I've also gotten back to my real estate roots, which has been a lot of fun. And I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. I think that's an understatement. Can you explain? Yes, it is. There's no power on this island. [00:00:17] You're everything from scratch. Correct. It's an unbelievable, beautiful 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. The Epstein class sure does love their private islands. But before I give you the details on this island project, the luxury resorts and [00:00:36] the mass protests that have broken out against it, Cenk, your two cents. Yeah, number one, I love the different parts of the world breaking out in protests for different reasons like the dock workers in different parts of Europe, Italy, etc. The Irish being so strong against [00:00:52] the genocide, the Spanish. uh causing fury in Israel, boy, love that, okay? And now the Albanians against uh Trump and their corruption. So that's it, nothing violent or physical, [00:01:07] but let's all rise up, rise up and give us more of those protests, yummy for our tummy. And then the second thing is, I mean, this family is going around the world trying to enrich themselves. through the American government. It's the most disgusting acts of corruption [00:01:24] I've ever seen. Well, they're not just trying, they're succeeding. And there is some concern among the Albanians that uh Donald Trump's position as the President of the United States led to a fast track of this project getting approved by authorities in Albania. So let's get to [00:01:41] the details here. Because the Albanian land that the Kushners purchased for this massive luxury resort town. is known as the Shazan Island, uh which sits across the heel of Italy, which is not allowed. I'm not okay with that. Leave Italy alone. Don't even come anywhere [00:01:59] close to Italy, please. But nonetheless, it turns out that the island hosts 3,600 Soviet era tunnels and hardened bunkers which were built to withstand a nuclear attack. Now couple that with the fact that Donald Trump's White House ballroom is really about building a massive [00:02:18] underground bunker. One might ask, what exactly are the rich preparing for? Now with that in mind, the land purchase was approved a year and a half ago to be exact. It was in 2024. In December of 2024, after months of consternation, Albania gave preliminary approval to a plan [00:02:36] proposed by Kushner to build on the uninhabited island of Shazan. Once a secretive military base for submarines, the planned developments on the- Zvernik Peninsula would include 6,000 [00:02:54] hotel rooms and villas if plans come to fruition. And right now it does appear that these plans will come to fruition. This will be a private island destination for the tremendously wealthy. It sounds a lot like Epstein Island, uh not saying that there's going to be uh the same [00:03:12] type of activity taking place there per se, but nonetheless. The protests have broken out because there's been a lack of transparency involved in the approval of this land sale. So for years, the plans, a $1.4 billion luxury hotel complex on an island off the coast, [00:03:30] and another development on a peninsula that is home to sensitive wetlands, have generated concerns about conservation and transparency. And in fact, there has been no environmental report done in uh ahead of this project and construction, it appears, has already begun, [00:03:49] it's underway. So that is what is sparking the protests. And aside from the environmental concerns, there is discontent among Albanians about the land purchase and how it was approved in the first place. According to Realtor.com, approval came just two months after Ivanka's [00:04:05] father claimed victory over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. And days before, he was inaugurated for the second time. The project is one of several involving members of the president's family and foreign government entities that Trump will be actively working with in the White [00:04:23] House. And so let's take a look at some footage of the protests that have broken out. Again, it's the second day in a row that these protests have taken place. They are planning to take more protests uh or do more protests tomorrow for the third day in a row. There are allegations [00:04:39] that the Prime Minister, Eddie, gave the Kushner's preferential treatment in order to curry favor with Trump. The protesters see this project as an emblem of what they fear could be democratic backsliding in Albania, which did emerge from decades of communist rule in 1991. And Talant [00:05:00] Bino, who is the head of the Albanian Ornithological society says that this is about democracy. The protests are, of course, centered around protected areas, but it's more about democracy in general. Now, Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, which is mostly backed by [00:05:18] uh funding from Saudi Arabia, is behind this project. The developer is known as Shazan Real Estate Development LLC. And then one final point that I think is really relevant here, although there isn't any specificity. As for the crumbling military buildings and 3,600 [00:05:36] derelict bunkers that were abandoned on the island, the couple is reportedly planning to incorporate at least a few of them into their hotel plans. Also, little interesting that, let's just go back to the earlier graphic. I'm going to reread that last line because [00:05:55] it says, it involves members of the president's family and foreign government entities. oh Which foreign government entities and why is there no specificity on that? Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama Republicans to pursue a new voting map. And [00:06:10] the coverage of that decision split almost instantly along partisan lines. Now on the left, a high factuality source says this decision paves the way for racial gerrymandering. On the right, a mixed factuality source frames it as a fix for Democrat friendly congressional districts. [00:06:27] So which one is it? Well, this is a major story that could affect the balance of power in the midterms. And without ground news, it would be a whole lot harder to instantly see that partisan split across the more than 200 sources covering it. That's exactly why I recommend [00:06:42] ground news. You just saw how easy it is to look at one story and immediately compare who's pushing what. Ground News is a website and app that pulls together reporting from across the political spectrum so you can compare how the same story is being covered. See the bias distribution, [00:06:59] check the factuality ratings of the sources, and even see who owns the outlets behind the reporting. Ground News also has a blind spot feed, which highlights stories that one side of the political spectrum is barely covering at all. So you're