Putin, Politics, and the Billionaire Puppet Show
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Another week it is.

Ooh, it's going to get even more absurdist tonight with the State of the Union. I am not looking forward to it. I will be watching it. I know a lot of people are boycotting it, and I fully support that. I don't think you need to tune in to Russian propaganda. I will watch it for you. Me and Sammy will break it down. Yeah, you know what I learned? That actually, because this is Trump's first –

non-consecutive term, you know? Yeah. In the first year of a president's term, their quote-unquote state of the union is called a joint address because they're going to be laying out their agenda. And then the subsequent ones are called a state of the union. But...

let's say you do straight eight years, then you only have one joint address and then seven states of the union. But because Trump had a, you know, a space in between a little break, he's doing his second joint address. I didn't realize this until a few people started referring to it to me as a joint address. I'm like, why are we using this language? Like I know the state of the union is technically a joint address, but

But I didn't really understand why people were using that language. But now you know in case you get confused. Now we know. I am not looking forward to it at all, I think.

You know, MSNBC was publishing this morning his approval ratings and he is up on immigration. He's up on general like, you know, how they think the president's doing. And that's because Fox News does double the audience of any other television news. And that's where most people who, you know, answer the phone and get polled are getting their news.

And it's also because the consequences of his decisions haven't hit yet. So all they're getting is massive propaganda. It's not just the Fox News audience, because ultimately, we're talking about single digit millions, even though they're getting way more people than CNN or MSNBC. But they also have the Twitter propaganda machine. They have the fact that

Trump, their people just believe whatever he says. So they have- You're totally isolated. Yeah. Whether it's on Rumble or Truth Social, it's just perpetuating the same thing all the time. Yeah. And also, so his approval rating's up on immigration. But I think if you actually compare the numbers of deportations, like he isn't deporting more than Biden. So, you know, I don't know. We're not really in a place, I don't know if we ever have been, where Americans are forming their opinions based around facts.

But that's why this show is called American Fever Dream because there are no facts here. Or there don't have to be. Well, there are. There's just alternative facts and tears. Exactly. By the way, the reaction to us having Marianne Williamson on here, at least on social media, I just want to say, regardless of how you feel about her, the tone of the comment section...

shows that we are not yet ready for a constructive convo with people who we may disagree on some things with. But we will try again later. And I think when we can pass this test of having a respectful conversation with someone who is a Democrat and who didn't run as a spoiler, like I get that people's

gut reaction is, you know, to like want to stiff arm her. That's why we had her on the show to talk about that. And in the episode, we talked a lot about like what it was like behind the scenes with the last 40 years has been like, I think she had some really good insights. We weren't telling you to like vote for her that she's not a candidate for anything right now.

So there was that and people thought, well, she's super anti-vax. She was clear that she's not anti-vax. I think that there's a lot of mix up between her and RFK Jr. and some other grifty people. She did say he is a dear friend, to be fair. And then she said that, but then she also said since he endorsed Trump, she thinks that he's sort of lost it a little bit. I am in no way going to defend Marianne Williamson to the audience. If you like her, you like her. If you don't, you don't. But

We're probably going to do a couple more of these where we maybe have a guest that's not somebody that we're endorsing, but that has a unique perspective. That is a fever dream that we're trying to...

get information from. And again, I'm always going to be friendly. I'm a friendly ass little person. That's how we get people to disarm and talk to us. So, you know, I wasn't endorsing, she's not running for anything. So, you know. Yeah, I think we need to get away from the idea that if you speak to someone, that means you endorse them or you agree with them or you are rubber stamping everything they've ever said. And I think that that is kind of what has made the Democrats a

fail as of late. Keith Edwards actually wrote a sub stack about this. It was called, it's called, When Did the Big Tent Become a Gated Community, I think is the, was the title. And he was saying just that, you know, the scolding posture is so much more detrimental to winning people over and persuading them than even like the disinformation and lies that they then go run into. I

I think y'all got to know that we are always on the same side as you. We're a crew here. And for us to get a guest is kind of hard. So like, even when we're doing the Substack Lives, when I had the 15 senators, there was a couple of people who I know are dust bunnies. They're like, they're my people. These are my, this is like my family.

who were like saying horrible things in the comments about the senator that was on screen, they can read those. That's the difference between when they come on my show and when they go on TV, right? When they're on my show, yes, they're going to be faced with the accountability of the comments and we want people to feel heard. But it's like one of those things where like then they're like, well, you know, well, are we going to have them on because your audience was being, you know, saying really –

horrific, disgusting things to them in the comments. And I'm like, look, man, I can't shut off the comments and you guys got to grow up a little bit. But at the same time, it does make them hesitate to talk to folks like us. So just be on our side and we'll shit talk them when they leave, just like at a family reunion. We got to be polite to company while they're here. And then afterwards, we'll do the breakdown of what we thought.

Also, no one's saying you have to agree with the person. There's a way to disagree and to still be respectful of the person who is speaking because they are speaking. Also, you are never going to persuade anyone to agree with you or be interested in your interests if you cannot have a conversation. If you're putting in the comments, suck my hairy balls, Chuck Schumer, while he's on the interview with me.

Right. I'm sure that's super helpful. That's what I'm talking about, guys. I'm not talking about your normal pushback. I think you guys are the best audience in the whole world, but there's a couple of folks who got a little lit. Right. It's like, I'm sorry that you don't like that this is the person in charge, but, you know, telling you to suck your hairy balls is probably not going to get you anywhere. It's just going to get me embarrassed later when their aides are like, can we discuss the... I'm embarrassed now. I don't want to relive this. If you can hear it, I can't. So just be on my side, guys.

