Our American Experiment Threatened

[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to an episode of call it like I see it presented by disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and today we want to call out what we see as threats to the fabric of America. Urgent. Incredible threatsy. Joining me today is the grand pooba of disruption now, Rob Richardson. Rob, how's it up? [00:00:32] Speaker B: What up? What up, man? Feeling well? [00:00:34] Speaker A: All right. Also joining me here today is Tunde organlana Toonday. What's the word, man? [00:00:39] Speaker C: I'm good, brother. How you doing? [00:00:41] Speaker A: Hey, man. I'm hanging in there, man. I'm happy to be here with you guys. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Hey, let's do it. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Well, now, I wanted to say something. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Wait, you don't want to go to China or Ukraine? Not even as a joke, man. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Not even as a right, saying that you're for America, you're with America. If you're an american, that's not something overly controversial or disruptive. But what do you know, some people say when you say, hey, I'm here for America? Are you talking about the know? From sea to shining sea, the Constitution, you know, the people, all of the people, some of the know, the people that worship like you or the people that are in the same political party as you or that look like you. So, actually, I think we can take a step further and say what we really mean when we say America. And this is what I get from you, Rob, and what we say. We mean America as a concept and as a, you know, you've heard the know, the concepts and all. It's on all our know. Your declaration of know. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. Gettysburg address, you know, four scores. Seven years ago, our four founders brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That stuff is everywhere and in all of our documents, as far as the framework that's laid out by the Constitution. But none of these things are given. And in large part, as you often say, this is why we're here. It requires vigilance, and I think they're under attack now. So, guys, I wanted to assess the threats to America. Again, the idea, the framework posed by the actions of the Trump administration, our current presidential administration scandals defined it. But we have our most recent one, where President Trump is using his presidential power to compel Ukraine to interfere with our electoral process. And the House of Representatives now is engaged in an impeachment inquiry. This in itself is a threat to the, you know, an attempt to rig the selection of the leaders through democratic elections. So what we see with that talk, you see Ukraine, you see China, this abuse of power to try to use your power to stay in power, to dilute the power of people to select their leaders. What do you guys see here in terms of the threat to America, the idea, the framework? [00:03:05] Speaker B: Well, the threat is large, and the threat is not new. And we've been stress tested, if that's what you want to call, really, since the beginning of the republic. But one thing that was always pretty universally shared is that no one wanted to have a king. Even during slavery, it was fine to have slaves. It was fine to have somewhat lesser than, but no one. There was a universal agreement. And in those documents, it did everything possible to restrict the power of the president. And the executive branch has a very limited role. That's one of the shortest parts of the whole constitution. Every other part of the constitution is particularly laid out. And the constitution is very short for a reason, because the powers of the federal government were supposed to be very defined, very specific, and then the rest of it was supposed to be given to a state. We designed that system, and there's some flaws to that system, too. I mean, it's part of the reason why we had slavery for so long. It's part of the reason why we had Jim Crow. It's very hard to make substantive change, even when it's good change in this country. And I believe the model, as bad as that was, the model has some benefits, which I hope it stays in place now, is that one person can't do something horribly wrong just to change the whole nature of America. That's the reason why our system is dispersed the way it is, why there's federalism, which means we have states that have a lot of different power. Plus, we have a federal government and every other nation that also has democracies. They have strong central governments, they have a strong president, prime minister, that can make a lot of moves very quickly. And some people like that model, but we don't have that model for a reason, because we didn't want to give so much power to one person. So I think that's important as we talk about the frame of what's going on now. Not that there's not bad things. There's a lot of things that Trump has done that I don't agree with. And racist stuff. We've talked about all that stuff. The biggest threat is not that we've had racist presidents before. We can survive a racist president. We really can. That's why? We have checks and balances. What we can't survive is someone who the rules don't apply to, who can just ignore Congress, who can ignore the rule of law and say, we don't have a rule of law. [00:05:21] Speaker A: To me, I am the law. [00:05:22] Speaker B: I am the law. To me, that is the biggest threat, because when I see what's going on now, it's just like, well, I'm not going to comply with the subpoena. Why not? Because I don't have to. What do you mean you don't have to? We don't have kings. That's one thing I can say on the document. Besides for aspiring to higher ideals, what's very clear is that we didn't want a king. But it seems like people act like they want a king now. [00:05:48] Speaker C: That's what makes me a little bit nervous. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I definitely understand that tune day. I know you can drop some perspective on us here, man. Tell us that the sky is not falling, man. [00:05:58] Speaker C: It's falling. It might get propped up and not hit the ground. But now it's interesting hearing the conversation, because I think what we're seeing is that the law is malleable. And it's funny because a lot of this comes down to individual opinions, and I think that no law, maybe this might be proof that no law or democracy is safe from human kind of manipulation. You guys are right. It's interesting, and I think we all have to have a historic perspective here, because you're right. Why was our country kind of founded the way it was founded, with these ideals, with a constitution that had three separate but co equal branches of government? And to your point, right, I mean, one branch is Congress, who has an oversight role. And if you don't allow that to happen, then you're basically abdicating to the throne. In a sense. You are saying that there is a leader in this country who can do things without proper oversight by a co equal branch of government, which does create some sort of more authoritarian or monarchistic or whatever you want to call it, type of system. So I know that our country has been challenged in the past, and I think this is in terms of internally, and I think this is just one of those moments. Let's see. Do we want to preserve this experiment that's been going on, really, since 1781 and all that? Or are we now in a different time where the country is saying, we want to follow kind of one man and one style to the detriment of the founding fathers and what they created? So it's an interesting time. The sky is definitely sure. I don't know if it's fallen yet. [00:07:46] Speaker A: But, well, I'll tell, you know, the Ukraine asking them to investigate a political opponent and using aid that was earmarked by Congress, approved by Congress to go there, I think the threat to the election system may actually be the biggest of, and maybe that's know, it actually was the first time you saw an immediate and strong reaction to raise impeachment from a much more broad perspective than a lot of the more corruption that's been normalized that we'll get into. But the ability to have elections, all of this falls apart without that. Part of what the founding fathers were doing, in particular with the executive branch, is to put that term limit on or not the term limit, but the limit of the term of four years. And so every four years, you had to go back in front of the people, and the people got to say whether or not you got to stay in power. So no matter what you were doing for that four years, at the end. