He knows everything there is to know about drones, evidently.

well he does he does he does drone a lot when he does his uh podcast or whatever so i i don't i thought i thought maybe that's where you were going with that but uh um no but you know i i think i think what's real what's relevant to this whole wedding scandal and uh uh i mean i i posted on this you know like a lot of people um you know i read the pro publica story as soon as it came out i think i think it's had uh i saw it's had over two million view so far, which is incredible.

But, you know, I read it and I immediately thought back to the story that I've told from time to time, because to me, it explains kind of the mystery of political corruption to some people, because, you know, I mean, I mean, however, however sort of rich he might have been before his dad got reelected president, you know, Donald Trump Jr. now is supposed to be worth at least 500 million and i think that's probably an underestimate at this point because they're doing so many deals in the crypto and cashing in and everything um so 500 million dollars you could you know you know you could cut loose the couple million or whatever it is to rent those two islands for the weekend so why you know why have this russian oligarch who is a direct associate, not even twice removed, but an actual associate friend of Vladimir Putin.

Why have this guy pay for the wedding when you're a multi-multi-millionaire yourself? And the answer is because they can do it.

It's a power thing.

It's a power trip.

I worked at Newsday on Long Island in the 80s, and I was paired up on a project with this great old school investigative journalist.

until 29.

couple here and there, but

yeah, no, I wanted to get out more this year, and yeah, I was pretty thrilled about this story, and I think I know you've got listeners all over the place, but in your home base there in Chicago and in Illinois, this would probably be an interesting development for a couple of reasons because what's happened is people might have seen the headline a week or two ago that ICE is making record numbers of arrests right now and putting people in detention.

And of course, they're supporting a lot of these folks.

And the thing is, You know, I've made so much news with its tactics late last year and then early this year up in Minneapolis.

But it all kind of started right there in Chicago with Operation Midway Blitz.

And, you know, this was this kind of crazy Stephen Miller-backed strategy that Kristi Noem loved.

And she went out and found this crazy Greg Bovino to be the field general.

a town in central

But, you know, he's perfectly happy strutting his stuff, showing off how many push-ups he can do, and talking about his savior, the Lord Jesus.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, a couple of things.

I mean, his hostility towards just the basic concept of journalism has just been present from day one of his administration.

And even before that, you know, I mean, if you go back to his days as a host on Fox News, I mean, one of his biggest things was advocating for people who'd been accused of war crimes.

Right.

often horrific war crimes with a lot of evidence against them.

And, you know, Hegseth was busy lobbying Trump then as a TV host to get these war crimes charges thrown out, and they were in a couple of these cases.

And you have a connection in the sense that your maternal grandfather was in Tokyo at the time, right?

Of all the issues, of all the ways that Donald Trump has been an embarrassment, why is the Iran issue the one thing that's gotten Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Bill O'Reilly, and others in their feelings? Why Iran?

I think it's kind of a...

You know, it's kind of a perfect storm because it combines several different things that voters thought they were getting when they voted for Donald Trump back in November 2024 and that they ended up not getting.

One of them I already mentioned, which was this promise that the U.S. wasn't going to get into any dumb wars anymore.

That was one big one.

But then the other thing, and I think this was the biggest factor, especially for a lot of those people who aren't hardcore MAGA, but were kind of swing voters, because Trump got millions of those as well, and it was this idea that he was going to lower prices.

People remembered how the economy was before COVID, and Trump happened to be president then, back in the late 2010s.

But to what end?

these access books.

But, you know, there is some useful information in this Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan book, right? And, you know, J.D.

Vance, in these White House meetings, urging them to send in troops you know, to crush the everyday folks, the neighbors, you know, the people who were soccer moms or worked at the coffee shop or whatever.

Average American people who didn't like seeing their neighbors snatched off the street.

And J.D. Vance you know advocated strongly for at the risk of sounding like trump but very strongly he advocated for um the insurrection act and sending in troops sending in tanks or armored personnel carriers or whatever into the streets of minneapolis and even even some of trump's people in that room were like kind of like whoa you know what you know what do you do what are you doing you know that's not really maybe a great idea you know And, you know, he's just, you know, bathed himself in all this nonsense from the Silicon Valley billionaires who clearly no longer believe in democracy.

And neither does J.D. Vance.

And, you know, you can debate, you know.

Well, you