FiveStack with Dean Blundell & Zev Shalev

By D. Blundell and Z.Shalev

The Top 5 stories of the moment with Canada's #1 Shock Jock Dean Blundell and Former CBS News executive producer Zev Shalev.

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The podcast currently has 303 episodes available.

Best of FiveStack with Dean Blundell & Zev Shalev

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: FiveStack: Carney Kills the Trade Deal His Team Calls Annexation
Today’s FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — FiveStack viewers get 40% off their Vantage plan. 5️⃣ Carney Walks Out, and Canada Starts Fighting Back Trump’s negotiators handed Ottawa a replacement draft on Friday night, hours before the deadline, and Mark Carney walked. Dean Blundell, who has sources on the Canadian side, read out the demands: an American veto over Canada’s deals with anyone else, price caps and first refusal on its critical minerals, Quebec’s French-language protections eliminated, and Washington deciding how much Canadian energy it takes before anyone else gets a drop. Mark Wiseman, Canada’s ambassador in Washington, had one description for it. “This is an annexation document,” Dean quoted him. “There’s no other way to put it.” Nobody could sign that, so Trump sank his own deal, then spent the weekend blaming Ottawa for last-minute demands. Fifty percent tariffs on about twenty billion US dollars of Canadian goods landed Saturday. Carney matched them dollar for dollar from September 8, called EU leaders, and sits on $460 billion of American debt he can sell whenever he likes. Canada is also the blindspot at Ground News. FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — Get 40% off their Vantage plan. 4️⃣ Points at Trump’s Human Printer Jon Ossoff noticed how much time Natalie Harp spends beside the president, said so, and Washington started asking who she is. Harp carries a printer for Trump and hands him what she finds online, which means she decides a fair share of what he believes. When Trump slipped out of Turkey on a catering truck last week, she is the aide he took. She came out of One America News, and she spent January 6th posting for him more than a hundred and fifty times, CNN reported over the weekend. Harp screens what reaches the president, which is exactly the access any foreign service would pay for. 3️⃣ Leonard Publishes All Thirty-Seven Pages Ellie Leonard verified and published the full set — thirty-seven handwritten pages of FBI notes, not the twenty-two she put out five days ago. Todd Blanche has told a federal judge those pages cannot come out. They had in fact been sitting in the open since March, when a Washington Examiner reporter posted them to a public document site and never wrote a word about them. The FBI interviewed Jane Doe 4 four times. Blanche released the one interview in which Donald Trump’s name never appears and withholds the three in which it does. Katie Phang is suing for them, and Blanche’s answer is due August 27. The allegations describe the abuse of a girl aged thirteen to fifteen; nobody has corroborated them, Trump denies them, and no prosecutor has charged him. She is in hiding and, Dean said, still terrified. Bill Barr ran the Justice Department through every one of those months, and Trump sat in the White House — the same months Narativ published The Secret Life of Jeffrey Epstein. A cover-up at the arrest, another at the death, and now a third. 2️⃣ Trump Explains to Cohen Why He’s Talking to Him Michael Cohen put Trump on his Sunday radio show and let the president write his script for him. “You told stories in order to get out of trouble,” Trump told him. “And you thought about it and you recanted your testimony. And most people don’t have the guts to do that.” Cohen has recanted nothing. He does have a clemency application sitting at the White House, and Trump signs those. “It was like watching someone beat a dog into heeling that he already beat,” Dean said, before apologising to his audience for ever having worked with him. 1️⃣ Bessent Declares Economic War on Iran Scott Bessent stood at a Treasury podium and declared economic war on Iran — its oil, its economy, and sanctions on anyone anywhere still trading with it. He would not say which leaders Trump has been calling or what he asked them for. “We’ve already seen some results,” Bessent said, and, “we do not have infinite patience here.” Bessent is threatening China, which takes no instruction from Washington and answers sanctions with sanctions. Isolate Iran’s remaining partners and China collects them. Bessent brought a press release to a war, and Americans pay for it at the pump. Dean caught the timing. Trump picked his fight with Canada in the week the thirty-seven pages came out, and it is taking every minute of network airtime. Americans vote in seventy-one days. Thank you Lev Parnas, LC - Silence is Complicity, Caro Henry, Cathy R. Payne, Courtney M 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dean Blundell! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narativ.org/subscribe
August 24, 20261h 1min
Number 2: FiveStack LIVE: Gloria Steinem, Super-AI, Leon Black Sues Congress, Lutnick Wants Canada’s Break Up, USPS defies Judge
