Original subtitles

Start the clock.

Thank you. How are you doing?

Thank you, everybody.

I appreciate it. How are you doing?

All right.

Thank you, people.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for coming out.

Oh, you're going to laugh tonight.

First of all, we're going to get to all the hearts. news, but let's talk about

what we're really thinking about.

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. I said that for all the men watching who just went,

oh, shit.

It is.

So, you excited about that, Valen?

It's a stupid holiday, but you know what?

People get into it. You know, St.

Valentine was a Catholic priest. That's why to this day we exchange candy for

sex. That's why.

And, you know, there's always

that Valentine's Day movie they put out. You know what the one this year is?

Wuthering Heights. Are you into it? I'm so into it.

It's all about the forbidden love of Catherine and Heathcliff.

Of course, it's very modernized. Now, when their forbidden love gets busted,

it's because they see them on the jumbotron.

And, oh,

it's so romantic.

You've got to feel the romance in the air. I mean, I know a guy who said his

girlfriend wanted to be swept off her feet and carried off to the tropics. So

reported her to ICE.

News out of Minnesota, people. We've done it. We've liberated St. Paul from

Somalia. All right.

Ice is leaving town, so that's why you're feeling extra patriotic. Of

could also be because Monday is President's Day.

Yeah.

No, no. This is the day we pay tribute to all the past presidents, even those

the Epstein file.

And, oh, no, no.

Our president now, Donald Trump, he takes very seriously his place in the

of presidents. He's going to honor it, Munda, by posting pictures of all the

presidents, some of them not as apes.

But I tell you, this Epstein story,

that is not going away.

The Attorney General, Pam Bondi, she was before the House Judiciary Committee.

This week, they were talking to her about how she mishandled this, and she

calmly answered all their questions. I'm kidding, of course. She broke out Jeff

Ross's big book of insults for roasters.

At one point, she said to a congressman, you're a washed -up loser lawyer.

Begs the question, what is the opposite of legally blonde?

Oh, I kid, Sam.

I kid, Sam. By the way, he's got a great Valentine's Day card for her lover. It

says, kiss me, you fucking asshole.

Now...

This is all fun, but we have to get to the story that really matters, which is

the EPA.

Little history lesson, Richard Nixon, a Republican, okay, he started the EPA,

the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970.

Trump has always said it's a hoax, the whole thing, but climate change, he

scientists, climate scientists, he says, are stupid people.

He says, the idea that greenhouse gases cause climate change, there's no basis

in fact. He thinks it's just some bullshit that people made up out of

get rich. You know, like crypto.

And, yes, his EPA director, Lee Selgin, said this is the

single, this is the quote, single largest deregulatory action in American

history. Probably true. Also the biggest dick move in American history.

Guys, this is not made up. You know, this is science.

Doug Burnham, he's the interior secretary.

Listen to this, the way they all line up behind this nonsense. He said, CO2,

carbon, was never a pollutant. He said, when we breathe, we emit CO2.

Okay, Doug, you know what? Let's try this little experiment.

Tonight, when you get home, go in the garage, close the door, turn the car on,

and let's see if carbon is a pollutant.

You have to

be a little sympathetic.

A lot of the conservative America is very butthurt these days. They're still

recovering from the halftime show.

That big bunny did. They hated it because it was in Spanish, but now

pretending they hated it because it was smutty.

And it was sexual, very overtly sexual with dirty lyrics. Well, what do you

expect? He's not called Good Bunny.

Trump said, nobody could understand a word the guy said.

I never understood a word Mick Jagger said either. I still enjoy the show.

I looked at you like Olympic curling. I had no idea what the fuck was happening,

but I was like, everyone looks like they're having fun. Fuck it, I'm in. All

right, we've got a great show. We have former National Security Advisor H .R.

McMaster and Stephanie Ruhl.

But first up, he is a professor and social psychologist who wrote the best

-selling book, The Anxious Generation.

He recently co -authored another one on the subject, The Amazing Generation,

Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen -Filled World. Jonathan Haidt is

here.

John,

how are you doing? I want to see you back here.

Okay, well.

And look, I'm not going to lie to you, they stand for pretty much anybody who

walks out here.

But I'm going to say to you, you really deserve it. I mean, this book that you

wrote, you started with a thesis that the phone, the smartphone, and all

contained in it, and the social media, not benign, and adults need to do

something about it.

And you weren't the only one. We've got Tristan Harris on this show and other

people. But you were the main one out there. And this book did a lot of the

heavy lifting. And now this is actually happening. So a grateful nation says

thank you to you.

And when I say it's actually happening, Australia, right? Am I right? The first

country now to ban phones for kids.

Social media. Social media account.

You just got through the world tour pretty much. Where is this happening and

what are they doing? So it's now happening. It's going to happen

year. Everywhere?

That's my prediction.

So here's what happened.

Australia, their law went into effect on December 10th. And there was news

coverage all over the world. And a lot of the news coverage was people saying

journalists saying, hey, why can't we do that here?

And once everybody saw that.

then everything changed in a really interesting way. I was just in Europe,

wherever I would go, I was knocking on open doors. People wanted to do this.

