But if there is a conflict of interest when it comes to you yourself. For instance, you've received billions of dollars in federal contracts when it comes to the Pentagon, for instance, which the president, I know has directed you to look into. Are you policing yourself in that? And you can see, am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not? [00:00:17] It's totally obvious. I fully expect to be scrutinized and get, you know, a daily proctology exam, basically. I just camp out there. So it's not like I think I can get away with something. Okay, well, he's not gonna get away with it. I mean, he might get the money, but we're gonna do that scrutinizing that [00:00:35] proctological exam a little bit because. Yeah. No, he's trying to get money. They're giving him more money. And in this case, it's not even, like, directly the US government. I mean, sure, they've showered Elon Musk recently and throughout the years with billions and billions of dollars. Many of his businesses might not have made it if not for it. [00:00:50] But no, now they're trying to strong arm other countries into giving Elon Musk money. So let's talk about this. This is reporting from the Washington Post. And we've got the country of Lesotho that had been hit on Liberation Day by 50% reciprocal tariffs. [00:01:07] So some countries can withstand this for the short term, the long term for smaller countries with smaller economies, it's significantly harder and it makes them a little bit desperate. And we have that in this case. And so here is an internal State Department memo obtained by the Washington Post says, [00:01:22] as the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. Businesses. If you just wanted a sign that they're going to purchase more stuff from America, [00:01:38] then it could be whatever, right? It could be phones, it could be Nikes, it could be I don't know where those things are made. Probably not in America, actually. We don't produce a lot, but it could be something. Only Starlink. That's the only thing we'll do. This country needs to to send money to Elon Musk as a proof [00:01:56] that they're willing to play ball. I mean, this is direct mob behavior, but the mob boss that's benefiting in this case is Elon. Is Elon Musk okay. And we see it. Yeah. No it's transparent transparently corrupt. And so they actually did by the way do this in the end. [00:02:14] Lesotho gave Starlink a internet service license that will last ten years. And they're not the only one by the way, that's doing that. The company reached distribution deals with two providers in India in March and has won at least partial accommodations with Somalia, [00:02:29] the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam. Although this is probably not a comprehensive count because, weirdly, he's not being that transparent about all of this. And so there is just money coming in so many different forms and flooding Elon Musk's coffers, not only money, but also deregulation. [00:02:49] They killed those research projects into atmospheric pollution that theoretically could have produced regulations that would have hurt Elon Musk and other billionaires like Jeff Bezos. So the regulations are being manipulated, the law is being flouted, and money is being directed to Elon Musk, [00:03:05] which is a great return on the investment he made in buying - Donald Trump in the last election. - The Musk thing is corruption on parade. I almost don't know where to start, so I'll just start with kind of the last thing that you mentioned. Obviously, he closed down and dismantled federal agencies [00:03:20] that were doing what John's talking about finding and investigating SpaceX and his companies that were running afoul of a lot of regulations, particularly environmental regulations. That's just one thing. Then the second thing, he's muddying himself in all of these different ways. [00:03:36] Before you even get to this example, they are imposing Starlink on many communities that were going to get broadband in other ways. In fact, in the Biden infrastructure package, there's all this money to get a lot of rural communities that are really dark. [00:03:52] They're unable to get broadband to get them broadband service. But now, as a result of Doge, seeing that those companies that those, those programs were wasteful, they are pulling back on those funds and what lo and behold, Starlink will be the way that many of these rural communities in America get broadband access. [00:04:11] And then finally to this story, you see the shakedown that's going on. I mean, it is a shakedown. The tariffs forced these countries to come to Trump and beg for mercy. What can we give you? So we'll. How about this give Elon Musk all of this business in our country [00:04:30] as an act of goodwill, to show you that we are happy to have U.S. Businesses here. It's patronage. It's pay to play. He set up a system of patronage. So, country by country, village by village, tariff by tariff. [00:04:46] They will come to him on bended knee and have to make a deal. And in this case, they can enrich themselves