Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, guys, I'm very excited to tell you about the maximum Life plus app. It's available for download today for $3.99. You can get every resource we produce at Maximum Life in one easy to use location.
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Jeff Childers, welcome back to Code Red.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Thank you. It's good to be here.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Since the last time we were here, things have been really happening on the world stage.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Boy, that is a fact.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: I know. The last time we were kind of, we began jokingly talking about Christy Doem and things that were happening, leading in the news then.
At that point, I'm thinking our last time together was like three weeks. It's not been that long.
But three, four weeks ago. Did you see a conflict in Iran coming?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Well, only because Trump had been warning them and he basically telegraphed the whole thing.
There's this kind of selective amnesia that's going on right now. It's really wild.
Trump spent a month telling Iran, hey, if you guys don't agree to drop the nukes and stop enriching uranium, then there's going to be serious consequences. Right.
Ten days before he said, I'm giving you 10 days. And then four days before, he said, I haven't heard what I need to hear. Okay? And then literally, so the 10 days were up Friday night at midnight and 2:30am, two and a half hours later on Saturday morning, the US attacked.
And all I've heard since then is reporters saying, well, what was the real reason we attacked?
It's like we all spent a month listening to it every day straight from the President of the United States. And now, and it's not just reporters. I mean, that seems to be one of the favorite subjects of conversation right now is why are we really attacking Iran?
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Well, you heard the whole thing just like everybody else did. What was Trump supposed to do?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: You know, the news coverage was, I mean, it was crickets on the buildup. You know, we knew that the armada was moving into the Persian Gulf. We saw the aircraft carriers, everything moving that way. The pizza index.
I'm sure you know what I'm talking about there.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Sure. At the Pentagon.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That was going through the roof about a week prior.
And then suddenly, you know, the attack, first attack happened, and everybody acted like we, you know, he was forced into this. We didn't see this coming.
And, you know, I don't claim to be any more insightful about these things than the average person, but I was telling my family and our friends here at the church, you know, it's coming. We're hearing of, you know, of our friends getting on subscribers and they're shipping out and people being moved around on the world stage.
So same way with Venezuela, we saw that coming before it happened a couple of months in advance. It's like, hey, we're building up forces off the coast of Venezuela. Something's coming.
Then Iran, but there was very little news coverage. Did you notice that?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: You're absolutely right.
As a lawyer, I try to simplify things because I'm usually pitching it to a judge or a jury or something like that.
To me, the most obvious thing was the President literally saying it every day for a month. But you're right.
Nowhere in corporate media, you pick up the Times, Wall Street Journal, you won't find it. But there were independent sources, open source outlets on Twitter and social media, and they were reporting the largest naval buildup since probably World War II.
Two aircraft carriers, I don't know how many destroyers, subs and everything, all clustering around Iran for about a month.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: And yet nobody. And yet now everybody's surprised.
Literally. They act like Trump had a bad morning or something and he woke up cranky.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: That or he was forced into it by Israel. Those are the two.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Right. Israel told him to do it, so he's just following orders from Israel. Like, again, none of that happened.
Everybody's got amnesia somehow to what we just all lived through.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Is the state of warfare as different as it seems to be? I know you're an attorney, I'm a pastor. What do we know about military conflict? But I would have thought when Russia attacked Ukraine, that that should have, they should have dominated within a month. I would have assumed that, but. And it's turned into a war of attrition and Ukraine is just surviving long enough to wear on the wheel of Putin and their allies.
Iran was feeding them drones for months before this happened. Apparently they've got a huge stockpile of those $30,000 drones.
And I don't know, man, I just, I guess from back in the 90s, you go in, you go in strong, you disable their defense systems, and then you take over.
I don't think Trump wants to put a large scale force of boots on the ground. But this is taking longer in this iteration of warfare than I'm aware of or That I understand.
Does that make sense?
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that Ukraine and Iran are apples and oranges.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Explain that.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
So the simple version is that I think in Iran, Trump's following what I call the Venezuela model.
And the Venezuela model you could also call the anti George Bush model, which means, like, you probably remember you're old enough like I am to remember shock and awe and mission accomplished.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: And, you know, then all the fallout from that and part of the problem and Trump talked about. You can find the clip if you want. Trump told a reporter that the mistake that Bush made is that they fired the entire government and they hired all new people, from the local police officers all the way up to the, you know, federal government there.
And it was a disaster.
Terrorists slipped in. You know, it was just a nightmare, and it took forever.
But what Trump did in Venezuela was they, you know, plucked Maduro out and, you know, put him into his vacation home in New York and left the entire government in place.
And Trump's team is working with that government.
So it's not regime change in the traditional sense.
Right. The whole regime isn't changing.
You have to redefine it to. If you just take out the lead guy, then that's quote, unquote, regime change. But that's just leader change.
The regime is the apparatus that stays behind.
So I believe, even though they're not saying this now, this is one of the areas where you have to look what the administration's doing and not so much what they're saying. They have to say we're in it for the long haul.
That's to convince the Iranians to give up.
Once the Iranians give up, I think they're going to do the same thing they did in Venezuela.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: I could see that. I saw the Shah, or the son of the former Shah of Iran went on a public relations tour immediately after the invasion began, and it looked like he might be the person that they're going to bring back. And it seemed like he had a lot of support on the ground in Iran.
