Matt: No new wars. That was the promise. That was the deal. That's what MAGA was supposed to mean. But we're now at war with Iran. We've got six American soldiers are dead so far. We've got over a thousand Iranian civilians dead, including 181 children who are under 10 years old. And when secretary of state Marco Rubio was asked why, why we launched these strikes, why American kids are dying in the Middle East again, he now famously or infamously is probably the better way to say it said, We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties. So you don't even need to read into that. We knew that Israel was going to attack. So we were in the Trump administration's view forced to join them. Well, that's not America first. That's not sovereignty. That's a client state doing what it's told. Then you had Senator Angus King who asked the question that's on many of our minds. This is quote, have we now delegated the most solemn decision that can be made in our society, the decision to go to war to another country? And the answer is clearly yes. And it's not something that started last week. So then what else can we conclude but that American sovereignty has been completely compromised that we don't control our own foreign policy and that the decisions about whether American soldiers live or die are being made by a foreign government and enforced by a donor class that owns our politicians. And further, I think the case is conclusive that Donald Trump, the man who was supposed to tear this machine apart, has been captured by it. didn't vote for him, but I understood and why people did. I hoped he would deliver on his promises, drain the swamp, no new wars, abstain accountability, stop being Israel's attack dog, ⁓ but he ⁓ And I need to understand why I think most of us do. So this topic ⁓ isn't easy for me to talk about because it's overwhelming to think about forces way beyond our But if we ever want a post captured society to evolve past this situation we're in where we've got these elites controlling warring nation states, if we wanna get past that, we have to look at these things with open eyes. So much of what I'm gonna talk about in this episode is indisputable. We've got a bunch of documented facts, receipts, quotes, financial disclosures, et cetera, but some of it. is informed speculation about what's really happening behind closed doors. And I'm speculating because I need to figure out a way to put this in some sort of perspective that makes sense. But as I go through, I'll be clear about which is which. But I do think it's important to try to figure out what is most probably happening now so that we can better anticipate where we're going. And that way we can, we know how to deal with it. We can do something about it. Because Even with all the darkness around here, there is hope for the future. It's like not all bleak. And even at an individual level, there's much that we can do. For example, much of the world fell into tyranny during the COVID hysteria, but in America, no matter how hard they tried, ⁓ you know, the Biden administration, the deep state, big pharma and all the other powerful actors, no matter how hard they tried, they could not completely subjugate us. That gave me a lot of hope. They tried really hard. But there was this point at which Americans would not budge. You're like, no, we're not doing this anymore. And that saved us. And it also served as a wake-up call to the powers that be. So, you know, when we're committed, when we're reasonable, when we're discerning, Americans are still a very powerful culture. And we, in recent past, put a stop to encroaching madness. We did that. But it's also very important for you to understand what we're dealing with here, that there are people being threatened right now for saying what I'm about to say. I mean, they've got much bigger platforms than me. So, you know, I can pretty much say whatever I want and get away with it, I think. people like Tucker Carlson, when he called this war, the war with Iran, absolutely disgusting and evil. Within 48 hours, the president of the United States said he had, quote, lost his way, that he's not in MAGA, that he's quote, smart enough to understand. And then you got billionaires like Bill Ackman saying that Tucker's going to get someone killed. You've got Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Levin, mean, I always pronounce his name wrong, Levin. Was he French? ⁓ But the entire machine turned on him. And then, you you think about that in context to in the background, this background of what happened to Charlie Kirk. mean, the machine is willing to kill you if you're influential enough and oppose their goals. which Charlie Kirk clearly was like we know that from his last interviews and texts and letters and things. And so Tucker, I think is likely in danger, as are many other folks with big audiences who are opposing this action, which is why it's vital that as many people talk about it ⁓ as possible. So with all that as a preface, ⁓ what I want to do today is talk about sovereignty, what it means, how you lose it and whether we can get it back. Okay, let's define what I mean by sovereignty because the word gets thrown around a lot, ⁓ national sovereignty, state sovereignty, personal sovereignty, and it can start to feel really abstract. So let's make it concrete. In a simple sense, sovereignty means you have the power to make your own decisions. That's it. You decide what you do, who you associate with, what you're willing to fight for, and what you're not. A sovereign nation decides when to go to war, a sovereign nation decides who to trade with, a sovereign nation decides how to spend its resources, and the opposite is a captured nation. A captured nation means someone else decides. The captured nation is different than a subjugated nation though, because a subjugated nation is controlled through empire, whereas a captured nation provides the money, the soldiers, the flags as the dominant force, military, industrial, whatever. but the decisions are made elsewhere, either by another country or by some supra-national cabal, some elite, ⁓ a group with power, influence, resources, great enough to infiltrate any nation on the planet. Now here's a simple test to know if your nation, if America, has been captured. When America goes to war, ask whose interests does this serve? If the answer is American interests, we're... defending our borders, protecting our citizens, securing our trade, well that's sovereignty. We might disagree about whether the war is wise, but at least it's ours. It's about us, it's about the American people, but if the answer is someone else's interests, if we're fighting for another country's regional dominance or another country's enemies or another country's expansion, that's not sovereignty, that's service. A sovereign nation has a foreign policy, a captured nation has borders. How