[SPEAKER_16]: Hello and welcome to useful idiots.

[SPEAKER_16]: I'm Katie Helper.

[SPEAKER_13]: I'm Erin Mattay.

[SPEAKER_13]: Thanks so much for being here.

[SPEAKER_13]: Our website is useabilityitspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_13]: Go there to support the show and get bonus content on this week's show.

[SPEAKER_13]: we are talking about Trump flirting with nuclear arm again and why not Joe Biden did it.

[SPEAKER_13]: So why shouldn't Trump follow suit?

[SPEAKER_13]: He's just announced that the U.S.

will be conducting some nuclear testing.

[SPEAKER_13]: Why not, right?

[SPEAKER_13]: It's just a test.

[SPEAKER_13]: Who cares?

[SPEAKER_13]: I was a big deal.

[SPEAKER_13]: And we're going to get some great insight into why that's actually not such a great idea from Dr.

Ivana Nicolich Hughes, who is president of the nuclear age, peace foundation and [SPEAKER_16]: And this weekend, we bring you an extra interview that I did with Romicuri, the great analyst, and we talk about the Gaza quote-unquote ceasefire.

[SPEAKER_13]: All right.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, we have a special announcement for fans of U.S.

Soviets.

[SPEAKER_13]: We are changing up our format now.

[SPEAKER_13]: Monday morning, the hottest show at 10 a.m.

Eastern time on YouTube, that's the same.

[SPEAKER_13]: That is free for all.

[SPEAKER_13]: That's not that's not going anywhere.

[SPEAKER_13]: Now though on Fridays when the show comes out, things will be a little bit different.

[SPEAKER_13]: First of all, there will be no more Thursday throw down your midweek dose of media madness.

[SPEAKER_13]: That is being retired.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's the end of the Thursday throw down franchise.

[SPEAKER_13]: And now we're doing the end of an era.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's the end of an era.

[SPEAKER_13]: But now we're basically doing everything on Friday.

[SPEAKER_13]: So the Friday show will come out.

[SPEAKER_13]: everybody will still get the interviews we do.

[SPEAKER_13]: In this case this week we have two interviews for you.

[SPEAKER_13]: Subscribers will get the extended versions of the interviews.

[SPEAKER_13]: And if you want a recap of all the funniest craziest clips of the week and what is now going to be called the Friday free for all except it's paywall.

[SPEAKER_13]: Then you have to be a subscriber.

[SPEAKER_13]: So what remains free is our interviews.

[SPEAKER_13]: And if you want to extend an interviews you have to become a subscriber.

[SPEAKER_13]: You split it's podcast.com.

[SPEAKER_13]: And if you want, what is now basically a merger of the Thursday, throw down plus the four basic food groups?

[SPEAKER_13]: Right, exactly.

[SPEAKER_13]: Friday, free for all, except it's paywall.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: You have to be a subscriber.

[SPEAKER_13]: You split it's podcast.com.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, but of course you still get that great Monday morning.

[SPEAKER_16]: That's not going anywhere.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, and what you give us is you give me the gift of letting me finish my book, okay?

[SPEAKER_13]: Which I'll be working on now for way too long.

[SPEAKER_13]: And we needed to cut something back.

[SPEAKER_13]: So this is our best solution.

[SPEAKER_13]: We're still giving you tons of free content.

[SPEAKER_13]: Oh, yeah, so much.

[SPEAKER_13]: And we're also saying thank you to our pink subscribers by a goth-free number extended Friday free for all, except it's been well.

[SPEAKER_16]: And also this led to me, finished my documentary.

[SPEAKER_16]: And about Holocaust survivors protesting the genocide.

[SPEAKER_16]: And we know that everyone watching this show is excited for Aaron's book and for my documentary.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, thank you to our audience for continuing to support the show.

[SPEAKER_13]: We are excited to embark on this new era of content delivery with you.

[SPEAKER_13]: With that, let's get to what is now going to be a preview for everybody.

[SPEAKER_13]: A preview of the Friday Free for all.

[SPEAKER_16]: So this is an actually free Friday Free for all.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, so it's a free preview of the soon-to-be pay-walled free Friday Free for all.

[SPEAKER_13]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_13]: The most misnamed segment really in independent media because it's not free for all, it's going to be paywall.

[SPEAKER_13]: But this week, it's free for all.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: And let's start with the domestic front where the Trump administration is presiding over a government shutdown that among other things is about to deny millions of people food assistance benefits through SNAP.

[SPEAKER_13]: Now, it doesn't have to [SPEAKER_13]: Because what the Trump administration could do is tap into a contingency fund to pay for snap benefits, to make sure the people do not go hungry, but their Republicans are refusing to do that.

[SPEAKER_13]: And here's how speaker Mike Johnson explaining on CNN why that is.

[SPEAKER_14]: The reality is that this has been a stalemate for 30 days, and it's not just Democrats.

[SPEAKER_14]: You also have one of the most conservative Republican senators, Josh Hawley, who says, at least please move money around to feed people.

[SPEAKER_14]: Why not consider that?

[SPEAKER_00]: because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games with people's paychecks, their livelihoods, and if you do just part of this, it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it to do their basic job and that is reopen the government.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is very real and very serious and they can end it two day.

[SPEAKER_00]: they can do it right now that all they have to do is we just need five more Democrats in the Senate to help us reach the 60 vote threshold.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have enough Republicans to do the right thing on our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to do the right thing.

[SPEAKER_13]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_13]: So what is admitting there is that they're using people's food assistance benefits as leverage to get Democrats to cave and to get Democrats to cave on what?

[SPEAKER_13]: Democrats are demanding that Republicans agree to extend [SPEAKER_13]: subsidies for healthcare under Obama care.

[SPEAKER_13]: So Democrats are holding out for healthcare benefits and Republicans are so determined to deny them that they're willing to deny people food assistance when they could cover that food assistance by tapping into a contingency fund which they won't do.

[SPEAKER_16]: So 45 million Americans are going to lose snap benefits and that's more important to Johnson than making people's lives better.

[SPEAKER_13]: And this is after [SPEAKER_13]: My Johnson and their publicans cut $186 billion from snap the food assistance benefits and another 930 billion dollars from Medicaid so after cutting these programs now they're saying we're not even going to use a contingency fund [SPEAKER_13]: to keep providing people with the meagre snap benefits that they do get.

