WarTalk: Potemkin Pacific, Midterm Budget Woes

Jordan Schneider (0:00)

WarTalk, Friday, September 25th.

WarTalk, September 25th. We've got Houthi's AI Farse.

Justin McIntosh (0:10)

AI Farse is the right way to say it.

Bryan Clark (0:13)

Floyd was right.

Jordan Schneider (0:14)

Warse Farse, great. Paparo Watch has begun. He was on the cover of Time Magazine. I'm worried for him.

I kinda wanna start with the Iran War, apparently about to give the Democrats like three Senate seats. But I guess we should, you know, it is sorta ChinaTalk. Let's begin with any takes that folks have on this state dinner.

Justin McIntosh (0:35)

Why did the red coats come to Washington?

Bryan Clark (0:39)

Old guard.

Justin McIntosh (0:41)

I'm aware of who it was. I just don't understand why they have those particular uniforms. Those were the enemy.

Tony Stark (0:48)

They look cool though. And they're more in line with the Chinese color palette. So we don't wanna...

Bryan Clark (0:56)

The Reds, Justin. The Reds.

Justin McIntosh (0:58)

Oh, I get it. I get it. We're communists. No, that's not the message we were sending?

Tony Stark (1:05)

Well, maybe it was. It is the message we're sending, but we're the good communists.

Jordan Schneider (1:10)

I won't...

Tony Stark (1:11)

Maybe the most interesting video out of the whole visit was when the B2 flyover happened and the president was wincing and not really able to handle the noise of the stealth bomber going overhead, whereas she stood stoically while they almost looked bored with the whole episode.

That in a nutshell sums it up. She was bored going through the motions.

Jordan Schneider (1:35)

I'm working on a comic strip that we're going to send out for ChinaTalk Sunday Funnies. Can I workshop some of the jokes with you guys?

Tony Stark (1:43)

Yes, please do.

Jordan Schneider (1:45)

The actual menu was really lame and boring. Usually they have cool chefs. I guess no cool chefs want to cook for Trump or something. They have sesame crust and salami or whatever. I made a new menu.

Okay. All right. We got the appetizers. Our mountain pass crudités straight from California, but actually processed in China. They peeled the cucumbers in China. For an entree, we have General Tsao's chicken two ways. We have PLA style, where the chicken disappears into a pot for six months. No one really knows what happens to it. And then Secwar style, where it's fatless, skinless, and pumped with Shenzhen peptides to plump it up.

We have zombie engagement pig brains. It doesn't want to eat actual brains though, it's just screaming for black wells. For dessert, we have a tariff souffle, which rises 145% and then collapses upon contact with the bond market. And then for drinks, we have Rocket Force sparkling water direct from the silos, as well as Deep Seek by Joe distilled from someone else's outputs.

Justin McIntosh (3:03)

I think that's excellent.

Jordan Schneider (3:06)

And then in my universe, Kanye West comes and performs. He of course spent a year in China growing up. His mom taught, I think, like college English and Nanjing. So Kanye shows up. His line is, Xi Jinping doesn't care about Muslims.

And then Jensen Huang is next to him reading cue cards. He goes to says, our China specific chip is fully compliant with all export regulations. Stephen Miller walks up to Xi and says, oh, by the way, I don't care about Muslims either. She says, Kanye should go see Xinjiang for himself. He's like, okay, cool. Yeah. Free trip. Why not? He eats, he eats some chouir, has a good time, goes on CGTN, says Xinjiang is lit. I didn't have the full context. His next album is Sheezus.

Tony Stark (4:01)

Well, that'd be better than his most recent output anyway. I'm sure it's.

Justin McIntosh (4:05)

Yeah, you may have just given him his way back into the market.

Jordan Schneider (4:08)

Exactly. He actually performed in Xiamen this year. He got approved to perform in China, which I find remarkable. All right. WarTalk. We, I can't get over, they restarted this freaking war.

Like, he could have gotten away with it after doing the whole war.

Right.

Tony Stark (4:27)

He could have still walked away. But as of this week, we've still got, what, two carriers, all about 16 destroyers, another thousands of troops ashore.

Justin McIntosh (4:39)

30 percent of our missile stockpiles.

Tony Stark (4:41)

Right.

Jordan Schneider (4:42)

Right.

Tony Stark (4:42)

Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, right now, when you add up the numbers, like 40 percent of the underway Navy is sitting in the Persian Gulf right now or in the Middle East region. Yeah. And so if you got Admiral Paparo on the front page or on the cover of Time magazine, meanwhile, all the forces that he would otherwise command, the carrier that he's on, as a matter of fact, is deployed to the Middle East. So, that's like the definition of a Potemkin Navy right there.