does a country like the US lose sovereignty? Well, typically not all at once. And I think that was the case here, not a country this size and strength. It doesn't happen with an invasion or a coup. If it did, people would notice, they'd resist. For example, if an invasion happened here in American soil, I have no doubt you'd have 50 million Americans picking up arms to defend our borders. Like we have the weapons, we do it, I would do it. No one would stand for that. If some invading force, touches down on the Florida coast, on the east coast of the United States, no one would stand for that. It would never work here. So instead, it wasn't an invasion, it happened gradually. It was one compromise at a time, one dependency at a time, one loyalty at a time. Think about how it works at a personal level. Like how does someone lose their own independence? Like first, maybe they take on debt and the debt seems manageable at first. Got a bunch of credit card debt. Maybe couldn't make ends meet. But what that does is it creates an obligation. And now they've got to keep a job that they hate because they can't afford to lose it. And then now they have to stay in the city they want to leave because their mortgage is underwater. They can't sell their house. And every decision gets filtered through that initial debt. And then come the relationships like maybe a business partner who's a little too controlling or a spouse who holds the money or a boss who knows something that they shouldn't. Each relationship adds another constraint. another consideration, another voice in the room when decisions get made. And then, and this is the key, they stop noticing, right? The constraints become normal. They forget what freedom is like. They convince themselves that this is just how life works. They're still, you know, making choices, but the choices are always within the boundaries of someone else's, what someone else said. So that's how you capture a person. And it's exactly how you capture a nation. And Americans have lived through this. for decades and decades and decades, like gradually. ⁓ And also because of two major events in my lifetime, like first, 9-11. After 9-11, we were told we had to sacrifice some freedom for security, temporary measures, emergency powers. The Patriot Act was ratified and it let the government surveil Americans without warrants. And you had the TSA, which made us take off our shoes and submit to searches just to travel. And then you have the NSA who collected every phone call, every email, which we only found out about because of whistleblowers like Snowden. American citizens were put on no fly lists without any trial, no due process, no way to appeal. And then 25 years later, none of it has been rescinded. The emergency became permanent. And most Americans forgot that air travel didn't always mean being treated like a suspect. That was the first one. And then the other major event was COVID, of course. So two weeks to flatten the curve. Of course, everybody remembers that. Two weeks became two years. You were told where you could go, who you could see, whether your business was essential or had to close, whether you could attend your mother's funeral. Then there was vaccines, your body, your choice, unless you chose wrong. Then it was your job, your education, your ability to participate in society. They froze bank accounts of people who donated to the wrong protest. And then the goal posts, as happens, the goal posts kept moving. Masks don't work and then masks are mandatory and then two masks and then vaccines stop transmission. Okay, they don't stop transmission, but they reduce severity and then there's boosters and more boosters. And if you questioned any of it, you were banned from social media and called a conspiracy theorist. know, many of you probably watching me ⁓ are here because of COVID, it woke you up. That's when you realized something was wrong. That's when you saw how quickly freedom can disappear and how many people wouldn't stand up and how few people would stand up. There was crisis, fear, emergency powers, normalization. That was personal sovereignty being stripped away in real time. And the playbook was identical to what I'm describing at the national level. have crisis, fear, emergency powers, normalization. Just take the fact that Congress won't even challenge Trump on starting this war. The only branch of the government who can declare war is Congress. And they have abdicated their authority and responsibility to the executive branch. That way, no matter which way it goes, the war goes bad, it goes good. They're not on the record for where they stood on it. Crisis, fear, Emergency powers normalization now apply that same pattern pattern to foreign policy and you'll understand how we got here So let's look at America's relationship with Israel the debt so We've sent over 300 billion dollars to Israel in last two decades. We fund their military. We guarantee their security We give them weapons that we don't give anyone else including our other close allies and That creates dependency, right? I mean, it creates their dependency on our money and our weapons and our political cover, which means we have leverage, right? You'd think so, but we don't. The Trump administration, as I said in the opening, that they admitted last week that we're at war right now with Iran because of Israel. So what happened? Why is this leverage inverted? You we should have leverage on them. But why do they, why does Israel have leverage over US foreign policy? Well, for one, the politicians who vote for that funding, they're dependent on money from the lobby that demands it. They depend on the donors who fund their campaigns. They depend on the media voices. who will support them if they promote the greater welfare of Israel, even over the welfare of their own country. And on the flip side, they get campaign money flowing against them and they're called anti-Semitic if they vote no. So who's dependent on whom? These are the relationship. You've got AIPAC, which is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, basically a foreign lobby. Don't know how they aren't forced to register that way, but basically a foreign lobby. They touch 80 % of congressional races. 