A lot of Persians really loved that regime.
And then Trump made it pretty clear that's not his plan.
You know, some of the Plan B's for who would lead after the Supreme Leader was annihilated.
You know, we lost those as well. The Plan B and Plan C seemed like they were all in the same game, but it doesn't seem like he's pivoting toward restoring the royal dynasty in Iran.
Is that your take on it?
[00:09:17] Speaker B: You're talking about Reza?
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just. Do you remember that gal who gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize in Venezuela? He didn't push her either.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: And that's because I think where Trump's going is a democratic solution.
He's going to. I think he's going to require Venezuela to hold real legit elections like those people haven't had in two generations.
Right. And then the lady I mentioned will be able to run.
And I think he's going to. That's his plan for Iran as well, is to, you know, once they get control of the government, they'll make the government hold elections once things are stable, and then Reza can run.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Their intelligence agency reached out to our CIA and they've been talking about, let's wrap this up. You know, we don't want this to be long term, ongoing. Do you give credibility to those requests?
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Well, seems likely to me that something like that's going on, because why wouldn't it be?
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: But we all have to remember that this is the fog of war time.
We don't have any reporters in Iran. There's no independent reporters there. All the information that we get comes from the official sources. So either comes from the Iranian government or what's left of it, or the US Government or Israel. And all of them have their own reasons to slant the information and use propaganda and everything else, which is part of war. I mean, it just is what it is.
So I think that anything that we hear has to be taken with a grain of salt. We have to watch and see what happens.
And then, like you were saying before, it's totally different than what's going on in Russia. Russia. That war is a totally different kind of war.
Russia is feeding Ukraine into a wood chipper.
That's what's happening.
People criticize the Russians for not moving faster, and I think that is a mistake because I think the Russians are deliberately going slow.
They're letting the Ukrainians come up on their lines and they're just slaughtering them.
And part of the reason is one of the original goals that Putin declared in 2022 when that war started was they wanted to denazify Ukraine and they wanted Ukraine to do it voluntarily, and they also wanted to demilitarize Ukraine.
Well, Zelenskyy won't do it voluntarily. So what's the alternative to denazifying and demilitarizing a country? They won't agree to do it.
What's the other way?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Well, ballots or bullets are kind of the only options you got.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, how many, how many men of childbearing Age are going to be left in that country when this war is over.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Very few, if you ask me. It's an ethnic genocide.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I could see it.
There's a fog of war.
That's very, very true.
And we look at the reports when we were talking earlier about seeing the updates on the movements and the missiles have been taken out, their platforms have been taken out. It seems like they have air superiority currently.
But everything that we're getting, we're getting from official sources.
And so there's the fog of war that sometimes days later, I remember when they took out the ayatollah, and it was immediately we knew who was going to replace him. Well, that's changed three or four times, you know, and so there is a fog of war. Yeah.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Their lifespan is the equivalent of a fruit fly or something.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Well, probably, you know, it's.
You've got to find some humor sometimes when things are really rough. But they showed a picture of Khomeini's son. He did not look thrilled with that new promotion.
Like, new job. Yeah, but so in the midst of all that fog, also on the home front, when our soldiers are going into battle, it gives a lot of clarity for the average citizen. I found on.
Okay, let's put everything aside. Let's put Tucker and Candace aside and all the confusion that's kind of being stirred around Charlie Kirk and all those things. We're Americans and we want to get behind our servicemen and we want them to come home safely. There's a clarity that it gives that I think is very healthy. At the same time, what are you seeing from the left media, from the right media that surprised you about how they've responded? And from just the average response of your readers, what has surprised you about the reaction in the early days of the conflict?
[00:14:31] Speaker B: So one thing that is really surprising, I mentioned, one, the amnesia about the reasons that were there. That's wild.
The second one is a thread of folks complaining that the Trump's use of force is unconstitutional.
And see, like Judge Napolitano, a lot of the libertarians and Democrats, of course, they say that about everything Trump does. So that's like a reflex.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Right?
[00:15:11] Speaker B: And I, as a lawyer, have not identified any specific unconstitutional thing that Trump is doing.
There's no doubt he's pushing boundaries like he always does, but what president hasn't done that? Right?
Biden, for example, forgave student loans. The Supreme Court slapped it down, and then Biden just did it again.
And so it's acting like this kind of thing is unique or Unusual or new is weird.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: It is.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: It's really strange.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: There's sort of a unspoken understanding that a president can't take any military action without the approval of Congress. That's just not true.
There's clear parameters that he does have some wartime powers. He can make military decisions. He has to loop them in. And he has. Was it 60 days that he has to come back and report?
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Listen, events have already overtaken that argument. Right, okay, so you're making a very good, rational, smart argument that he has at least 60 days to get the consent of, or formally inform Congress, depending on how you interpret that.
And nobody sued Trump to stop him. Right. They sue him for everything else.
He tried to paint the building next to the White House and they sued to stop him from painting the building. Right.
But they haven't sued him over the Iran war. Why? Okay, but wait, wait. This is, this is the best part.
And this is another weird one. It's an, it's not even amnesia. It's like, it's like they're in some kind of a cognitive coma or something.
