#2064 - Mike Baker

People die, and there's, you know, Putin continues to operate his meat grinder for the Russian soldiers,

and, you know, so that was incredible. But then, timing-wise, the other thing that I thought was amazing was, despite the brutality of the 7 October attacks,

and Hamas knew this was going to happen, but the number of days that it took to turn the narrative around, right? So everybody was horrified at how terrible the slaughter was, and then, within a matter of days, it was like, no, it's Israel's fault. Right. How did that happen? Hamas knew that was going to happen because that's what they count on, which is why they embed themselves with civilians.

It's why they put, you know, their operation centers, their tunnels, their weapons stockpiles. It's why they put it all underneath civilian infrastructure, like the al-Shifa hospital that's been in the news lately and in other places, because they know that they're going to end up with dead Palestinians, right? And that's kind of, this sounds wrong, but it's kind of their currency, right? It's kind of what they expect, and they don't give a shit. I mean, you can see just by the way that Hamas has governed, if you can call it that, Gaza, for, what is that?

That's new math for me, but since 2006,, really, they kicked out Fatah, they kicked out the Palestinian Authority in 2007.. So you can tell by the fact that they've done nothing to improve the lives of Palestinians. They don't give a shit about Palestinians, right? That's not their point. Their point is the extermination of Israel because they're overlord in the Iranian regime.

That's their purpose in life, too. So it's, you know, I hate to start off on a really, really, you know, cynical rant, but they know, because they're very, they're clever. They've got a good public relations group, if you want to call it that. They understand how international media works. They know that it won't take much time for condemnation of Israel because you end up with dead Palestinian civilians, which is incredibly sad, right?

It's very sad for the Palestinian people, right? Their plight is legitimately awful, right?

But to imagine somehow that Hamas cares about them or has been some sort of benevolent, benevolent, I knew I was going to be able to say that. That's a word. That's a fucking word. Benevolent. Wow.

The governing body of Gaza is ridiculous. So I don't know. I guess it's hard to tell where I stand on this issue.

It wouldn't work. They don't care. It's the latest thing. So I don't want to put all the protesters in one camp, because some are legitimately working to better the lives of Palestinians, and yes, you can feel awful about what happens with the civilians,

but I'm not sure what people expect Israel to do after what happened on the 7th of October and after Hamas continued to say, well, we're just going to keep doing this. It wasn't like. they said, well, there you go, that was a one-off. No, they said we're going to keep doing this because that's their purpose in life is the destruction of Israel. You believe people sometimes when they say things, and that's what they mean.

It sucks.

And now we're getting some pretty good evidence that that's not the case.

disturbingly makeshift rooms or holding cells. So it appears as if they could have been holding some of the hostages there, moved them before the IDF got in.

But they've done the same with al-Shifa. They've gone into this. That's a large, large hospital compound. And they have been saying for years that they use al-Shifa as essentially the command central point for the military structure there, for Hamas and also for, again, for weapon stockpiles.

I mean, you can't be more cynical as an organization like Hamas than to be storing ammunition and weapons underneath a children's hospital, as an example. I mean, so, yeah, I think the best thing that can happen, sounds weird to say that in a situation like this, but yeah, Israel needs to be very transparent. They need to provide as much evidence of this to try to shift that narrative. At least the people who aren't rabid about this, but have kind of jumped on the free Palestine bandwagon because they like to feel righteous, right? So at least some of those people, you can shift off of that narrative by providing evidence, by being transparent.

So hopefully that's what the IDF does. The U.S. has come out and said, look, we back up that intelligence. We have independent corroboration that they've been using al-Shifa and other hospitals,

Hamas has, for their personnel, for their stockpiles.

The reality is it's not going to change much of the narrative. I've been surprised by, apparently, how many anti-Semitic bigots were just in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to jump out.

there's layers to it, right? You get, what's her name? Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American in Congress, and she's a member of whatever they call it, the Squad, and so she comes out, and she's fairly rabid, right? Meaning, what she's saying about it is not particularly eloquent, right? And so she gets censured, because, you know, she's just like out there, spouting almost what appears to be pro-Hamas or making some sort of equivalency, right?

In today's world, everybody wants to beat the clock and be the first with a story.

I'm just drawing some sort of moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. And I get it. It's a massively complicated history, right? There's nothing more complicated than the history of Palestine and Israel and the settlements and all the rest of it. And no one's probably ever going to solve it.

But then you've got the campus activity. And, again, those are youthful people that like to feel righteous about things. You got Barack Obama, right, going on a podcast talking about this.

But on that, he basically attempted to, well, he didn't attempt, he did, but in a very subtle, very sophisticated way, more sophisticated than others who get out there and scream from the river to the sea, he talked about this like, okay, well, it was an unbearable situation for the Palestinians, which implies that, you know,

he's not justifying it, I guess, in a sense, but people will read that into it, right? And that's dangerous in itself, right? Because, well, I mean, he's listened to, right? And he's beloved. I guess I could use the word beloved.

Anyway, so I guess what I'm saying is there's layers of this antisemitism, or there's layers of this excusing what took place while not, you know, again, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but that's what they're doing, right? And by calling for a ceasefire, as an example, if you call for a ceasefire, then you're basically saying I'm okay with the status quo, because a ceasefire is not going to lead to a two-state solution. It's not going to lead to, you know, stability. It's going to lead to more violence, more terrorism, right? And the only people that win in a situation like that would be Hamas and the Iranian regime.

So, you know, I think it's, again,

it's the most complicated issue of our time. And for generations, right? And I don't think there's going to be a solution. So, from Israel's perspective, they're saying, all right,

we understood that international condemnation would be coming as soon as we tried to deal with the problem. We have to deal with the problem, though, because who else is going to do it for them? Who else is going to help them? You know, clearly there's a lot of people who have no interest in that. So I think their feeling, if we can degrade Hamas sufficiently, I don't think you ever destroy a terrorist organization, or, you know, certainly never going to get terrorism down to nothing, right?

It's not a zero-sum game. But if you can degrade it enough so that they can never govern again in Gaza, they can never, you know, conduct their terrorist operations again, at least you've advanced the ball towards something that could be more stable. Now, it depends on what backfills Hamas's governance of Gaza, and that's a massive question, right? But anyway.

kind of shaping curriculum, right? Teaching children to hate Israel. Teaching children that, you know, killing Jews is kind of your lot in life, right? So, yes. So then you're faced with this.

