Tech Giants Under Fire, US Retaliation, Border Bill, Trump VP, & Remembering Toby

Could your child's smartphone be their safest ally or their worst enemy? Elsa and Clay expose the underbelly of social media's impact on our kids, with a spotlight on Meta and Discord's recent grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee. As we sift through Mark Zuckerberg's apology and the haunting reality of child exploitation online, this episode promises a deep understanding of the challenges faced by parents and policymakers alike. The conversation doesn't shy away from the tough questions, like what role should tech executives play in the protection of our youth, and where do we draw the line when it comes to monitoring our children's digital footprints?

The conversation turns a critical eye towards Instagram's influence on teen mental health, dissecting whistleblower revelations and internal studies that paint a disturbing picture. Clay and I aren't here to sugarcoat the truth; we dissect the lack of accountability from social media giants and the struggle to manage the psychological toll taken on our teenagers. We're not just analyzing problems here; we're also scrutinizing potential solutions, such as child-safe smartphones and the role of governmental oversight. Stay tuned to understand why a mix of parental vigilance and legislative action might just be the keys to safeguarding our children's well-being.

As we wrap up, we touch on a myriad of pressing issues—from recent US military actions to the contentious border security bill—ensuring you're up to speed on the latest developments. But it's not all heavy politics; we take a moment to honor the legacy of Toby Keith, whose music and patriotism resonated with many Americans. With the blend of critical insight and heartfelt tributes, this episode is a testament to our commitment to keeping you informed and connected to the broader social tapestry. Raise a red solo cup with us as we pay homage to an icon, and gear up for yet another week of riveting dialogue on the topics that matter.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello everybody, welcome to a new episode. I just caught myself up because before I started, I was going to say something different than well, hey there. And I froze. I said well, hey there. So, whatever, who cares? Hi, everyone, I hope you're doing well. Hi, clay, how are you today?

Speaker 2: 0:20

I'm good, elsa, you got to stick with the old reliable in a time of stress. Just go yes.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Apparently, my brain insists on it because you know my or my mouth insists on it, because my brain said do something else and my mouth was like blah. So whatever, whatever. After a roaring start, I promise guys, it's going to get better after this. We've got some great topics for you, but first our little intro music. Well y'all, clearly I'm out of sorts. Hopefully you're not out of sorts, Clay, you got to keep this train running on the track, so you're going to be able to do that with me tonight.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Sure, why not? That's why we do this routine One of us falls down and takes it up and runs with it. That's all.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Yes, yeah, you know what. I had this moment maybe like a half hour ago, as I was kind of setting a few more things up here, getting ready for us to do our thing and all this, and I went, wow, you know what, if Clay had like an emergency or something, just came up and he any text or called or message and said, hey, listen, I got to bail tonight, you got this right. I would say yeah, yeah, no, of course, no problem, because that's what Clay does. When I do that to him. And I was thinking to myself, no, I'm actually I would. I would just probably sit here and just stare at the camera and not know what to do. I don't, I don't know how to do this without you, clay, anymore. I don't even, I don't even think I could.

Speaker 2: 2:01

This is very sad and good, I don't know. You've got, listen, you've got. There's plenty, of plenty of tools in the kit bag. You could pull this off. I have all the faith in the world. You did this for a long time before there was us and I'm sure you could do it again without any problems.

Speaker 1: 2:16

I appreciate that. I appreciate that vote of confidence. I don't I don't know if our viewing audience will have that same vote of confidence, but we're going. I'm going to tell myself that they do Listen. We've got some, some great topics for everybody, don't we? Thanks to you, of course. Number one we're going to be talking about the social media. Ceos were under fire recently. They had to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee because of child exploitation, which is obviously a serious and huge concern and reality of social media.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Now, this has been going on since the beginning of social media and it's fascinating that we're we're now deciding to address it, and I know that's an unfair statement. I know this has been an ongoing conversation, so so let's kind of break this down a little bit. We know that it was Metta, which is Zuckerberg, the CEO of Snapchat don't know his name. Twitter or X, formerly known as Twitter, we're all going to call it Twitter forever, right? Tiktok and Discord Now, everybody, except for Discord, I have used or do use for my social media stuff. I think is Discord just like video game stuff? Is that what that is? Do you know?

Speaker 2: 3:40

So my, my son, uses it and it's. It is a group chat function. From my understanding, I've never I've never used it either, but he always says you know, hey, I'm going to jump on with my friends on Discord and I'm going to do X, y, whatever it is. So it's a capability for them to communicate in groups. I think they can group themselves up. You know he probably has multiple Discord groups, if I understand things correctly. But yes, it's just a communication platform, probably in in the vein of WhatsApp would be like that, something like that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Okay, okay, yeah, I don't know, I think I just assume I well, I did just assume it was like had to do with video gaming and people playing video games together, cause I feel like I've seen, like on TikTok, people who use Discord will, will reshare stuff over there. I don't know, Listen, whatever the kids like to do, whatever. But yeah, so I guess technically it's not whatever is. It's a lot of serious things going on. They, they wanted to address safety, of course, and there there were some big I don't want to call them highlights big events, big things that went on at this that were kind of shocking things you'd never think you'd hear or see happen. Which is a CEO of a major billion dollar company apologizing, and that was pretty fascinating. That was Zuckerberg.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Now, this is actually a little bit of a long video. I'm going to play it for you because I think it's. I think it's really relevant to show the whole thing. It's like it's like just under five minutes, but this is the whole exchange between Josh Hawley and Mark Zuckerberg, and at the end you see this apology, which is. I really want to dissect that and get into that afterwards. So here's that.

