‘Faces of meth’: How Antifa radicalizes its foot soldiers



Antifa first rose to mainstream prominence during the summer riots of 2020. While how the group managed to recruit so many young people has remained a mystery to most Americans, domestic security expert Kyle Shideler knows its methods well.

“So as to the psychological perspective, you know, you talk about those mug shots. There’s almost, like, if you look at, over the course of 2020, there’s almost like a ‘faces of meth’ campaign,” domestic security expert Kyle Shideler tells BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez.”

“You see them at their first arrest, and they’re kind of fresh-faced and relatively normal-looking, and you see them in the next one and the next one and the next one, and by the end of it, you know, five years later, they’re unrecognizable. Clearly hard living, drugs, homelessness, and the like,” he continues.


“This is part of that affinity-group structure is to suck people in so that the group becomes their only social outlet. … So they get these masses of people out into the streets, and then the goal is to try to get them to engage in some criminal act, right, to get them to step over the line and then bring them further into the group,” he explains.

When they successfully get these college students to commit even just a small crime that could land them in jail, that’s when they organize their "jail support."

“You pay their bail. You tell them how much you care about them and how the movement’s going to take care of them. They get out of jail, and now they’re, you know, more tightly bound to the group. And that’s what we saw all through 2020,” Schideler says.

“And that’s what these things are really for,” he explains. “The large-scale mass-movement protests, from the point of view of Antifa, it's to slowly weed through and bring people further and further along into radicalization to be willing to do more and more radical things.”

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We used to need guts to sin. Now we just need wi-fi.



Once upon a time, before the digital age swept us up in a current of global access, vices like gambling, pornography, and marijuana were kept in check with what BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman argue was healthy friction.

It’s what made Mr. Johnson blush when he skulked up to the checkout counter at the local video rental with an X-rated videotape sandwiched between two rom-coms. It’s what forced hopeful gamblers to sneak into illegal card rooms at the back of sketchy bars, pockets stuffed with ATM cash withdrawn in small increments to avoid spousal skepticism. It’s what necessitated dark parking lot meetups, secret car compartments, and stashes of air fresheners and breath mints.

But today, none of those physical and social barriers exist. Want to watch an adult film? Jump online; there are millions to choose from. Interested in placing a bet? Easy: Open an app and blow $10,000 on a random ping-pong match without ever leaving the comfort of your bed. Out of weed in a state that hasn’t legalized it? No problem; there are hundreds of dispensaries that will illegally ship right to your front door.

The glowing rectangle that lives in our pocket has pulverized every obstacle that once kept vices reined in.

Keeperman laments the death of “the gray market,” where “public shame and censure” were a real obstacle for vice-seekers but not so large an obstacle that they barred them completely from indulging.

“I think that balance is sort of ideal,” he tells Rufo.

“People, unfortunately, without any of these barriers to entry, they go down these rabbit holes; they start cultivating these bad behaviors, these addictions, and it ruins their lives. And it ruins the lives of the people around them, and it's horrible for society.”

He remembers working at his town’s video rental shop as a teenager and the “cycle of shame” that commenced every time a local would sheepishly duck out of the curtained room at the back of the store with “Debbie Does Dallas” tucked covertly under his arm.

“It was like, ‘All right, man, like, cool. You're embarrassed; I'm embarrassed to be doing this.’ ... But it was good. That's how it should be,” he reminisces.

This system of shame and risk also benefited kids. Keeperman recalls the notorious male student who stole Playboy magazines from his dad’s secret stash and smuggled them to school in his backpack so he could charge his fellow delinquents $5 for a week's rental.

“It’s shameful, and if the vice principal catches you, you're screwed, man. You're in the doghouse. ... You might get suspended or get these demerits or whatever, and your mom's going to be mad at you,” he laughs.

But in all seriousness, these were real barriers that kept a lot of kids from engaging in pornography. But today, there’s no need for magazines or smuggling. All kids need to do is run a quick Google search alone in their bedrooms, and they’ll be inundated with graphic content from hundreds of sites. Addiction is all but guaranteed.

Keeperman says that while he takes all necessary precautions to prevent his children from accessing graphic content on their devices, he knows there’s only so much he can do.

“My kid's going to have a public life. He's going to have a social life that extends beyond the boundaries that we can draw for him as parents. And I can't control what the kid next door does. You just can't. And it's just too easy. It's too accessible,” he says.

Rufo says the answer to this problem of a barrier-less world is to re-create the barriers in the digital sphere.

“You have to have a digital version of the back room and the curtain, meaning you have to have ID verification, age verification,” he says.