[SPEAKER_13]: And so they're just basically using hungry people, low-income people who need food benefits as leverage, and they're fight to deny other people, or there's maybe the same people of their healthcare benefits.

[SPEAKER_16]: They're being very well-rounded, and they're screwing over of the American people.

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[SPEAKER_13]: Now, Illinois Governor J.B.

Pritzker, he made a really shocking claim that not only are they not using the contingency fund to keep funding snap benefits, but they're even making it harder [SPEAKER_13]: for people to use this and that benefits that they currently have.

[SPEAKER_12]: This is what he said.

[SPEAKER_12]: They've done something insidious, the federal government, in addition to Donald Trump being willing to turn off snap benefits on November one, when they do have emergency funds available at the Department of Agriculture, the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, and they're choosing not to use it, but they've done something even more insidious.

[SPEAKER_12]: They've decided to shut down the snap machines.

[SPEAKER_12]: so that they can't be used.

[SPEAKER_12]: So even if we were to put money into snap accounts, they couldn't be accessed by someone who has a snap card.

[SPEAKER_13]: Sorry, snap recipient, no food for you says Mike Johnson and their Republicans.

[SPEAKER_16]: I mean, it's like, are they trying to be parodies of how evil they are?

[SPEAKER_16]: I don't understand.

[SPEAKER_16]: Like, usually they do a slightly better job.

[SPEAKER_16]: Don't they of [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, well, look, there are some Republicans who are not on board with this, uh, it was mentioned earlier in that Mike Johnson clip that Senator Josh Hawley is saying, come on, like, like, like, at least the feed people can be at least, who is not like, uh, deny food benefits to hungry people.

[SPEAKER_13]: Um, and someone else who agrees with him is Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Ted Cruz has found the answer as to why Marjorie Taylor Greene cares about people receiving health care and food benefits.

[SPEAKER_13]: And guess what?

[SPEAKER_13]: has to do with Marjorie Taylor Green also being a critic of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Joe, my advice is don't spend much time worrying about Marjorie is saying what I found as a public consistent pattern is that whenever an elected official decides that they're going to turn on Israel and the hate Israel, you will very quickly see every other policy out of their mouth become very, very liberal and so suddenly Marjorie's for massive government spending in taxes and she's for open borders and amnesty.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, fine.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is not where the American people are.

[SPEAKER_16]: Actually, Ted, that's exactly where the American people are, whether it comes to health care or Palestine is real Palestine.

[SPEAKER_16]: I mean, 60% of Americans say health care and other government funded agencies are underfunded.

[SPEAKER_16]: And, you know, while politicians are unwaveringly with Israel, the people aren't.

[SPEAKER_16]: I mean, it's just so, it's so funny that he pretends that he's in touch with the pulse of Americans and represents what Americans want, like nobody wants this, what he's doing.

[SPEAKER_16]: And also he's such an idiot, there was actually a really great segment where Tucker Carlson, like literally just disarmed him by asking him a question because Ted Cruz was saying the Bible demands that you support Israel and Tucker Carlson asked him to kind of elaborate on that and he was like, well, I can't name exactly where and why it says that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Growing up in Sunday School, I was taught from the Bible.

[SPEAKER_05]: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.

[SPEAKER_05]: And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: Those who bless the government of Israel, those who bless Israel is what it says.

[SPEAKER_05]: Don't say the government of it says the nation of Israel.

[SPEAKER_05]: So that's in the Bible, as a Christian, I believe that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Where is that?

[SPEAKER_05]: I can find it to you.

[SPEAKER_05]: I don't have the the scripture off the tip of my, you pull out the phone and use it's in Genesis, but so you're quoting a Bible phrase.

[SPEAKER_06]: You don't have context for it.

[SPEAKER_06]: You don't know where the Bible it is, but that's like ideology.

[SPEAKER_06]: I'm confused.

[SPEAKER_06]: So does that the current borders, the current leadership?

[SPEAKER_05]: He's talking with the political entity called Israel.

[SPEAKER_05]: He's talking about the nation of Israel.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yet nations exist, and he's discussing a nation.

[SPEAKER_05]: A nation was the people of Israel.

[SPEAKER_06]: He's the nation, the dissentance of the neighboring town.

[SPEAKER_06]: Two in Genesis is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu, right now.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it is.

[SPEAKER_16]: Anyway, he's an idiot.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, I love the idea that like being a critic of genocide in Gaza is now like a gateway drug to liberal policies as it's like March and Taylor Green is not becoming a bleeding heart liberal.

[SPEAKER_13]: By the way, I mean, she does not support open borders.

[SPEAKER_13]: I think we can be confident of that.

[SPEAKER_13]: All she said was on top of opposing mass murder of civilians in Gaza is that Republicans are doing anything for people who need healthcare benefits.

[SPEAKER_13]: And just people in our own family who's premiums are about to skyrocket.

[SPEAKER_13]: the subsidies under the health care act.

[SPEAKER_13]: So that's what she's talking from her own lived experience.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: So I just love the idea that like somehow marked your tail of the green because she's critical of Israel that's now a gateway drug to you know, be coming a diet in the wool up.

[SPEAKER_13]: liberal.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I mean, she has two really extremist views.

[SPEAKER_16]: We shouldn't be surprised.

[SPEAKER_16]: She thinks that Palestinian kids shouldn't be blown up.

[SPEAKER_16]: And she also thinks that people shouldn't die from preventable diseases because of healthcare insurance.

[SPEAKER_13]: All right, trying to foreign policy.

[SPEAKER_13]: The Trump administration, as we know, is ramping up a regime-change campaign if in a swell, it's deployed worships.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's assassinating people in boats in the Caribbean.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's, of course, maintaining the crippling sanctions that have decimated Venezuela's economy and caused.

[SPEAKER_13]: A lot of the same migrants that Trump demonizes when he tries to win a presidential campaign.

[SPEAKER_13]: And as part of the regime change campaign, you can also count on you can always count on a reliable corporate media to London regime change propaganda CBS is 60 minutes has been in this game for a long time.

[SPEAKER_13]: Sherylander, it's new leader Barry Weiss, it will continue that story tradition of demonizing foreign countries that we want to destabilize and overthrow.

[SPEAKER_13]: But here is some refreshing honesty, featured in one recent 60-minute piece about Venezuela.

[SPEAKER_13]: And it comes via James Story, who's a US diplomat, served as like a fake ambassador, stationed in Colombia.

[SPEAKER_13]: Whose job was basically to help over the government of Venezuela.