Speaker 3: 5:31

Mr Zuckerberg, let me start with you. Did I hear you say in your opening statement that there's no link between mental health and social media use?

Speaker 4: 5:40

Senator, what I said is I think it's important to look at the science. I know it's. People widely talk about this as if that is something that's already been proven, and I think that the bulk of the scientific evidence does not support that Well really.

Speaker 3: 5:51

Let me just remind you of some of the science from your own company. Instagram studied the effect of your platform on teenagers. Let me just read you some quotes from the Wall Street Journal's report on this Company. Researchers are hopeful for a sizable percentage of teenagers, most notably teenage girls. Here's a quote from your own study. Quote we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. Here's another quote teams blamed Instagram this is your study for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups. That's your study.

Speaker 4: 6:26

Senator, we try to understand the feedback and how people feel about the services.

Speaker 3: 6:30

we can improve your own study says that you make life worse for one in three teenage girls. You increase anxiety and depression. That's what it says. And you're here testifying to us in public that there's no link. You've been doing this for years. For years you've been coming in public and testifying under oath that there's absolutely no link. Your product is wonderful, the science is nascent, full speed ahead, while internally, you know full well your product is a disaster for teenagers Right on doing what you're doing, right? That's not true.

Speaker 4: 7:00

That's not true.

Speaker 3: 7:01

Let me, let me show you some other facts. I know that you're familiar with Wait a minute.

Speaker 2: 7:04

That's not a question. That's not a question.

Speaker 3: 7:07

Those are facts. Mr Zuckerberg, that's not a question, that's bizarre facts. Let me show you some more facts. Here are some. Here's some information from a whistleblower who came before the Senate testified under oath in public. He worked for you to senior executive. Here's what he showed he found when he studied your products. So, for example, this is girls between the ages of 13 and 15 years old. 37% of them reported that they had been exposed to nudity on the platform unwanted in the last seven days. 24% said that they had experienced unwanted sexual advances. They've been propositioned in the last seven days. 17% said they had encountered self harm content pushed at them in the last seven days. Now I know you're familiar with these stats because he sent you an email where he lined it all out. I mean, we've got a copy of it right here. My question is who did you fire for this? Who got fired because of that?

Speaker 4: 8:00

Senator. We study all this because it's important. We want to improve our service.

Speaker 3: 8:03

Well, you just know that you studied it, but there was no linkage. Who did you fire? I said you mischaracterized. 37% of teenage girls between 13 and 15 were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram. You knew about it. Who did you fire?

Speaker 4: 8:18

Senator, this is why we're building all the rules, Senator, that's? I don't think that that's. Who did you fire? I'm not going to answer that.

Speaker 3: 8:26

You didn't fire anybody right, you didn't take any significant action.

Speaker 4: 8:29

It's appropriate to talk about it.

Speaker 3: 8:32

It's not appropriate decisions. Do you know who's sitting behind you? You've got families from across the nation whose children are either severely harmed or gone and you don't think it's appropriate to take a talk about steps that you took, the fact that you didn't fire a single person.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Let me ask you this.

Speaker 3: 8:47

Let me ask you this have you compensated any of the victims? Sorry, have you compensated any of the victims, these girls? Have you compensated them?

Speaker 4: 8:54

I don't believe so why not?

Speaker 3: 8:59

Don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your platform has done? Help with counseling services, help with dealing with the issues that your service has caused?

Speaker 4: 9:08

Our job is to make sure that we build tools to help keep people safe. Are you going to compensate them, Senator? Our job, and what we take seriously, is making sure that we build industry-leading tools to find harmful people, to make money to take it off the services and to build tools that empower parents.

Speaker 3: 9:22

So you didn't take any action. You didn't take any action you didn't fire anybody. You haven't compensated a single victim.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Let me ask you this.

Speaker 3: 9:28

Let me ask you this there's families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to do so now? They're here, you're on national television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your products? Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people?

Speaker 4: 9:49

I think that the best way to do this is to get through things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invest so much in you, through your great efforts to make sure that you don't have to go through things that your families have suffered.

Speaker 3: 10:09

You know why, mr Zuckerberg? Why should your company not be sued for this? Why is it that you can claim you hide behind a liability shield? You can't be held accountable. Shouldn't you be held accountable personally?

Speaker 1: 10:24

So that was a lot. That's a lot to unpack there. The stats and the numbers and all of those things are a lot to unpack and maybe it isn't even. I mean, it's all stuff that we know already that this is social media is incredibly detrimental to children. They don't belong on social media. Quite frankly, I think we all can somewhat agree on that, but it's like that the horse is already out of the barn. So now what? You know, how do you limit their accessibility? And there's plenty of people that will say well, the parents job to do that. Well, once your kids are out of the house, literally physically outside of your home, you don't have that level of control. So are you taking cell phones away? You know? I mean, what are you doing realistically, in real world time, as a parent, to counter this? And you know, I don't know. And there does need to be accountability. Do I think the government should be getting involved in that level? Now we're getting into a slippery slope. I've been running my mouth. You tell me what you think on all this.

Speaker 2: 11:39

So I will tell you that. You know Senator Hawley and if you watch more of the footage, this, this, this entire scene recreated itself multiple times. Senator Kennedy, senator Cotton, senator Blackburn it was all the same thing. They got a different CEO up there. They got badgered by the congressman. This the thing.