What do we do? Do we keep them around? Do we allow them to keep doing what they're doing? Or do you try, to, you know, remove that cancer, right? And do you try to say, okay, whatever comes in, maybe that's better.

Look, it's not like. the Palestinian people overwhelmingly support Hamas. There was a poll, believe it or not, doing polls out in Gaza, asking who is best served to represent the Palestinian people. Would it be Hamas or would it be Fatah? Would it be, you know?

And only 30% of the people felt that, you know, Hamas was, you know, their answer. 40-plus percent said neither, right? So it's not as if the Palestinian people are all out there, you know, cheering for Hamas, right? Clearly, some are.

But we have to imagine, what does it look like? At some point, the conflict ends. At some point, they are degraded sufficiently. At some point, the international pressure is just to the point where they have to stop, I suppose. And then you have to ask, what does that look like?

It can't be a long-term Israeli occupation. They don't want that.

So, you know, the U.S. steps in. That's what the U.S. administration always does. And they imagine that they've got an answer.

And so they say, well, let's have the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza, because the Palestinian Authority govern West Bank, of course. And we have this two-government situation, because back in 06, or whenever, back in 06, I believe, Hamas violently kicked out the Palestinian Authority. We're taking over Gaza. So they took over Gaza. West Bank is left to the Palestinian Authority.

So the U.S. is saying, well, you know, we'll let Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority come in. Antony Blinken goes over, talks to Abbas, you know, and they say, well, maybe this... You know, Israel is against the idea.

The point of the Palestinian people is, when you did that survey of who's best, you know, capable and who deserves to represent the Palestinian people, yeah, Hamas only got about 30% of the vote.

Fatah got only 20% of the vote. So it's not like they want them there either. But the U.S. is kind of wedging that in as a scenario, saying, well, look, this is the way we go. Just kind of, like, you know, Biden comes in and says, well, we should have a pause.

No, we should have a three-day pause. We should... And, you know, they almost get a little petulant because Israel is not listening to them.

And Israel, you know, obviously gets a lot of support from the U.S. But this time is different. This time is, you know, I think, what happened on the 7th of October.

marks a complete sea change from their perspective. So they're going to do what they need to do from their perspective and move on. But that question of, again, what backfills, what comes in behind, is critical. But nobody's got a good answer.

So how do you limit information? How do you limit, how do you limit the dissemination of information about what you're doing? And that's just good OPSEC. That's good operational security. Now, that's what they did.

They displayed extremely sophisticated, I suppose, operational security. over this. Because you're right, there's human sources that the IDF and Shin Bet and others in Israel have within Gaza. There's the communications intercepts, signals, intelligence. You know, there's just general surveillance that they're doing of the region in terms of movement of goods.

But most of that movement of goods happens underground. And 300, maybe, 300 miles of tunnels in Gaza that they've built using money, by the way, using money that was probably meant for clean waterworks and other infrastructure and improving schools and hospitals. That's a whole different angle to talk about. But I think the security side of things,

by doing that, by limiting who knows about the operation, and by, because again, you could legitimately argue the political leadership of Hamas, they had a sense. You know, I'm sure at some point they approved a large-scale operation. But the people who really knew about this were the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is an organization with the Iranian regime. And they're kind of the liaison partners for Hamas and Hezbollah. They manage a lot of the training issues.

They funnel a lot of the money that goes to these organizations, that are Iranian proxies. And so you can count on the fact that a limited number within the IRGC were aware of the planning and the training, because they did train Hamas operatives in Iran prior to 7 October. So I think it was simply a matter of them saying, all right, this element, this cell will have knowledge of this during the course of training. These guys over here will know this. These people will know this.

And maybe a handful of people will understand the full picture and will understand when we're going to do this. And it's all designed to keep it away from Israeli intelligence. And it was ridiculously successful in that regard.

So, you know, and also you could argue intelligence is a human operation or an endeavor. So you're going to have failures on occasion. You just don't want them to be this massive.

There were occasional comments about the inclination of Hamas to do something bigger. No details, no specific details. And Hamas also spent a great deal of time leading up to this, I mean years, convincing the Israeli government through their words, through their actions or lack of actions, that it was a new day and that what they're looking to do is create a different dynamic or relationship with the Israeli government. And so the Israeli government became complacent. And when they became complacent to some degree over Hamas and the fact that there hadn't been any strikes or hadn't been any terrorist actions for a period of time, then what you saw was, then they kind of turned inward.

And people talk about the political divisions within Israel and the fact that the government was in a bit of disarray and it was a little dysfunctional, a lot of arguments going on. And that in part was because, you know, they had the, not the luxury, but the ability to kind of turn in on themselves, because they didn't feel necessarily that that threat outside was as bad as it had been. And that they thought perhaps it's diminishing, perhaps Hamas is changing its tune. And that was a deliberate attempt by Hamas to lull them into that state. And so there were a lot of things going on at the same time.

But yeah, there's no way around it. It's a massive intelligence failure.

Yeah, I mean, if you can get your head around that idea that they said, yeah, we're going to let Hamas or somehow encourage Hamas to come in and slaughter all these women, babies, children, men.

I suppose that's, you know, if someone can get there, then God bless them, that's their right. But I'm not buying it. You know, I've seen intelligence failures before. I know it can happen. No matter how many cameras you've got up, no matter how good your signals intelligence intercepts are, they dumb that down, right?

I'm not calling anybody on the phone because I know you're going to pick that up, right? I'm not going to talk about this anywhere. I want to hand a note to my cousin, you know, who runs a part of a battalion in Hamas. You know, they got whatever, two dozen battalions. But I'm going to keep that communication as stupid as I can.

That's what al-Qaeda did, right? And they dumbed it down. And it becomes much more difficult. They limit the number of sources who know about it. That limits your target pool of assets.

who can tell you something from a human perspective. But,

again, people are going to... I've seen some pretty wacky conspiracy theories come out of this since 7 October. And, you know, I'm not buying that one.

You know, in fact, there's been reports of looting of Hamas facilities. since they've been losing their grip on power. The Hamas leadership structure is enormously wealthy. They've stolen billions of dollars that was theoretically intended for Palestinian improvement.

the USAID, USAID,

and some NGOs, well, quite a few NGOs. So money is donated or allocated by governments, and the U.S. has given billions of dollars through these organizations for the improvement of Palestinian lives. And part of that came out of the Oslo Accords, the idea being, you know, band together, improve the infrastructure for the Palestinians, create this, because that will march towards more stability, and eventually, maybe that allows for a solution that will eventually come about, whether it's a two-state solution or, however, it's worked out. So that money flows in.