Well, this is the thing. Like, you don't think people do that to Trump? This is why Joe Rogan, who used to endorse Bernie, is now on the total other side because he gets attacked for endorsing Bernie and Bernie gets attacked for being endorsed by him. I know. Yeah.

It's a weird time. I think it just does come down to like, you know, we've talked about before the way the Republicans and the right got power was by saying, hey, we don't agree with everything, but we all agree that we like apple pie. So let's all vote for the apple pie. And then when the apple pie comes, we'll divide it up into slices. Whereas on the left right now, we're kind of like, well, we don't know. Do we all want to go in on an apple pie? I like cherry pie. Well, how big will my slice be of the pie if I go in with you? And it's like, no, guys, we're never going to get any pie if we do it that way. Well,

While I do think that is a slight oversimplification of what's happening on the Republican side. That's kind of my whole shtick, Sammy, oversimplifying. I understand what you're saying. They have good message discipline and they understand that they're on one team. And to present a united front.

Hello, Oversharing listeners. It's Dr. Naomi Bernstein with some exciting news. Starting January 13th, our Oversharing Calm the Fuck Down subscription is getting even better. Subscribers will get Oversharing episodes a day early, plus additional exclusive bonus content on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Here's what's new.

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We got to talk about this incident that happened last Friday, which has really dominated the conversation and my thoughts for the past several days. Of course, we're referring to Zelensky in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Man, the funniest takeaway that I got from that, though, was if Marco Rubio slinks any deeper into this couch, J.D. Vance will fuck him. Yeah.

It's true. He looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, but he sat there. He gets no praise from me. Of course. No. I mean, what? What? Looking uncomfortable and then tweeting support for what just happened? No, you don't get you don't get praise for that. No, it was crazy. It was a setup. So here's how it went down.

Zelensky was in the United States to sign a pre-negotiated mineral deal where the United States would get access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals. They were supposed to sign it, but before they were doing one of those like press sit downs that Trump does where he sits down in a chair with the leaders and they talk in front of the press. So and takes questions. So they were doing that for 40 ish minutes.

And it was good. And they were about to take the last question. Trump even said last question. And it goes completely off the rails from there. Literally like an accidental or not. Realignment of the entire post-World War II

springs from J.D. Vance getting what I perceived as insulted that Zelensky corrected him when it came to the history of ceasefire agreements and peace agreements between Ukraine and Russia. And then it just went crazy from there. Vladimir Zelensky tried to explain to Vance that Putin signing a peace agreement is relatively meaningless because he will continue to invade. He doesn't believe that Ukraine is a sovereign country.

Then Vance doesn't like getting corrected. He's like, have you ever said thank you even? Oh, that was so stupid. I felt like I was like at the dinner table again with some narcissistic parents. Not mine. Mine are lovely. Hi, Maureen. I know you're listening. But other people's parents, when they just snap on their kids and are like, you're not grateful enough.

What has this new administration done besides force them into negotiating a peace agreement, trying to take $500 million worth of their minerals and telling them they can't join NATO and not giving them any new assistance either? And let's not pretend that's the start of his shit with Zelensky. In his first term, part of the reason why Lev Parnas went to prison was because he dispatched Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to meet with Russian-like people in Ukraine who were trying to topple the government to get bribed.

what, crap on Joe Biden, which he never was able to get. He was trying to pressure Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company. But he was saying, if you do not, then I will not send this congressionally approved military aid. Here, we're back at that.

uh to ukraine to fight russia they've got this long-standing thing and that's before the war broke out well before this version of the war break uh let's not be i had already done the crimea stuff and all that but i mean this this trump and the russians go back super far rudy giuliani's one of his clients was the oil tycoons in russia paul manafort worked with the russians that was one of trump's chief of staff during the first uh term he was the campaign manager he went to prison

Trump and Russia just period end have a longstanding relationship that goes back to the 1980s when the Russian mafia-owned real estate group Bayrock bought two floors on Trump Tower to keep Trump afloat when he was a billion dollars in debt in the 80s. They funded Trump's Soho. They funded his Florida projects. And in 2007, he was set to open Trump Tower's Moscow, which would have made like a Las Vegas-style resort in Moscow.

It didn't go through because obviously the banks here in the United States were going through a lot of their shit in 2007. But had that not happened, Trump would be living in Russia by this point. He meant to bring Russia in since the 80s. This has been his entire MO. Yeah, they brought him there in like 1987. This is a whole rabbit hole to go down that I do think we owe the listeners.

Maybe at some point maybe next week if we if something else crazy doesn't happen to knock that out of our plans He does he knows Russia, right? He's got money with them Don jr. Has said that an outsized portion of the Trump organizations assets are Russian Yeah They've said when a lot of banks in the United States wouldn't lend to the Trump family because of their past financial record that they got all the money they need from Russia and

There's a long history. It really can't just kind of even be listed out. But what happened on Friday was seemed to have been set off by Vance. And then Trump almost seemed like he would not be one-upped in how he was going to insult Zelensky. So then he starts going in saying you're playing with World War III. You don't have the cards to negotiate.

And then there was like a far right, a journalist from a far right outlet called Real America's Voice. He asks why Zelensky doesn't wear a suit. Zelensky goes, I will wear a costume when the war is over. Maybe something like yours. Also, that guy is Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, which is...

