Senator Eric Schmitt: Exposing the Biggest Censorship Scandal in US History

I put on a jacket because, you know, we're interviewing a senator, but I see that uh it's polo day. Senator Schmidz pulled a Zillinsky here. I I did, but I told them I do have these stiff I have these stiff collar on the polo, which is You look great. It looks great. And you know, I lost the weight. Thanks for noticing, Senator. And um uh I've been hitting the weights unlike Sachs. And so I am too trying to get the gun show going like you have achieved there. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion. People love the interviews. I could hear him talk for hours. Absolutely. We crushed your questions in a minute. We are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What do

you guys think? That was fun. All right, everybody. Welcome back to a very special interview. Yeah, you know, we're doing these interviews here uh with me, my amazing co-host and your Zar of crypto and AI, the Rainman himself, David Saxs. David, how you doing, brother? How's your summer wrapping up? Good to be here. The summer ended way too soon. Way too soon. It's so sad, isn't it? It's just like not ready for it to be over. Kids going back to school, all that. And look, you're a civil servant now. You are working for the people and the people demand you're a public servant. Yes. And the people demand results. And hey, we have another civil servant here. David, why don't you introduce our guest today? This is Senator Eric Schmidt from the state of Missouri. How did we meet? It was it was through another former senator, now vice president, JD Vance, I believe. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And you guys entered the Senate together at the same time.

We did. and uh got to be very close and uh shared a lot of um life experiences and uh in our freshman group got you know pretty tight. We go to dinner once a month and try to keep that going now that he's even VP, which is a lot of fun. But yeah, we got introduced through him and uh have enjoyed getting to know you. And you now have a new book called The Last Line of Defense, which is about your time in your previous job, which was as attorney general of the state of Missouri. And I remember talking about before I even knew you on the All-In Pod when we were dealing with censorship and talking about that issue, the Twitter files. This is back in I don't know, this is like 3 or four years ago, 2022, I would say. Yeah, few years ago

now is moving. We talked about the case Biden v. Missouri, which you were the one who brought that case when you were attorney general. When I met you and then found that out, I knew that we had some views in common, let's say, about free speech and the need to avoid censorship and you went right at the show me don't tell me what your fancy speak what's going on. You went directly to discovery. So maybe you could talk a little bit about the approach uh from the senator from the show me state. There were rumors and kind of this feeling people were being censored, but nobody knew exactly how it was occurring. So, you had some intuition that if we do some discovery here,

there's got to be something under the surface. Or had somebody leaked something to you? How did you know to go after this? I guess was my question. Yeah. And one of the reasons I wrote the book was just to, you know, I think it's it's easy. The book starts with um you know, in November 2024, the fever broke. And so if you think about the four previous years, you know, this was a time of lockdowns and compulsory COVID shots and forced masking of 5-year-olds, but also this vast censorship enterprise that existed that in my view was the greatest affront to the First Amendment we've ever seen in the history of our country. And so if you go back in time, right, to to in 2022, you had seen, to your point, Jason, you had seen um sort of Jen Saki at the podium talking about,

hey, we're flagging this for Facebook. There were rumors of a disinformation governance board um with the Mary Poppins herself um right um talking about how this misinformation and disinformation I think right wasn't there that they needed to to flag this stuff and do something about it. We knew that if they were willing to talk about that stuff so publicly, there had to be something much more beneath the surface. So in May of 2022 when I was attorney general of Missouri, we sued the B administration and sort of this leviathan of agencies that were working to censor American speech. And we filed the lawsuit and we knew that it would be, you know, highly scrutinized um be called sort of furthering conspiracy

theories, but we knew that there was something there. And a really important strategic decision in the case was normally when you file a lawsuit like that, you immediately seek a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction to get the government or another party to stop what they're doing. But we felt like we needed to get evidence first, right? We had the allegations in the complaint. So we sought discovery and the judge granted that discovery and what we found from that discovery was shocking. Right? We got reams and reams, tens of thousands of documents, emails, text messages about this communication, the special portals that existed for, you know, these folks in big government to work with big tech to silence Americans. And

so it really was shocking. And then, of course, we got to the point where we were able to take depositions. We took the deposition of Anthony Fouchy. He took the deposition of Elvis Chan who was the FBI agent uh in charge of Northern California that was pre-bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story even though the FBI had the laptop in 2019. Right. So we took the deposition of a CDC official who was basically flagging specific words and phrases that the government would then censor and then agencies like SISA. All of these groups were part of this enterprise and that's one of the reasons I wrote the book last line of defense that people can get on Amazon right now. it. You we go inside those deposition rooms. You go inside the prep for that. What we what were we trying to find out? What did we find out? How we uncovered this? Because you

got to remember this was before Elon bought Twitter. Yeah. And before Yeah. Yeah. We those first couple days. Yeah. What's interesting about this is that you were taking the discovery from the government side. So you were getting the government documents, you were deposing government witnesses, and then Elon released the Twitter files, I don't know, about 6 months later. And then we saw it from the Twitter side. Yeah. And this was happening at Facebook too, right? Like you had information on the Facebook side. Yeah. Yeah. You had Meta, you had YouTube. We, you know, all the, this was all happening in and the way it was working was, as you guys know, um, these big

tech platforms have something called two section 230 protection, right? Which is basically in the '9s when the internet's becoming a thing, Congress says you're not you're not a publisher, you're a platform, so you can't be sued. That is a huge advantage. And by the way, if they're actually acting as a platform, as a proponent of free speech, almost as a free speech absolutist, that's a great thing. The problem was a lot of these entities were then becoming publishers. They were throttling things they didn't like. They were taking down opinions they didn't support. That sort of thing. And so what you had was Joe Biden saying maybe there's criminal liability. you saw these text messages in the lawsuit

from from Rob Flity who is the deputy communications director of the White House cussing these guys out saying you you need to know that from the highest levels of the White House we see this you're not doing enough and so as much as I think some of the the people at these big tech companies were willing participants there was a coercion that was happening and that's the basis of the lawsuit which was we all know the government can't censor speech but you also can't outsource that censorship to private companies which is exactly what was going down and I think exposing that was really important. Uh, of course Elon and all the work that he's done in making that a true free speech platform

