fired because he didn't go along with the Israel first policies that Milstein was pushing for in the State Department. So I'm gonna give you some more details on that in just a moment. But before I do, Jank, your two cents. If there is a real American government that represents the American people at some point, if, I think these guys might be in significant legal trouble. Some of these folks literally seem to be working for Israel and not America. And if they're inside the American government and they're making decisions in favor of a different country, that is a crime and a very significant one. Is it? Is it? Because after, you know, learning about Mike Huckabee's meeting and the fact that the White House defended Mike Huckabee having this clandestine meeting with a traitor, someone who was convicted of espionage, okay? He had a meeting with that guy. And the White House defended him. Even though he did it behind the White House's back and behind the CIA's back. So the reason why that's the case is, and that is a spectacular example of showing that Israel definitely controls our government. 100%. How can anyone deny it? If that happened with any other country, any other country, oh, I met with a traitor who was actually gave our secrets to Venezuela or to Cuba or to Russia or to China. And I did it behind the president's back. That brother's arrested immediately. Executed. Okay, well, no, no, I'm sorry, but I, I mean, you have Pete Hegseth right now going after Mark Kelly because of the video that those five Democrats put out urging the military to not listen to Trump. They shouldn't have done that. I don't think that that was the right thing to do. I'm just keeping it real. Okay, but Pete Hegseth is now thinking about going after Mark Kelly specifically for potential espionage.

Homeboy, our ambassador to Israel just met with a literal traitor to the United States, a convicted traitor to the United States. How about focus on that for a minute? And in secret and inside the US embassy. That man should have never darkened our doorstep ever again after betraying us more than almost anybody has other than another Israeli spy. Robert Maxwell who stole our nuclear secrets. What kind of an ally is this? And yet there are tons of people as Anna's about to tell you that are inside the US government who clearly appear to be working for the Israeli government. And by the way, any talk of execution is of course. Through official channels. After conviction. Conviction. An official treason, etc. And even then I wouldn't be in favor of it. Anna would, okay? I would. But guys, we're nowhere near that. What we're at is one day we should get control of our own government and see if these guys broke the law because it looks ridiculous right now. So let's talk about the traitor known as David Milstein, who's an aide to Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel. So he actually made some waves a few months ago in September after Shahid Goreshi was fired at Milstein's behest. Tucker Carlson interviewed Goreshi about it, and we're gonna get to some of those clips because I think it provides some insight that's relevant to who actually controls our government here. It's not the American people. It turns out that it's a foreign country and individuals within our country who purport to be American citizens but seem to have far more loyalty to a foreign country as opposed to our own. And yeah, I am saying it, I'm saying it out loud. Now, Milstein, again, is a senior advisor to Mike Huckabee. Prior to his current role, he worked with other Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, as you heard from that video earlier, and the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, his influence has little to do with making the lives of Americans better. Let's be absolutely clear about that. And that should be obvious from the fact that he was part of that meeting between Mike Huckabee and Pollard. But in addition to that, responsible statecraft published a pretty fascinating and detailed piece that exposed Milstein just last September. revealing that in an effort to strengthen US support for Israel, Milstein has confronted colleagues he viewed as insufficiently pro-Israel, removed content critical of Israel from press statements, as well as a major annual human rights report, and tried to get the US government to refer to the West Bank is Judea and Samaria, something that's completely made up by religious zealots, a controversial term often used by supporters of Israeli annexation, meaning land theft, of the region. And real quick there, it is official American policy that we want a two state solution and the Palestinians should have the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So it is arguable exactly the contours of the West Bank, especially in Gaza Strip, but that is official. So what he is doing there, Milstein is he's going against American policy. As a traitor, yeah. And he's doing it with language of the most extreme religious right wing of Israel. Correct.