What I think happened is you had Steve Pinker on here last year, and he has a

book out called When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. It's about the

emperor's new clothes moment, when suddenly the kid calls out the emperor

clothes, and private knowledge, because everyone already knew that, but private

knowledge becomes public knowledge.

And so what I think happened was...

Once everybody saw that everybody was praising Australia, then everybody knew

that everybody wanted to do this.

And suddenly, all the politicians realized, wait, the people are way out

of me.

I want to get back out ahead.

And so I met with President Macron in Davos. I met with leaders of labor and

conservatives in the UK. I met with people in the EU. Wherever I went, there

parents. And parents everywhere have seen this. And parents who are

are very aware of public...

sentiment. So this past month has been an extraordinary period of global

This is the tipping point, like this month, especially given what's going on

LA with the trials. So it's a different world now than it was two months ago.

And that's all true.

But your book, The Anxious Generation, I mean, look, I had a book that hit

number one for one week.

Last year. Yours is on the charts for how long has this been? 95 weeks. 95

weeks. I just wanted to say, it's a victory for

the issue itself about social media.

It's also a victory for books. That a public intellectual, the term is sort of

out of vogue, but you are one.

There are not many left.

And the idea of a book changing people's minds.

still can happen. I just want to take that victory for a second.

Because it was very influential.

This stuff caught people's attention.

You just mentioned the trials. What are you talking about? Tell us what you, I

know what you mean, the one that's in LA that's starting. Sure, sure.

So imagine that there was a consumer product that had killed hundreds of kids

and that had harmed or damaged literally millions of kids. But this consumer

product... had what seemed to be special protection where nobody could sue them.

That would be a really bad situation, and that's where we've been with social

media. Hundreds of kids are dead, and a lot of those parents came to L .A. today

because for the first time in history, the companies are being held

or at least they're going to face a jury for what they did to the kids.

And what is the young woman who is bringing this case? What is she

She's claiming that she was on, I mean, the people being sued. First of all, two

of them already settled, right?

Snapchat and TikTok.

Two out of the thousands already settled.

But Snapchat and TikTok are already out.

That's right. On this one case, this first Bellwether case. Right. But this

Meta. These are the people who bring you Instagram.

And this is Google, the people who bring you YouTube.

That's right. Okay. So they're on trial.

That's right.

What is she saying happened that she was hooked? They purposely hook it because

it does remind me a lot of the tobacco trials. Exactly. Because it's the same

dynamic where the tobacco companies were up there saying, well, first of all,

we didn't know it was addictive. Right. They did know it was addictive and they

just didn't care.

They were giving you this delivery system. So it's sort of the same kind of

thing. You have to be responsible for something that's addictive.

What is she saying? She's saying that she got hooked on these things and it

her depressed?

Yeah.

When you start spending 8, 10, 15 hours a day just on social media, the average

American teen spends 5 hours a day on social media, about a quarter spending 7

hours just on social media, the ad and all the other stuff.

You're going to be losing out on sleep. You're going to be losing out on social

relationships. You're going to be losing out on all the things that kids need.

And I don't know the details of that case, what exactly she's alleging about

chain of damage.

But almost all these, so many of these kids, the case is that they became

addicted, and then that affects their mental health. That pulls them into dark

places. That puts them in touch with sexual predators.

And what a lot of these initial trials are going to hinge on, and we saw Adam

Mosseri testify yesterday, the head of Instagram, he said, oh no, there's no

evidence that it's addictive.

He said, heavy users, they have problematic use. 16 hours a day she was

sometimes. That's just, that's problematic, that's not addiction.

But these things were designed by people who studied slot machines.

Slot machines are addictive.

These people, a lot of them took a course at Stanford on persuasive design.

learned how to use intermittent rewards, variable ratio reward schedules to hook

people. And they did it. They talked about it. We have transcripts. We have

internal reports.

They did 31 studies, my team has found. If you go to medisinternalresearch .org,

we've categorized their own study showing that this is addictive.

They talk about it. They use the word addiction.

And so now for these guys to say, oh.

It's not addictive, just like the tobacco industry.

And would they let their kids? I don't think the tobacco industry, I don't

the tobacco guys let their kids smoke. A lot of these guys don't let their kids

use their products. But there's a big difference, I think.

And I think comparing it to the tobacco industry is actually unfair to the

tobacco industry.

Because the tobacco executives never saw children suffer.

They knew that they were going to give them cancer eventually, but they didn't

have to look at children suffering and dying.

And these guys have to face the reality.

of these parents coming to them with the photos.

It was so moving this morning.

About 40 parents came to L .A. There was a memorial showing, like, tombstones

that are like cell phones showing the block screens with these beautiful kids

them. From suicide.

All sorts of things. So a lot of them are fentanyl deaths.

Because, as one young woman said to me, everybody buys drugs on Snapchat.

And you had a piece on gambling a week or two ago. When you make it

and free, anyone can get any drug this afternoon.

Really?

I mean, that's terrible.

I didn't know that.

So a lot of the deaths are fentanyl. I mean, a kid buys Percocet or Xanax, but

it has fentanyl, and they're dead.

And that's what a lot of them are. And the others are suicide after

cyberbullying or sextortion.

