Showdown
Showdown Episode 53 5-2-24
(upbeat music) There we go. It always helps to have microphones. I wonder what year they were invented, but they certainly work very well in 2024. So we've got a microphone and this is Showdown. And I'm Mark Kason and it is the second of May. Isn't May Day coming for communists everywhere? I'm gonna have to check with Vic. I think he's the expert on May Day. For the commies? Oh, okay, well you see, you knew better than I. (mumbles) Yeah, exactly. So what we're probably going to do today, which we said we were going to do yesterday, but once again, I have to say it this way. Teenagers, yeah. But at any rate, hopefully my great teenagers, or at least some of them will show up here and they're gonna talk about a debate that they participated in last night, which was really very interesting because they said some things that actually surprised me, but I'm not gonna tell you what they are, although I will look forward to having them come on and we can talk about some of the suggestions that they had because they were explaining what they would do if they were running for president. And in fact, all five were on stage as democratic party candidates in a primary. GI wonder why they were all Democrats. But anyway, maybe we can ask them that too if they show up here shortly and again, hopefully they will. So lots of great things at Donald Trump's trial today, but before we get to any of that, the first thing when I turned on television this morning, as I woke up and popped up and got ready to head to school, the first thing, riots at UCLA. And of course, I graduated from UCLA and attended from 1968 to 1972. Could there have been better years to go to college? I don't think so. And anyway, it was extraordinary. And really, I have some friends out there who I have lightly suggested, ought to go up to campus and help me get some interviews at UCLA, which I suggested before it broke out into a riot situation. And they basically were not real excited about going there. Sort of an age issue. They didn't think that that would go over very well. But I'll tell you the truth, I think it would go over great. And I don't hope that this is going on into the summer and I doubt that it will, 'cause even when we were there, we didn't do it in the summertime. In the summertime, people took off, had things to do. Protesting was for during the year. Although it was a little different then, because today, clearly you've got people who are worried about Palestine, worried about the families that are dying in Palestine, over 34,000, quote, innocent families, innocent people have died as a result of the Israeli attack on Gaza. And I say in quotes because one of the things that everybody worries about, at least in the Israeli community, is whether somebody who appears to be not involved in any of the terrorism might possibly be smack in the middle of it. That's one possibility. Now, there's another possibility. And that is, and we know this happens, that Hamas is hiding behind innocent people, hoping that that will dissuade the Israelis from an all out attack because they'll be afraid of the worldwide reaction to killing innocent people, which would only be happening not because of the Israelis, but because of the fact that the Palestinians use innocent people as shields. Hospitals, for example, they bury themselves into hospitals and they hope that somebody will come after them and then they can say that the Israelis attacked a hospital. And frankly, it is working because to whatever extent Israel has gone too far, and they have, but to whatever extent they have gone too far, the fact is that Hamas is buried into the hospital. Hamas is trying to protect itself by using the hospital patients, innocent people as a shield. Of course, it's amazing how the whole world has turned upside down because people here on the left are suddenly worried about Palestine. And I have to tell you that I have worried about Palestine throughout all of these attacks that have gone on for as long as I can remember since I was a kid in the '60s. And here's the problem. If Israel is ever going to have peace, if they're ever going to have a decent life, if they're ever going to have safety, they're going to have to do more than just have an iron dome. They're going to have to find a way to live together next door to the Palestinians. Now, it's a lot more complicated than just saying that because the truth is Palestinians don't want an agreement. They've been offered deals. In fact, they were offered a deal under Bill Clinton that gave them virtually everything that they ever wanted plus lots of money all coming from the United States, which by the way is really a solution for most problems in the world is for the United States to spend money on people, give it out. Egypt, perfect example. 