But since 2007,, Hamas controls what goes. It's like when we give money to the Taliban now, giving money to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And we like to pretend like they're going to use it for good causes. We like to pretend we know where it's going or how it's being handled. But this money flows into these various organizations, and Hamas controls what happens, right? So one way or another, they get their hands on that money, and they decide what they want to do with it. And for the most part, it has been for the betterment of Hamas as an organization, in part because that's what Iran expects them to do.

And Iran also provides them with funds. Not the Palestinian people. Iran directly funds Hamas. So over the years, they have the leadership, and particularly the political leadership, who all basically live outside of Gaza, in Doha, in Qatar.

Some reports, and they're confirmed by the U.S. Treasury. It's not just the Israelis saying this. They're billionaires at this stage of life. And one of them's got a couple of kids who are on Instagram, and they're flying on private jets, and they probably went to the World Cup when it was in Doha.

And it's ludicrous, because billions of dollars that literally were meant to provide clean water or better schools or whatever, and people just continue to shake their fists and say it's all Israel's fault.

It has to go to middlemen. It has to go to somebody running a business who is then going to provide resources, whatever that is, grain, whatever, transportation, trucking to move things around Gaza, whatever it is. And Hamas,

it's like a criminal gang, right? It's like an extortion racket. almost. They take their cut. They tax the resources that are brought in.

Most of those things have to move. The most efficient way to move goods and services through Gaza at this point, because of all the work they've done in the tunnels, is the tunnels, so they tax goods moving through the tunnels. They make their money, right? And I'm not equating Hamas necessarily to a mob, but it's kind of what they've been doing. And so now the money that comes from Iran, that's a different...

And so I keep coming back around to this notion that the Palestinian people have been getting screwed left and right. There's no doubt about it, right?

And civilian casualties are tragic and sad. But we live in a very pragmatic world, hopefully. You can't rule this thing by feelings and hope and positivity.

Hamas chose a certain path, and they have to be dealt with, because if you stop and allow them to say, okay, well, Hamas is still there. They're still running things. Nothing changes. It doesn't improve the lives of the Palestinians. It continues to fuel and fund terror.

So, okay, fine, if you feel better about a ceasefire and kicking the can down the road, but don't pretend like you're solving something.

They decide, they allocate, because they have essentially vendors who are saying, okay, we're going to provide whatever, penicillin, or we're going to provide hospital beds. So they're parsing this out to a variety of vendors, and there's an attempt to try to ensure that it's Palestinian businesses, and Hamas also runs enterprises overseas, right? Sorry, outside of Gaza. So they run businesses in Turkey and a variety of other countries, right?

So sometimes that money is going to a Hamas-controlled business to then purchase, theoretically, purchase whatever is necessary.

We shouldn't imagine that Hamas is, they're not like Al-Qaeda. They're not sitting in a cave somewhere, right? They've been doing this for a while, and it's a bit like the IRA. The IRA started out with a very clear mandate, right? Eventually, an element of it was just about drugs and guns and money.

So, yeah, I keep coming back around to Hamas. They realize they've got a good thing going, right? Stability is not going to keep that gravy train running. So, you know, peace with Israel, that cuts off a revenue stream for Hamas, right, in a sense, even though they still, theoretically, they could be smart and they could say, okay, if we have peace with Israel, then we establish a long-term governance thing here, then we can keep that gravy train going. But, you know, they would lose their funding from Iran.

because, you know, the last thing Iran wants is peaceful coexistence with Israel. And part of this was they looked at the Saudis talking to Israel. They looked at the possibility of that meeting, that there would be normalized relations with Israel, and they're just not going to allow that to happen. And so, and for the time being, it worked, right? You've got, I mean, look, you've got, what are there, how many members of the Arab League?

There's 22 member states in the Arab League, and there's maybe half a dozen that recognize Israel. Iran doesn't want any more. They certainly don't want the Saudis, right, because that could be a sea change in terms of other countries going, yeah, it does make sense. Maybe if we do that, maybe if we normalize relations, then maybe that means better prosperity, more stability, economic development. Maybe that's a good thing for our people.

But again, that would imply that Israel has a right to exist, and the Iranian regime draws a line at that.

So it's getting a little testier up there with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but a wider conflict than that, right? And look, the Iranian proxies in Yemen have been firing their own missiles towards Israel, not with much success, but you're getting these little probes there. Iran, I think, would stop short of being directly involved. You know, they've got enough in the way of proxy groups to probably keep this going for some time, but I think the goal here should be, yes, not a wider regional conflict, but you have to be pragmatic and understand that this is all emanating from, originating from the Iranian regime, right? So if Hamas is sorted out, and that conflict as it currently stands ends, and you don't get something bigger up north with Hezbollah, you still have the Iranian regime sitting here.

They still have proxies, even if Hamas is degraded. It's not like that's down to zero. The problem continues to exist. So the best answer, I know you asked about the worst situation, but the best situation would be if the Saudis and other nations in that region would normalize relations with Israel.

So you can be hopeful, I think, about that.

But, you know, I mean, until, you know, as long as the IRGC, the Iranian regime, runs Iran, we're still going to be dealing with this problem, right? It's not going to go away. Now, interesting thing. I forgot about this.

The Iranian proxies have launched, I don't know. now, we're almost at 60, 60 different attacks, right? Drone attacks, missile attacks on a variety of U.S. facilities and bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since 17 October. What is that?

So we're going on a month, right? A month, and you've had about 60 attacks. You've had almost 60 U.S. servicemen injured, some seriously.

And yet, I think it was, I think they made the announcement yesterday afternoon during a quiet time in the press room, but the Biden administration has agreed to extend a sanction waiver for Iran. And we're giving them $10 billion, $10 billion in what had been frozen assets owed by Iraq, right, to Iran for essentially, well, for the most part for electricity, right, for purchasing. They get a significant amount of their energy supply from Iran. So Iraq, I think, gets almost half or 40%, 45% of their energy supply from Iran. So you had $10 billion sitting there, frozen assets.