[SPEAKER_13]: And listen to what he said about why it'd be a good thing to have regime change in Venezuela.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very bad actor sitting on top of the world's largest known reserves of oil, plus the critical minerals that will fuel the 21st century economy, and he's in bed with our strategic competitors.

[SPEAKER_13]: So, yes, James story is being honest there, that Venezuela has oil and minerals.

[SPEAKER_13]: So, we want to steal, it's very simple.

[SPEAKER_13]: And also, they have the gall to be partners and allies of people we don't like, how dare they.

[SPEAKER_13]: Now, by the way, what's the funny about that?

[SPEAKER_13]: On top of the whole idea that like, states have the right to be allies and partners with who they want.

[SPEAKER_13]: I mean, that's kind of a basic principle of international relations.

[SPEAKER_13]: You think maybe after, [SPEAKER_13]: One country tries to destroy your country for like decades, watches multiple coup attempts as the U.S.

has done, not only under Maduro, but also under Shavas perform, that maybe a country like Venezuela is going to go and try to be friends with other people, not the country that's trying to overthrow you for a very, very long time.

[SPEAKER_16]: It's so ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_16]: And this guy, I love the way he's calling anyone else a bad actor, when he's literally acting on behalf of regime changers.

[SPEAKER_16]: Like he is representing America and representing Donald Trump and they're mission to illegally topple governments.

[SPEAKER_16]: And he can apply and I also just do love the fact that again, this is kind of one of those, you know, who said it trump or tombsky moments.

[SPEAKER_16]: It's like who said it?

[SPEAKER_16]: James or tombsky, you know, because Trump can be like a reason that we care because of course he's sitting on top of a sense of oil.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, I don't know what happens in diplomat school, but if you go attend a class on how to be a good diplomat, maybe they teach you in the first day.

[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, good actor means regime change in foreign countries, bad actor means resisting our machine change efforts.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, true.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: And maybe that's just something everyone learns and doesn't ever challenge.

[SPEAKER_13]: Certainly doesn't get challenged by outlets like CBS News, who might ask, hey, do we have the right to overthrow a foreign government?

[SPEAKER_13]: No.

[SPEAKER_16]: Right.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_16]: But you know what, he's a bad actor in that he's not, or maybe he's a good actor.

[SPEAKER_16]: If we were thinking about acting as the art of performance, because he's probably such a bad actor that that's why he told the truth.

[SPEAKER_16]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_16]: He couldn't say we're bringing democracy there.

[SPEAKER_16]: He had to say they're sitting on oil.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, I mean, having taken acting classes myself, you know, they want you to get the most, you know, honest, were on moment of the character.

[SPEAKER_13]: So I'd say he's a, he's a great actor because he, because he told the truth, you know?

[SPEAKER_16]: Oh yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: I think the last thing discussion here on the overlap between theater and politics.

[SPEAKER_16]: I know, seriously.

[SPEAKER_16]: Wait, Aaron, when did you take acting classes, by the way?

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, my whole life, you know, as a child, as a young adult, as an adult, as an adult, you know, really?

[SPEAKER_13]: Oh, you sure, yeah.

[SPEAKER_16]: And adult?

[SPEAKER_16]: How old were you when you last took an acting class?

[SPEAKER_13]: Uh, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_13]: Uh, this last one I took maybe 10 years ago, five years ago.

[SPEAKER_16]: I did not know that.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_13]: Well, listen, uh, on top of all the exciting stuff happening, um, with a regime change operation in Venezuela, there's maybe some regime change about to happen in New York City.

[SPEAKER_16]: Well, in Charlotte, there will be a regime change, and that will come in the form of obviously Zoram Mamdoni.

[SPEAKER_16]: But a lot of people have been doing a lot of fear mongering about Zoram.

[SPEAKER_16]: They like to pretend that he's an extremist, a fundamentalist, an anti-Semite.

[SPEAKER_16]: And someone, I think, had a very interesting way of making the point, claiming that it's ridiculous for Jews to be supporting Zoran.

[SPEAKER_16]: This person is Benj Erbie.

[SPEAKER_16]: He said this on Newsmax.

[SPEAKER_16]: And just listen to the case he makes for why Jews are falling for Zoran.

[SPEAKER_15]: I guess now it's more so like you know chickens for KFC with this whole month I mean they were like cows for McDonald's here look I mean I don't know why any person who would be a Jewish person who'd be an American person Someone who lived through 9-11 which I did in New York City being born and raised here would be ready to vote for someone who has such [SPEAKER_15]: ties to extremists.

[SPEAKER_15]: And there's nothing wrong with like actual American Muslims, especially you have like nation of Islam who are like black Americans and people like that.

[SPEAKER_15]: But this guy, my dummy, there's so many extreme people that he's for just pause.

[SPEAKER_16]: I mean, I think that's really cool that he's coming out and saying that there's nothing extreme messed about the black nation of Islam.

[SPEAKER_16]: Just because I think that there's probably a lot of things that Ferrican says that people would [SPEAKER_16]: So this guy is an interesting political like spectrum where Zorim and I'm Donnie's an extremist and fair can is a [SPEAKER_15]: is, uh, I don't know, run in the mail moderate been aligned with and for this to have happened in New York City just 24 years ago and like this is where we are like we were the city of like, Julianne even like Bloomberg and it's like, what the heck has happened?

[SPEAKER_15]: I mean, we only have a few more weeks ago.

[SPEAKER_15]: I mean, ghostly will go home.

[SPEAKER_15]: Well, anybody that's not this guy promising all this free stuff because that's what's putting us all coalition together.

[SPEAKER_15]: The promise of free stuff makes Jews forget that like he's an extremist.

[SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, okay.

[SPEAKER_16]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_16]: Thank you for being such an ally to the Jews, sir, by saying that we are being seduced and distracted from our own self-interest because we're being lured by free stuff.

[SPEAKER_13]: The fact is, the most prominent Jewish opponents of Momsdani are not into the idea of him offering quote unquote free stuff.

[SPEAKER_13]: And by that, they mean just free buses for low-income people.

[SPEAKER_13]: They have that idea.

[SPEAKER_13]: People like Bill Lachman, they don't want to have a city where low-income people have services and have support, you know.

[SPEAKER_13]: And, um, [SPEAKER_13]: But yes, the idea that like Jews are flocking to his campaign for brief stuff.