Speaker 2: 12:02

This is an important conversation for all of us. To have our elected leaders to me look like assholes Pardon my mouth. This is not the way to have this conversation. It's not counterproductive. There was nothing accomplished other than grandstanding. This is absolutely zero that whole thing. If, if Senator Hawley tried that in a court of law in the United States as a lawyer, the judge would hold him in contempt for badgering a witness. If that was Zuckerberg on the stand being examined by a prosecuting or defense attorney and he talked to him like that and didn't let him answer and just badgered and badgered him like that, that would not stand in a court of law. But our congressmen get away with it because the rules are not the same. Senator Cotton did the same thing with the. I think it was the CEO of Snapchat.

Speaker 2: 13:00

Snapchat yes, you know, senator Blackburn did it with Zuckerberg and she looked exceptionally dumb because she said oh, you know, mr Zuckerberg, you, you reduce these children to 200. Value of $270. That's the value of their lives. Because he, because his company, did what companies do and they did the math. We have X amount of teenagers. We spend this amount of advertising we spent, you know there's this much return. They did the math and it came out to $270 per head. Not say, nor would any business ever value a human's life at $270. Valued them as a customer of $270, right, business is due, but our, but our national level leadership can't help themselves and can't control themselves to have a meaningful conversation on an extremely meaningful topic. Yeah, Do exactly what you talked about, which was get to the bottom of what is the best way to manage this.

Speaker 2: 14:02

You know, yes, do parents hold some responsibility? Sure, does the government need to get involved with censorship? Because that's what you're starting to get into, right, I'm not. I'm not on board with that, you know. Should the platform regulate what people say on it? Well, we kind of ran into that with the last election, right, right? Musk bought Twitter, turned it into X, because our government and the mainstream media were in cahoots with Twitter to suppress our you know people elected officials from using it in the way that they saw fit. So this is a very, very slippery slope, and I will tell you that that entire however many days that was that they were testifying was 100% wasted taxpayer money. They accomplished absolutely nothing. It was stupid. It was a waste of time. That's my opinion. I think they should all be ashamed of themselves, because it was a great opportunity that they wasted by running their mouths. Okay, right, I'm off of my soapbox.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Yeah, so I don't I don't disagree with you, honestly, I don't you know. So you can go right back to exactly. So what was the conclusion? What was the determination here? What is going to happen? What was you know? What was achieved through this, other than you know, humiliating Zuckerberg which, by the way, of course, I have no sympathy for him whatsoever, but that was a humiliating experience, without a doubt, and for the other ones too.

Speaker 1: 15:45

I think you mentioned the CEO of Snapchat. He actually just, I think he kind of like preemptively got up and apologized to, to the families and the families that I think you heard, that are I think our audience heard that these are the people that are in the audience were family members of youths, children and teenagers who had either committed suicide as a result of online bullying or by from purchasing drugs through these apps or, you know, meeting people through these apps where they could buy by drugs and died of, like fentanyl overdoses. So you know, like you said, there's a lot. There was a lot of grandstanding going on there, a lot of theatrics happening and and nothing really that can come of it. You know they've been trying to ban TikTok for how long now, how many years now. We're probably going on like three years probably, right, yeah?

Speaker 2: 16:50

yeah, it was definitely I might be longer, because I want to say that it kind of they started that during the Trump administration. So I think we're right.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Years, maybe five years yeah that's right.

Speaker 1: 17:03

It's definitely during Trump, right? Yeah, yeah, you know it's a. It's a really difficult thing. You know I, you know I am I'm the first one to admit it. Social media is so woven into the fabric of what I do, it is all media and social media base. Do I want social media to go away? No, I don't want TikTok to go away. I don't want Facebook, I don't want any of them to go away. Do I want them to be safer places for people to engage in? Yes, I would love that.

Speaker 1: 17:39

But you brought up the you know, really significant, important point. Where do we draw these lines? Who decides? Who should be censored? Who decides?

Speaker 1: 17:49

You know now, when we're talking about children, which, of course, this, you know, at the heart of this, that's really who we're talking about. Where does the responsibility lie? What are the capabilities here of correcting this, of preventing these types of things from happening? And and I don't actually think that you can without shutting it all down, you know, because they tried for the longest time, maybe even that's still like the you know kind of the joke of these things. You know they ask you when you sign up for these apps are you 18 and older, or 14 and older, 13 and older? Yes, okay, you know. So there there's nothing. So I don't think there is a solution here Other than parents do have to step up as best as they can and control as much as they humanly can.

Speaker 1: 18:46

And and I and I think really it's give your kids a really, really strong, solid foundation at home. And and this is not a knock to these families who have lost children to these events and things that that happen on here, it's like a cautionary tale really. So it's not an attack. I'm not accusing them of being negligent parents. Everybody's just doing the very best that they can. And you know, and I think, because of what's out there, we we have to do more and we have to try harder. And, man, give your kids that foundation at home. Where they can't be, you know, make them bulletproof so that they can't be affected by these things. And I know that's easier said than done, but I don't know any other solution.

Speaker 2: 19:35

I really don't, I think you know, I think there's a hardware, software, uh component to this that people aren't really. You know, as a protective measure, that people aren't necessarily exploring, somebody is always going to exploit social media for the wrong reasons. Um, it's like anything else. I mean, that's unfortunately the way the world works. But I think you know, if, if you, if someone came up with a phone right, a smartphone that had limited capabilities, that can't be altered right, cannot accept social media apps, can't even install them on the phone, you know can't. You know it's like a permanent firewall. You know it's not a. You know there's no SIM card you can swap out. There's no. You know you can't jail break the phone right. Back that old term.