Is hot tea, just so you know that part. And this is how I know it was a setup because you don't get into these rooms as new media, if you want to call it that, without having your question approved, especially these right wing hacks. Like they are there to further perpetuate like whatever it is that Trump wants to say. And to make that the first question. And Caroline Levitt always calls on this Brian guy almost every single time. He's very much in cahoots.

And have it be about the suit was because they were there to minimize him, make him look on serious, make him look on hinged, emotional, like a bad guy. Like, like he's, he's not part of like society or civil or smart or well-dressed or any of these things. He's disrespectful. That's all Russian propaganda. And speaking of journalists who were in the room, um,

There was evidently a journalist from TASS, the Russian state-owned media company. I bet there was. How did he get in there? He was invited. You and I have been to the White House enough times, and I did a whole TikTok on this. You don't get onto White House campus without giving your either passport or your social security to Secret Service at least two weeks in advance, typically.

But let's say that there are lacks on their security at the White House. You still got to show your ID at the front gate, show it at that second gate. And if you're going into the Oval Office, you have to show it two more times and get a special badge. There is no conceivable way

that this man got in there without an appointment because you don't get past the first gate without an appointment. You can't just roll up on the White House. That's not how it works. And there are different entrances. So folks were saying to me, well, I've been there for a tour and you had an appointment and you came to the visitor center where you went through security. And they did a background check on you first. Correct. Trust me. Don't go into the West Wing without this. And it takes hours to get into the West Wing. You don't walk from the front gate right into the West Wing.

Yeah, I think the point is that they had who they wanted in the room because who's going to stop them? Right. He also ended the whole interaction, it was like 10 minutes of really, really intense conversation.

In the room negotiation, it looked like it was something that would happen behind closed doors. And then they'd get out and they'd be like, we had a great constructive call. They didn't. Trump ended by saying, I think that was great television, which was true because I saw it live. I was seated and my heart was fucking racing. He always...

shows his cards. This is not a man who has a poker face. When J.D. Vance was speaking, I felt like he was sitting there waiting for it to be his turn to do his lines. And then at the end to say, this is going to be great television. That is something that I believe was in his mind this entire time. That's always in his mind. But so, okay. So they didn't sign the mineral deal because they had decided to have the signing after. Can I tell you something about that mineral deal though, before you go into why they didn't sign it?

It's a joke deal. Trump did not negotiate anything well. Biden was also offered this deal. The last time that the Ukraine did any kind of like geological surveillance to see what type of minerals they have there, other than like some graphite and lithium, which great, sure, we need that too, was during the USSR. Definitely.

It was a long, long time ago. We don't know what's there. We don't know how difficult it would be to mine. We don't know the quality of it. And they throw this out there because Russia's telling Trump, oh, yeah, you could get half a trillion dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to be on our side and we're going to get all these minerals. And because he's such a short term thinker and such a grifter, he falls for it. Biden had the same deal and he said it was the it was the thing that least interested him about ending the war in Ukraine because we don't even know if that's there.

Well, I think the reason that they do keep perpetuating this idea of the minerals deal is because they want to be able to use the point that even though they are seemingly acting in Russia's interest, the United States would not want harm to come to Ukraine because we have all this investment in their minerals that we'd want to protect, which...

Sounds specious to me. But also they didn't sign the minerals deal because after this television spectacle, the White House basically kicked the Ukrainians out and then they left and they went to Europe. He was never going to sign that deal, Sammy. He was never going to sign that deal because the deal came with additional military support and he was never going to do it.

Also, I want to just point out as many times as possible, every time Trump talks about money, he never talks about what we'll do for the American people. And I don't know if he understands that things like federally collected taxes or deals you make with other countries don't enrich the president. You don't get a finder's fee. There was a time during his first administration when he thought he should get a finder's fee for all the work he was doing because nothing would happen without him and he wanted 20% of every deal or something. Like, that's insane. You're crazy. Even when he talks about these $5

million gold cards, right? We were going to do no immigration. Now we're going to do $5 million immigration. He never talks about $5 million is not a lot of money to the American people broadly. It's a lot of money if he thinks he gets to keep it. Well, I would argue it's not even about the getting to keep it. It's about having a lever by which to collect

you know, by which to keep people out. Okay, my feeling on that, I agree. I've always agreed on this. I don't think he understands because he's thinking about running like a mafia-esque state the way Russia would. So to him, it's like, yeah, like I'm the president. I'm letting you do this.

I'm letting you because I'm in charge. And I think with the golden, you know, the gold card, the thing is the concept of a golden visa is not that outrageous. But in this situation, what the intention behind it and the types of people that I think that he is trying to draw with it is the questionable part. But he gets the argument.

that set up like, oh, golden visas. You know, they have that for everywhere. Yeah, I don't know. I definitely also think that he's doing it to give Russian oligarchs American citizenship or a passport here so that they can shield them. I'm sure that this is something, you know. But shield them from what? Us? From any potential like European sanctions or whatever. I don't know. The UK is now using frozen Russian assets.

to secure a loan, again, to help fund more military assistance for Zelensky to the tune of $2 billion. Yeah. The UK news is covering this totally differently and I think much more fairly in talking about the fact that the United States only ever gave Ukraine enough to continue the war, not to win the war. And that like, what do you mean, how long does this go on for? Russia shouldn't be in Crimea. They shouldn't be in Donbass. So let's talk about this question of, quote unquote, was it a setup?

