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Tom
Did you ever think you were made.
Pat
For me, Adam? What's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here. You are one of one.
Tom
I don't think I ever said this.
Pat
Okay, all right. Lots going on, folks. Lots going on. I got a whole breakdown for wealth tags that I want to talk about sometime here on the podcast. I'm sure when we get to the Seattle part, we will get to. I just blew my nose. So, anyways, what else we got going on? So we have report comes in with Trump saying he's gonna remove how many soldiers, Tom? Is it 5,000, 5,000 from Germany? Because the guy talked smack. He's like, oh, really? Yeah, really. You don't need anybody. Hey, guys, bounce, bounce. Mishmala Mahasakin. That's right. Then Project Freedom was. I don't know what you just said, Tom, right there. Project Freedom.
Adam
Tom's German.
Tom
I said get out in German.
Pat
Yeah. Project Freedom was just announced.
Adam
He knows that.
Pat
Project Freedom was just announced from Trump in regards to Rob. This is the one with Strait of Hormuz, where they're escorting the ships out and telling them where not to go, where the mines are at. Right. And Iran is saying that's breaking the ceasefire. And Iran saying. They suggested they had 14 points that they asked for. I believe the administration said no to seven or eight points, but nobody knows what the 14 points are because they're not public. But Operation Project Freedom United led military operation by multinational coalition formed just now to respond to Iranian attacks on shipping in Strait of Hormuza. They're trying to find a way to get ships across. We'll talk about that. Couple other things in regard. The Daily Wire. Rumors has it a story came out that they fired. What's the number?
Vinny
60%.
Pat
60% of people that were let go. And the editor in chief is like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. That's not the number. We'll address that. On what's going on there. Cuba, Trump. Trump coming out. Hey, Rubio is going to be leading this. They extended the sanctions to make it clear on what's going to be happening there. Nick Shirley literally just got back from Cuba himself. He was saying that they don't even have gas. If you want to go buy gas, $40 a gallon. If you want to buy. I don't know what the number.
Adam
You have to get in line.
Pat
You have to get in line to even just get the opportunity to buy the gas. Yes. And so that's that part. And then aside from that, Tucker did an interview with. What do you call it?
Adam
It was a New York Times.
Pat
New York Times interview with Tucker. He said a few things that were welcome to talk about. Yes. Spirit Airlines letting go. What's the number, Rob? 17,000 people. Done. You know, and you go back and find clips of what Garland said many years ago, the doj, on the positions they took with Spirit Airlines, the things Elizabeth Warren said. Now she wants to blame gas prices for the shutdown instead of what's going on. Duffy came out and talked about it himself on what happened. I think Besson even made some comments. We'll play those clips. Yeah. 15, 16, 17,000 jobs lost. Boom. Airline giant gone. And you know who this was beneficial for? Lower and middle income families who were traveling because their flights were. If you've ever been on a Spirit airline, you know, the greatest customer service you will find in your life. If you've ever been on it. Have you ever been on Spirit?
Vinny
Yeah. My question is, where are all those angry women going to go? Like, where are they going to go Work now yelling at you. That bag 25 called the DMV. Yeah. Okay.
Pat
Yeah, you're actually good.
Vinny
It was gangster, Pat. They would yell at you. Oh my God.
Pat
Qualified dmv.
Vinny
Put that in that fitter bag.
Adam
Make sure it fits.
Pat
Put the. Rob, put that clip of what happens at Spirit Airlines. I don't know if you saw the highlight reel. All the fights that happens with employees.
Vinny
I love it.
Pat
We have to show that clip. Aside from that, we got a couple other things. California's population plummets for the first time since the pandemic as LA sees extraordinary exodus that has taken place. So not only did they have an exodus during COVID this is another one that they're having. And so we'll address that. There's a federal government, you know, Congress bill that went out there. They want the minimum wage now to be not 720, not, not 10 bucks, not 15 bucks, not 20 bucks. They want it to be $25 an hour is what they want it to be for Federal. They want the minimum wage to be.
Adam
And federal right now is seven bucks.
Pat
720 is right now, I believe is what the number is. Rob, can you verify if I'm saying it correctly, I think it's seven something. Yeah, 725 right now. They want to raise that to 25 bucks an hour on where the number is. You ain't getting a raise, buddy. I'm telling you right now.
Adam
Come on, Pat.
Pat
Miracles Happen seven bucks. So. So that's that part. And then Gavin Newsom went on Bill Maher. And Bill Maher tried his best to try to help him out, man, even his best. Can you imagine? His own friend failed him, his really close friend, his own friend failed him to the point that Trump had to come out in 300 word tweet. You're talking about 300. Maybe one of those. One of those long, legendary tweets that comes out will address that. I don't know what happened with Charlemagne, but he said a couple of words that Vinnie's not happy about. Little Leonard. Leonard. Little Leonard. Little Leonard. Who is Little Leonard?
Vinny
I'll never call him. Whatever the G word his name is, Leonard.
Adam
You could just call him Charlemagne.
Pat
Is it really Little Leonard?
Vinny
No, no, I call him Little.
Adam
Why do you call him Little?
Vinny
He's just an angry little Richie.
Pat
Like Little Ricky, Little baby.
Tom
Let me just say that.
Pat
Pretty Rick, Charlotte, you're right.
Adam
Let's have.
Pat
Let's respect our Pretty Ricky. So Kentucky Derby trainer wins. The reactions the best. By the way, this is why I believe Kentucky Derby, if you've never been. You got to go greatest two minutes. In sports. This female trainer wins the first time ever. She literally is celebrating and having anxiety and panic attacks all at the same time. If you haven't seen this clip, it's phenomenal.
Tom
It's like Secretariat.
Pat
It's like secretary.
Vinny
Last place.
Pat
Yeah, last place. And then we got a couple other stories that we'll definitely try to get into, which is, you know, one of them is wilder than the other one. But we have to. We have to address some of these issues on what's going on. And so with that being said, guys, a couple things that I do want to talk to you guys about. One thing is the following. Every three to four years, we find ways to improve valuetainment. And I'm talking about with the public. So I want to hear commentary from the public. We want to get feedback on what things can happen better with PBD podcasts, what content you want to see improve in business, how to. Whatever it is that we cover, we want to get your feedback and your input. So here's what we're doing. We are creating a survey. Anybody that texts the word PBD to 310-3401132, again, text the word PBD to 310-340-1132. You will automatically get a survey to do. And I think the survey is, you know, a couple basic questions to ask about everybody here. About what things can happen better, all the things that we can improve in. And for anybody that completes the survey beginning to the end, all of it. Answers. We're given a $25 gift card to the store every. It doesn't matter if it's 50,000 people that take it or 5,000 people that take it. Everyone gets a 25 gift card to vtmerch.com go purchase whatever you want. You have 25 gift card for completing the survey. Because we want to hear from you. This thing started off Valitim started off with me doing a couple basic videos with Mario, two minutes with Pat with me and pink Socks. The first episode we ever did till today. It haunts me every time I see those pink socks, you know, and the way I'm sitting on that couch. Rob, if you want to show the first clip we ever did on valuetainment, it's. It really inspires me to know how far along we've come and all the board videos we used to do to Then starting the podcast. Yeah, if you go there, go to videos and go to the oldest, oldest. Right there. And go to that one right there. No, go to the second one. Go to the second one. Rob.
Vinny
Look at those things.
Pat
Go a little bit right. Look at the second one. Look at the way I'm sitting. Go to 40 seconds. We won't look at. Look at the way I'm sitting. Just let me see. Right there is fine. Rob. Okay, you have Chinese. I mean, it's like horrible, right?
Vinny
What is that?
Pat
That's the first video ever. That's Woodland hills.
Vinny
I mean imag 2013.
Pat
Go look it up. I think it's 2013, whatever it is.
Vinny
When I wrote a book out there.
Pat
So now PBD podcast where it's at. So it wouldn't happen without you. Everywhere I go and I run into people and we talk and we have different stories that we discuss. It's always great, the relationship that we have together for those guys that tune in. So it would mean a lot to us. If you can go do the survey again, text the word PBD to 310-34-01132 and we'll send the link for you to do the survey. Or Rob, what is the link that they can go to? Do you have the link?
Adam
I do.
Tom
It is survey.vt.com can you also put
Pat
that in the comment section, in the chat, in the description, everywhere, so people can go do it? Yep, we can. We going to thank you, Jake, for that as well. The voice of God.
Vinny
Thank you.
Pat
We will make sure to read every single one of the piece of feedback you put because we want to hear from you. And by the way, you may say, who am I? You guys don't need to. We want to hear from everybody. From the guy that is a CEO of a Fortune, you know, 100 company that watches a podcast regularly and messages me to the person that watches you, the family or farmer. You're somebody that's just tuning in. You like the style. We want to hear from you. Please go to survey VT.com and complete the survey. You'll get a $25 gift card for doing this. With that being said, let's get right into it. So out of all the stories that we have going on, I'm trying to see which one to start off with. I say we go, Rob, with the first one being Project Freedom. So Project Freedom is something that was just dropped this morning. And Tom, I'm going to come to you first on this one here. Rob, what page is Project Freedom on? This is the whole story about them helping ships go through. Okay, and they're escorting these things to make sure you don't hit a mine. Iran is not happy about it because that's saying that's breaking the ceasefire. Nobody knows yet who the $2 million is going to with Project Ceasefire. Rob, if you want to go to the president's tweet first and then I'll go into this clip. Countries from all over the world, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle east disputes, are going on so visibly and violently for all to see, have asked the US if we could help free up their ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with. They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders for the good of Iran, the Middle east and the United States. We have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of their restricted waterways so that they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are ships from areas of the world that are not in any way involved with which is currently taking place in the Middle East. I've told my representative to inform that they we will use best effort to get their ships and cruelly cruise safely out of the strait in all cases. They said they will not be returning until the area is becoming safe for navigation and everything else. This process, Project Freedom, will begin Monday morning. Middle East Tom, I am fully aware that my representative are having their very positive discussions with the country of Iran and that these discussions could lead to Something very positive for all. The ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies and countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong. They are victims of circumstances. This is a humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern countries, in particular the country of Iran. Many of these ships are running low on food and many of these ships are running low on food and are necessary for large scale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner. I think could go a long way in showing goodwill on behalf of all those who have been fighting so strenuously over the last number of months. So, Tom, why is this such a big deal?
Tom
This is a big deal for a couple reasons. The first reason it's a big deal is because it allows things to start moving through the Gulf. And additionally, that last comment there was real. Some of these people have been on ships for a while. The ships are low on food, fresh water, they've had some replenishment. But the point is it's been problematic. You know, they haven't been able to pull over to Costco and fill up on the, on the regular provisions. And so number one, you gotta get some cargo moving through the Gulf, which is good. And number two, it shows that the US has been effective. Why is Iran saying, pat, oh, you're violating deceased fire when. No, when no shots have been fired. Why are they saying that? Because this is not what they wanted. And over the last three weeks, US minesweepers have been going on what's called the original southern lanes. Do I have a map up there, Rob? The original southern lanes were the ones that were right close to Oman, uae, very, very close on the tip. It's the map we've had for the. There you go. So you can see here, the map you see there, Pat, you have the ones that were closest to Oman and Kasab, those were the original lanes and those are the ones where Iran had put the mines. And remember they said, oh well, we dropped off some mines, we just don't, we forgot where we put where exactly. Yeah. So the US has had drones and minesweepers in the area. Remember we covered the minesweepers coming to the area along with drone subs and the drone subs go underwater and some sometimes send signals that cause some of these mines to detonate underwater and then they fall the bottom of the, of the straits. Whereas Iran wanted, wanted the mining there so they could force everybody to go up to my mispronounce those, Kesham island, that's up there where they would charge them a fee to go there. So what The US has done is kind of semi open some of the southern lanes. And what the US military, who has mapped it, is now saying, Pat, hey, you need to get your ship through the. Listen, take this path about like this. You should be good, because we've been out there sweeping for mines. Thank you very much. I'm going to go through Iran. Wait a minute, you can't do that. That violates a ceasefire. Wait a minute. What does violating a ceasefire have to do when all I'm doing is. I'm also escorting at a distance what they're doing. It's like security is really what it is, Pat. It's like security. So it's like Iran sees a US frigate shadowing a foreign tanker just trying to go through the Strait. And Iran knows that if it launches things out there that we're going to. That would be a violation of a ceasefire, that we're going to knock them out of the sky. So have a nice day. So the reason this is significant is the US has got the strait moving a little bit, and it shows that the minesweeping activity has been somewhat effective, and we're trying to get things going and we're trying to get it open. A lot of people would say it's a long time coming, it's taken longer than I would have hoped it would. But it shows that there's movement and it shows that there's positive progress. But violate a ceasefire? The guy screaming about that, Pat, is because, you know, we've sort of foiled some of their. Their. Their sea mine plot.
Pat
Sea mine plot?
Vinny
Yeah, because they put the mines everywhere.
Pat
And by the way, we're talking about 100 to roughly 1600 vessels, 20,000 crew workers that are on these ships, depending on the sizes sitting there. Some of these guys are like, dude, I need to eat something. You know, they're running out of basic supply, so. And it's not like they're going to be like, hey, let's go to Iran, let's go to dinner over there and let's go and come back. You can't do that, like get on small little boats and go out there. It's a different kind of a situation. Now while this is going on, Rob, Iran sends their proposal to us with 14 points that they asked about, right? And then us comes back and says, no, we're not having the seven to eight points that we're going to be with. And the Ruha law, Their supreme leader came out and said the following. I think he said something about the fact that we're not compromising. Iran's supreme leader vows to protect nuclear and missile capabilities. And they keep saying this over and over and over again meaning look, we're not doing anything unless if we can't have our nuclear weapons. So they keep saying this. This is the supreme leader. Iran's supreme leader vows to protect nuclear and missile capabilities right there capable in the statement said that the only place Americans belonged in a Persian Gulf is at the bottom of its waters. Okay. Obviously that's how you speak when you're negotiating. Very sweetheart, sweetheart, yeah. Iran's supreme leader defied Thursday to protect Islamic Republic's nuclear missile capabilities with us. Donald Trump has sought to curtail. In a statement read by state television, anchor Ayatollah Moshe Khamenei said the only place Americans belong that a person clubs the bottom of the water. And a new chapter was being written in the region's history. His remarks come as Iran's economy is reeling and its oil industry is being squeezed by the US Navy blockade halting its tankers from getting out to sea. The world economy is under pressure that Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for crude for oil Brent crude hits as high as 126. So 90 million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran's identity based spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capabilities from nanotechnology to biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities as national. Seth Khamenei, by the way, so he's selling Iran and they want to make sure this is not going to be going away. So do we yet know, Rob, what those seven or eight are that America turned down?