In one case, one mother I was talking to, her daughter was cyberbullied into

suicide. And this was during COVID.

And the kids broke into the funeral to continue the bullying after the grave.

And what I take from this as a social psychologist isn't, oh, those bastards,

oh, those cruel kids.

What kind of sick environment are we raising our kids in that this sort of

is now normal? Kids were always bastards, John.

They were.

They were shitty when I was a kid. You have to teach the kid to be decent.

You never read Lord of the Flies when you were a kid?

Kids are shit. They are. The little Nazis, they have to be taught to be

civilized.

But I take your point.

An important point you make when you're writing about this lately, I see, is

that there should be no parental exemptions, because I think that's what

people want now. They want some exemptions out of this. You say you'd

have no laws than parental exemptions. Yeah. So the key thing, you know, we can

talk about, oh, we need to make this safer. Oh, we need more education. We

talk about all that stuff, but none of that works.

All over the world, parents are fighting. They're having the same fight

their kids. Mom, everyone else has a phone. I'm starting fifth grade.

Everyone else has Instagram.

And so parents are in a trap, kids are in a trap, and we all have to give in

because everyone else gave in. So that's called a collective action trap.

And so lots of countries are in Europe and Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, lots

of countries are going to raise the age to 16.

But in some countries, they're saying, you have to be 16 to open an account.

if your parents give permission, then you can open an account at 13 or 14.

And my attitude is, What the hell? Why bother doing it? That just puts us all

back in the trap. So we need a clean, like a global norm. Like, really, it

should be 18. This is an adult activity.

But I'm saying, let's just, if we all agree to do 16, we can get it. We can

it fast. And that takes the pressure off of the kids to spend their, to give up

their childhood to scrolling. And now you have a graphic novel that's a book

really for the kids themselves to explain it. Just plug it one more time

you leave. What's the title?

It's called The Amazing Generation.

And it's for kids 8 to 13 years old. Right.

And it's got a graphic novel about what happens to kids when they get a phone.

And our goal with my co -author, Catherine Price, we weren't. I'm going

preach to the kids. We let older kids talk to them. They hear from older kids,

members of Gen Z, who really regret losing their childhood, spending so much

it doing this, rather than talking to their grandfather before he died. When

you're getting life advice from Gen Z, you know what to talk about.

Thank you, John, for your service to humanity.

My favorite public intellectual.

Jonathan Haidt. Okay, let's meet our panel.

Hello. Okay, here's a former national security advisor, host of the Hoover

Institute's podcast, Today's Battlegrounds, an author about war with

former Lieutenant General H .R. McMaster. General, great to have you

And there's Stephanie Ruhl. She's host of MSNOW's The 11th Hour and co -host of

YouTube Lives, It's Happening with Bill Sheehan Ruhl, airing every Wednesday.

Stephanie Ruhl.

That's what it is.

Okay.

Well, I think I'm going to start tonight by saying elections have consequences

because I want to talk about this EPA thing that's going on. I always thought

when Trump first ran, the most damage he possibly could do would be the

environment because he was always talking about what a hoax.

global warming was. And look, I mean, have sometimes they exaggerated, have

some, I don't think they did themselves any favors sometimes by predicting like,

oh, well, you know, we're going to hit past the tipping point if we don't do

something by 2012. And then we did. And now, but it's still really happening,

guys. It's not a hoax. Okay.

So here's what's going on. We had something called the engagement rule in

This said the feds got to regulate fossil fuels because we believe they are

danger to public health.

Well, what happened yesterday?

Trump ended government's legal authority to regulate basically what causes

pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency cannot now protect it against

pollution.

This is like the Navy can't use ships.

But why are you surprised?

I'm not surprised.

I'm angry.

A year and a half ago, during the campaign, the president invited a bunch

and gas executives to Mar -a -Lago, and he said to them, if you deliver me a

billion dollars in campaign donations, I will pay you back in spades. And that's

exactly what we're getting here, a huge win for oil, gas, and big coal.

Promises kept, he could say.

Well, you know, Bill and Stephanie, you don't need washed -up generals to talk

about climate science. But I'm a believer that global warming is a real

right? Man -made carbon emissions are a problem.

But what we were doing wasn't working anyway, really. I mean, what we do in

United States actually doesn't matter if China is building 40 coal -fired power

plants a year. So what I think we should do is come together and work together

on a market solution.

that actually works. Just like it happened with the fracking revolution,

The largest reduction in man -made carbon emissions in history didn't come

a government regulation.

It came from cheap natural gas displacing coal.

That, I think, plus nuclear fission, that gets us off the path toward global

warming and gets us cheaper energy.

But are we working, do you actually foresee us in the current environment

working in concert with other countries to do that?

Well, I mean no I think what we can do

But we were working in concert with other countries, supposedly, and it

work. So what you need is a market solution that will get adopted in

India, in China, because you're providing energy security for people who

be lifted out of poverty.

China's already moving way ahead of us on this, as well as many other things.

But I pulled this card from years ago because I thought you were here. It's

Pentagon. The Pentagon had something called assessment risk that they used to

do. I don't think they do it anymore.

I think, from 2014.

This is, you know, I don't think things have changed. The world's only gotten

hotter. They said climate change poses an immediate threat to national

This is the Pentagon.

