In this episode, the spotlight is on the political sphere as we discuss the intricate dramas involving Marjorie Taylor Greene’s unexpected resignation. Join us as we dive deep into the reasons behind her decision and the broader implications it might have on the political landscape. We also explore controversies surrounding Nick Fuentes and his polarizing influence on political discourse. Hear how digital relevance is driving unexpected political maneuvers and the potential pitfalls of such trends.
00:00:29 Political Drama: Trump, Epstein, and Minimum Wage Debates
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SPEAKER 04 :
Trump finally decides to encourage the release of the Epstein files, and the first person exposed is a former Clinton official. Democrat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett accuses several Republicans of taking Epstein’s money, only it’s the wrong Jeffrey Epstein. And lefties in Maryland want a $25 minimum wage due to the cost of living. These people never learn. I’m Greg Karambas, inviting you to join Jim Garrity of National Review and me each weekday for the 3 Martini Lunch podcast. We’ll give you the top news, some good laughs, and we’ll be done in less than 30 minutes. Follow the 3 Martini Lunch on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast, sponsored by Kel-Tec.
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It’s his life mission to make bad decisions. It’s time for Florida Man.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. So this was in Hillsborough County, Florida. A Florida man was arrested. He stole a truck in Plant City. Then he attempted to conceal the truck’s identity by altering its appearance. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office says that they found the suspect. operating a stolen Ford F-150 in Plant City. And he tried to remove, he swapped the tags, removed the toolbox and ladder rack from the truck. And I guess like try to get some of the decals off it. And they have him on aerial video doing it, which is so funny. And then he’s on video, right? So they’re in the air and they’re watching him. He takes a backpack that has meth in it, tons of meth stuffed in it. And he throws it into the nearby bushes thinking no one can see him. But they’re… They’re looking at everything from the air. They’re watching him literally from the air. Do it. And then they show deputies surrounding him, guns drawn, and they are able to take him into custody. I can’t even list you all the charges, but there’s lots. I mean, burglary, grand theft, you know, and methamphetamine trafficking, drug trafficking, all of that stuff. He got hit with a number of things. I know. I know. It’s like he was, you know, they see you doing that. Just look up. My gosh. Let’s see here. Oh, no, I’m not going to do that. So this well, we’re running out of time. But tomorrow, what I will do since I won’t go so long tomorrow segment before Florida man, I will get into the guy who said he had a bomb in his bag and he ended up going to court. You can’t threaten people with a bomb in your bag. And this Florida man found out the hard way that you can’t do that.
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that the last month. I don’t think a single person has ever made the case that I’m wrong, that Nick Fuentes is wrong. The Jew hatred stuff is wrong. Period. And they said that the white hatred, black hatred, Jew hatred, Malaysian hatred, Bedouin hatred, it’s all wrong. I believe that as much as I believe anything. Okay. But the rest of it, his analysis, which is actually smart.
SPEAKER 07 :
What What analysis is smart? I don’t understand that. This is part of the back and forth that we’ve seen on the right over this. I have not seen smart analysis from somebody like Fuentes. And I don’t even think that that’s a smart analysis of Fuentes’ hot takes. I mean, to call yourself a an American first Christian conservative while you talk about how much you hate Christians and you idolize people who murdered them like Stalin. And you’re entirely focused on race and making idols of all of these things. That’s not smart analysis. It’s not smart policy. I mean, there’s just, I’m not going to play all the audio. We have a tranche of it. There’s a ton of audio out there of just him saying crazy stuff to get attention. And this was the big criticism I think a lot of people had of Tucker in that Nobody, stop trying to move the goalposts to save your ass, first off. No one’s sitting here talking about whether or not someone should be platformed. The fact that it was a softball interview, and it was, and I had even messaged him about this, and obviously he disagreed with me on it, but that’s fine. People can disagree. But it wasn’t an issue of you platform someone. It was an issue of how do you not push back on these ideals? And then just to come back, well, the Jew hatred is wrong. That’s part of it. Yeah. But I mean, even then in the interview, it just seemed like more that you that there was it was just a hand smacking of a friend as opposed to a full throated rejection of bad, already defeated ideas. This is the issue with this. Why does anyone feel like they have to entertain this twink, this Nazi twink? Do you know why? It’s because people are terrified at losing digital relevancy. That’s why they do it. That’s why you have these people that won’t one way or the other. They won’t. take a stand and make these and let you know where they are at without question because they’re terrified at losing a slice of that digital pie. They want that audience and they think that the best way to get that audience is to ingratiate themselves with those people. And then they think that they’ll be able to bring them on. No, that’s not going to happen. It’s never happened. And half of these people are bots anyway. It’s just weird. It’s very weird. I, um, I don’t know why we decided to be so duplicitous in discussing this thing and discussing this issue. And it seems like the stupidest time ever to get into racial politics and make idols of race on the right when we have created such a big tent coalition. You don’t need a Nazi twink army in order to win elections. In fact, you’ve never needed it. They don’t have an impact in the elections. But the idea that you have to debase yourself to ingratiate yourself to that audience in order to be relevant, that pretty much is the epitaph alone, is it not? Seems like it. This is what really struck me though, because we, you know, we had on, I had on Kevin Roberts, I had interviewed him with Heritage, and he was very careful to defend his friend. And he did not want to condemn his friend. He was very careful. It was not returned. Audio soundbite 23. This actually shocked me. This is all very recent. This shocked me. Listen.