Speaker 2: 20:35

But if somebody could come up with a child safe smartphone, where you know it's, it's if somebody could come up with that and I'm not that guy, but you know somebody out there is. That is where I think this child safety issue, I think, gets resolved, because you're not going to change the platforms. And even if you do change the platforms, as soon as you change them somebody's gonna figure out how to change them back or exploit them or use them in a new and different way, et cetera. So I think the fight is in in a hardware, software combination that is just incapable. Just incapable, that you know, unless you got somebody you know firing off from. You know the NSA or something like that you know can't really alter the capability of the phone or the tablet or the, you know the laptop, chromebook, whatever it is that the kids are using.

Speaker 2: 21:33

But again, it's that it still requires oversight, it still requires parental involvement, guardian involvement. If it's not, you know, the actual parent, whatever it is, whoever that adult is in that child's life, to be a responsible, responsible influence for that child, to make sure to be involved, to look at the kid's phone, to dig through the kid's phone and to have that same relationship like you were talking about that foundation with that child where you say okay, give me the phone, all right, and you can unlock it. And you know you unlock it and you can dig through everything that they have. And the kid stands there and goes go ahead, there's nothing on there you know and you know and that's the way it works, right?

Speaker 2: 22:20

And if you have great kids and you have a great relationship with your kid and you know, then maybe you don't have to worry about this. But even if the kids do everything right, they're still horrific, horrible adults out there. They're gonna try and exploit this, and that was one of the things that really upset me the most about you know, senator Hawley, beating up Zuckerberg and again, I don't have any sympathy for that guy either, but you know when he's like oh, 17 girls I think was the number used have been exposed to nudity, unwanted nudity, in the last week. You know, what are you gonna do about it? Well, senator Hawley, what are you gonna do about the criminals who are offering his pornography to minors? Like, what are you doing about that?

Speaker 2: 23:01

You're gonna pass another law that nobody pays attention to, because you're a congressman and that's all you can do, but you're gonna sit there and yell at Zuckerberg because he hasn't gone in and personally monitored every piece of communication that's happened across the meta platforms. Give me a break, right? It was just a horrible wasted opportunity. I think our congressional leadership in that, especially that Judiciary Committee, should all be ashamed of themselves. That was. It was a gross, gross waste of everybody's time. It was terrible.

Speaker 1: 23:29

Yeah, and you know it comes across certainly, and I think it certainly is just their way of pretending to appease a crowd of people who are you know, coming in there and shaking their fists at them and wagging their finger and saying you need to do something about this.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Oh, okay, we'll. You know, we'll do something, sure. And they know, they know perfectly well that essentially their hands are tied, that this is, you know, so far out of their capabilities of squashing, of doing anything about. Yeah, it was basically a joke and yeah, and you know and the funny thing is too is I read somewhere that the very measures that they're like recommending and suggesting, it's all of the kids are the ones that are going. It'll know, no, leave it alone. You know the kids are all going. No, it's just stay out of our business. You know, leave our stuff alone. So you know, the very people they're trying to protect are like yeah, no, thanks, we're good, thank you now. So it's a little bit funny in that sense, but you know what else would kids say, teenagers in particular, of course they don't want everybody in their business.

Speaker 1: 24:41

And as a side note, I do know that there are some. There's some apps out there. I believe it's either I don't think it's the phone itself, like you were saying, which I think is a great idea I think there's like monitoring apps. It's basically like the newest, latest version of parental controls. There are apps that you can download and, you know, essentially attach electronically to your kids' phones and you can track their online experience and have suck control over that. And there was I was actually watching an argument about that on one of the social media platforms, of course and somebody was arguing that you know it's an invasion of privacy and your kids deserve some. You know privacy and autonomy, and blah, blah, blah. No, they don't.

Speaker 2: 25:30

No, no they don't, not unless they earn it, not unless they earn it and their parents give it to them.

Speaker 1: 25:35

That's it Exactly, and you know comments like that right are, like, right there, part of what you see as a problem that you know. No, your kids, you know what you're calling privacy and all that. When my kids taking a shower or a bath and they're of an age to do that by themselves, they don't need any help. Yes, that's privacy. They may have privacy On the computer, on their phone that I pay for? No, nope, not an option. So, and if you have a problem with it, I guess you don't watch your phone that bad, do you, honey? And that is what we call parenting people.

Speaker 2: 26:13

This is correct.

Speaker 1: 26:14

You know, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is. You know, this is gonna be an ongoing thing. For as long as social media exists. This will be an issue and we will always be re-addressing it and trying to come up with solutions. And Congress is not the ones to solve the problem. We already know that right.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Nope, absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 26:39

Next in line. Let's talk about. You get to do all the talking on this one. We are gonna be talking about the US retaliation in the Middle East. This is your baby, right here. You got on the knowledge.

Speaker 2: 26:53

I said last week what I expected to happen, what would have been the appropriate response, which was a precision strike against a target or two of high level importance, whether it was a person or a facility. And I was thinking, and I may have even said it was something in Iran, specifically because we made all the ties and everybody knows it, it's common knowledge now All this stuff is tied back to Iran. All these groups, the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah, they're all being backed by Iran. They're the genesis of evil. So my expectation was to send a message that we would precision strike a person or a facility, something of great import, you know, related to directly to Iran, not indirectly, but directly to Iran. We did no such thing. We launched a whole bunch of strikes on a whole bunch of nothing Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Yeah, 85 targets right in Iraq and Syria. They hit a command control operations, munitions supply, a logistics hub and a drone storage unit. That's what I have listed, more or less.

Speaker 2: 28:06

Nothing. It was the same stuff they were doing before the three US service members got killed, literally.