It's your group, okay?

Because of things like pandemic disease, global poverty, food shortages,

humanitarian crisis. In other words, messes that are going to be created

of climate change that the army might have to step in and help. And today, one

of the things Trump did, he directed the Pentagon to buy more electricity from

coal.

I mean...

You know what this is? I think this is like every reaction has an unequal and

opposite reaction in the Trump administration.

Why the hell is the Pentagon involved in climate change? They should be. They've

got, I think, a more narrow mission to focus on, which is to deter war, defend

the nation.

Now what you get, though, to the Pentagon embracing sort of climate

catastrophism, which they were doing, I think, in 2014, which, by the way,

there's been a reversal in that appraisal by Stephen Kuhn and others

said, hey, it's not as catastrophic as people had said it was. And so if you

spend, you know, 10 percent of your GDP, these are economists, to reduce the

risk of like a 5 percent risk, you know, a generation ahead.

That doesn't make sense. We need different types of solutions.

Okay, this sounds brilliant, but I don't think there's a single person in the

administration reading one word of that. We're not even employing America First

policies. This is a continuation of Trump First policies. And if you don't

there's a big coal donor behind this, then I've got a bridge to sell you in

Michigan.

Again, it's not all happening right now. The worry is that what happens in the

future. I mean, when the planet gets hotter, it does melt the permafrost.

When the permafrost melts, it releases crazy amounts of methane and carbon that

were trapped.

That just makes the cycle even worse, because then that makes the planet

melts more ice, more goes up there. That's the kind of thing we worry about

the future. Dick Cheney once said about terrorism, if there's even a 1 % chance,

we've got to act like it's 100%. Wouldn't this be just as much? I mean, I

have to put it all on you.

I mean, you don't have to be. I would say, listen, I think this is, you know,

what your show is about is that, hey.

that we can be rational human beings. Yes, I hope. We can begin, you know,

what we can agree on. So I think what happens is the people who steal all the

oxygen, you know, from this debate, are the people, you know, maybe climate

catastrophists on the one hand and climate deniers on the other. I think

vast majority of Americans are somewhere in between.

And we can recognize that what we really do need are these market -based

solutions because really it doesn't matter what we do if China...

India, developing economies, you know, in Africa, Latin America, don't adopt

solutions that provide energy security but also reduce carbon emissions. Yeah,

don't think China's on the page that it's a hoax.

I don't think China's on this page that it's just all made up and we should go

more toward coal. I mean, they may not be there yet, but that is their goal.

I mean, they're still building a hell of a lot more coal -fired plants, you

know, and they're doing solar, they're doing kind of all the... what they

want is energy security.

And if you're worried about the environment, they've destroyed their

environment. So a lot of what we've done is like greenwashing ourselves by

offshoring stuff to Trump. If the Sierra Club would consider, I don't know, a

monument to the president, a few trophies with his face on it, I think

good. I think we're good.

You're an economist.

I am.

All right, okay.

So Trump is going to say the cars are going to be $2 ,000 less, and they may

You know, that may be, and that might turn a lot of heads.

Or if you want to drive in a 1980s gas guzzler while you're smoking cigarettes

with the windows closed, throwing Burger King out the window. But this is 2026.

I'm just saying what he's going to say. Don't yell at me.

This is his argument, okay, and it may be true.

Okay, but here's the interesting part about this.

China, talking about China, the guy from Ford, the head of Ford, CEO, I think

his name is Jim Farley, went over there last year.

He said...

It's the most humbling thing I've ever seen. Their quality of their vehicles is

far superior to what I see in the West. Their Ford just lost $19 billion on

EVs. Trump says that's because they were forcing this on us. They were forcing

the EVs. That's why we're doing this. We're changing everything back to what

used to be and throwing gas guzzlers.

Okay, I think the reason why is because not that we're forcing EVs on people,

because we made shittier EVs than China does. Ford lost $19 billion, and then

this guy goes over there and says, he said, we're in a global competition with

China, and it's not just EVs, and if we lose this, we do not have a future at

Ford.

Well, you know, this is kind of a situation of our own making. With so

industries, and you know this much better than I do, what happened is China

draws you in. They co -opt you with the promise of cheap manufacturing.

So guess where we started to manufacture batteries?

China the highest end batteries in China where we're manufacturing a lot of our

EVs Tesla and other companies manufacturing in China they promise you

their market cheap manufacturing and then once they steal your IP they steal

your technology they pick a Chinese winner subsidize the hell out of it shut

out of their market manufacture at artificially low prices and take losses

that hardware or an EV and then dump it on the international market and drive

you out of business. How many times do we have to go through that cycle? Okay,

you know what would be brilliant?

It's the United States.

got together with a bunch of our allies and created something like, I don't

know, the Trans -Pacific Partnership, and these countries worked together to

battle China, who employs unfair trade practices. We did put together the Trans

-Pacific Partnership.

It was President Obama, and the first thing Donald Trump did was tear it up.

now here we are. He's launching a trade war that is not bringing an ounce of

manufacturing back, where the tariffs are costing the American people, and it

actually caused more to manufacture here.

Yeah,

they said the tariffs apparently are going to cost

each American family like $1 ,000.