To hear more of his theory, watch the episode above.

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AI isn’t killing writers — it’s killing mediocre writing



For years, we were warned that artificial intelligence would eventually eliminate the need for writers. In mere seconds, it would be able to crank out essays, articles, reports, blog posts, you name it, rendering flesh-and-blood writers obsolete.

Well, those days are here. AI writing floods our inboxes, social media feeds, and web pages every single day.

But it’s not quite the product we were pitched. While bots can indeed string coherent sentences together, the end result is mediocre at best. Its flat, em-dash heavy, idiosyncrasy-free, polite prose is easily recognizable to average readers, most of whom are disenchanted by the lack of human touch.

It turns out AI — beholden to algorithms and formulas — cannot counterfeit the voices of the deeply complicated, unique creatures that are human beings.

Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman, BlazeTV hosts of “Rufo & Lomez,” believe that AI writing may actually make writers more valuable — but just the ones with genuine talent.

AI is undeniably eliminating the massive class of mediocre writers. The kind of text AI produces is quickly becoming “the default sound or voice of people who don't have talent, who can't do things on their own. ... It’s becoming the default voice of stupidity,” says Keeperman.

On the flip side, “Anybody who can write at a level above [AI] now has more value.”

The pervasiveness of AI copy seems to suggest that those genuine talents are few and far between.

“I am seeing [AI writing] everywhere. I am seeing it in published books. ... Tons of ad copy even for really prominent companies that obviously have huge marketing departments [are] leaning on these sort of tripartite adjectival phrases. ... There’s all these sort of syntactical signals that are giveaways,” says Keeperman, “but it's also making me attuned to people who can write really well, and I find myself gravitating towards those people.”

But that doesn’t mean writers can’t use AI to their advantage. It is an excellent tool for “research,” “aggregating a lot of information,” “analysis,” and “brainstorming,” Keeperman adds.

Rufo agrees. “Terrible writing, [but] it’s good for discovery. ... I think for certain tasks, it's better than a Google search or a search engine search.”

For someone like him, who conducts large-scale research, AI can expedite the process of sifting through hundreds of pages of PDFs, but it’s not fail-proof.

AI is “maybe comparable to an undergraduate research assistant but ... an unreliable [one],” says Rufo.

“You double-check the work, and you realize that the AI makes up 30% of the things that it's telling you.”

“It seems like something that has huge potential, but I just see it slowing down in its improvement. I see it still having some fundamental flaws that would prevent it from being a trustworthy object of delegation,” he says.

“I remain extremely skeptical of the AI doomers or AI fatalists who think that this is going to take over the world and the machines are going to be controlling everything. It's like it can't even format citations. I think we're a long ways away from the AI taking over the world.”

To hear more, watch the episode above

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Debate: Can JD Vance become the right’s great unifier — or does his VP role stand in the way?



The young conservative movement is experiencing a notable leadership gap amid ongoing chaos in the online right-wing space. Sure, there are passionate influencers and rising political voices, but no one has fully stepped up to unify and guide the broader coalition with a commanding presence.

One person investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo thinks might be able to step into the role, however, is Vice President JD Vance. But Rufo’s co-host Jonathan Keeperman isn’t sure Vance is up for the job either.

In this episode of “Rufo & Lomez,” the hosts debate whether JD Vance can step up as the unifying leader the conservative movement needs amid escalating chaos.

“I've been so far a bit surprised that the vice president hasn't tried to step into this role,” says Rufo, arguing that Vance has both the “charisma” and the “authority” to effectively lead the movement.

“I’ve known JD over the years. ... It does feel like he has some hesitation or maybe even some fear,” he adds.

While Keeperman agrees that Vance “has all of the tools and charisma and ... the right talking points” to be an excellent leader, his role as the vice president would actually be a hindrance.

“I don't think JD Vance should actually do that in his vice presidential position. Not right now. I think it'd be a bit presumptuous. I think people might kind of see it as him stepping in to sort of correct a situation that I think needs to just happen organically,” he counters.

For one, Vance’s position prohibits him from “[speaking] candidly about the administration.”

“Whoever is going to step into this role has to feel credible to this audience, and part of that credibility is going to come from just speaking honestly about all of these different things happening in this ecosystem — whether it's the different personalities, the ideas, the sort of ideology that's animating Trump but also the specific actions that the Trump administration is taking,” Keeperman explains.

In other words, the kind of leader people will follow needs to be an outsider who can speak brutal truths about the current administration, and Vance, as Trump’s right-hand man, can’t be that person.