But I also want to ask when people say a setup, do they mean premeditated and planned or do they mean that it was allowed to go as it did?

In my opinion, it was premeditated. It reads very much... You got to remember like the world that Donald Trump exists in and he treats everything like a television production, right? Like scripts and knowing like what moves come next, what's the choreography, right? That's how he does things. And this is a man who's been best friends with Vince McMahon...

WWE for 40, 50 years. Okay. This read very much to me like the way that backstage beef kayfabe is created, which is where like two friends who are supposed to be going great. Oh, we just had a great match. And then all of a sudden one of them fucking like hits the other one with a chair and you're like, oh my God, he's turning heel. And it's like a whole moment, right? It to me felt like a production where I think people got off the rails was that Zelinsky did not

play his part. What Trump expected and what he gaslit himself maybe into believing was that Zelensky would cave, he would start to grovel, he would start to whatever, and that's how that would go. But when he didn't, that's when Trump short-circuited a little bit. And he was like, he was in Hunter Biden's bathroom, in Hunter Biden's laptop's bedroom, Obama, like he just, he completely skitzed out.

I wasn't thinking that it was necessarily premeditated mostly because I don't think that Trump would try to premeditate anything with J.D. Vance. I think that J.D. I think that it was allowed to go in this direction because they didn't care if it did. So it was more like I don't think it was like planned and discussed as much as we will let this happen if there's even the slightest hint of it.

And J.D. Vance, I think his role was extremely interesting because I kept trying to think, like, all weekend, like, what did it remind me of? Like, it reminded me of a particular scene from a movie or, like, a trope or, like, a particular character that exists. And I saw this...

It kind of felt like deja vu. And I saw this thread by someone named Todd Alcott. And I thought that it made me realize like this is a Jungian archetype that is playing out. And that's why I think it was such a collectively stunning thing, not just because of the contents of what we saw, but because of like the familiarity of the dynamic that we watch play out.

I thought it was more like that meme where they're pointing at the cat and the cat is sitting there like. It was like that too from Beverly Hills. Yeah. This is what Todd Alcott says.

What Vance did yesterday in Hollywood terms is called the stranger in the room. Screenwriters especially are well aware of the role of the stranger in the room. The stranger in the room is anyone in a meeting who is just there as a friend, someone who has no creative authority on and no stake in the project being discussed. Anyone in the room who is a last minute addition. Sometimes it's a 20 something intern, sometimes an executive from a sister office, sometimes someone from marketing or an older, more experienced producer who's lending a hand for the day.

The purpose of The Stranger in the Room is to destroy the project. The Stranger in the Room is the one who, after the writer and producer and director have all agreed on the direction of the story, says, how will that play in China? Or this sounds a lot like movie X. Or but isn't this movie really about love?

The stranger in the room is almost always, always there at the behest of the most powerful person in the room. Whether the stranger understands it or not, they are acting on the behalf of the studio and it is the studio's natural desire to say no. I think so, but that's what I'm saying. I think it was scripted in the way that like this is the world that he lives in.

And I don't think it's just Trump that decides this shit. I think, you know, we're talking about the broader administration that props him up and the Heritage Foundation and all of their pageantry, the way they put together a sermon. It felt like, you know, there was a lot of like lesson in it. But I do think that J.D. Vance got a little too hot. I think he was supposed to say, well, you're not grateful enough to President Trump. Maybe that was his line, but he kept it going. And that's what sort of like flustered the shit out of Trump because he was off book.

I don't know. I can't see them like coming in together on like, well, you're going to say this. I think somebody just said to Trump, OK, J.D. Vance is going to say he's not grateful and then you take it from there. But why would someone need to script that for them when it seems so of them? I think everything he does is a show. And I think that there's no way J.D. Vance speaks out of turn. And I think he was only in that room to distract from what Elon's doing because now he's in Social Security.

You're right about him being in Social Security and a distraction. But I actually think J.D. Vance comes to play a particular role in his antagonism on the international stage with our allies. If you really wanted it to be fine, you would stop that. Like you would prevent an escalation. But they don't really want to prevent an escalation. Oh, no, they don't want to prevent an escalation. I think at the end of this, they needed some excuse to not sign that deal. They were not going to lunch with him. Maybe.

Maybe this is some toxic silver linings search that I'm having, but I think in some ways it's actually good that this is all out on the table because the alternative is they signed the deal. They're now in a deal to give up some of their resources. They ultimately don't get that much in return, but the U.S. is still stringing Ukraine along while pretending that they're actually on his side, but actually giving him nothing ever, right?

All that does is keep the war going longer, potentially hurting his popularity before Trump ultimately kicks him in the nuts.

And, and so my feeling is like, okay, maybe Zelensky didn't have the cards before when his supposed friend was actually just pumped to screw him, screw them over. But I actually think now he has way more cards because it's out on the table. We don't have to pretend anymore. He doesn't have to rely on this. Like, will I, won't I get assistance? He can actually now go and come up with a strategy that's going to,

you know, protect himself and protect Europe. So honestly, like, I'm like, okay, you literally just drove them to go realize they need to actually strategize and come up with a plan. Well, you know who I think has the mostest cards in this house of cards is

is Keir Starmer. Because it's not just about, does the US back Ukraine? It's, is the United States given deference as the leader of the free world? Are we the, you know, king princess of the world, as we've said? Is that us? And I think after this, it's no, right? Europe and Canada did come together. He's messing with Mexico. He's messing with South America. He's doing all these horrible things. The world is coming together without the United States and

I think Keir Starmer is setting himself up to be the leader of the free world in the way that he so clearly finesses Trump and the way that he sort of like

immediately took up and now is saying, you know, we're going to do something like, you know, seize Russian frozen assets to like give military support. Okay, let's think about a European army. Okay, let's think about like the UK being essentially the empire again in some way. I mean, all these people are empirical. Let's not get that wrong. But I do think that he's the best speaker of them. He's certainly united people.