Who would have thunk it?

I mean, what a surprise!

I mean, also, they did something.

A group called the Democracy Perception Index, they did a survey of the 96

countries. Three -quarters of them...

prefer Beijing to Mar -a -Lago.

Like, we're losing the popularity contest to China, which is not a good

I mean, the people are very nice, but the leadership and what China does on a

human rights level, on so many levels, is really quite evil.

Absolutely.

Here's where we are missing opportunities,

right? First of all, if you care about Chinese economic aggression, industrial

espionage, subsidies, overcapacity, overproduction, dumping on the

market, getting grip, an artificial grip on the most critical supply chains to

use that grip on those supply chains for coercive purposes, then we need

collective action to work on that. But if you're kicking everybody in the ass,

you know, who could help you, maybe you're not going to get the cooperation.

I mean, one of the things I used to say to the president, you know, There's a

reason why I was only there for 13 months. I would say, hey, I would say,

would say, Mr. President, if we shoot all of our allies to get to China, China

wins, you know? And so we should be working more cooperatively. Then just

explain me the Canada thing.

Maybe you have some insight into the thinking, because you mentioned the

There's a bridge that Canada is building between, there's one there now, but

they're building a better one, between, I assume it's over the Detroit River.

Detroit and Ontario.

Yeah, of course.

Okay. Trump, this is Trump this week. As everyone knows, the country of Canada,

also known as Canada, has treated the United States very

unfairly for decades.

How?

Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan.

Prime Minister Carney, well that's inappropriate, he's called him Governor

Carney before, wants to make a deal with China which will eat Canada alive.

We'll just get the leftovers.

I don't think so.

The first thing China will do is terminate all ice hockey. What the fuck

talking about?

I can usually suss out something in this. I don't know where...

Why will China take over...

destroy hockey?

First of all... Canada is not only

responsible for hockey.

It's also responsible for heated rivalry.

So there is nothing greater in this country. But this bridge was paid for by

Canada. The bridge was built with U .S. steel.

But this bridge will take toll money away from another bridge that connects

Michigan and Canada. And that bridge is owned by a big Trump donor who on Monday

had a meeting with Howard Letnick, our Commerce Secretary, and immediately

following that meeting, Howard Letton had called up the president, and poof,

no longer want this new bridge.

Yeah, I think this is the kind of thing that is causing his popularity to go

down. I mean, a number of things, economic things, but also even the

person, I think, understands that there's always this self -dealing

with everything that goes on.

And, you know, we're still a democracy.

You know, it's only early in the weekend, but...

And the immutable laws of democracy are when you get weaker politically, which

he is now, people do begin to stand up to you. We do see more people standing

up. This Canada deal?

There are some Republicans who joined Democrats who said, we are not going

with your tariffs on Canada because they want to make a deal with China, who's

going to get rid of hockey.

And why is Carney going to China?

He's going to China because of the gratuitous insults. Like, what good does

do? With the meme that shows them as part of the United States.

And then to barrage their contributions. Okay, hey, they do need to spend more

on defense.

But if you want the Golden Dome, not a bad idea. in my view, you need Canada.

So say, hey, guys, how about spending more on defense?

I mean, we have legitimate issues with Canada, but the gratuitous insults, and

fought alongside Canadian soldiers.

They were incredibly tough, brave.

They were in one of the toughest parts of Afghanistan, and they took a hell of

lot of casualties in Kandahar province, fighting after the 9 -11 attacks against

our nation.

We love Canada.

We love Canada.

He did shake the tree when it came to our NATO allies and said, pony up your

money. And you have to give him credit for that. I do, absolutely.

But listen, it's Valentine's Day. Let's get to the really important news

out of the White House is that there is a baby boom going on there.

Usha Vance.

pregnant, Carolyn Leavitt pregnant, and Stephen Miller's wife's wife. They're

all about to have children. You know, they love babies over there at the

conservative side of America. I don't understand it, but they think we need

babies. I always think we need less.

Definitely less around me, ever.

So anyway, since there's such a baby boom going on at the White House, we

thought we would show you what some of the things that are being bought these

days for the baby shower that's upcoming. Would you like to see these?

This is a MAGA baby shower.

These are some very interesting stuff. For example, there's a onesie that

not an anchor baby.

Somebody's also getting a doll that cries liberal tears.

There's a baby mobile with the faces of the cast of Fox and Friends.

That's so great for the child.

A baby's first blanket pardon.

Exactly. Oh, this is interesting. Stroller nuts.

You know, that's like the... Well,

they love those.

Oh, a baby monitor that alerts you when your child is woke.

Autism -free infant Tylenol. That's very important.

Oh,

the Venezuelan boat bath toys.

And my favorite, a diaper that reads, don't claim

Trump, this is Biden's mess.

Okay.

Okay. Now I have to ask. about the story that has just absolutely transfixed

this nation, which is the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's mother.

It's a sad story. I hope it will come out better than the news we've had so

We still have our fingers crossed.

But we seem to be in phase two now of the reporting. Phase one was we're

obsessed with this. Now I see all these articles analyzing why are we obsessed

with this.

My view is I don't want to become the kidnapped country.