not just trapped inside the version of events, your usual media bubble. wants to feed you. If you're tired of being [00:07:18] fed somebody else's narrative, I genuinely recommend ground news. Go to ground.news.tyt or scan the QR code using our link gets you 40 % off the ground news vantage plan. And you could also gift a subscription directly through ground news. That's what's going on here because [00:07:37] I'm like, wait a minute. So look, first off, uh people can disagree about. in places there are people like my sister who are like no, we've got to preserve things as they are and architectural history and heritage are super important in their real estate people. I know go, what are [00:07:55] you crazy? Build a huge thing, improve your economy, a lot more tourists, etc. So I think the two issues other than the environmental one that's obviously concerning people is the number one, what was the actual transaction, right? So is it that Did they get a better [00:08:13] price on this? mean, and I don't know if you know any of these details. Or did the leaders of the Albanian government get something in return from the US government? And then that becomes part of the deal, but that's the part of the deal that you don't see, right? That's [00:08:29] the fear here. We don't know if there was a quid pro quo type situation. There's speculation that the land sale was approved to curry favor with Trump. Yeah, and so Could the Albanian people have gotten a better deal? So if they gave it to uh a different real estate group [00:08:47] that maybe did something similar, could they have gotten a much higher price? Is it for on behalf of Albanian people or the Albanian leaders currently? Those are the questions that people would ask. From our perspective as Americans, I don't want the President's [00:09:02] son, whether it's Hunter Biden or uh Jared Kushner and Ivanka here, his kids. going around the world trying to figure out how they're going to make money off of representing the American government. I'm in the Middle East negotiations and I represent America in foreign [00:09:22] policy and in negotiations. And then when they come and they let's say lowball you on a price or whatever it might be and go, now do you really want to mess with the American government? I don't want people getting bullied by a bunch of thugs that are pretending to represent us. [00:09:38] And I'm not representing American interests on behalf of American citizens, but representing their own interests. So I don't want it when Hunter Biden pretends to be a Ukrainian gas expert. And I don't want it when Jared Kushner pretends to be a private equity expert. Do [00:09:56] you know that before you got that $2 billion from Saudi Arabia after the Trump's last term, that he had never done investments like that? He'd only done real estate. He'd never done finance at all. So for a guy who had no finance experience to get a $2 billion fund is unprecedented. [00:10:14] There are lot of characteristics and a lot of developments involving Jared Kushner. They remind me a bit of Epstein, to be honest with you. And it's not just the fact that they're buying this private island for the wealthy, complete with bunkers and all sorts of things [00:10:30] like that. It's all of the wheeling and dealing that he's doing behind the scenes. We might learn about some of that wheeling and dealing after the fact. I don't think we know the full extent of it though. Yeah. Well, so look, I don't know. But what I do know is that Epstein [00:10:47] was not just a pedophile. Exactly, that's what I'm alluding to. I'm not calling Kushner a pedophile. I'm specifically referring to Epstein's connections to power and how he was behind the scenes. working out all sorts of deals on behalf of foreign governments. So look, uh [00:11:05] and is it our government that he's doing the deals for? Because who is that unnamed government that is going to be involved in this project? Exactly. Now, oh if you don't know Albania is mainly a Muslim country. Maybe there's a couple reasons why you wouldn't name the country involved, but there's one giant reason why you wouldn't name it if it was Israel. You [00:11:24] wouldn't want to say that it's Israel because the Albanian people would then be much more angry about it. You'd want to sneak that in. And to your point, if you guys don't know, DropSite News had all these great emails they got from Ahud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel and many others. And it showed that Epstein in the emails did deals, international [00:11:45] deals nonstop. And by the way, a lot of them were illicit deals and that was part of the point of Epstein. hey, he can move diamonds, can move women, he can move weapons. He could use the port in UAE to do that. He could use uh American contacts like he did with Iran [00:12:00] Contra to do that. the Israeli and every deal he did was in behalf of Israel, okay? So that's amazing that American media still hasn't told people that. And that's mask off. That's American media going, we will never, ever tell you the truth about Israel, right? [00:12:17] So. After Epstein's gone, does Israel need a new central handler? Presumably someone to replace Epstein. Do they have to do the pedophilia? No, not necessarily because that was for blackmail reasons, it appears, right? And maybe they don't need the blackmail as much anymore, or they [00:12:35] think that part of the operation is too risky, etc. But here we have a guy who is the son-in-law of the American president, who's involved in the most important uh foreign policy issues that we have, including peace and war, right? And he's going and making deals not on behalf [00:12:52] of the American people, but on behalf of himself and an unnamed other nation. That is super weird. So I don't care how much people pretend that's normal. That's not at all normal. If Hunter Biden said, I made a $1.4 billion deal. But my last name being Biden had nothing to [00:13:11] do with it. My dad being the president had nothing to do with it. And by the way, there's an unnamed country that's going to benefit from it, but I'm not going to tell you, haha. And it's not like Hunter, which is who's now out of office and out of power and was watched like a hawk. Jared Kushner gets to do all these things and totally skates. And he's got two and a half [00:13:31] years to do more crooked deals. So it's just outrageous that they're using the leverage of the American people. their behalf and on the behalf of potentially other countries. Well, apparently there are some anti corruption investigations being launched to look into [00:13:47] this. This appears to be a story that isn't going to go away anytime soon. So as it develops, we'll update you all on anything we learn. But I don't know, I'm fascinated by this. I'm very curious to see how this develops. uh