Because this week, I think two or three days ago, the Senate voted on a resolution to tell the President to stop, and it failed. So majority of senators approved the war, and yesterday the House did the same thing.
So the Senate's okay with it. They voted. That's constitutional. That's how our constitutional republic works. The House voted and approved it, and Trump's doing it.
How is that not with the consent of Congress?
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. And if the average citizen, you know, I'm on a boat offshore with, you know, three or four fishing buddies and we're talking about these things and we're discussing, it looks like we're going to go to war in Iran. And this was, you know, three weeks prior.
One gentleman has a son or son in law who's in the Marines. Yeah, he just got on a boat. They're heading over. Looks like we're going to go to war. I mean, I'm a pastor, you know, we're talking about a retired guy, a charter boat captain.
Just ordinary people. We could see this coming.
If Congress was concerned, if the Senate was concerned, they had plenty of time to call meetings, to, you know, to call a vote to put a foot down and say, I mean, at the very least, you see the pizza index, there's something happening. The Pentagon is rattling.
Let's stop this before it gets going.
Then it happens and everybody's shocked.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: It's kind of like if I was to say, hey, can I have one of those cookies?
And you didn't say anything. You just looked at me and saw
[00:18:45] Speaker A: implied consent, the cookies.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: And I took one slowly, and you still didn't say anything.
And I ate the cookie. You consented to that?
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Right. And so how is that any different from what just happened with Iran?
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And now, you know, obviously they're prepping for the midterms, seeing how this is going to sell with the midterms. So they want to go on the record of opposing. I remember, you know, Obama's opposition was probably a genius political move. He opposed the Gulf War, and he went on the record for that and then used that as one of his main selling points for the presidential election.
Obviously, people are kind of lining up the chess pieces, you know, trying to get leverage on the midterms.
What are you seeing and how is this going to affect the midterms?
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Well, I wrote a pretty substantial post about a massive realignment that's underway right now, all lining up for midterm season.
And I personally don't think any of it's an accident. Now I'm just speculating about that. I don't have any evidence, but that's my interpretation.
You've got the flows of money.
So the RNC is sitting on like a $200 million war chest where the Democrats are in debt.
So they basically don't have any money in that congressional war chest.
Now, that's different for individual candidates.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Did I read where you said we're. Is it 100 million ahead? The Republicans are over the Democrats currently on fundraising for the midterms.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: 200.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: 200.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: And that's just the official party. So there's also Maga Inc. Which is Trump's super PAC.
It has 400 million.
And the tech bros have a PAC, crypto, AI and all that. They all got together and it's another 250 million.
So, I mean, just think about this.
There's almost a trillion dollars sitting in conservative accounts waiting to be deployed in the midterms, and they're still holding their powder.
So it's going to be a tsunami of marketing that we've probably never seen before. That's my prediction.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: And isn't that highly unusual that the conservatives are outpacing or the Republicans are outpacing the Democrats on fundraising?
[00:21:20] Speaker B: I don't think it's happened since before fdr.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I don't remember it.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's unique in anybody who's alive.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: What do you attribute that to?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: A massive cultural revolution?
This giant.
They say that the ball swings back.
Well, it's A wrecking ball that's swinging back is what I think.
I mean, and what's really wild about it to me is that the blue states and the progressives, I'm talking about the partisans, not everyday rank and file Democrats, but the hardcore ideological partisans, they just don't even get it. It's like they're. There's another amnesia. Maybe we should call this episode the amnesia episode.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Maybe.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: So, like, for example, what is California doing with that wealth tax?
They're driving all their billionaires out.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: And where are the billionaires moving and the millionaires? They're all moving to red states.
So the red states, tax revenues, I mean, they don't charge as much taxes, but that doesn't matter because the taxes that they do charge are getting a massive infusion.
And states like California, I mean, their budgets are just like coming apart at the seams. Washington state's doing the same thing. They're about to pass a 5% income tax.
They call it a millionaire tax. I mean, you just can't make this stuff up. But the bills tax says it applies to all income above the Social Security cap, which is about $180,000 a year.
So I don't know about you, but. But $180,000 a year these days for a family.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: It's not what it used to be.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: It's not what it used to be. You're not a millionaire.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: You're probably okay.
So you see the same thing in Virginia coming down in other blue states. It's like they're piling on, they're intensifying, they're doubling down at a time when it's absolutely not working for them.
Look what's happening to dei. Look what's happening to the transgender stuff.
The Supreme Court has made some quiet but incredibly significant decisions about gerrymandering, for example, that are going to transform the, the national map.
There's one in particular that everybody's waiting on.
But based on the questions that oral arguments, it looks like they're going to strike down section two of the Voter Rights act, which is going to allow all the southern states that for 60 years have been hamstrung with all these racially gerrymandered districts to, you know, make sure minorities have representation.
The judges have been forcing them to do that. Well, the Supreme Court's just about to take that, that out, and all of the whole southeast United States is going to start redrawing maps to get back to what they originally wanted that the courts wouldn't let them do.
So I could Go on and on and on and on. I mean, it's just you check one box after another after another. Act Blue.
ActBlue is the Democrats largest fundraising platform. It's their online portal where, you know, it saves your credit card and your information and people can donate to different candidates. The example that people who are probably watching this episode would be familiar with is win red. So that's the conservative version of ActBlue.