30 plus packs flooding money into primaries. Then you've got the Adelson network, the donors who gave Trump north of $200 million. You got the donor class who's funding both parties. They don't care about what party you're in as long as you deliver on the issue that matters the most to them. So these aren't relationships, these are leashes and the leash doesn't go around Israel's neck, it tugs on the necks of the US political class. And how is this normalized? Well, this is the part that's hardest to see. because we're living in it. So we've been at war in the Middle East my entire adult life. We've been sending money and weapons to Israel since before I was born. We've been told that Israel's enemies are our enemies, that their security is our security for so long that most Americans just don't question it anymore. It's just how things are. But how things are is not how things have to be or should be. It's not America first. How things are was designed by specific people for specific reasons over decades. Here's what we all need to understand. Losing sovereignty, it doesn't mean you stop having elections. It doesn't mean you stop having a flag or an anthem or a military. It doesn't mean that these things disappear. It means patriotism or allegiance to your home country becomes hollow. The elections still happen, but the options are pre-filtered. The debates happen, but certain questions are off limits. The votes happen, but the outcomes are predetermined on the issues that matter most. Ask yourself, when was the last time Americans voted on whether or not to fund Israel? We didn't. We've never been asked. Funding continues automatically year after year under every president with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress because the politicians who vote on it are preselected to vote yes. Anyone who might vote no gets removed in the primary. By the time you see their names on the ballot, the decision has already been made. That's not democracy. That's the theater of democracy. It's this play where Americans pretend that we have a choice while the script was written before we entered the building. I of course have lost my faith in the political process, so I don't typically vote on national elections, but I'm not gonna lie. I did think we would be substantially better under Trump than Kamala Harris. I mean, I hoped, but Trump may have proven worse or at least the same as Harris, except maybe where it comes to the border. But Harris and Trump, in all other ways, might be equal when it comes to their subjugation to Israel. We'll never know, but Harris did receive $10 million from AIPAC so there you go. Now, it is important for me to say that my criticism is towards my government first. Like, this is my home, they represent me, it should not be owned by Israel. That's their fault. But I'm also deeply critical of the government of Israel for being corrupt and belligerent and having their claws, you know, in American government, the Netanyahu government and the political operation that serves his interests and their interests. But I do know that plenty of Israeli citizens oppose Netanyahu, plenty of Jewish Americans oppose the war in Gaza and oppose this war with Iran. I hope that they take action for the benefit of themselves, their country and the world. I also hope Americans take action for the benefit of our country and the benefit of the world. Okay, so ⁓ that's the framework. Sovereignty means you own your own decisions. Capture means someone else makes them for you while you provide the resources. Crisis, fear, emergency powers, normalization, that's the playbook. We've seen it work on us in dramatic ways in the last couple of decades. Now you're seeing it work on the country as a whole. So it's clear that America in 2026 is captured. So the next question is specifically how did it happen? How did the most powerful nation in the history of the world end up serving the interests of a country the size of New Jersey? Let's start with what we can prove. And this is just going to get into some of the details that I outlined before. So in 2024, the elect in the 2024 election cycle, AIPAC who I met, who I described before, spent a hundred million dollars on congressional races. That touched over 80 % of the 469 seats up for election. And AIPAC is just one organization. There are over 30 pro-Israel PACs that fund candidates. There's NORPAC, there's DMFI, there's the Republican Jewish Coalition, and dozens more. And when you put them all together with bundlers, which are individuals who donate to pro-Israel PACs and then bundle contributions to candidates, the Israel lobby delivered over $58 million to the sitting members of Congress, just in one single cycle. 349 members of Congress, 65%, took money from AIPAC alone. House Speaker Mike Johnson He took $654,000. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, $933,000. Both parties, same donor. And here's what tells you that it's not just influence, it's control. In 2024, Representatives Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman, both Democrats, both members of the squad, called for a ceasefire in Gaza. That's it. They said, maybe we should stop funding the bombing of civilians. I don't like either of those candidates. Like, we don't agree on anything except for maybe that one. issue. But what happened to them? Well, AIPAC spent $20 million combined to unseat them in their primaries. $20 million. Not the general election, the primary. They funded primary challengers, attack ads, and removed two sitting members of Congress for the crime of suggesting that Palestinians lives matter. Both lost. That's not lobbying, that's enforcement. And it works because every other member of Congress watched it happen. The message was received, cross us, and we will end your career. And if you think it's just progressives who get targeted, no, we all know about Thomas Massie. Most of you have heard him talk about the Epstein file stuff. He forced a vote in Congress and largely responsible with him with Ro Khanna for us seeing all the Epstein files that we're seeing now. He's also against this war in Iran. He, course, is a Republican congressman from Kentucky, is Libertarian, Second Amendment absolutist. Way closer philosophically to Massey than probably any other member of Congress. He votes against all foreign aid to everyone because we shouldn't be giving it out. He's right. He voted with Biden 1.8 % of the time. That's tied for the least of any member of Congress. And he also refuses to take AIPAC money. He's been vocal about why. He said, AIPAC spent $400,000 against me in my last election and is banned from my office. Good for him. But what's happening now? Miriam Adelson, the same billionaire who gave Trump, I think it's 250 million. I said 200 earlier. It's something like $250 million. 