Secondly, President Trump is still the top dog, Keeperman explains. For his VP to assume the authority of this role as the leader of the conservative movement “might not sit well inside of this coalition.”

“Maybe you're right,” Rufo concedes. “We need some sort of native figure to step up in the same way that Charlie Kirk did, in the same way that Tucker had done.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

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How Minnesota proved blood is thicker than common sense



Traditionally, immigrants adopt the customs and culture of the natives whose country they have moved into. But as we know, progressives have flipped the script. In their warped worldview, the natives must devolve for the sake of the newcomers in the name of “tolerance and inclusivity.”

Minnesota is the perfect exhibit. After Christopher Rufo’s reporting exposed massive Somali-led fraud rings draining hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds, you would expect the mayor of Minneapolis to condemn the grift. Instead, Jacob Frey went full solidarity mode.

In a December 2 press conference, Frey vowed that city police and staff would refuse to cooperate with ICE and then switched to speaking in Somali to pledge his support to the community.

On the latest “Rufo & Lomez,” Christopher Rufo and co-host Jonathan Keeperman tear into Frey’s performance, dissecting what it really reveals about Minnesota.

“Our police, many of whom are Somali themselves, are trusted partners in keeping people safe. They will not collaborate with any federal agency around doing immigration enforcement work. Our city staff and our law enforcement will not ask the question as to whether an individual is documented or not,” said Frey.

“That’s not American. That's not what we are about. And we're going to do right by every single person in our cities,” he continued, before fumbling through several lines delivered in Somali.

“We love you, we stand with you, and we aren't backing down,” he concluded.

Keeperman points out the darkly comic “synchronicity” of Frey’s stance: “The Nordic populations of the upper Midwest are engaged in the exact same sort of altruistic migration experiment … that their kinfolk are engaged in still in their Scandinavian countries.”

It’s living proof of what he’s been saying all along: “You can’t just strip people of the habits and norms of the groups that they come from.”

In other words, ethnic character travels. It’s true of the Somali-Americans who brought with them the exact same clan-based fraud and grift that is rampant back in Somalia. And it’s true of Minnesotans, who, centuries after their ancestors left Scandinavia, are still running the identical open-borders generosity script — right down to importing a Somali community now accused of massive fraud — because that self-sacrificial impulse never actually left the bloodline.

But Keeperman sees zero chance that Frey or Governor Tim Walz (D) will ever recognize the self-destructive insanity of their immigration stance. “A guy like Jacob Frey or Tim Walz simply just has to lose an election. The people of Minnesota are at some point going to just have to say, ‘We're not going to do this any more.”’

Rufo isn’t hopeful that Minnesotans are anywhere near their breaking point, however.

Not only was Jacob Frey re-elected as mayor despite stories of Somali fraud circulating in the media for years, but the candidate who narrowly lost to him was Omar Fateh — a radicalized Somali Democrat socialist.

Fateh, Keeperman reminds us, “was committing fraud during the election to rig the Democratic primary in his favor.”

But because Minnesotans are ideologues when it comes to immigration — and can't bear to fully confront the mess they have invited — the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party took "the gloves off" by revoking Fateh's rigged endorsement, only to pull its punches and refuse to hammer him on the fraud because it makes people “feel too uncomfortable as white liberals in good standing,” adds Rufo.

To make matters worse, Fateh had “long-standing relationships with a number of the people who were arrested and then convicted of these fraud schemes,” he continues. “And so the fraudsters were not the downtrodden, the exiled, the marginalized. … No, these people were tightly knit with Ilhan Omar, with Omar Fateh, with Attorney General Keith Ellison.”

In sum, when Jacob Frey is “the least bad option,” it’s obvious Minnesota is nowhere near ready to address its immigration problem.

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THIS is why Trump should send Alejandro Mayorkas to PRISON​



During President Trump' s first term, Americans were forced to wake up and realize that immigration was a serious problem — and that we were losing who we were and what we stand for as a country.

“And then Biden gets in, who’s this — he’s not even a person. He’s this just sort of like empty vessel ... and what they do immediately with him is not just like turn the immigration spigot back on, it’s supercharged,” BlazeTV host Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman tells co-host Christopher Rufo on “Rufo & Lomez.”

“OK, we get in Biden’s four years, the equivalent of 12 years of immigration. The preceding 12 years combined ends up equaling what Biden does — another like eight million illegal immigrants,” Lomez says.


“Millions of these get away, they’re not even processing people at the border. ... Alejandro Mayorkas just decides unilaterally, we’re going to start taking in people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people basically flying illegal immigrants, paying to fly illegal immigrants into the country to be resettled by these refugee programs,” he continues.