Tom
I don't believe they have been publicized.
Pat
Okay, so we don't know that, but this is happening while they send the 14. Trump at first says he doesn't know. Then he said we looked at it. We don't like some of the demands on what's going on and so we'll see. Most reported 14 components binding non aggression guarantees from US full end to hostilities across all fronts including Israel, Lebanon, Withdrawal of US Forces from around Iran region. End of US Naval blockade of Iran Reopening of Strait of Hormuz under a new joint system. Full lifting of U.S. sanctions. Release of frozen Iranian assets, that's $30 billion compensation reparation for war damage. Resolution of all regional conflicts tied to the war. Recognition of Iran's regional security role. End to sovereign interference in Iran's international affairs. Delayed nuclear negotiations until after the war ends. Absolutely. Just a brilliant way of. Possible temporary freeze or limits on enrichment later. No upfront nuclear concessions in the initial deal phase. Adam.
Adam
Well, Iran is not to be trusted whatsoever. You know Jake Sullivan, who used to be the advisor for Biden, national Security Advisor, he said, listen, when it comes to Iran, remember this one thing. You know, there's a famous phrase, you know, trust but verify. He said, just remember this, don't trust him and verify everything. By the way, speaking of trust, tell me who you think said this. Quote, no unilateral Iranian arrangements can be trusted or relied upon following its treacherous aggression against all its neighbors.
Vinny
Hillary.
Adam
You think Hillary said that? Who do you think said that?
Pat
Barack Obama.
Tom
I'm going to go with bho.
Adam
How about the King of United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed? The mbz, you know, not MBS from Down with mbz. Yeah, you know me. He said, do not trust these people. Going on. He said, in the ongoing discussion surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the collective international will and provisions of international law emerge as the primary guarantor of freedom and navigation through the vital passage, ultimately saying that we're drawing from OPEC and that we're drawing closer ties to Israel. Israel has now sent uae, who they signed the Abraham Abraham Accords with the first of its kind ever to send and deploy the Iron Dome system to uae. So I'll ask you this. Who do you think knows Iran better than anybody, its neighbors? UAE has been attacked more than any other country. So they're basically saying, we're aligning with the US we're done with the cartel known as opec, we're aligning with Israel and the Abraham Accords for economic and stability through strength and bottom line, Iran is not to be trusted. Now, uae, I got to give respect to these people out there. They're calling themselves the Switzerland of the Middle east, and their stock is being lowered because of its smelly kid on the playground known as Iran.
Vinny
And just. Just from those 14 points, I don't see anything there that the President would go, yeah, okay, we're good. So. So you know what that says? They're not trying to make this thing stop. They're not. Because. Did you read every single one of them? Every single one of them. Just for a second, I went, okay, Is that something that a business guy like Trump would say, yeah, yeah, we're good. Remove this, do that. It's all positive stuff for them. And we'd be completely. So it doesn't look like that. That's not a realistic Plan.
Adam
Let me add one thing, and Pat, I want to get your perspective here, because you lived there for 10 years. You know why I respect Iran? Because I know exactly what they stand for. You know, we're talking about the ships, the naval passage, the Strait of Hormuz, you know, and like the Titanic, you know, the thing is, I'm going down with the ship. The ayatollahs and the rogc, you know what I know about them, they're willing to go down with this ship. This is an existential threat. We want to get in and get out. They will kill everybody, including their own citizens, in order to survive. How do you negotiate with someone like that that's willing to kill their own people? That's the hard part here.
Pat
You're. The only way you would do it, like this is. The only way I would think this is possible is to make sure Putin and China are on your side, telling them, get your act together, and that's not happening. And so the fact that the. Who's the second most powerful man in the world?
Adam
Probably Xi.
Pat
You would push ahead of Putin. That's got 10,000 nuclear. Okay, who's the third shuffle? Who do you put?
Adam
Trump is number one. I think she is number two.
Vinny
I think I put Pooh in two.
Pat
Well, actually, hold on.
Adam
Bibi Netanyahu is number one, because obviously he controls Trump. Oh, yeah, Possibly she also.
Vinny
Okay, so in that case, BB obviously.
Pat
But honestly, tell me.
Adam
I think she is number two.
Vinny
Putin, maybe number three would be very close.
Pat
Let me ask Tom. Give me the top three most powerful people in the world right now.
Tom
It's, I think, right now, most. One of most powerful people in the world. I think, first of all, Trump is, I think, the most powerful guy in the world. And then number two, I think, because of negative influence right now, you know, is Xi. And even greater negative influence is, I think right now, whoever is leading Iran right now is number three. Because you're through negative influence, you're creating havoc.
Pat
Where do you put Putin?
Tom
Putin, you know, right now, Putin's probably to me, like number four. But I put Iran ahead of Putin simply because.
Pat
Tom, you took 70 seconds. I'm like, give me an answer. So let's.
Adam
Who do you think is. You don't think it's good?
Pat
I don't care where you put Putin. Let's say Putin's the top five. Okay. In this situation that we're dealing with. What do you call it that we're dealing with? Iran. Okay. If Putin or Xi, who have influence over Iran, don't tell Iran, hey, let's wrap it up. Guess what's going to happen, going to continue. So if Putin met with Abbas Algoti and they're sitting there together going through it, there's no way. So this is kind of like, hey, don't worry about it. I got your back. So you give the guy in Farsi, there's a word called poru. How do you. By the way, for the Iranian people watching this, can you in the chat, explain what the definition of porru is? Okay. The Iranian porru, it means what? Not Peru. Poru. P O r you. Poru. Like that. Farsi meaning of poru. Shameless, cheeky, brazen. You know, it describes someone who is audacious or acts with excessive boldness, often crossing social boundaries. It is commonly used to describe pushy behavior, though it can sometimes be used playfully among friends. So Iran, Iran's the IRGC today is Peru because of China and Russia, period. They're acting the way that they are because of them. So if you really want to negotiate with somebody like that and you want to kind of get things done, your first thing is Russia and China. So I would be talking and saying, hey, Putin, I need your back in this situation with Iran. China, I need your back in this situation with Iran. What are you going to be doing? Well, Xi just came out recently. He's like, no, we're not with this on what you guys are doing. And Putin came out and said, now I'm meeting with the guy and I'm showing him we are a very strong ally. So I think Trump has to get very, very creative to get these guys to want to negotiate, because for as long as Iran knows that China and Russia have their backs, they're going to be poor, simple. And that's not going to be going away anytime soon the way it's looking like.
Adam
So why do you say it's not going to be going?
Tom
Rocket fuel. China's sending them rocket fuel.
Adam
No, the story that you keep hearing is that they're hemorrhaging money. I mean, $100 million. How long is that sustainable for? We're talking trillions of dollars.
Pat
Oh, they don't. They don't care. They don't care.
Adam
But how are they going to fund everything?
Pat
They'll find a way to get help. They'll sell. They'll sell anything and everything.
Adam
They're going to sell their blood.
Pat
They'll sell anything and everything to not have Western ideology be in Iran. Anything and everything to make.
Adam
How long is that sustainable? If they have no money.
Pat
I don't know the answer to the question. I can tell you we have a deadline. They don't.
Adam
What do you think our deadline is?
Pat
June 14th is our deadline. Why is that specific number World cup starts. It's Trump's birthday. June 14th is Trump's birthday. From there on, if you, if you, if you get this thing done pre June 14th, everybody will forget about Iran. Come August, September, and we'll be moving on with interest rates going lower, gas prices going lower, economy coming back up. We're going to be looking at World Cup Fourth of July celebration 250 years. But U.S. has a deadline. U.S. s deadline is June 14th.
Adam
That's your opinion?
Pat
That's my opinion.
Adam
Trump didn't say that.
Pat
No, this is my opinion. I'm saying it. I'm giving up.
Adam
What do you think will happen realistically that Trump's decision.
Pat
Iran knows the deadline. Iran knows the deadline. Iran knows.
Adam
They're basically saying, we got six weeks.
Pat
Oh, they're like, guys, it's okay. Double down. The Supreme Leader just said what? What was his line? Rob, can you pull up the line of what the Supreme Leader said?
Adam
Who the hell is the Supreme Leader? The son is even alive.
Vinny
Yeah, he's injured.
Pat
The Supreme Leader says, he says in a statement, the only place Americans belong, Americans, not America. Americans is like everybody. It's like the way Randy finds it. Armenians, right? And then he had to come back and change his position. It's Americans. The only place Americans belong is in the Persian Gulf at the bottom of its waters. That a new chapter? So do you. How do you think if he writes.
Adam
Yeah, of course.
Pat
Like this publicly, how do you think he is?
Adam
Oh, my God. The people that shout death to America nonstop want to see America. No way.
Pat
To me, if he says America, if he says Trump, if he says the current leader, the current regime, that's different than you saying Americans, Americans. That means it's everybody. So for me, you're dealing with somebody whom you just killed his wife. I think you killed his mom. I think you killed. You definitely killed his father. And you want him to be nice and friendly right now. No, look, I, I was on Pierce three days before they came. They killed Khamenei and I'm like, what's the point of killing an 86 year old man? Okay, there's not a point. Symbolism I totally get. But if you. By the way, here's the thing though. If we're in a gang, we're in a crew. You go and kill 50 of the leaders in that gang There is no negotiation over. No, no, it's not. I'm not saying it's over. It's like, hey, if your position is we're gonna go kill 50 of your top guys in your gang, guess what? The position has to be.
Adam
We got to take them out.
Pat
You got to take all of them out. Yeah. So. So it's not like there is anything that is, you know, just, hey, let's come back and let's talk to the guy who we killed. His mom, wife, and his. And his father. Hey, how you doing? How you doing, man? How's family? How's family?
Vinny
They're probably in heaven.
Pat
Oh, yeah. Family.
Vinny
Everybody good?
Pat
Well, I'm sure you.
Adam
Doesn't that give.
Tom
This is not the end of wwe where you hug each other and say,
Adam
hey, and say, listen, we just took out all your guys. Who's next?
Pat
You don't understand. Like, look, if you were in gangs, everything. If you were in gangs, like.
Adam
Like, Tom was in the crypt.
Pat
If it's a different way, negotiating with the Italian Mafia. Because the Italian Mafia was notoriously known for killing each other. Every once in a while, when you went out and you killed other people that were not within, you got in trouble. But the Russian mob doesn't live by your rules.
Adam
Yeah.
Pat
And neither did Ms. 13, and neither did the Latin Kings. You know the way they roll. Neither to you. Just because your mafia runs that way doesn't mean mine has to run that way.
Adam
I'm not in a Jewish mom.
Pat
Yeah, I know. But what I'm saying is. What I'm saying is the fact that we have to understand you're negotiating with a very different group of people. And so we'll see what happened here. But let me get into the next thing here. So Tucker does an interview with New York Times, and I ended up watching the whole interview. I actually thought it was a very good interview, and it was very revealing. But one of the clips that went viral was. Which clip is this, Rob?
Tom
This is the Antichrist comment.
Pat
Okay, go for it. So play. So this is. By the way, I had no idea who the interviewer was. I thought she did a great job in the interview, and I thought Tucker was actually revealing with some of the answers that he gave. This was one of the moments that they had. Go ahead and play the clip here. Rob, you've been talking on your show
Tom
about whether Trump is the Antichrist.
Pat
I have not said that.
Tom
On your show. The day after Easter, you noted he did not put his hand on the Bible during his swearing ceremony as president. You said, and I'm quoting, maybe he didn't put his hand on the Bible because he affirmatively rejects what's inside that book. And then on a recent show, you went further, saying, here's a leader who's mocking the gods of his ancestors, mocking the God of gods and exalting himself above them. Could this be the Antichrist?
Pat
I actually did not say, could this be the Antichrist?
Tom
Here's a leader who's mocking the gods of his ancestors, mocking the God of gods and exalting himself above them.
Pat
Could this be the Antichrist?
Tom
Well, who knows?
Pat
I don't know where that comes from, but I know that those words never left my lips because I'm not sure I fully understand what the Antichrist is.
Tom
If there's just one.
Pat
I actually tried to understand it.
Tom
I may have said some are asking that. I'm not weighing in on that because
Pat
I don't understand it.
Vinny
Vinnie, listen, with all due respect, I'm not buying it. That's not some random throwaway line that you get twisted when you call somebody the Antichrist. If I called. I know, me, if I called somebody the Antichrist, that gets put in a certain shelf in my head where I go, that's a really, really bold claim. I'm not saying he said he could be the Antichrist. He looked right in the camera and he said it. And that's deliberate. Okay, that's not a clip job. You said it. You knew exactly what you were going for and you know exactly what you were trying to do. And like my question is, this is, if you don't remember, was it written? I know we talked about a little bit earlier, Pat, where you don't think so, but if that's the job, are you just reading off the teleprompter that's in front of the thing. You have to know that you're saying stuff like that. And by the way, this came from a longer podcast from Donald Trump. The President tweeting the picture of him as Jesus around Easter time. I believe it was Rob, where he's holding the soldier and doing all that. And then Trump comes out after and says, no, I was portraying myself to be a doctor. Which Tucker came out and said, you're lying and not being honest. And then Tucker goes and does the same exact thing that the President was doing. So that's the problem. And now it's out of context. Now it's. I never said that. So you either mean it and now you're walking it back, or you threw it out there for Clicks. And now you don't want to deal with the blowback. So either way, don't insult people's intelligence. You can't have it both ways. Just. I wish. I wish, and this is one of the hardest things, but I'm there at this point in my life. Just admit it. Yes, I said it, and this is what I meant. Just man up instead of going, I didn't. I don't know. Oh, it's out of context. Oh, I don't know. There's many antichrists. Okay, just say it. Say it and man up. I wish. I wish he took that route instead of kind of floating around like he didn't.
Pat
Adam,
Adam
Tucker Carlson is a jackass. Now, I don't mean it like in the literal sense. I mean it. We're at a time of our lives where people will do anything for attention. So the reason I use the word jackass. Remember the show Jackass with Johnny Knoxville and these guys? These guys would do anything and everything to get views, clicks, and likes.
Pat
So you think he's saying this just for viewers?
Adam
I'm just saying that that's what people are doing these days.
Pat
No, no, but you. But you're saying that he's just saying this not because he believes it, because it gets eyeballed.