then and then of course the congressional hearings that followed. I think all of this has sort of laid the groundwork for this kind of free speech renaissance that we're experiencing. One of the things, you know, when I was in college, you know, in the late 90s, I was um I was always pretty conservative. One thing I was kind of jealous of of liberals was that they kind of had the high ground on free speech. they were viewed as sort of like the Vanguard and even the ACLU actually did things like protect free speech. That's all gone now. Like that there's no like it's about power and control and limiting and labeling things misinformation, disinformation to to suppress speech. So I think it's an interesting moment right

now for this new coalition that came together to elect President Trump, which is for me exciting. It's kind of a working-class coalition. So just to steel man it senator we know that our foreign adversaries this is bipartisan for many decades interfere in our elections. We know they do that. You would agree? Yeah. This certainly would try to influence certainly try. Right. And of course we could be like hey is it possible in 50 different states with 50 different set of regulations. Pretty hard to actually tip an election. Um as we've seen, right? If you look at that if we steal man a foreign adversary because this is the cover that they were seeking. Hey,

we're doing this to protect America and democracy. But the truth was, you know, they were doing it for their own personal reasons and their affiliation with one particular party. If you just look at the percentage of people who are Democrats at those companies, it's like 80, 90, 95%. So, I think we all agree on that. Is there a way for the FBI, for the CIA, for our government to say to Twitter, to Facebook, hey, you've got people here who are foreign adversaries. they're doing something uh that is against the American public. We need you to monitor this account and take them down. What would have been the proper channel as opposed to setting up a covert back channel where they kind of threatened them? One layer here that I've never heard anybody connect, but when I was listening to your Tucker interview, it it just dawned on me. They also put Lena Khan in. Now, Zuckerberg

is a cutthroat business executive. He likes to buy companies. That's his thing. And Twitter was known for buying a lot of companies. So now you got Lena Khan saying, "We're going to we're going to come down hard on you, not let you buy anything." And at the same time, this other group from the Biden administration is saying, "Hey, take this stuff down." So they had two really big clubs to to to threaten these folks. But what would be the proper channels to say, "Hey, these things are stolen." Right. Yeah. There's there's a difference between sort of making people aware um versus the coercion um that was happening under the threat of investigations or losing section 230

protections. Right. That was that was that was our argument which was this went beyond informing and this was about colluding and and coercing which of course then crosses the line of what the government can do you know as far as violating the first amendment. There's also to your point there's a couple of things that are happening at the same time here. The first is kind of this honestly is kind of legacy of the whole Russia gate hoax stuff in that they concocted this um this theme um that is playing out now like Tulsi Gabra is exposing a lot of stuff but that gave them the in their view that gave them the guys to talk about Russia this Russia that everything that they don't like is misinformation disinformation right the other thing that was happening

with Zuckerberg in particular you know you got to remember if you go back to 2016, a lot of people blamed him. If he didn't like Trump, they blamed him because they thought that somehow um what was happening on Facebook contributed to his election and it shouldn't have happened. But then, of course, he he then is part of the whole Zuckerbucks movement in the leadup to to 2020. Then he comes back around and Biden's in office and he's pressured um and then he kind of, you know, on the rogue on Joe Rogan kind of talks about the the the lengths at which they went to pressure him. And now it it seems as though maybe he's been red pilledled again. I don't really know where that's

at. No, no, I can tell you he's a weather vein. That's just how you know which way the wind's blowing. Zuckerberg. So yeah, like it's out of behind is just But it's interesting like him as sort of this kind of maybe that's the right word of kind of how this was vacasillating from from one place to the next. But the point is if Kamala won I'll give her he would have been all in for Kamala 100%. He would have been at the inauguration for her. He would have donated to her. Trust me, we know him. It's my opinion. But I I give him I give him a little more credit in the following sense is that Zuckerberg gave a speech a while back where he talked about how social networking was the fourth estate and you've got the media

and then you got social networking and it's very disruptive and therefore people want to censor it and he basically supported that we should have freedom of speech for social networking like we do for the press because it's equally important and I think that is his actual view it's just that the question is you know how much stomach does he have for fighting the government when it's pressuring him and coercing him and some other part of the government is basically threatening to break up his company. Right. Yeah. Right. Like a fifth estate, right? And so I think that if he wasn't being pressured by the government at all and just left to his own devices, I think he'd be fairly pro- free speech, but I just think that he wasn't really willing to take up the

banner and fight the way that Elon was, you know, and really anti- Elon in that respect. He's the anti- Elon. He cares about his stock price. He cares about money. This is my interpretation. And he's going to protect the franchise and the stock price. But that's what most business people would do. I mean, I think Elon was an outlier in terms of being willing to fight for principle. Which is why I think that going back to the central premise of Biden v. Missouri, when the government is jawboning these companies, instructing them to take down content or highly suggesting it and basically threatening that there'll be repercussions if they don't, most business people are going to give into that. Of course,

and it is and it is de facto censorship. Well, and if you think about it too, I mean, there's just a couple of things if they didn't happen, all of this stuff would still be considered a conspiracy theory or we wouldn't know about it. Like, if we didn't, nobody else had filed. If we didn't file that lawsuit and seek discovery and if the richest guy on the planet doesn't choose to buy Twitter and expose all of that, people would still be claiming that this was some conspiracy theory, right? like we wouldn't if you just think the world would be a much different place right now. And so I think that's a big success. Well, I agree and just to take people back, you're exactly right that conservatives were called crazy and

conspiracy theorists for believing that Twitter, you know, then Twitter was shadowbanning and throttling traffic. And I remember when Elon took over, you know, we had the Twitter transition and Jay Khal and I were there and um we were just helping out first couple of weeks and it was mostly just getting org charts and trying to rationalize the orc structure and Elon went in and started making cuts. But then I think I left around Thanksgiving and we were all kind of with our families and you know I think we went down to Mexico and Elon was still there working and I remember I got a text from him at like 2:00 in the morning like are you up? hang you up. Hang you up. You up going to be a banger? Yeah. I'm like, "Sure." Yeah. So anyway, he calls and basically what he told me

was that all the conspiracy theories are true that we've now gone into the admin tools that the trust and safety team was using and they literally have checkboxes to throttle accounts based on exclude them from search and they had all these different tools that they had created again to throttle traffic which was effectively shadowbanning. So they could just ban you outright or they could prevent your content from being seen. In other words, everything that conservatives had claimed was true. And to just to to add to that, Senator, before you respond, the thing that's particularly interesting about this is you talked about 230. We want platforms to have 230, but when you start making