[SPEAKER_13]: I mean, that is a nice, that good old anti-Semitism that is exactly the kind of thing that Zara Mamdani is accused of, it shows it's actually so often.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's critics who are guilty of the thing they falsely accuse him of.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to the ADL condemning this.

[SPEAKER_16]: I'm sure they will, because they're so careful and sensitive when it comes to tropes and stereotypes.

[SPEAKER_16]: And what more famous tropes there than the Jews obsessed with recent stuff, the cheap Jews.

[SPEAKER_16]: So Jonathan Greenblatt, really looking forward to it.

[SPEAKER_13]: All right, let's turn now to Katie Miller, who also loves to use the so-called antisemitism card, too.

[SPEAKER_16]: Wait, Aaron, she just calls it out, Aaron.

[SPEAKER_13]: She just, she has a problem with bigotry.

[SPEAKER_13]: I would pass it that she just uses it to smear critics of Israel.

[SPEAKER_13]: And she was in a debate with Jank Wieger of the Amtarks on Pierce Morgan, and this how it went down.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why is it that every time someone's to criticize them, don't meet immediately, comes back to the Jews and the anti-Israel movement, instead of actually talking about his viewpoints, which is that to me.

[SPEAKER_07]: You just said it.

[SPEAKER_07]: You always do that.

[SPEAKER_07]: We say Israel you say Jews.

[SPEAKER_07]: We say Israel is a government.

[SPEAKER_07]: Please don't make it about Jewish Americans and you come back to the Americans.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's more like you?

[SPEAKER_03]: What's your home with you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is it Israel a Jewish state?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes or no?

[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah [SPEAKER_03]: It's quite frankly, I'm really second tired of this race as big as a rhetoric that can come from people like you against my husband, against my family, and my children.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am raising.

[SPEAKER_16]: OK, by the way, remember, she's married to Stephen Miller.

[SPEAKER_16]: So when he says that the Miller's are lying, that's what he's referring to.

[SPEAKER_16]: And also, as we've covered before, she does lie, and she's a cheat, and she gone trouble in college for stealing the newspapers that had, like, [SPEAKER_16]: and for her political college, political opponent in it.

[SPEAKER_13]: By the way, how many families, how many children have the Miller's threatened, you know, with Miller's architect, the crackdown on undocumented immigrants and I'm not gonna mention their support for the genocide and Gaza.

[SPEAKER_13]: So, I mean, come on.

[SPEAKER_16]: But by the way, so there's some more great stuff here.

[SPEAKER_16]: Jewish children in this country, in which you read them to this.

[SPEAKER_07]: What a weirdo!

[SPEAKER_03]: here's I'm going to be done with this if you're going to allow racist and bigoted tax against one of your commentators just for the state that he will not don't I'm speaking can you see to be clear to be clear to the comments he started a line that's in the middle of line that's not coded language for therefore we are Jewish okay the the Miller's lie is there for we she's so dumb she doesn't even know how to get out sentence is that not coded language for therefore we are Jewish no you mean [SPEAKER_16]: No, that doesn't, I don't even know how to respond to that syntactically.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here's where you have what, where you can't get the God.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're so, Katie, if I can't get it, what's happening here?

[SPEAKER_13]: She's losing the debate and so trying to call the referee by pulling out the antisemitism card, everyone's so tired of it, you know, you used to intimidate some people.

[SPEAKER_13]: Like, here's Morgan might have been intimidated by that.

[SPEAKER_13]: Maybe a few years ago, but this doesn't work anymore.

[SPEAKER_13]: it's so lame.

[SPEAKER_13]: And you know, Jank, I gotta say, is really effective at mocking the absurdity of that.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: I wonder if Jank watched wrestling when he was growing up because he said it was the energy.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_13]: He doesn't have the energy, but it's good.

[SPEAKER_13]: It works really well in that format.

[SPEAKER_13]: And [SPEAKER_13]: Later on on the interview, she literally threatens to have Jank deported because he's a naturalized U.S.

citizen who's born in Turkey.

[SPEAKER_13]: And so she talks about how, like, his, his immigration papers better be in order.

[SPEAKER_13]: And the implications her husband, Steven really got to get Jank deported.

[SPEAKER_13]: So I've been trying to, like, pull up the antisemitism card, but doesn't work.

[SPEAKER_13]: Trying to call Pierce Morgan in for help.

[SPEAKER_13]: She literally threatens Jank with deportation.

[SPEAKER_16]: That's your calling, not just the anti-Semitism car, but pretending to oppose bigotry and racism.

[SPEAKER_16]: She's how's the guy who was born in Turkey, she's going to deport him, get him to deport him.

[SPEAKER_13]: But look, you know, it's not enough for the millers to have, like, you know, to have Stephen Miller being one of the most powerful people in government.

[SPEAKER_13]: He's basically, you know, co-running the country.

[SPEAKER_13]: Um, if she wants to be a public figure and have a podcast and try to be an influencer, then you're going to have to be able to handle some criticism.

[SPEAKER_09]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_13]: You know, it's kind of the bare minimum if you're going to be out there and you can't just silence people by accusing them of being anti-Semitic and threatening to happen to port it.

[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, she's not she's she uses it is to I mean, it's always bullshit when people do that to describe people who are critics of Israel, but they usually use it slightly finer tool she really uses a blunt tool, you know what I mean, there's there's kind of an art to it, but that is just so [SPEAKER_13]: So that was the Friday free for all this week.

[SPEAKER_13]: We're actually making it free for all next week.

[SPEAKER_13]: It will be paywall.

[SPEAKER_13]: So yeah, if you want more content, please subscribe at Uslititspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_13]: Now we'll turn to our interview.

[SPEAKER_13]: This week, Trump made an announcement.

[SPEAKER_13]: He on true social, he said that guess what?

[SPEAKER_13]: We're going to be conducting nuclear testing.

[SPEAKER_13]: And this was based on [SPEAKER_13]: And impression that Trump seemed to have that other countries, including Russia, are conducting their own nuclear weapons testing when in fact they're not.

[SPEAKER_13]: Russia recently tested a nuclear capable missile, but not an actual nuclear warhead.

[SPEAKER_13]: There's a very, very big difference.

[SPEAKER_13]: And Trump was asked about this on his way back from a trip to Asia.

[SPEAKER_13]: And this is what he said.

[SPEAKER_02]: about receiving nuclear testing.

[SPEAKER_02]: What prompted you to do that right before the meeting?

[SPEAKER_10]: And then to do with others, they seem to open nuclear testing.