Adam
I'm saying that he' only focused on attention. I'll give you a couple examples. When's the last time that you watch an entire show about Tucker where he didn't mention Israel? It just doesn't happen. Victor David Hansen went. Went and basically did a complete breakdown on Tucker, and He said that 80% of his content, he talks about Israel in his shows. I mean, we talk about Israel, we talk about geopolitics. What percentage do you think we talk about Israel? Even Trump. 10%, 20%? It's all he talks about. So no Jews, no news. But forget about that. He's only doing it for the clicks and the likes and the views. If this were a court of law, and he went and took the oath and said, okay. And he goes, yeah, I never said that. And they're like, roll the tape. And it's like, you literally said that right there and there. He'd be found guilty. So don't pull the shaggy defense. It wasn't me. I found him in the bathroom. It wasn't me. It was you. The thing that Tucker may not actually recall is that the Internet is forever. You say something, roll the clip. Guilty. Jail. Straight to jail. So I think the challenge that people have to have, and this is my bottom Point. Bottom line, with Tucker, what was is not what is. What was with Tucker, respected journalist, conservative, is clearly no longer what is. Rob, do you have that stat that I sent you a year ago? Tucker in the conservative media was universally respected. This is March of 2024, actually. Two years ago among the GOP, plus 54, universal liked figure now, barely above water, plus 7. So don't tell me that Tucker is not either shooting himself in the foot or playing a different game or trying to do this horseshoe theory thing where he thinks he's going to go to a safe space like the New York Times and they're going to be nice to him. Boom, exposed, guilty of lying, straight to jail.
Vinny
Do you think, do you think he knew, like, when he played? I didn't say that. Do you actually think he knew? Like, did he remember? Because it was less than a month.
Adam
Does he have a working brain? Answer that.
Vinny
Okay, yeah.
Adam
If you said Trump is the Antichrist, I would one month ago. Would you, Vinny o', Shelton, remember that?
Vinny
And I would.
Adam
Would you say I don't even call?
Vinny
No. No. I would say yes. I would say yes. And here's why, I think. But that's why.
Adam
Deny, deny, deny. When it's on tape, it's like, come on, dude, Tom, you're don't believe my lying eyes. What are we doing?
Tom
Well, I respect the fact that he sat down with someone to have an interview, but we all know nowadays everybody kind of handpicks things, especially when the, when the times get hot, people handpick who they're going to sit down with. Could Tucker not know that these kind of comments are going to come from the New York Times, of all people? He can't not know. What was interesting is he puts the denial out there, but then what he said was he kind of couched it. Could this be the Antichrist? That's called floating. And what did he say at the end of that? Who knows? Is that what he said, Vinny? So it's not like he came down. Doggone it. This guy's the Antichrist. That's different from could this be the Antichrist? Who knows? What he's doing is. It kind of gets couched and people get thinking about it.
Adam
So I, I, Tom, you don't think he remembers saying that? That's my question.
Tom
I think. Do I think he remembered saying it? How can he not remember?
Adam
Okay, so that's the point here.
Vinny
Well, it's not like he's called, like, if you, it's not like he called him.
Tom
It was a Couch. It was a couching. Not really a definitive.
Pat
No. Whether you couch it or not, let me tell you what the difference is. Here's the difference. You know, you know when your default in life is when you get pushed in the corner, you go to just a comedian. Yeah, right. You know when the default, if you're a person that is acting dumb like, you know when you're like a player and the girl says, hey, what is that? What are you talking about? Your automatic default is what?
Adam
I don't know.
Pat
I don't know what you're talking like. You know what I'm saying? I have no idea what you're talking about. Right. So if that's your default, the default just showed up because you, you're one of the smartest. If, by the way, if your brain can retain that much information and knowledge, which he can. And then now you're saying you don't remember you saying that you do. So for me, it's more or less about say what you believe in and let the market decide. It's okay. At least Trump would say what he believed in. Don't beat around the bush. I respect the fact that he is now finally actually calling out the President, but don't then go to New York Times and say, I never said you did say it. So double down and explain your position and let the market tear you apart. Like when I make a position, I give the video and I go in the comment section. Okay, I got torn apart on this one here, but that's my position. That's where I'm at. This is what I believe in. Right. And so, you know when the President says, yeah, I think we should just take over Greenland, the market says, you're this. He's a dictator. You think you're a king. Okay, let me see what the market is saying. And the people that I respect said what he said that. Can you pull up all the. You don't think the President has a top 50 names of people that he has a department tracking exactly what they say and he gets a score like, Tom, imagine if we're in the White House, what would I be doing? I would say, tom, these hundred people that we have, we would score every one of the influencers on level of credibility and how fair they are. And we would score them on reason, followership, influence, gamification, manipulation, all of that stuff. But we would score the high reason people.
Tom
We'd have a total formula.
Pat
And I would say, tom, the message I just gave right now, when I push pushback on XYZ what's our score? And you'd come with the business analyst. I mean, you would say, pat, that score was low for us. Oh, really? What did they say? They didn't like the. Well, I can't Change that.
Tom
Top 18 when came out.
Pat
Well, you would watch it. So to me, you know, to me, it all comes down to one thing, and that's motive. You know, it's all motive. What is his motive? Because in the interview, the lady asked questions about Fuentes. He didn't want to really get into it. And then at the end, I think he said, I regret interviewing Fuentes. Okay? I regret. And I don't think he has that much influence. The people we have to worry about, he said, is who Cruz and Huckabee is who we have to worry about. Christian Zionist, which, by the way, I don't have a problem with, because that's his position. If he repeatedly says that, then that's your position. I want to know what your position is. And then the question was asked about J.D. vance, and that was probably the most sensitive one. Rob, is this the one about J.D. vance?
Tom
Is this where he talks about the treachery that J.D. vance has been.
Pat
Yes, yes. And then Rubio and all of that. Go ahead and play this clip. Go for it.
Tom
JD has been subject to. This is well known, but I'll just confirm it. Nonstop treachery from people on the neoconservative side. Who are these people around Marco Rubio,
Pat
and they have been totally against J.D.
Tom
vance from the very beginning. Who do you mean specifically?
Vinny
You know, I don't know.
Tom
Is the real answer.
Pat
I don't know.
Tom
You're accusing people of treachery. So I'm wondering.
Pat
Well, I know there's been a lot
Tom
of treachery, for sure.
Adam
And I know they've been.
Pat
They were so mad about J.D.
Tom
getting that job. I mean, they. Who's they within the White House, doing so good.
Adam
She's good.
Pat
I don't, you know, I don't know
Tom
the answer to that. I've never worked there. So, like, if you don't work there, you can say you, you know, you
Pat
can say what you think you know, but it's hard to really know. This is me looking skeptical.
Vinny
Yeah.
Pat
Well, no, honest, like, I don't really know.
Adam
What is her name?
Pat
Yeah. So. So again, again, going back to this and this, by the way, this goes. This was a five to ten minute segment about J.D. vance. I think it's worth watching. And it goes into. Do you speak to him? When's the Last time you speak to him, he did say that he spoke to Erica Crook 2 weeks ago in text, but he didn't want to say that he spoke to Jayd Vance on how often and he says you're somewhat for him. Says, well, you know, what is your son's position? Ask him. I don't know. He has his own career, things that he wants to do. And so when it came down to this topic, it was probably the most sensitive topic. Even more than the Antichrist comment about Trump. Nick Fuentes wasn't that sensitive. He just said, I wish I never interviewed him. Even though I think it was probably an interview he should have done. I'm glad he they had the conversation because the market needs to know exactly where people stand. The more we talk, the better it is. Yeah, I wish I hadn't done the interview. What I really wanted to talk about was where we're headed in this war with Iran. Okay. And so the JD topic is going to be tough. And she said, do you think that's why it's complicated because when JD Went to negotiate on behalf of us with Iran, that's going to. What was the word she used? Rob, you haven't seen the thing she said. You think that's going to bolt a word about the fact that he's destroyed forever if he runs again? I don't know what a word it was. If you ask it on ChatGPT, she used the word suck. I don't know if he's destroyed forever, but it's going to hurt him. Something like that. And so very revealing on what was said there in a big way. Very revealing on JD you can tell. And then they talk about a third party and, you know, what would the party be? I don't even know what the left or the right or Democrat or Republican looks like right now. I don't even know what that is. You know, I think it's, you know, so, you know. But you could tell they're not. He's not a Rubio guy. So a part of this why the market is very, very important to be looking at right now. Vinny is seeing what's going on going into 2028. Who's going to be TPUSA's camp candidate? Is that going to have as much weight as it did in 2024? Like Charlie's endorsement of saying I support this versus a TPUSA's endorsement. Those are two different things. Do you get what I'm saying, Tom? So imagine it's like Charlie Kirk endorses, you know, Trump. Charlie Kirk endorses Marco Rubio. Charlie Kirk endorses J.D. vance versus T.P. uSA endorses J.D. vance or Rubio. I got a call this weekend, just so you guys know, you know, open. I had a conversation with one of the members of TPUSA's board. We had a long conversation this weekend because of my comments that I made. And I, you know, I gave my position to them on the call. It was between us and them, private conversation. And my, My criticism didn't necessarily change on realizing what's going on, because the question becomes, remember when Charlie told BB I think you're losing the PR campaign? You remember that?
Adam
It was in a letter.
Pat
It was in a letter. Right. I think up until this point, tpusa is losing the PR campaign. I think tpusa is losing the PR campaign. And you're. You have to either adjust the strategy, you have to do something differently, but all of this going into 2028, you know, it's an interesting thing. It's an interesting thing with Tucker. And by the way, you know, what else could happen if, say, there is a slight rift, by the way. And when he asked about Don Jr. He says, Look, Don and I, we don't talk politics. We just share common views when it comes down to hunting. It was a great moment. It's like, hey, because, you know, you know why I like moments like that? I criticized Tucker in a video a couple of weeks ago. My position hasn't changed either because we've been around the block long enough. We know how it is when things get nasty. I know in politics, you know, when, when wars happen in politics, it's a very nasty. You know why? Because somebody will sit around and call everybody to bash you and use propaganda to undermine you. And that is the game here. That happens in every industry except in politics. It's more. What do you call it, heavier and stronger than anything else. The only difference is, which puts us in a very unique spot, is we don't need anybody's money. We don't. We don't need anybody's money. VT doesn't need anybody's money.
Adam
Thank you.
Pat
You know, we don't need anybody's money. You know, we, we. Sponsorship. How many sponsorship reason? All he wants to do is sell his shoes. Yeah, you want me to sell my own shoes and make sure I'm beholden to my shoe boss? Hey, you get it? Your shoes or else? Because these shoes are from this. Oh, my God. All he does is manect. What do you want me to promote so I'M beholden to myself. We're risking our own money, right? So that's the part where long term, there's gonna be some interesting moves taking place. And by the way, for those of you guys that are doing the survey, I'm looking at the number right now, which I freaking love. 300 exact. 17 of you have already done the survey in the first 30, 40 minutes of us announcing this. Those of you guys that go a little bit more thorough on the questions that we ask, that unpack, explain, we may call you because we want to talk to you and go a little bit deeper into it. Again, anybody that goes and does a survey 25 gift card goes to vtmerch.com to go purchase whatever you want and you'll be able to use $25 towards it. So going back to this conversation, I think this is all great going into 2028. I think you have to pay very close attention of what alliances are being created. I like the fact that this interview was done. I'm glad he agreed to do this interview because it's. It kind of was like an opening on who's supporting who, who's going to be working with who. And by the way, what's the month right now? What are we? May 4th. May 4th, which, you know, we celebrated Vinnie's birthday, Mario's birthday and Danny's birthday and a bunch of other people.
Adam
Today's my grandma's birthday. I know.
Vinny
Holy moly.
Pat
Really? Today's your grandma's birthday, so happy birthday too. But this is all going. Because 2027, 2020 at election is going to come like this.
Adam
I just want to ask you a question. You something you said talked about credibility and obviously this is Tucker's credibility score on screen right now. I think there's a credibility problem. But I want to ask you something. You said something about if you're going to say something, own it. So you just said that you had a call with the TP USA people turning point.
Pat
Yes.
Adam
You made some comments about Erica being CEO. You just said, yeah, that's what I said. You know, you were asked, I think with John Kiriakou or whatever about Reza Pahlavi. You're like, yeah, I said that. Straight up. Yeah. Ron desantis. Yeah, I said that. Do you ever recall something that was that you said? You're like, no, I never said that.
Pat
Like, why not?
Adam
Why would someone do that?
Pat
Never said not. By the way, if you forget, great. Hold me accountable. I said, okay, great. Yeah, I said that. I don't recall that, but I Don't want to play the game up because I'm so. What do you call it? Righteous. And I don't make mistakes. Like, that's not what I'm saying. I know, I know. But what I am saying is I have had my opinions change on issues where I'm like, oh, that is. That's interesting, what they're saying there. You know what? That's a good point. When it comes on to crony capitalism, on what happens with these other guys, you're right, because some of these guys that are making it harder for the smaller guy to compete. I'm not with that. I don't want the smaller guy. We had a guy that. A person that came here to us last week on Business Wednesday, and he was fully supportive of NATO in a massive way. And I've had a conversation with three different people that I don't agree with everything they say. Susan Kokinda, one of the best conversations she gave. A complete different angle I never thought about. I was like, very interesting. Who has been at this intelligence business longer than anybody else? MI6, the Brits. These guys are the professionals. They train everybody. They train Mossad, they trained CIA, they trained, you know, Iran. Savak. Savak was trained by MI6. And now you want. Yeah, so she gave that angle. And then we had the Robert Pape, which is going to come out, and he. He says, Trump's losing. He's so. That angle. And then we had the Asian guy, the. The guy, the professor, the giant guy. And then I had. Who's the governor from Maryland that's running Westmore? Conversation, great conversation. That's gonna. I think this is good. But. But you have to realize, like, the market, for instance, Vivek. If you looked at the numbers, a year ago, Vivek was supposed to be the governor of Ohio. Right. And now people can say a lot of different things. Well, it's the H1B visa tweet that happened. That was a falling out. It's why he left Doge. And I think he was going to run for governor no matter what. Okay. No, it's the video clip of what he said about Christians and how he defined Christians and Jesus and all that other stuff. And, you know, and now you look at the numbers from 75% to 60% to 50% to now the Democratic Party more likely to win Ohio than the Republican Party. Republican Party is Vivek. And look, I'm rooting for Vivek to win because the last eight presidents, according to what Tom just said right before the podcast And Rob, if you can validate this, the last eight presidents that became presidents, they won Ohio. Trust me, you want Vivek to win. But, you know, the question becomes, how do you look at that? Rob?
Tom
Rob, I sent you the. I sent you the link in the chart. You have it. There it is. Except 2020, since 1980, Ohio elects the president.
Pat
Tom, since that's even more than eight. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 12 out of the last 12 presidential winners, 11 out of 12, we won Ohio. You lose Ohio, you lose the presidency. 88%, 90% chance.
Tom
I think there's been a discussion or two about 2020.