editorial decisions, when you're the New York Times and you say, "Hey, this is going on the front page." It's an editorial decision. When you assign the story, that's an editorial decision. The 230 was given to platforms that didn't make editorial decisions. This is an editorial decision to say Milo Yiannopoulos or Laura Loomer or Alex Jones, whatever the reason is. They could be anti-semitic. They could be crazy. They could, you know, or the president of the United States, which was We'll get into that one for sure because there's a lot of good questions there. This is one of the things that Elon had done that very day was he opened up the Twitter jails and let Trump back onto the platform and there were some others. Jordan Peterson was It was a little bit

like Arkham's Asylum. You did let a couple of crazy people back on too. No, all the bad boys of free speech were let out. I mean, it was Trump, Tate, Jordan Peterson, um Jaria, folks like Peterson. The public doesn't need to be protected from any of these people. I mean, Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones, you may find them losome or funny or anything in between, but it is freedom of speech. But Senator, this has led to a discussion of 230 being repealed. And this is where I think, you know, the lawsuit you did and there could be further work is clarifying the nuance of 230. Should an algorithm de facto be an editorial decision? So if you have an algorithm and you say, "Hey, I'm going to show you more MAGA stuff. I'm going to show you more AOC." That's an editorial decision in my mind. Should that break section 230 if somebody

decides to build an algorithm that shapes the content you see when you open the app just like the New York Times editors do? Right. That's sort of like in in the last line defense book is sort of like what are the solutions are? We talk about what's the proper role of section 230 because I actually think if you are a true platform as somebody again that believes in free speech it's a very important thing. One of the concerns like I'm I'm not a doomsday guy on on AI. I think there's um think it can add to human flourishing. I think it can actually make us more productive and there's a lot of there's a lot of opportunities that roll with it. One of the things I'm most concerned though is about censorship creeping in to AI,

right? And so I think you have to be very clear that if you're going to start making these edit, whether it's a, you know, somebody individually is flagging it or you have an algorithm that is essentially excluding 50% of the points of view, you should not get the multi-billion dollar subsidy. That effectively what section 230 protection is, right? It's a huge advantage and it should and by the way I'm all for that but I think this manipulation that by the way is sort of sewn into the heart though the algorithm because you know what an algorithm is you're like a techsavvy guy and it's great to have senators who are but you can't but but like just like government how can you have an algorithm that's

designed to produce a certain output how can you have that coexist with 230 is my question I have my own answers but I'm curious in in your answer yeah I think I think you got to get back to one of the first amendment principles which is it has to be contentneutral that's how I view it. Now, you can have protections you, you know, you there are certain public safety protections that are going to be in play. You could have protections against people, you know, sort of pedophilia that that you know would violate terms of service. Something there is a role violate laws, right? I mean, correct. Yeah. And but I also think what's interesting is when you go back and look at this case, the pressure on the platforms wasn't just about phrases. They made

them alter terms of service to actually meet what the desired outcomes that they wanted. And and also at and and David, you guys were you saw this. Interestingly, the kind of how deep the rot really was. Let's just take Twitter for an example. James Baker, who's James Baker? James Baker was the general counsel for the FBI during the Hunter Biden, I'm sorry, the briefings during the Russia gate back then um at the end of 2016. He then after a stent at um some think tank becomes the general counsel at Twitter. He was the one inside Twitter. we now know from the Twitter files was advocating to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story even though he should have known based on his time at the FBI that the laptop was authentic, i.e. it was

Hunter Biden's actual laptop and the grounds upon which that story was censored was that the laptop was Russian disinformation. This was the triedand-true tactic for years is that any speech that was inconvenient and that Democrats wanted to censor, they just called Russian disinformation even though the Russians had nothing to do with that laptop. And and to dig even further into that, what's interesting is so Elvis Chan is the guy at the FBI in um in in late 2000 2019 2020 is briefing the big tech companies um monthly, at least monthly, then it becomes weekly. And we took his deposition in the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit and it was kind of shocking. You can read about in the book, but like what he what he talked about was they had the they had the Hunter Biden laptop in in November

of 2019. The FBI did. They knew it was real. Like they knew it was real. It's Hunter Biden's laptop. Yel Roth, as you remember, who was like the integrity guy at Twitter, signs an affidavit with the FEC after complaint was filed against Twitter, noting specifically that the FBI was telling them that this could be a Hunter Biden. So, this wasn't just going to be some random hack and leak operation from the Russians. It was related specifically to Hunter Biden. Senator, in fairness, the Russians did hack Hillary Clinton's email. That was confirmed. And we don't know that. We of course we do. The FBI confirmed it. Absolutely was confirmed. That's I think that's all part of the hoax. Uh okay. Well, let me give you a couple of reasons why I could see the New York

Post uh I'm sorry. We could see the platform saying if the FBI calls and says it's a Russian hack and we've had a bunch of Russian hacks before and the president said you should uh hey Russia if you're listening send me the emails and you had Paul Maniffort be indicted believes in this Russia gate hoax which is the laptop was authentic and David let me finish mine. Let me finish mine and you can give me the key point and tell me why I'm wrong. There was a bunch of noise around Russia. I think Russia did this on purpose to cause chaos here. I don't think they cared who got in. I think they just want chaos. That's my personal belief. But if you were Twitter and the FBI calls and says, "Hey, this was hacked and we have these previous instances of hacking that the FBI has confirmed and has told the world this is what happened." And you have

Paul Manifford being indicted and you have all this other noise. It's a reasonable thing for Facebook or Twitter in my mind to say, "Okay, maybe we wait a week. Maybe this is like the the Russians really are doing this." I don't blame them as much. Do you? Well, the truth is like there's parallel tracks here. First of all, we know now um that the Russia that that Trump was some some Russian asset. That's totally fake. That's like it like we all agree on that. It did it didn't happen. But they use that of course then to spy on a presidential candidate. That's what Barack Obama did. And then you had of course Brennan and Clapper and Comey continue this and really tried to sidetrack a presidential administration. So I I think indictments are probably coming. That's a sort of a separate

issue. The reality is because if because you know even though statute of limitation may have expired, a conspiracy if ongoing the statute of limitation has not expired. So we'll see where that all goes. But if you're making the point that the government shouldn't be having that much uh influence and coercing and threatening these big tech companies, I would agree with you that that's a violation of the First Amendment. My point is I just the the idea that the big big tech was so willingly going along with all this though, right, is a little scary. These are some of the biggest companies in the history of the world. And the idea that something that the FBI knew to be true wasn't out there for the American people to sort of weigh in on 10 days before an election is kind of Orwellian.