Well, 19 states currently have ActBlue under investigation. They're mostly red states.
But what looks like is going to happen is they're going to start imposing requirements on ActBlue, like right now, for example. And you probably won't believe this, and I can understand why. They don't require the three digit security code for credit card donations, the CVV.
So some of these 19 states are moving to mandate that ActBlue require a CVV code.
If that happens, then just that one little change will squash their.
To what extent, I don't know, but it's gonna reduce, let's say, their donation revenues.
So what's going well for Democrats right now? Let me ask you that. What do you see that's going well for them?
[00:26:09] Speaker A: You know, normally, I think as a conservative, as a Republican, I can relate to probably what they're feeling right now because it's normally our team that doesn't have their ACT together.
So I'm watching it and I'm wondering, are we figuring things out? Are we getting a game plan? Are we beginning to be strategic and play three dimensional chess here?
You know, when the, the county up near Atlanta, when they went in and they seized the ballots, Fulton County. Right.
You know, that happened right around when the Venezuela things took place.
And most people, informed people, I think, would connect the dots between those two things, that the rumor has been that Venezuela was instrumental in the vote in 2020 and fiddling with our elections.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: You've been talking crazy now, Pastor.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Well, yeah, go figure.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Election denial, I wonder, I wonder why
[00:27:12] Speaker A: or when that's going to surface or develop. I thought that would happen quicker than it has. And maybe the Iran conflict has kind of, kind of taken our eye off that a little bit. But prior to the midterms, I thought that would, that would develop into a bigger story than it has been.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: All right, stop me if I've told you this before, but the Epstein files.
So Trump ran on a platform. I'm going to release the Epstein files.
Many of his cabinet members did so as well.
Got into office, the drumbeat started, and then Trump started dragging his feet and he Dragged his feet successfully all the way until January of 2026, when they dropped three and a half million pages.
Now, do you think two options? Well, so the first option is that Trump was just being muley, or he was worried about having to defend the times that he did appear in the files or whatever, and he dragged his feet on purpose as long as he could, and then he just couldn't hold out anymore. Okay, so that's option one or option two.
They dragged it out so it would hit right as midterm season and primary season was getting underway.
I don't know.
They don't tell me the plan. I don't want to know the plan.
I'm afraid I might leak it. I might say the wrong thing and somebody will, you know, his enemies will find out.
What do you think? Do you think it was an accident?
[00:29:02] Speaker A: You know, it appears to be unintentional. It appears that he got cold feet on releasing the files.
But, you know, it is pretty good timing, all things considered.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Coincidentally, accidentally worked out to be terrific timing for President Trump.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's plausibly deniable that this was, you know, that he drug it out for that reason. But at the same time, it's really hurting the left more than the right, obviously.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's got all of his enemies playing defense right now. They're all scrambling for cover.
They're dealing with the fallout. I mean, look, I mean, it basically took the British off the board, right?
[00:29:46] Speaker A: It did.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Between the Prince Andrew stuff, Peter Mendelsohn, the Starmer's chief of staff, and all that stuff going on, they got their hands full.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting how they've responded to Iran because they're not opposing it vocally. They're not really attacking what we're doing over there. They're not supporting. They're not sending their bombs in and missiles in. But they're kind of keeping quiet on it more than I would expect. If they truly oppose what we're doing in Iran.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Well, who's strongly opposing what the US Is doing in Iran?
Who's calling for Security Council meetings? Who's running votes in the General assembly to condemn the United States? Who's sending the Iranians more weapons and stuff like that? Name one country, right? 192 countries, really.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: The only vehemently opposed individuals or groups I've heard is the Democratic Party. You know, some of their leaders are coming out pretty heavy, but outside of that. Yeah. National, I'm not seeing it.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: So. All right, now why?
Tell me, and why isn't anybody asking that question.
Why is anybody saying, wow, you know, it's really kind of remarkable.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: It is. And you know, you look at Russia and China, you know, it was probably our greatest geopolitical threats. And they're, they're pretty on the sidelines. They're not getting involved.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Russia is Iran's ally.
Guess what Russia did two days before the strikes? They evacuated Iran.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: And China's heavily dependent on their oil.
That, that has surprised me. If they are as dependent on the oil as I'm reading, their silence is deafening. It's surprising to me that they're not throwing their weight around.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Explain. Give me a hypothesis.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: I don't have one. I really don't.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: And the conventional media is totally ignoring what's probably completely, I mean, maybe it's never happened in human history before and they're all ignoring it. Like, oh, yeah, it's just normal for the entire world to be totally silent when the United States attacks, tax a sovereign country to decapitate it and create regime change.
So I think part of the explanation, and I think you'll agree, is tariffs.
So Trump spent all of last year setting up his tariff dashboard. That's what I call where he can tweak all the individual numbers and punish countries that he doesn't like or aren't doing what is in America's interest. Right. So he tweaks the, turns up the, the tariffs on him and the economic pressure has eliminated a huge amount of anti Americanism all around the world. You agree? Right. Okay.
Do you think he, this is another lucky coincidence that Trump did that first before he went into Venezuela and Iran and Mexico. Remember El Mencho?
[00:33:04] Speaker A: It appears to be.