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Of it, they should be able to. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Vote you out if they so please. So the attempt to rig that, if you do that, then nothing else, then you're not beholden to anything else. All the other things that we want to try to hold you to as far as the executive, the president is subject to the law, not above the law or the separation of power. All of that stuff falls by the wayside. If you can just stay in power indefinitely because there's no consequence, you violate all that stuff and you do so without consequence. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:14] Speaker A: That's the one I really want to get you guys. Is that a big deal? Short, long term, however you want to say. I mean, is the use of presidential power to bias the next election? How big of a threat is that? [00:09:29] Speaker B: Well, I think it's in some order here. So you can get used to anything. My father says this all the time. You can get used to anything over time. You can get used to being a prisoner, you can get used to being a slave, and you get used to having a king in this country. So I think it starts before the election. It starts by making sure that if we talk about separations of power, you have to follow the rules. You can't just say no. You can't just say, okay, because I'm the president. We don't have kings. We have to remind people that you may not like that. Congress asks you for these documents. They still have to get them. Look, when the Tea Party was investigating President Obama about, remember those controversy, fast and furious. They've totally made up controversies right now. They made some stuff up out of the air. Nothing came of it. But if Eric Holder had gone in front of them and said, I'm not giving you shit because I don't have to, because this doesn't mean anything, then he would be in trouble and he should have been. And they probably would have tried to have him arrested or they would have threatened him because you can't just ignore Congress when they ask you for documents because we have separate powers. So if you get used to saying you don't have to pay it, those rules don't apply to me. Then if you look at what happens, he has what you said. He has literally normalized corruption so much. I have, I had a friend of mine who's very liberal, who has some conservative friends, like all of us here. Just ask his Trump supporters. So are you guys okay with him asking for the foreign governments for help here? Is this, you know, their answer was telling. It was like, well, yeah, well, look, there's corruption everywhere. He's just direct and honest about his corruption. As if somehow, if you just say, like, okay, I'm going to steal from you, James, but I'm honest about it. I'll come to your house, take all your money. As long as I tell you that I'll take it. It's cool. Exactly. Is that what we're doing now? [00:11:28] Speaker A: Oh, man. Well, it shows you how low the bar is now, do the dirt you want, but as long as I feel like you are doing it in the open, then I'm fine with it. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Of course, there's some motivated reasoning there, though. [00:11:43] Speaker C: But I think that's a result of the electorate that's been primed for the last, I mean, probably longer than this, but at least the last 15 years or so, if not longer, to have a big distrust in the system itself. Yeah. You know, the idea of the liberal media, you know, all these big liberal bureaucrats in government, the deep state, a lot of that has been very effective and I think much more effective than I think the leadership of our country realized. I think on both sides, I think Democrats totally were asleep at the wheel for the last 20 years on addressing some of those concerns. [00:12:19] Speaker B: Man, they're still asleep. Go ahead. [00:12:23] Speaker C: And some of those concerns were genuine. Maybe people in the rust belt areas that lost jobs and kind of didn't understand the globalization got caught up. Unfortunately, on the negative side of that, some of them might have been racial and cultural fears of the demographic changes. And so I think, yeah, you're right. Democrats were totally asleep at the wheel and still are, it appears, and Republicans were able to take that energy and channel it to votes. And I think what we've seen in the last, probably ten years since the advent of the tea Party and even now, morphing into a more extreme version of that with the Trumpism is now, it's like the establishment Republicans have been kind of eaten alive during this process. So when you go to those people, because I've got friends like that, too, that are very staunch conservatives that kind of say the same thing that you just mentioned, it's now like, well, since everybody's so bad and so corrupt, because they believe all this stuff about prior leaders, that they really believe that Bush and Cheney did 911, that the Clintons killed people in Arkansas, that Obama wasn't born in America. So by the time you get to Trump, they probably are really honestly feeling like, you know what? They're all a bunch of assholes. So this guy's just honest about it. And it's amazing how Trump, and he. [00:13:42] Speaker B: Does what I want, too. That's an important part. He's an asshole, but he's my type of asshole. [00:13:48] Speaker C: Correct? [00:13:48] Speaker A: Or he makes me feel valued. [00:13:51] Speaker B: He does both way. [00:13:53] Speaker C: But that's what I've said, too, is it's kind of an old war term. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So a lot of people like, you're saying they might not really like Trump, but because he talks a certain way about immigrants, he talks about these people over here. And it's like, yeah, you know what he's saying? Stuff I can't say and that I've. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Been wanting to say, I've been wanting to say. [00:14:10] Speaker C: So I think that's why it's difficult when you're trying to rationalize us, because you guys are right. I was writing here, one of my notes was when you were asking Jimmy before, what's so wrong about the solicitation of help from a foreign government. We all know kind of intellectually what's wrong with him. And then it's even worse that it's out in the open. But we could all just point to national security risks, the compromising of a president. Is he doing things in the interest. [00:14:38] Speaker B: But none of them believe that, though, right? So I've heard two different versions of this. The one version I've heard is he didn't do quid pro quo. Well, if he didn't do quid pro quo, I tell people he made his best don colioni. He said he made him an offer he couldn't refuse. [00:14:56] Speaker C: But the information is coming out so fast. I mean, the text messages we saw probably, what, 72 hours ago, just four or five days ago now show people. [00:15:05] Speaker A: In the State Department thought it was a quid pro quo. [00:15:09] Speaker B: It was offer he couldn't refuse. They said the words, they thought it was quid pro quo, but beyond. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Everybody else thought it was a quid pro quo. [00:15:19] Speaker B: But then people step into the next level of insanity because there's no, I should say irrationality. That's a better word. They say, well, politics is all quid pro quo. So he's just doing what we know others do anyway. [00:15:34] Speaker A: And that's very true. And that's very true. But the difference, though, that we see here is that it's quid pro quo with another nation. It's literally putting your interests, your political interests above your country. Not saying that, oh, well, my party is part of the country and thing like that. This is literally, if Ukraine says, hey, we want you to invade Russia, and then we'll turn over the dirt on Biden, those aren't the types of decisions or the thought process we want our president to have based on him trying to get elected. We cannot give leverage to other countries. And tunde, you talked about this briefly before we got on. The founding fathers were obsessed with this. They were obsessed with two things, for the most part, preventing tyranny and making sure that foreign nations could not get involved in influencing undue influence on our leadership. [00:16:26] Speaker B: Correct. [00:16:26] Speaker A: And both of those seem to be at play here. [00:16:30] Speaker C: You're right. And one thing I was going to say, though, which is totally not about the constitution or anything, this is more my opinion. I feel like it's bad right now. It's worse because these guys are pretty sloppy. I don't know if this is the first time ever they're corrupt and incompetent. That's what I mean. I don't know if the first time since the death of George Washington, if this is the first time ever that a us government, somebody up high has asked a foreign government for help and all, like, but they weren't like, I've got a new respect for Dick Cheney ever since watching this administration because I feel like, man, he knew how to be dirty the right way because he was quiet and he got away from all that. These guys are just running their mouth all over the place, which I think is almost like the incompetence of the Democrats is overshadowed by the behavior of this administration that has now forced them to have to impeach him. [00:17:30] Speaker B: I think the issue is, look, I get people's point of view. Politics is quid pro quo, but it's not all the time. And you can't make it just that, because it'll become that. That's all it's going to become. And we can never rise above it. If we just get to this, if we accept this, then we're saying it doesn't matter if you blatantly violate the law. And so I tell people, like, listen well, so is it okay, let's say the next president, or this president doesn't like you, and says, let's just send the IRS and all the resources in the FBI after you, because he just doesn't like you. He doesn't think you should be speaking in this country. That's the end of freedom. So I tell people, that's the problem here with this. The problem isn't that you might like the president, you might like the president's politics. Who cares? I won't say I'm 100% confident, because I know that we are all susceptible to being irrational, to following the group think, and following people that we like. But I would like to believe that if President Barack Obama got in there, I was very proud that we had an African american, but he went in there, acted like a total ass. The fact that he was African American, I would be more embarrassed to say, look, we get a brother in there and he does this shit. [00:18:40] Speaker A: But your mindset, you want to preserve the system. And I think this is a good place to transition over to the discussion of the supremacy of rule of law. As you indicated earlier, this administration, frankly, will tell you that they believe that. They assert primacy over the rule of law all the time. Now, the subpoenas that they ignore from Congress, they're fighting that in court. They're going to court and saying, we don't have to comply for this reason or that reason. And they'll use conflicting answers, like when Congress is looking to oversight them, they'll tell the court that only prosecutors have subpoena power. Congress doesn't have subpoena power. When New York state is trying to subpoena their tax record to Trump's tax records, they tell the judge there that only Congress has oversight and can subpoena the president. And so basically, they get into this. [00:19:30] Speaker C: Don'T forget, executive privilege for people that never worked. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Never worked there. If you've ever talked to him, then they start executive privilege. And now, in theory, this stuff will all work its way through the courts, and we will see where the third branch of government comes down on all of this. But the lack of any loyalty to or respect for the rule of law where you will go into court and argue opposite things depending on who you're arguing is at the time, that's troublesome to me. I think that's a threat in the sense that when you no longer believe you should be subject to the rule of law, when you tell your supporters that the rule of law is no longer important, it's only about us winning this issue. When the Justice Department is going around country to country trying to build investigations for reasons that have nothing to do with national security or moving the ball forward for our nation's interest, then what do you have then? Are you a nation of men or are you a nation of laws? And it looks like we're heading towards being a nation of men. [00:20:30] Speaker B: It looks that way. And just going back to the nature of what's going on, you have a whistleblower complaint. So for all those who understand, whistleblower complaint means that you have the ability to protect yourself, to not identify yourself because you fear that someone's going to come after you. They're going to retaliate, they're going to cut retribution in some way or maybe come after your life. Just think of the people that we know are high level people. And I want to point something out. It's not a deep state. It's the Republicans in his administration he appointed. These are people that he appointed. Barack Obama did not appoint these people. They were appointed by him. These are people that are patriots that are worried about our national security. And you have people just saying, yeah, okay, who mean, I just can't believe. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Because it's not what I want to hear. And I'll tell, you know, you hear that term deep state thrown around, but there's an uncomfortable truth there that people don't want to acknowledge. The deep state is the loyalty to the constitution over the people. That is the existence of the deep state. Are the people who say, no, I am not loyal to whoever is in office. I'm loyal to the America, to the US constitution. When they take their oath of office, it is not to Donald Trump. [00:21:41] Speaker B: No. Or the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party. [00:21:44] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Or any party or any person or anything like that. It's to protect and defend the US Constitution. The oath of enlistment in the military is the same thing. So, yes, there is an apparatus in place to prevent people from disregarding the law and doing things that are against, that are adverse to the interests of our country. That is called people's loyalty to the constitution. So I hear that and I'm like, do people even really know what they're saying? They're saying that the deep state is loyal to some unknown thing. But actually the people who are in there doing this stuff are the people that are actually loyal to the nation over any particular person at any given time. [00:22:19] Speaker C: But remember, that brings me back to a lot here because you guys are on a good track with the whistleblower thing. I've thought about mean, obviously, you know, the president unfortunately calls a person a spy and all this stuff. But you're right, Rob, the whistleblower is to blow a whistle in that way means you went through kind of the internal chain of command that this person was a leaker or know they would have been having that thing. [00:22:44] Speaker A: This isn't Edward Snowden. [00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah, this isn't Edward Snowden. This isn't somebody putting it, leaking it to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal versus scooter Libby. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Apparently they have no faith in the. [00:22:57] Speaker B: Justice Department to actually pursue the claim or protect them. [00:23:00] Speaker A: It's well founded. Tried to bury this. [00:23:06] Speaker C: But let me get back to the point about the deep state because it goes back to the whole thing about when I mentioned the pump was primed for this because you had enough. Americans already distrust things like our intelligence services. And I feel like it's really unfair to the intelligence officers and the people working in it because sometimes I would say they have been misused by administrations to fit a narrative. I think the best recent case was the Iraq war. We all know know we were lied to about WMD and the anthrax stuff and all that. And it leaves the country kind of looking at. Yeah, well, George Tennant with the CIA told us this. And I guess they're. So the reality though is the intelligence community is really about just collecting data and reporting it to the leadership. And the interesting thing is when you look at someone like this president and this administration and how they behave, really because they have the type of attitude they have, they're in the position right now shooting the messenger. And what I find fascinating is not so much the president himself, it's those around him. And I know we talked just before we got on air. We're here on, what is it, the 7 October? So I think it was yesterday senator Ron Johnson, who's a senator from Minnesota, kind of made a fool of himself in my opinion, basically saying that he doesn't trust. So first of all, this is how bad to me, the conspiracy thing has gotten that has infiltrated a us senator. He was on television yesterday in 2019 saying, I don't trust anybody in the Obama administration. Deep state. I don't trust anybody. So first of all, it's almost three years since the last administration. So he's still got this conspiracy in his head that there's all these plants and all that. And to your point, Jimmy, these are people that are appointed by the current administration. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Well, just remember. So the important point here is it's not him. It's he's going with the group. Think. [00:25:04] Speaker A: No, that's my point. [00:25:05] Speaker C: That's why I said it's more to me watching a grown man in his mid 60s who's a us senator kind of change his whole narrative like this in less than a week. Remember he was in the Wall Street Journal saying he had a big problem with the whole Ukraine call and all. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Yep. [00:25:21] Speaker C: Within four or five days, somebody must know. [00:25:24] Speaker B: Well, it wasn't just somebody. So it's madness. [00:25:29] Speaker C: That's my point. [00:25:30] Speaker B: As I say goes, madness is rare with individuals, but it's the norm for nations and groups. [00:25:37] Speaker C: Because here's what I was going to say. So I looked this guy up and I just wanted to see who is this guy? Ron Johnson, the senator. So he's the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and the government affairs committee. And he's also part of the council on the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate, but he's the chairman of a subcommittee that deals directly with Europe and the defense of Europe. And my point is that I started thinking like, imagine this guy. I'm sure that people from the FBI, the CIA, you're talking about the head of Homeland security. They got to brief him. He's got to work with these people. And what kind of message does that send from a senator who's chairman of a committee like this to be on television to say, I don't trust the CIA and the FBI. This is dysfunctional at a higher level. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Than is that, though, just talking points at this point. [00:26:27] Speaker C: But if it is, it's sad. And if it's not, it's sad. That's my point. [00:26:31] Speaker A: At this point, though, they don't have any other option. Like everybody, the FBI and the CIA are coming up with evidence of wrongdoing. [00:26:39] Speaker C: Correct. [00:26:39] Speaker A: And so therefore, as you said, they have to attack the messenger. Their problem is that messenger. [00:26:45] Speaker C: Patriot, right. [00:26:46] Speaker A: No, I think that we agree there person. He is taking man over law. I will defend the president over the rule of law. [00:26:58] Speaker C: Correct. [00:26:58] Speaker B: That's basically you guys overcomplicating this. He's doing this to protect his seat. He sees this as his political. [00:27:05] Speaker C: He's doing this over his protect, whatever it is. [00:27:09] Speaker B: No, it's very simple. This is not hard. This is about power. It has nothing to do with principle. He knows what he's doing is wrong. [00:27:17] Speaker A: As long as 80% of Republicans are still riding for Trump, no matter what, then it doesn't matter. He has to do that. If he contradicts Trump, then those 80% of Republicans are going to come out against him, because there'll be some other guy lined up saying, hey, I'll support everything that Trump does if you guys vote for me. And we see that primary, we see. [00:27:36] Speaker C: This historically, and it never works out for those guys. Look at all the guys during Watergate. [00:27:40] Speaker A: That I don't know, man. You're saying maybe in America, but it works out around the world a lot of times. [00:27:45] Speaker C: Like, let's hope we keep America America. [00:27:49] Speaker B: And this is the reason why we have this show. This is pre Fox News. This is pre social media. This is pre algorithm that can make you believe whatever you want to believe. It doesn't matter that it's not true. It's true to them. It's their reality. It's what they see again, over and. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Over again and never challenged. [00:28:06] Speaker B: And this is the reason why we have to figure out a way to get people to step outside of their comfort zones and actually see reality. Because if they don't, we're all going to be in the damn matrix here. And maybe Donald Trump will be controlling it. Who knows? Or somebody else will. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Well, yeah, he would have no problem with his hands on the controls because he. It knows no bounds as far as what he'll do to win or to take power. And I mean, part of this, what you see also is it is a concerted effort to consolidate authority. Basically, you see that in the executive branch of government, you undermine separation of powers. You see it also in terms of messengers, generally. [00:28:45] Speaker B: Isn't it funny, though, just to say this, James, that these are the same people that confess to believe in limited government, and they're trying to consolidate the damn. [00:28:58] Speaker A: And that actually is the hardest thing to really, when you do speak to your fellow americans, you've seen them say one thing for so long, and you try to give people the benefit of the doubt when they say, hey, I'm for limited government. I'm for states rights. It's not about oppression or things like that. It's just, I like state, right, states rights. I don't think the federal government should be having their nose and everything, or should be of unlimited power. When Obama's in office and people are coming up with all these reasons that what he's doing is expanding executive power too far and then people, death panels. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Remember that he was trying to kill everybody. [00:29:34] Speaker C: Remember the executive orders? He was violating the constitution. Exactly. [00:29:38] Speaker B: That looks laughable. [00:29:39] Speaker C: Now this guy's got, this current administration has more executive orders than I think. [00:29:44] Speaker B: He don't even have to do executive orders. [00:29:47] Speaker A: He has Twitter posts, he just tweets. And then that becomes nobody knows what's our diplomats don't know what's going to happen with our foreign policy. Again, you said this is recording this on the 7 October 2019. Just yesterday he comes out and we're pulling out of Syria or really hit this morning and nobody knew. Our military people didn't know. That's all news to them. And they're trying to react and make sure things can be done in a way that matters or, excuse me, that allows for it to be done safely. But either way, we're abandoning all our allies. Things like that. But I did want to get to, we've touched on this already, but the separation of powers piece, I wanted to focus in on that in terms of if one government claims, one branch of the government claims supremacy over the rest, is there any going back from that now? There's been a progression over time where the executive branch has become more powerful and powerful. But right now, this is about as extreme as we've gotten, where the Trump administration argues that there is no check and balance on it. It does what it wants to do. It can bend the law or break the law as it sees fit. It can authorize other people to break the law and then give know, then protect them. With executive we, is there any way back from just, is it over in terms of the three branches of government or where are we with this? [00:31:21] Speaker B: James, it goes back and mean our government has swung largely. We've had presidents lock up Japanese Americans because they were japanese and did that. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Without, couldn't be trusted to be. [00:31:35] Speaker B: We've seen, we've had Andrew Jackson, people don't know, ignore the Supreme Court, say, enforce it. I'm going to crucify all these Native Americans. I don't care what you, you know, we've had people eventually fight back. So my hope is that people eventually stay engaged. It is back to that eternal vigilance. If people decide to give up and decide they don't have power, they're right, and then this does become permanent. It's just a matter of people are going to decide what their future is going to be, are they going to be active or are they going to let this thing just continue as it is? And we're going to go down a path that we haven't seen, at least in a recent generation. So this has happened in american history. I think people need to know that. But it hasn't happened since we've had tv. So we need to decide what we're going to do. So I am concerned. I'm concerned for what this can mean. So if you let the administration get away with the things that they're getting away with, they can target people individually and there's nothing you can do about then they can lock people. Just start following the next logical conclusion. [00:32:48] Speaker A: You become an authoritarian state. [00:32:51] Speaker B: Just think about this point for a minute. I want to finish this point. There are authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia that are killing journalists that are saying things that they don't like. And then when people report that you killed that journalist, guess what their line is? That's fake news. That sound familiar? Oh, yeah. Who said that? Oh, Trump is. So he's actually in line with this and he's normalized. That's why I say you could get. [00:33:17] Speaker C: Used to anything over time. [00:33:20] Speaker B: So we could get to a point where if we let this go. Yeah. I mean, if we say it's okay, then he could go out and kill his enemies. That is possible. We're not there yet, but it's not as far as the stretch as it used to be. [00:33:32] Speaker C: Yeah, no, and it's interesting you say that, because it reminds me that this is what I find is fascinating about this kind of time, this last ten years or so. I guess I was pretty naive to what was really going on out there. The amount of people that. Do you guys remember? I think it was like 2015 when the US military was just doing regular training, like somewhere in Texas. And all these people came out like regular kind of civilians in Texas and were like, protesting and scared that Obama was about to take over Texas. [00:34:06] Speaker B: You remember Texas wanted to succeed from the succeed. [00:34:10] Speaker C: And I remember on the news watching one of the captains know, guy with a higher rank in the military at a town hall meeting at this little town in Texas, I guess, where the guys were probably up in hotels, the guys in the army, and he was like, telling him, he's like, I'm a blue eyed son of America, we're not taking over. He was trying to convince them that he's one of them. And they were so frothed in their conspiracy that they were, like, booing him. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Down because they're being led to believe this. [00:34:42] Speaker C: And I'm looking at this now since 2017. And like you guys are saying, like anyone that's seen, done any reading of history and kind of understands authoritarian regime says, okay, the personality of the administration and the way that it delivers its wants and information is definitely more authoritarian than, like you said, rob, anything we've seen since probably tv started in this country. And it's the fact that, like you said, the same people that just said something a few years ago and were so scared of usurping the constitution and taking our rights are totally okay with this. And that's what takes me back to just believing a lot of this is tribalism, that it's kind of like if my guy's doing it, and it's something I think I agree with. And that's why I said I think. I don't think they really understand what happens if the authoritarian system really comes. [00:35:37] Speaker B: In until it's too late. [00:35:39] Speaker C: Yeah, but if I think I like it and I think it's my team, then I can look the other way. Correct. And it's funny, I was watching one of these things on Netflix. I think it was World War II in color. And one of the last of the series was about the end of the war in Germany and Europe. And when you look at the footage, it's like Berlin and all those cities are totally destroyed. And I remember watching and thinking in my head, I wonder, like, in 1936 or 1937, before it really got hot, like, when Hitler was on stage and they were all excited if they thought it would end like this, was it really worth it because they didn't think it would end. [00:36:17] Speaker B: No, of course. [00:36:17] Speaker C: I know. But what I'm saying is, history has shown all of us that it usually ends like that for those that follow down that path. Mussolini. [00:36:25] Speaker A: I don't know, man. People who follow down that path, you got to remember, seems to be more the exception or, excuse me, the rule than the exception. The american experiment is the exception. [00:36:33] Speaker C: Correct. But that's what I'm saying, is that it's amazing that we're here where it's being tested again. And I guess that's what our conversation is. How far can it go? [00:36:42] Speaker A: And that actually leads me to the next thing I wanted to bring up with you guys, and that is the solidarity amongst Americans. We have descended into tribalism. We see this separation in part by party or other things, whether it be religion. I see people who say all Muslims are bad or something like that, or you see it with race, where only certain Americans are legitimate Americans or whatever. [00:37:11] Speaker C: But there seems to be very few. [00:37:15] Speaker A: People who are preaching and living the idea that we are Americans first. You see this with the current administration specifically in the way that they attack the legitimacy and the honesty of anybody or anything that doesn't give them unquestioned loyalty, simply questioning them like you see with the Ron Johnson that you brought up. He just said, hey, I had a problem with it. He said this in the Wall Street Journal. I didn't know what was going on there. I mentioned that. And whatever happened where he realized that he did not want to go down that path anymore, he does a complete 180. His 180 is showing his, that's showing loyalty. That's showing solidarity. But it's not about America. It's only about the republican party, republican politics. And once we get, can you get too far to where, for example, a significant chunk of Americans are going to be loyal to the president over the country or anything else? Whereas if the president loses an election, they will support him. I'm talking like, what, 30, 40%? They will support him not leaving office because they are not okay with losing an election. They just think they should win. Doesn't matter what the votes are. Essentially, we don't want votes anymore. It just should be me. It just should be my people. And that's it. Are we getting close to that point? Is there solidarity amongst Americans anymore? Do we share in common pride in each other anymore? Or is that over? Is it just democrats? [00:38:44] Speaker C: I don't think it's over, but it's definitely being stress tested. And I've thought about this over the last couple of years. It's disappointing to me that we have had leaders. And at this point, I don't want to make a false equivalency here. And it's not just leaders. I would say media pundits, too, on the more conservative media and right wing side that have made parts of our own country like enemy territory. Right. I mean, we talked about New Orleans, hurricane victims ten years ago or whatever, 14 years ago as refugees within the United States. We condemn cities like Chicago and San Francisco and all these coast cities like they're somehow not. I think, you know, that's been going on for some not. [00:39:34] Speaker B: I want to get to your point, but none of that is new. And I'll just say for a while, I mean, that's been a trend since the beginning of Deval Patrick said is the best I've heard it said. He said, look, america is two things at the same time. Tribalism, division, playing to our lowest common denominator. That's pretty american. We've done that for a long time. But also making sure that we aspire to those high ideals, that we come together for all those things. We hope these truths would be self evident. That's also american. But only one of those is patriotic, and it's the latter. So the question is, if you love your country and you love America, you strive towards the latter. And it's always hard. It's always a close question. The enslavery was a close question. It should have been an 80 2090 ten proposition. It was like a 53% to 47% proposition. So McCarthyism. McCarthyism was popular. Everyone now says McCarthy was horrible, but Republicans and Democrats were scared to death and did whatever he said, and he had eventually be run out of. He was the same thing as Trump. He understood. You get a story out there early, you put out a bunch of nonsense, and you know what? The news needs something to pick up. And they did. And people were so scared of him, they just did what he said for years, four years. And even when he got removed, I think he quit. I can't remember exactly what happened. I think he had embarrassed and then ended up leaving. But even during that, he was very popular. He was like 40% of the country believed in all the things he was saying, even though there was no basis in fact. So we go over this again, enough people have to say, this is not who we want to be. So there's probably going to be 45% of the country that is going to rock with whatever Trump says, no matter what he says. That's just the truth we have to accept. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Evolving by the minute. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. What is the other 55% going to do? And particularly, what is that 5% going to do? Are they going to stay home? Are they going to give up? Are they going to stay engaged and make sure that they're being patriotic? That's all we can do. Because if that doesn't happen, then they do win. [00:41:48] Speaker C: Well, it's interesting about Joe McCarthy, because I think what ends up happening, because I can't speak for the question about the american people and what the majority would want, but I think a lot of this comes down to self inflicted wounds when people push too far. And you're reminding me, I remember watching about McCarthy was very interesting, that these guys have a lot of power for a certain time, but when it ends, it tends to end real fast. [00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah, his end, really bad. [00:42:16] Speaker C: Where he pushed too far, was he started accusing people in the army of being communist. [00:42:22] Speaker B: Correct. [00:42:22] Speaker C: And like certain generals and all that. Now you're thinking you're probably within ten years of the end of the second world war, you probably had a lot of proud people in that army generals, people that really served and were respected. And that's when the guy who was like, I think he was the chairman of the Armed services Committee, looked him in one of those Senate meetings and said, have you no shame? And they said within like two years, he was out of the Senate. And I think when we go back to kind of what brought us the conversation, we need that moment now. [00:42:50] Speaker B: But go ahead. [00:42:50] Speaker C: Well, but no, I think we might have seen it already. I think that's what I was going to say brought us to this conversation. Now was the Ukraine thing, which, know the president has gotten a lot away with a lot of behavior that a lot of people question, just like Joe McCarthy, but this might be the one where he just pushed too far, where it was like just being blatant in a room full of ten people. That's what I mean. Like the sloppiness of asking the foreign leader like that, not on some hush hush on the side, but like, oh, I'm just going to do this because I'm the man. And I think one of you guys pointed out when we first heard about this that I think it came the day after the Mueller report was released or that Mueller testified so that he might have been on some high horse, like, oh, I'm totally know. I can get away with anything. And that's what I mean by a self inflicted wound. And that's what goes back to my earlier point, starting to respect this guy, Dick Cheney a lot because he didn't do things like that. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Well, I'm not going to go with you. I respect it. You just said he was really confident at corruption. [00:43:54] Speaker C: I'm not saying I like him, but I respect him. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Now, I'm glad Trump is not confident at this because if he was, we'd be in a lot of, so I don't, so I'm not going to go to their dick. [00:44:06] Speaker A: But I hear, interestingly enough, the point, it could be the Ukraine. We've seen a lot of blowback on this Syria thing and our abandonment of the SDC in Syria and the Kurds and so forth. And we've seen a lot of blowback from the right on know. And that could actually play a know. We kick around the joke a lot of times, like, is there anything that Trump could do that would cause his party to abandon him in? You know, the answers are always like some kind know, black lives Matter or, you know, something crazy like that. But this international thing has revealed now, I don't know, again, if we're looking at a situation where Monday, Tuesday, everybody's saying this is crazy, and then by Friday everybody has their talking point. But Republicans still do seem to hold or believe that America should show leadership internationally that doesn't seem to have been totally co opted by Trump's kind of national narcissism where it's not America first really, because America first isn't short sighted. You can say America first we want to protect at home, but we can look at things short and long term consequences of how that's going to actually keep us safe. But this is just, hey, I don't want to do it. We're just going to stop. I don't care what the results are. I don't care what the fallout is. If it hurts us in two years, then who cares? Which is why I would call it more of a national narcissism. Do you think this is the type of thing that could ultimately get more republicans to the tipping point on this guy where this is something, again, where it doesn't seem like his sensibilities has. [00:45:44] Speaker C: Completely taken over the party and that could be another thing like a self inflicted wound, right? Like someone like me would have thought it's to call the ukrainian guy and all that. That would get everybody up in arms about the constitution. But you're right. Maybe it's just pulling out of Syria with no game plan. But I think, look, we got a lot of things breaking down with the way that the leadership runs in the country right now. But a lot of it is the subject of just the personality of the guy in, you know, whether it's narcissistic, chaotic, and this is a little bit mean, what a monarchy might look like in the United States, right? One person with the ability to make decisions on the fly. And it goes back to what we talked about a bit earlier, too, that there's people out there that I think Steve Bannett said it best when he was in the administration in January of 17. And