But that's on the FBI, I think. Yeah. Not the FBI. I'm totally unclean hands here. There's no doubt about that. Okay. Yeah. Let me jump in here with a couple of points. So, okay, let let's just focus on this Hunter Biden story because I think there is a very plausible argument that the censorship of this story could have swung the results of the 2020 election. Okay? Because the Hunter Biden laptop showed a bunch of shady foreign business dealings between the Biden family and China and Ukraine and other countries. And if that had been properly examined by the media instead of being censored by social media 10 days before the election, who knows what the outcome would have been. So this was a major major deal. Now, why did that story get censored? We now know

from the Twitter files, this is the reporting of Matt Taibbei who was given access to the Twitter files that like Eric is saying, the FBI knew in late 2019 that the laptop was real because they had it in their possession and therefore authenticated it. What was their reaction to it? In my view, they could have done three different things. Number one is they could have investigated the crimes that were suggested by the evidence on that laptop. They didn't do that. Number two is they could have just sat on it and done nothing. They didn't do that. They did number three, which is they basically began a campaign to suppress the contents of the laptop. How did they do that? Elvis Chan representing the FBI was engaged in weekly meetings with these social networks. Again, this is from the Twitter files. and Elvis Chan

represented the intelligence community. One of the the emails described his group as the belly button of the conduit between the social networks and the intelligence community. And remember, Elvis Chan had something like 80 FBI agents who are submitting takedown requests to Twitter and other social networks. So, this is the scale of the censorship that was happening. In any event, in these weekly IC meetings, and a lot of the evidence has been destroyed because they were using that disappearing tool, teleport. In any event, in these weekly meetings, we now know that they were warning the social networks, be on the lookout for a Russian disinformation campaign in which Hunter Biden is accused of something.

And so they for months were priming the social networks to view any story, any revelations about Hunter Biden as being Russian disinformation. Now, why were they doing that? In fact, there was at one point there was what was called a quote unquote tabletop exercise where all the heads of trust and safety at these social networks were brought I think they were brought to the Aspen Institute and they literally ran a tabletop exercise where they said okay two weeks before the election the Russians are going to do an oppo dump on Hunter Biden. What's your response to that going to be? And where they all ended up is that they would censor the story. I mean this is like crazy Orwellian stuff. I mean,

it makes sense for just to steal man it for them to want to do the right thing if the FBI is telling them it's Russian disinformation. Oh, I don't blame the social networks. They That's what I'm trying That's the only point I'm trying to make. And Zuckerberg went on. Remember when Zuckerberg went on Rogan and he said the reason why we censor that story is because the FBI had told us to. Most people in that situation would have believed the FBI. All three of us would. The point is though that the FBI again, they could have investigated the crimes on the laptop. They could have sat on the laptop and done nothing. That's not what they did. Instead, they began this campaign to discredit the eventual revelations information. Senator, what happened to those individuals at the FBI? I'm curious if

you can get to that as well. Who were involved in all this? Were they ever brought up on charges? No. Do we ever figure out who they are? there there needs to be accountability here because I also think it's important to point out that so take SISA which is the cyber security infrastructure security agency no one's ever heard of it uh it was created effectively to protect infrastructure from cyber attacks in that era when Trump was president underground they work on under the guise of Russian disinformation the what's called the election integrity uh project so they work with Stanford they work with University of Washington to flag post to work with social media companies then when you get into co they

just flip the switch and turn it on any, you know, if you're questioning the efficacy of the vaccine or you're questioning the efficacy of masks, they turn that around in the American people, too. So, part of the point that's outlined in the book, Last Line of Defense, which you can order right now on Amazon. Um, the part of the point was exposing all this was this was a Leviathan. This wasn't just like one person making a phone call. This was all these agencies that were lined up with the regime's narrative and then working and coercing and threatening social media companies. You will take this down or there will be consequences. And so, um, you know, the CDC, I mentioned the CDC. What were they doing? The government went to him and said, tell us

the phrases that you want us to flag and take down and and then we will work with social media companies effectively, right, to go do that. And so, the FBI was involved in this. SISA was involved with this. the CDC was involved with this. And then of course when we had the opportunity to take Anthony Fouch's deposition at NIH, uh that was mind-blowing. Uh it's only the second time his deposition was taken and we find out all the links at which he went to to undermine people like by the way Dr. Jay Badacharia who was a plaintiff in Missouri versus Biden with me um to undermine his efforts to say things like well natural immunity is kind of a thing

still. I mean, they tried to take down this guy's career and anybody like that who would just sort of question anything other than what Anthony Fouchy said. So, it it really was a time that was wild and crazy and we can't ever let happen again. That's the sort of the point and and for me as you guys I I know believe this as a long as a I I told Jason first time long time on the show now the be the first amendment really is the beating heart of the Constitution. One of the great tests of this American experiment is our ability to tolerate people's point of view or their expression of a point of view that we vehemently disagree with even if we think it's dangerous. Like that's really

a big part of what this whole thing is about. And what you saw during CO in particular was people who who had who never should had this power were exercising in ways that you would have thought was from another country. You know what I mean? Like this couldn't happen here, but it was happening here. I I don't know if you remember the foil lady, literally the person who was supposed to be policing uh and making sure that things were on the up and up uh at the CDC was teaching them allegedly how to use hacker speak or their personal email addresses to subvert freedom of information, right, requests. I mean, I'll put allegedly in front of it, but I think this was all, you know, uh discoverable and they and it was in the email. She just taught people how to lie and how to subvert foyer requests. So when you start saying