1980, Egypt made a deal with Israel and with the United States as well. And the deal was essentially this. A billion dollars a year goes to Egypt. If Egypt doesn't fight anymore, all they have to do is leave Israel alone. And honestly, you go back to the beginning of all this and I'm talking about the beginning of the modern fight, 1948, 56, 67, all led by Egypt. But no more because the United States pays Egypt a billion dollars a year to not fight. And Egypt takes the billion and then does not fight. Interestingly though, Egypt said something just maybe two weeks ago, they said, if you allow the Palestinians to get into Egypt, the whole deal's off, we'll quit then, then we'll fight because see, that's another part of this equation. North Africans, Arabs, they don't like the Palestinians. In fact, they don't want the Palestinians anywhere near their countries. Let's face it, Jordan's right there. Jordan could have taken Palestinians in a long time ago. Jordan doesn't want any Palestinians. Nobody wants them. Egypt's willing to go back to war if Palestinians come into their country. Nobody wants the Palestinians. And this has been a fact all the way back to 1948. Nobody wants to mess with them. And I gotta tell you, I don't even know the answer because I've asked and I don't know the answer. Nobody's saying, here's why. But I will tell you this. And this is one of my favorite movies and I show it to students all the time. Lawrence of Arabia. And the reason it's such a great movie is because it highlights the hatred. And I mean hatred, that the various Arab tribes have had against each other all the way back to World War I, probably before that, but the movie is from World War I. And it's an accurate story of Lawrence and the British involvement in Arabia, Damascus, Syria, all over the Arab world. And it's really a story that people should understand because back then they killed each other if you took a sip out of their wells. You know, if you took their water, you were dead. And here we are 100 years later from World War I, and the fact is this. There's a lot of hatred among these groups in the Middle East, not even counting the Israelis. Take them out of it, look at Iran. And you know, this is one of the things that I worried about from the very first moment when Donald threw out the deal that we had made with Iran. Because it's sort of a weird situation in Iran and I've got some Iranians that I'd like to bring. In fact, I will bring here to talk about the situation in their country because the people there don't like the government. They hate their government. They don't want any part of that government. In fact, if you ask them where would you be most comfortable? The answer is mostly Los Angeles. They're not interested in that mess, and it is a mess, and they have great power, and they will use their power at all different inappropriate times, especially to try to destroy Israel. Now, look, Iran isn't stupid. They may be horrible, but they're not stupid. And they know that a fight with Israel is the end of Iran because they cannot beat Israel. In fact, nobody in that area can beat Israel. And actually, over time, all these different countries have come together in order to attempt to crush Israel. Together, not one, not two, not three, not four, all of them together. And every single time Israel has rolled right back over them. Israel has great power. Where does Israel get the power? From us, we give Israel all the power that it needs. And that includes 100 nuclear weapons, which makes them one of the nine nuclear powers around the world. There's nobody that can wipe out Israel. They can talk about it. They can terrorize the population, but they can't wipe out Israel. Because if you push Israel too far up against the wall, Israel has the ability to do very, very dangerous and horrible things. Now, let me say, as a Jewish person, I want Israel to continue to exist. But I can also tell you that they are kidding themselves if they think that they can bully the Palestinians into giving up. It won't happen. The Palestinians have nothing. They're at the bottom. They are zero. They're despised by the Arabs, and they're sitting there in a very dangerous position, which has only been created by themselves. And every time that they push on Israel, all they do is get clobbered. And of course, that is what the fight is about today at UCLA, at Columbia, all over the country. You've got a whole lot of young people who don't really understand the entire problem from the beginning, how it got there, why it's there, and who is on which side. They just don't know it. All they know is, is that the United States is allowing Israel to do some really horrible things to what looks like mostly people who are defenseless and innocent, maybe, maybe. So if they're innocent, they're still dying. And if they're not innocent, well, nobody's gonna ever know it because they come across that way. And this isn't the first population that's ever played this game either. But the thing that's different here from other situations is that the United States and Israel would love to make a deal. They would love to stop this mess. They would love to just find a way for everybody to have a safe and secure existence over in that area and move on. Now that doesn't mean just leaving the Palestinians to whatever whim comes across the desert because the truth is the United States is willing to spend billions of dollars to build Palestine into a great successful country, small country, but nevertheless, they're willing to do it. And why? Because it's the most successful thing that the United States has ever done. We pay people, we help them build cities. We help them develop universities