But, but the what, what you're, what you're explaining makes a lot of sense. He, the, he's a savant, it seems at times.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: You talked about five dimensional chess. Yeah, there you go. Right, right. In hindsight, it can't please an accident. He got lucky again.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Well, and at the same time, I've seen clips of Trump from the 80s talking about how he would deal with Iran.
He's not changed on this issue.
So, you know, people, people that would say, well, he ran on a platform of not getting engaged in foreign conflicts. He did to a degree. I get that. But at the same time, he's been very clear that when you have the opportunity to take out the Supreme Leader, that that should have happened a long time ago. And he's repeated that many, many times.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Do you remember?
Are you old enough to remember when I think I was a teenager and there was a.
It was really an anti war song, but it turned into a pro war song.
It was like a spoof set to the melody of Barbara Ann.
Yeah, bom bom, bom, bom bom.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Iran, that's been floating around again.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Right, right. We were kids listening to that and say, I mean, and I still remember the lyrics.
So I use that example when people, like a lot well intentioned people are convinced that BB Netanyahu told Trump, you have to attack Iran. Right Now I pull out the bomb Iran song.
I mean, this isn't new, right? Right. It's not like Bibi Netanyahu just thought
[00:34:52] Speaker A: it up and he's been manipulating Trump, pulling strings.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: No, we've been having a problem with Iran for so long that when we were kids, we were singing songs about bombing them.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: What do you think's going on in Tucker's mind and his orbit?
I go back and I've looked at some of the things his dad said, and he was a CIA operative from what I understand.
But he was also putting together foundations and a lot of non government organizations that were probably lobbying for the right, it seems. But he had a pretty traditional view of the relationship between the US and Israel from everything I've read.
And Tucker and the people in his immediate orbit have just really gone off the rails in that approach to an ally. And I'm just trying to make sense of it. You know, he started investing in, was it Qatar?
He was buying property in the Middle East. He was, you know, cozying up to the princes and just, you know, aligning with like Fishback here in Florida running for governor. And Fishback is just absolutely embracing this anti Israel narrative.
What is the, where is that coming from? Do you have any insight into that?
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Well, let me say a couple things about that. First, I like Tucker and, and I
[00:36:27] Speaker A: agree he's a gifted, brilliant communicator. I love to listen to him.
You know, I don't absolutely disagree with him on this issue, but he is a, you know, go on the record. He's a, he's a gifted communicator. He's a media genius in many ways. That's what makes me think there's got to be a backstory to this that makes sense somewhere.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I agree with you. I totally disagree with Tucker. I agree with Alex Jones. I'm sorry, I don't agree. I disagree with Tucker on this issue. I disagree with that whole cohort. The Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens. That whole group is, in my opinion, off the rails on this and not for the reasons that you would think. So I can see principal anti war complaints about it. Totally. Right. I can see principled anti regime change. I mean, we just got finished complaining about regime change. Now again, I don't think this is regime change, but I can see people, principled people having issues with it.
And I want to discuss it with them. I want to debate them in good faith. I don't punch right.
So I'm not going to accuse anybody on our side, not even Candace, of bad faith.
But it seems like they have a knee jerk response to anything involving Israel.
And if it's good for Israel, then they're against it.
And it may be that they're not even aware that they're doing it.
It's like when you listen, I'll admit it's possible when Biden was allegedly president or the auto pen, either way, you choose.
And if he did anything, I would probably criticize it and I would think I was totally justified in it. But I had the eye of criticism, looking for something to complain about. Okay, guilty.
And so I think there's something similar going on with that group with regard to anything that touches Israel.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: I could, you know, totally understand what you're saying. Anderson Cooper would not. I couldn't see him going off the rails anti Biden.
You know, just finding one public policy and just camping out on it. Ad infinite on the, you know, opposite perspective.
And I see that to be sort of the equivalent with what's happening on the right.
It frightened me in the sense that, man, when we're finally kind of getting our act together and getting some momentum and getting some traction, and it seems like maybe this is the multi dimensional chess and we're going into the midterms, we've got a large bank account.
We have a fighting chance to really win this thing and turn things around.
I don't want to see the coalition crumble, especially over an issue like that that's in the mainstream of American policy for years.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: So is it Harry Enton on cnn, the young guy who does all the infographics?
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: So this week he had one where he showed that Republican support for President Trump is higher than any president at this term in there or at this point in their term.
So the maga fracturing narrative is fake. Don't, don't buy that. There is no maga fracturing.
You've got these loud voices, the Tuckers, the Fuentes and so on. And you've got a social media feed that is curating stuff for you to show you things that will be engaging and conflict is engaging.
And so people who are, like, on social media a lot are susceptible to the mega fracturing narrative.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: That makes sense.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah. But when you talk to people who do you talk to Republicans that are mad at what Trump's doing?
[00:40:40] Speaker A: No, I don't.
In the religious world, in the Southern Baptist Convention, our mainstay, like, if you show up for the people who are going to vote, there'll be 20,000 some odd people show up in Orlando. This, that will vote on the future of the SBC policies and that sort of thing.
75, 80% of the people in that room are Facebook people. And that's our congregation is that way. Most of our people are on Facebook. If they're getting news or forwarding ideas, they're doing it on Facebook.