And so in the past 24 hours, despite the Iranian proxies doing this for the past month and before, they were, to be fair, they were launching missiles at some of our facilities in the Middle East before the conflict with Hamas,

they've decided that a good idea is to release the $10 billion.

And it's going to be for humanitarian aid, they say, and they won't be able to use it for anything else. That's what they tell us. The State Department's very clear on that. They're saying, no, it's just for humanitarian aid. There's no way they can use it for anything else, which is what they said about the $6 billion that they unfroze before this situation kicked off at the beginning of October.

And to that, the Iranian president said, hey, we'll use it for whatever we want to. And money's fungible.

So if you give me $10 billion and tell me I can only spend it on beer, okay, well, I'll take $10 billion that I have over in this pot that I was going to spend on beer, and I'll spend it on ammunition.

It's fungible. So it's a ridiculous argument. And then the State Department compounded the ridiculous discussion by saying, well, I forget who it was. It was one of their spokesmen, Miller or somebody. He said, look, they've been fomenting trouble and creating chaos and causing trouble, I know I'm paraphrasing, before this $10 billion, and they're going to keep doing it regardless of whether they get the funds.

So fine, let's just give them the money.

That doesn't make any sense.

I'm confused over what they think. And the idea that they somehow imagine that this money won't be used for purposes other than what they're expecting, I think, is ludicrous.

But if all you said was just from the optic, even if they could control how that money is spent, politically, the optic is awful. And so it's a confusing thing from this administration. I don't understand it. And it's the wrong... Anyway, I mean, aside from that, it's the wrong direction.

We should be going in the other direction. We should be... Iran has... They have realized... I don't want to say a windfall, but their oil revenues.

have not been degraded. We have not really gone after their energy sector in terms of sanctions.

And so we should be going after that. We should be really stepping on the gas. in terms of saying, that's enough, right? I mean, because what have we done? We've had three responses to the missile and drone strikes that they've been responsible for over the past four weeks.

Three responses. And after every response, we just get more missile and drone attacks. So it's not deterrence. We're not doing anything to deter the behavior, right? We're just...

It's almost like a political decision saying, well, we got to show the American public we're doing something and we take it seriously. So let's blow up a weapons depot in Eastern Syria. And it's doing nothing to deter the attacks. So I don't think giving them 10 billion,

if maybe that's their calculation, if we give them something, they'll stop. I mean, that's awful. I don't think they're that stupid. So that can't be the reason. So I don't understand.

It's a confusing decision on their part.

So, but I haven't seen, I haven't seen a logical argument. It's a new development. They've just basically announced this.

And yeah, I, again, it makes no sense. They were incredibly reluctant at the outset of this conflict.

To even mention Iran, right? They were very, and in part because they've,

they've spent three years now with a soft approach, right? To, to trying to get back into a deal of some sort with them over the nuke weapons program. And they've been taking this, this approach, that said, well, Trump had maximum pressure. So that had to be wrong. Had to be wrong.

And, just like with everything else that Trump did, they just reversed it. You know, like the border controls. Now that's all, that's all bad, you know? And so we just have to throw it all out. And they kind of did that and they brought into their, to the various Iran focused, Iran forward positions, whether at the Pentagon or the State Department, they brought in people who were like-minded, who wanted a softer approach.

And that in part was probably driven by an effort by the Iranians, by the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They, they were running an influence campaign here in the States. They've been running it for almost 10 years now where they have worked to discredit any viable opposition to the Iranian regime. And they have encouraged and supported.

the Iran experts initiative. I think it was called IEI. And that was a bunch of academics and others who, you know, all believed in the same soft approach to Iran and changing the narrative. And that's where you got, you know, the U.S. Special Envoy to, to Iran in the Biden administration, Robert Malley, who's now suspended, had his security clearances pulled.

There's no real curious journalists asking where that stands, right? You've got an individual over at the Pentagon who is still there, still in her job,

and has been promoting, again, this idea that, you know, we have to change direction with Iran. So, you know, there's, there's, I know I'm kind of wandering down a weird path there, but I guess it's not a surprise. It's just an odd decision, right, from the Biden administration. And you would think, at this stage of the game, if you're not convinced that you need to change course with the Iranian regime and treat them differently, every time we try to shake their hand, they smack it away, right? I don't know how many times that has to happen before the Biden administration learns that's not the way to deal with them, right?

So, yeah, yeah, it's disappearing down a rabbit hole.

This is going to sound weird, but I think long-term peace and stability in the Middle East, any road you want to take of a serious means to get to long-term stability and peace and prosperity and a better life for whether it's Palestinians or anyone else out there,

I think that road leads through the Iranian regime and we have to deal with them. And I don't mean militarily, right? I mean, we have to, you know, although if they keep this up, right? I mean, if one of these missiles hits one of these facilities and kills, you know, God forbid, you know, a number of U.S. servicemen, then what?

What the hell are we going to do? We're going to pretend, like Iran still has nothing to do with it? You know, unfreeze more assets? At some point, we've got to have the stones to actually deal with them, because it's going to be easier doing that now than when they have a nuke, right? And I'm curious as to what the current administration is thinking about in terms of their policy towards Iran.

I don't profess to understand it, but I do think that, you know, that you can't have stability. Every time you're going to get your way towards peace and stability in the Middle East in some fashion, the Iranian regime is going to screw it up, because peace and stability means you're... We're talking about Israel, and peace and stability, again, would imply that means they have a right to exist. And every time you get near that, then I think the Iranian regime will do whatever they can to stop that from happening. So at some point, we've got to deal with it.

You know, there was... Again, not touting for the previous administration either, but just saying that their approach was tougher when it came to sanctions. Their approach was, we have an adversary here. We're not trying to become friends with them right now, right? Because that's not their mindset.

I mean, it's like when you... You know, someone keeps telling their kid, well, look, the bully, just keep putting your hand out and trying to shake his hand and try to be his friend. Maybe he's just misunderstood or he's lacking confidence, and he keeps punching you in the nose, right? At some point, you got to figure out, okay, I got to do something different here. So I think the previous administration, they were much tougher on the sanctions and they had an approach much like with China, right?

Yes, they're a competitor, but they're an adversary. And Xi's got a plan that gets him to the top of the food chain. The Iranian regime has a plan that destroys Israel, right? That's their goal. So I think that's what it was.