250 million. That's crazy. Is leading a $20 million campaign to unseat Massey in his 2026 primary. There's a super PAC called MAGA Kentucky. run by Chris, I don't know how to say his last name, LaCivita, guess. Those Trump's campaign strategists, I don't know who this guy is. But run by him has raised over $2 million from three billionaires, Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Adelson's Preserve America PAC. None of them are from Kentucky. LaCivita said this publicly, said, MAGA-KY, Kentucky, is committed to spending whatever is necessary to defeat Thomas Massey. Whatever is necessary. to remove a sitting Republican congressman because he won't take their money and won't vote for their wars. Trump himself called Massey a, pathetic loser, a moron, a low life Republican. The president of the United States is actively trying to destroy a member of his own party because that member puts America first. So now let's go to the war. So when Trump and Israel launched strikes in Iran, a bipartisan group in Congress immediately moved to invoke the War Powers Act, which would force a vote. to assert that the president can't start a war without congressional approval. It's in the Constitution. The resolution was co-sponsored by Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna. Both very different. Massey had described Khanna as a progressive Democrat from Silicon Valley who supports expanded government and economic reform. We're not on the same side on a lot of stuff. Khanna said this about Massey, he ⁓ quote, he sent me a Christmas card with his family holding a machine gun in front of a Christmas tree. We don't agree. I'm for an assault weapons ban. He is the biggest proponent of the second amendment, but we came together on issues of war what principle looks like. Two people who fundamentally disagree on almost everything united on the one thing that matters most. Congress decides when we go to not the president ⁓ and not a foreign government. But then a different resolution appeared, a softer one. It would give Trump a 30-day extension to continue the before Congress had to vote. This was a compromise. Well, what happened? It's six Democrats cross over to support the extended war powers for Trump. It's six Democrats who were supposed to oppose unauthorized military action, who probably had TDS four years ago. ⁓ probably accused Trump of being a dictator, now supports him in engaging in a war without a congressional declaration of war. Every single one of them, everyone, had received somewhere between $300,000 and $3 million from AIPAC. That's not a coincidence, that's a receipt. when Rubio says we knew there was going to be an Israeli action understand what he's admitting He's admitting that Israel made a decision that the United States responded to that decision that American soldiers are now dying because of a choice made in Jerusalem Not Washington and he's admitting it casually like it's obvious like of course, that's how it works Senator Angus King who I mentioned before who said You know have we now delegated the most solemn decision that can be made in our society decision to go to war to another country He later added that Rubio inadvertently told the truth. He told the inadvertent truth. That's what we're dealing with. They don't even care enough about us to lie to us anymore. At the national level, sovereignty means you control your own decisions, your borders, your currency, your military, your foreign policy. No outside power dictates what you do. When another country can determine whether your soldiers live or die, you are not sovereign, you're a client state. Rome had client kings. The British Empire had protectorates. The Soviet Union had satellite states. The formula is always the same in history. You keep the appearance of independence while the real power flows from somewhere else. And the traditional framing of the US-Israel relationship is that we're the patron and they're the client. We give them $4 billion a year. We provide weapons. We veto UN resolutions on their behalf. We're their big brother. But that's not what the power dynamic shows. Who decides when we go to war? Israel strikes we follow Rubio admitted it who funds our politicians. The Israel lobby touches 80 % of congressional races and members who dissent get removed. Who sets the boundaries of acceptable discourse? Tucker Carlson criticized the war and with 48 hours he's excommunicated from MAGA by the president himself. That's not a patron client relationship as it should be that's inversion. We have the guns and the money, but they have the control. What I am describing is a specific political operation happening within our borders centered on AIPAC and other organizations like them funded by billionaires like Miriam Adelson aligned with the Likud government in Israel that has captured the American political system. It operates in the open. It brags about its influence and it punishes anyone who resists it. AIPAC and other orgs like it are finding people who do like the warner on or criticizing Israel on X. They are then going and finding those people's information, personal information by using X's back end. They are sending the opponent's information to organizations like Stomp Anti-Semitism, who then call their bank and force them to drop you. That's not a conspiracy theory. That shit is happening. They know that support for Israel has inverted since they began killing innocent people in Gaza after October 7th. The American public is against that just like we are against this war in Iran. So Owning the politicians used to be enough when the captured corporate media would also toe the line. You had these two ⁓ very strong, powerful forces all moving in the same direction. It was enough, but we don't listen to corporate media anymore. So it's not enough to have the politicians and the corporate media captured. It's not enough to do, it doesn't, it's not persuading the public anymore. So they began trying to hurt prominent figures with an audience standing against them. This is the same playbook that the woke left used five years ago. If you have an unapproved opinion, they will attack you, your bank, your employer. They're ruthless. And they're doing it because they know their ideas can't win. Their ideas aren't winning, especially with Americans under 50. So who benefits from this arrangement? Well, clearly Israel benefits. Obviously they get an attack dog with the most powerful military on earth. get $4 billion a year in military aid. get diplomatic cover at the UN. get regime change operations against their regional enemies, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Iran. Defense contractors benefit. Lockheed Martin is at all time highs, Raytheon, Northrop Grunman. Every bomb we drop, every missile we fire, someone's getting paid and those same contractors donate to the same politicians who vote for the wars. Donor class benefits, you got Miriam Adelson. Given Trump $250 million. What did she want? She wanted the embassy moved to Jerusalem. Done. She wanted the Golan Heights recognized as Israeli territory. Done. She wanted a war with Iran to ensure Israeli regional hegemony. Done. Trump himself said it at a Hanukkah event. Quote, when someone can give you $250 million, I think we should give her the opportunity to say hello. I he's not hiding it. So they win, who loses? American soldiers lose six dead in a week. And we're told that this war is going to last four to five weeks, maybe longer. We'll see. mean, flirting with boots on the ground. Who also loses American taxpayers funding another forever