Speaker 2: 28:13

The target list is continually built and it's updated based on new gained intelligence. Blah, blah, blah blah. That's just how normal operations work. And on a daily basis there's a command and control. Levels of command and control decide what are we gonna do today. Where are we gonna strike? What assets are we gonna put against it? Whether it's drones or airplanes or people, whatever it is. And we picked from the same list. We picked from the same list that we had before.

Speaker 2: 28:41

This was nothing of any great response. It was a waste. It was embarrassing. If I was the family members or part of the unit that those three service members belong to, or if I was their family members, I would be livid right now that we have done nothing of significance in response. 85 strikes means jack Cause. It's a number, but it doesn't mean there of any significance whatsoever. You could drop bombs in the sand in the middle of nowhere and say, well, we flew 17 missions last night, we dropped 30,000 pounds or whatever, doesn't matter If you didn't hit. Anything that's of value means nothing. So total miss by DOD. Another failure, failure to respond appropriately, another miss by the White House and everybody associated.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Do you feel like it was a failure to respond timely as well? I've seen that criticism that it was a failure to respond in a timely manner. There were people that, of course, wanted an immediate response and retaliation and there was not, of course, and the reasoning coming from the officials was weather conditions, basically. Is that trapped for you?

Speaker 2: 30:02

No, it doesn't track, and here's why we advertise things as all weather. We have all weather fighters, right. We have all weather munitions. We have all the. You know, very, very few things are deterred by weather anymore. Helicopters are one of them. For sure. We don't tend to put people on the ground, you know, in sandstorms, bad weather, those kinds of things, because helicopters, and, you know, in the Osprey and whatever other platforms are using like that. You know it's dangerous. Other than that, no, everything else is pretty much all weather.

Speaker 2: 30:36

Now, what I would tell you, though and this is why they reverted back to the list, the preexisting list was they didn't have any good intelligence. This is a failure. This is a failure by the intelligence community to have anything in the queue that they could sit on, to have an ace in the hole whatever you want to call it where they could say nope, here's, it's the time. It's the time. It's time to hit this target. This is a big one, this is a tier one, or whatever they want to call it. We need to strike this tonight and to have the package built.

Speaker 2: 31:07

You know, whatever aircraft or whatever platform they're going to use and say okay, here it is, we got it all on a piece of paper. It's been prepared for weeks Since we had this target. Nothing's changed. We can confirm that so-and-so is still in the same location, or you know they clearly haven't moved this massive, you know nuclear research facility. Whatever they're going to hit, go do this. Now it's ready to go. Here's the package. Go do it. They didn't have it or they chose not to do it.

Speaker 1: 31:34

It's one or the other.

Speaker 2: 31:36

So either the intelligence community is terrible at their job and they didn't have anything put together that they could strike, or they do have those kinds of targets and the administration chose not to exploit them. One of the two things. There's no in between, and you'll know. I'm the timely thing. I don't buy. The weather thing. I don't buy. This is either a lack of capability, a lack of intelligence, information, or it's a lack of guts. That's where I sit on that. It was terrible, horrible execution.

Speaker 1: 32:07

And now? So, admittedly, I don't follow this as well as I should, so, from my lack of knowledge here, this is where this is coming from. I don't feel like I've heard there be talk about a central figurehead, a person like you're Hussain or you're Bin Laden, this target person. Am I completely wrong that there isn't like this figurehead, essentially that they're gunning for who's running everything? Or is there just so many players, so many groups and factions of groups? What's the actual? The actual group.

Speaker 2: 32:56

So again, everything's backed by Iran and the Iranian government. And we did strike the general a couple of years ago that was running the Iranian Republican Guards, the Kuds Force. What was his name? Soleimani. So they killed him in Iraq with a strike and that pissed off everybody in Iran and in that part of the world. So of course they have a replacement for that guy, like there's a new commander. That job should be the most dangerous job on the planet. It's to command that organization, because you should know when you take that over. You are in the top five on the US kill list every day and if you step out of line, they're gonna know where you are and they're gonna smoke you where you stand. That is the type of response that we should have had.

Speaker 2: 33:52

But no, the way the terrorist, the global terrorist network, works is every Hamas has got its own kind of leadership chain, the Houthis have their own leadership chain, hezbollah has got their own thing. They all know it's target the West, and then they kind of operate within their own sphere and when they need something, they go to their connections in Iran and go hey, we need more acts, we need more money, we need more weapons, we need more explosives, we need more whatever, and that's just. It's all very loosely tied together, but it is all kind of centered right now out of Iran. There is no. Everybody thought for years that bin Laden was running every terrorist organization in the world from what turned out to be a Bahtabad Pakistan. They thought for years it was out of caves. But that's not how that works. That's not how any of that stuff works.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Terrorist organizations, the greater terrorist organizations, don't run day-to-day operations, like. The guy at the top is not directing things on a daily basis. It's very much go forth and kill Americans and if you need something, come get us, and it's all very decentralized and it's that way on purpose. It works that way. So no, is there a figurehead, a central bin Laden style who's Saddam Hussein figures figurehead, unless you're gonna kill a state leader, literally in Iran and now you're talking about high level war unless you're gonna do that, then no, but the general that runs the Kutz Force, the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, whatever it was called that guy, that guy should not sleep well every night because he should be scared that he's gonna get killed by the Americans. But they didn't do it.

Speaker 1: 35:51

So this opportunity, what if you could make a prediction? What's gonna happen next? Nothing, if you had to take a guess nothing, nothing.