I think the Biden administration is more inclined to think that we can all become a community of nations, right? Unicorns flying out our ass and everybody's singing Kumbaya, whatever the hell that song was.

I sound like a cynical asshole.

Like, she gives a fuck about the climate. It's just... So, again, it kind of, it all kind of falls together in this, like, this world that the current administration is living in. You know, hey, it'd be lovely if that was the case, and that was our biggest issue. But I'm hoping that part of this is not, that they don't spend a lot of time talking.

And although, having said that, John Kerry was there in San Francisco because he's our climate czar. And he proudly announced, whenever, yesterday, day before, that part of this meeting will be to agree to a, to resume the climate, whatever it was called, climate working group. So the Chinese and Americans will get together now and we'll be re-energized to talk about, you know, how we can both improve the climate. Meanwhile, a very, very reputable report came out and said that.

China, the Chinese regime, is building six times more coal plants than the rest of the world combined, currently. They're basically building two coal plants a week in terms of looking at their construction and the permitting process.

And, you know, people are saying, well, you know, they're trying to find excuses. Well, you know, it's because they want a backup, you know, look, they're the biggest, you know, purveyor of renewable energy. So they just want the coal. in case there's a, they need a backup. And that's bullshit.

You know, she looks at coal as a real driver in terms of energy security. So anyway, my point being is, they're going to sit down and John Kerry spews this crap about, you know, they're going to, look at this, we're working together to save the planet. And China is just digging coal as fast as they can. It's, I find that part funny, because it just shows that we, we're still misunderstanding,

you know, the CCP and how they operate. It's fantastic. But I hope that, I hope they do come to some agreements, because again, you want them to, you want the dialogue, you want these two countries talking. We don't even have consistent communication right now between the militaries. Right?

I mean, if we get sideways with each other and you need to deconflict, you know, that's, that's a good thing. if you have regular, consistent conversation between the military command structures. And we don't have that right now. You would think that the president of the United States and the president of, or the head of China,

no matter who's in the White House, you would think that we would just be having regularly, you know, conversations maybe once a quarter, right? Between, that would make sense, but we don't do that. I mean, it's, it's kind of fucked up. So hopefully they come to terms on a couple of things. I'm sure one will be the climate working group.

They are supposed to come up with an agreement on the use of AI.

in unmanned weapon systems and in the command and control systems for nuke weapons.

I don't say nuclear because for some reason, that's a tough word. And I always get, you know, jammed up on nuclear, and then people say, you just said nuclear. And that's all I get. I get 2,000, you know, Twitter messages saying, what the fuck's wrong with you? You can't say nuclear.

And so I just say nuke now. Fuck it, nuclear. Anyway.

Although I've been getting a lot of compliments about the President's Daily Brief. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Did I just throw that out there? Yeah.

So you get your PDB in the morning, the President's Daily Brief, and then in the afternoon, on your way home or when you're unwinding over a cocktail, you get the afternoon bulletin. And yeah, it's been, it's been a great experience, but I digress.

I mean, I don't even, I hate to say it. I don't even view it as work or anything. Right. It's just because it's interesting and it's the shit that I would be reading and thinking about anyway, which means I've got a sad, sad daytime life there. Although I've got the world's greatest life, but I think it's, yeah, it's, it's a straightforward process.

The folks that work on it with me, they do a great job. We talk in the morning about, you know, what are the topics that we think are going to be the hot ones for the day that we, sorry, that we need to cover the next morning. So we talk about that. We put it together. We finalize the morning edition by late in the evening.

Now we're doing the afternoon bulletin. So we're kind of doing the same thing, but in a much shorter view.

And it's, yeah, I just, I enjoy it because I like, for whatever reason, you want, to know what the hell's going on in the world, particularly when it's as fucked up as it is now. So you end up kind of diving in, but you don't dive into social media sites. Right. I don't, you know, don't get your news from there. You get your news from, you know, reputable sources, if there still are some, but you read a variety of them.

So hopefully it balances out. And yeah, I spend a ridiculous amount of time. And then, and then my boys, you know, Scooter and Sluggo and Mugsy, they have to, they have to put up with it. Right. They have to listen to me bang on about shit.

Right. And so usually, if I'm driving one of them to school in the morning, that's when I kind of talk to them about things. Oh boy. They're like, oh yeah, I know exactly. That's what you want when you're a 16.

or, you know, a 12 year old, or, you know, the middle boy, he's still out boarding school at IMG. So he doesn't have to listen to me anymore as much. But I tell you, that's an operation. IMG, fantastic. He's really loved it.

Not that you asked,

And they do a great job. So he's, he's loving it down there. Their weight room is crazy. Look at that weight room. Whoa.

I mean, yeah, exactly.

Wow. But it's, it's just a good bunch of people in there. And, and you're giving kids an opportunity, you know, a lot of those kids are, they just love the sport, right? They're not going to advance to play college ball, or, you know, because that's a, that's a small number, but you give them the opportunity to excel or to see what excellence looks like. And that helps them in a variety of other things.

And, and propels them, I think, in life, because they know. I want to get to that point. This is how hard I got to work. Now I got to make the decision. Do I do that or not?

Right. And so they give them that opportunity. It's, it's, it's been great.

You got to feel like you, you appreciate, you know, your opportunities. But,

you know, I think I worked on a, I worked with a, a non-profit for a while in New York City that was focused on education of middle school students.

And the idea being is that those kids in the city, in New York City, as an example, they, they make a decision. Is education for me? Am I going to stick with it? Am I going to high school? Right.

They make those decisions in middle school, right. And, and that's a, that's a, that's a hard cutoff for a lot of them, right. If they just get that impression that, you know, this is not for me, I'm not going to succeed. I'm not going to do it. I don't see any reason for it.

I don't, I don't understand why I'm supposed to go to high school. So the idea was you work with those kids and you give them the opportunity, you show them what success looks like. You show them what opportunity, you know, can, can do for them. And you encourage them and that, and, and, you know, they've got to do the work again. They've got to, they've got to try.

But, you know, a lot of those kids just don't, they don't have that. They got a mom who's working, you know, four jobs, you know, put food on the table, make ends meet, right. They, they don't have the role models that they need. So it was, it was a real eye-opening experience and a very good one. But, um, it was, it was called Citizen Schools.