massively through doing it. Yeah. 100%. And again like to the right wingers watching like imagine if George Soros had this right. Like can you imagine? But this is, this is what you get when your god emperor [00:05:04] is owned by the richest man in the world. It's not actually a good thing when this much corruption, is happening. To give you an idea, by the way, of how significant some of this is, because you might think, well, some of these very small countries, how much money could this possibly be? Capturing. This is graphic five. Capturing just 1% of India's consumer broadband market could generate nearly $1 [00:05:24] billion annually, with comparable upside in Latin America and Africa. And obviously, the goal is not to capture 1%. So we could be talking about billions upon billions of dollars going to Starlink, not because these countries genuinely want it, but because of economic pressure being provided by the guy who he's the donor of. [00:05:44] And so that's amazing. By the way, and you rightly pointed out that they're they killed that section of the infrastructure plan providing the rural broadband. Trump called it racist. I don't I don't even know what the argument. I know that, like, his knee jerk thing is to just scream, die. [00:06:02] Like, I don't think like white people in Appalachia getting rural broadband is racist. But regardless, so here's the thing. Maybe this is crazy, maybe I'm a radical or whatever, But so Starlink is apparently now just intimately involved in our government. [00:06:17] When we need to solve problems with rural broadband, we use Starlink. I guess we have to we can't do the normal way, and it's a part of our like tariffs and all that. So if it's going to be a part of our government, then why don't we just make it a part of our government? Why doesn't the government nationalize Starlink? [00:06:33] I mean, for national security reasons, if nothing else. I mean, look at all the stuff that's happened with Ukraine about them giving access and then taking it away and hurting the war effort when American policy is to assist the Ukrainian defense, Elon Musk having that sort of control over the ability of one of our allies to defend [00:06:49] themselves is obviously unacceptable, not to mention concerns over the possibility that it could be hacked and with the close ties that it has to the government in all these different areas, we should take it, you know, we'll give them a little bit of money. I mean, we already have. We've already done a down payment on this if we wanted to nationalize it. [00:07:05] At this point. It's a totally cogent argument that you're making. And you could even say, I'll tell you what, it is a negotiation. We as the US government will not take total control of your company. We'll just take partial control. It'll just take the leverage away from you. [00:07:20] So you don't have the bad look of a private citizen being able to turn on and off the lights over an entire part of the world. So, yeah, we don't nationalize it completely. It's sort of partially nationalized. It's sort of a shared profit system. But I mean, or shared control system. I actually think there's a really good argument. [00:07:37] Obviously, it's not going to happen, in the same way that partially nationalizing oil companies and all of these other things that sort of reap all the benefits of exploiting American, resources, they never have to pay back in any way. And we as the people never get ownership in any of this stuff. [00:07:53] But I love that plan that John's just come up with. - I mean. - I think, I think we should look into it. And I know that, like the normal way that you do that, like if a Democratic president came in is that you'd have like you'd have hearings and you'd have this big process and judges would weigh in. But the issue is that I actually saw a dude from Columbia. [00:08:11] So I feel like we've been invaded. So I don't think that due process is really a thing anymore. So I think we might have to expedite the nationalizing of Starlink. Anyway, see how this is not how you're supposed to run a government. Utterly corrupt, illegal, unconstitutional acts every single day. You're driving me crazy. [00:08:27] But the sickness isn't fundamentally in me. It's in our country. It's in our society. Any final thoughts to close out the hour? John, I love it. It's great seeing you. I agree, I think this is a you know, it's a five alarm fire. You can only handle so many things. It is a bit overwhelming, but it's good that we take it, you know, fire by fire. [00:08:46] I mean, there is a quality of it all being overwhelming, but I do think that, you can chip away at it. And I think the more our voice is heard, I do think it matters. I even think it matters to Trump when, as you suggested, his polling numbers begin to sag, at some point, [00:09:03] he begins to rethink, as he's doing with the tariffs, policies and strategies moving forward, hopefully. Yeah, again, I don't know if he's watching, but some Congress people apparently are. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.