Speaker 2: 36:00

Nope, nope, it's gonna be more of the same. We're gonna have Americans on these little outposts. We can't. There won't be a troop buildup, there won't be any of that stuff. It'll be business as usual. There'll be another one of these strikes In fact, there's probably strikes every day that we don't even hear about, and you've got Americans at risk every day and nothing changes. It's just the same every day.

Speaker 1: 36:29

It's exhausting, yep Exhausting, same song different day. It's sad and so many lives at stake. For it too, it's just very disheartening, to say the least.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Yeah, and there's, you know American kids sitting over there every day, mm-hmm Ass on the line, just like everybody thought we backed out of that disastrous, you know departure from Afghanistan, that all this stuff was, you know kind of over with the global war on terror, blah, blah. No, it hasn't stopped. It just moved into a different place, that's all. And right now it's in Iraq, it's back in Iraq and Syria and we're doing the same stuff.

Speaker 1: 37:13

So, you know, I'm switching our order slightly on us Clay here, because this ties in a little bit better. You know, talking about our border wall and the border bill because, as we know, people from all countries, you know, I don't know, you know, I don't know what people think, but I think, you know a lot of people do just have this idea that people are coming over from Mexico and maybe not realizing where else they're coming from. They're coming from all over the place and we're, you know, I was going to say we're trying to do something about it, but I don't know who's we, who's we? You know who's we here? They presented this border bill. So, let me see, I switched our order. So it's a bipartisan border security bill.

Speaker 1: 38:04

This has been floating around, they are fighting over it. The House Republicans are, I think, the last that I knew are basically saying not going to happen, we're not going to sign it. Of course the Democrats are saying you know well, we're giving you what you want Now, you don't want it. And the, you know, the Republicans are saying oh well, you're slipping a whole bunch of stuff in here. That's a big fat no, which is more aid to Ukraine and where else, a few other places to I can't even see. So Israel and Taiwan, you know they're trying to slip things in there that are just not our border related. And of course now the progressives aren't happy either because it sounds too Trump like to them. So nobody is happy with this bill proposal and meanwhile, you know, here we are with our borders still wide open.

Speaker 2: 39:06

Yeah, it was a. It was a garbage bill to begin with and it was, you know, I've heard it references, you know, dead on arrival and it is. It's never going to pass as it stands, but it's not even close to getting through and that the first indicator was exactly what you said, which was all the pork that was in there for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan and all this other stuff. You knew that it was a crap border bill when it had that stuff in it.

Speaker 2: 39:36

And what you do have continue to grow is the governors and the other states, you know, pitching in and helping Texas and you know that is gaining more and more steam all the time.

Speaker 2: 39:48

They've come to the same conclusion that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, which is he can't federalize everybody, the president can't. He can't federalize every national guard, they can't afford it. So even if he federalizes Texas and he takes Texas away from Governor Abbott, then governor know him is going to jump in and she's going to send the folks from South Dakota and then they're going to come over from Arkansas and then they're going to come over from wherever. And because they know that this is affecting everyone and you said it before when we were talking about the social media stuff. If nothing else, right, I'm not even talking about the human trafficking, the potential for terrorists, you know, coming across the border, all that other stuff. If nothing else, the cartels and fentanyl are reason enough for every state to get involved with this, because that's where it's coming from and it affects everybody. Every city, every state in the union is affected by fentanyl and that's where it's coming from.

Speaker 2: 40:53

So you know, for all of them, I don't think the number has grown. I think we're still at 26 or whatever. It is that we were a couple of weeks ago, so I think it's still the same right, but it's getting louder, is what you're seeing, and the governors are.

Speaker 2: 41:09

I think it seems like they're emboldening each other. I think they are getting progressively louder. As one says something, you know, you get somebody who hasn't said a word yet. That goes, yeah, you know, they jump in and it's gaining some fervor, which is a good thing, you know. And you've got Governor Abbott God love him who's basically looking the president in the eye and saying I don't care what.

Speaker 1: 41:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:35

I don't care, you know so, but the bill itself is a waste. It's garbage. It really does almost nothing. If you go through and read it, I think there's like 10 or 11 major points. If you just want the CliffsNotes version, you can probably get that out of it. But at the bottom, every every time I've seen one of those summaries, you know the bottom, like the bottom, two statements are oh, by the way, Ukraine, you know. Oh, by the way, you know we're also throwing this in there, Right, but it's, it's garbage, it's a crap bill, it's a horrible effort. It will go anywhere. So again, it's more wasted time by our elected officials.

Speaker 2: 42:13

Good job yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:14

Yeah, yeah, great job, great job, guys. We really appreciate your, your efforts there, and, of course, that is sarcasm from both of us. In case you all missed it yeah, the in your right there's. You know there's a bunch of key points there and you know what's going to happen is what always happens is that everyone on the left is going to say, well, you know what they tried, you know we tried, but Republicans don't want it. You know they say they want this border and, but you know they really don't, because they won't put this bill through. And of course, the Republicans are going to say, well, yeah, because you're trying to slip all this other crap through that has nothing to do with it. And we're saying, no, absolutely not. So it's.

Speaker 1: 42:57

And you know, the American people, whichever side they fall on, are going to, you know, pick their side and say, well, you Democrats, you know, won't blah, blah, blah. And the other side is going to say you Republicans won't blah, blah, blah. And the people that are actually reading everything, yeah, exactly so it's a what a source of frustration. And I think you said what's really important here as far as action is that these states, these 26 states hopefully more as time goes on, are getting more and more emboldened by each other to defend our borders and it's it's crazy that our states have to take this on on their own, without the federal government helping secure our borders. I mean, if we let that sink in for a minute, our government, our federal government, says, nah, we're just going to let it happen.