And so he is instituting Israeli policy instead of American policy. And that's just, that's a, I believe that's a crime. He's saying, no, we're going to go against American policy and we're going to manipulate the American government into supporting Israeli policy instead. That is a massive, massive problem. Yeah, it sure is, but you wouldn't know it based on how our government behaves. So with that in mind, you know, the whole Judea and Samaria designation was something that Greshi, Shahid Greshi, who's now been fired from the State Department, pushed back on because he knows what the official U.S. foreign policy happens to be. So when he saw that language, he did push back on it and he was met with some serious consequences. He talks about it with Tucker Carlson in this next clip. He would push a certain agenda that was very aligned with Israel that I found very problematic. Now, in this specific example, because we're discussing the third example of why I was fired, was that he changed the stability line to, we commend Speaker Johnson for visiting Judean Samaria. And it is designed to... erase any paucity and legitimacy that this is this is supposed to be so the point is by using those terms they're biblical terms they refer to regions described in what christians call the old testament and the point is to remind everybody that this land was promised by god to the jewish people's the hebrew people and that you know anyone who's lived there subsequently for the last three thousand years has no rate to it right that's that's that's the point but i but from a sort of government perspective Judean Samaria are not real places in that they're not. Not recognized. Not in the nation states. They're not provinces. They're not. And and do they have clearly defined borders? Not for my understanding. I mean, they do not. And that would increase that would give you the opens the door to more land grabs, you know. And what would Israel be if it weren't for land theft? But nonetheless, Goreshi removed. Wouldn't exist, exactly. Greshi removed the reference to Judea and Samaria and got reprimanded for it, even though Milstein is again, just an advisor to Mike Huckabee. And eventually Goreshi got fired, which reinforced Milstein's power within the State Department as a literal aid. to an ambassador to a foreign country, okay? So Milstein, according to responsible statecraft, actually did get someone fired, a state department official said, is he gonna find some way to throw me under the bus? So it has a chilling effect within the department, obviously. That's the whole point here. That if you don't represent Israeli interests instead of American interests, you'll be fired by this rogue advisor to the ambassador. To be fair to Milstein, there was another assistant to the ambassador before this, in the first summer of Trump, and he did the same role. He would block State Department releases. He would not, in conclusions and reports, he wouldn't even share him with the ambassador.

And he wouldn't share it with the White House. He was unilaterally deciding no, Israeli interest, above American interests, to the point where I won't even let you guys see what our own State Department has concluded about Israel and Palestine. Right, including human rights abuses, that kind of stuff, yep. And if you're blocking our government from getting facts in order to help another government, again, that is potentially a very serious crime. So let's get you some more information about what's been going on with this Milstein guy, again, Mark Levin's stepson in the State Department as an aide to an ambassador to a foreign country. So according to Goreshi, Milstein would even write memos in the voice of State Department Secretary Marco Rubio and even go around his higher ups in order to get what he wants. Take a look. Like he would push in one occasion statements that were in the voice of Marco Rubio, not even the spokesperson. And he drafted them. We would push them through. I want the statement out. And I want the statement out? Yeah. He would go through and be like, I drafted this. This is a statement I want. I would go through the process of clearing it. But he would fight for it. Like he would be in the document getting arguments with people one by one in order to. kind of overwhelm the process and get certain his agenda out there the way he wanted. It's very difficult. On what authority? I mean, that's pretty cheeky behavior for a guy who's an aide to Mike Huckabee, the former cable news host. It would call around the building and it was very consistent and persistent. But he lives in Jerusalem. He does. In fact, one of the first things that Milstein did in his new role was launch his own review of the State Department's human rights report about Israel and the Palestinian territories. So the original version had criticisms of both Israel and Hamas's records on human rights, but Milstein. made some edits and those edits ensured that most of the focus was critical, most of the focus that was critical of Israel was taken out. And the final version focused mainly on criticizing Palestinian groups and was only nine pages long. The original version was 100 pages long. So think about how deep those edits were. Look, just real quick on that. The 100 pages were critical of Israel. He removed all them. The seven remaining pages were the context, nine, were the context of, yeah, Hamas also does bad things, et cetera, right? Which you should have in the report, right? So he made it seem like the only thing that was going wrong was how terrible and evil the Palestinians were as they were being slaughtered and starved to death and omitted the 100 pages saying to the U.S. government, It's actually the Israelis that are the problem.