war while infrastructure crumbles at home. Who else loses Iranian civilians? Over a thousand are dead already that we know of women and children too. Who else loses the American people? We voted for no new wars. We got this instead. So that's the capture of America. That's our reality. Israel lobby funds the majority of Congress. They remove members who dissent. They set the terms of acceptable debate. And when they decide to launch a military operation, the United States follows. That's captured. And so that's the 30,000 foot view. That's a national view. What about the individual view? What about Trump? Donald Trump had every reason to tear this machine apart. The intelligence agencies spied on his campaign. They fabricated the Russian hoax, ran it for years. They impeached him twice. They raided his home. They tried to put him in prison, and then they tried to kill him twice. If anyone had motivation to burn it all down, to expose the people who did this to him, to drain the swamp for real, it was Donald Trump. And yet, we're at war with Iran. The Epstein files are being drip released and redacted. The same people who tried to destroy him are walking free. The never Trumpers are on his side like Shapiro, Levin. And the promises that got him elected, the No New Wars, America First, accountability for the elite, they're broken. What happened to him? Well, there is money. I mean, I don't think that this is the biggest reason for Trump. I he was already a billionaire, but still. Miriam Adelson, who I've mentioned a few times this episode, she is the widow of casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the single largest donor to Republican politics. Gave Trump $250 million in the 2024 cycle. But she also supports and supported Marco Rubio, our current secretary of state, the man who admitted we went to war because we knew there was going to be an Israeli action. He is also an Adelson protege. back in 2015, before Trump the nomination, he tweeted this quote, Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree. That was Trump calling Rubio a puppet for the Adelson's. now Rubio is his secretary of state appointed according to multiple reports at the behest of Miriam Adelson. So in 2015, Trump knew he told us he was right. And then he hired the puppet anyway. Now the money is real. I mean, the influence is documented, but I don't think the money is the most important part. He was already rich before this happened. He didn't need $250 million to live or to launch a political campaign. He's been a billionaire for decades. So why would money capture him now? I don't think it would. I think that there is much more to it. That's a part of the puzzle, but just a very small, small part. So let's just Look at the timeline. So first term, Trump is under siege from day one. You got the Russia investigation. You got the leaks. You got the impeachment over Ukraine. His own generals are lying to him. We know now that military officials misled him about troop levels in Syria because they didn't trust his judgment. So you've got the entire apparatus of the state working against him in the media. 2020, he loses the election under disputed circumstances. January 6th happens. He's impeached again. And he's banned from social media. He's a pariah. then from 2021 through 2023, the legal assault begins. all remember the mugshot indictments in New York, Georgia, federal court. They're trying to put him in prison. His businesses are under attack. His family is under pressure. Then he runs again, 2024, two assassination attempts. Someone tried to kill him twice. Almost did, got real close. But then something shifts. He wins the election. He takes office and suddenly the machine that was trying to destroy him stops. The prosecutions fade. The media softens. The intelligence agencies fall online. And Trump, he starts doing exactly what the machine wants. War with Iran. Epstein files buried, no accountability for the people who targeted him. Swamp isn't drained. It's staffed with the same people who tried to destroy him and the the ⁓ Daily Wire Inc. Never Trumpers fall in line to support him. So what happened between 2020 and 2025? Why did this change? Well, I think that the only the only explanation that I can come up with is he made a deal. Don't know who he made it with. Maybe it was some cabal, you know, with Netanyahu and who he represents, maybe intelligence agencies, maybe a coalition of interests that all wanted the same thing. But at some point during his darkest hour, when he was facing prison and death, I think Donald Trump made a deal. The terms, protection in exchange for compliance, stop the prosecutions, stop the assassination attempts, let him win. Let him have his victory lap. He's a narcissist. He wants to win. And in exchange, he does what they want on the things that matter most to them. War with Iran, continued support for Israel, no exposure of the networks that actually run things. That's what the Epstein file show us. No more exposure of the superstructure, the cabal that seems to influence everything. And it shows it in the Epstein files. Like this week, the house oversight committee released emails from Jeffrey Epstein's personal correspondence. They had been sitting in the department of justice in their custody for years and what they reveal is extraordinary. In 2011 Epstein wrote to Jelaine Maxwell quote, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump. And then he mentions a victim spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. End quote. The dog that hasn't barked Trump was at Epstein's house with the victim. He's never mentioned, know, Epstein saying I have something on him and I haven't used it. And then 2018 Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolf, quote, Of course he knew about the girls as he asked you to stop. So Trump knew And in 2015, before Trump even announced his campaign Epstein and Wolf exchanged emails about an upcoming CNN interview. And Wolf wrote this quote, if he says he hasn't been on the plane or in the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency, you can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him generating a debt, right? What's Wolf saying to Epstein? saying if Trump lies about his connection to you, you have leverage. You can destroy him or you can save him and he'll owe you. That's blackmail. That's how it works. That's the currency of power at the highest levels. Epstein's dead. He was killed, obviously, but the files aren't gone. Someone has them. Someone inherited that leverage. Now the White House says that these allegations are false and baseless and maybe they are, but why have they been fighting so hard to keep all these files buried? If Trump was innocent, there's nothing there, he'd release everything. He'd say, look, they tried to frame me and here's the proof I did nothing wrong. Instead, he signed the Epstein