[SPEAKER_10]: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody.

[SPEAKER_10]: We don't do testing.

[SPEAKER_10]: But we've halted it years and many years ago.

[SPEAKER_10]: But with others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that we do also.

[SPEAKER_10]: And it seems to be just around the testing center like we're when.

[SPEAKER_10]: But we wouldn't be in the announced, you know, we have guest sets in the announced.

[SPEAKER_13]: All right, so there's a lot wrong with Trump's statement here, starting with the fact that other countries are not actually conducting nuclear test and we're going to talk about that and a whole lot more, including why Trump is making the world a lot more dangerous with his unfamiliarity with the basic facts and also his policies and so far, his refusal to engage in serious arms control.

[SPEAKER_13]: with Russia.

[SPEAKER_13]: With this week's guest, Dr.

Ivana Nicolich Hughes is president of the nuclear age peace foundation and a senior lecturer in the discipline of chemistry at Columbia University.

[SPEAKER_13]: Katie was on the road so I spoke to her about Trump's announcement and a whole lot more.

[SPEAKER_13]: Dr.

Ivana Nicolich Hughes, thank you so much for joining me.

[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you so much for having me.

[SPEAKER_13]: I want to start with your reading of Trump's announcement.

[SPEAKER_13]: So he puts out this social media post talking about how the US has more nuclear weapons in any other country.

[SPEAKER_13]: That's his first claim.

[SPEAKER_13]: I think we should scrutinize.

[SPEAKER_13]: But then he says, because of other countries testing their nuclear weapons program, I've instructed the Pentagon to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.

[SPEAKER_13]: So let's start with this latter claim here.

[SPEAKER_13]: First of all, what is he talking about when he talks about other countries testing programs because Russia and China, they're not carrying out nuclear weapons tests?

[SPEAKER_08]: Absolutely not.

[SPEAKER_08]: There are two ways to read this.

[SPEAKER_08]: One way is to say President Trump doesn't know what he's talking about and he's wrote something in the middle of the night and nobody who knows what he's talking about, check the post.

[SPEAKER_08]: and it just went out and really we should just set it aside and go back to living our lives.

[SPEAKER_08]: The second is the potential danger that this is actually something real and that he is talking about our resumption of nuclear testing which would be absolutely unprecedented.

[SPEAKER_08]: and has not taken place in more than 30 years at this point in this country.

[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, nobody has tested nuclear weapons in the 21st century except for North Korea, which tested six nuclear weapons underground since 2006.

[SPEAKER_08]: And that's that.

[SPEAKER_08]: In the 20th century, however, [SPEAKER_08]: the eight nuclear arms states besides North Korea, the current nuclear arms states besides North Korea, tested over 2,000 nuclear weapons, more than 500 in the atmosphere and under water, and then the remainder underground.

[SPEAKER_08]: So that was a very serious, and that we can talk a lot about that and what that has done to people to the planet and so on and so forth.

[SPEAKER_08]: But that is not what's happening today.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I think the part where President Trump might be confused is the news coming primarily out of Russia of the kind of vehicles [SPEAKER_08]: that they have been testing, that are new, that can carry nuclear warheads, that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.

[SPEAKER_08]: And in particular, in just the last, basically, ten days, or less than ten days, Russia has tested too much nuclear capable vehicles.

[SPEAKER_08]: And in fact, [SPEAKER_08]: But let's have them are nuclear powered.

[SPEAKER_08]: So one is a nuclear powered cruise missile that was first on October 21.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's called Buravestnik.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it's this missile that flew very long time, and they were touting that it was carrying a nuclear warhead.

[SPEAKER_08]: the on yesterday, having a hard time, it's, it's, it's all been happening so fast.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yesterday, President Putin announced that they also tested a nuclear-powered underwater drone or torpedo, this Poseidon, he was actually talking about in the last year, I think.

[SPEAKER_08]: claim to be basically impenetrable to, you know, missile defenses in invulnerable is a term that's been used that they cannot be intercepted.

[SPEAKER_08]: And so I think President Trump is confused about the missiles, which is what carries the [SPEAKER_08]: weapons, which are nuclear warheads, and the nuclear warheads, which really everyone stopped testing.

[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, the consequences have been devastating, and we've basically had the U.S.

has not tested since 1992.

[SPEAKER_08]: And there's actually an international treaty.

[SPEAKER_08]: There are two international treaties in regards to testing.

[SPEAKER_08]: The first is called the partial test band treaty.

[SPEAKER_08]: That was passed [SPEAKER_08]: and cruise-chev, they negotiated that in 1963 in the follow-up to the Cuban missile crisis, and they basically ended atmospheric and underwater testing.

[SPEAKER_08]: Do you pay join that treaty?

[SPEAKER_08]: France and China continue to test in the atmosphere, France until 1974 and China until 1980.

[SPEAKER_08]: But this was still a very, very significant achievement.

[SPEAKER_08]: Later on, the countries in the 90s got together to do what's called the comprehensive test band treaty.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the US actually signed that treaty, but never ratified it.

[SPEAKER_08]: And in fact, the US and a few other countries, China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan, [SPEAKER_08]: All have not ratified the treaty and in fact they all need to ratify the treaty in order for the treaty to come into force that said all except for North Korea have actually been behaving as if they were parties to the treaty everybody everybody stopped testing and then the kind of [SPEAKER_08]: move that's been destabilizing was Russia, which had previously ratified the treaty.

[SPEAKER_08]: Russia actually withdrew its ratification in 2023, and Russia's statement was that they wanted parity on all nuclear issues with the United States.

[SPEAKER_08]: So they withdrew from a treaty that the United States wasn't a party to.

[SPEAKER_08]: You know, setting all of that aside, no one's currently testing nuclear weapons, and so much of that post is still really it's sort of mysterious what what President Trump is actually talking about.

[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, so quick question.

[SPEAKER_13]: What if someone were to say, well, listen, what's wrong with a nuclear test?

[SPEAKER_13]: It's just a test and shouldn't we know whether these systems are working so what's the problem?

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so the word test actually, honestly, is just the wrong word for what took place in these more than two thousand actual full blown nuclear explosions.

[SPEAKER_08]: The largest test that the United States ever conducted took place in 1954 in the Marshall Islands.

[SPEAKER_08]: It was called the Bravo Test.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it had the energy yield equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.

[SPEAKER_08]: So Hiroshima flying in the city, [SPEAKER_08]: This thing was a thousand times more powerful.