Um, and anyway, um, so yeah, so I, back to your original question. Yeah, I, I very much enjoy the President's Daily Brief. It's a, it's been a really good experience so far. Um, and, uh, I think I mentioned that you were number one in news on Spotify.

Ruthless, Robbie, Lawler, the former welterweight champion, Jamal Hill, who was the former light heavyweight champion. They're on the bus and they're smashing the windows of the bus and they slashed the tires of the bus. And...

But there was a big protest outside the New York Public Library. And I was just walking down. I was heading towards where? Grand Central or something.

And you could hear the noise start to build. You kind of block after block. It gets louder. It gets louder. And there you go.

And you see it. And I was kind of fascinated because I thought, okay, well, who is here? And there's all these diverse groups. There's LGBTQ for Free Palestine. Which is wild.

That's wild. That is wild. That's crazy. I saw a sign that said Koreans for Free Palestine. I'm thinking, what?

How did you get roped into this? Was this just like a side hobby of yours? You've always loved Palestine? And it was an interesting moment. But you could also see people, the faces of people walking, passing you on the streets.

And sort of the unease. Because it was underlying it. It just seemed hostile. And it seemed angry. It wasn't angry.

It wasn't a protest out there, just like you might normally see for some benign issue. This was a little ugly. And it shocked people. I think.

Somebody's putting this together. And so somebody's spending money. And they're getting permits. And they're doing these things. It's not like some random...

They want you to believe that, it's this grassroots thing.

It's funded. And it's organized.

And where that money is coming from, who knows? I'm sure it's coming from a variety of leftist organizations, and.

it's... Who knows? Maybe some of it's coming from Hamas businesses and organizations. That is exactly. what they would do, is to promote this.

And the Iranians are busy on social media sites doing the same thing. Disinformation's everywhere. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a disinformation campaign.

Which reminds me that... We'll talk about that later on. But the Chinese have been kind of caught with their hand in the cookie jar over a very large-scale disinformation campaign, trying to influence policy and decision-making and attitudes here in the U.S. But it's what Hamas would do. It's what the Iranians would do with more resource, is to organize these types of things.

And ideally, again, you want to make them seem spontaneous. You want to make them seem... And so... And it works. You see that on the news.

You see, you know, like, I've got these protests and say, well, you know, there's a lot of people against this. And, you know, the next thing, you know, there's this international pressure and suddenly the White House is talking out of both sides of their mouth. They have unequivocal support for Israel. But, you know, I think we might need a pause here. You know, we might need...

We can't do this, you know. Okay.

That's simply because of... The Biden administration. looks out there. They make a political calculation. They see all these protests here in the U.S., I mean, the college campuses.

They've got a 2024 election coming up. They don't want to lose the Arab-American vote. They certainly don't want to lose the youth vote. So what do they got to do? They got to pivot a little bit and they got to start talking about ceasefire or long pause.

or, you know, by God, don't be firing up a hospital or whatever. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I think the IDF knows, not to, you know, go in, you know, full bore inside a hospital, right? I think they're going to be a little more strategic than that. But the White House does it, for...

So they're basically driving foreign policy because of U.S. domestic political concerns, right? What's going to happen in the 2024 election? So I don't think that's necessarily a good way to run foreign policy.

But they called it.

spamouflage, or I think it had a codename of Dragon Bridge. And the idea was that the Chinese Communist Party, through their Ministry of Public Security, is running a large-scale.

disinformation campaign. And part of it is targeted at Chinese dissidents. So part of it's targeted, here in the States, at Chinese journalists and activists and others who speak out against Xi and the regime. And so the idea being is that they basically hunt these people down online, they troll them, they overwhelm their message by using thousands and thousands of accounts that they've set up in these farms. Most of this has run out of Beijing.

And the idea being they're just basically either trying to push down the activist voice and create a better, more positive narrative for Xi, or in some cases, they're actually trying to find them and influence them directly. And so there was that story about New York City, the secret police stations that the Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese Communist Party's Ministry of Public Security, was running here in the States, and still continue to run, frankly. But they had a couple of their NPS agents here in New York, and they were, and part of what they were doing was dealing directly with activists, basically threatening them, harassing them, and trying to, again, shut them up.

They've done other things, too. I mean, they were involved in spreading messages related to the George Floyd protests. So they've got evidence, and this is a report that who did this, CNN, I think, put this together after studying a vast amount of documentation and information that was FOIA'd and brought out from a variety of places, and also from social media sites that pulled together their own research. So George Floyd protests, and then, the second year of that, they're still promoting it, and the idea is they're pushing out narratives that say, you know, America is a completely racist society, and democracy doesn't work, and that's exactly what you would expect them to do, but it's on a scale that I don't think we understood completely, right? And the U.S.

government has just come out, basically, and felt like they had, and I think META was also involved in the research, and they've come out and talked about it and said, yeah, this is a problem. Now, whether Biden talks to them about that or not, I don't know, but the other thing they do is that they came out and identified, but we talked about this before, is, you know, the spamouflage or whatever? it is, some.

of the specific examples where they went after a Texas-based rare-earths processing facility, right? So, basically, working to shut that down, essentially, right? To get the voices in the community against this. And how do they do that? Well, they promote, they sponsor, they encourage environmental groups and activists to.

say,

are you telling me that Greenpeace is taking money from the CCP? And no, it's more sophisticated than that, right? But they are doing that. They are promoting these environmental activists groups to basically push that message that mining's bad, right? You don't want to go after rare-earth minerals because that's bad for the earth, right?

And certainly not processing. And so, meanwhile, they have a fucking monopoly on the whole thing, right? But they've been doing that for years, right? And so, what they've realized relatively early on was even more so than going out and locking up mining rights overseas, right? If you're talking about the Congo, you're talking about Australia, South America, you know, for lithium.

Then, even more important, was impacting your main competitors' regulatory policies, right? And so, they understood that if they can encourage local and city councils, state governments, and the federal government to — and they really focus on local and state because that's an easier lift, right? Going and changing federal policy, they probably got tired of the bureaucracy. But they understood that if they could do that to enact anti-mining regulations, you know, you can't explore, you know it's going to take you 10 years to get a permit to explore for lithium, you know, in Nevada or Idaho or wherever.

That's right, in line with their strategy to become the provider of rare earth and critical minerals. because they also understood, they're smart enough, they've got a long vision here, and they look at the U.S., they look at Europe, and we're all self-righteously banging on about how we're going to — it's all electric. Nothing but electric. We're getting off this fossil fuels. So, they look at that and go, great, we're on top of that.