X is where the really interesting conversations take place. So you get on X and it looks like the SBC people. Yeah, you know, us boomers. But if you get on X, the controversy for the SBC is hot, it's constant, and it looks like things are absolutely falling apart. Then you show up in Orlando and the X crowd loses the vote every single year.
So that's just been an observation about this one little niche in society. But it sounds like you're describing the same type of thing happening nationally with this Republican versus Democrat primaries coming up to the midterms is. Yeah. If you get on X and you get in certain social media circles, it sounds like the ride is fracturing. And you're suggesting. Not so. Not so much.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't, I don't believe in the mega. I mean, I think that first of all, I think the mega fracturing narrative is a progressive media construct.
That's what they want to do, and that's the first play in the Color Revolution playbook, is to. Is to find issues that the local population are irritated by and inflame those issues.
Right. I mean, the State Department, usa, that's what they did to all these other countries. They did it to Ukraine, and it's a destabilization tool.
And now there are forces. I think they're probably out of government now, but they're still working together. Somebody's hired them.
Again, I'm just speculating. I don't know anything, but there is some organized force that's feeding the media these narratives. And I think there are a lot of fake bot accounts that help spread it. And whenever they find an issue, and I'll give you an example, the Laura Ingram had an interview with Trump where he just wasn't at his best. And he was a little sloppy in some of the things that he said. And so he. He seemed to express some sympathy for H1BV. So, and so there's a lot of MAGA people who hate H1BS. And for a long time, they've been wanting, and properly, correctly, they've been wanting to get rid of or greatly reduce H1BS. And so the media started amplifying Trump's comments.
Trump wasn't saying he was for H1BS. He was just complaining because he's been hearing from a lot of his tech czars that they need H1B people. And so he. Some of that spilled out into the Laura interview. But everything he's done, for crying out loud, he imposed $100,000 fee on H1BS. No president's ever done that before. $100,000. I just this week, I was helping a client who was, for the first time in their corporate life, was considering an H1B because it was like the only person that would work.
And this particular candidate had a already approved visa of a different kind. So she was able to.
She's not guaranteed to get an H1B because it's the other thing. They turn way down the number that are getting approved, but she can go into the lottery and my client doesn't have to pay the hundred thousand. Guess what? The number one thing we were concerned about not having to pay the 100,000.
There's, you know, is there anything that could be somehow spring back on us or whatever? And I'm not an immigration attorney and I'm not taking responsibility for it, but I was doing a lot of research so we could ask our immigration lawyer the right questions. Anyway, the point is, it was all made up. Trump was not backsliding on H1BS. It was a fake narrative that some group somewhere is pushing out to make MAGA people fight with each other.
So the same thing is happening on Iran, and it's going to happen again and again, everything that comes out, and we just have to be discerning.
And, you know, one of my jobs, one of my core jobs at Coffee and Covid, is to spot those narratives when they flare up and then give people the intellectual ammunition that they need to defend themselves against that narrative.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: And what you do has been very helpful to a lot of people, but it's helpful to me because I have a tendency, as I think most citizens would. We want to think of ourselves as unbiased and entering into an election, considering the candidate more than the party. But there's no elections that take place in a vacuum.
So if you're looking at the microcosm of Florida, which in many ways can be kind of a preview of coming attractions nationally. But if you look at the microcosm of Florida and you try to, as we talked about in our last episode together, look at these candidates individually, wanting to size them up, and then try to make sense of.
Trump came out in support of Donald's early, really early.
And understanding, as you said, the approach is not necessarily who is the absolute best candidate for the governor of Florida.
That is a factor. And then there's also the factor of all of the other things at play that Donald's would be cooperative with in the larger MAGA agenda in the state of Florida. And so watching this unfold, you've been helpful to kind of keep that in my mind and help me to make sense of, you know, I want to take all of these candidates with a blank slate, size them up for who they are, and ask myself, is this the best possible person we could hire to be the governor of the greatest state in the nation? You know, but it doesn't always work that way. It never works that way, it seems. And I'm curious as I'm a little bit fascinated with the approach that Fishback has taken.
He's, you know, you typically in the primary, you go to the extremes and you play back toward the center, man. He's gone off the charts on the extremes and he's found, you know, in these college students, a little bit of an audience there. They're just cheering him on, you know.
Are you following the race and following that narrative at all?
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Not closely, because to me, we're just like too far away.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
Donald's is still leading by far from everything, I can tell.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And I suspect it's going to be Donald's.
I didn't know a lot about politics before the pandemic. I got dragged into it.
One of my superpowers is I'm a fast learner.
And I learned something about candidate selection that I never knew and that in hindsight was obvious. But I don't think it's obvious to a lot of people and explains why the party sometimes pick, like why the Republicans sometimes pick a rhino instead of a rock ribbed conservative.
And it's because there's two main things that a candidate has to have before anything else.
The first is they have to show they can win.
Nobody's going to invest millions of dollars in a candidate that doesn't have a proven record of winning.
And that's why the usual pathway is to start off, you know, dog catcher, city council, county commission, property tax appraiser, you know, and you prove that you can run in elections and win.
By the way, that's also how you air out the closet and to see if there's any skeletons in there.
So that's the first thing. Can they win? The second thing is, can they raise money?
And again, the parties want to see proof of that.