[SPEAKER_08]: It had a mushroom cloud of, there was 25 miles high and 60 miles wide.

[SPEAKER_08]: These were, this was, there was nothing, you know, testing, testing about this.

[SPEAKER_08]: This was a full blown monster.

[SPEAKER_08]: The Soviets tested their largest hydrogen bomb was called the Tsar Bomba, and it was equivalent to 50 megatons, 55 zero.

[SPEAKER_08]: Bravo was 15 megatons.

[SPEAKER_08]: So this was more than three times bigger than the Bravo test.

[SPEAKER_08]: So more than 3,000 Hiroshima bomb equivalents.

[SPEAKER_08]: So these were absolute mass atrocities.

[SPEAKER_08]: These tests have quite literally, and again, [SPEAKER_08]: Right.

[SPEAKER_08]: So here in the United States, we tested the Nevada, the very first, again, quote unquote, test took place before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki that was Trinity in New Mexico.

[SPEAKER_08]: That one was conducted.

[SPEAKER_08]: The bombs were dropped actually from like 500 meters above the cities.

[SPEAKER_08]: And so the fallout, the energy, the blast was tremendous in that [SPEAKER_08]: why there was such a kind of flattening and destruction of the cities, but the radiation, which was of course present and has been absolutely devastating to the population that was exposed, it was still less than if you do what's called the surface burst, and Trinity in New Mexico was essentially a surface burst.

[SPEAKER_08]: Um, it was they just like, you know, put it a little bit of a ground and that there were people living in the vicinity, even though, you know, even not behind where the film describes it as, you know, there's no one there and there were people living and still, you know, [SPEAKER_08]: generations impacted by it.

[SPEAKER_08]: In the U.S.

we also tested the Nevada test site.

[SPEAKER_08]: Those tests it was a 100 atmospheric tests in the Nevada test site and another few hundred four hundred in the were done underground.

[SPEAKER_08]: The atmospheric tests were absolutely devastating to the population [SPEAKER_08]: and in particular to more to serve people living closer to the sites downwind of the sites, in places like Utah, in places like Salt Lake City, there was fallout quite literally all around the country.

[SPEAKER_08]: And this was because when these mushroom clouds go up in the air and [SPEAKER_08]: then it comes down when it rains or when there's a weather events and it just like splashes all around the country of where this fallout actually ended up and it depends on the winds and where the winds are blowing and what happens but it's mostly from the Nevada Test Site.

[SPEAKER_08]: mostly going east because the the Easterly typewence.

[SPEAKER_08]: And so it happened there.

[SPEAKER_08]: It happened the Soviets tested a lot in Kazakhstan.

[SPEAKER_08]: They had 456 tests there and estimated one and a half million people were exposed to very [SPEAKER_08]: large amounts of radiation in Kazakhstan.

[SPEAKER_08]: And then there was, I mentioned, the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, Marshall Islands Republic of Kiribas, the French tested in French Polynesian.

[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, my husband is right now at a conference.

[SPEAKER_08]: He's a physicist at Columbia.

[SPEAKER_08]: He's at a conference in [SPEAKER_08]: near Tejiri on this legacy of nuclear tests in the Pacific and also specifically the French test in French Polynesia, where the French tested 197 nuclear tests, they also tested another [SPEAKER_08]: dozen or so in Algeria.

[SPEAKER_08]: So, you know, this was happening all around the planet and these tests had really detrimental impact on local communities first and foremost, but also increase cancer rates.

[SPEAKER_08]: around the planet.

[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, there are people that you, you know, you might know people who get lung cancer.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the first question is how could this person have gone lung cancer when they actually never smoked a cigarette a day in their life?

[SPEAKER_08]: And we do know this smoking causes lung cancer.

[SPEAKER_08]: But there are other ways other things and risk factors.

[SPEAKER_08]: an exposure to plutonium, which from this long era of nuclear testing that was almost for if you count just the US Soviet and UK tests that was almost 20 years of nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

[SPEAKER_08]: And during that period and especially if you were a young child and you got exposed to plutonium that was going to do something to you later on in life.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the biggest irony, the saddest thing about these things is these were actually called war victims.

[SPEAKER_08]: Now, we think of the Cold War as having had no victims.

[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, forget Vietnam and all, not forget it.

[SPEAKER_08]: Obviously, it was terrible and devastating.

[SPEAKER_08]: But we think of the Cold War it's specifically between the US and Soviet Union that's not having had victims.

[SPEAKER_08]: And, in fact, the victims were created by their own governments.

[SPEAKER_08]: It wasn't Russian people or Soviet people being, you know, [SPEAKER_08]: killed by US nuclear weapons.

[SPEAKER_08]: It was people in the US being American citizens, being killed.

[SPEAKER_08]: And then, of course, this, also this legacy of going to other places, like the US did with the Marshall Islands and would care about.

[SPEAKER_13]: So going back to Trump statement, he seems to confuse a testing a nuclear capable missile versus testing a nuclear weapon itself.

[SPEAKER_13]: But he also seems confused on what the powers of the Pentagon are.

[SPEAKER_13]: But because he says, I've directed Secretary Heggsex, Heggsex of the Department of War to carry out testing.

[SPEAKER_13]: But is it as simple as that, can he just direct the Pentagon to test a nuclear weapon?

[SPEAKER_08]: It's not who was testing nuclear weapons in the past.

[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, sure at the time, the Department of Defense was involved and so on.

[SPEAKER_08]: But it was the atomic energy commission initially and that basically morphed into the Department of Energy.

[SPEAKER_08]: And they are still in charge of the nuclear weapons stockpile and they were in charge of the testing and my understanding is that, you know, currently we do these simulations that allow us to check whether these warheads are going to work and that we actually.

[SPEAKER_08]: at least learn something from the era of, especially atmospheric testing, but even underground testing has had devastating consequences in a lot of people.

[SPEAKER_08]: The US tested in Alaska where people really, really impacted by the, you know, the underground tests in some ways are sort of [SPEAKER_08]: locally and even all around the planet, but they're also really concentrate things, right?

[SPEAKER_08]: So you do this so-called test underground and now all that radiation is concentrated and if that leaks into the local environment that can be extremely dangerous, especially the water table and so on.

[SPEAKER_08]: So there have been really [SPEAKER_08]: negative impacts.

[SPEAKER_08]: But yes, he's confused on the number.