Orwellian, it does feel like this absolute power has that ability to absolute. You know, Eric mentioned the NOS's that are part of this Leviathan. I think that is a really important part of it because I think that one of the ways that the Biden administration was able to kind of create cover for the censorship they wanted is to kind of launder those censorship requests through some of these NOS's in addition to using the FBI and the IC and their connections to trust and safety. One NGO in particular I want to talk about or ask about is Hamilton 68. Did you did you look at this at all, Eric, or remind me which one Hamilton 68 is? The reason I wanted to talk about this one is this idea of Russian disinformation because Hamilton 68 was another one of

these groups. This is all exposed in Matt Tybee's reporting where it was set up by another former FBI official named Clint Watts. you know, these former FBI guys are are kind of all over. And they claimed that they were tracking 600 or so Russian disinformation accounts or bots. And they claimed to know which accounts these were. And they would put out stories that whenever there was a story that Democrats didn't like, they would accuse the Russians of being behind it, amplifying that story. And this was the the source for thousands of MSNBC stories, thousands of CNN reports and so on claiming that the Russians were involved in our politics. They were engaging in disinformation. Well, why why is this relevant? Well, during the

Twitter files, we found out there was um Yoyel Roth, who you mentioned was the head of trust and safety and definitely not a conservative. There was correspondence inside of Twitter saying, "Hey, we looked at their so-called API and these are just regular accounts." And he said, "Basically, this is all bullshit." I mean, I think he used that word In other words, the whole idea they were tracking Russian accounts was just total nonsense. These were, you know, it was just a random smattering of some were conservative accounts, some were Canadian accounts. They were just random accounts. And so anytime they needed to oppose conservative opinion on an issue, they would just supposedly point to this Hamilton 68 dashboard. Hamilton 68 created this dashboard that supposedly showed, you know, this um

vast Russian influence campaign. It all ended up being nonsense. Well, and I think it totally came out of thin air. I think the Russian there's a long track record of the Russians hacking, including the RNC recently. So, you know, I I I do think you are painting a very one-sided picture here, Saxs. Maybe it's all You think the Russians are not hacking foreign adversaries at all? You don't believe any of it? Russia's got a lot of good hackers in it, and I'm sure they have cyber operations and things like that, but again, that's a little different than saying that the Russians are heavily involved in our elections. I believe that that was largely a madeup story. Now, look, do I want to say that no

Russian ever was involved in some sort of operation? I'm not going to say that. But we know Hamilton 68 was total nonsense. In fact, it was worse than that. It was a hoax. Okay? It was a hoax. And for years, it was the basis for thousands of stories that the Russians were interfering in our politics. We also know that the Steel Dossier was a hoax. And that was the whole basis once laundered through the FBI and that whole investigation that somehow the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election. So when you start to peel away all these bogus accusations, Jason, yeah, I don't really believe any of this stuff. When I hear the words Russian disinformation, what I hear now is red scare.

Senator, I'm going to have you uh Senator, I'm gonna have you chime in here and and maybe balance out our two opinions. Obviously, the Russians have been hacking political organizations in the United States and other countries for decades. They did it to the RNC. They did it to Hillary. They do it as a tactic. That is a fact. And also, I don't think anybody thinks like uh Trump is a manurian candidate. So, you tell me where reality is between the Chinese do it too. There's no question. Yeah, Chinese are big, of course. But I think what what separates this though was that now that we know what we know, I mean actually in the documents that were released by released by Telsey Gabber, the director of national intelligence, was that Hillary Clinton was the preferred candidate. They had the goods on her. They had her medical

records, all this stuff. They So Trump was not like this preferred Putin. The Russians had all that hacked information. Yeah, they had that. And so what was done was Hillary Clinton knew that she had an email problem and then she works with a Joros George Soros funded um NGO, right? They come up with this plan to say, well Trump is is is cozy with Russia. The steel dossier finds this oppo whatever is fake oppo. Then they, as David said, they launder it through intelligence agents. Then that became the thing. And I think the problem is and why people have lost trust in a lot of these institutions in many cases rightfully so is because they were really weaponized against political opponents and they were weaponized against the American people. And there's going to be have to be a sort of a a lot

of accountability I think before people gain that trust back. So I think that was my next question is how do we get past this because we're sitting here with like one group who feels hey there's all these really suspicious Russian connections to Trump and the people around him. Jason, can't you see that this was manufactured? It's manu. You have to start with some parts manufactured. Yes. And then some parts of it reals manufactured. It was a hoax. We get it. There there's there's Hamilton 68 and all the stories based on it. Manufactured hoax. How do we get to reality where we first got to peel back you got to peel back all the fakeness. Well, I think also you have to accept that the Russians are hackers and don't have our best interest and they actually

want to come after us politically. David, this idea. I'm sure the Russians have cyber operations. that they hacked Hillary and you know he knows and this has all been confirmed. The problem here is that that was used um as a as a as a predicate. Again, this is why it's it's so jarring. It was used as a predicate to spy Barack Obama authorizes to spy on a presidential candidate and then as a predicate then to investigate a a president in waiting and then as a predicate to try to destroy his administration. and it was used and it and it gobbled up so much time in those first two years. That to me is is a pretty unique circumstance. And beyond just yeah, foreign nations are trying to get information.

Since we're here, there's this lawsuit that is now happening um or this investigation, I guess, as a as an attorney and you were the AG. explain to the American people what the case is right now that they're going after, you know, um with uh this Russia gate allegations and then where is it in the courts? Give us the mechanics of it and where do you think it winds up? So the question is um was there was anything done um illegal uh during the sort of Russia gate hoax stuff that could be chargeable? I think you've got, ironically, um, uh, Barack Obama has presidential immunity because of the case that President Trump won at the Supreme Court, which by the way, my solicitor general at the time in Missouri was John Sauer. He's now the solicitor general of the United States.

He was also Trump's lawyer who argued that presidential immunity case about a year ago. But so, um, he probably has immunity from official acts when he was in office, but not when he's out of office. So the the real question will be um you sort of uh a conspira I think the most likely charge you can make the case is a conspiracy against a conspiracy to defraud the United States. This is a a very elaborate scheme again to undermine people and and whether they get indictments or not I think they should pursue them and and we'll see if that happens. Um but I think the like the most likely targets of that are Comey, Clapper, and Brennan um for their role. And they're being accused of what exactly?