5️⃣ Gloria Steinem, 1934–2026 Gloria Steinem died Wednesday at her home in New York, at 92, and Zev opened on what she actually invented: an arithmetic. People outnumbered on their own stop being outnumbered together. He first met the idea in a Sociology 101 lecture hall in South Africa, where it became scaffolding for a new constitution — and the reason that country wrote women’s rights and gay rights into law while others did not. Dana DuBois, who stepped out of her workday for the top of the show, said she had never known a world without Steinem’s influence, and called losing her nine days after Dolly Parton a devastating doubleheader. Ellie Leonard went to the 1963 Playboy Club exposé — Steinem in the costume, taking notes, later describing the operation as one run by an eight-year-old child. 4️⃣ Sanders Moves to Ban the AI the Pentagon Buys Bernie Sanders and Congressman Greg Casar called for an outright ban on artificial superintelligence, with a corporate death penalty for any company that builds it. Zev broke with them. Ban it here and the work moves rather than stops — the other side builds it anyway, and America loses both the race and any say in taming it. What July’s OpenAI breach argues for is regulation: safety vetted before a product ships, harms monitored after. Leonard, who lost her own job to the technology, took it to ground level. No person sits behind the report button any more when someone is threatened online, only an algorithm hunting keywords. 3️⃣ Leon Black Sues Congress, Then Skips His Deposition Leon Black asked a federal judge to stop the House Oversight Committee enforcing two subpoenas, then failed to appear for the deposition they demanded. Leonard walked the sequence: Black was offered a voluntary interview, not under oath, walked out of it, and got subpoenaed twice — once for sworn testimony, once for the nondisclosure agreements he insists have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. He says he is protecting women’s privacy. Zev put the $158 million in context. Epstein was no accountant; he ran an art scheme through a trust, moving works between entities Black controlled to dodge tax under a loophole since closed. The pattern runs deeper. Black sat inside the firm that helped blow up 1987, then bought the wreckage cheap and built Apollo from it — an insider on both sides of the collapse, the same shape as 2008. 2️⃣ Lutnick Campaigns for Canada’s Breakup No American cabinet secretary has done what Howard Lutnick did this week: campaign in public for a neighbouring country to come apart. He blamed Mark Carney for trade talks his own last-minute demands killed, then told Ontario on television it does not measure up as a fifty-first state — while the State Department heard out the Albertans who want to leave. Trump followed on Truth Social, promising Carney’s economy would collapse. Reverse it, Zev noted, and there would be war. Canada is meanwhile growing on new partners in Europe and Asia, and the tariffs land on American buyers. 1️⃣ A Whistleblower Says the Postal Service Kept Building Judge Indira Talwani has not ruled on the Postal Service’s mail-ballot screening system, and the show went to air without her decision. What did land is worse: a whistleblower says USPS kept building the voter portal after the court ordered it stopped, and the site may appear within days. Members of Congress want closed-door hearings. Set that beside ICE offering $5 million for a file of every American voter’s name, address and voting history. The file does not have to be accurate to work — Leonard described neighbours with passports and visas in order who now walk their documented children to school holding papers, and who will think twice about a polling place. Her advice for November: vote early, and confirm the ballot arrived. Thank you Dani Smart, Cat: Poli-Psych, LC - Silence is Complicity, Caro Henry, PsychiatRick, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ellie Leonard and Dana DuBois! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narativ.org/subscribe
September 03, 202658min
Number 3: FiveStack: Parnas Says Trump Wants Obama Indicted Before The Midterms
Lev Parnas told The Fivestack his sources expect indictments in two to three weeks, an October surprise before the midterms, and that Trump is adamant he wants Barack Obama charged with conspiracy, with Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Miles Taylor. Parnas says the Ratcliffe and Kash Patel Moscow trips feed the material: “Which I wouldn’t call evidence. I would call misinformation.” Dean is currently on assignment in Europe 5️⃣ Lake Ontario Doug Burgum, at Interior, says Trump is pressuring Apple to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America”; Google switched it on American phones over the weekend. Parnas typed it into his phone live on air and got back Lake America. What Trump is really after is in the order: the cooling water, the drinking water, the Welland Canal trade route, and behind it the Arctic. 4️⃣ Welker, the FCC, and a letter Trump asked the Federal Communications Commission to rebuke or punish NBC’s Kristen Welker for calling his endorsement record mixed. NBC had counted it eleven days earlier: 67 wins, six losses. “That’s not how dictators work. They need to go after the top, because if they shut down the top, the bottom fall,” Parnas said. He also said CNN cut him off last week when he mentioned Trump, Cohen and the Epstein files. “Even like yourself, that are being threatened by Melania for writing a true story,” Parnas said. Melania Trump’s lawyers sent Narativ a demand letter over its Amanda Ungaro reporting. Trial means discovery. The letter is aimed less at a courtroom than at every other newsroom, warning them off a story that is accurate, with more to come. 3️⃣ Venezuela Trump announced the biggest oil deal in history on Truth Social Friday, then “a Gift from Venezuela” Sunday. The desk searched the White House, State, the Federal Register, Energy. No paperwork. Alejandro Betancourt López is assembling it. Switzerland has him under investigation — not charged, not prosecuted. Todd Blanche asked the Swiss for leniency before taking over the Justice Department. “I know Alejandro and his family very well,” Parnas said. 2️⃣ Dark money The New York Times counted at least $1 billion in midterm spending with hidden donors, and calls that a floor. Sixty-four days out. “When you talk about dark money, when you talk about super PAC money, the same money goes to both sides,” Parnas said. It reaches low-polling Democrats in tight districts who can split a