And I liked when he brought the letter from the king. One, it shows just how obsessed with the king Trump is because he's obsessed with kings.

He was like, oh, the king, the king, like that means anything. It means fuck all, nothing to people. But he hands him the letter and he's like, go ahead and read it. And he is like, no, you read this paragraph. He just stared at the page and didn't read. And now the thing is, can Trump read? And my thing is, no, 43 million Americans are functionally illiterate. And I do believe that Trump is one of them. And I think folks think when they say you can't read, they mean you don't know any words. He knows some words he can't read.

Andy probably needs glasses. I mean, a man of his age, there's not one among us who doesn't have readers after like 50, right? Well, you know how he writes because remember during his first impeachment, he was trying to deny that this was a quid pro quo. And he literally writes on his paper, I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. It's like, why do you have to write –

tell Zelensky to do the right thing. I have dyslexia, so I understand this thing. And Natalie was asking, do you think he has, you know, some, I'm like, no, I don't. I had to like teach myself to read, read, read, right? Like to actually read every single word. And I worked really hard on that. He's not going to do that. So you can overcome it if you work hard. Look, this is completely just a guess, but my guess is that

If he can't read because he is dyslexic and so he struggled and he never tried to learn and all he did was like rebel in other ways and cause problems and he got through life without actually having to like

correct this or try to find a way around it. I think it explains why he could be at this age and someone else is doing his own tweets and he won't read like a paragraph. Well, and we've seen him be a significantly less eloquent president, if you could even call what he did in the first term eloquence, without Ivanka. He's had her essentially as his right hand the whole entire time. And I wonder if, you know, his children helped him with reading or whatever, putting things together.

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Keir Starmer was there a few days before Zelensky, and then right after, Zelensky went to the UK Saturday, and he's greeted with a big hug by Keir Starmer, the Bridgestone hug. No, that's what I'm saying. Keir will emerge as potentially the new leader of the free world.

I kind of see that as being maybe more Zelensky himself. I think he's the hero of the world. He's definitely like, you know, the inspiration, but he doesn't have the money and stuff to like, you know, swing it like that right now. He's a wartime president.

You know who was in there, though, too? There's Georgia Maloney's little face. And she's a little right wing, you know, Brothers of Italy person. She's kind of on the edge of fascism. And she is also backing Ukraine, which so I was like, okay, you know, this is not a right wing thing. This is a no, we are against Russia thing.

I imagine Maloney would like to remain in charge. Sure. And as long as, and I do feel that she's negotiable with both sides. Oh, yeah. She's much more reasonable. But I'm saying like some folks are like, well, because he's a fascist. And it's like, no, no, no. George Maloney is also a fascist and also against Russia. Not only did Keir Starmer give him a big public hug when he arrived on UK soil, but Zelensky actually went to Sandringham,

to have tea with King Charles, which is a big deal because on state visits, they, you know, foreign leaders don't show up at the King's home or the Queen's home. They go to, they're in London. They're in, you know, a more, a public building. And I, Sandringham is like their vacation home. So,

So I think that was like a really strong signal like you are – we're embracing you 100 percent. Family, yeah. Yeah, and that came as they committed $2.6 billion to missiles and then the additional $2 billion in a loan backed by frozen Russian oligarch assets. Yeah.

There was also a report that Norway wouldn't refuel U.S. fleets, Navy vessels, but that actually turned out to be a private company taking that action. And then they received sort of a groundswell of support for doing that. So the rumor went around that Norway was doing it, but it was not the Norwegian government. It was just a company. But, you know, creativity, creativity.

creativity. Yeah. I think it freaked people when they said Norway won't refuel US Navy vessels because that's, I mean, that's massive, right? That's like our whole, we need that in the Arctic situation. But I think we will start to see that. Well, someone needs to use leverage, so. Well, because the United States is cocky, right? And especially under Trump, they're dumb. And so they're like, well, you can't do anything without the US. And it's like, no,

If Italy decides that we don't get to have air bases there anymore, if Germany decides that we don't get to have air bases there anymore, if Germany decides that they're not going to export car parts to us, if Canada decides they're not going to export car parts to us, like America is a much more immediate gratification-centered country than a lot of Europe can be. They'll hold out without a new car, but will Americans? They're going to start to freak out. A little undertone of this was

brought out in Zelensky's first response that kicked off the whole thing is that he said, you don't understand because Vance was kind of was saying, you know, you need to conscript people to the front lines. They don't really want to fight your war. He's trying to undermine his leadership by saying that. Please. Like we didn't just get rid of the draft like two minutes ago. And Zelensky saying like, you will understand, you will feel this later. Yeah.

But you have a nice big ocean that protects you, but you'll feel it later. And then Trump was like, don't you tell us what we're going to feel. And then that set it off. Trump was like, don't you dare say I couldn't stop this if I want it.