Speaker 2: 43:54

It's actually worse than that, I'll say it's. It's not just that they are inactive, it's not a lot. They're actively opposed to the things that Governor Abbott is doing. They're fighting against his efforts to secure the border, which makes it even worse.

Speaker 2: 44:12

It really does, even in action, or one thing. If you want to be a lazy, you know like ah, whatever, it's not that important. That's one thing. Right, the fat lazy guy in the country. But the guy who is actively opposing the things that you're doing on behalf of everybody, that they're taking them to court, they're all that stuff. They're actively opposed to it. That makes it even worse. It's baffling to me and I'll tell you that I think come November, provided that President Biden is still running as a Democrat candidate, that will kill him, that will end his presidency, will be the border, the security of the border.

Speaker 1: 44:58

Right, oh wait, that's right. That just reminded you Just reminded me, Of course that this bill is now has gotten killed or is getting killed. It's Trump's fault. It is Trump's fault, Of course. Of course it's Trump's fault. Now they just let everybody shift that blame over to Trump. It is Trump's fault because Trump doesn't want them to push that bill through so that it'll hurt Biden. Now would Trump like for that to happen? I mean, I don't know, Maybe he would, Maybe he is thinking that'll help me. I don't know if he has that much control over everybody, Maybe I'm wrong. I don't. You know, what do I know? I'm just a girl sitting in front of her camera talking about stuff. What do I know? But it's just you know. It gave me a little bit of a chuckle that you know yet another thing that everybody's just going to shift the blame to Donald Trump, and it's like wow.

Speaker 2: 45:57

It's another great Trump derangement syndrome. It's his fault. He's not even in office. He's, you know, wanted to put up the wall that everybody was opposed to and now that they're putting a border bill in place to secure the border, now he doesn't want like. This is the most absurd thing. It's ridiculous, but it is. It's pure. It's pure politics. It's all about the image. It's all about optics. You know, blame the person that. You know it's yeah, it's Democrats' fault, it's a Republican's fault. It's crap. It's just a crap bill. It's just a crap bill and it's all. It's all about politics. But I am sincere when I say that I do think that the election, the biggest issue in the election, is going to be national security, specifically our border. I, yeah, it doesn't matter taxes, it doesn't matter Any of it, it really does not. Not a thing is the border. The economy doesn't matter. It is the border and national security that are going to be the, the number one, you know, point of impact on people's. You know decision to vote, who to vote for.

Speaker 1: 47:12

Yes, yeah, absolutely. And of course, speaking of Trump, we must speak of the Trump stir, the Trumpinator. We're going to talk about his VP pick. Now he floated out I'm sure you guys all know a couple of weeks ago he floated out that he knew who he was going to pick, but he couldn't say when, say. And now he's put up two names for for us to ponder. You called it, you called it Kristi Noem of South Dakota, you called that one and Tim Scott, which is not a tremendous surprise. I don't think he's a safe pick because we, you know, we called him milk toast and we call the guy called the milk, yeah, but accurate, but not a salt.

Speaker 2: 48:08

He is and your description is actually perfect because that's exactly what President Trump said is like he counters my. You know he counters my personality. You know, in that interview where he talked about him, that's exactly what President Trump said. You know you got my personality. But then you got his personality he was very complimentary of of, of Tim Scott, you know saying you know he said he said he told Tim Scott himself he goes. You know, you're a better candidate for me, a better campaigner for me, than you are for yourself, which I thought was a very interesting take. And he's not wrong. No, not at all. You know. I think in both of those cases it's not hard to see. You know, you call it what you want. You know the demographics are there, whether it's demographics are there.

Speaker 2: 48:57

You know, the fact that she's a female is not going to be lost on anybody If he picks Tim Scott. The fact that he's African-American is not going to be lost on anybody. You know, are they good candidates? You know it. It's almost impossible not to draw the Kristi Noem Sarah Palin comparison.

Speaker 4: 49:18

I think Kristi.

Speaker 2: 49:19

Noem I think Kristi Noem is is presents better. I think Sarah Palin was actually really, really smart and I think she was a really good governor in Alaska. Unfortunately, she had that Alaska hockey, you know, mom kind of accent and everybody just let you in.

Speaker 1: 49:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 49:38

Kristi Noem comes across very, very polished, right, very. You know, non, no accent. You know she's got that straight Midwest thing where she has no accent and she presents very well. So she's not a, she's not a bad pick. But I said this before, she's governing South Dakota. No offense, it's not all that difficult. Everybody you know 90% of the state probably thinks the same. You know it's a sparse population I think the most sparse in the union. Maybe North Dakota is worse, but she's not even. It's not even as challenging as what Governor DeSantis does in Florida right, right.

Speaker 2: 50:21

Again, I'm not taking anything away from her, but governing South Dakota is not governing New York or California or Illinois or Texas or Florida. Tim Scott, you know, I think we were both. I won't say unimpressed, but maybe it is unimpressed, is it unimpressed? Is that what you were talking about?

Speaker 1: 50:40

I think it's kind of unimpressed and I guess it's probably. You know, all of these central figures have all, in one way or another, been very dynamic, whether you love them or you hate them. Even Chris Christie is in his own irritating way For lack of a better word dynamic. We're going to give him dynamic. He's not dynamic, I know, let's call him that. You watch him, you listen to him and it's mostly, of course, to see what stupid thing he's going to say. But you're watching him. Nikki Haley, you're watching her. Vivek, you're watching him.