Of manipulating this and manipulating these falsehoods into actionable intelligence again against the president of the United States, Donald Trump. What are they being charged with, I guess, is what I'm getting at. Or has that point? You can't be the head of the FBI or the head of the CIA and have information you know is false to then open up a criminal investigation against the president, which is what happened, right? And so that's a kind of a big thing. So, um, again, most people would say probably the statute of limitations has has run on on many of those charges. But again, an ongoing conspiracy is something different. And by the way, the conspiracy doesn't need to involve you from point A to point Z once you sort of begin the conspiracy. So like uh you know, again, it just go down this rabbit hole a little bit like what was Jack

Smith looking for at Mara Lago um when he went down there? Like he's probably looking for some of the uh the information related to the steel dossier that they thought that he probably took with him. I don't know that for certain, but that's certainly a plausible explanation. So this and again you have to remember Jason that President Trump leaves office. He announces he's running for president in the fall of 2022. 3 days later a few things happen. Then the assistant district attorney in Atlanta in a state case visits the White House council's office. The number three person at DOJ leaves the Department of Justice and goes work for Alvin Bragg who then later brings a case against President Trump. Jack Smith is appointed a special counsel who's in prosecutor world, you know, he's this hired gun. He goes out and tries to put President Trump in jail for the rest of his life. They try to bankrupt his family. So like

it it is very obvious to anyone paying attention that this lawfare that was aimed against Donald Trump was meant to make sure he never got back in office again. And by the way, if he never got back in office again, all the stuff that Tulsi Gabbard discovered and and laid out there that Cash Patel found in burn bags wouldn't be out in the open. So much like how we exposed the corruption in Missouri versus Biden, I think that's kind of where we're at right now with Russ. This is a big jump though because the FBI raid on Mara Lago was because Trump wouldn't give back these uh specific documents that what were the documents they were looking for, right? What were the documents they were looking for? that he was obstructing justice and that they

were, you know, video cameras, etc. And that case didn't didn't get past a a motion to dismiss. Right. You're making the jump from that that they were looking for something related to the steel dossier and Trump could have just given those document backs. I always wondered in that one, why he just didn't give the documents back? Like why was he so steadfast? He could declassify anything as president, which was the likely scenario, but they but they did it anyway. I mean, I think but why would he just get I mean, if you were advising him, wouldn't you just tell him like, "Hey, just give the documents back." Like, I think he was in touch with the archavist. Um, and and that was an ongoing conversation. And then Jack Smith with the federal prosecutor down in in Florida moved with guns to seize

these documents, right? I mean, it's very unusual. I just don't I mean, I just never understood why he just didn't give the documents back. It would just I mean I know Trump does unique things in the world and but I would have just given the documents back which is what every other president did when they were asked to give documents back. Sure. But except remember Joe Biden who wasn't ever president. He was vice president who can't declassify documents. Had boxes and boxes of classified documents in his garage where Hunter Biden lived. So like what you're down to now Jal, you started believing that Trump was a Russian asset. He's a Russian spy based Yeah, you did. You were tweeting it at the time. I I thought you should No, no, I didn't. I if I I always thought that was like a crazy concept. Deleted those tweets, but you did. No, no. It's okay. You were fooled by

the media. It's okay. A lot of people were fooled. I said this very clear on the pod. I always believe the Russians wanted to create chaos like we're experiencing here in this discussion amongst Americans to distract us and that they would do it even-handedly with anybody. They would do it. people who are creating the chaos were actually the people who perpetrated this coup attempt against the president. The people who perpetrated the Hamilton 68 dashboard fraud. Those are the people who perpetrated the chaos. Sure. I I I think if the Russians were evidence you don't have specific evidence. You don't have specific evidence of a Russian hack.

Go read Matt Taby's reporting. I just gave this I just gave it to you. The the RNC the head of the RNC said, "Yes, we were hacked. Our our our uh partners were hacked." They they they explicitly said this. This is all facts, David. But anyway, we got we got the senator here. We we can have our a Russian gay debate forever. You could tell me that I think Trump's a Russian asset. I don't think Trump's a Russian asset. I think that's insane. But I do think the Russians like to cause chaos. Moving on. Brennan, I believe it was Brennan and these Tulsi documents that just got released. Here's what I think is so notable about them. I mean, other people may have their own opinion is that it

shows that I think there's there's a document there where Brennan Brennan was like the head of the CIA, correct? He received an intelligence assessment from the organization in which they said, "Look, there's nothing to this. It's bogus. We haven't the steel dossier." You're saying, not just a stealier, but the whole idea that of somehow that the Russians had run this elaborate interference operation in the 2016 election and that somehow Trump was compromised. In other words, the intelligence analysts did their job and came up with the correct conclusion. And nonetheless, Brennan said that the steel dossier should be included in the official intelligence assessment because it had the quote ring of truth to it. Okay. So,

he was advised by his own analysts that this was nonsense and yet he pushed to include it in the official intelligence report and then that became the basis for opening the investigation. You see how this worked allegedly? and we'll find out. He'll have their day in court. I mean, I'm totally This is what's in the documents. Well, I mean, we'll find out if this is a um a theatrical exercise or if it's actually going to go to court. What do you think? I I think it'll go to court. I think this is um and and by the way, I think it's one of the reasons why they were so obsessed in making sure President Trump never got back into office. One of the reasons. I mean again in the book I talk about how there's just a an emergency real or perceived then you other people and then you try to silence dcent. I think it happened with co um it happened with this r anybody that that claimed that

Russia didn't have um you know that that President Trump wasn't a Russian asset was a traitor and a Putin lover. I mean this stuff it's kind of wild honestly but I I think we're on the other side of the fever dream. Uh and but there does need to be some accountability now. This is your first term as senator I believe. Yes. Yes. I was elected in 2022. Yep. I'm curious. One, any great stock tips? Uh, two, you have to call. Are we done with the Russia gate now? Is that Russia gate now? We're just trying to get some inside information on number two. Look, I think one of the reasons why the Russia, we can stop talking about Russia gate, but I think one of the reasons why it was so important, first of all, it was effectively a coup against the president of the United States because these were executive branch officials who owe a duty of loyalty to the elected president.