And that's because you don't want somebody to become a financial burden. You can't afford too many of those. I mean, maybe you could do one or two.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Right. It's like the Joe Kennedy we're not going to buy a landslide.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Right. So you look at the.
And that's what, again, another historic thing for you.
We're in this era where Trump's endorsement is like almost unbeatable because first of all, because he's created a brand. It's the Trump brand. Right. He's a marketing genius and he's created the Trump endorsement brand and he echoes it every time he does a truth social about. He's like, see another Trump endorsed candidate one.
So when Byron gets Trump's endorsement, he checks the first box. Can he win? Yeah, because Trump endorsed candidates win, by the way, he's also won other elections to get where he's at right now in his representative seat.
Can he raise money? Well, with Trump endorsing him, he has access to the MAGA Inc.
Fund.
So yeah, he's going to be funded.
So those two boxes also work against every other candidate for governor. If you don't have Trump's endorsement in one of the reddest states in Florida, what does that say about your chances of winning?
It's uphill at least.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: And everybody knows it.
So right away you're struggling with the first box. Now, what does it say about your ability to raise money? Who's going to donate money to a candidate that Trump doesn't want?
I mean, only Trump. Deranged people.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Never Trumpers.
Right. So that hurts him on the second box.
Which leaves us with Trump being the kingmaker for now.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Well, and you know, you're seeing I've watched with Trump as he's surrounded himself with people who've done well with media.
So if you take Hegseth, you know, as people who've put all of their cards on the table, you know, even a Tucker, if you take a Tucker, we live in a world now where Tucker could win office if it sells, if his position sells. But one of the reasons is he's got that mass appeal. He has the audience, he has the name recognition. He's put all of his cards on the table.
He couldn't come out and be extremely pro Israel right now if he wanted to.
So watching that and watching it in the state of Florida, in particular, the guys who are running, I think Renner, is it Renner, who's the other Republican. You got Donald's. Fischback's always in the single digit. He doesn't have a lot of traction, but he's got a very vocal audience.
These are guys who.
The only one of that crowd who's got a lot of face time with the media is Donalds.
Donalds has, you know, he was frequently on Fox. He was the spokesman for the right many times and did a great job with it. You know, people that knew him.
We Met Donalds in D.C. when we were up there with Bean for a Congressional Prayer. Donalds came out.
Three fourths of our group already knew him and thought highly of him long before he was a candidate for governor. And so his record is on the table. You know, what you're dealing with.
It's just interesting to me watching it unfold in this state in particular, the only strategy that might move the needle, it seems to be, is that Tucker Carlson, you know, being baptized in that ideology and presenting it over and over to the point that if you probably find it interesting, Fischbach is saying some very racist things toward Donalds, that he's absolutely antagonizing his base and, you know, just trying to stir up a disenfranchised segment of the population, both from the left and the right.
And it will be interesting to see if it gets him any traction, if he has any chance at all in the primary.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah, like I said, I mean, I just don't see.
I don't see enough of a race yet to invest a lot of time in it.
That could change. That's the thing about politics. It changes fast.
And if Trump picks somebody else, it could be a whole different ballgame.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Back on the national stage, are you seeing anybody emerge on the left, a Democrat that's a contender?
[00:54:20] Speaker B: Well, that's what I was asking you about before. What's going well for them?
[00:54:25] Speaker A: There's not a bench, there's not a starting lineup. I'm not seeing anybody. Gavin Newsom is done. It seems they're not even championing him anymore. So I'm not seeing really who they're priming for this. No one's carrying the narrative. When Trump did the State of The union. Their response was pitiful, and I'm just not seeing any great contenders there.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I struggle to find one thing that's going well for the Democrats right now.
And listen, I'm obviously not.
I don't have any authority to speak for the Democrat Party.
I don't really study them that hard in terms of their internal politics.
But what is their platform?
[00:55:16] Speaker A: Anti Trump?
Pretty much, it seems.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: They complain about the economy. They say things are unaffordable. Okay, well, what's the plan?
What's the alternative? What are we voting for?
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: If we vote for you, like, how are you going to. I mean, gas is now under $2 a gallon in some places.
Eggs. I found out. Eggs. Michelle told me yesterday that eggs. She's paying a buck 53 a dozen.
They were almost $10 a dozen, what, a year ago? Two years ago, right under the cabbage.
So how are they Democrat? Okay, listen, 80 cent eggs would be great. I'm all for it. What's the plan? Yeah, tell me how you're going to do it.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: Let me. Let me change gears on you a little bit and let you speak to your audience. I'm just curious how Coffee and Covid is doing.
What are you.
What.
Where are you growing? What is the interest level?
Where do you see it going in the next few months?
Are you positioning yourself for the midterm? Are you going to kind of, kind of wade into those waters? Are you.
Where are you taking it going forward?
[00:56:33] Speaker B: Well, the thing about Coffee and Covid is that it's always been a God thing, and I haven't ever been strategic about it. Like, never in my life did I think I would ever become a blogger or a social media influencer.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: It's fascinating.
Is it number one? I read somewhere that it was the number one substack.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: I think we're number one in, like, health politics overall, in terms of, like, volume. I mean, there are some that have multi million followers.
They're the blue ones.
And I think that's because there's a lot fewer blue substacks than conservative substacks. So they tend to clump the readers altogether.