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There’s a man called Kevin Roberts who I knew and really liked. Took over the Heritage Foundation a couple of years ago. And I thought, and that’s the biggest foundation in Washington. And I thought that he could steer it into a positive direction. I think he certainly wanted to. He tried. And in the end, 10 days ago, he was completely destroyed by this fighting within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Very, very sad. And I think the Heritage Foundation will, and I say this again with sadness, because there are smart people there. They have a ton of money. They should be a force for good. But I don’t see how they ever will be. Not after that. No, not after that. Absolutely cannibalized him. Yep. And he allowed it. He was weak. He decided he wanted his job more than to tell the truth. And that’s a moment that I think every man faces inevitably in life. And I understand the fears. I mean, I’ve certainly been there a lot. And not wanting to lose your job, I get it. I’m not judging. But you have to choose the truth.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hmm. That’s really unfortunate. Tucker will not come on with me. He will not. And we’ve known each other for years. He’s made it very clear. Probably because we would have to have uncomfortable conversations like this. Loyalty is not a real thing in D.C. Everything is transactional. And I feel like Kevin Roberts was trying to be loyal to his friend and to the point where he really got himself in a situation in which he could not He couldn’t get out of it. I mean, it was really uncomfortable to watch. He was very careful in what he said about Carlson. He was very careful when he was on this program talking with me. And he did not want to criticize his friend. He didn’t get anywhere close to criticizing Carlson. Tucker Carlson the same way that Carlson was criticizing Roberts here, that he was weak. I knew and really liked him talking about him in the past tense. So Kevin Roberts committed seppuku for nothing. For nothing. All of that for what? Only to be thrown under the bus a couple of weeks later by the guy he was protecting. All because he wanted to have an interview where he didn’t ask hard questions. He didn’t, I guess he didn’t want to get flamed out on X. He didn’t want the bots to come after him on social media. It was a softball interview. Just be honest about it. It was a softball interview with softball questions and there was barely any pushback. There was at one point in our exchange, it was like, well, you know, you didn’t see the part about, you know, where I pushed back on blood libel. That was a pushback. Wow. Goodness. I’d hate to see what accommodation looks like if that was a pushback. I mean, good heavens. But to not challenge him like you love Stalin. Why do you like Stalin? What about Stalin impresses you so much? What about Hitler impresses you so much? What about his policies that you love impress you so much? There was nothing of that. It was just it was like a struggle session about the people that they didn’t like on the right. It was weird. But this is also what happens when you don’t stay consistent, when you’re inconsistent on your views. Sometimes it can be very uncomfortable to be consistent. Consistency is a very, very difficult thing. Consistency and trends don’t go well together. And it’s unfortunate that the Heritage Foundation now has this black eye and that Roberts has gone through all of this for what? To be thrown under the bus. Good night with friends like that. Who needs the left to throw you under the bus? I mean, good heavens. It is shocking to see, but not surprising, though, at the same time. Mean I look at other instances, you know, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened I mean there have been other instances before I mean Tucker’s he When he was at Fox there was the story and this was with the Dominion stuff and all of that Where he apparently was very very critical of POTUS really critical of POTUS and was in and was messaging people behind the scenes highly critical and then does a 180 publicly. So the stuff that’s being said privately is very different from the public stances. It was very critical of him behind the scenes, but then was going on his program and celebrating every, you know, really playing up all of these policies, but essentially likening him to a Nazi and calling him a fascist and all of this other stuff privately. I mean, the language was very, you know, I mean, you can read it for yourself. It’s all over X. It’s all over social media. It’s public. It’s been out there. It’s just the duplicity of it all. It’s being one thing privately and another thing publicly. I don’t like that inconsistency either. And there’s a lot of people in Washington, D.C. that are like that. I mean, at least you got to give it to Candace Owens. She keeps all the crazy public. I mean, she’s not changed since she was an Al Sharpton protege. She’s not changed since she created a doxing website and was going after conservatives around 2016. She’s still the same progressive. She’s still that same person. And now I think what she says that. The that some governments took a hit out on her now because I can’t even follow all of it. It’s too crazy for me to even follow. At least she