Pat
Yeah, so. So. So, exactly. That's a good point. So the 2020 is the one that could be the. The wild card. So essentially, some could even say it's 12 out of 12. So to me, Vivek made this comment that's been circulating recently. Rob, if you want to play this clip, if you want to play this clip, and I have my thoughts on this, here's Vivek explaining Jesus Christ, okay? Who he is.
Vinny
So I'll be very honest, it's not
Pat
a hard question at all.
Vinny
So in.
Pat
In our faith tradition, Jesus Christ is a son of God.
Vinny
I know that is different than saying
Pat
he's the son of God, but that
Vinny
is my view of Jesus Christ.
Pat
He's got our family.
Vinny
Do we worship in churches?
Pat
Yes, we do. Is that compatible with our faith?
Vinny
Yes, it is one true God in many forms. So that's different. And I understand that the only way
Pat
to heaven is through Jesus Christ.
Vinny
I think that that is the path.
Pat
That is a path to heaven is the way we look at it.
Vinny
But belief in God is what we
Pat
say, belief in the one true God.
Vinny
That's the way.
Pat
Want I. By the way, this isn't recent. He said this a while ago, Rob. When did he actually say this? This could have even been a year and a half ago. This could have been a year ago, maybe even two years ago, when we had him at our town hall. Remember when one of the guys got
Adam
up, it was a lady that asked him.
Pat
The lady got up and said, what's your position with Jesus? And what's your position with. And he gave that answer very eloquently. And guess what? You know what I liked about Vivek? He gave his answer September 20th, by the way. That was almost three years ago from what he said in Iowa. Okay? So, you know, that's what he believes in. You know, that's what he believes in. He gave that answer where he's at now, the question becomes, is that going to hurt his chances of winning governor for state of Ohio? I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen there. I don't know if this is the reason why he's not going to get elected. I will tell you, if you have to choose, if you have to choose a Vivek, smart guy, sharp guy, who is one of those fighters, tough guys, brilliant guy. I think sometimes his challenge is, you know, what's Vivek's challenges? Sometimes he is so smart and brilliant that the average person that listens to him, you feel dumb sometimes. You know, when he speaks, you're like, oh, my God, this guy wrote a thesis on that issue that happened right where Trump speaks. You know what you feel like when Trump speaks?
Vinny
One of the boys is talking.
Pat
He's like, hey, it's just one of me. I'm just talking to a regular guy.
Adam
The blue collar billionaire.
Pat
That's right. So the blue collar. So, you know, I think it's too late to make these types of adjustments anyways, but the market is going to react. And where Ohio goes is where presidency goes. So if Republicans are sitting there saying, but let me tell you, Vivek this, but let me tell you, Vivek that, but let me tell you, Ohio loses, Newsom's your president. Flat out, well, wake up, Ohio, Ohio loses, Newsom is your president. And by the way, you may want that, you may want that. You may be saying, that's exactly what I want. I want Republicans to lose and Democrats to win, for them to learn how much power we got. Maybe, and maybe that's your position. I can tell you what happens if these guys take over. Have you been seeing what's going on to New York? Have you been watching what's going on in Texas? Texas.
Adam
I would love to see Vivek do a debate against Mamdani. I would love that.
Pat
Well, that's not going to happen. But Tom, your thoughts on this with, as a Christian man yourself, here's the guy who's given his position. How do you process it?
Tom
So I'm familiar with faiths and I, I don't, I don't dive into a deep analysis of it. He's Hindu. Hindu believes that there's one big creator, God and does not believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. That's the Christian point of view. So it doesn't surprise me. So on one side I say, hey, He's Hindu, and he's not trying to hedge his bet. You know what I mean, Vinny? If he was trying to say, well, I'm Hindu, but. And he was trying to spin into the Christian, I would say, dude, wait a minute. You're Hindu. You believe in one God, so don't tell me that you're trying to do this. I think he was being straight up about his feelings with that guy, whether it was two years ago or three years ago. Now, the problem is what Pat, you just said, I think is exactly Vivek's problem when he overanalyzed Americans. Well, you know, American kids are playing football and doing this and that, while other kids, like Indian kids, are studying math or in math clubs. He. He touched a red line there. And the red line was you kind of went after Americana kind of accidentally by overanalyzing. And so, as a man of faith, I appreciate that he's a man of faith. I don't agree with Hinduism, but I believe he's been presenting it authentically for his point of view. And I don't think he's spinning. So I wasn't offended by that.
Pat
Yeah, no, We've spent a lot of time with the guy. I, you know, we went to every single debate. We watched every one of the debates. You know, he's gonna be a very, very good fighter for 99% of the values you agree with, 95% of values you agree with. Does he have to make some adjustments on messaging and all that stuff? Yes. Is he kind of being authentic and straight up by giving you what he believes in? I think so. You want to lose this guy? I don't know. I don't know. I would much rather have him as one of the guys. He would not even be a team of rival. Vinny, where you have with this. What are you thinking here?
Vinny
I mean, I love how you guys broke it down. I mean, I personally don't like me and Humberto. We talked about this. This is a Christian nation. To me, to be the president, you'd have to be Christian. That's why I always said, by the way, all respect for him, he's freaking awesome. I love being around him. I love the way he speaks so eloquently. But at the end of the day, Christian nation. I want a Christian president. I know sometimes we haven't got them. Obama, you know, possibly Trump, whatever. That aside. And you guys made a good point just in that moment. He could have just said, no, listen, I'm a Hindu. We have a different belief, but But I'm not going to try to hinder anything that's already happening. This is a Christian nation. I'm not going to put any policies. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to do what? Like, mind you think about the Hindu religion compared to what Islam and what Mamdani is doing outside prayer, forcing the stuff on people. I would have just said that I'm not going to try to change anything. But this is a bigger picture that we have to look at. He's about to. Hopefully he'll become the governor. Pat, this is a bigger fight, okay? He loses, we lose the presidency. That's a whole different situation. At least he's being honest and he's saying his thing. You guys know where I'm at. I'm with Tom. I know who Jesus Christ is. I know exactly what he was here for and what he did and he saved us. But I really hope that people could say, okay, he's a Hindu. He's not trying to change anything. We need him to win instead of a Democrat.
Tom
Adam, plain and simple, when we fight over faith, guess what? We forget about who's the best candidate for jobs, education, welfare, immigration, the economy, interest rates. He wins six to nothing on just that list versus Amy Acton. And here we're about to let you know, another Democratic Socialist in the door. So it's like maybe if they get us fighting over Vivek and his faith stance, they're the ones that are laughing.
Vinny
Yeah, exactly.
Adam
Adam, I think Vivek is great. I think. I don't know if he's going to be capable of winning the United States presidency. I don't know that. I think I said that to his face. I said, I don't know if a brown Hindu guy is going to be President, United States, but I do think that he could still win Ohio. What I'll tell you is this, America is a Christian country, and we do need to have Christian values or Judeo Christian biblical values at the center of society, or society will crumble. At the same time, we're a big tent in America. Just because we're a Christian country doesn't mean we can't have people of all shapes, sizes, faith, religions, beliefs be a part of it. Yes, He's Hindu. You know, I believe that Hindus believe there's many paths to God. Live righteous, be a good person. They believe in karma, they believe in reincarnation, they believe in spirituality. Major respect. But you want to know what I respect about Vivek? Which, I mean, I'll circle Back to what we're talking about with Tucker. Why I don't respect Tucker because he owns it. He said, listen, man, I'm Hindu. Respect to you. Respect if you're Christian, respect if you're Muslim. Respect if you're Jewish. Respect to whatever you are. I respect everyone's religion, but this is what I believe and I hear. I'm telling you what I believe and owning it, not saying, well, I never said that. You. Jesus is a son of God. I never. He owns his statements. And that's ultimately what this comes down to, credibility. You might not believe or agree with what he says, but he has the. The balls and the courage to say, yes, I said that. I have a major issue with people who say, I've never said that. And back to one thing you said, Pat. You said opinions change. You said, you know, maybe I'll adjust my opinion. You talked about crony capitalism, what have you. Of course, as you should, because you're reasonable and you use your brain and you say, you know what? My opinions change. Can you imagine me saying at this point, Pat, no, I never voted for Biden. I never. That wasn't me. It's like, buddy, we have you on film saying you voted for Biden. But me, like, that's the biggest problem is if you're going to stand for something, stand for it. And if you're going to change your opinion, at least give people the response of, this is why I changed my opinion. But don't flip the script and act like we don't notice.
Vinny
But you said. You said. There's no. You said, like, I'm sorry, there's no way a brown Hindu guy would be president. I mean, Barack was a black Muslim and he won the presidency. So I.
Adam
So I don't like what you're doing right there. He's not Muslim. I do understand.
Vinny
Hussein Obama was not. Is not. You think he's a Christian?
Adam
Well, he says he's a Christian.
Vinny
When was that? Can we fact check?
Adam
He would go to church in Chicago.
Vinny
Guess what? Everybody can walk into a church and
Adam
go to a funeral, but he says he's a Christian. He put his hand on the Bible. I get that. He sounds like a Muslim.
Vinny
I don't believe it.
Adam
Barack Hussein Obama. I get that.
Vinny
I don't believe it.
Adam
But I mean, so at this point, we're not even arguing facts. We're just arguing distortions of reality.
Tom
I don't know.
Adam
He says he's a Christian. Do I think that he's been weak on Christianity and been more pro Muslim? Yes. But he says he's Christian.
Pat
The guy that he's running against, Sherrod Brown, if you want to pull this up. 70 something years old, Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Ohio. Sherrod Brown. Yeah, he is who he's running against. Isn't that a candidate?
Adam
No, he's a Democrat.
Pat
Of course Vivek's going up against Sherrod Brown.
Adam
No. Meaning he still needs to get out of the primary is what you're saying.
Pat
Who am I talking about?
Adam
Vivek needs to get out of the.
Pat
No, this is the guy that they're saying is going to be the leading candidate for governor for Ohio.
Adam
Ohio out of the Democratic side of things.
Pat
Yes.
Adam
Back out of the Republican.
Pat
Yes.
Adam
Okay.
Pat
Yeah, yeah. So this guy, he started, by the way, he's, he's been in politics since he was 21 years old. Okay, so he's a career politician.
Adam
Yeah.
Pat
Not a border guy. Just so you know that he studied Russian affairs like his degree was, you know, he's one of those guys that's like a Bernie, you know, not, not a border, it's like a blue collar Bernie, but he's also in Ohio. So you got a guy that he's going up against that. So this could be your guy. Okay. This could be your guy. So you may not know the name right now. Sherrod Brown.
Adam
No, he's a, he's a guy. He's been. He was a senator for.
Pat
You will hear. You will definitely. But, but if you, if a guy from Ohio goes and beats Vivek, you better believe you're going to know this face and this name in 2027, 2028, because he knows if Ohio wins, the liberal candidate becomes a president of the United States. So this guy get used to this name and face. If he wins. If he wins. So for me, you know, if I have to agree with the policies that Vivek's got and then you disagree on faith, that's where your choice comes in. Is America ready for somebody like him to become a governor? You know, I. You're gonna want a fighter like that because as this thing's going in a different direction, you're gonna want different looking avengers to fight. And he's a very important role, in my opinion, for avengers to fight, even though he had a couple mishaps in his campaign. So let's go to the next story next door. I want to get to his Daily wire. So story comes out and you know, everybody is, is in the market. The moment something bad happens, they're losing. They're doing this, they're doing that. Oh, we're killing it. Let me tell you how many subscribers we're doing so well. So you know, when you're doing great, you brag, but when you have a setback, the market's going to criticize you as well. And that's part of capitalism and how it works. And you have to kind of take it. So, Rob, what numbers do we have? Which one is this? So Daily Wires hit with layoffs across a number of teams, largely from their Nashville headquarters. This is what page? Page 31, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, page 33. Let me go to it and read some of the numbers to you. And Vinny, I'm going to come to you on this one here first. So Daily Wire has been hit with another round of layoffs. Okay. There's a couple stats this article I can read, Rob. I'm more interested in reading the stats because the stats I'm reading about is 50, 60, 85. They went from 200 employees to losing 100 employees, you know, in the Nashville office. And so today the Daily Wire made a difficult decision to restructure the organization, which included layoffs of a number of teams, spokesperson said. We are deeply grateful to those impacted. Their contributions were instrumental in the building of Daily Wire into what it is today, the statement continued. The cuts were largely concentrated at our national production office as the company has invested in new formats, locations and production models. Our footprint as the company has invested there has evolved over the last year. We have added production staff in D.C. the Northeast and Florida. The step allows us to focus our resources on an ambitious slate of new entertainment projects set to be released later this Additionally, we will continue to invest in our editorial team and investigative journalism, where we have already added numerous new reporters across the country and established a D.C. bureau with a seat in the White House briefing room. Cameron Arcana, political reporter for the side, was affected by a round of cuts. He posted about the layoffs on social media on Friday. Hey friends, tough news to share. I was impacted by the layoffs today at Daily Wire, so I'm looking for opportunities in journalism communication here in D.C. candace said, who worked at the company until 2024, commented on the layoffs. She hinted that at least 50% of the company staff was affected. That has yet to be confirmed. Hearing that Daily Wire laid off over 50% of their staff today. As much as I positively despise what their executives put me and my family through, that there are a lot of good people at the company, Brent Shared. The editor in chief from Daily Wire refuted this claim and other similars on X. Yes, the company has had layoffs. It's always rough. No, it is not. Nearly. At 50%, the company. That's insane. And also insane to post without verifying. Vinnie.
Vinny
I mean, this is what happens when your whole company is built on personalities and then you forget they have a massive audience. Like, you fire them or they just leave. A big chunk of that audience is going with them. And at one point, Ben shapiro was pulling 170 million views a month.
Pat
Go on that rap on YouTube. Oh, you have the. You have the chart that shows the clips. Oh, go.
Vinny
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was massive. It was massive. And then post October 7, you know, a lot of things change. He got a lot more aggressive going after anyone not lining up with his stance on Gaza. That shift alone starts narrowing the audience, and you create tension inside the company. Then long after that, Candace Owen gets fired. Whether, you know, you agree with her or not, that move sends the message, okay? You're not just losing a voice. You're pushing out someone who built a real audience underneath your umbrella. Same pattern with Brett Cooper. She left. Different situation, same result. Her whole, entire audience left with her. You know what I'm saying? So instead of locking in on what already worked, they tried doing this whole thing into something conservative. They tried doing, like a conservative Disney. They did studio, you know, movies, kid content, streaming products, everything at once sounds great until it doesn't work, okay? You can't run a newsroom, a film studio, a kid platform, a product line all at once unless you have endless money and you have serious discipline. And they stretch themselves thin chasing everything instead of just dominating the lane that they already own. They had a couple of wins, I think. Matt Walsh, Rob, I think the racist one did very, very well. His documentary, really, really good numbers. But most of those big wins, Pat, they didn't. They didn't land. Then Jeremy Boreing steps down. That's not stability. That's cracks starting to show. And as my friend Thomas the biz dog Ellsworth says, words talk. Numbers scream, and these numbers scream. You went from 170 million views to 22 million views. You know this, guys. That's not a dip. That's a collapse. And they're still carrying the same heavy operation. Built that when things were booming. So here's the truth. The brand matters, but the connection people have is with the person. That's what keeps them watching. So when those voices leave or get pushed out or fired because they don't agree with the boss and they can't have a debate as a big piece of the audience goes with them. So that's how you end up with a company that looked like a billion dollar machine, but it's, you know, leaning heavy on the people caring.