We're going to be in charge of that market. So, that's what they've been doing, and they go after these local governments and they encourage through the spamouflage or whatever,

and also again in supporting environmental groups to push this and create this groundswell. Some guy at a city council is looking and going, oh yeah, I'm not approving that phosphate mining exercise. I'm not approving whatever.

You know, you can't have agriculture really without phosphate for fertilizer, so that's a pretty important thing.

But some city councilman, he's not going to sit there and go, well, I think this is probably, you know, maybe sponsored by the CCP. He just hears some environmentalists come to the city council meetings and protest or make an argument and he thinks, yeah, I'm voting against it. It's good for the earth. Now I get to feel good about myself, too. So anyway, those are the sort of things that take place that, you know, again, do most people think about that sort of shit?

No, I don't think so. But it's what makes the world go round. Everything's interconnected, and so shit doesn't happen without a reason. So when you ask, you know, are these protests sponsored? Who's paying for them?

That's a great fucking question for journalists to dig into. if they were curious enough. You know, I don't think they are, but it would make an interesting story. And if someone did that, yeah, maybe they, you know, get an award. I don't know.

What's funding that? And if you look at the funding, oh, look, it's tied to China. Oh, look, they're running cobalt mines in the Congo. Oh, look, they're the ones who are doing all of these rare earth mineral mines. They have a monopoly on this business.

They don't want us doing it for business reasons. Right. And then also, they are the providers of that. The more we buy electric, the more they sell these minerals.

All right, what do we do? How do we control it?

It may also refer to a 1930 feature film starring the Three Stooges, called Soup to Nuts. Ah, the Three Stooges. Ah, that's it. I love the Three Stooges.

women only like the Three Stooges. when they're dating you. They'll pretend that they like the Three Stooges. But no woman out there, nobody, likes the Three Stooges. She's on the female side.

But if they're dating you, they'll pretend they like the Three Stooges. Hmm. I know. I think she's not wrong. They don't have to do that.

I think she's not wrong. I don't want anybody.

Anybody want some nuts? No.

Was that a thing?

So, anyway, that's the spamouflage. That's a Dragon Bridge program that the Chinese were running or are running.

It would be kind of irresponsible if the government of the United States knew that all these other countries were involved in propaganda against us and we weren't doing the same. Yeah.

So... What the fuck? All the bells and whistles was coming up, too, but I don't know where that came from. All the bells and.

If ever I'm going to talk to, like, a scientist... Well, I take it for most podcasts. I didn't take it today. But I take it for most.

But is that true? Sauna's bad for someone with a heart condition?

What does it say here? Can individuals with a heart condition use a sauna, and is it dangerous? While the use of a sauna is considered safe for most individuals, exceptions are those with unstable heart disease. For individuals with any of the following conditions, it may not be safe. Unstable angina pectoris.

Do you have that? So let's see what the heart diseases are.

There was a study out of Finland that showed 20 years, they did this long-term study. People who use the sauna four times a week experienced a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality. 40% decrease in stroke,

heart attacks, cancer, everything. And the reason for that is heat shock proteins. What happens when you're in the sauna, it's, you can't stay in there, right? You can only stay in there for a short amount of time. So you do 20 minutes.

Okay. And what happens during that 20 minutes is your body's freaking out, because it's 185 degrees in there. And you're sweating and your heart is pounding and you develop static cardio. So your heart rate, many times when I do it, I go straight from working out. My heart rate's already elevated and I climb right into 185 degrees.

My heart rate stays elevated. And it gets as high as 150 beats per minute sometimes. Especially if I'm doing like heavy-duty cardio, and then I jump right into the sauna. It's rough. But it extends your cardiovascular output and it creates heat shock proteins.

And heat shock proteins reduce inflammation throughout the body. There's amazing benefits for the sauna.

I take a lot of electrolytes and I stay hydrated. And then you get in there and you're essentially, you're treating your body in a way that your body it's not sustainable, right? So your body knows like, oh my god, I'm going to fucking die if this guy stays in here. And so that process of your body compensating for that heat creates these heat shock proteins. And these heat shock proteins are amazing at reducing inflammation in your body.

You feel great when you get out of there. You just feel loose and relaxed and there's an overall sense of wellness and well-being. It's just really good for you.

Build yourself up to it. But it's great for your overall health.

So we went through Dallas-Fort Worth. So we get on the plane to go from DFW to Puerto Rico. And we're taxiing. We've basically gotten to the runway and now they're turning out of the runway. They're getting ready to wind the engines up.

And I'm just sitting there and I look at her and I said, you know, I don't feel that... And that's where I went out. And I had what they call the Widowmaker, right? Oh, you told me about this. Yeah.

And so I just went down and I woke up at Baylor Heart Center, which, thank God, is only a few minutes away from DFW.

But ever since then, I've been on, you know, whatever. Blood pressure medicine, blood thinners, you know. If I'm out... If we're out doing something outdoors and everything and I cut myself, pretty much, it. Just put a bullet in me because I'm bleeding.

But that's what the blood thinners do for you.

It's heart disease. It's... I forget. They have a word for it. It sounds very depressing when they say it.

Congenital heart disease or something like that. So it's a genetic thing. Nothing I can do about it, really, right? So, you know, I could modify my diet, obviously, and kind of adjust it the way that I work out. But none of that's going to make much difference.

It's in your... If it's in your family, it's in your family, in a sense, right? And it's the high rate of passing it on. So, you know, all my parents went from that. My brothers all have various issues and are carrying around hardware, right?

I've got some stents, and, you know. So it's nothing, you know. I don't sit around. I'm not deep enough to sit around and worry about it necessarily. Except for things like this, where I think, well, can I do that still?

Is that so? But I'm not, you know. Then again, I'm also, like I said, I'm not organized enough to say, well, I should talk to my cardiologist. I think, ah, just do it, or I just... Yeah, I won't, you know.

But I need to be a little more curious. If you're not a... You know, I hear this all the time. If you're not an advocate for yourself in healthcare, you're fucked. Yeah.

Or if you don't have somebody to advocate for you. Right. Because the healthcare system in the U.S. is so complex and not geared towards preventing. It's geared towards treating sickness.

Right.