Well, yeah, it goes off of Trump's talking points and he can't handle that. I want to say one more thing about the Norway thing. We don't hear enough about what just regular everyday citizens in Europe are doing to support Ukraine. And something that I read about yesterday was that there was a Czech fundraiser, people from the Czech Republic, like not a super wealthy country, but they scrapped together their money and they bought Ukraine a $3 million Blackhawk helicopter.

This is not a government sponsored thing. This was like a person, you know, just started it. And people, Czech people were like, you know what? Yeah, I want to do what I got $5, $20, whatever the case may be. And they just bought them a $3 million Black Hawk helicopter to send it to Ukraine. Isn't that incredible? There's like little things that people are doing. And I think we need to know that because we don't want to be on the wrong side of this.

Right, the small dollar donors taking care of everything. That, I think, is a better example of the fact that Europe, they feel this threat. They have this in their psychology because people are still alive who were actually bombed during World War II.

And I think that that's where America really is potentially in for quite a rude awakening. They couldn't even handle the affront of being asked to wear a mask to protect themselves and others from a disease, an illness that you don't really know the long-term effects of. And Americans were just like, no, I don't want to wear a mask. Well, my mom was saying...

She's like, you know, under the desk news, you're about to become like more, you know, ironic than you think you are. Because if the Russians are going to start playing with the nukes again, that's like when I was in school, we used to have to like get under the desk to hide from the Russian nukes. And I'm like, Ma, come on. No, my mom has that as like a formative experience as well. This was like our parents who had to hide under their desk. What the fuck was that going to do?

It wasn't going to do anything. It was like fake security. But she was like, yeah, you know that under the desk thing? It's so funny because now people are going to think you're hiding from the Russian nukes. I was like, ma'am, you sweet, sweet woman. It's not just like...

The civilians in other countries that are making decisions about how they want to protect themselves and their families from the Trump regime and his idea of what world peace and foreign policy looks like. I had a lot of friends in the military, obviously, you know, super involved over there and talked to a lot of the folks in the Pentagon even. And they, before Trump became president, we talked a little bit about how they thought they had kind of Trump-proofed things. He won't fire the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He won't fire the admirals. He won't just do, and then he did.

And then Pete Hegseth said, stop monitoring Russia for cybersecurity threats, which is insane because they're like one of the biggest on us. That's their war. That is how they won. Yeah, exactly. They're saying, you know, we're going to kick out all the transgender folks and

So I was talking to one of my friends who's pretty high up in the Navy, and they were saying they don't know how to identify trans folks to be fired. And I was like, that's good news, like, because you're intentionally not doing it. And she was like, no, literally, like, this is the military. We don't ask a lot of questions. You go through MEPS, buck ass naked, and they write down male or female, and then you get a uniform and you go do your job. And that's how it is. She's like, we never took information on people to be like,

well, do you identify as trans? She's like, there's no log of this. So while we say we think there's about 15,000 people who may identify as trans or non-binary, gender non-confirming in the military, there's no paper record of that. We've never marked somebody as X or marked them as trans. There's nothing. So as far as his plan to destroy the military by getting rid of 15,000 troops, they can't do that. But a lot of folks are getting out anyway. So I got three friends who are

higher than a captain. So actual big career has been there over 10 years. And they put in their packets two weeks ago, if not last week, to say, I'm out. And it's devastating because I know a lot of them wanted to stay in. There's a lot of benefits if you can make it to 20 years. So my friend who's at 17 and put in his packet, that's not a small decision. And it's because they don't want to be boots on the ground for Russia. And they're starting to feel like

This isn't protecting, the oath is to the constitution, to no king, to no man, to no administration, it's to the constitution. And they're starting to see that this military directive, this secretary of defense, this commander in chief, maybe aren't as dedicated to the oath to the constitution. And that scares me because we came into it understanding it was going to be a problem, but thinking that we were going to be able to endure it. And folks now are like,

I'm not willing to do something unlawful. And he fired the Jags, which are like the top lawyers of each branch. You know, he's flying in the Tate brothers. That's trash. Like, why are we bringing in criminals? These are law abiding, like patriotic people who are now feeling like,

My oath will always be to the Constitution. And if I can't execute that here, then unfortunately, I have to part ways. And I think that that's so sad. So is it more, would you say, from your anecdotal understanding, that people are getting out because they don't want to be boots on the ground for Russia or they're staying in and don't want to be?

No. They're getting out because the benefits are changing significantly. We did a lot of work, especially under Secretary Austin, to improve military members' lives. Things like universal childcare for preschool happened. They're getting rid of that.

They're changing some of the stuff with TRICARE. Basically, it sucks to be in the military. They want to get rid of bonuses. They want to get rid of DEI. They want to get rid of extra training, which is like all you really do is go to school and be in training because we're not at war. And so they're like, why do I want to be in here if I'm just going to be like constantly doing busy work or potentially boots on the ground for Russia? I don't necessarily trust the chain of command right now. They don't trust us.

I'm not getting any training or education. My kids are pretty soon not going to have universal pre-K. My wife is being told that she has to go back into an office when she can't. And then they're like, oh no, the military spouses don't have to go back into an office. And then the office is saying, yeah, the fuck you do. And so they're just like, fuck this. I'm going to take my chances in the private sector. This ain't working. And the benefits aren't there. And I'm not going to be a part of

breaking my oath to the Constitution. So I think folks are just having a really hard time. Understandable, because the reality that we were all raised with is crumbling before our eyes. And even if you are someone who saw this

occur in a slow rolling form, what do you do? That doesn't actually, like you're, it's to the point where you can no longer pretend because it's in front of your face and your people are faced with the decision point of like, are you going to continue with trying to uphold the system you believed it was? Or are you going to be forced to submit by either being compelled or by saying I cannot go along with

with the things I'm going to have to go along with anymore. And you know what else is happening with the military? We got 20 American soldiers missing in action in Ukraine right now. We've got 20 American Marines who were retired, who joined up with Foreign Legion and are missing in Ukraine right now, killed by Russians. And we have our, if anybody, right? They were killed by the Russians if they're dead.