I mean, obviously, it's a humanitarian story and we care about people.

But, like, we've seen things come to this country that we didn't think would

ever come, like pandemics and terrorism on a grand scale.

You know, Mexico and some other countries around the world, you have to

wonder what's going to happen when you leave the house.

I don't want to be this country.

People are, I mean, this is what got Trump elected. We're going to get the

out. And then, of course, he went too far and he lost himself even on that

issue, which was his best issue with the voters.

But we don't want to become the kidnap country. Yeah.

Right? Absolutely. And, you know, who knows really who this kidnapper is at

stage. But if you look south of our border, there's a real problem. You

first of all.

An unsecured border is a really bad idea, it turns out. And Trump, I think,

deserve a hell of a lot of credit for reestablishing border security.

And what's happening in Mexico is 30 % of the territory in Mexico is under the

control of the cartels. They control the police forces. Now, because of AMLO,

Lopez Obrador, having judges elected, they control the judges.

And they're moving it to different verticals, right?

Human trafficking has been shut down for them, but the narcotics trafficking is

still going.

And now they're responsible for a large percentage of the fuel sales, the

legitimate fuel sales in Mexico and are profiting from that. They're becoming

all -powerful. I mean, we have a lot of issues to work out with Mexico, but I

think Mexico has almost an existential crisis going on now. And it's in our

interest and certainly in the interest of the Mexican government to go after

that problem.

Let me bring the economist in on this one because...

Kidnapping was waning because one of the reasons why it was so hard to pull off,

because you had to transfer money, and money was always traceable. I mean,

movie is, you know, drop the money in a bag off the bridge, and then a guy in a

motorcycle gets it, no cops, you know.

And they always would front, not with crypto.

This is the part of this story I think we need to talk about more that I don't

hear very much in the media.

Crypto. Crypto, the criminal's best friend. I've never liked this shit. I

thought it was a big scam.

It is a big scam.

And, you know, the guy who, the bit dance guy that got pardoned by Trump.

Binance, whatever it was.

You know, it was because, well, he facilitated money laundering.

It's all money laundering. Crypto is money laundering. You take real money

you buy this fake money, which is a pool of untraceable funds you can do

anything with. That's why criminals use it for sex trafficking and drug

trafficking and kidnapping and other criminal enterprise.

And then they do whatever you want, and then you can buy back the profit with

your real money.

Trump said it in broad daylight. The reason the Trump family got involved in

crypto was following January 6th when banks said, we're taking a break from

So when actually real regulated financial institutions said, we're

break, that's when they turned to crypto. And when they realized what a

grift and phenomenal hustle it was, they went all in. And when you bring up

Binance, that's the founder, CZ, right? This guy was sentenced to prison, right?

He then buys a huge stake in the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty

Financial, and poof, he's out of jail. He now is still one of the largest

holders of Trump meme coins as well as the business. How do you think the Trump

family is up for a billion dollars in a year?

What kind of crypto regulation is there at this point? None.

Well, I'd love to hear what you think about this, because there has to be a

to regulate it so you can get the benefits of crypto, which is kind of

democratizing finance, cutting out the middleman. Whatever you think of

decisions to debank people, some of those decisions were politically

Do we want to be on the receiving end of being debanked for something? I don't

think so.

And then when you go to authoritarian regimes and the ability to move money in

and out of those authoritarian regimes, maybe we might want to support some of

the people in Iran who so courageously stood up before that horrible regime

gunned down 30 ,000 of them.

So there's some benefits to it.

How can you address kind of the anonymity issue so that you don't have

traffickers and you don't have organized crime networks moving money and still

have the democratizing feature of it?

Smart regulation, right? The answer isn't yes regulation, no regulation.

But what we have in this current administration, they basically are no

there's almost no prosecution of any white -collar criminals in the crypto

space. There's almost no regulation whatsoever.

During this week's testimony, you mentioned Pam Bondi's testimony this

was asked about any sort of prosecution in the crypto space, and what did she

do? Punted. That may have been the moment when she brought up the

the stock market, which I'm pretty sure has no bearing on what our attorneys...

general is testifying about.

You just mentioned Iran.

I see that they, well, first of all, I thought if he was going to attack, he

would have done it by now because he did say a while ago when they were starting

to kill people in the streets, we're not going to let you get away with this.

And then he just let them hang out to dry.

America is not a very reliable ally. I thought he was going to be different on

that. Anyway.

Now here we are. There's two carriers now. This is just as of a couple of days

ago now in the region. He also says we have a discombobulator. I don't know

that is.

I'm glad we have it, though.

Aren't you glad?

I'm glad it's on our side.

I don't know. It sounds like something Benny Hill has.

I don't.

I guess I am.

Yeah, I certainly don't want to be a discombobulator gap.

But, okay, so this week they put out this, that we have to talk to our allies

first before anything happens.

He said we have to check with international law and that we need more

put things in place.

I read that as saying they're going to attack this weekend.

Maybe. You know, I think the chances are pretty high.

You do?

Yeah, I do. And I think the reason why they were kind of left out to dry there

after the president's pledge to support them is we didn't have enough defensive

capabilities in the region. We had plenty of assets there to conduct

against what you might think, the tools of repression of the regime, maybe the

Basij or IRGC facilities.