Adam
Adam, look, this thing comes down to one word and that's Ben. Ben Shapiro is the face of the Daily Wire and they have incredible talent. I think Matt Walsh is an incredible talent. I think Michael Knowles is a very likable, smart guy. They have their whole crew over there respect to what they've done. Obviously when Ben stood up for Israel against Hamas, that showed cracks in the system. So I'll ask you one question. Did the media wire, sorry, did the Daily Wire change or did the consumer media landscape change? What do you think the answer is? I don't think the Daily Wire changed at all. I think they've stood for exactly what they've stand for as a group collectively and the market has changed. If you look at the Israel approval ratings, there's a direct correlation to how Americans and the world feel about Israel fighting this war in Gaza and against Iran to how Daily Wire subscriptions go. Now if you ask me, hey, Ben, if you had the chance to do it all over again, fire Candace, go against Tucker, defend Turning Point usa, defend Israel, would you do it all over again? Do you know what I think his answer is? 1 million percent. Because to me this is not about likes, views, clicks. Even when he attacked Megyn Kelly, he said stand for something. Even if he loses subscribers, even if he loses viewership, it doesn't matter to him. I'll ask you a question. If all of a sudden capitalism wasn't that cool and we do fear that communism had taken over America and we saw that the media landscape and the consumers were like, I don't know, we're kind of into the socialism thing. Do you think we'd give one inch to that? We would double down on capitalism. So when you believe in something, you stick with it. And I think that's what he's doing.
Tom
Well, I say I have a couple observations and one of them, I was trying to find the numbers over the weekend because I didn't want to put my hang my hat on a number that was, that was incorrect. So you have as Pat Pat, you and I always talk when you say they, say who they is. If you say a lot, say a number and do your research and put it up. So what do we know? That they spent millions of dollars on Bentkey, didn't work and then they canceled. Okay, so, wow. An entrepreneur started a product, they spent a bunch of money on it. It didn't work. And the board at the same time. Coincidentally, not coincidentally. March of last year, I think it's been over a year since Jeremy Boring stepped down as CEO. And they say, okay, you know, maybe that didn't work. Well, look, meta. They tried to do the metaverse and they spent billions of dollars into a hole. That didn't work either. So you see things like that. You say, wow, maybe that affected your cash reserves. But what was very interesting to me. Can you go back to the ratings, the chart that Vinnie was talking about, the kind of the green. Yeah. Pat, take a look at this. Most media companies, and I looked at this this weekend. Most media companies, 2024 from January to October was like fantastic. And they were up. Why? It was the election show. They're talking primaries, they're talking states, they're talking just Trump really bad. No, we're going to go a. Kamala is Biden. Did he write the letter? Didn't he write the letter? Remember all that? Look at this. If this is. If this is correct, from this, this group, then the Daily Wire viewership was going down into an election cycle where most of the podcasts and the media kind of went up into an election cycle. So I thought that was kind of interesting difference that they experienced. And those are my observations.
Pat
Yeah. So my thoughts here on this story here. Number one, running a business is very hard. And running a business that's a public business is even harder. And then running a business with the face of the business has an opinion is even 10 times harder. Okay, so in this case, the guy that, when you think about Daily Wire, who's the face of Daily Wire?
Vinny
Ben Shapiro.
Pat
Ben Shapiro. Guess what? You know, he.
Tom
He.
Pat
It comes with the territory. You can't be upset about it. But you know, one thing with him, I don't think, you know, he's not a sensitive guy that is going to be affected by it. I will tell you a couple feedback here. When did Jeremy Boring step down, Rob? What was it?
Adam
A year ago?
Tom
I think was March.
Pat
March of last year.
Tom
Yeah.
Pat
Okay. So by the way, this makes Jeremy Boring look good. This makes Jeremy Boring look good. Because this says the creative guy was gone. Love him or hate him, you know, he at least maybe was the creative guy that was doing stuff. Okay. He was a guy that was going out there doing the. If you have to say naturally. Who is more funny? Ben Shapiro. Jeremy Boring. It's not even close. Right? No, not Ben, but I'm gonna tell you.
Adam
Smarter.
Pat
I'm gonna tell you. No, that's not even a. That's not the conversation. Smart.
Tom
Yeah.
Pat
So the rebranding of Ben has been, let's try to see if he's funny, and let's make him be funny and doing all this stuff. I don't think it's working. The rebranding of trying to attack and the way they do with Candace, the way they're doing. I also don't think that's working. Okay. I don't think that's working. I think if Ben went on the road and did some of the stuff with campuses and schools and stuff like that, I think they can bring that eyeball back up again because he's phenomenal with that, being on the road and talking to kids and, you know, he's one of the OG guys who did this. Him. Crowder. This is way before anybody else was doing it. That's kind of how they build it, even before Charlie. Yeah. So. So I think he can get back into it. Does he want to do it or not? Probably. Security is family. People are probably saying no. I think he's got three or four kids, so he's a family guy as well. I don't think that's going to be happening. And then, you know, last but not least is I do believe, you know, they may have tried to sell a year ago, maybe two years ago, and the numbers were higher. It's like, hey, let's go to the market. Because they went from Fox News's enemy to Fox isn't an enemy. And maybe we team up together and maybe Fox acquires us and we go under them. And I don't know if that went through or not. Okay, go back up there. Rob, what does it say? Shapiro solicits backers or buyers for Build Out Daily Wire. What's the date on this? What's the date on this? Yeah, a year ago. I've spoken a few different people. That's when they was on the market. We had some interesting conversations with a few people. Tom, you remember this one? Some people came in and they asked us about our interest, about, you know, some. Some different moves. And. But, you know, this is the part about business. You know, we sold a week before money being cheap, a week before money went up in prices. Vinnie. And. And. And sometimes, like, that's not like, oh, my God, you guys were such geniuses. No, it got lucky. I mean, I'm bottom. I'm being serious. It's very easy to say Let me tell you how brilliant we are. No, it was just timing because then all of a sudden, boom, rates went up. And then companies are like, time out. We're not making any acquisitions the way we were. So our timing, of course, the company is, you know, worth way more than will be sold today. The EBITDA is much higher. The company is happy. Everything ended up working out. But a part of it is also timing of when you drop and you move on. So repositioning, remessaging, and see if the market, you know, is turned on by it or not. And then you got to go from there. But this is not an. And by the way, CBS is having a hard time right now.
Vinny
Of course they are.
Pat
It's not like CBS is like winning. CBS is getting criticized. And so let me get this straight. The 60 Minutes person that's doing the interview, what's her name? Leslie Stahl is a Jew reporting to a Jew and working for a Jew. Right? So. So I guess that's right. And FYI, I knew it.
Tom
I knew it.
Pat
None of that is wrong. None of that is wrong. So Leslie Stahl. Where is Leslie Stahl's family from? I don't know. Is Leslie Stahl Jewish? Rap. I don't know Leslie Stahl. Where's her family from? Do we know her family?
Vinny
Yeah, Jewish family.
Pat
Okay, there you go. So. So she's Jewish, who she reports to. Very wise. Jewish is Jewish.
Vinny
Who bought the company?
Pat
Who bought the company is David Ellison and Larry Ellison, who's Jewish. So guess what? Go ahead. How do you fix that? Yeah, go ahead and change the messaging. You have to find a way to go through. So I'm not going to watch CBS because I know what these guys are trying to do. This is a very, very, very weird time to be in a media space. There's a very weird time to be in a media business. It's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very challenging. And you're better off building on systems instead of personalities, because if you only build it on personalities, they're going to go, they're going to leave, they're going to do this. And look what happened. Candace, Boom, Brett Cooper. And then Jordan Peterson's going through some challenges. Hopefully he feels better. And I saw the Michaela Peterson that put a clip about it. Of course, Jordan Peterson at one point played a very, very important role for young men in America. And we heard some news with Rudy Giuliani is also not feeling good. I hope he recovers. He was one of the biggest fighters in America we ever had. He cleaned up the streets of New York. No matter how much people say stuff about Giuliani, you know, our prayers are with him and his. His family, and I hope they go through it, make it through. But this game of media is not for everybody. It's nasty, it's ugly, and you have to change your approach or the reasoning for it. The other day, I went to Publix early in the morning. I went to Publix since we didn't have mushrooms. And Jen's like, you're really going to Publix? I said, babe, the way I make my omelette, both me and Tico like it with this mushroom.
Vinny
Yeah.
Pat
So I go to Publix. And by the way, when I go to Publix, 7 o', clock, 6:30 in the morning, whatever time is, I'm. I'm dressed like a. You know, I just got up. I'm not fixing my hair or anything. So I go, oh, my God. Guy pulls up. I'm like, oh, shoot.
Vinny
What?
Pat
And I didn't have my. I wasn't. I wasn't carrying. So guy comes up, he's giving me a hug, and I'm just. When he's hugging me, I'm just watching his hands, you know, because there's different kind of hugs. I'm like, hey, nobody. You know what I'm saying? When you're hugging somebody with the hands, like, oh, good. By the way, he stays with me for 10 minutes. Every aisle we went. He's following me. He says, why'd you start a podcast? I noticed you're doing a lot of podcasts. Why do you do the podcast? Nice guy. Well, why are you doing a podcast? You're a guy that's successful. Is it that important? Why is it so important? Your strategy for running your media company may have to adjust instead of the traditional way of doing it to get sponsorship money. And if you make the right adjustments, maybe you want long term. If you don't, and you bring personalities. Personalities. Nowadays, no matter the moment you bring in, there's everybody in their ear saying, hey, you know, you should do this, you should do that, you should do that. So this constantly gets people to not be able to retain. So kudos to Knowles and Walsh and all those guys for being there because they get so much pressure every day for leaving. And so I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen.
Vinny
For staying.
Pat
Yeah, I'm sorry. For staying. Yeah. So they're constantly getting criticized to leave. Hey, why aren't you leaving and doing your own thing. But this is a very tough business. We're going to see this thing over and over again with stories.
Adam
It's a tough business. Let me ask you one thing, Patience. There's only a few people that I'd put in this category of Ben Shapiro, meaning you're the owner, operator, founder. You're also the main talent. I think you're in that category. Obviously. I think someone like Dave Portnoy is in that category. The Tuckers of the world, the Candace's of the world are quickly finding out. It's hard to be the owner, operator, talent. We'll see what happens. But here's my biggest thing. If you listen to the voices that choose your enemies wisely, he's made Candace an enemy. He's made Tucker an enemy to an extent. He's made Megyn Kelly what happened. But look at what his enemies are saying. Tucker is calling Trump the Antichrist and then forget he said that. Candace is telling people in the military just unlist from the army, a dishonorable discharge, don't die for Israel. Okay? That's at the very least un American. You have Nick Fuentes who's basically saying go vote Democrat. And I'll ask you this initial question. What has changed from the perspective, not the business model, the perspective from what you're hearing from the Daily Wire, because I would argue nothing's changed. They're doubling down on what they've always done. Do you think they should change or should they stay the way they are, personality wise and content wise? I'm not saying business perspective. Or do they stick to their morals and their values and say, no, this is what we stand for. We're not going to, we're not going to listen to trash Turning Point USA or an Erica Kirk or basically.
Pat
Let me tell you this, though. Let me tell you how this works. One day I'm in Atlanta and I'm talking to this other guy and the company has pinned us against each other. I'll give you the dates. It's probably like, you know, October of 2008. And this is not a guy I trust. Shady guy. He got promoted and demoted three times. But I got along with everybody, including this guy. But I knew who he was and he knew who I was. Both of us knew. We're players. This guy ended up making $10 million. You're very, very good at what he does, but not my kind of guy. It's the kind of guy that looks at you, says stuff and behind your back it says stuff. And When I saw the company, he came here, tried to get me to help him out. I'm like, listen, I don't play these big shot games. Never responding back to his text, nothing. Because to my face he would compliment behind my back. He would go out there and try to destroy fake friend. I don't do that kind of stuff at all. And by the way, I wish him nothing about the best. He knows who he is. They're going to share this video with him and he'll see it. He knows exactly, exactly my position is the moment you did that one thing, you lose me permanently. I don't play games. But I'm gonna tell you what happened when we were at this event, he says, my style is, you know, I destroy you. And then we become friends. And then when I'm bigger than you, then we become friends.
Vinny
The hell's that?
Pat
So he said this to me and it's like, hey, we should start to your face. Yeah, but he's talking about other people. But I get what he's saying. He says we should do events together. I'm like, I'll never do events with you. But the reason why I didn't want to do events with him is because I knew he would brainwash and confuse others and divide. I don't play those games. I understand deception very quickly. When people try to play games, it's very obvious, very effective. I've read all the Power books. 40 Laws of Power, Art of War, 33 Strategies of War, the Rings. You read any of these stuff on manipulation and power? I read them because I knew what, by the way, I gave. One of our guys in the company was using 48 laws of power against our guys. You know what? I made the book of the month. The next month I had everybody in the company read 48 laws so nobody could do it.
Adam
Flip the script.
Pat
I said everybody read 40 laws of power so nobody can manipulate against you. But you know what happened. Here's the challenge, Adam. If we come up and I behind closed doors, I'm constantly trying to destroy your career in media. And you're an 18 year old kid, 19 year old kid, and I'm telling everybody how bad you are. That may work on 99% of 18, 19 year old kids. They can destroy their career. And then comes the one guy and the one guy you don't f with. So if you came up in any business, including media and behind closed doors, you made the phone calls because you have access to those guys to destroy their careers. I'm not with that either. So I'm not saying that's what they did. I haven't been around the game long enough to know what everybody did. I do know this is a very nasty, nasty game. And I would size everybody up when I would talk to them. We're new in this space. It's not like we've been in this space for a long time. And I don't even know if you understand what I just said right now. Some people did understand exactly what I just said right now.
Adam
I'm reading between the lines.
Pat
If you came up and you intentionally used your power to destroy people's career, F you if you did that, because if that's how you win, you deserve everything that's coming your way. Cuz that's how capitalism works. You can't do that.
Adam
Sure.