And we have a president who is siding with Russia. That's anti-American and that's fucked up. Bring those people home. And there's more people over there that are – there are American boots on the ground for Ukraine. There have been since the beginning, whether that's through foreign legion assignments or through private assignments. But these are our people. And to have a president negotiating with the enemy that's killing us

is fucking insane to me. And then meanwhile, in my opinion, and what the fuck's my opinion matter? It doesn't. But in my opinion, when I know about what he's doing with the Marines and sending them to the southern border, they're just tacking up chicken wire on the fence down there. Okay, like, I don't know why. I don't know when or why somebody with cameras to go down to Texas and film the Marines is

We'll come, but you should go because he's got like 9,000 Marines down there right now who don't want to be fucking down there if they don't have to be. And they're fortifying the border. They're tacking chicken wire up on the border. There's no – they're not on a mission, critical mission, and they're being taken away from their families and they're doing busy work and they're doing shit that doesn't matter. And when they're not doing that, they're like having to –

Do work they're not trained for, like security on these detention centers and stuff they don't want to be doing. This is really Putin's dream to have the administration sort of bureaucratically navigate the surrendering of the United States. Yep. Pretty crazy. Yeah. For us to lose our place in the world for what? So Trump can have a casino in Moscow? Please. I mean, I think once people sort of realized that there was a war being conducted that we were not privy to...

And that achieved a realignment that could never have been achieved militarily through a physical battle. And this is an ideological strategy and it worked.

Because here we are. Because you now have Congress, you now have Mike Johnson saying, you know, Zelensky can't negotiate. It seems like he should come back to the table with gratitude or he should resign. Someone else should be leader. Lindsey Graham was saying Zelensky should resign. And it's like... And two minutes before that, he was like, my good friend from Ukraine, he was the biggest Ukraine supporter ever.

Lindsey Graham, a fascinating character. Whatever they got on him, we already know it, Graham. We already know about the ladybugs. We know about everything. They got nothing on you. Please start acting right. Let's talk about some of the other oligarchs who are dominating our lives. Jeff Bezos. Let's do him first. Last week, he announced that the Washington Post opinion section needs to just be his own opinions, basically.

All right. Look, I will say that is exactly what the average person thinks the opinion section of the newspaper is. They think it is the opinions of the newspaper, not that it is the opinions of like the general broader public. So I'm going to imagine that Jeff Bezos doesn't read the newspaper so much as own it. And he's like, no, this should represent the Washington Post.

I think it would be fun to run a newspaper. I think he's jealous of Elon Musk and his ability to control, you know, he believes that he should, why wouldn't, I'm a billionaire, why wouldn't I control this? Basically what he said is that all Washington Post op-eds have to embrace the ideas of personal liberties and free markets, a concept which is circular because even the idea of telling them that they have to...

write about ideas of personal liberty and free markets is not giving them personal liberty, nor is it a free market. No, no. You got to figure these billionaires sat around the state dinner at Trump's inauguration or whatever. And Mark Zuckerberg was like, I control the speech of like 20 billion people. And Musk was like, yeah, I control the speech of all these. And dick shaped rockets was like,

I'm going to make an analog Twitter and it'll be all my opinions, but in black and white newspaper, like they're fucking nerds. Man, I knew that, you know, all empires fall, but I didn't think ours would fall to such fucking losers.

When they're sending the billionaires, they're not sending their best. No. Oh, God. I'll tell you, after this economic blackout that was on Friday, I've been trying not to buy from Amazon. I just think I'm going to buy from other places I already didn't love to buy from Amazon. Like, I want a real thing from a real brand. Yes. So I'm trying not to unless, like, I really need something in an emergency. But, you know, I'm trying to not do that. We are doing the same. Also, we're buying a lot. We just...

We're buying a lot less. I feel like I'm gearing up for a recession or something. But I live in the suburbs, as you know, of Rochester, New York, which is a fine town. We go to the mall, Sammy. And if you haven't been to the mall in a while, let me tell you, it's a thrill to try things on and not have to return them. It's a thrill to get what you want that day. Like I want sneaks. I go to the mall. I go home with them. I don't have to wait for them and see if they fit.

I bring back malls, bring back in-person shopping. We go downtown. I wanted sunglasses. I went downtown. I told the lady who runs Peppermint, which is like our little boutique, that I wanted these particular tinted sunglasses. She ordered them for me. It took a couple weeks, but she knew exactly how to find them. I was like, I didn't know this is how boutiques work. Oh, I love stores. I'm always telling Avi that he should be shopping in person. You can actually see the nuances. I find

find that I value something more if I bought it in person because I hate opening boxes. Oh, I don't like having the boxes around. And also I'm like bestie friends with the manager of the Express store at the Grease Ridge Mall. Her name is Lisa. Hi, Lisa, if you're listening. She like will get suits in and like put aside my size and like text us and be like, I got these new colors. I really think that people love. I have a personal shopper at the Express. Go shop in person. Talk to your sales associates.