Transparency Act under pressure from Massey and Kahana and then as DOJ slow-walked it, redacted it, withheld key documents. There's still many left, as I said. That's not the behavior of an innocent man, it's behavior of someone with something to hide. So here's what I think, Trump's capture, Not about money. Money is the receipt. But it's not the cause. To me, Trump's capture is about three things. One, Compromat. Someone has files on him. Maybe it's the Epstein material, maybe it's something else. But someone has leverage, and that leverage keeps him in line. Two, threats. They tried to kill him twice, tried to imprison him. They went after his family, his business, his legacy. At some point, the message was received. Comply or we will destroy you. And then three, some sort of deal. At his lowest moment, someone offered him a way out, protection, victory, legacy, maybe even a dynasty. Barron maybe as the future will make Barron the president in exchange. does what, you you do what we want on the things that matter. I don't know which of these are true. All of them, some of them are true. Maybe all three are. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing. I don't know. But what I do know is this, the Donald Trump of 2016, the one who called Rubio a puppet, who said that we were being ripped off by foreign entanglements, who promised no new wars, that man does not exist anymore. The man in the White House today is serving interests that are not America's interests. And whether he's doing it because he was bought, threatened, or compromised, the result is the same. We are not sovereign, and neither is he. There's, ⁓ there's an old phrase. Most of you've heard it. I'm sure it's canary in the coal mine. ⁓ and where it started was miners would bring canaries underground because the birds were more sensitive to toxic gases. And if the canary died, then you knew the air was poisoned. So you would get out. Well, Tucker Carlson is the canary right now. When the bomb started falling in, ⁓ and on Iran, Tucker called it. What it was, he said the attack was absolutely disgusting and evil. He said, this is Israel's war, not America's war. And he said, we were being dragged into a conflict that serves someone else's interests. Within 48 hours, the entire machine turned against him. I mean, they were already at him, but really turned on the juices. And he's maybe the biggest podcaster in America right now. Maybe Joe Rogan is, I don't know, but ⁓ just like Rogan, the machine went after him. Like when Rogan didn't tow the line during COVID, the whole machine. Went after him and the Israeli lobby is not going to let this slide from Tucker. Trump told ABC news this quote, Tucker's lost his way. I knew that a long time ago and he's not MAGA MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that end quote. Crazy thing is Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump are friends like personal friends. Tucker spoke at the Republican national convention. He's interviewed Trump dozens of times. He's defended Trump through his, through his indictments, the raids, the assassination attempts, and now Trump is calling him not smart enough and not mega because he opposes this war. Wasn't just Trump, Bill Ackman, who I mentioned earlier in this episode, he posted that Tucker is quote, going to get someone killed and needs to stop this now. Mark Levin called him a Nazi promoter and accused him of quote, backstabbing the president. Republican Jewish coalition said Tucker is quote, not mega Laura Loomer. So he should be excommunicated from the Republican party for opposing a war of choice. that's Republicans should be all about. But luckily Tucker isn't alone. You've got Megyn Kelly, Ben Voelkel in her opposition to the war, Dave Smith of course, relentless, and even Matt Walsh who works for Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire. Shapiro has been one of Tucker's harshest critics, evil little imp. Even Matt Walsh is starting to speak out against the war, defying his boss. There's a split happening in conservative media. The machine wants everyone in line, but not everybody will do it. And the more they attack Tucker, the more obvious it becomes that this isn't about MAGA or America First. It's about one issue, one loyalty test. And we've seen what happens when you fail the test. Charlie Kirk, founder of turning point USA Trump loyalists from the beginning built the largest conservative youth organization in the country. In the months before his death, leaked text messages show that Kirk was losing donors millions of dollars because he wouldn't cancel Tucker Carlson. And he texted that donors were quote, leaving me no choice, but to leave the pro-Israel cause because his movement, the youth of this country were against the war in Gaza. And then of course on September 10th of last year he was assassinated. Now I don't know what happened. I think that the official story doesn't make any sense. And after the Epstein lies, the Iran lies, I don't believe the official story here at all. His Israel first friends lied about the texts too and Netanyahu lied about the letter that Kirk sent him. So to me, it seems that there is a likely scenario. ⁓ that happened in that is this that the lessons is clear that the scent has consequences and that there's no line to those consequences. Tucker for his part responded to Trump's attacks with grace. said quote, I'll always love him no matter what he says about me. I think that takes a lot of strength of character. It's probably better man than me. I wouldn't react that way, but what it appears is the case is he's not going to be baited into some sort of personal war with Trump. But he's also not going to stop telling the truth about the actual war. And that's why he's dangerous to them. He can't be bought, can't be bullied. He has the largest independent audience in conservative media, and he's using it to say what he believes. But the machine's trying to isolate him, to cut him off from the mainstream right, to make him toxic, to make other voices afraid to agree with him publicly. They threaten his family. They threatened his team while on location in Israel interviewing Huckabee. But it's not working. Megyn Kelly is standing with him. Dave Smith is standing with him. Darryl Cooper, Matt Walsh is breaking ranks. And Tucker keeps having the most meaningful discussions in media right now. Everyone with a voice or platform needs to support Tucker right now. He's in harm's way from a group that will go after you in every way. There is no line that they won't cross. Okay. Everything I've described so far, the lobby, the money, the leverage, the punishment for dissent. None of this is new. This is how empires have always worked. The only thing that's changed is who's the empire and who's the client. I mentioned these before, but I'll get into a little bit more detail in the Roman