“They’re getting hundreds of millions of dollars from DHS to do this. You have hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors, OK? We’re just taking in the world. We’re taking in the entire world.”

“And when I say we, I mean Alejandro Mayorkas, who should frankly be in jail and tried for sedition,” he adds.

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New York Times admits massive fraud under Tim Walz



BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo and his co-author have broken a story on the rampant fraud within Minnesota’s social services system — and now even the New York Times is reporting on what has gone down on the governor’s watch.

“This is fascinating,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says. “Why would they be doing this? ... Why would Tim Walz be the target of an actual investigation by the New York Times?”

In the New York Times article, titled, “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch,” the outlet writes, “Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in the pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.”

“These are the types of things that we always tell you are going to happen when they set these programs up. They always do happen, and no one cares,” Burguiere says.


“Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections,” the article reports.

Burguiere isn’t surprised in the slightest.

“It’s weird — when you just give away a bunch of free money, a lot of people who want free money show up. That happens all the time. It’s what we say about the border. It’s what we say about all sorts of different communities that are able to access this cash,” he says.

And according to the Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary, Walz was aware of the fraud well before he began taking action to stop it.

“Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the account wrote in a post on X.

And according to the White House, the Trump administration is now “terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, indefinitely halting migration from third-world countries, re-examining green cards for every alien from every country of concern, pausing all asylum decisions, and more.”

“I’m sure there are many wonderful examples that escaped a civil war and have done great things,” Burguiere comments regarding Somali citizens. “That being said, a lot of these people are not examples of that situation, and we need to do something about that, not ignore it because we feel bad to call people names because we’re worried they might think we’re racists.”

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Why Trump just revoked TPS for Somalis: The Rufo report that changed policy overnight



On November 19, investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo, alongside reporter Ryan Thorpe, broke a story that went instantly viral, rapidly spreading across conservative media, social platforms, and mainstream outlets.

Titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” the article peels back the layers and connects the dots of yearslong federal investigations into large-scale fraud involving members of Minnesota’s Somali-American community.

“The basic story is this: Over the last 10 years, Minnesota's Somali community — it's about 100,000 people, mostly in Minneapolis, a neighborhood called Little Mogadishu for obvious reasons — has been, you know, conducting fraud at an eye-popping scale,” Rufo explained on a recent episode of “Rufo & Lomez.”

“We're talking about billions of dollars ... that are getting sucked out of taxpayer programs, routed through various fake NGOs into the pockets of Somalis in Minnesota,” he added.

According to Rufo’s reporting, a web of interconnected schemes, enabled by lax oversight under Gov. Tim Walz's administration and Minnesota's generous welfare system, allows these Somali immigrants to exploit various government programs, especially those intended to serve low-income and immigrant families, like Medicaid, child food programs, and food stamps/SNAP.

While the feds have long known about these fraud schemes and have even been able to recover some of the funds and secure convictions, their investigations have been focused strictly on the theft and laundering.

Rufo, however, was the first to ask the question: But where is the money going? His bombshell piece revealed the answer: Much of it is allegedly going back to Somalia, specifically into the hands of Al-Shabaab — a designated terrorist group.

“The other kind of dirty secret of this story is that the Minnesota state government, the Democrats who are in charge, Tim Walz and others, have effectively turned a blind eye to this because they don't want to offend the Somalis. They don't want to earn the accusation of racism with the Somali activists who’re very, very ready and very eager to deploy, and they feel that they need the Somali vote in Minneapolis to win statewide,” Rufo told co-host Jonathan Keeperman.

“So you have this cycle of corruption, payoffs, kickbacks, and political influence, and I hope that the story, which blows open this whole scheme, will have some impact.”

Rufo’s wish is already coming true. Just two days after its publication, President Trump announced the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota on Truth Social.

Rufo also hopes, however, that his reporting will spark dialogue about immigration, American identity, and how the convergence of the two should determine who we allow into our country and how we expect them to live among us.

He argues that the reigning progressive dogma when it comes to immigration — diversity is strength, all immigrants are the same, and assimilation is a byproduct of white supremacy — has opened the door for Somali clan corruption to colonize Minneapolis and build a billion-dollar fraud pipeline to fund Al-Shabaab.

“When [immigrants] go through the Visa process, it doesn't magically evaporate their former culture,” says Rufo.

“Look at dysfunction in Somalia. Look at corruption in Somalia. Look at how in Somalia money moves. Look at norms regarding theft. ... Now compare it to what's happening here [in Minnesota].”

Today “the primary source of income for Somali-Americans in Minnesota and also the primary source of income for the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization in Somalia appears to be fraudulently obtained United States taxpayer money,” he adds.

Keeperman praises Rufo’s reporting as “super important.”

He urges that “we need to be able to point to specific things to demonstrate the larger point about what Americanism is versus what it isn't and why it's important if we want to preserve America as it is — that we are bringing in people who will make America more like America and less like these other dysfunctional places they're coming from.”

To learn more, check out Rufo’s original reporting here or watch the video above.

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In defense of Karens: Do we owe America’s manager-summoning moms an apology?



Whether she’s demanding to speak to the manager, lecturing the barista, or calling the cops on a neighbor’s backyard BBQ — nobody likes a Karen. That’s why there are hundreds of thousands of internet memes aiming to mock her out of existence.

But maybe we’ve jumped the gun in villainizing America’s entitlement queens. Maybe Karens (irritating antics aside) serve a critical purpose in society.

That’s what Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman — BlazeTV hosts of “Rufo & Lomez” — argue.

“We need to mount a principled, unashamed, and unapologetic defense of the Karen archetype,” says Rufo.

The “Karen,” he explains, “is precisely the person who upholds the civic order. [She’s] the mother, the authority figure who is nosy enough and assertive enough to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You're transgressing these important pillars of our social order.”’

Keeperman, who once “wrote an impassioned defense of the Karen,” agrees: “In a society that is undergoing this decay and in which our sort of infrastructure doesn't work and basic service has been degraded ... the attack on the Karen is a way to avoid ever having to confront that these things are breaking down.”

The Karen, he argues, is one of the only ones bold enough to stand in the gap and demand order and quality in a world of chaos and low bars. Even if Karens do go about it in annoying, “hysterical [ways],” they nonetheless “demand that things work ... demand that there is a certain baseline presumption and expectation of etiquette in our public spaces” — and that, he says, is a good thing.

But not all Karens are equal. The one screaming about micro-aggressions and misgendering is not the same as the one demanding that rulebooks and protocols be followed.

The latter, says Rufo, is a “defender of civilization,” a warrior for “right and wrong,” and a lover of tradition. But this “universal tough mother” who defends what is good, right, and true unfortunately has been conflated with the “tote bag NPR Karen.”

Rule-loving, high-expectation sticklers — annoying as they can be — are the last line of defense against civilizational sloppiness. Mock them into silence and the only Karens left will be the ones policing pronouns instead of pool rules.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

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Despite terrorist designation, Antifa still runs wild — and conservatives want real action



Antifa radicals have been causing chaos throughout America for years and have finally been designated as a terrorist network by the Trump administration.

However, they’re still getting away with crimes.

“Antifa radicals in Berkeley, California, disrupted a Turning Point USA event outside of UC Berkeley, punched a conservative in the face. The conservative gets arrested,” BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo tells co-host Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez.”

“But our policy prescription is, the administration has to dismantle the left-wing terror networks, whether it’s Antifa, other organized militant groups. They have to actually get mugshots, case numbers, inmate numbers,” he continues.


“The tangible evidence that these left-wing terror networks, which are essentially saying that we can control the streets in places like Portland, we can veto peaceful conservative speech in places like Berkeley — we have to ensure that they can no longer do so and can no longer exert control through violence,” he adds.

While Rufo points out that Antifa is still out there disrupting whatever it can, Lomez notes that it was a “huge step in the right direction” that it has at least been designated as a terrorist network.

“The administration is making the right moves and/or saying the right things. What’s missing is the conspicuous action so that your average American, let alone Trump supporter, but just your average American goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t like Antifa, and the administration is doing something about it, and that’s good,’” Lomez says.

But the next step is taking the terrorist designation and doing something with it.

“Let’s just take this case at UC Berkeley, this recent event. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, released a great tweet,” Rufo says.

“Antifa is an existential threat to our nation. The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence,” Bondi wrote.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, and pursuant to his Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terror organization, the Department of Justice and our law-enforcement partners are dismantling violent networks that seek to intimidate Americans and suppress their free expression and First Amendment rights,” she added.

While Rufo is glad to see Bondi using such strong wording, he’s skeptical.

“Why hasn’t UC Berkeley been defunded? Just say, ‘Hey, we’re withholding funds until you can establish a basic environment of civil discourse,’” Rufo says.

“You have to make sure that the directive that comes from the, you know, FBI director’s office, the attorney general’s office, you have to make sure that it means something at that regional level, at that agent level,” he explains.

“And I am not convinced that the current leadership, that the current structure, the current techniques that they’re using has sufficiently done that,” he adds.

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