[SPEAKER_08]: That was a, that was really, in some sense, I feel like this is really a winner, even for him, you know, in terms of how many things you can be wrong about and by the way, the US doesn't have.

[SPEAKER_08]: the most nuclear weapons Russia does, Russia has a slightly, and it doesn't really matter, they both have way, way, way too many.

[SPEAKER_08]: In my opinion, any number over zero is too many, but there's still a difference between US and Russia having Russia like five and a half thousand, the US and the low five thousand.

[SPEAKER_08]: And then China is currently estimated to have [SPEAKER_08]: 600, which is, you know, a lot better than 5,000 plus on the other hand, China has really been increasing.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the estimate is the China will have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

[SPEAKER_08]: And President Trump also wrote something along the lines of China is going to catch up in the next five years.

[SPEAKER_08]: They're not going to catch up.

[SPEAKER_08]: They're not going to go to 5,000 in the next five years.

[SPEAKER_08]: that's also not going to happen.

[SPEAKER_08]: So yes, there are many, many things, and it's difficult, I think, as his election wasn't so many levels, and I think the presidency has been even more difficult than the election.

[SPEAKER_08]: I at least thought that he was maybe going to take this issue seriously, because he was the one president that was talking about [SPEAKER_08]: denuclearization.

[SPEAKER_08]: He was the one person that was talking about, you know, these weapons are wasteful, which they are.

[SPEAKER_08]: And with this, with this post, I think he's really done, done some really serious damage.

[SPEAKER_08]: Also just seemingly doesn't understand the very, very, very basic issues involved.

[SPEAKER_13]: and of all the issues to understand if you're the commander in chief, one would think that would be the issue of the nuclear weapons that can destroy the world many times over.

[SPEAKER_13]: And I want to actually ask you later about the issue of the arsenal of the US and Russia because the last remaining treaty, new start, which caps that arsenal, it's set to expire early next year and it's on Trump now, whether he wants to accept Russia's offer to withdraw it for to extend it.

[SPEAKER_13]: for another year, which is the most difficult.

[SPEAKER_13]: But before we get to that, I'm going to ask you about that later.

[SPEAKER_13]: I want to get your response to a few of Trump's congressional allies on his announcement of nuclear testing to the extent that he understands that that's what he's announcing.

[SPEAKER_13]: First, this is how Speaker Mike Johnton.

[SPEAKER_13]: This is what he said on CNN.

[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't spoken to the president about 48 hours, so I did not know he was going to say that, but I think it is an important thing for him to have said why, because we have demonstrated even in recent days that the only way to maintain peace is to [SPEAKER_00]: show strength is it's piece through strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of our principles that we try to advance here every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: We learn that during the Cold War, we know it's certainly true now.

[SPEAKER_00]: America is the last great superpower in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do not have a peer to peer adversary.

[SPEAKER_00]: China is trying to become that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in this dynamic that we have now in the world stage, America has to show strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it is an obvious and logical thing to ensure that our [SPEAKER_00]: I have a big air force base in my district, Barclay Air Force Base is the home of the global strike command.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two-thirds of nuclear triad commanded there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our airmen and all of those involved in our nuclear arsenal need to be well practiced.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they certainly are.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're ready and prepared, but we need to make sure that we know that we can maintain our strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's an obvious and logical thing to do.

[SPEAKER_13]: So that's how Speaker Mike Johnson and let's hear for one more and then we can get to your response.

[SPEAKER_13]: This is Senator Tom Cotton.

[SPEAKER_13]: He's speaking at the confirmation hearing for Admiral, for Vice Admiral Richard Corel who is nominated to be the commander of the US strategic command.

[SPEAKER_13]: And this is Senator Tom Cotton.

[SPEAKER_09]: Critics of our nuclear arsenal, [SPEAKER_09]: I like to rejoin that we use our nuclear weapons every single day, and we have for 80 years.

[SPEAKER_09]: Although we have not detonated a nuclear weapon and combat for 80 years, the very existence of them and their high state of readiness every single day for 80 years has deterred the kind of [SPEAKER_09]: major conflict.

[SPEAKER_09]: We saw twice in less than 20 years in the 20th century.

[SPEAKER_09]: Do you agree with me, Admiral, on the absolute necessity of both maintaining and modernizing our arsenal to preserve this deterrent effect?

[SPEAKER_13]: So there you go.

[SPEAKER_13]: According to both House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Tom Cotton, this basically, this keeps the peace by having this massive arsenal of [SPEAKER_08]: But the first reaction is to Mike Johnson because I'm [SPEAKER_08]: also confused about whether he understands what President Trump was saying and whether he understands what is it's take.

[SPEAKER_08]: The senator come clip is more relevant to the notion that we need nuclear weapons to keep us safe.

[SPEAKER_08]: And my response is that nuclear deterrence might work until the day it doesn't.

[SPEAKER_08]: Of course, there's a risk every time I even get into a car, right, that I'm gonna get into a car accident.

[SPEAKER_08]: But however small that risk in its real and it could happen, you know, if I die in the car accident, I mean, obviously that would be horrible for my family and loved ones and so on, but it's just me.

[SPEAKER_08]: There's a really big difference with saying, you know, this nuclear deterrence thing is working.

[SPEAKER_08]: There's a small risk that it won't work.

[SPEAKER_08]: Um, but that's okay, you know, because because I can take that kind of a risk if the risk we're discussing and Aaron, I just, you know, I always want to tell people, we're not exaggerating this thing of, you know, it's going to be the end of the world as we know it is not an exaggeration people, right comments when I speak about this they go, oh, but he wrote him and not the sat here just fine today of which they are.

[SPEAKER_08]: In 1945, one country had three nuclear weapons.

[SPEAKER_08]: Today, nine countries have 12 and a half thousand of them, and most are much more powerful than the weapons we used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[SPEAKER_08]: So, it's a completely different scale.

[SPEAKER_08]: The effects that we know would take place, things not just, that's from explosions, not just radiation.

[SPEAKER_08]: nuclear winter, it's ozone layer destruction.

[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, this is like, you know, just go and watch some science fiction movies or read books about the end of the world.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's what it would be.

[SPEAKER_08]: And for any of these people to accept that that's the, you know, that we can be totally [SPEAKER_08]: And just continuing definitely to live with this threat is actually really it's both ignorant and it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's pure hubris it's it's just people thinking that they you know they know better.

[SPEAKER_08]: Experts, including someone I really respect deeply, he's a professor at Stanford University, is the winner he would play the key role in cryptography.

[SPEAKER_08]: You know, the reason you can swipe your credit card and all this stuff is hidden and so on.

[SPEAKER_08]: This, um, his name is Marty Hellman.

[SPEAKER_08]: He estimates a yearly risk of nuclear weapons use to be 1%.

[SPEAKER_08]: Now, 1% may not seem like a lot, but if you play that game over and over and over again, over the course of, say, 80 years, which is, let's say, the lifetime of a child born today, the probability is more than 50%.

[SPEAKER_08]: This is, [SPEAKER_08]: utterly insane, utterly insane and we're again talking about destroying the life from the planet, like, right?

[SPEAKER_08]: Because we really don't like Russia or we really don't like China and, you know, we're just gonna go for it.

[SPEAKER_08]: The other aspect of all of this insanity around nuclear weapons is just the time scale.

[SPEAKER_08]: So if you haven't seen it, watch a household dynamite, [SPEAKER_08]: better yet read the book by Anna Jacobson nuclear war a scenario.

[SPEAKER_08]: 72 minutes till the end of the world.

[SPEAKER_08]: This is none of this is made up stuff.

[SPEAKER_08]: This is Annie talking and I've gone to know her really well over the last year.

[SPEAKER_08]: She's an amazing woman.

[SPEAKER_08]: Just this is like top generals, former commanders, former secretaries of defense, you know, people in those situation rooms, literally telling her this is what would happen.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the House of Dynamite sort of dramatizes this.

[SPEAKER_08]: kind of scenario, they're supposed to be a movie, you know, directly made for manny's book as well.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it's absolute insanity.

[SPEAKER_08]: And so for anyone to accept that we're just going to have nuclear weapons indefinitely and everything will always go right.

[SPEAKER_08]: is crazy.

[SPEAKER_08]: And of course, there's so many problems when you clear the trends.

[SPEAKER_08]: One being that you're now trusting, there's eight other leaders, like let's even assume our own leader is great.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it's gonna do the right thing here.

[SPEAKER_08]: You're now trusting eight other people [SPEAKER_08]: not make the choice of using this nuclear weapon.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the other thing that we know, the number I quoted from my department, 1% per year for nuclear weapons use.

[SPEAKER_08]: The piece that we know is the one nuclear attack in the kinds of simulations that are done in Washington all the time ends up in a full-blown nuclear war.

[SPEAKER_08]: Because once it starts, [SPEAKER_08]: There are all these policies in place.

[SPEAKER_08]: The US has this policy of long-term warning.

[SPEAKER_08]: This is a big part of the premise of dynamite that we don't wait to absorb the attack.

[SPEAKER_08]: We just attack whoever we think attacked us.

[SPEAKER_08]: And of course, that's this global nuclear war.

[SPEAKER_08]: That's the end of the world as we know it.

[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, well, if you're watching this and you thought that those clips from Mike Johnson and Tom Cotton were scary, I have one more for you.

[SPEAKER_13]: And this is a clip that I don't think got nearly the attention it deserved.

[SPEAKER_13]: I'm curious your thoughts on this.

[SPEAKER_13]: This is back in November 2024 so just it just over a year ago.

[SPEAKER_13]: This is right after Trump won the election, and that's when the Biden administration announced that they lifted restrictions on Ukraine, launching long-range attackants missiles into Russia.

[SPEAKER_13]: And right after Biden announced that Russia formalized the new doctrine that said that under its new policy that Russia could carry out nuclear strikes in response to any attack on its territory by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a nuclear armpower.

[SPEAKER_13]: And it was obvious what Russia was doing with Sigmund here, that even though Ukraine doesn't have nuclear weapons, if Ukraine uses US weapons to launch attacks on Russian territory, the Russia could carry out nuclear strikes.

[SPEAKER_13]: in response.

[SPEAKER_13]: And I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that and how dangerous that Russian policy is.

[SPEAKER_13]: But before we get to that, right after Russia announced this new doctrine, a top US military leader delivered his comments on this.

[SPEAKER_13]: His name is Admiral Thomas Buchanan, he's director for the plans and policy director at the US strategic command, which manages the US nuclear arsenal.

[SPEAKER_13]: And he said something extraordinary.

[SPEAKER_13]: First, he said, quote, [SPEAKER_13]: And then he also said this.

[SPEAKER_11]: We certainly don't want to have an exchange, right?

[SPEAKER_11]: I think everybody would agree if we have to have an exchange.

[SPEAKER_11]: then we want to do it on, then we want to do it in terms that are most acceptable to the United States.

[SPEAKER_11]: So it's terms that are that are most acceptable to the United States that puts us in a opposition to continue to lead the world, right?

[SPEAKER_11]: So we're largely viewed as the world leader.

[SPEAKER_11]: And do we lead the world in an area where we've considered loss?

[SPEAKER_11]: The answer is no, right?

[SPEAKER_11]: And so it would be to a point where we would maintain sufficient, we'd have to have sufficient capability.

[SPEAKER_13]: OK, so that is the admirable admiral who helps oversee the US nuclear arsenal.

[SPEAKER_13]: Speaking of think tank in November 2024, and basically, and when he's saying there is, we can prevent, we're ready to prevail in a nuclear exchange with Russia, and be we want to make sure that after in such an exchange that we maintain the world leader.

[SPEAKER_13]: So, you're response to this statement.

[SPEAKER_13]: And to hear the rest of the interview, please go to useful idiotspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_16]: Well, that was fascinating.

[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, and for the full extended interview with Dr.

Ivana Nicolich Hughes, go to usefloodyotspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's a great discussion.

[SPEAKER_13]: It's a very scary one, but a very important one.

[SPEAKER_13]: So check it out at usefloodyotspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_16]: And as if that's not enough content, we have some more free content for you coming down the pike this weekend.

[SPEAKER_16]: So on Saturday, I'm going to be releasing an interview that I did with the great analyst Romicuri, who's distinguished public policy professor at American University of Beirut.

[SPEAKER_16]: And we talk about the ceasefire colonialism and Zionist zombie militarism.

[SPEAKER_13]: All right.

[SPEAKER_13]: That is our show.

[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you so much for tuning in to use Floditz.

[SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you next time.

[SPEAKER_16]: Bye, everyone.

[SPEAKER_13]: Thanks so much for listening to and watching useful idiots.

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[UNKNOWN]: You