But we didn't have enough to go after what they might do in response.

You know, the counter -missile, the counter -drone defenses, going after the

IRGC Navy, which has been harassing our ships in the Bab al -Mandab area and

then up in the Persian Gulf. Okay, but if our goal is to stop killing the

protesters in the streets, that's the Revolutionary Guard. These are the thugs

who have taken over this country 50 years ago and still have it. Okay?

It's a combination of a theocracy and this mafia.

Okay. What is...

is impaled in this attack that is going to topple the Revolutionary Guard.

Who are we firing guns at? Who are we firing our missiles at? And how will it

affect the people in the street? I don't get it. Well, I mean, you could go

after the leadership.

And what the Israelis did in that 12 -day campaign is they took out two dozen

leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

So if you're a leader of these organizations, the Basij, and the IRGC,

maybe think twice before now you've gone down 30 ,000 people again. So I think

that there are some capabilities that are relevant to dissuading them from the

kind of mass massacre and brutality that we thought. It's really unprecedented

since World War II.

30 ,000 people, these are reliable numbers, killed in a 48 -hour period.

What I would like to see are a number of other actions taken internationally.

Why the hell is there any Iranian empathy open anywhere in the world?

Pick those guys the hell up.

And a lot more financial pressure, we're doing that. I mean, there's more that

can be done outside of the military instrument as well. Okay, so that's

diplomacy.

And if what we're doing this weekend potentially is bombing Iran, then

is trumping diplomacy.

And isn't the big question we have to ask, let's say you bomb the hell out of

them. Let's say it's a brilliant execution, right? What next?

People in Venezuela may be thrilled that Maduro isn't there, but they're

panicked saying, what's next? And we've yet to hear this administration

articulate any of that. And if one were a true cynic, they might say, could the

exact timing of this bombing be...

the president who understands politics and media better than maybe any other

modern politician.

So on Sunday, when most likely all the Sunday shows will be covering Pam

disastrous hearing, Howard Lutnick's disastrous hearing, the reports out

the board about the Epstein file, we're not going to be talking about that

because Iran will be the only thing in the news. The only people talking about

that are the people you and I know on the coast who watch those shows. Nobody

gives a shit about the Sunday shows. You don't think America... No. Hold on.

That's not America. How many people watch this?

They do. The Epstein files, they do. They don't watch the Sunday shows and

their decisions. But President Trump does. Oh, yes, he definitely does. And

that's what I'm talking about. The other factor is Ramadan begins next week. So

that may be another end of this. But, I mean, I was very supportive of bombing

the nuclear facility in Iran. I thought that was great.

I understood the goal there, and I understood how it could just be ended

the bombing itself.

I don't get this one.

I have like half a minute to ask you this last question because you're the

military guy.

The START treaty, we're familiar with this. This is the treaty we've had for

years between the United States and Russia.

Well, if you don't know what the START treaty is, it stopped.

It's now expired. We have nothing that says that Russia and the United States

can't now build any number of nuclear weapons.

What is your take on that? I'm okay with the Star Treaty going away. Really?

Because I think it's the first step to now doing something more broadly.

You know, China is increasing its nuclear forces by 400%.

400%. They're not a party to the treaty. It's kind of the same as the

Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty that went away. It was important that that

went away because we were constraining ourselves.

Russia was violating it, and China wasn't even a signatory.

So we were taking off the table for us the development of land -based, long

-range strike capabilities.

So I'm hopeful.

that this might be the beginning of maybe getting back on the path towards

kind of a dialogue about strategic forces.

President Trump, this is a priority for him. I got to tell you. I mean, he would

talk about it often. He hates nuclear weapons.

Putin kind of plays that card a lot with President Trump. Hey, Donald, you know,

wouldn't it be great if we could work together? And it's all lies. But anyway,

he plays that. But the real key is to bring China in.

and to do it to reduce the stockpile, control them more effectively, but then

also work on non -proliferation.

Thank you.

I've got to go. Time for new rules, everybody.

Thank you.

Okay.

Someone with a psychology degree has to tell me why the ultimate act of joyous

abandon is dancing on a car.

Big Bunny at the Super Bowl dancing in a car. La La Land dancing on a car. Fame

dancing on a car. Michael Jackson dancing on a car. Tony Catan for

dancing on a car.

Whoever these guys are dancing on a car.

Choreographers have ruined more cars than ice.

Why?

Jeez, there's got to be a fresher way to show you're fun and full of life, like

singing into a hairbrush.

Someone must tell the Norwegian biathlete who won a bronze medal and

promptly confessed to cheating on his girlfriend on live TV.

Sometimes just say, I'm happy I won.

But congratulations on the bronze.

And also for winning the gold for biggest dumbass.

No rule of India's intent is to intimidate us with a show of military

They're going to have to release a different picture.

This photo doesn't say lethal combat unit. It says the guy behind me is

too close.

Well, you can call it skiing, you can call it snowboarding, you can call it

bobsledding, the skeleton, the luge, but what we must all admit is that most of

the Olympics is just one sport.

Different ways to fall down a hill.

Somebody had to say it.

It had to be true.