vote. Name a donor. Nobody can. 1️⃣ The Pentagon Hegseth ordered forces held in place for a longer war with Iran. Three combatant commands — European, Pacific and Southern — and the Navy’s top admiral filed a non-concur: they disagreed, and said they would follow the order anyway. Sean Parnell, hunting the leaker, called publication a crime while writing in the same post that “non-concurs are standard.” A community note on X cited the Pentagon Papers ruling. “It’s going after the whistleblowers... the people trying to warn our country,” Parnas said. Trump posted an AI video of Kharg Island “blown to smithereens,” a place never struck. Reuters ran it through detection software: most likely synthetic. JD Vance, on camera, did not deny it was fake. Thank you LC - Silence is Complicity, Peter W Shuster, Grace Alexandra Hayden, Skutt Hope, Truthsayer, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lev Parnas! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narativ.org/subscribe
August 31, 20261h 14min
Number 4: FIVESTACK: TRUMP RENAMES LAKE ONTARIO, THEN FOLDS ON TRADE
Today’s FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — FiveStack viewers get 40% off their Vantage plan. He signed the order on camera. His negotiators gave up the demands the same morning, in the room where the money actually moves. 5. LAKE AMERICA Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” effective immediately, with Doug Burgum beside him. “All it takes is a good pen and some intelligence,” he said. Fifty-seven percent of that lake is in Canada. “They want to be treated like a state, but they’re not a state,” he said. His negotiators folded the same morning, in the room where the money actually moves: they dropped the demands over how Canadian platforms rank and label American content, Dominic LeBlanc thanked them and asked for more, and Canada gave up nothing. Howard Lutnick denied ever raising the French language: “If you think I ever said the words French.” Dean Blundell, who broke the withdrawal at 10:28, expects Ottawa to cancel its F-35 order next week. Canada is the number one export market for 27 states, six of them swing states — Michigan 39 percent of everything it exports, Wisconsin 31, then Pennsylvania, Georgia, Minnesota and North Carolina. Two years ago it was 36. 4. TWO THEATRES, ONE EMPTY MAGAZINE John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow to tell the Russians not to attack NATO, and Sergei Naryshkin, Putin’s foreign intelligence chief, confirmed the meeting himself on Russian state television at 6:31 Thursday morning — hours before any American official said a word. AP and Reuters then reported American Patriot interceptor stocks in Europe are “beyond critical,” burned through in the Iran war. Ratcliffe delivered his warning the same day his own government called the magazine empty. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration counted 244 Chinese vessels around the island in July, a third straight record month. No exercise, no drill, nobody announced it. Romania’s president Nicușor Dan condemned Russian drones over his own gas field on 20 August. Naryshkin counts interceptors too. 3. THE BLINDSPOT: ZELENSKYY WORKS THE SENATE Volodymyr Zelenskyy lobbied senators directly on the Russia sanctions bill — the act named for Lindsey Graham, who died in July — and Ground News reported at 12:06 Thursday afternoon that it helped shake the bill loose. Fifty-three percent of the coverage came from the left, 47 percent from the centre, and from the right, nothing. Not thin. Zero. The editors who spiked Zelenskyy working the Senate are the editors who spiked the CIA director in Moscow. Zev goes back to Ground News as stories break to see where the coverage comes from — on some stories nothing comes from one side at all. Ground News gives you the split and the sources, 40% off at groundnews.com/fivestack. 2. OSSOFF GIVES COLLINS A DEADLINE Jon Ossoff stood in Macon on Thursday morning and gave Mike Collins until the afternoon to answer for Preston Parra, who worked for him and posted a swastika, “White Power,” racial slurs and an image of himself in Klan robes. Parra says he made that image with Grok, the AI generator. It is not a photograph. Collins’s leadership PAC paid Parra $7,700; the watchdog’s own report puts the pay at $10,288.44, twice the figure the Washington Post reported. “It is the year 2026 in the state of Georgia. It’s not 1935. It’s not 1958,” Ossoff said. Collins leaves the House at noon on January 3, 2027, win or lose, and House Ethics loses jurisdiction the same minute. He only has to last until January. 1. BANK OF AMERICA PAYS $72.5 MILLION Judge Jed Rakoff approved Bank of America’s $72.5 million settlement with Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers at 12:42 Thursday afternoon, clearing the way to pay roughly 90 women. Six outlets had touched it by air time. House Oversight released 201 pages of Jes Staley’s closed-door interview the same week. Asked flatly whether he shared JPMorgan’s confidential information with Epstein, Staley answered “Yes.” Page 175: “I’ve got the right to use confidential information where I think it’s appropriate.” Page 179, asked whether he regretted any of it: “No.” Second bank, second check, and no individual has ever been charged. Shareholders write it, the executives keep their money, and the accusers get a settlement instead of a defendant. Today’s FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — FiveStack viewers get 40% off their Vantage plan. Thank you Uncomfortable Truth by Monica, LC - Silence is Complicity, LeftieProf, J'Net, Lori Modafferi, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dean Blundell! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narativ.org/subscribe
August 27, 202648min
Number 5: Canada Answers Trump With $27.6 Billion and a Lake Called Epstein, RIP Dolly, Ratcliffe in Moscow, and So Long Darlene?