So he says, no, I don't want anybody else in the government or the American people to see that. I'm going to bury that on behalf of Israel. On behalf of Israel, serious crime. Yeah, but you know, Mark Levin spends his days like obsessively posting about Nick Fuentes, who, yeah, has said things that are offensive and awful, but he is a 28 year old streamer. So compare that. to your stepson, okay, who is currently in a low level position within the State Department, but is literally engaging in what I believe is espionage. He's going against US foreign policy, official US foreign policy on behalf of a foreign country. I think that's more problematic. I think he has more of a negative impact on our country than the streamer does. So but Mark Levin doesn't is such a deep racist, he doesn't mean Palestinian lives. are worth anything. He doesn't think American lives are worth anything. He's literally said, you know, both him, Randy Fine, have talked about slaughtering everybody in Gaza. And so to them like, oh, you're betraying America on behalf of Israel to commit a larger genocide and murder more Palestinian children. Mark Levin is like, where's the question? Of course, that's what, that's why my stepson, I'm so proud of him. Right? The way that he's captured the American government on behalf of Israel, there's nothing that makes Mark Levin happy. He's a pig and he's disgusting. But so if you're wondering, well, why don't higher level officials within the State Department just tell this Milstein kid to shut the F up? Well, Goreshi gives us some insight into that as well. Take a look. Now, I know that you say he's Mark Levin's stepson, but I mean, nobody takes Mark Levin seriously and no one watches his show. And like he's just not a real, not a real person. He's like an angry old man on Twitter. Who cares who stepson he is? Like, why doesn't anyone say, hey, tell that Milstein kid to shut up. People would acknowledge the pushiness. But that's all I really got. No one ever told him to stop? It was difficult to say no to them on a lot of cases. Why? So people did say no, but it took a lot of effort. So from my vantage point, I'm wondering why would someone have so much influence and why are people almost tiptoeing around it? It sounds like they were. Right? And you'd have to take a group effort of, okay, this bureau and this bureau don't want to put the statement out. And then it would go away. But that was it. We don't live in a sovereign country. And if you don't have a problem with that, there's something wrong with you. Yeah. So look, guys, it's not a complicated mystery. Israel controls our government, period. And they do it through agents like. And I don't know that he's technically an agent. That's for, you know, legal purposes later. And I hope that one day we find out and it's adjudicated through the courts. But through assets, agents and just people who are Israel first. And they think like Jonathan Pollard, they think, and Pollard just said this, I'm Israel first and always will be. America first is useless to me and is an anathema. He says America first is terrible. And Jonathan Pollard asks.

Jewish Americans, by the way, he doesn't speak for Jewish Americans and he's a traitor, but that you should all betray America for Israel, and apparently some of them are. And I don't mean Jewish people, I mean these Israel first monsters. And it's not just Milstein. As I mentioned earlier, there was a guy named Ariya Lightstone, who is the chief of staff for David Freeman, our former ambassador. under Trump in his first term. And Lightstone was doing similar things, blocking State Department reports, not letting the ambassadors see it, not letting other people in the government see it. removing all things critical of Israel? Who are you? Who do you work for? Why are you allowed to do these things? Again, any other country, if there's an agent asset or just someone who's loyal to another country who's going around going, no, I'm not going to let you see any of the reports coming out of the Ukraine war that are critical of Russia. I will only send reports critical of Ukraine and I will block anything. from getting to our ambassador, getting to our state department, getting to the president, that harms Russia's interests, or fill in the blank any country, China's interest, Saudi interests, et cetera, that person would be investigated legally, criminally, right? But now there's so many of them inside our government and everybody's threatened by them, bullied by them to the point where they're like, well, okay, okay, Israel of course should be served first before we get to America at all. If we ever, American interests should be all directed towards Israeli interests. There's a giant problem with that. And if you're in mainstream media and you're like, well, okay, all those facts are true, but no, I'm gonna cover it up on behalf of Israel. No, there's something wrong with you. We're not the problem. You're the problem. If you told the American people this, these facts, they'd be enraged. That's why mainstream media is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's an Israeli protection racket. This is insane. These are established facts. There's no question about them. It's an established fact that Epstein worked with Israel. Mainstream media is covering it up to no end. Why? You're not in the news business. That's clear. All right, last thing is. Ambassador Lou worked for Biden, and he was our ambassador to Israel then. Well, this one was, he's doing it through official channels, so he's not bringing any laws, etc. But he would prevent his own staff from sending reports that were critical of Israel to the White House. So he's like, nope, nope. So all of our ambassadors to Israel actually work for Israel. Their chief of staffs and their assistants and advisors work for Israel even more. And half the freaking government seems to be working for Israel. No, whenever we have an honest government, all these folks need to be cleaned out. And what I mean by cleaned out is an actual investigation and one that's only factual and based on evidence. But if we find out that you work for Israel, yeah, severe.

legal criminal consequences. But we're nowhere near that guys. Right now, they're totally in charge. They're in charge of mainstream media. They're in charge of our government. And anyone who objects is called an anti-Semite, a conspiracy theorist, et cetera, even though we're the ones with the undeniable facts, and they have such garbage as, no, it's okay because they're a special ally. No, they're not. They have been. This alliance has been to the detriment of the American people and our whole way of life, our freedom, our sovereignty. I think that's pretty clear at this point. We gotta take a break. We'll be right back.