I know of a 21 -year -old woman who went backpacking through Australia, thought

she got a stomach bug, and ended up delivering a baby.

must admit that she wishes she had just gotten a stomach bug.

Because at least with that, all of the shitting, pissing, and crying only

lasts a few days.

And finally, new rule, this Valentine's Day, men have to give women what they

really want, to grow up and start being men again.

Learned a new word recently, hub son.

Hub son, like husband, but it's the son.

It's grown men who freed themselves from the shackles of wage slavery to live at

home, rent free with the parents or just mom.

They're also called kept sons. They live with mom and do all the jobs dad used

to do. You know, fix stuff around the house, take out the trash, make sure

it's mom's turn to host book club, the girls have enough Pinot Noir.

You know, I wondered why Pornhub had so many stepson videos.

It's because sons are dating their moms now. That's why.

And it just works, okay?

There's no awkward getting -to -know -you phase.

And if someone asks, hey, how did you two meet? You can say, funny story, she

pushed me out of her vagina.

Is it any wonder so many women these days are asking, where have all the real

men gone?

I mean, look at their dating profiles.

Living with mom is not one of the turn -ons.

Guys in jail do better with chicks.

Men are so consistently disappointing these days that there's a new trend

women are in lieu of dating.

Going to the shelter and walking a dog instead.

At least that way there's some chance of ending up with a nose in your crotch.

Sociologists say we're going through a sex recession, which is like a regular

recession, except in a regular recession you get laid off, and here you don't

get laid at all.

24 % of men 22 to 34 say they've had zero sexual activity in the

past year, what we used to call being married.

44 % of Gen Z men report having no relationship experience at all during

their teen years, except with Adderall.

This is not healthy.

Although it does explain the steep drop in cooties.

Scariest of all, 45 % of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in

person. The only women Gen Z men talk to these days are Siri and Alexa, and a

fat guy in the Philippines is pretending to be the guy they think they're

sexting with on OnlyFans.

Women are feeling so sexually unfulfilled lately that there's a new

literature that's propping up the entire book -buying market. It's called

romantasy. Kind of like the old romance novel epitomized by Fabio on the cover.

Except women are so horny now, even he's not enough. They want to fuck an actual

animal. I'm not kidding.

In the drawer with the vibrator in it now.

are books with titles like My Minotaur Husband, Sleeping with Monsters, The

Dragon's Bride, Stalked by the Kraken, and Radley's Home for Horny Monsters.

Tales of romance, but with minotaurs and centaurs, werewolves, vampires,

anything but a human man.

Seven foot tall, winged, shadow demon, absolutely.

Viking warrior who carries you off over his shoulder, no problem. That's the

message of these books. If I can't find a man to get me off, I'll get Dracula to

do it.

Morning Glory Milking Farm is the

third... of a millennial girl who takes a job at a minotaur milking farm.

You know, a minotaur milking farm.

And well, one thing leads to another and she winds up fucking a guy who's half

bull.

Which brings me to Taylor Swift.

Hear me out. I think Taylor Swift epitomizes the journey that a lot of

have been going through. Yes, women wanted men to be more sensitive.

Sensitive, but not some noodle -bodied human turtleneck who wears the same

clothes they do.

Timothy Chalamet is very talented and I'm sure very sexy to women, but on the

hunk scale, he feels like the leftover pieces from after they made Burt

Reynolds.

went from writing songs about what a dick this guy was to her and what a dick

this guy was to her to what a dick this guy has.

He dated a procession of skinny, fey, gay, adjacent, meek.

porcelain doll, shy guy, twink -like, tortured poet, metrosexuals in America

Europe, but the second she got some old -school wood from the heartland, it was

game over.

So welcome home, Taylor, and happy Valentine's Day, but... I mean,

Taylor... is hardly the only one. You can hear it in the lyrics from all of

today's female pop stars. They're practically screaming that they can't

satisfaction.

Doja Cat rap, I don't really got no type, I just want to fuck all night.

Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish have a song that goes, try it, bite it, lick

spit it, hold it in the side, get up all in it.

Jeez, when they're not saying fuck ice, they're saying fuck me.

Problem is, they're living in a world full of guys who are afraid to even make

eye contact without an NDA.

Because in America, the pendulum never stops in the middle. The younger

generation of men caught the backlash from like, you know, five million years

human history. And I feel for you guys. You were born in a society that said

just being male was toxic.

And in a world where everything you said was mansplaining and everything you did

was an eye roll and merely approaching a woman could get you canceled, it got

very easy for men to just give up.

And when they did, Pornhub and Tinder and OnlyFans were right there to take up

the slack.

Thing is, the technology changed.

Women didn't.

They still want eye contact and face -to -face conversation and also a pair of

balls would be nice.

Because in real life, I'm sorry, I mean IRL, when a girl blows you off when you

ask her to dance, you can't just type fuck you and log off. You have to take

that long walk of shame back to your table to tell your friends, uh, no,

lesbian.

All right, that's our show. I want to thank my guests, Global National

Advisor H .R. McMaster, Stephanie Ruhle, and Jonathan Haidt.

From Random Drops every Monday on YouTube, or listen every Get Your

go watch Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Valentine's Day.