Today’s FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — FiveStack viewers get 40% off their Vantage plan. 5️⃣ Dolly Parton Dies at 80 Dolly Parton died at 80. Her family announced it on her own verified accounts, in a video her nephew Bryan Seaver recorded years ago at her request. “Sadness lies with us, not with Dolly,” Seaver said in that announcement. The family released no cause. Zev met her once on the Oprah set, where she sang “Islands in the Stream” with Kenny Rogers. Blundell counted what she did with the money: Dollywood turned not-for-profit, 300 million books mailed to kids who had none. 4️⃣ Ratcliffe Flies to Moscow and Tells Nobody Why John Ratcliffe landed in Moscow. No announcement, no readout, no press pool — the trip surfaced only because trackers followed a U.S. military plane in. Blundell said it was a C-17. Zev granted the obvious: CIA directors run these missions — Ratcliffe’s last took him to Cuba to tell Havana it was on the list. Moscow is not Havana. Trump’s presidency runs on Russia, Zev said. 3️⃣ DHS Admits the Voter-Fraud Numbers Were Inflated NPR reported at 2:15 p.m. that the Department of Homeland Security admitted the non-citizen voter-roll figures it had been touting were inflated, on an audio call with a Nevada official. The Supreme Court handed the administration a preliminary win on the new mail-ballot order a day earlier, on numbers DHS now concedes were wrong. Blundell asked why nine justices can’t fact-check what two broadcasters check every afternoon. 2️⃣ Graham’s Sister Faces South Carolina Darline Graham Nordone, sister of the late Lindsey Graham, carried Trump’s endorsement and, by Blundell’s count, $830,000 of his money into Tuesday’s South Carolina vote. Blundell said she answered a foreign-policy question by admitting she didn’t know much, but she liked the army. Polls closed at 7 p.m., after the show. Trump bought her a floor, Blundell said, and it may not hold. 1️⃣ Canada Matches Trump, Dollar for Dollar — This Week’s Ground News Blindspot François-Philippe Champagne announced $27.6 billion in Canadian tariffs on roughly 700 American products — 50, 25 and 15 percent, matching Trump rate for rate, effective September 8. Energy and potash stay off the list. Mark Carney did not attend. Champagne paired them with a $7.5 billion support package: $3 million non-repayable grants, $2 million interest-free loans. Dean Blundell named the contrast: Trump has never once offered a package to the people his tariffs hurt. “This is war,” Blundell said, and aimed it carefully — not at Americans, at the Trump regime. Trump spent the day on Truth Social professing his love for French Canadians, calling Carney weak and ineffective, and floating a rename of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.” Blundell countered with Lake Michigan: call it Lake Epstein, “because we don’t do business with pedophiles either.” Zev took it past the trade math — Putin wants the Arctic passage, and a compliant Canada hands it to him. And the American right is not covering any of it: Ground News scores the story 65 percent left, 35 percent centre, zero percent right, at 100 percent high factuality. The bill lands on American buyers on September 8, and half the country meets it with no warning, because the outlets their voters trust won’t call a trade war news until the checkout counter does. Today’s FiveStack is brought to you by GroundNews — FiveStack viewers get 40% off their Vantage plan. Ground News lets you see what both sides cover — and hide. 40% off at groundnews.com/fivestack. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narativ.org/subscribe
August 25, 20261h 1min