and every other kind of technology, we try to withhold the weaponry. Although sometimes we give that out too, Ukraine is one example, but of course we made a deal with Ukraine 30 years ago. We promised them that we would do this and we followed through. We're doing what we said we would do. Give them the support to fight off Russia if Russia ever showed up at their front door simply because they had nuclear weapons there. And we agreed that we would dismantle them. We wanted to, they didn't. But we said, look, we'll do it, let us do it. And then if you ever need our help, we're gonna be there. Now it's amazing that people in the United States don't understand that story. So here you got people saying, well, we don't wanna give anything to Ukraine. Who are they? Well, here's who they are. They're a country who we promised that we would defend separate from NATO. We said we would do it and we're doing it. We did exactly what we promised them. We're giving them those weapons and we're giving them the support so that Russia can't do anything to them. And we promised because we wanted to dismantle their nuclear weapons. Ukraine didn't know what to do with the nuclear weapons. They were just unaware, they had them. But it was the Soviets who were coming into Ukraine and putting those weapons together and making them operational. So here they are, into the Soviet Union, they've got these weapons. The United States says, wait, wait, wait, wait. You don't know what to do with these things. But we do. We're gonna dismantle them. We're gonna get them out of here and we will support you. You won't have to worry. You don't need a nuclear weapon. You've got us. That was the deal. That you could turn around 30, 40 years later and say, (laughs) we don't go by our deals. But again, if you do that, then you'll never have any deals ever again. So when you make a deal, you gotta stick with your deal. So that's one part of it. Now the other part of it is we know what Hitler did and we know what Putin's doing, which is trying to follow the Hitler game plan. I'm surprised the Putin doesn't understand what happened to Hitler with that game plan. Obviously it wasn't such a great idea. But here we are, not so stupid. Not so stupid at all. Because we're trying to avoid World War III because no one can win. And the Russians know that too. Vladimir Putin knows it. Maybe he doesn't care possible. A lot of people say 70 years old, maybe he's sick. Who knows? Maybe he'll do anything and just take a chance. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. What's the difference? He's gonna be gone anyway. If the whole world's gone, he's not that upset. But it's not that simple. Has Nikita Khrushchev found in the 1960s. There are other people in Russia besides the guy who runs the place. And those other people have families, friends. They want their lives. I mean, they're willing to go along with the government up to a point. But if you tell them this is it, we're gonna destroy the entire world. Those people are liable to come over to the head guy, grab him by the throat and pull him out of there. So that's sort of an interesting problem that Putin's got because he can sit there and rattle those nuclear weapons all he wants, but can he use them? Probably not. Probably not. Not unless he can wake up in the middle of the night when nobody else is there and find a button to push. And nuclear weapons don't really work like that. There's just not a button. If there were a button, maybe. Maybe somebody could fight him over the button, but there is no button. So it's a process. And he's not going to be able to do it without other people supporting him in that. And those people aren't that crazy to be dead. He might be, but they aren't. So, you know, these things are not surprising. You know, Hitler had the same problem. People in Germany wanted to kill him because he was going berserk. So, you know, and I'm not even talking about the Jews because they didn't care about that. What they were worried about is that they were going to lose the war. That's what they were worried about. But at any rate, they did. They lost. But it was the second time that they lost. And the first time that they lost, we did punish them. The whole world did. We told them, "You are going to pay enormous amounts of money." And Germany was forced to pay whatever they could come up with. And it crushed the German economy. They had inflation. They had all kinds of disruption within their country. And then, of course, came the Great Depression. And everybody was messed up. So, that's not necessarily a great plan. It wasn't a great game plan in 1918. And lo and behold, the United States government used its head, Cordell Hall, George Marshall, George Cannon, all of these people came up with the idea that the United States would take its resources and pour them into Germany. Pour them in, into Germany, into Japan, and look what we've got. The opposite of the result after World War I. We've got Germany, our friends. We've got Japan, our friends. They are peaceful. They are democratic. They are not interested in any problems. They're interested in making money. That's what they want. That's what we've brought them to. And it worked. And it was our money that did it. Without