That is the community that we are missing. I have a friend, a sales associate. I mean, I'm the best friend of a sales associate because I'm a sucker. Yeah. Oh, no. I want help in there. I love it. I know we think we don't want help.

Let them help you. Speaking of the Washington Post, it has had finer decades. There is a new movie called Becoming Catherine Graham that's out on Amazon now. It talks about basically how she stood up to Nixon during Watergate. So I definitely recommend watching that. Yeah. What's it called again? It's called Becoming Catherine Graham and it's on Prime Video. I'm excited to watch it. I'm going to watch it tonight, I think, after my school to wind down because we got through the Oscars yesterday. I didn't watch any Oscar movies. I'm a streamer, kind of girly.

Well, I watched Conclave and Wicked. That was it. So I don't know if they won because in this hotel they didn't have the channel. So I'm not sure. Sorry. They didn't have ABC? No. They didn't have the Oscars here for whatever reason. That doesn't make any sense. It's Harvard. They don't want you to be polluted by pop culture. Okay. Okay, Harvard. But also one more thing on the Bezos beat. Lauren Sanchez announced that she will be leading an all-female Blue Origin flight to

Where also she will be bringing Katy Perry, Gayle King, the activist Amanda Nguyen, along with an aerospace engineer and a filmmaker. To me, this sounds a lot like a DEI flight. It's the worst girl trip ever. Why is Katy Perry going to space?

Maybe because her career here is done. Send her to Mars. She's... That, I was like, why is Katy Perry involved? Anytime something is going to be a mess, Katy Perry is involved. And anytime it's a movie that will trigger me, Nicole Kidman is involved. These are my consistence. Right. I feel like Katy Perry is like...

Almost a bad luck charm for this. She's an omen. Look what happened to American Idol when they put her on there, right? Look what happened to Russell Brand after he was married to her. What? Oh. I can't. Look what happened to Hillary Clinton. Now, I know that she didn't write the same song, but Roar and whatever song was the Hillary Clinton song were the same song.

Fight song. Fight song. They were the same song. You can't do that to her by association. She didn't destroy Hillary Clinton. Katy Perry destroys everything. Also, why is Katy Perry so right wing for a woman who got famous writing a song about kissing girls and shooting whipped cream out of her boobs? I think probably due to religious trauma, which is why the song was a big deal in the first place. True. I wouldn't send Natalie down the street on a bicycle if I wasn't totally sure it was safe. He's going to send her up in a fucking rocket.

I can't with Katy Perry. This is just, this is just a disaster. Look, I did have a brief flash of like the reverse situation of the Seagate submarine. I'm scared. I'm genuinely concerned for these women. Look, I'll tell you this. There are enough wonderful things on this earth that I would like to see that I would like to experience.

that I don't need to go really deep in the sea or really high in the sky. I think unless I'm flying to one of the other places on the earth, but even so, if you told me, oh, you just can drive everywhere, I'd be good. If you're like walk, there's a lot of natural beauty around me. I just think, why do we need to do this? No, stop going in the sea. You don't even care about like human expansion. Like don't even try to pretend like you care about that. Maybe the aerospace engineer cares about that. But

But the rest of them just want to get the cool Instagram on the suit. I'm just, yeah. I'm like, guys, I think we have problems here that we could easily fix with a couple billion dollars.

Or if we just send all the oligarchs in one little – on one rocket and go, figure it out. We're right behind you. Yeah, we'll see you there. We'll see you there. Okay, speaking of rocket men, Elon Musk, who should be on his way to Mars if you ask me, is waiting for him. He had another baby with Siobhan Zillis. Dude, this –

I actually think this might be my favorite story of 2025 so far because that Ashley St. Clair girl really thought she had Elon's ass. And like, I hate all these people. So anytime they destroy each other, I'm going to cheer for it. But she was so out here. Like her 15 minutes of fame was literally 15 minutes. She didn't get nearly a second before his favorite woman to breed with popped out baby number 14.

Look, there's still time for her to get the attention she so craves, but... She's got to get pregnant again or it's over. Just get creative. This is baby number 14 for Elon. Yep. Siobhan Zillis, who is his number one sort of like... I don't know if it's his number one that he's most into, but number one most like proper. She works for him. Yeah. They're kind of in the same world. She tweeted that, "...discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia's birthday..."

one of their other kids. We thought it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son, Selden Lykurgus, built like a juggernaut with a solid heart of gold. Love him so much. Okay. Why is the only child he ever appears with that little ex? He's got 14. I've never seen any of the other ones except for Vivian, who I love and who is the TikTok icon, his daughter, who he says he lost to the woke mind virus. She's so cool though. Yeah.

I mean, I'm just curious why he does bring that one. Maybe that's the one that he's allowed to see. I don't think Siobhan or his first wife, the other one, Vivian's mother, I don't think she or Siobhan maybe allow their children to be out with him where Grimes maybe does let X be with him a lot. This is speculation though. Maybe he finds this to be the cutest one.

All right. Well, I think that's it for this week. Tonight, we have the joint address and I'm going to be on hysteria recapping. It'll be out Thursday. Okay. But if you want to do like a Substack Live. I think that'd be fun. All right. We'll Substack it. All right. So catch us on Tuesday night, tonight on Substack. We'll be there. Probably right after because we'll want to have like our guttural gross reactions and also just like, I don't know, take a shot together of something. Yeah.

Love it. Until next time, I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream.