I just want to get the hell out of the Middle East. I want to stop spending money on on all this nonsense in the Middle East, I really do. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to get out of that, and I just can't stand the announcement of these deals as if it's going to benefit all Americans, all American civilians. [00:00:17] We're really going to benefit from Saudi Arabia spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that just fattens the pockets of defense contractors. That does nothing for us. Jill, for the wider world to note, this great transformation has not come [00:00:35] from Western intervention or flying people in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created [00:00:51] by the so-called nation builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and Billions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal. Baghdad. So many other cities. [00:01:07] In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. Love that statement from Donald Trump, who gave a speech [00:01:25] while in Saudi Arabia just yesterday. Now, you just watched a portion of that speech and, today he touched down in Qatar. So we want to give you a comprehensive look into this tour in the Middle East. What's coming from it and whether or not the Trump administration [00:01:43] has changed its tone as it pertains to Middle East foreign policy. So let's dive in. So during the speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump made this big announcement about how the Saudis will be purchasing an estimated $150 billion with a B in American weapons. [00:02:02] And look they're going to spend $150 billion. Let me reword this so it's as accurate as possible. Donald Trump did a favor for US based weapons manufacturers who will [00:02:18] now receive $100 billion in Saudi money in order to buy said weapons. Okay. These aren't American weapons. Sure. They're made by American companies. We don't benefit from that at all. I want to be clear about that. American citizens don't benefit from that. [00:02:36] It is a favor. It is a handout. It is a deal that benefits Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman. You guys get the point. Okay. Anyway, there's more on that. Let's watch Trump talking about it. You know nobody makes military equipment like us. [00:02:53] We have the best military equipment the best missiles the best rockets. The best everything. Best submarines, by the way, most lethal weapon in the world. In addition to purchases of $142 billion of American made military equipment by our great Saudi partners, the largest ever. [00:03:14] So per the white House, the package also includes extensive training and support to build the capacity of the Saudi armed forces, including enhancement of Saudi service academies and military medical services. [00:03:30] So I got to be honest, as we're watching Israel use these same weapons, these same bombs, to brutalize and slaughter innocent civilians in Gaza, it's kind of sick to hear Trump touting the lethality of these bombs and these weapons. [00:03:48] But anyway, so the weapons deal is part of a larger, according to Trump, $600 billion dollar investment agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia. But honestly, the details on this are slim. I have a lot of questions and unfortunately at this moment [00:04:05] we don't have enough answers. So though the details are unclear, the agreement is being touted like it's made up of Saudi investments into American companies, which would benefit American citizens. So the white House states that in Saudi Arabia, President Donald J. Trump [00:04:22] announced Saudi Arabia's $600 billion commitment to invest in the United States, building economic ties that will endure for generations to come. Saudi Arabian Data Vault is moving forward with plans to invest $20 billion [00:04:38] in AI data centers and energy infrastructure in the U.S., but the white House also admitted that American companies will be investing in Saudi Arabia as well. Google. Data Vault, Oracle, Salesforce, AMD and Uber are committing to invest $80 billion [00:04:57] in cutting edge transformative technologies in both countries. We've gotten a taste of those cutting edge technologies anyway. So it's unclear if that $600 billion figure is like the sum for investment into [00:05:15] the US, or if it's just like the total sum of investments for both countries. Like, there are a lot of details here that are unclear. Plus, only some of the deals are actually set in stone at the moment. So organizers of the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum, where the deals were announced, [00:05:34] said that 145 deals were signed, totaling more than $300 billion, which of course is just half of the total promoted on Tuesday by the white House. Elon Musk, by the way, was there. He accompanied Trump on the voyage to Saudi Arabia [00:05:50] and got some some cookies out of it. Let's take a look. I think, it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom. - Indeed, if you're amenable. - You heard it here from Elon. He's bringing his robotaxi to the kingdom. Yes. [00:06:06] He has another announcement that he's. Yes. Exactly. So. And I'd also like to to, thank the Kingdom for approving Starlink for maritime and aviation use. Thank you. Maritime and aviation. There you go. There you go. [00:06:22] So Elon Musk, of course, was there. I mean, this is I remember getting invited. It wasn't anything like this, but it was a local political event, a conference. I was asked to go, you know, host a panel discussion there. [00:06:38] And, I mean, it was all a charade. Charade? Okay. Like, it was all fake. It was all just a venue. A platform in which business deals could be made. Okay. There was nothing cerebral about that experience. It was just obvious that all sorts of foreign leaders were coming together [00:06:55] in the same location in order to work out business deals. And so that's what this is really about. Obviously, that's why Elon Musk was there to see what kind of business he can get out of it. And there were other executives there, including the CEO of Nvidia, [00:07:11] Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock. Wow. He took a little break to do a little bit of traveling instead of snatching up all the residential real estate in the United States. How nice of him. Sam Altman. Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was there as well. [00:07:29] Who wasn't there was also interesting. So Jeff Bezos, of course. Not a fan of Saudi Arabia. After the Saudi crown prince ordered the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, who was in fact a writer for the Washington Post, [00:07:44] a paper that Jeff Bezos owns. Yeah, he didn't go to Saudi Arabia, And neither did Mark Zuckerberg. He was not present either. So let's pivot to a big announcement that Trump made in Saudi Arabia in regard to his administration lifting all sanctions on Syria after the leaders of Turkey [00:08:04] and Saudi Arabia asked him to do so. And by the way, Israel, for whatever reason, was urging him against doing this. But Trump did it anyway. An Israeli official told CNN that when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump in Washington in April, he asked the president [00:08:21] not to remove sanctions on Syria. But apparently Netanyahu was unable to get his way. And so Trump did pay lip service to the normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia during his time there, but said that Saudi Arabia could, you know, pursue the normalization [00:08:40] on their own time. I love it. So Trump even met with interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-sharaa, and Trump's meeting with Sara was the first meeting between a United States president and Syrian president in 25 years, so it was a pretty big deal. [00:08:58] Obviously, this is the guy who succeeded in toppling Bashar al Assad's regime, and until recently, Al-sharaa had a $10 million US bounty on his head. But things are different now. Al-sharaa was placed on the US, US Specially Designated [00:09:16] Global Terrorist list in 2013 for heading al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, known as al-Nusra front, and allegedly orchestrating suicide bombings across Syria. Stand up guy. Now Al-sharaa just led the insurgency and toppled the Assad regime. [00:09:36] He requested that al-sharaa. Trump did tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria. Deport Palestinian terrorists. Normalize relations with Israel and help prevent ISIS from reemerging. He also said this. How did you find the Syrian president? Right. [00:09:53] I think very good young, attractive guy, tough guy, you know, strong pass, very strong fighter. But he's got a he's got a real shot at pulling it together. He was a terrorist like yesterday but a young strong guy. [00:10:12] He's a young strong guy, you know. And we wanted we wanted Assad gone. He wasn't friendly to Israel. So the United States, along with Israel, you know, helped support the rebels in the toppling of Bashar al Assad. [00:10:29] So anyway, look, I just find it hilarious that Israel didn't want the U.S. To lift sanctions on Syria, given the fact that Israel wanted the toppling of Bashar al Assad probably more than any other country. [00:10:45] They got their way and they immediately went on to grab hold of Syrian land. That's what they did. It's just amazing to me. Like you have to kind of see everything, take a step back and see the bigger picture, right? [00:11:01] Because it's not just one story in a vacuum that's going to help you make sense of the foreign policy of the United States engages in. We have someone who was a terrorist, like not too long ago now serving as the leader of Syria. [00:11:19] And because of the fact that he's not Bashar al Assad, who, by the way, was a brutal dictator himself, but a brutal dictator that Israel didn't like. Okay, now this new guy, a little friendlier to Israel. And all the rhetoric about terrorism changes when it comes to Donald Trump. [00:11:36] Suddenly what terrorism? He's a young, strong guy. Okay, look, I don't want war with Syria. Don't get me wrong. It's just when you literally have American college students being referred to as terrorists by the Trump administration for [00:11:54] engaging in their First Amendment rights, protesting and calling out and criticizing a foreign government, it just kind of makes you think when that the new leader of Syria, who was aiding and abetting al Qaeda, is now being referred to as like some [00:12:10] hero, some great, strong young guy. Okay, whatever. It's just sick. All of it is really sick when you think about it. I just want to get the hell out of the Middle East. I want to stop spending money on on all this nonsense in the Middle East, I really do. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to get out of that. [00:12:28] And I just can't stand the announcement of these deals as if it's going to benefit all Americans, all Americans, civilians. We're really going to benefit from Saudi Arabia spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that just fattens the pockets of defense contractors. [00:12:45] That does nothing for us. Okay, keep some of the American workers at these companies employed. Great. But I would rather that not be our top export. I would rather we not, you know, export as many weapons, missiles, bombs as we do. [00:13:04] But, you know, defense contractors have just as much say and just as much sway over our government as Israel does. So there you go. We're supposed to celebrate, you know, Saudi Arabia spending hundreds of billions of dollars on US weapons. [00:13:20] Great. Okay, so, a few more details. Trump even met with. So he met with the president, the new president of Syria, the interim president of Syria. I'm sure you know, they'll have democratic elections and everything. Any day now, it'll it'll happen. [00:13:36] But I also want to talk a little bit about one more thing Qatar. So Trump did arrive in Qatar today and was greeted by a motorcade that Qatar put together that included two Tesla cybertruck's. Trump announced today that Qatar Airways will be buying 210 Boeing jets, [00:13:57] which, according to the president, is the largest order of jets in Boeing's history. I don't really give a crap about that at all. But nonetheless, the president boasted that the deal was worth $200 billion. But a fact sheet from the white House said the true number was $96 billion. [00:14:15] I don't care how much money it is, I would rather the amount be zero. But there's more money for defense contractors where that came from. Qatar and the United States signed a statement of defense cooperation that includes a $1 billion agreement with with Raytheon for Qatar's acquisition [00:14:34] of Counter-drone capabilities, a nearly $2 billion agreement with General Atomics for Qatar's acquisition of a remotely piloted aircraft system and $38 billion in potential investments, including support for burden sharing [00:14:51] at I at I Air Base. I don't know how to pronounce that which houses Qatari, American and British airmen. In total, the white House said the deals announced by Trump amounted to more than $243 billion between the United States and Qatar. [00:15:08] The Trump administration also said the agreements with Qatar were expected to generate an economic exchange of $1.2 trillion, though it was unclear how the administration arrived at that figure. I can tell you how they arrived at that figure figure. [00:15:23] They took their hand, they shoved it up their own asses, and they pulled something out. That's how they arrived at that conclusion. 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.