empire. You had client states that were kingdoms that Rome allowed to exist as long as they serve Roman interests. They get to keep their Kings, their flags, their illusion of independence, but semi, ⁓ autonomy on the local level, of course. But when Rome wanted something troops resources of war fought the client state delivered and if they didn't Rome replaced the king. And the British Empire ran the same playbook. India had its princes Africa had its chiefs they were the crowns but Britain pulled the strings. The Soviet Union had its satellite states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. They had their own governments, their own flags. But everyone knew who was really in charge. When Hungary tried to assert independence in 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. That's the pattern. The client state keeps its symbols of sovereignty, but the empire keeps the control. In every historical example, the empire is the one with the power. Rome had the legions. Britain had the navy. The Soviets had the tanks. America... has the most powerful military in human history. We have debatably the largest economy, perhaps number two to China now. We have the reserve currency. We have 750 military bases in 80 countries and yet we're acting like the client state. We're fighting wars for another country's interests. We're sending hundreds of billions in aid and weapons. We're letting a foreign government's lobby dictate who wins and loses our elections. Our secretary of state admits we went to war because we knew there was going to be an Israeli action. This isn't Rome and Judea. This is Judea running Rome. I don't know of another example in the history of the world where the smaller power captures the larger one so completely when the client state becomes the patron and the patron becomes a client while still providing all the money and all the guns. Like, what do we get from this? It's extraordinary. And it happened gradually. enough where most Americans didn't even see it. What they do see, what they've all seen is the endless wars. In 2007, General Wesley Clark gave an interview where he described a conversation he had the Pentagon shortly after 9-11. A general showed him a memo, classified memo that outlined the plan. Quote, we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran. Seven countries, five years. That was weeks after 9-11 before we ever even invaded Afghanistan. Well, they didn't get it all done in five years, but look at the list, Iraq, invaded in 2003, regime toppled, Libya bombed in 2011, Gaddafi killed, brutally, Syria, civil war fueled by United States and allies, still ongoing, Somalia, drone strikes for two decades, Sudan split in two, ongoing instability, Lebanon currently being bombed by Israel, Iran, right now, seven countries, it took 20 years instead of five, but they're working right through the list. And every single time, the justification changes. Iraq was weapons of mass destruction, didn't exist. Libya was humanitarian intervention. Now it's open air slave markets. Syria was chemical weapons. The evidence was contested, but we bombed them anyway. Iran, nuclear weapons. The same intelligence agencies that lied about Iraq are now telling us Iran is weeks away from a bomb for last 30 years. And then we obliterated their capacity to make nuclear weapons last June. So, you know, they can't make them, they don't have them. What is that as a justification? It's not. You've got moving goalposts. They have a goal and they'll say whatever they need to say to achieve it except what it actually is. The goal isn't stopping terrorism. The goal isn't spreading democracy. The goal isn't protecting America. The goal is regional hegemony for Israel and endless contracts for the defense industry. Everything else is narrative. And here's the pattern that terrifies me. Every empire that overextended, that fought wars it couldn't afford, that served interests other than its own people collapsed. Rome didn't fall to barbarians. Rome fell because it hollowed itself out. The legions were filled with mercenaries who had no loyalty to Rome. Treasury was drained by endless frontier wars. The citizens lost faith in institutions that no longer serve them. The British empire didn't lose to a military defeat. One, World War I and World War II. But it bankrupted itself and couldn't hold all the pieces together anymore. The Soviet Union didn't lose a war, it collapsed from within. The gap between the propaganda and the reality became too large to sustain. America's $39 trillion in debt. We're fighting wars on multiple fronts, on multiple continents. You know, our infrastructure is crumbling. While we send billions overseas, most of the country doesn't trust the elections or its institutions. We are running the collapse playbook and the people running the empire don't care because they'll be fine. They have their bunkers in New Zealand. They have their money and offshore accounts. They have their exit plans. They have their generational hegemony. The question is, do you? Because I don't. So where does that leave us? I know listening to this, some of you are probably thinking, okay, Matt, I hear you. It's bad, but we just need to elect better people. We need to primary the rhinos. We need to get more America first candidates in there. But I'm sorry to say if the political system could fix this, then why hasn't it? We elected Trump twice. The most anti-establishment candidate in modern history. The guy who called Rubio a puppet. The guy who said we were getting ripped off. The guy who promised no new wars and to drain the swamp. And what happened? He hired the puppet of secretary of state where it wore with Iran swamps fully staffed. The Epstein files are being buried by his own DOJ. So if Trump couldn't do it or wouldn't do it, what makes you think the next candidate will? They won't. They can't. the time you see a name on the ballot, they've already been vetted. The filtering happened long before the election ever did. Now, AIPAC touching 80 % of congressional races. That's not just spending money for candidates that's spending money against candidates. They're making sure anyone who might vote the wrong way. never makes it through the primary. The system, it doesn't need to control every politician. Doesn't control Massey, it seems. It just needs to control who gets to become a politician in the first place. And it needs to have the majority. And then by the time you're choosing between the Republican and the Democrat, you're choosing between two people who have already passed the loyalty test. That's not a choice, that's a menu designed by someone else. And let's just be honest about voting itself. You vote every two years, maybe four, if you only care about the presidency, you spend an hour at the polling station, you feel like you've done your civic duty, you go home. But meanwhile, AIPAC has