I got really interested in nootropics from a product called Neuro One. And I was on this radio station in San Francisco. Sarah and No Name. And they had one of the... No Name, that was...

I forget what his real name is. But he had this stuff called Neuro One that Bill Romanowski created after his football career because he was having a bunch of problems from concussions and memory loss and all sorts of different things. So he started researching different nutrients that enhance memory. There's a bunch of different ones that are considered nootropics. There's some stuff that I use called Neuro Gum.

And this is some stuff, Neuro Mints. I have no affiliation with these people other than I buy their stuff. I do have an affiliation with Onnit. So we created this. And when we created it, it was a lot of people were like, oh, this is snake oil.

So we ran two double-blind placebo-controlled studies at the Boston Center for Memory. And it showed increase in verbal memory. It showed increase in reaction time, peak alpha flow state. It works. And with Onnit, we have a 100% money-back guarantee, too.

So if you try it and it doesn't work, you get your money back. What it does do is it enhances... I want to make sure they still have that. I'm saying that.

But the bottom line is what it does is it enhances your memory. Your mind works better when you take it. And, again, it's not just AlphaBrain, which I do take. There's another product that I've taken, called TrueBrain, that works really well. I really like that NeuroOne stuff.

You just mix it with water. The NeuroGum is great. I'll chew a couple pieces of NeuroGum before I do stand-up, before I do different things where I have to really think clearly.

Yeah, 30 seconds, and I'm like, what was I talking about?

He takes it every time. When you're producing the UFC, there's all these fucking moving parts and camera, get this guy over here, move that. You have to be on point. And he said it's made a tremendous difference for him. But it'll help your memory.

It does work.

they think it's about 300,000.. Right? 300,000 casualties. Not all dead. I mean, I think there's 120,000 of those are dead.

But to put that in context, right, it's not even two years yet for Russia in terms of this war.

And so 120,000 dead. They lost in Afghanistan, which for them was 10 years, they lost about 15,000 or so. Again, according to estimates, right? I mean, because neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are being transparent for reasons that you can imagine in terms of morale, but they're not being transparent about their numbers. On the Ukraine side, it's, again, decent US estimates.

It could be about 70,000 or so.

Those numbers, by the way, they don't even involve the Wagner group or private contractor groups. So who knows how many of those folks went. But the problem is that, yeah, you look at that and you go, that's awful, right? But it shows Putin's mindset. He doesn't care, right?

He's willing to keep throwing people into this grinder and say, yeah, fine. So it does look like, and the winter months are approaching, which slows everything down. It does look like this thing is going to go on for a while. I mean, unless they can come up with some settlement. But right now, the Russian military is pushing offensively, right?

They're trying to actually regain and gain some ground before the winter months really set in. The counteroffensive Ukraine's put together has been somewhat disappointing, to put it mildly.

And then, during the winter, what's going to happen? The Russians are going to spend their time attacking Ukraine energy targets to try to freeze them out during the winter, which they tried last year and had some success with. They're also going to dig in. They're going to harden their lines where they're at. You got the Ukrainians, they're, you know, things slow down.

They're probably going to end up focused most of the time on supply chain, right? If they can cut the supply chain or the supply line, sorry, for the Russian military, that's a big win, right? And that's why they've been so keen to get more advanced artillery systems in there, because they want to be able to hit those facilities. They want to be able to hit the lines. They want to be able to hit command and control, because I think they realize, you know, they're getting into, one of their generals actually said this, and then Chelensky had to come out and clean up and say, no, we're not in a stalemate.

But one of the generals said, we're kind of approaching a stalemate here. So, but to your point, yeah, all those people who are out there waving flags saying we stand with Ukraine, nobody gives a fuck right now. It's over, right? It's over. I mean, so, and, you know, Republicans are, I always thought the Republicans wanted to defeat communism and defeat, you know, somebody like Putin.

But, you know, they're the ones breaking ranks right now saying, oh, we don't want to spend, no, you know, their point is we want to see transparency. You know, we want to know where that money's going, and that's a good thing. Some of them are just kind of reading political tea leaves and saying, you know, if they think the general public is getting tired of this. Some of them are legitimately saying we're spending way too much money on Ukraine. Why aren't we spending it here?

And so that's part of the problem is we knew, going into this, that they had a real corruption issue. And then we give them 80 plus billion dollars.

and we don't necessarily have the best accounting, right? Going back to, we're giving $10 billion to Iran, but by God, we're going to know exactly where every penny's spent.

Now, they have, to say they've stamped out. the problem is ridiculous. Look, Zelensky knows that he's got to be seen as being very aggressive towards corruption, because that's going to keep the money flowing, right? And he desperately needs that. If he doesn't have U.S.

assistance and U.S. aid, this thing goes from being a potential stalemate to it swings the other way in Russia's favor, and not in a really lengthy period of time. So he knows he's got to be seen as doing everything possible to stamp out corruption and also having the optic of stamping out corruption, right? Regardless of how successful he may be, but it's a real problem for him. And look, the EU is sticking closer to them.

I mean, we're getting these cracks in support here in the U.S. The European Union is, they're still all in because they're right there, right? And so they understand that you can't let Putin win this.

So they're tightening sanctions. Look, the biggest problem we've got is we haven't gone after the energy sector for Russia, just like we really haven't for the Iranians, right? We've, the EU's implemented what they call an oil price cap. So they said, okay,

we'll only allow Russian oil to be sold on the market at $60 a barrel. That's the cap. The Russians figured out pretty quickly, because that's, you know, what they're good at and how to bust that sanction, right? So they created their own tanker fleet and they started getting ready. And, you know, they've.

initially, when that oil cap was put in place by the EU, their revenues really dipped. And when oil revenues dip in Russia, Putin can't fuck around, right? He can't do what he's doing. He can't support it. And we haven't been serious about maintaining that.

We haven't, because, you know, in part, it's energy. Europe needs some of that energy. So they've got to keep it flowing.

But, you know, they figured out a way to beat those sanctions. And so, you know, they've doubled the amount of money that they made in October compared to September. So they're, you know, they're generating enough to keep the war effort going, is what I'm saying, in a not particularly eloquent way. So, yeah, I don't know where...

One of the... I forget what his name is. But it does look like, based on the latest reporting, that it was a special operations effort by Ukrainian military. And the reporting is that it was a small team operation, that Zelensky was kept in the dark,

in part because, you know, they wanted to give him plausible deniability.