keeps the crazy out there. Right. At least she’s the same crazy person publicly that she is privately. You can at least count on that. So. I just don’t like these little snakes in the grass that are one thing privately and one thing publicly. And there is no honor and there is no real loyalty. It’s all about advantage. It’s all about what best aids clicks. And I’m going to tell you something. These a lot of these people that have not played in the digital space before until recently have. You know, everybody’s very nervous because cable news is collapsing. More and more people are turning away from cable news. Being a contributor somewhere doesn’t have the same punch that it used to. It doesn’t have the same prestige as it used to. You don’t even really need to do any of that because the check isn’t worthwhile. You don’t really need to do any of it. A lot of people, they’re building their audiences digitally. But the problem is… the ones who are so terrified at losing any of their audience that they try to accommodate everybody. It’s like a pastor trying to fill pews and they water down the sermons and they water down scriptures so they can accommodate everybody. Well, at some point, then it becomes lukewarm and nobody wants to go because there’s no value in it. And a lot of these influencers need to be very careful of this, especially on stuff like this, right? There’s no way that you’re going to be able to ingratiate yourself with an audience that follows a Nazi twink. There’s no way you’re going to be able to ingratiate yourself with that. There’s nothing to glean. There’s no smart policy analysis. It’s all miles wide, inches deep rhetoric that’s designed to sound intelligent, but is really vapid and anemic. And I don’t. But there are people who want to. They don’t want to lose that access. They don’t want to get flamed on social media. And so they try to accommodate all of it. I’ve seen it over and over again. And sure, there’s a short term payoff. Absolutely. There’s a short term payoff. But, you know, realistically, what does that do to you over time? It just hurts your credibility. Right. I see people now that are friends of mine, people that I’ve met, that I’ve hung out with, that I’ve dined with privately, whose families I know. And I’m just watching all these people play this game. And I’m so glad that I just don’t do it. But I’m watching these people play this game thinking this is not sustainable long term. Because you keep landing on these minds. This is not sustainable long term. And the stuff with TPUSA, and I don’t even want to entertain the Candace Owens stuff because it kills brain cells without the benefit of having alcohol to go along with it. It is some of the most mind-numbingly idiotic stuff I’ve ever read in my life. There is no great commission to go and take out somebody who was an Al Sharpton protege and grifted their way into the space that they’re in now. There is no grand design to do that, people. Good heavens. There’s there’s we’re all talking about this stuff. We’re all everybody’s obsessing that it’s one of the things that we’ve absolutely have been able to prove now that the country of location is turned on with all of these X accounts is that so many of these are foreign actors that are all designed to drive division on the right, especially with all this Israel stuff. So many of them. And everybody is being distracted by the PSYOP to not only divide the right, but weaken alliances in the Middle East while also accommodating the spread of Islamism in the United States. Notice how none of these accounts or none of these people are critical of Islam. In fact, I’ve seen it to the contrary. I have watched people at the Daily Wire remark about how, oh, well, you know, the hijab is actually a very modest piece of clothing. I’m not kidding you. This is the stuff that I’m seeing. You have people that are literally actually putting themselves adjacent to Islamism in order to prove that they’re so anti-Israel. It is wild to see. We’ve got there’s a lot more to talk about this, but to discuss about it. But it is it’s crazy. I feel like we’re the only sober people at the party and everybody else is high as a kite. That’s what it feels like watching this. It feels like you’re the babysitter at the party and everybody else is literally like a drink away from passing out, blacking out entirely. It is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen happen on the right in my entire career. It’s wild. So as we head into the holidays, it’s not just about gifts. It’s about gratitude and protecting what really matters, family and the future and your financial security. Colin Plume is the CEO at Noble Gold Investments. And I tell you, the market really opened my eyes as to how much can change in a year. I mean, think of it. The market changes fast. The economy changes. even your own job. So what’s the smart way to make sure that your money is actually working for you? 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SPEAKER 02 :
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This was super interesting, and especially to see that everything can lead to something else, like how cooking led you to be, you know, the founder, the president of a business, and even like your activities in high school, middle school, like led to this moment.