Pat
The way to compete is beat me out, message me. What did Biden's administration do? Hey, silence those YouTube channels. What did Fauci and those guys do on Covid? Hey, silence those guys. I remember there was a guy named Dr. Mike. I'm like, hey, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Three times he's agreed and then cancels. Why not next week? He has Fauci on. Oh, you can. Because I'm going to talk about Fauci. And who was telling you that we were getting strikes? So if you played those games, don't think it only happens on the liberal side if conservatives do it. I'm not with that either. I'm with arguments. Like, I enjoyed watching Tucker's interview with New York Times. I don't agree with him. I've already called him out. I said, well, my position is. But I actually enjoyed the interview. Why? Because I'm watching the game, how it's being played, and I want to know people's position so we can adjust accordingly on what we're doing. So no, I'm not part of the. As much as people are like, you know what? All the death threats I got for interviewing BB And Nick Fontes, who the hell had both of them on within 30 days?
Adam
Nobody.
Pat
I enjoyed both their conversation. I wish I had an hour and a half with BB Why? Because last minute, you remember what happened last minute. We're on the other side of the building last minute. He wants to start earlier, got 30 minutes. I'm like, dude, I thought I had an hour. Do you remember this? When we had to come out and I don't know, you were in the room as well. We started 15 minutes early. I was supposed to go. I'm like, that threw my calendar Off. And I couldn't really get into these. But the market doesn't know this is not their fault. They're supposed to criticize. But if you came up and you used your card to do that. I don't play that game. I know I don't play that game. I don't. And by the way, you and I could agree together politically, and I still don't play that game. I still don't play that game. Because, you know, my, my daughter's at. And I'm going to get to next source. We got so many stories. I don't want to stay on the story for too long.
Adam
Okay.
Pat
I'm getting Brooklyn to get in the habit of, you know, what are the four things we do as a family? Read. Respect, Improve. Love. Do we bully? No. Do we get bullied? No. Okay. What are the three things we pray for? Courage. Was into, you know, courage, wisdom, understanding. Great. You know, I, I, Brooklyn, Ivy, Bed. David. Brooklyn Ivy will one day, one day be a. Be a great leader. I'm in that phase with her because she's four years old. I haven't had to do this because Senna's 9, about to be 10. So I'm shaping them. I said, I don't want to ride. Let me just watch. No, go to your steps. And she has to do these steps exercise every morning, and then she has to go write the letters. Oh, Daddy, please. I don't want to do. Please. I'm like, baby, as cute as you are, you have to write it. You're not going to get nothing with Daddy. I love you so much. I don't want to ride. Lead 10 times. Right? Lead 10 times. So she writes. I'm like, dude, that's great. Good. I'm going back and forth. But if the one thing in our family we don't bully and we don't get bullied, and the market is filled with a lot of bullies, and some of them that are covert bullies. You know what the COVID bully is? Do you know what I'm talking about? Like the guy that's behind Heavenly Father, like, China. And then you're doing this. You especially are the kinds I don't like. Well, because I like bullies like this. Okay? Like, Trump's this kind of a bully, but there's some deceptive games. Bully. I don't, I don't do that. And, you know, we, we try not to touch a lot of different positions. Anyways, I'm going to move on because we'll be in this topic here for another 45 minutes. All right, so let's get into Spirit. Is it Spirit Airlines, am I saying it correctly, or Spirit. Spirit Airlines. Right. Spirit Airlines.
Adam
I know you fly Spirit all the time. That's why you were forgetting the name.
Pat
Funniest. I have. I just haven't recently, but I have. So Spirit Airlines story comes out. And Tom, I'm coming to you first with this one. And Vinny, please contact your folks because we need your analysis. So Spirit Airlines comes out with the story that they are shutting down. Wait a minute.
Vinny
What?
Pat
Shutting down? How many jobs? 15,000. You're kidding me. No. Democrats come out because of gas prices. Spirit is shutting down. This is all on Trump. And then all of a sudden, time out. What did Elizabeth Warren and the DOJ prevent from happening? So here's Duffy, Secretary Duffy, who's doing a great job, and here's him delivering in his update on what happened with Spirit Airlines. Go ahead, Rob. And Spirit and Joe Biden and Pete
Tom
Buttigieg, along with the Biden DOJ decided
Pat
that they did not want that merger to take place.
Tom
And at the time, the Biden and
Pat
Buddha judge DOJ bragged and said as they canceled the option for this merger, that this was a victory for U.S.
Tom
travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices. Now, many at the time said this was a disaster.
Pat
This merger should have been allowed.
Adam
And this today would indicate this is
Tom
not better for travelers. This is not better for pricing. This is not better for competition. Actually, it's worse. We had an airline go down because the markets were trying to allow two airlines to merge, make them stronger and
Pat
offer more competition for the American consumer.
Tom
Also, Elizabeth Warren at the time chaired the blocking of the merger, saying that the Biden.
Pat
This was a Biden win for Flyers.
Tom
So again, I think it's important that
Pat
we always look with a keen eye when airlines want to merge. We care about pricing for consumers. You can pause. You can pause it right here on what happened. Duffy said, hey, if you work for Spirit, don't go to work. There's no, if you have a flight, don't go. It's not going to happen. If you're going to do this, don't do that. So they're going through all this stuff, and then Senator Warren is facing backlash over JetBlue merger block after Spirit shut down. Rob, do you have that one? When they were going through the whole thing? This is March 7, 2023. Good work. Is this just Buttigieg or is it both of them?
Vinny
Both.
Pat
Okay, go for it. Passengers have choices that they have Access to low fares, that they have access to competition.
Tom
And socialist Elizabeth Warren said at the
Pat
time, preventing a merger between JetBlue and Sheer, which would have kept us.
Tom
It's a tweet that they're going to read, said, I've warned For months a
Pat
JetBlue Spirit merger would have led to fewer flights, higher fares. The irony is that that really kind of socialist viewpoint got us one less airline and fewer jobs. Is that it?
Tom
Yep.
Pat
Okay, Tom, what do we know about this? Who screwed up? Whose fault is it?
Tom
So if you've got two huge giants that want to put together, that's where the Federal Trade Commission says, hey, anti monopoly behavior, that monopolistic behavior, they don't want that to happen. But you've got JetBlue and Spirit, two smaller air airlines. JetBlue, who classically, you know, they are who they are. We all know who they are. Kind of a Southwest mid tier. And then you got Spirit that was providing, you know, ultra low cost on certain routes. Matter of fact, Spirit is very big here in Fort Lauderdale.
Adam
Yeah, their headquarters is here in Dania.
Tom
That's exactly right. I mean, that's. They're. They're huge. And so what happened was they said, oh, it'll lead to higher fares and fewer flights. They believed that JetBlue was merely going to shut down Spirit. Well, they apparently don't understand the economics of airlines. That's not what's going to happen. Market share of hubs is what matters in airlines, number one and number two. You know, you do have levels. And what they did last year, Pat, it came true. Elizabeth Warren says we're going to block this because it's going to have.
Vinny
It'll.
Tom
Consumers have higher fares and fewer flights, you dumb bunny. That's exactly what you do.
Pat
Oh, no. Whoa. Oh. Yo, yo. Don't say that.
Tom
Mission accomplished, Pocahontas.
Adam
Now you look back over, you bad bunny.
Tom
People don't have. People don't have jobs.
Adam
You got town riled up. Everybody.
Tom
People don't have jobs. Now, what happened? Spirit had issues. The way it was managed and forward, they ended up.
Pat
I don't know, Tom.
Tom
I think they had $9 billion of debt. I think that was the 9 billion. No, JetBlue had 9 billion of debt. And so they were like, how is JetBlue gonna do this? But if this had been like American and United coming together to make a super carrier, then you could say, wow, well, there go prices. And you'd probably be right. But you've got these, a regional and a discount airline, and the Government got it wrong. They simply got it wrong because look at all the angle they were capitalism, bad merger for bigger bad people bad. And you know what else I'm going to go, I'm going to go out here and I'm going to say maybe, maybe if this been a pharmaceutical company or a defense contractor which keep merging. How many defense contractors we have left? Five super majors. Patrick, remember the chart that we talked about on this podcast two years ago about all the defense contractors had merged together and that created, you know, issues for the American taxpayer paying for things. This wouldn't have done that this was you're trying to keep if I had been there, I would have said look, we need to let Spirit and JetBlue get together and I'll tell you why. Because we need to keep a mid tier and a discount airline to be large enough to compete with American, to compete with the, with the others. That's what I would do. And they blew it.
Pat
Do you know what?
Tom
They missed the call.
Pat
Do you know what Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and the Democrats are begging and praying for and making phone calls behind closed doors.
Vinny
What alleged like to let something happen
Pat
to have the second airline go bankrupt. Because if the second airline goes bankrupt, they're right in imaging and PR if it's only Sprint Spirit Republicans are right. But if a second goes through, Trump's going to have to answer for that and Duffy and it's going to come back to oil prices if the second one Tom Yep. So you better believe behind closed doors Democrats are right now sitting on saying who's another one that could go bankrupt? Hey, let's make their life a living hell. Make them go bankrupt. Who's another one that can go bankrupt?
Tom
Blue With 9 billion in debt, there are some people that handicap it that if you lined all the airlines up up that JetBlue is the next one that would be possible. But they are. You look at their financials, they appear to be a long way away from the cliff.
Pat
Yeah, well I'm just saying they're celebrating that because play that clip Rob, if you can from yeah, they're celebrating that. Here's Merrick Garland on March of 2023 talking about spirit Airlines. Go ahead, Rob.
Tom
Today the Department of Justice filed a
Pat
civil antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. district
Tom
Court for the District of Massachusetts to
Pat
stop the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. We are joined in that lawsuit by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of New York and the District of Columbia. I'm here with Associate Attorney General Vanita
Tom
Gupta and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Doha Meki.
Pat
Our complaint alleges that JetBlue's proposed $3.8
Tom
billion acquisition of Spirit violates Section 7
Pat
of the Clayton Act. We allege that if allowed to proceed, this merger will limit choices and drive up ticket prices for passengers across the country. And we further allege that the impact of this merger will be particularly harmful for travelers who rely on what are known as ultra low cost carriers in order to fly. Those include working and middle class Americans who travel for personal as opposed to to business reasons and who must pay their own way. Keep going. By acquiring Spirit, JetBlue will eliminate the largest ultra low cost carrier in the United States. Oh, you just caused it, by the way. Pause it right there. So meaning whatever they try to prevent this is over and over and over again. They do their policies and it miserably fails and capitalism wins. But they confuse Kendrick. Oh, my God. This is gas prices. They're going to do that. Adam, what are your thoughts on this before we move on?
Adam
Let them fail. You remember that when Chamath said that about the airlines in 2020, when they did the bailout because they were doing their stock buybacks? He said, let them fail. Because you said this. You taught me this. What are the four elements of capitalism?
Pat
Freedom to buy. Freedom to sell. Freedom to try. Freedom to fail.
Adam
Freedom to fail. So here's what I know about Spirit Airlines. I know it's been quite some time since you've flown Spirit. I fly Spirit if I have to. They're basically the Dollar General of airlines. And when. When you have a business model that you're the cheapest prices, you know, you're the, like, how do you raise prices? How do you increase your margins? You know, if Spirit Airlines had a mantra, it'd be like, low prices, bad experiences. We'll get you there. Maybe.
Tom
Yeah.
Adam
So I listen, I remember the last time that I flew Spirit. I flew. You remember? You know my friend Keith. You know, I have some rich friends, Vinnie. It's better to have really, really rich friends. Flew to Aspen with him on his private jet from Miami. He goes, come on, come with me to. To Aspen. I go, great, fly with him. He goes, how you getting back? I go, do I. Do I get to take the jet? Back Goes, no, I go, spirit it is, homie. I flew back Spirit. Now, let me tell you, I'd rather fly private. Don't get me wrong. I know how much you guys like flying private to Aspen. I go, that's a great experience for you. But Spirit is low. Cost, bad experience. And there's always issues. So I don't know what happened here with Spirit. I'm not delving the devil's in the details. Tom's got those details. But at some point, if your business model is built on razor thin margins, there's very little room for error. And when gas prices go up and travel goes down, you can't really raise the prices if you have the worst reputation. And I'll ask you this, Pat, you did a commercial for the FLBs. You said we went to Tuscany, Italy, and you said we had the choice. Help me out here, Pat. To make it cheap, to make it quick, to make it fast. We chose none of those. We did it the right way. Spirit Airlines had to pick a path. You're the cheapest, you're the best customer service. You're either going to get you there on time. They would do neither. They were the cheapest. They would never get you there on time. And they had a horrible customer service. Let them fail. Let my people go.
Vinny
And I had the word like. It was like when my father, God rest his soul, passed away. I came to the airport. Sad. I have a big vendetta with them. They charged me $50 because I had emotional baggage with my dad.
Pat
Pat's face with.
Vinny
They're like, you look like you're Sad. Yeah, that's $50.
Pat
You're gonna put that on. What's funny?
Adam
Pat's face. Nobody caught that joke.
Vinny
I got you $50, by the way.
Adam
They will nickel and dime you for everything.
Tom
Words, talk number, scream. And we'll get off this story, Pat. But spirit Airlines has 1.4% market share. Oh, my gosh. Giant in the closet, right? Jet Bloom has 3.4%. That's 4.8. So if they had merged, they would have had 4.8 market share. Alaska's next at 5.8 and then United at 17. Yeah, but, so this, this would have created a low cost plus regional player that's still smaller than Alaska and four times smaller than United and six times smaller than market leader American and Delta, who both have about 20. But more important, how do you go
Pat
to the mike do with the giant in the closet? Like, what were they doing?
Tom
No, no, that's. I'm making a joke. I mean, it's like they were not some giant that come out that was like this.
Pat
So. But by the way, what you're saying is right. And look, I. I think we have to give the highlight real. Rob, we can't do this. We have to give respect to Spirit.
Vinny
Because it's done.
Pat
If you're somebody that likes entertainment, you have to give it up to what happens at Spirit. Watch this. Go ahead.
Adam
We got the Spirit.
Pat
Let me hear the audio. This is Spirit Airline. I mean.
Vinny
Oh, look at the punches.
Pat
Give me the kick.
Vinny
Kick
Tom
what?
Pat
Area? Go recruit the. Yes. There's. There's another one with employees. Actually, I haven't seen this one, but I want to go up one. Rob, it was right above you that one.
Vinny
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pat
Watch this. Go back a little bit.
Vinny
This employees.
Pat
Had Spirit in a block.
Tom
You dirty.
Adam
Yes, you are.
Pat
She got an eight head.
Adam
Look at that eight head right there. Out of here. Go suck a dick.
Pat
Oh, my. Rob, you didn't tell me she was going to say that.