Instead, they were working to subvert and undermine him based on essentially lies and and hoaxes and manufactured material. I mean, that is that is basically the definition of a of a coup. So, I think that is a big deal in and of itself. But I think the other reason why it's such a big deal is I do think that it helped create this intense Russophobia in the United States that has led us to the point we're at right now, which is we are basically in a war with Russia, or at least we're backing Ukraine in a war with Russia. And actually, you heard this at the Alaska summit. I think that this whole Russia gate thing, which we now know is completely bogus, poisoned relations

between the United States and Russia for years because the media kept reporting this bogus idea that somehow Trump was a Russian asset and somehow they had interfered in our elections. And I think this helped create a a very hostile relationship between the United States and Russia. Clearly, Russia gate led to the Putin. Well, it led it led to it led to a sour crossing the border and led it led to a souring of the relationship. It led to a souring of the relationship and it led doesn't justify his murderous campaign in Ukraine. David, you would agree. I'm not that's not the argument I'm making. I know, but I'm forcing you to agree that he invaded Ukraine and murdered people and he's a war criminal. And you know that those are just facts as well,

David. I'm sorry. I think those are cliches that that basically attempt to strip that complicated war of all of its context so that we can achieve a peaceful solution to it. Obviously, you got obviously Putin obviously Putin invaded the country, but the conflict there goes back 10 years. There's a long history to it. Yeah, I'm not looking to rehash all of that. The point is we could have worked out a resolution to this conflict maybe before it started if we didn't have hostile relations with Russia. And that's the point I'm trying to make. Senator, I'll give you uh the choice. I want to talk to you about just the Senate in general and um and then I wanted to talk a little and your experiences there or we could just go right into what's happening with this uh Russian peace deal and the status.

We can do both. I I um I think I was actually I was on a Sunday show yesterday and and I I consider myself firmly in the camp of u being an American realist. Uh I I think that a lot of the people that are really critical of President Trump's efforts right now have been wrong about foreign policy for a very very long time. Jake Sullivan included, right? Who presided over the with the disastrous withdrawal of Afghanistan who um by basically on his watch Russia invaded. What is their position, Senator? What do you think their position is? Like why are they so tweaked that he met with Putin, do you think? I don't know. Uh because there is no plan. There's never been a plan. The only plan they ever had was is that the

United States taxpayer would continue to funnel over $200 billion without a plan. And I had a problem with that in my first couple years. The Vice President Vance viewed the world kind of similarly with that in the same way. I think we ought to focus on our core national interest, the homeland. We have to figure out a way to pivot to China. We have to get our NATO allies to step up in a much more meaningful way. I think one of the great ironies of all this is that, you know, the these European countries who are going to be in the White House in the Oval Office today They talk about Putin being this existential threat. Well, they sure don't act like it. They don't, you know, they don't spend like it. You mean correct? And it, by the way, if they

spent what we spent on national defense, that would free up about $300 billion for us to focus actually on the Indo Pacific, where China now has a bigger navy than we have. Not a better navy, but a bigger navy. There is space for it. Trump's biggest accomplishment is probably geopolitically getting NATO uh to spend what they're supposed to spend. Yeah. Yeah. I went over to uh I was actually at the uh the um the Munich Security Conference. I went over there. I'm a bit of a contrarian there. I guess I would say the ascending wing of the Republican party on this kind of realism versus um this kind of Wilsonian adventurism that's dominated permanent Washington for a long time just to tell them the truth, which is not what they wanted to hear, but the truth, which is the things I just said. You need to step up in more meaningful way. Um you know, if you

think about the Cold War, it was meant to sort of prop them up to defeat Soviet communism. Our trade deals were never renegotiated. We never expected much more from him and all that's happening now. So, this is kind of the place that I've been hoping to be. But I think President Trump's trying to broker a piece here. The problem with the critics is they just don't have an alternative. This is a meat grinder. This is a war of attrition. This is what Russia does. That's what they've done for centuries. So, if you're if your if your solution is that, well, we shouldn't we shouldn't talk to Putin. I don't know how you get to a peace deal. Diplomacy means you talk to some people that you would never want your daughter to marry, but like

you accept the world as it is and try to move forward. And I think that's what he's trying to do. And David, I think the chances of successfully negotiating anything with a dictator who gets to do whatever he wants is like five or 10% on on a good day. Are you talking about Zillinsky? My lord, you have it in for the the emerging democracy that was invaded by Zalinsky is now in his what is it? Fifth or six year of a fouryear term. Hold on. No, this is this is just me saying it. I'm not anyone else. No, you're out of your lane. So Zalinsky basically banned opposition political parties. He basically cracked down on the press. You don't get you don't get to be a reporter in Ukraine

unless you get a license from the government. He cracked down on uh religion, on the Russian Orthodox Church, priests, nuns, so forth. He's basically seized the assets of his political opponents. And most importantly, he's now in the like fifth year of a four-year term. He canceled elections. So, I'm not quite sure upon what exactly you're making these highly moralistic condemnations. I just think the conflict is much more complicated than you would like it to be. And you know this whole idea that Zillinsky represents democracy whereas Putin represents authoritarianism that's not what's going on. Just statistically you're wrong. If you were to look at any of the ratings of democracies in the world, Russia would be amongst the lowest scores and the

Ukraine would be in the high middle scores compared to the truly free countries. Of course he canceled elections. But I'd have to you have to think twice about that since he can election. There is no democracy. There is no democracy in Ukraine right now. There's just not. Well, they're at war. Yeah. Okay, fine. Fighting for their lives. But we had we had elections when we were in, you know, the civil war and we were we were in World War II. We had elections. I don't know that that's a great reason. Senator, which is a more democratic country, Ukraine or Russia? Russia is an authoritarian regime, but I think David makes some like I'll give you one example. When we were going, you can't just answer the question. I mean, you're a senator. I mean, just

you're using Jal, you're using democracy as a bumper sticker and a buzzword instead of actually thinking about what it really means. And actually, if we're really going to think about what democracy means, then let's ask what the people of Ukraine think. That's what to me democracy means. You actually listen to the people. Gallup just did a survey of the people of Ukraine. Let's put these numbers on on the screen. This is Gallup. This and this before the Alaska summits. This was not politically motivated in any way. And what they found is that Ukrainians have lost their appetite for war. Support for the war has collapsed. A year ago, the support for the war was in the 60s or 70s. Now it's collapsed to 24%. So the vast majority of Ukrainians now want a resolution to the conflict, even if it means making concessions. Yeah, I know. I I I wouldn't you can't