SPEAKER 09 :
Adeline, what are you looking to do with the rest of your life? You have a sense of that?
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No, not really, but I’m exploring a lot of interests right now and I enjoy music and languages. So I think maybe something in that area.
SPEAKER 04 :
Brett, somebody that’s interested in languages and music, you think there’s any hope for them? Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, in our world today, everybody speaks different languages and they work with people that speak different languages, have different cultures. That’s great.
SPEAKER 02 :
To hear more and to help us introduce your high school, GED, work-ready and college students to our CEOs, visit our website at realworldleaders.org. That’s realworldleaders.org.
SPEAKER 05 :
And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It’s time for Dana’s Quick Five.
SPEAKER 07 :
So emails reveal, apparently, this is from Hollywood Reporter, there was a pro-Epstein documentary that was in the works. And it was going to be, apparently, everything was going to kick off on the day of his arrest. Apparently, Steve Bannon was one of those individuals. They were making a redemptive documentary to counter the damaging narratives from Netflix’s Jeffrey Epstein’s Filthy Rich. And they were going to apparently unleash… I guess image rehabilitating documentary to show him in a new light. So that explains some of the moves with some of the former insiders from the 2016 Trump administration. Interesting. Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg was banned from Venice after she dumped green dye into the canals. I don’t know what this chick’s damage is. She was banned because she was dumping green dye in the canal. She was being accused of being more interested in self-promotion than in the environment. She’s a 20-something-year-old climate campaigner now. 48-hour restriction. She was banned after multiple protests over the weekend. And apparently they had 35 other activists that were also fined and banned. I don’t know what the purpose of what the point of dying at green was, but that was just one of that was I don’t know. I don’t even understand what the point of it is. It seems like it’s that was the water. Seems like it’s pretty damaging to the environment that they’re claiming that they are out there to save. But I don’t know. Treasury Secretary says there’s not going to be a recession in 2026. I don’t know. There are a lot of people who are wondering whether or not we’re in one now. Scott Besson said he was optimistic about the economy as a whole, but acknowledged that there were some sensitive there’s some interest rate sensitive sectors that have experienced recession. But when he was asked on Meet the Press over the weekend whether or not we are at risk of entering such a recession, he said no, that he’s confident that people will they will feel economic relief next year coming from trade deals, etc. Also, the let’s see the data. This is that’s that’s not a headline. More Americans are getting their power shut off as unpaid bills are piling up. Apparently, they buried the lead like six graphs in because the Alpha Bataria, whatever lady who writes at MSNBC, needs to be fired because she can’t write a story. So if you go six graphs into the piece, you finally see that electricity prices have been triggering a number of shutoffs across the country. And so there are apparently a lot of unpaid bills because people are broke. And they said that Prices have gone up so rapidly. And as a result, it is unaffordable. Electricity is unaffordable in many areas of the nation. Interesting. And apparently 200 chickens were killed in Fort Pierce in a semi truck accident. crash. This is from K.I.R.O. Channel 7. They said that no humans were harmed. This is the same can’t be said for the birds. This is like one of the first headlines involving foul that don’t involve fear mongering headlines about bird flu and things of that nature. Also, we’ve got this is interesting. This just came in from the Department of War. They said that they received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly. They just tweeted this like 10 minutes before we went to air. Very interesting. Now, I’m wondering if this has to do. They just said misconduct has to do with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We’ll come back to this. We’ve got a lot more to touch on. Stick with us. Patriot Mobile. is the only Christian conservative cell phone service that’s out there. And with Patriot Mobile, you’re going to save money, actually, with Patriot Mobile. I’ve been on Patriot Mobile for over a decade, I think. And I pay less than what I did with my previous phone service, which is super nice. But also, your money is not going to work against you. They’re not going to sit here and donate hand over fist to things like gun control and DEI and all of this other stuff. So it’s incredibly important, you know, when you’re spending your money to make sure that you know where it’s going. You need to know where it’s going. So Patriot Mobile right now, they have all of the best tech. They have a 100 percent U.S. based customer service team. And you’re like I said, they’re going to get you set up. You have excellent access all over. You’re not going to have a problem. So visit Patriot Mobile dot com slash Dana. And check out all of the different plans that they have. They can tailor something for you. It doesn’t matter. Family size, business size doesn’t matter. Patriot Mobile dot com slash Dana.