Tom
Wait a minute.
Pat
First Tom says giant closet, and then now she says she actually swing at it. Okay. All right, let's get to the next story.
Adam
More importantly, Tom, how is your emotional back?
Pat
Let's get to the next story. Next story I want to get into. Next story I want to get into is there's. There's a couple of them. I'd like to get to them.
Adam
Let's do it.
Pat
Hopefully. So the next one I want to get to is, well, tax. Okay, let's go to the wealth tax, because there's something nobody is talking about with the wealth tax that you have to be thinking about. Okay. Seattle AI startup founder says he's leaving over new millionaire tax. That's out there. Rob, if you got the clip here, go for it. It doesn't get right into it, Rob, or go ahead. You could manifest that that was the culture here. We had a vibrant startup community. We had a very supportive startup community,
Tom
and the ecosystem worked.
Pat
It helped build the companies.
Tom
And then for whatever reason, sort of
Pat
over the last four or five years, we've seen this shift where entrepreneurship is now villainized. And it's an unfortunate and sad shift. It's probably the least friendly place to do business I can imagine. I'm Jesse Proudman, founder and CTO at Venice AI. We don't want to be out of Washington state. We love it here.
Tom
Right. Like, we want to stay.
Pat
But they're forcing the hands of many
Tom
people based on how they're changing the climate.
Pat
You've got moderates in the middle and
Vinny
conservatives on the right and liberals on the left.
Pat
And over time, that liberal perspective has
Tom
gone farther and farther left.
Vinny
And the blame for the problems of
Pat
in the city has become focused on sort of lack of funding and the reality right there. Okay, so let me just give you some numbers here. So, Tom, core rule 7% tax on long term capital gains is the current law. Okay. Is what they have applies to people with $700,000 plus per year in gains. The 7% on gains up to a million. The higher tier is 9.9% on gains above a million dollars. Vinnie. 9.9%. And then they're proposing this. It's going to be expected to begin around 2028 is what the date is. Then the new thing they're proposing is the 1% annual tax on financial assets. Okay. Which is stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds. Applies to the ultra wealthy, over $100 million every year. 1% the tax that you pay on it. So, Tom, why is this so important for people to think about? And what is the blind spot that they're not looking at?
Tom
What people when they say tax the rich. Soon as you hear the word tax always say in your head, everybody, ultimately, whenever you hear a politician talk about taxes, everybody, ultimately. And what's in Washington this open. And they had an official in Washington say, beginning with the millionaires, because that's an easier place to sell it. But it's obviously the intent is to tax everybody, quote, unquote. So. And why are we so surprised? And we've seen people on social media that took to the fine print of the California tax. We covered it on this podcast a week ago. We showed you the areas that were being called out by many people that were there. And so now you've got a guy leaving Washington, he likes Washington. He's got family that are in Washington, he's got employees that are in Washington. And he's saying, listen, this has become more and more toxic environment here. And now we're looking at other things. We're looking at Nevada, we're looking at Austin. Wow, what a surprise. And it's. You know what, these decisions have consequences. But what also tells you is we are in the middle of a wave. And the wave that is coming is socialism driven by Marxism. And it's an attack on assets and it's seizure of assets. These are not taxes. These are seizing assets that have already been taxed, that were used to build. Vinnie, you and I get together, we took some of our money in a savings account. It's already been taxed. My money's been taxed. It's in my savings account. Your money you'd pay taxes on, you put in a savings account. We took that and started a business. And then we go up. And now they're saying, well, wow, your business is Successful. Yeah. When we sell it, we're going to pay taxes fair and square. And the profits we make, we pay taxes fair and square. Yeah, but it's not fair that you're rich. What do you mean I'm rich? I don't have this money is now built a business. That business is worth millions of dollars. Well, you better go get some loans or go figure out how to give us a percent of it. They want you to pay that. That business hasn't even been sold. It just represents value. And so this is asset seizure, Pat. This is asset seizure on a socialist Marxist way. And you're seeing people such as a small startup like this looking at it and going, oh my gosh. It's not just the billionaires. It's everybody out of
Adam
stupid, stupid, stupid. These people just, just do not learn from what social but happens. You remember when Europe tried this in France and Sweden and they kicked out all their capitalists and entrepreneurs and they go, oh my God, we lost all our revenue generation. And they quickly reverse course. You cannot tax your way to prosperity because what rich people have are assets, cars, planes, boats. And you know what they're going to do with them? They're going to get the hell out of town. This whole concept that we're villainizing and demonizing entrepreneurs, business owners, capitalists, where do we think this is going to end up? We already have a progressive tax in the country that already the richest people already pay the most taxes. Now you want to tax them more at some point, you know the whole concept with Ben, Ben Bren, then they're going to break, they're just going to leave. I'll give you one quick story. I remember there was a nightlife club in Miami. I know you're going to be shocked that I'm bringing up nightlife in Miami.
Pat
Yeah, here we go.
Adam
And the owner goes, you know what? I'm sick of doing the bottle service and catering to like the richest people. I want to make this bar about everybody. And we're going to give five dollar well drinks and we're basically not going to be doing bottle service anymore. And basically we're just going to cater to the everyman. You know what happened, all the rich ballers, the people that are popping bottles, the people that got money, the people that are buying bottles in the club with the sparklers, they go, yeah, we're just gonna go to a different club that's more fun, that likes us, that appreciates our money. We're dropping 5,000, $10,000. You want to bring the riff raffs in one year later, the club is ghetto. It's basically shut down. It's on his last leg. And I remember thinking, this is what happens. We don't. Don't value the customers because they will go someplace else. I know there's other clubs or states in this, this analogy that they're going to go to, like Florida, like Texas, like Nevada. And they're going to get out of these big blue dumb cities.
Pat
This is, this is the. Vinnie, this the biggest thing. Why this is a bad idea. This idea could have worked in the 70s, not today. And here's why. Do you know in the 70s, when you think about S&P 500, whose. Our money was tied to S&P 500. Okay, so the people who ran these companies in the 70s, what percentage of it do you think was physical assets? Okay, Tom knows the answer to this question. Of all the companies that you own physical, that you have a hard time leaving. So real estate or physical assets, what percentage was tied to physical assets? Tom, what do you think it was in the 70s?
Tom
In the 70s it was in excess of 80%.
Pat
Exactly.
Tom
Oil companies, auto companies, factories. And you can't leave steel.
Pat
You cannot leave. It's like, I can't leave. Do you know what the number is today? Do you know what the number is today? 10%. Wow. And where is it 10 to 15% today?
Adam
Real estate or hard.
Pat
So no digital, non tangible assets. So it means it's all digital. I can move anywhere? Yeah. So wait, you don't want me? No problem, I'll move. The days of me being like, come on, please. Because it's real estate. Because it's. Oh, no, I'm at it. Can you verify this, Rob, to see what percentage of to this is the one thing everybody is missing? There's only one thing there is left for them to do. Only one thing left for them to do, and they haven't done it yet. And they're going to. This is my prediction. They're going to go into this because their accountants are going to sit there and. Okay, right there. Look at that. Go a little bit lower, Rob. Go a little bit lower. Right there. Look at that. 1975, 83% was tangible assets. 17% is intangible. Look at it today. 8% is tangible. You can't do shit today. Go ahead, tax me. Go. Make me leave. What are you going to send me? Do you understand? Do you understand what this is?
Vinny
1,000.
Pat
I'll take my wealth to go to Florida. And it's happening, of course. Sergey Brin's like I'm going to take my wealth anywhere you can push you. So you know how scarier even this is. I can take my wall to any country that's bad if I wanted to leave. Right? Because it's what it is, intangible versus tangible. So what is the only thing they have left that they're going to do that they can do that they're going to eventually end up doing? You know what's the only thing, Tom? It's the only thing is the exit tax and they're not fully there yet. No state in America fully has an exit tax. Rob, can you, can you check this? What states in America have a full on exit tax?
Tom
California kind of.
Vinny
And New York was trying, New York City's trying.
Pat
Those are the two states that they're
Adam
trying to draw back tax.
Pat
It is, it's kind of like what Canada has like when you leave. No state currently has an exit tax. So you know what these idiots are going to learn? They're going to say, let me get this straight, as of 2026, the state is considering a billionaire type of whatever 5% are billion dollars. You see what that says, right? Additionally, proposed wealth tax could apply to residents with a net worth of 30 million plus with a potential liability of what, up to 10 years. They're going to realize in an era where only 8% of the wealth is tied to tangible, 92% is tied to intangible. They're going to say the only thing we can do now is an exit tax. You leave 5% exit tax.
Adam
Walk me through the. This is mind blowing because just follow the money here. 90% of the assets in the 70s you can't.
Pat
You have to work for politicians. Politicians owned you in the 70s, they don't today because of technology.
Adam
What would a exit tax essentially do and how they.
Pat
Here's what an exit tax would and I'm telling you, I'm giving them the playbook. But I'm telling you they're going to come to your city and it's going to be on the ballot because you know what they're going to say. I don't even know why they did this. They just had to go, you know, in a movie hangover says you never go full. You're not, not. So they're going to go full exit tax. Okay.
Adam
Never go full ex.
Pat
And they're going to never go full wealth. And you know what happens when they do full exit tax. Here's what happens. Hey, you worth 250? If you really want to Get a communistic idea or socialistic idea. You had a 5% exit tax for anybody that's worth over a billion dollars. It will go through in every blue state. They'll do this in New York, they'll do this in California. They'll do this in Illinois. They'll do this in all these states like Washington thinking, we got them. We got them, you morons. 8% is tangible. I'm leaving to all the socialist communists that are thinking they're going to get these guys, they're going to get their asses handed to them. And I think the one that's going to break the back, the camel's back. This is bad. But it's going to be the 5% exit tax that they do. Once they do that, it's not going to be. I don't think anybody's going to leave. Oh, really? Okay. I dare you, Newsom. I dare you, Hokul. Go ahead and put an exit tax. See what happens to your state. I dare to everybody that's trying to put this billionaire tax that stays there. These people are going to leave. But what they're going to want to do long term, you'll see in the next five, 10, 15 years, just like right now. Ruling came out. Rob, can you pull this up? They're talking about we need to raise a minimum wage from $7.25 to $25 an hour. It just went to Congress. This went to Congress. Rob, if I'm not mistaken, am I saying it correctly or no?
Vinny
Yeah.
Pat
Is this the story? Yes, sir. Go ahead, Rob. 30 seconds. Watch this, folks.
Vinny
Legislation being introduced in Congress to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time since the year 2009. The bill looks to raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour from the current 725. The bill would work in steps for large employees to pay that rate by 2031.
Pat
So check this smaller employee. So check this out. Who do you think doesn't care about this bill? Amazon. Who do you think doesn't care about this bill? Walmart. Who else? Apple. Nvidia. I don't know. Name them. IBM. Keep going. They don't care about this bill. You know who does? Mary and John's liquor store. That's been in the family for 58 years. In Toledo. Okay. In Hope, Arkansas. How the hell is somebody that's running a small little market and Hope, Arkansas going to afford to pay all their employees 25 bucks an hour? How? That's $50,000 a year salary. These are the dumb ideas that they Come up with thinking they're helping the average person and all they're doing is helping the big business out because a big business owner can't afford it. You ever wonder we used to have 14,000 banks in America, give or take. You know what we got right now? 4,000. One by one by one, they're getting picked up. We used to have 50 something, you know, military contractors. Outside of just Boeing, General Dynamics, we had 50 something plus. What do we got right now, five to seven? National Nationalize the hell out of it. We had all these places that we used to go to pharmaceutical. Now buy them out. Buy them out. How dumb regulation like this. So I predict they're going to come out with exit tax and that'll be the way to control them. Because what they truly want to do to these billionaires is if you leave, you owe us the money. Without us, you would have never made this money that's coming to a blue state near you. But this intangible tangible part that no one thinks about changes the game. It's not going to work because anybody can move today. It's not a big deal for, for people to move in 2026. It's not like for people to move in 1976.
Adam
Of course, especially if you have digital, you have crypto, you have a, unrelated asset move about this minimum wage thing. This really pisses me off because if, if you do it state by state, which is basically how this works, every state has their minimum wage. You go federal, do you know what this is going to do to the average red state out there? Look at Alabama, look at Mississippi, look at Tennessee, where they're paying the kid, the kid making pizza, the kid scooping ice cream. 10 bucks, 12 bucks, 15 bucks. Now you're going to universally condemn everybody and say everyone in America has to pay the prices because you big blue cities can't get it together. So you know what's going to happen is it's almost like they don't even know the next move. Your Happy Meal is 29.95 piece of pizza, $38 for a pizza pie, sushi$99. Everything is going to go up. Supply and demand here. You raise the prices, you raise the cost of labor, then people are gonna end up exactly, by the way, so stupid.
Pat
I'm gonna give a quick shout. We rarely do this and we should do it more often. Why? Frost 13 has been a member with us for 47 months. He says tacos and pupusas will be 9.953 tacos for $30 he's right.
Adam
Exactly.
Pat
That's where it's.
Adam
I don't know pupusas are.
Pat
But sign me up. Well, the pupusas are great. You have pupusa. You, you, you had a smile. Your face. While we're going through this, do you want to go through another horrible idea? You know how they say the donkey of the week? We're going to do the worst idea of the week.
Adam
Donkey of the week.
Pat
Watch what happened with Norway. Rob, pull up this story. It's un folks. Blood pressure.
Adam
Oh, oh, no.
Pat
Control it.
Vinny
No, here I.
Pat
None of any. I'm telling. Your blood pressure is about to go up.
Vinny
I didn't see that.
Pat
So take some. Take some. What do you call it?
Adam
Ivermectin.
Pat
Whatever.
Vinny
My
Pat
blood pressure medicine.
Adam
It fixes everything.
Pat
Watch this. Watch this here, folks. Brace for impact. You're about to get very, very upset and annoyed by this. So Syrian gets just six months in jail for raping a three year old Norwegian girl. Thirteen year old Norwegian girl. After court cites his low iq.
Vinny
What did you.
Pat
Okay, so let me break this down for you. Never go full rape is now legal in Norway if you're from a low IQ country. A Syrian migrant who raped a 13 year old girl in a bike shed gets just six months in prison because the court decided that this low IQ and reduced understanding of reality made him no more developed than his victim. Did you just understand this idea that they have a Norway. So this guy, whose name is Abdel Monem, rolled into all those names, rolled into Norway from Syria, met the girl in Prosmo City center last September, assaulted her on a park bench, then dragged her to a scheduled bike shed near the harbor terminal and raped her like an animal. He lied, denied even meeting her until his semen was found and matched. Then he admitted meeting her but claimed no sex. The court bought enough evidence, bought enough of his excuses to let him walk after a year behind bars thanks to a new law that scrapped the old three year minimum for rape. This is the compassion looks like in Europe now. Importing predators and then crying about their low IQ while little girls get destroyed. Okay. Get destroyed. This is from a guy named Joey Monarino who tweeted this. And you can read the story here as well. While I'm reading this tweet, I'm texting Humberto Ram. I'm saying, is this true? Is this really true? Yes, that's the whole thing. One assessment estimated that his IQ is at 41, although a later report put it in a range of 64 to 75. Vinny your thoughts on this?