Speaker 1: 51:24

Tim Scott you kind of forget he's there. You know he's, and it sounds like I'm being really mean to him and the very thing that I'm sounding like I'm criticizing him for I actually feel like could be a really good thing. I and I personally maybe this may be a surprise after all the things I just said I personally lean more towards him for a VP pick than I do Christie, because I think Christie is like Trump in many ways. She models her herself and her beliefs, and I'm not saying that she doesn't believe it. What she says and what she does, I believe that she does, but she's not quite a female Trump. She's not there, but Trump like in opinions and presence and things like that, whereas Tim is a good balance. You know, like Trump himself said, I think there's a great balance there and you do have to look at, you know, you have to take very seriously that Donald Trump is what? 76, 77, I think he is, I'm not even sure, but he's in his 70s. He seems very robust, all of the things. However, you have to take into consideration that who is next in line If something should happen to the president? Who do you want to see?

Speaker 1: 52:53

I'm not saying Kristina couldn't do a phenomenal job. I have no idea what kind of job she could do. I do know that because Tim Scott is so level, he might be, might be very appealing in a lot of ways. So I, I'm I'm sitting here like this Just wondering who, who he will pick, who he's gonna pick. I'm very, very curious. I, I, I lean towards Tim Scott. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 53:19

I think he's the better pick. First for sure, I really do think he is the better pick for all of those, all of those reasons. Now, if you go back, though, and you think to, there was the one debate I think it was the second the second debate he got a little fiery, but, but that was one of those debates where everybody got fiery, so even when he was riled up, he still got lost in the shuffle because everybody was riled up, you know right. So he, I think I don't think we've seen enough of him. You know what I mean. Like, I think Kristi Noem has taken great opportunities to put herself at the forefront. I think everybody who has paid attention has seen plenty of her. You know I mean she how she's taken on the administration with the whole Mount Rushmore Fourth of July celebration, the last three right, yeah, so she's taken opportunities and we've seen a lot of her.

Speaker 2: 54:12

I don't think that we as a nation have seen enough of Tim Scott to make a good, solid read on him, right, but I do think I agree with you. I think he is the better candidate of the two For the long term and again you have to think plus four years. Right we've already talked about the deal that DeSantis made.

Speaker 2: 54:34

I guarantee you that happened yes so four years from now, what happens to Trump's vice president Right? Does Trump's vice president turn around and run for president right? Or does Trump's vice president turn around and go? You know what? It was a fun four years. I'm out, right. I Think the thing you'll never see happen is whoever his vice president is turns around and says vice president for whoever for DeSantis, you won't write that, so you got to look even four years down the road, although I don't know if president Trump really takes that into account. I don't think he cares all that much. I guarantee he doesn't care about the GOP's Opinion, but that in that individual has to take that into account.

Speaker 1: 55:18

So Tim Scott.

Speaker 2: 55:20

He has to think four years ahead and go okay. Well, if I take this, what do I do four years from now? Am I prepared to walk away and be done and be okay being a vice president? Am I gonna run for president knowing that they made the deal with DeSantis? You know Kristi Noem's got to do the same thing now. In that case, I think that she is more apt to take the four years and turn around and walk away and go back to South Dakota. So I don't know, I don't know how all that plays into the decisions, but I think that Tim Scott is the better pick of the two.

Speaker 1: 55:54

Just my look at that we agree again. How about that?

Speaker 2: 55:58

We got to stop doing it much.

Speaker 1: 56:00

I know we're gonna, I know we're just and we're gonna have to have like an argument over something and get really fired up and One of these days, I'm gonna pick a topic that you and I are gonna adamantly disagree upon.

Speaker 2: 56:13

Yeah, I don't know what it is. It'll probably surprise us too, it'll.

Speaker 1: 56:17

I bet it will. I bet it will.

Speaker 2: 56:19

It'll be the price everyone. The Pepsi Coke argument less filling tastes great.

Speaker 1: 56:25

I don't know it'll be something along those lines, but yeah, we'll have like a Whopper Big Mac argument at some point.

Speaker 2: 56:34

Yes, something very, very. It'll be something stupid along those lines it will, I promise we will.

Speaker 1: 56:42

We will. Guys, don't you worry, you'll get to see us fight someday, someday Something we will not fight on our last thing we're throwing in here because it just happened. Very sad news Toby Keith, country star, country legend, icon, just a great, good old boy, toby Keith has passed away, age 62 I'm assuming it's of course from. He had stomach cancer and I'm sure it was due to complications or deterioration from that and Very, very sad. I am a Toby Keith fan. I've seen him in concert, just you know, just a America loving man who who truly shared his love for country in everything he did, particularly his songs. So very, very sad loss and, yeah, I was really sad to hear that.

Speaker 2: 57:38

Yeah, he was the. He was the voice for post 9-11. Yes, you're the red, white and blue. I mean that. You know I Still get, you know, a little bit of chills from that. You know, being somebody who that obviously great impact on my life. Or, if you want to have a lot of fun, go back and listen to the Taliban song, which is always entertaining. You can't go wrong with the club. You know red solo cup and and you know, should have been a cowboy and he was great performer and and yeah, he it's a. It's a great loss for all of us.

Speaker 1: 58:10

Yes, absolutely. So. I hope everybody takes a moment to raise their red solo cup in honor of Toby Keith, great America loving man and Sad loss for for the music industry and all of us who loved his music. So yeah, and I'm sorry to end us on a sad note, guys, but like I said, raise those red solo cups and we'll have a toast for him and we will see you guys next week with More fascinating topics. Clay, send them out.

Speaker 2: 58:44

Hey, as always for me, keep moving, keep shooting. Have a good week.

Speaker 1: 58:48

Take care, guys, you.