SPEAKER 09 :
Shocking announcement from Congresswoman Green. What went through your mind when you first heard she was going to resign on January 5th?
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You know what? Honestly, I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re on the other side of the president for one week and you can’t take the heat. Imagine what it is to sit in my shoes to not only be on the opposite side of him, but to have people like her who are constantly fanning the flames of hate. Imagine what those threats look like when you literally are someone like me. But at the end of the day, I know that I serve the people of Texas 30. And so my job isn’t to be there and necessarily do whatever is going to make the president not be on my back, but instead is to focus on making sure that I can push forward with policies that are positive for Texas 30.
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Everything is always about her. Everything is always about her. Jasmine Crockett. She will never fail. She makes everything. She’s asked about Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning. And Jasmine Crockett’s like, but me, like, imagine me. We don’t want to. That’s OK. Not everything is about you. Really, Jasmine Crockett doesn’t move the needle very much. She just provides really dippy soundbites. And is used as a great example of how to just be a really clueless leftist. Welcome back to the program. Dana Lash with you. Bottom of this first hour. The… It is… Really odd, that whole thing where she’s… It’s about me. I mean, imagine me being across from the president. Like, she’s the only one who’s ever disagreed with him. The Marjorie Taylor Greene thing is weird because it seems like… It seems a lot of like a lot of drama. I mean, there were some people wondering if she was expecting Trump to chase her. And that’s why she announced that she was going to be leaving after the first of the year. And he’s not going to chase her. The bottom line is that they ran internal polling on her and. She’s not going to farewell in a race against Ossoff going into the Senate. And the word is that Trump looked at the – was shown the numbers and he was like, this doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you just stay in the House? She didn’t want to do that. And that seems to be fueling some of this first and foremost and then some of the other policy decisions that Trump has made that seems to be kind of secondary. But I don’t know. It’s just – it’s – It seems like kind of a stunt to me, honestly. It just seems like a stunt. And I just can’t take seriously people who decide it’s too hard to continue serving the people that they swore that they would represent in D.C. You know that going in. It’s not like people run for office and then it’s surprise. We didn’t realize how tough this was. People running for office, they’re not ambushed with the reality that There might be some palace intrigue, so to speak, and it might be difficult and they may have to battle, do battle and debate, etc. So none of this was new. None of this was unusual. And when you choose of your own free will to represent people and you need to serve out the remainder of your term, no matter how uncomfortable it may get for you. And it just seems weak and a stunt. And I just I don’t really think highly of it because it leaves Republicans with one less seat. And then it doesn’t look well when you realize how much money that she has made apart from her family’s construction business. She’s made a lot of cash. And when you’re that close and you see certain things are going down and you make trades based on the information that you’re looking at, that’s, you know, regardless of whether or not you’re disclosing it. The problem is that you’re there in a capacity to represent people and you’re using your close proximity to the movements of a lot of these companies that affect policy as, you know, background for you to call in. and make these trades and to enrich yourself. I mean, when you leave with over $20 million after walking in with only a little over $700,000, that’s pretty insane to me. And then when you’re leaving two days after your congressional pension vests, ensuring that you get a payout for the rest of your life, that’s also pretty insane to me. And that’s exactly… She’s announced that she was resigning on… She’s leaving on the 5th and her congressional pension vests on the 3rd. So it makes… I mean, it’s completely… It’s understandable and legitimate to ask these questions, to ask, why are you doing this now? Is it just because you made your millions and you got your congressional pension and now it’s it? Is that all the American people are good for to make sure that you’re able to make some money trading and that you get a congressional pension? Because that just seems pretty hokey. And a lot of people feel used. If I was the voters, I’d be pretty angry because it’s not like you can just throw together an election immediately either. You have to have special elections. This takes time. You have to go through the secretary of state. You’ve got to get it on the ballot. First off, you’ve got to get ballot language approved. Then you’ve got to get it on the ballot. And there’s like a whole process to doing this. It’s not like they can just come back next week and hold a special election. You know, it’s a process and it’s taxpayer funded. So taxpayers are going to be paying for yet another election. They’re going to be paying twice for the same seat. I’m just curious as to how people feel about that, because it seems weak to bow out at this point and to call yourself a fighter just doesn’t seem right. And to leave an already strapped majority with a barely with even a smaller advantage. It’s just incredibly weak on multiple fronts.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thanks for tuning in to today’s edition of Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven’t already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER 08 :
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BONUS: Reaction To President Trump’s Iran Speech