But, I mean, we have a solid performing substack. I think I have some of the best readers in engagement.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: You've got extremely engaged, passionate readers. And so when we put out one of these Coffee and Covid episodes, that is the highest engagement that we have. And it's your people, and they're jumping on. They're commenting, they're going back and forth. You know, they'll get into little sub Narratives, never, never negative toward you. They're very much. You're championing what they believe in, representing it. Well, I probably hear with every episode how funny it is. It's just entertaining. It's funny, it's enlightening. It's positive. It always ends with a positive, hopeful direction and message.
And so it's exciting to see that do well. And it appears that it's really rocking continually.
And honestly, it's a little. Even the name of it, Coffee and Covid. Are we still talking about COVID It's not what you would think would work, but it does seem to be a God thing.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and I'll brag on my readers. I mean, one of the things that I'm proudest about our engagement is that they're relatively kind to each other. I mean, they have reasoned debates. I mean, it gets a little heated at times in there, but they're civil to each other, and they go back and they're friends again.
And that's how it should be. I mean, that's the way it should be everywhere. But to your point about going forward, I mean, I follow where the spirit leads me. And I know for sure that one of my jobs is to counter deceit. So when I see a deceitful narrative, I try to disassemble it in real time. And we've got enough readers now. I passed the critical mass a long time ago where if we get an idea and if I do a good job and it's simple enough and put it in coffee and Covid, they read it and understand it, and then they will spread that message and it'll go around the world.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. I'm just curious about the evolution of what's coming, and I want to speak into it. I want to kind of nudge you one direction.
So you're right. Your readers, they're always positive and they're supportive. The only negative criticism I have when I put out a Coffee and Covid episode is let Jeff talk more. We want to hear Jeff more. And so I hear that. I get that sometimes as a host, you're always trying to figure out. I think we've kind of learned each other's rhythm. And I know sometimes when you pause, you're not done. And I need to let you pause, let you finish.
[01:00:11] Speaker B: I'm learning that I'm a Southerner, I talk slow.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: But they want to hear from you. I think they want all the content you can provide.
Is there any chance or any hopes of there being a video driven coffee and Covid to where you're sitting down like Tucker or whoever it is, and just you're great on camera. You do a great job in this format and we work with what we have here. But you do, you always deliver, you think on your feet really, really well. And so is there any hopes or any ambition on your part to take it to other platforms as well?
[01:00:54] Speaker B: Well, the main constraint for anything like that, and I think you're right, I mean, readers have been asking, for example, for an audio version. They want to hear it in my voice. Substack does a good job. Now they have an AI voice and the AI voice is decent.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: It is.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: But they still would rather hear me read it or say it.
But I'm constrained by time. I'm also a lawyer and I have a law practice and I do have case. I've got some high profile cases. I'm still suing the federal government, at least two.
For example, I've got one of the. I've got a PI case, which I don't do PI law, but God brought the case to me. That is the subject of a Netflix documentary.
And these are not again, nothing that I ever went looking for. So I'm confident that God still wants me doing some lawyering at some point that may taper off and then I'll have bandwidth. People want me to write a book. I have a lot to say about the pandemic, believe it or not, and I'd like to say it before people forget everything happened.
So I need to get that book written.
It might be multiple volumes, I don't know.
Then there's other opportunities like the ones that you described.
You know, regular video format, even selfies somewhere talking about the two or three minute format ones. Right on. Just one little thing. I mean, there's a lot that I could do.
AI AI is changing the landscape.
Will we even need lawyers in two years?
I think we will, but the job's going to change a lot.
Can the AI you know, one of the things I played around with podcasting a little bit and you're going to immediately recognize this and you know, sitting at the table and reading it off or you know, saying a podcast or whatever, that's the easy part.
But then you have to go back and clean it up and you have to take all the ums out and the time when you spilled your coffee and then, you know, swore and everything. You got to get the swear words out and you know all that and clean it up and cut the weak stuff and maybe reorganize it a little bit. And that takes hours.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:17] Speaker B: So everybody's just like, why don't you just do a podcast? They don't really understand that that's a job. Yeah, right.
[01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. There's a lot. And know that, you know, our. What we build here, we're building just a media platform.
And, you know, we're always honored to have you on, and any. Any way that we can collaborate and work together on that to make it easier for you.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: It works because you do the editing.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we've got the bandwidth and the staff to do that. But I do think, you know, I want to say to you, and I think your audience wants to say to you that they're excited about whatever is next, that they're. They're always open to more content. They're excited about the next chapter of what. What you may do. I could see documentary work being something that you would be really excellent at, unpacking some of these things. You're a great storyteller.
And, you know, just obviously, this God thing of substack. Substack's having a moment right now. You got on board before it had its moment, and you're riding that wave, but you're also riding it high. You're riding it really well.
And it's meeting a need that I think people feel safe when they're reading it.
They don't feel like you're trying to manipulate or get them to think or believe in a way that they don't wish to.
And so, just from a reader, thank you for what you do. Thank you for what you contribute on here, and just know that we're excited about whatever's next, and we do hope there's something next.
[01:04:51] Speaker B: Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. I love being here. This is one of my favorite podcast gigs.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: Well, ours as well.
Thank you for joining us today.
[01:05:02] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