our money, nothing would have happened. They would have been left useless. Not now, because we gave them everything. Now, do we have the responsibility to give everybody in the world everything that they need in order to keep peace? Pretty much, yes. Because it's in our best interest. In our best interest, the whole world would be peaceful. Nobody would be fighting. Nobody would be killing anybody. And if you can create that, you can make an awful lot of money. And the Chinese are not stupid about this either. They know that as well. As long as they think that they have to just stay peaceful to make their money, they'll do that too. Now, the one thing that they might do is if they thought that the United States was being run by Donald Trump, who was in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, and who was giving guarantees all over the world, do what you want, we don't care. Just pay me. Under those circumstances, China would be very quickly going after Taiwan, very quickly. I mean, you couldn't stop them because they would love it. I mean, that's all they want. But they don't want to do it if they have to fight with the United States because that's not worth it. They've got enough economic problems over in China right now. So they don't want to deal with that. All they want to do is just make some money. And if they can get Taiwan, great. But that's only going to happen if they can get Donald Trump to cosign everything. If they can get Trump to say, don't worry, take what you want, give me my share. Yeah, that would work. Or maybe you couldn't even do that because maybe Putin wouldn't allow him to do that. Maybe Putin would say, Donald, here is your share. Take it and be satisfied. That might be the way they would work that out. But the point is China is not going to go running off crazy unless they think they can get away with it. And right now, they don't think they can get away with it. So they'll just sit here quietly as they have for decades and wait because the Chinese feel that way. They feel that they can wait anybody out, that they could go for decades, they could go for 100 years, 500 years. That's just the way they look at it. So they'll wait. They're not going to destroy the world over this. But they do want Taiwan back. They do want that. But not to take the risk of destroying everything. 'Cause they have some things going pretty well right now for themselves. Although, again, you can see how people get everything wrong. One of the favorite things that people like to say, and especially on the right, they love to say China owns us. And the way they came to that decision is that we issue bonds. And those bonds pay our debts. When we borrow money, we do it through issuing bonds. And we use all different varieties. Six months, one year, five years, 10 years, 30 years. But it so happens, it has been really cheap to do this in very short-term increments. And so we haven't paid a lot of interest at all. Unfortunately, the rates have gone up. And those short-term rates, especially, have gone up to five and a quarter, five and a half percent. They were almost zero. So all of a sudden, the United States government is having to pay real money to pay back some of these loans. But it's $1 trillion, $1.3 trillion to China. The rest of the world, maybe another $20 trillion. And then 10 trillion, we owe ourselves. And believe me, that's something people don't know. And hang on a second here. You know, it looks to me. Joe, do you see my kids here at all? - Yeah, there's no video. I'm working with everybody. - Okay, so they're coming. Okay, very good. 'Cause I see CJ trying to... Okay, very good. Okay, so I've got CJ. And CJ, you were actually the winner yesterday in the big debate, right? - Yes. - Did you love it? - Yeah, it was fun. - Okay, well, give me a second. I know you're just walking around out there, and that's no problem, you're fine. So if you hang on, I got a few bills I got to pay. And then as soon as we do that, we'll come back and talk to you about what you did last night. Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about, because I'm starting to really get hungry, and that is the possibility of getting out of here quickly at the end of the show, and rushing to wenties. You know, wenties is at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road, and the food is terrific. It really is. Now, they've got smoked meats, they've got wings, they've got pizza, I mean, great pizza. You can't go wrong. And patty melts, which I love. Babyback ribs, that's something that I just really love. And when you come to the onion rings, I realize I'm all into keeping my weight down and eating healthy, but onion rings, they're good. So anyway, you go to wenties at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road, you get all of this great food, and then on top of the great food, you've got ban. So really for the price of a meal, you can actually get yourself a new friend. I mean, you may be out there, you know, you may be one of these people eating dog food and sending all your money to Donald Trump. You may be desperately looking for a friend. Wenties is the place to go. I can't guarantee you he'll replace the dog food, but you know, you'll probably need money for that. But wenties