backing these rebels? Do we know? And the rebels would be Sunni, right? No, wait, would the rebels be Sunni or Shiite? Actually I don't know that. That's one of those things I should know.

If you're going to talk in public about stuff like this, probably the most basic thing you should know about this story is whether the Islamists that took over are Sunni or Shiite. And I don't really know. I'm seeing somebody say Sunni in the comments. That was my guess. So and I'm seeing somebody say Turkey. So you think Turkey was supporting the Sunni-led rebels? Does that make sense? Maybe. I don't know.

So we'll find out. I don't know if any of this is going to affect us but it might affect Russia and Iran quite a bit.

Meanwhile, as you know, President-elect Trump was over there at the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral and he was hanging out with Macron and had a handshake competition which we think he won. Did you see how radically Trump and Macron tried to shake hands? If you haven't seen the videos, Trump does the elbow up thing where he takes advantage of his height and his size to shake your hand in a way that makes you feel like you're an idiot and he's your daddy.

I used to think maybe it's just a habit and it's not really intentional, but now I'm pretty sure it's intentional. I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line he realized that if he wins the handshake then he wins everything. So he goes into it with this completely unnatural handshake and grabs him and they're wrestling over the handshake for like five minutes. Anyway, that was fun.

And Zelensky was there. So they took a photo with Trump, Macron, and Zelensky. And if you haven't seen it, it looks like a lesson in backwards evolution. Because if you start from the right of the picture, there's Zelensky who's the shortest of the three and he's just wearing a t-shirt and fatigues. Then there's Macron who's a little bit taller, a little bit better looking, and he's well dressed in a nice suit but it's a boring kind of ordinary business suit.

And then there's Trump who's got this shining golden hair. He's taller and he's got a golden necktie on. And it just looks like a backwards evolution lesson.

Anyway, here's what I find the most interesting about the whole thing. There was something missing from the coverage of that story. Something really, really big that should have been there that wasn't there. And if you didn't notice it, you'll notice it as soon as I mention it. Is it my imagination or were the Democrat leaders and even the voters, were they all perfectly okay with Trump acting like the sitting president two months before he is?

Did that really happen? Now how is it possible that Democrat leadership is not using this as just another reason to complain? Because they like to say, oh he's such a dictator. He's already taking over. Like we don't have to wonder if he'll try to stay a fourth term because he's already taking over. Like his dictatorial impulses are so strong that he can't even wait two months. He's already acting like a dictator, taking over the country.

Don't you think that you should be hearing that by now? Don't you think every prominent Democrat should at least be softening up the room with the idea, oh you know that's pretty dictatorial. It's just what we warned you about. That if you give him any chance to grab power, well you can see he's doing it right now. Look at him grabbing all that power and pretending he's the president before he is.

There's none of that. There's not even a little bit of it. How is that possible? I mean really, how is that possible that Democrats just stopped criticizing Trump? But they stopped when he's doing the thing that's most in the middle of their sweet spot of their primary messaging against him, which is the dictator stuff. That's when they decide to stop, when he acts exactly like their stereotype. Something's missing.

So here are a couple possibilities. One, common sense has broken out in the country. That's a possibility. It could explain the whole thing. It could be that just common sense broke out and the Democrats are saying, okay we know our guy can't do it. It's better if we have somebody over there and you know it's only two months and he got elected. It's no big deal.

It could be that. It could be just widespread common sense. But we've never had widespread common sense before. Is something really changing that much? Well maybe. Yes.

So another news bit today is that Jon Stewart in a little podcast was talking to Bernie Sanders and he was saying that it's frustrating because when the Democrats agree with something that's just sort of common sense they get piled on by their own team. So if they say, huh, maybe this DOGE thing not such a bad idea to look for waste in government, something that literally everybody agrees with, but apparently Jon Stewart says that the left will jump on him if he gives them any sunlight and just says, you know let's see what happens. And he gets attacked.

Bernie was saying the same thing on some other topic that basically just a couple of common sense things. Oh, food processing. Yeah. So if Bernie and Jon Stewart both agree that RFK Jr. has at least a good point that our processed foods are dangerous, they can't even agree with that common sensical obvious statement because their own side will attack them.

Now that's happening today at the same time as I'm telling you the story about no attack whatsoever on Trump for acting like a dictator and taking over before he's legally the president. So doesn't it feel like there's no legitimate way that Democrats could not be criticizing Trump when they have such an open free pass to do it? There's no reason not to, is there?

So I worry that they have some other plan. You know what I mean? Like I worry that they're not worried that Trump will be president. Like do they know something I don't know? Do they have some secret plan that's the only thing that matters to them so they don't really need to criticize him because they figure they have a way to take him out? I sure hope not.

But would you agree there's something just missing in the story? The criticism is just missing.

Anyway, it does seem to me that Trump is doing a hell of a good job. I've never really seen anything quite like it. And I think maybe the country is responding to somebody who is unambiguously trying to help. Like he's clearly on America's side. I think everybody sees it now. And he's clearly trying to fill in for President Biden.

And by the way, here's something else that's missing. You know that Trump could be crapping on Biden right now and saying hey he's not even doing his job. But did you notice he's not? Notice that now. It could be he's just being a good winner. Like he doesn't want to be a poor sport because he did win the election so he doesn't need to dump on Biden. It just wouldn't be a good look maybe.

But you think that his normal personalit