he did some speech. I remembered listening to him and he said, our goal is the destruction of the administrative state. And there's so many people that believe that there's too much fat in the government, too much bureaucracy, too much meat, committee meetings and all this stuff. And it goes back to, again, I don't want to start comparing this administration to where I'm about to go, but it just comes to my head what to Hitler. Yeah. I want to be clear. I know a lot of people make those comparisons and they're not like, I want to be as serious in the conversation here not to compare it to atrocities of the Nazis or anything, but to the style of the one man type of leader. [00:47:21] Speaker B: Hold on. But hold on. The only reason why I think what you're saying is fair is because there's a lead up to that. No one knew that in 1930 that this guy was going to do all that. [00:47:34] Speaker C: Well, that's where I'm going. And that's why I just don't like to do that comparison because you shut people off and I don't want to go there. [00:47:40] Speaker B: But I think they're already shut. [00:47:42] Speaker C: By the way, the comparison I'll make is that I think it was in 1938. Hitler just totally disbanded the cabinet in Germany. He just said, we're not having any more cabinet meetings. He said, you guys are keeping your jobs. You're still going to be the finance minister over here and the guy over here doing this. But I'm just not going to show up to meetings. You guys aren't going to meet with each other. I'm going to be the one telling everybody what to do. And so that's what I said. I'm not comparing it to the other stuff of both administrations or leaders, but that's the style that we're starting, not that we're starting, that we've seen. And that is going into a bit of hyperdrive right now. [00:48:24] Speaker B: Look, the reason why I would have some comparisons is because when a neo Nazi killed someone, he said there are good people on both sides. We have protesters protesting that. Didn't he say something like, jews are not loyal if you don't vote for him? That sounds pretty comparable. [00:48:46] Speaker C: But there's a lot of mud in those waters, too, that we're not there yet. [00:48:52] Speaker B: But I don't want to get there. That's the point. [00:48:55] Speaker A: It's actually much harder to stop once the snowball, so to speak, gets hurt down the mountain. [00:49:00] Speaker C: But that's why, again, I'm not looking at the president himself. I'm looking at the people around him. That's why I mentioned the senator. That's why I mentioned people like the attorney general or the secretary of state. Very interesting to me. I saw what he said on the weekend when he was in Greece. [00:49:17] Speaker B: They're all falling. [00:49:19] Speaker C: Everybody does it. Yeah, all this stuff. [00:49:22] Speaker A: Well, everybody who wouldn't has already been moved down, correct? Kind of the thing. [00:49:29] Speaker B: But back to your question, James, the international here's where we got to look at where we're at. If you look in history. So China has been a country that's actually been more advanced than most nations for all but about 200 years. And what's great about a dictatorship is that you know what? You get a good dictator, they have a good vision, they put it in place. Shit gets done. We need to get done. [00:49:54] Speaker A: The benevolent king, the best form of government, but you just can't guarantee a benevolence. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Well, right there lies the problem. So you get a dumb ass, stupid dictator or somebody that's not ethics. Lacks ethics. Anything, whatever, then you're stepped back. And that's what happened to China. And they decided, look, we're going to just be dumb. We're not going to explore, we're not going to do stuff. We're going to stay in, we're going to just protect our borders. We're not going to worry about anybody else. And China was off the map for 200 years. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the story about them being the first to develop navigation by like, 500 years or something like that. They had navigation well before anybody else. [00:50:36] Speaker B: And here's the lesson. Everybody needs to listen right now. This is what this current administration is talking about. Let's disengage from the world. Let's not do anything. Let's not explore. Let's just stay within. That doesn't work. It's been proven to destroy nations. It's not a good look. And guess what? That's also what Putin wants. That's why he's doing this. It's not that he likes Donald Trump, it's that he wants to make sure America is weak. So everybody wake up. That's what everybody needs to listen to. Do you want America to be weak? Do you want America to go down? You're making it happen. [00:51:14] Speaker C: Well, let's go here with it because it's interesting you say that, because I've noticed this in the last two and a half years. If I look at, like, one country, whenever we do these kind of big moves, like pull out of Syria with no planning, just an announcement because he had a call with the turkish guy yesterday, I feel like, okay, there's only one country that seems to benefit from all this chaos. And you're know, and this is a guy, again, I don't necessarily like him, but I respect his game. Is a valid Vladimir Putin, because you gotta respect him. [00:51:50] Speaker A: No. [00:51:51] Speaker C: And he was smart enough to understand that. I'm not going to beat the United States at a war like a military war. We lost the cold war. They have more money, more resources, more people. They've got more networks around the world than we do right now. So to your point, Rob, I've got to weaken them by getting them to focus on fighting each other internally so I can do stuff. And this is what I've told people, and it's working. And it's working in the last two and a half years. Think about this. Russia now has a nuclear bomber arsenal in Venezuela, and we have a russian military base in the western hemisphere for the first time since the 62 missile crisis. That is not probably going to be that easy to get rid of once this president's out of office. Then we have issues like the disruption in Syria, leading to migration patterns changing in Europe, to destabilize western Europe, and the venezuelan situation, which is controlled by Russia, destabilizing our kind of immigration system and leading to more the ability for someone like the president to use caravans and all that at the border as a way to put Americans in fear. So I would say that Vladimir Putin is one guy sitting back laughing at all of us right now, because this exactly plays into the hands of disruption so that he can spend time getting Russia back on the world stage while we're sitting here fighting each other. [00:53:20] Speaker A: He was opportunistic, though. I mean, he observed the fault lines that had been formed in our segment in media and everybody getting information, and then they pounced. [00:53:30] Speaker B: And he's trained in this. [00:53:32] Speaker A: This is how you undermine democracies. This is how we've undermined democracy around the world. [00:53:37] Speaker B: He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's know. James, you say this often that we're playing checkers and he's playing chess. He's not even playing chess. He's playing go, which is a whole nother level of beginning stages of checkers. And so you got somebody that understands what's going on, and people need to wake up to this. This is not about, if you like your taxes cut, this is not what we're talking about. We're talking about, do you want America to exist? That's really what we're talking know, yes, I am progressive, and yes, I do not like some of its policies, but that's not why I'm saying this. You shouldn't like us. These are not conservative principles. These aren't american principles. These are principles. These are russian principles. These are principles that are trying to destroy America. That's really simple. And that's all we need to tell people. So when I talk to people about what's going on with Donald Trump? I don't talk about his, we've talked about his corruption. In some ways, the corruption doesn't matter. Here's the problem. He is betraying our nation. He is betraying America, and he is trying to, and he is having some success in destroying the very fabric of America. [00:54:41] Speaker C: Let me ask you, Rob, because what do we say to people that, because I'm around a lot of these people and friends of mine that will come back to a statement like that and say that's so wrong, because he's putting America first, because he's fighting China on the trade war, because he's trying to bring factory jobs back. They're listening to whatever the conservative media is telling them that the president's doing so good. So what would be the pushback? Not pushback just for the sake of pushback, but how would you cut through that maybe to explain what you're saying? Not instead of just saying that he's hurting America. And I know we've just spent an hour giving example. [00:55:25] Speaker A: Actually, there's something I'd want to say to that because actually some of the things, it's not that everything he does is the problem. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Correct. [00:55:31] Speaker A: In terms of the trade war, I don't think it's a bad idea. I think the implementation has been sloppy and happy. [00:55:37] Speaker B: That's the problem. There's no real strategy to correct, but the idea China is a. [00:55:43] Speaker A: Need to. [00:55:45] Speaker B: Be addressed and China is getting stronger now is the question. Because you think just talking, China's not stupid, China can wake this out. So I tell people, like you think, just saying, oh, I don't like you, China, you're going to do this. China says, okay, we'll just change our. [00:56:00] Speaker A: But to stay focused, though, because I wanted to get to the answer to that because there are things that he has done that, again, conceptually, I don't think his implementation on things generally, I don't think he does things that are well executed, but I can live with that. My concern when he got elected, and it remains to this day, is that he does not believe in our system of government. He does not believe in a legislature that has power to pass the laws, an executive branch that enforces the laws, and a judicial branch that interprets the laws, all of those branches of government being dependent on each other, being subject to the powers of each other. And he doesn't believe in that stuff. And so my concern and what you see playing out is that he will undermine those things at every step he gets and set up a system where Americans no longer believe in that stuff. And if that's the road we're going to go down, that's the road we're going to go down again. The people always have to fight for this stuff. But the danger that he poses are not those policies. It is his abandoning of things like separation of powers, rule over law, free and fair elections. He's not going to have those things. [00:57:07] Speaker B: Anymore, to answer your question, too, because I tell people very, I try to tell people in the stories. So look, I say, look, my son, he's 13. He loves to eat pizza every single night. He can. Right. He wants to do these things. They make him feel good. There's a good reaction. Right. But if we're going to do things that make us feel good but they're bad for us, his long term is going to be horrible. So right now I understand, if I had a president that was doing, I can understand where you're coming from. [00:57:34] Speaker A: If I had a president that was. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Getting all these progressive things done more than anybody ever had, I would be, because I'm human, tempted to want to ignore all this stuff. The problem is everything that you stand for is up for grabs right now. Because if he decides he doesn't like you one day, then instead of going after a foreign government, going after Joe Biden, why can't he go after you? [00:57:54] Speaker A: There's no, Anthony Barr will show up. [00:57:56] Speaker B: At your house if you don't think that matters because you just, but this is what he did. And now you might get down a rabbit hole with some of these folks and they'll go off. And if they're there, they're there. And to me at that point, they're no longer my target. If I can get them the reasoning I want to get the people that understand that America as we see it is under siege. [00:58:17] Speaker A: No, you're right. We can't have the attorney general, Bill Barr, William Barr out here working with foreign governments or local governments trying to investigate his political opponents. [00:58:29] Speaker C: I agree. My question was going to be back to the China thing because remember, part of what's happened in the past week that has gotten everyone more kind of upset about wanting to impeach the president and all that was that not only Ukraine, but apparently he asked China for information on both Biden and Elizabeth Warren when he was on a call with the president of China in June. So I think going back to you guys point said he asked for it publicly. I know, but that's my kind of point of where if we're talking to someone who's turning off the concerns about why that matters. And that's where I'm going. Right. Like we just got done a few minutes ago, talking about the need to address China from a trade know, because we all know that theft of intellectual property, what they've been doing, and he himself hammers about the trade deficit and all that. So that's, to me, where it becomes dangerous. Right? He's asking a government for favors against basically his political rivals or private citizens. They might bring that up during a trade negotiation with him. Right? [00:59:41] Speaker A: You don't even have to play it out that they can say, okay, yes, we'll do that if you do this for us and this for us can be against us. [00:59:47] Speaker C: Let Huawei be in here. [00:59:50] Speaker B: But look, we can say this all day. Tune back to your point. There's some people that we're not going to convince, and we shouldn't spend any more time trying to convince them. We got to get people that we can't convince and then to get them to take the next step, because you will spend a lot of time with people wasting it. There's actually a rule in marketing. Right? And this goes towards this, too. If you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one. We can't convert everyone. And it's okay for them to have that point of view. We just got to make sure that enough people understand the consequences. And I believe with the right leadership and the right articulation of the message, we can move enough people to get off of this nonsense. But we got to be vigilant and we have to be consistent that he's betraying our. Had a Republican was the first one. Joe Walsh was the first one to say he's a traitor to a traitor to our nation, not Democrats. He is a traitor. Say it. Have some conviction. Whatever you want, whatever word you want to choose, people respect. So there will be people that won't agree with it, don't like you. At the end of the day, who cares? This time you're right. Go with conviction and move forward. Let's end this miserable chapter of America and move to something better. [01:01:07] Speaker A: Get back to being like. As you know, some people are going to believe what they want to believe no matter what. When the president says that he's making policy based on actions that he judges in his great and unmatched wisdom, his words, not mine, then we know that stable genius. [01:01:25] Speaker B: Stable genius. [01:01:27] Speaker A: And those are the principles that we're guided by. It's no longer government of the people, by the people. And for the people. It is stable genius. And in his great none match wisdom. [01:01:40] Speaker C: All right. [01:01:41] Speaker A: Well, I mean, Rob, that sums it up about as good as it can be summed up. And so I want to say thank you for everybody for joining us. Like us, rate us, review us, follow us. You can check out the flagship program as well. We release those normally on Wednesdays and Fridays. Send us a question, send us a comment if you want us to discuss something. We'll be back on here in about two weeks and until know. I'm James Keys. [01:02:03] Speaker B: I'm Rob Richardson. [01:02:04] Speaker C: I'm too day of Atlanta. [01:02:05] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us.