dispute this. Of course, they're they've got war fatigue like they should. This is what democracy means to me is that we should actually listen to the desires of the Ukrainian people. Russia has five times the people, three times the or three times the people, five times the amunitions. Um they have an industrial base. Um this, you know, for for Ukraine, I think the next step here is um there has to be a negotiated piece here. This this can't go on forever. Europe is not in a position, I think, to provide what they claim to want to provide. in the United States of America. I mean, part of the problem is, and other people have made this point, that even if you spent, let's just say we wanted to spend another hundred billion dollars, the industrial base doesn't exist to build all of the stuff

that they need right now anyway. Like, they have a there's a real problem here. And I think President Trump campaigned on the idea of negotiating a piece. I don't know why that's so controversial when um and I'm not saying from you, I'm saying but the pundits Yeah. It's like heav you know, the idea, you know, Russia has nuclear weapons. the idea that he wouldn't have a one-on-one conversation. Yeah, that's why I asked that question like, is there any still manning of this position that we shouldn't meet with Putin or, you know, President Xi or Kim Jong-un? We should obviously meet with all of them. It makes sense if we have even a 1% chance of making forward progress. When should the United States senator say, "Uh, enough is enough. We're out.

Figure it out for yourselves." You've got the EU right there. You got Europe. They've got plenty of money, but America's out. If you want to buy some weapons, we sell weapons. That's fine. And I think Trump has done an amazing job of uh enforcing the loan lease that Biden set these up. So when we keep saying we're spending a hundred billion, that's no longer true, right? We're getting all that money back because Trump forced Zilinski to uh the negotiating table. We we're getting all that money back. But when should we just so we have clear facts here that it's not costing the American people you know this hundreds of billions of dollars anymore thanks to President Trump deaf negotiator I'll give him credit where credit is due but when should you we in your mind step back and say you know

what not our problem anymore you guys figure it out because that seemed vice president JD Vance uh friend of the pod's position as well at some point we have to say enough and and Trump sort of said that too he alluded to that at some point we're Are we at that point if this doesn't get resolved this time around? Do you think? I think yeah, I think that um that's what this phase is all about, which is to give a legitimate peace process a chance. But the idea that that we're going to be voting on, I mean, I wouldn't support it. More aid, taxpayer aid to Ukraine for a war that, you know, doesn't seem to look like it's ever going to end and is a blank check is just unacceptable as a senator for a state in the United States of America,

right? like it's just not now. President Trump, I think, has opened up avenues to to sort of make it clear to both parties that there's pressure that could be ramped up to try to bring this to a head. And I think that's where we're at. It's not going to all happen today. It's not going to all happen tomorrow. But that's really what this diplomacy in this Tik Tok age that we live in. I think we think it's instant gratification. But diplomacy is difficult when you're dealing with other countries with their own national interests and their own sort of inner dynamics. possible we walk away this year from the situation? You think? I don't know. I wouldn't want to put a timet. I would not want to get in front of the president who's actually sitting

in front of the across the table from these world leaders. But look, I I think that he's been pretty clear. This is not our war. It's not our war. Um this is and but I think that up to this point, we've wanted to try to provide um a time and space for a solution. And I do think if there's anybody who can do it, it's Trump. Uh there's nobody else on the planet. I mean, Mcronone could not broker this. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, so it's the last best hope. Uh, my hope is that you do get to a peace process because you're just going to have billions of more people die. Um, and really, what do you think, Sax? You think we should walk away if we can't get this resolved with this latest volley of

negotiations? Or at some point, should we should the president say enough? Because he's he seems exacerbated based on his public statements about this. He's kind of exacerbated with the two parties, it seems. Well, look, you're asking me what the president should do, and I'm not on the foreign policy team, right? I'm not going to venture and wait into that, but is it a possibility? I'll just say this. I'll just say this. Listen to what the Ukrainians want. I mean, Zalinsk's interests may not be the same as his peoples because as long as there's a war, there's no election. They've canceled democracy over there while the war is going on. Mhm.

And as long as that is true, he stays in power. So he has incentives that may not be true for all of his people. His people want a negotiated peace. And you think if uh they give up the Dombas and whatever other regions, you know, are on the table here. Do you think Putin stops here or do you think we'll see him invade another country? Do do you worry about that, Sax? Do you worry that this is enabling his behavior, his worst demons? I don't think the Russians have the intention to invade another country and they don't have the capability. Look at how much trouble they've had. We're now three and a half years into the war. They're definitely winning the war, but they've only conquered this eastern part of Ukraine. They haven't for them. Yeah. They haven't made it to the Neper. I

don't even think they can conquer all of Ukraine or at least it' be extraordinarily difficult and and resource consuming. So, I just think that this threat of of Putin conquering or attempting to invade all of Europe, this is threat inflation. That's my uh that's my take away from it, Senator. It's like Putin couldn't even take Ukraine. I mean, agree. Look, this is this is part of the inconsistency of the argument that I've heard in in the Senate for two and a half years, which is that he's Hitler, that he's about ready to march through Europe, and this is a we can't be Neville Chamberlain, and this is the moment, but at the same time, he can't get to Kiev, right? Like both things can't be true at the same time. So again, I think he's supposedly recruiting North Koreans to fight on the front line. I mean, like, what? It's so humiliating for him. All right, listen. Senator, you're welcome

on the pod anytime. Great having you here. Everybody buy the book. It's out right now. I don't know if that's the interview you were expecting, but No, no, we had a He No, I g I I talked to him before you came on and I said, "Hey, listen. Keep it not like a monoculture here like, you know, Tucker and the senator were like highing the whole interview." But it was great. It was a great interview. It's a great Tucker Classic. You need to have a little spice here to I love the debate. I love free speech, which is why I wrote the book, The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left Court. Available on Amazon right now. All right, everyone. Check it out. Everybody buy the book. All right, everybody. We'll see you next time.

Byebye. Great, guys. Thanks. Great job, everybody. It was fun. [Music] I'm a moderate, truth be told. But right now, the left calls me a MAGA and then the right calls me a litard. So the only thing they have in common is they both think, right, I'm an idiot, right? Yeah. So I'm uh Well, everybody agrees, then maybe there's something to it. There could be consensus. You finally there's your cold open folks.