is at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road, it's a great place, and soon enough in Defiance, Missouri. That's wenties. Now, if you're looking for jewelry, you can go to 4506 Hampton and you can talk with my friend, Al, who will tell you everything about the designs that they create, and then also how you can work with him to tell him what you want, and they'll create it through their professionals as well. I mean, it's a great jewelry store. They can do anything you want when it comes to your gems, when it comes to their gems, whatever it is, they're great, and on top of it all, they repair watches, and they just do everything right. They buy and sell coins, they buy and sell jewelry. The place to go is 4506 Hampton, and that is Jules on Hampton. Again, ask for Al, AJ, his son is there too. Great people, great jewelry, great store. Finally, right back to the suits. Everybody knows I love my suits, and I wear them all the time, not on the weekends, but during the week, when I'm trying to stay out of trouble, I figure if I've got a suit on, maybe somebody will take pity on me, and then I go to the St. Louis Suit Company, in Clayton on the corner of Forsyth and Central. They've got suits, they've got ties, they've got shirts, they've got dress shoes, they've got overcoats for the winter time, they've got straw hats for the summer time, they've got everything. Just one thing they don't have, they don't have my chucks. So you're gonna have to go somewhere else for your chucks, but everything else, they've got it. At the St. Louis Suit Company in Clayton, they have been there for 29 years. Jay and Nick and their family, they're always there, eager to help, they are great. Lots of more great stories about the St. Louis Suit Company. After the 29 years there, you can only imagine all the people who have shopped there over the years, and we'll talk to some of them down the line. Right now, we're gonna get back to the great ones at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School, and we're gonna start with CJ, I think I've got you there, CJ, I hope, yep, I do. So, CJ, when you did the debate last night, you were acting as if you would be a presidential candidate, right? - Yes. - Did you feel some pressure? A little bit considering it was my last debate at the school, but other than that, the content-wise, I was really confident when I was talking about it. - Okay, well, we'll talk about the content in a minute, but I do wanna ask, is there anything that you learned, or that you think you learned, about the pressure of running for office, or maybe the exhilaration of running for office? - One thing I learned about running for office is you have to stay grounded in what you believe, but also you have to appeal to other people, which is when a lot of politicians are made, they have trouble with killing to other people, and finding a balance between what is true to themselves and killing other people. - Yeah, have you ever come across any political people that went to Cardinal Ritter, 'cause there are quite a few who have, right? - Cory Bush. - Okay, so Cory, for sure. Anybody else? - Cory Bush, that's about it, no, Kevin Bailey. Kevin Bailey is one of them. - Okay. - Class of 1994, he's a special assistant to the mayor of St. Louis and the liaison to the board of Ottoman. - Yeah, and the interesting thing as well is that so many of the great black families in St. Louis have sent their kids through Cardinal Ritter, and I know that you're well aware of that, of course. Well, there's another one. Do you know the member of the board that went to Cardinal Ritter? - The member of the board of Ottoman? - Yeah. - No, I don't. - Okay, I can't think of her name right now. She'll kill me for not thinking of it, but at any rate, she's been up at the school a couple of times and talked with the students as well. You know, I've got a former student of mine from Vichon, who's coming up very soon to talk to the students, and he was very active. In fact, he reminds me a little bit of you, very interested in political things back 10 years ago. And four years ago, he ran for sheriff in the city of St. Louis. He had been a deputy sheriff, he lost. This year he's running, four years later, and it looks like he's gonna run away with it. And, you know, I've had a couple other students that have gotten into the state legislature as well. Are you looking forward to maybe something like that? - Yes, I'm looking forward to career and policy. That's what I'm going to school for, political science. - Okay, and where are you going? - I'm going to slough. - Oh, to slough, okay. Well, that's a good place. And not far from the Cardinal Ritter home base, either, right? - No, not at all. - Yeah, so, and let me ask one more thing on the personal level, how does your family feel about all your political interest? You there? - Yeah, I'm here. - Okay. - Oh, you say how does my family feel about what? - How about your political interest? - My family is very supportive of my political interest because they've known, ever since I was little, that I've been interested in politics and political figures in history, United States history. - Yeah, I talked to your dad for a minute last night. I know he's very proud of you, for sure. So let me ask you this, when you were going against the other students, what do you think was the biggest disagreement that you all might have had? - The biggest disagreement that we may have had was trans athletes for Israel and Palestine. - Yeah, okay, well, let's leave the trans alone for a second. And how about Israel and Palestine? What's your view on that? Because I know that you've got a pretty strong view and it's not exactly mainstream, but it's certainly becoming mainstream with young people, so tell me about it. - My view on Palestine is that Israel should not exist as an ethno-state within the region. I do believe that peaceful coexistence can't exist, but as of right now, within the existence of Israel as an ethno-state, I don't think peaceful coexistence coexistence between Palestinians and Israeli can happen. - Yeah, and do you feel that there would be any reception for what you're suggesting, anywhere in the world? Do you think that people would go for that? And politics are just anywhere in the world? - Well, anywhere in the world? - Yeah, I believe it's white. - Yeah, leaders around the world, countries that would say, okay, we're gonna just wipe out Israel, you think? - I don't believe in like ethnic crazy in Israel. I just believe in like a dissolution of the state. Just like, kinda what happened with the USSR, like just a dissolution, not a displacement. - Because there's so many people there in Israel right now that I don't think it's ethical to move them again before else and the whole thing happens again. - Yeah, but you have to admit that Israel is a very successful economic unit, right? - Yes. - And it's only really because the United States funded them from the beginning, right? - Yeah, yeah, because the US and British back here. - Yeah, but mostly the US, 'cause Britain by the end of World War II was really pretty wiped out. But let me ask you this, what about if the United States came into Palestine and said, we'll give you unlimited money to build yourselves up so that you're at least as successful and if you can do it, maybe more than Israel. - Well, how would that hit you? - I believe if you gave Israel and Palestine equal funding, I don't, I believe that it was just enticed to come from Israel further. I believe that Israel needs to be held accountable for what it's doing to the Palestinians and those who are involved, like Netanyahu and I forgot the Indian official's name, Eli Cohen as well, they need to be held accountable for what they're doing and the same on international media about Israel and Palestine. I feel like one thing that I really disagree with that Netanyahu did was when he bombed a rapper, well, he's actually actively bombing a rapper right now at the same time as the state's firing for Palestine. - Boy, he's getting ready too, yeah. Yeah, well, how about this one? Tell me about, how much do you know about it or what do you think about each of place in all of this? - The only thing I know about Egypt and Israel coming in the conflict is when Egypt's is a design opulence and this is the conflict. I believe they're like, Egypt's in possession of it right now, right? That's what I'm gonna say. - Egypt is in what? - In possession of the sign opulence. - Oh, sure, yeah. - Yeah, that's the only thing that I know really about Egypt and Israel is coming in the conflict other than that. - I really am not world-based. - Okay, well, so here's an example. The United States, well, first of all, Egypt used to fight with the United States like every five or 10 years over this whole Palestinian situation. And in 1980, the United States made a deal with Egypt and said, we'll give you the same money that we're giving to Israel if you stop fighting them. And 40 years ago, Egypt said, we'll take the deal. And so for 40 years, they have not been fighting anymore and they get billions of dollars from the United States. And that ended the fighting right there. Does that sound interesting? - That does sound interesting, but I don't want America to fall into a lapse of going money at East Falls, like, especially the Middle East. I think really America needs to, unless it's not in American interests, because most of the time when people use the words like American interests and that, it usually do some economic means. But I think that America is going to be a build with super power and this ability to do more than we do itself from our Middle East. - Yeah, sort of interesting, all of you guys last night, every single one of you agreed that the United States has got to be more careful with its money and needs to find some way to either pay down the debt or reduce our borrowing. Is that, would that be fair to say? - Yes, because like, for example, I believe that when the United States throws money at issues like the Soviet and the Soviet, I forget where, that ends up back firing on us 'cause it created the United States named terrorists or something like that. - Yeah. - So, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I don't think necessarily on money it thinks. So all the problems because it's such a, just a problem in the United States and Middle Eastern countries that I, yeah, that just wouldn't say why we don't. - Yeah, hot. - Wow, we can throw, we can throw money at