full-time staff year round, tracking every vote, maintaining relationships, bundling donations, running ads, recruiting primary challengers. You show up once every two years, but they show up every single day. That's not a fair fight. It's not even the same sport. Political engagement for most people is a pressure release valve. You get angry, you vote, you feel like you did something, you go back to your life and nothing changes because the people who actually run things aren't waiting for election day. They're working the system 365 days a year, decade after decade. The system isn't broken. That's the hard truth. The system is working exactly as designed. It's just not designed for you or me. It's designed to maintain the interests of the people who built it, the donors, the lobbyists, the defense contractors, the foreign governments who've learned how to play it. And no matter how many times you vote, you're not going to out organize the people for whom this is a full time job and a multi generational project. Now, I don't mean this to be a black bill. should be a level set. As I mentioned earlier on, like there's hope. Everything I've described is real. The captures real, the corruption's real, the inability of electoral politics to fix it. That's all real. But here's what's also real. We vastly outnumber them. And for the first time in human history, we have tools they can't control. But change doesn't come from politics. It comes from somewhere else. It comes from our ability to be creative, to build community, and to leverage technology in our favor. So let me give you some examples of that. Every system of control depends on choke points, places where they can intercept you, surveil you, stop you. The financial system is a choke point. They can freeze your bank accounts. They can cut you off from payment processors. They can make it impossible to buy or sell if you're on the wrong list. We saw this in Canada with the truckers. We've seen it with people debanked for their political views. So the financial system is one, the media is another one. They can ban you from social media. They can deplatform you. They can make sure your message never reaches anyone. Communication is a checkpoint. They can read your emails. They can listen to your calls. They can track your location through your phone. For most of human history, there was no way around these choke points. If the king controlled the roads, you couldn't trade. If the church controlled the printing press, you couldn't publish. If the state controlled the banks, you couldn't transact. That's no longer true. For example, humans made Bitcoin and crypto, which is an exit from the financial choke point. No government controls it. No one can freeze it. No one can... can inflate it. No one can stop you from sending it to anyone anywhere in the world. When Canada froze bank accounts, Bitcoin kept working. When payment processors banned people for their politics, Bitcoin kept working. When government printed trillions of dollars and destroyed your purchasing power, Bitcoin kept working. The dollar is controlled by the Fed. The Fed reserves the interests and serves the interests of the people who capture the government. Every time you use their money, you're playing in their casino, but crypto is the exit. We have that now. Encryption is the exit from the surveillance checkpoint. End to end encrypted messages means they can't read your conversations. Not the government, not tech companies, no one except you and the person you're talking to. Use Signal, use encrypted email, use a VPN. These aren't paranoid measures. These are basic digital hygiene things you can do in a world where everything you type is collected and stored forever. These tools are easy to use now. The same government that lied about Iraq, that lied about COVID, that's lying about Iran right now, that government has access to every text message, every email, every search query you've made, unless you encrypt. Privacy, your own privacy isn't about having something to hide, privacy is about having something to protect. Decentralized media is the exit from the information checkpoint. Independent media is how we broke the narrative monopoly. It's how Tucker reaches people even after being fired from Fox. How Joe Rogan has more reach than all of mainstream media combined. It's how the regime lost control of the COVID narrative despite every institution pushing the same line. They're trying to close that window. They're pressuring platforms to censor. They're labeling independent voices as misinformation. They're working on it, but right now that window is open. And then there's also community, ⁓ atomized individuals are easy to control. You pick them off one by one. You make them afraid to speak. You isolate them until they have nothing and that they're alone. But community is the counter. Find your people build together. For example, the free state project understands this 20,000 people committed to moving to New Hampshire to build a community of Liberty minded people in one place. And what's the result? It's the freest state in America. It's also probably the freest place in the world right now because of that concentration, because they're not alone. You don't have to move to New Hampshire, although I would encourage you to do so, but you do have to build something somewhere with someone. And then, from technology standpoint, there's sovereign AI. Imagine an AI partner completely loyal to you and incorruptible by outside influences, always on the lookout, protecting you from adversarial AI sent by powerful, coordinated networks. Those feeding you misinformation or rage bait or trying to hack you, expose you or steal your money. AI ⁓ guided weapons to destroy targets in Iran, including destroying the school that claimed 180 children's lives. Sovereign AI is necessary to protect us ⁓ against ⁓ all threats. that's response. You can't fix the system, but you can circumvent it and the technology is increasingly getting better and better to allow us to do that ⁓ to a greater degree. You can't reform the institutions, but you can build parallel ones. You can't vote your way to freedom, but you can build it one tool at a time, one relationship at a time, one decision at a time. So there's hope grounded in reality. So I'd like to end where I began. No new wars. That was the promise. That's what millions of Americans voted for. That's what I hope for. But they always break their promises no matter who they are. You see why it doesn't matter which party wins. You see why the wars never end and the money never stops flowing and the same types of people stay in power no matter how many times we vote. The system isn't broken. The system is captured. Sovereignty is taking back control of your money, your information, your community, your life. They captured America, but that doesn't mean they get to capture you.