internal issues. - Okay, but aside from international relations, you guys all think that we should be more cautious with how we spend, right? - Of course. - Yeah. We said, of course, and I think most people feel that way, but I think I heard you say something else last night too. Didn't you say something about the fact that a country borrowing money is different than an individual borrowing money? - Yes. - Yeah. And you were the only one that brought that up and I'll tell you, when I heard you say it, my ears perked right up because that's an important issue in terms of economics and that is understanding the difference between individuals and countries. And the thing about it is you know, see, I'm on the other side of what you guys think because I think the United States is doing fine with its money and I also think that the United States should spend its money aggressively to solve problems around the world. That's not commonly accepted by anybody. Does that scare you? - It doesn't scare me. It's just like, I disagree with, America has internal issues that it needs to fix and throwing money at international means because when you think about it, the only reason why America does that is because the money gets moved to us. So yeah, I don't believe that-- - No, you're right about that. - Why does the money come back here? - To either America supporting the country or occupying the country and extracting means of wealth from the country, like what America did with Haiti and the 19th ends, to I think the United States occupied Haiti all the way into World War II. - Yeah, but we didn't get rich off of Haiti. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We are able to get all the money that we want for a very simple reason because everybody in the world knows that we're the only country in the world that if you put your money here, you can always get it back with interest, right? Well, that's a powerful incentive for people to give us money. Yeah. Well, anyway, you know, like I say, I heard just say that last night, my ears perked up and I really loved that you made that distinction because I thought that was very important and I thought it was very mature from, you know, from a political standpoint to understand that difference because so many people do not. - Yeah, because when people hear debt, they think of like debt that you're like, it can be paid back. That national debt is very tricky. I think a lot of politicians prior on PT's e-nerse when it comes to national debt. And, you know, they can say the word debt and think you can call money either when you really care. - Yeah, well, the other side is is that they're pretty ignorant themselves when it comes to this CJ. So, you know, they may be able to pray on the people's ignorance, but they share it. Yeah. Well, listen, CJ, I know you got stuff going on out there and I really do appreciate you taking a minute from all the practice that you guys are involved in because obviously practice is essential, which is why we win everything, right? - Yes. - Why do we win everything, by the way? - We'll work it. - Yeah, we really do have that, don't we? - Yes, we do. - Okay. Hey, listen, CJ, thank you and you be good and I will see you at school. - Okay, Mr. Chris, I have to-- - Okay, catch you later. And that was CJ Summers at Cardinal Ritter. And I can tell you that CJ wants a political career and he'll probably get one somewhere down the line. As I pointed out, there are a couple of things that he's a little, you know, sort of extreme. You know, this idea of trying to reduce Israel's footprint in the Middle East, I mean, it's highly unlikely. It is a very powerful nuclear participant, you know, one of the nine around the world and you know, unlike South, I'm sorry, North Korea, unlike North Korea, Israel knows what to do with the weaponry at Scott. And when I say knows what to do with it, it doesn't use it, never. And they know they can't, nobody can, but they've used it in other ways, ways that are very sophisticated and have been very successful. I mean, nobody's gonna get rid of Israel, you know, and it's just like, you know, we talk all the time, you know, obviously Texas, you know, that was Mexico, California, likewise Mexico, Mexico is not getting back California or Texas. You know, there's some things that may not be fair, but they're also not happening. New York is not being given back to Native Americans. You know, none of that's gonna happen. A lot of things in the world happen that aren't fair, but you gotta find ways to navigate it if you're on the side of, you know, not being happy. United States does some great things very smartly, very effectively, you know, we get things done. We are the leader of the world. Let's see, Michael's saying, if you're gonna get rid of one player in that region, Hamas has to go, well, Hamas is gonna go, Michael, Hamas is done, really, you can put a fork in them. And the Palestinians aren't able to do that on their own. No, they can't. And Israel will do the job despite the fact that it makes a lot of us feel very uncomfortable that they're killing tens of thousands of Palestinians who may be innocent. Now, you know, again, I've said innocent with the quotes on it because a lot of those innocent people are thinking to themselves, you know, from the river to the sea and let's get rid of Israel. And that's unfortunately encouraged by Iran. It's so untrue. It's not gonna happen. It would never work. Israel is not going to go away. They're not gonna walk away. They're not gonna be forced away. They are going to continue as long as they want it. And that's going to be as long as the Middle East is there. Now, the other side is those Palestinians have got to be recognized as human beings. Anybody that thinks that you can leave them in the unfortunate position that they've been in for decades on top of decades, well, you know it won't work. First of all, it radicalizes every new generation and they want to come and get their piece of Israel. And they're not worried about nuclear weapons or anything else because as far as they're concerned, they're dead anyway. The only way to stop it is to make them so successful that they don't want to lose anything. And that's what we did with Germany. You can sit and say Hamas is horrible. And I agree, nothing worse than Hamas. Except Hitler, the Nazis were at least as bad as Hamas, probably worse. Certainly in terms of what they accomplished, we know they're worse. So all I'm saying is you got to find a way to connect with all of those people in Palestine, convince them that they've got to leave Israel alone and go on and make some money and have a decent life. You know in Iran, those people in Iran, they are relatively successful on their own, very smart, very well educated and they hate their government. They would give anything to get rid of that mess. They would just love to go forward and have their country for themselves, get rid of all that religious mess, dump it. They don't want a theocracy. They don't want to wear all that garb to tell you the truth. Where they want to go is where you and I came from, Michael, that's Los Angeles. That's where they would love to go, although they'd love to stay in Iran if they could get rid of the crazies. Now getting rid of the crazies isn't so simple, but here's one way to get rid of them. Make those people so satisfied with what they are and what they've got that they turn around and look at these nuts and say no, we don't want to lob missiles into Israel. We've got businesses to run. We don't want those bombs coming back our way. Leave us alone. That's what has to happen. And it worked in Germany, it worked in Japan. It can work anywhere. The problem is, we do have people in this country, very much like the Charles Lindbergh, American First Extremists back in the 1940s. And they think if we just lock ourselves up, coast to coast, we're going to be just fine. But they don't understand that that story about the oceans being on both sides, that doesn't work. And you really have to recognize that the United States has a role as the leader in the world. It's the leader. It's the most powerful. It's the most successful economically. And it's going to continue to be that unless Donald Trump gets his hands on the wheel. And that's only because he'd turn it over to Putin. And Putin would do with the United States exactly what he's done with Russia. One trillion dollar gross domestic product in an army. That's what he's got. And at this point, that army isn't even that powerful when the weapons have been reestablished over in Ukraine. And he'd really better watch out because the Ukrainians actually are not afraid to lob their own missiles straight into Moscow. They've come close. Now the United States says, don't do it. But after you give them the weapons and you've got people being murdered in Ukraine, sometimes people wake up and say, I don't care what the United States says today. I'm lobbying those missiles. So it's a problem, but I'll say this, turning over Ukraine to Russia would be the greatest problem of all. Because it would establish the United States as not the powerful leader of the world, but a desperate weak group of people ready to be preyed upon by everybody and especially China, Iran would love to take their shots at us. But right now nobody feels like they can. And that's because we have shown this strength, which is so ironic because the strength has been established and run effectively by guess who? Oh, Joe Biden, isn't that a shocker? The guy that everybody says can't do anything has done everything. Just take him out of the way and turn the United States over to Vladimir Putin. And I can tell you right now, all the people who are laughing today, the smiles will come straight off their faces. They'll say, how do you pronounce that word in Russian? I don't quite get it. Katasha, that means good. But not good for us, good for Vladimir, who would like one last chance at turning the Soviet Union back on again. And he's only got one shot. And that's the useful idiot that is currently being tried in a courtroom in Manhattan. It's his best shot. Luckily for us, that guy is going straight down the tubes as I said earlier, you can stick a fork in him. He's done. Okay, a reminder, if you're looking for suits, St. Louis suit company, if you're looking for dinner, Wendy's right now in the valley, soon in defiance. And finally, you can get all that great jewelry. 4506 Hampton, that's Jules on Hampton. And this is showdown, and I'm Mark Casein.