Vinny
I don't even have any words to say that this is. This is exactly the playbook that this. Everybody, like every freaking place in Europe is doing the same stupid mentality and they're bowing down because they let all these people come in. What was the. The Pakistani rape gangs. You know why they didn't go after them? You know why that they said publicly we cannot go after them because we're going to look like we are racist. So forget about all the young girls that are freaking. Lives are destroyed because you don't want to look or be perceived as racist. You're not going after this. And then you have this. Well, because he's stupid. He's stupid. You can go rape. God bless you. And then what's next?
Pat
Murder?
Vinny
Oh, I don't know that I'm stupid, that I can't kill people. And it's ridiculous, Pat. This whole mentality, that's stupid.
Pat
What is that, Rob? Is that where he.
Tom
This is the Norwegian reporting of the same article.
Adam
I just translated it to English, but it's the same thing.
Vinny
My mind is boggled that the citizens of this place aren't doing more to rise up. This would be. God forbid. It would never happen if this type of stuff was allowed here, Pat. Americans patriots would go freaking nuts. I don't.
Pat
Poland or us.
Vinny
No, absolutely, I agree. Oh, Poland, forget about it. But it's ridiculous because I guarantee you the majority of these people aren't armed. They can't do nothing. And they have to sit there and let their freaking children get raped. Raped and let go because the guy's an idiot, Tom. Unbelievable.
Tom
Well, we know who values human life and who doesn't. And Marxist, socialist. And people say, ah, you know, Norway's not Marxist. Yeah, socialist and liberal apologists do not value human life. Period. Period. Period. The innocent young girl is not valued, is not protected. This is the case for chemical castration. This is the case for institutionalization. Because unfortunately, wherever this guy came from, and I say unfortunately and tragically, whatever happened to him is his life. Whatever it was, inbreeding, you know, a head injury, we don't know whatever it's led to him being this way, he's unfit to be part of society. So you have to chemically castrate them and put them in an institution. There's no other choice. And you have to take care of him in there. In a place where he can't hurt others. And hurt others is what they don't care about. They don't care about that because it's it's fashionable. It's fashionable to take all the conservatives that want the foundational things and what is that? Law and order, family, you know, a, a stable society, all of that, all of those people are wealthy, all of those people are bad. It's all of the Marxist thing is we have to overthrow it. And as long as their mindset is socialist overthrow, Marxist overthrow, then this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just basics. And let me tell you something. If you're not paying attention when you're at the American ballot box and you don't see the kind of things are happening and you don't think that courts are doing this right now, and you don't think that there's a lack of persecution in places like Dearborn, Michigan, you're not paying attention. If you're not paying attention to individualized laws that they want to give Sharia law inside the boundary of a small city that they're trying to create as a zone in Texas, then you're not paying attention. You're simply not paying attention.
Adam
Norway, no way. This is the definition of suicidal empathy. And this is a horrible precedent. So let me get this straight. Because someone's stupid, you're just willing to give them a pass. This is the definition of the soft fixture of lowest expectations. This is, you know, so you got Forrest Al Bucker Gump out here, just out there, hide your wife, hide your kids. Because he's out there graping everybody and you're giving him six months for a Syrian refugee in Norway who raped a 13 year old. Six months in jail. Let me tell you the dangerous precedent this sends. Because if you're just basically going to not throw stupid ass people in jail. Talk about low iq, low IQ individuals, talk about inbreeding and cousin marriages. Here's the fear. This guy's from Syria. What do all these countries have in common? Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan. As much as 30 to 60% of their population marries their cousin. What happens when you have inbreeding and marrying your cousin? You might have a couple missing chromosomes. You might not know what's going on. You might be stupid. And now you're going to be so stupid in Norway that you're going to be like, oh, he doesn't know any better. Let Amubak or Basaratuata just go out there and rape people. Yeah, that's his name. This is what's going on here in Norway. No way.
Vinny
I'm very curious and I want to know like, give me, please give me the mindset of the people that are like the courts and all these people that are. That would even fathom saying, okay, he's stupid, reduce his sentence and let him leave. Meaning the whole everybody in Europe. And remember in Hamburg, that rape gang, A bunch of guys kept coming to the park to rape this girl. None of the. But in court, you know who got the most time in jail? A girl that found him online and called him a rapist pig. She did more time for calling him out. No way. I want to know Pat's opinion.
Adam
You don't know any better. How are you letting their culture respect their culture?
Pat
A part of what you're saying, Vinnie, is the reason why we do what we do on a daily basis. I can't say how many people walk up and they say, hey, just want you to know, especially right now more than ever before, people walking up and saying, hey, I just want to say thank you because. And by the way, they're international. They're all over the world. I just want to say thank you for what you guys are talking about, because some of these countries don't have a voice and they can't talk about it, but they still have YouTube open in these countries. This is exactly why we do what we do. Why. Why media and messaging matters. Because to you, it's common sense. To billions of families is common sense. But to some of the people that are political, people that are super tolerant and, you know, hey, it's. It's a. We. We got to have sympathy for these guys. We got. We gotta. You know. You don't know what it is to be dumb, Vinnie. If you were dumb, you know, we. We can't judge you for behavior like that because your IQ is low. They're gonna do this stuff and they're gonna hurt so many people not knowing it. And messaging and media matters for this exact reason. Let me do a couple other stories and then we'll wrap up up. By the way, the two stories we'll do. They're good stories. I'm going to get into here in a minute, FYI. Do you know how many people have already taken a survey? Do you know how many people have already taken a survey? Huh?
Vinny
11,000?
Pat
1100 people. We are right now. No, no, it's at 2700 people. Stop it. Yes. Holy moly. 2700 people have already taken a survey, and it's probably. It's probably at 3,000 already and I'm behind on the guys.
Adam
Appreciate you. Thank you for doing the fact that
Pat
you're doing the survey. Each gets 25 gift card. And again, we going to possibly contact the people that give thorough analysis, thorough feedback and analysis. Instead of just doing the simple surveys that you do, you complete it. We're giving you 25 bucks, but we want people. $25 gift card to VT merch.com go pick up whatever you want to do from there.
Adam
You just dropped 60 grand on these guys.
Pat
No, it's 60 grand. You're talking about 2700 times 24. Yeah. 60,000 off dollars. Well, by tomorrow, it's probably going to be two, $300,000. Yeah.
Adam
Hey, let me get this survey going.
Pat
No, we, we want surveys.
Adam
Fire Adam. Yeah, I got it.
Pat
We want feedback from people to see what we can do.
Adam
I didn't realize that you're giving everybody 25.
Pat
Everybody that complete completes the survey gets a 25 gift card.
Adam
Did you expect 2, 500 people?
Pat
I. I said, I said to Umberto this morning, I gave the number. I said, it's either going to be a low number, it's going to be a very, very high number.
Adam
You're going to end up paying $100,000, no problem.
Vinny
Feedback's worth it coming out of your paycheck anyway.
Pat
Feedback is worth it. And so we're going the other way. The federal government's going to 25. We're going to 375 an hour, effective next month.
Adam
Reverse entrance tax.
Pat
Yeah, but we're going to put camps and, and different places. You can sleep here. So we'll save on rent.
Adam
Perfect.
Pat
All right, let's get to. So, again, thank you for everybody that's doing this. It means a lot, and we appreciate the feedback and we can't wait to go through it, seeing the reasonable answers. I'm sure there's going to be some that are having fun with it, but we want reasonable answers and argument on why. Okay, Cuba, Trump, they extend the sanctions, not making it easier. Okay. Rubio is apparently going to be leading this case with Cuba, which makes sense. Rob, what page is that there? Page 10. Trump teases us, will be taking over Cuba almost immediately. Is this it, Rob?
Tom
Yes, sir.
Pat
Go for it. An architect who's really talented, has done a lot of work for him. He's got a flair, a beautiful Hispanic flair in particular. And he comes from originally a place called Cuba, which we will be taking over almost immediately. Now Cuba's. Cuba's got problems. We'll finish one first. I like to finish a job on the way back from. What we'll do on the way back from Iran. We'll have One of our big. Maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world. We'll have that come in, stop about 100 yards offshore. And they'll say, thank you very much.
Vinny
We give up.
Pat
Top. You're loving this white.
Tom
Well, because you know what? But I'll tell you, I went to high school down here. Last two years of high school, people know it was in Boca Raton. Then I went back to la, California, where I was born. And what was interesting is at that time, I remember meeting people that were from Cuba, and these were fellow classmates, and they told me about their parents and grandparents and they told me about Castro. And they told me about. Also about the Murillo boat lift of which was lightly featured and reflected on at the beginning of the movie Scarface, where all people came here. And these people have lived in Cuba that have been stuck there, unable to leave. It's been horrible. And I've been looking forward to a day where Cuba would have freedom. So people that were here that I spoke to that said, I wish I could go there, see an aunt, I wish I could go there, see an uncle. And you probably have lots of friends like this Adam. Miami says, I wish we could go back there. Well, my, my grandma can't get out, but everybody's there. It's not great, but she doesn't really want to, you know, leave. And what I see in here, it's time to, you know, turn the page on Castro's Cuba and see if we can give, you know, freedom and trade and tourism, you know, to. Between Cuba and the United States. And I, I hope it happens now. Do I want it to happen at the barrel of a gun? No. But, you know, does it need to happen with maybe impending, some impending threat like says, hey, I think it's time you got your act together and we'd like to do this, you know, I like it would. I like to see Cuba similar to Puerto Rico, where people could come and go and we would provide some protection to it. Sure, I would, you know, do I want it to see be suddenly a sinkhole of US dollar and, and foreign aid that just goes into a hole? No, I don't want to see that. But I think it sits there 90 miles. You can go to the end of Key west at the southernmost point in America. There's this big concrete, like a buoy that stands there. It's like this monument. And then it says southernmost point. And right at the bottom of it, it says. On one side it says 90 miles to Cuba. There it is, there it has been standing down there. People take pictures of this, Pat, whenever they're down there. 90 miles to Cuba, so 90 miles from freedom. People have been down there, and I'd like to see it happen, and I'd like to see it happen in a methodical way that gives opportunity to people and they could develop. Because $40 a gallon embargoed gas that you only pay for if you desperately need it right now is not a way to go. And I think it's time that we said enough. You know, we're going to help you and we're going to bring these people. So many families, so many citizens are here in Miami. I like to see it happen, but I want it to be methodical, and I want them to have opportunity.
Pat
Adam.
Adam
Look, I love Cuban. I love the Cubans people. I call myself Cuban because I grew up in Miami and I'm Jewish and basically speak Spanish, shout out to mi gente in Miami and in Cuba, Cuba's on its last leg, and I would love to see Trump finish the job. And I think Marco Rubio is going to be the guy that basically puts the nail in the coffin. Look, you know, I take my Ubers every single day. You know, every day, it's either a Cuban driver or a Venezuelan driver. And I ask him the same thing. It's the same question. And I joke with them. I go, hey, Fidel. Communism. Bueno. And the guy driving looks back, goes, no. I go, no, perfecto. Communist socialism. Hey, hey, no, it's no good. It's no good. And I'm joking with him like, no, socialism's good. Fidel is good. One guy goes, hey, you gotta get out of my car. I go, I'm sorry, sir. You know, I have my.
Vinny
And then he got out and he took a crap on the other guy.
Adam
And I give my. I give my American flag pin. Not one. And I kid you not, not one Cuban. I know, and I know thousands in Miami. Not one goes, oh, bro, we love what Fidel Castro has done to Cuba. Not one. Every single person wants America to finish the job. Cuba deserves better. Rob, I don't know if we have 10 seconds. I went to Cuba for Keith's bachelor party. This is the second Keith shout out today. When I talk about a city crumbling. This is the downtown center of the city. Look at these buildings. There's a couple other pictures here. They're living in the 50s. Every single car that they have is a 1950s Thunderbird or. I don't know if Robbie, but anything you got. So we can either do this with a carrot or with the stick. Here's the. Unfortunately, we might have to do. That's me with my driver and my bodyguard in the back. Every car looks like this. So if you. If you're like. If you enjoy history and you want to see what it's like in the 1950s, go to Cuba. This is their downtown capital under construction. The whole place is falling apart. They deserve better. Let's get. No, that's something different. Let's get a little capitalism and less socialism in Cuba. Liberta Cuba.
Pat
Listen, it's great. A lot of things cooking. If the president gets a lot of these deals done post World cup, it's going to be a very difficult time for all his haters. If he gets a lot of these things done post World cup, it's going to be a very, very annoying season for all the people who hate him from the left, right, or the center, they're going to be hating life. For all the people that sits. If he gets it done. The key word is what if. If. That's a heavy word, Vinny.
Vinny
That's a.
Pat
We'll see. That's right, Tom. That's a heavy word.
Vinny
Cuba's more like a Venezuela. It's not.
Pat
Cuba's a lot easier. But listen.
Adam
No, it's not just.
Pat
We will be going to Cuba soon. I'm telling you right now, we'll be. We're definitely going to Poland. Okay. A lot of people on my neck to be saying, pat, I'm telling you, if you. No, when I announce I'm going to Poland, I cannot tell you how many people message me saying, there's no way you can go to Poland without inviting the audience. So we may do something.
Vinny
Okay.
Pat
And go with a crew. Like, we may announce something for some of you guys that are. Stay close to us. But anyways, all the people that went out there and did the surveys and you filled out again, go to. What is it, Rob? Survey.vt.com Yes, sir. Survey.vt.com we just crossed, I think, 3,000 of the people that are doing this. Fantastic. I can't wait to personally go through all this stuff myself with the team and see the results. We've always been about outwork, out, improve, out, strategize, outlast. This is our out, improve. We want to find a way to improve ourselves. And we know we have blind spots. We know we have a lot of areas to get better on, but we can't wait to hear the feedback from you guys. Having said that, special story valuetainment comedy. A special podcast is about to go live, if it isn't already live.
Vinny
Going live at. In two minutes at 11:30.
Adam
How close are you to a million?
Pat
And. And that is Laura Trump. Laura Trump on hotcakes and hot takes. Amazing with Vinnie.
Vinny
Look at the veins on my neck.
Pat
9,000 away.
Vinny
I want to thank.
Adam
Come on, guys, help up.
Vinny
We are at 900 191, 809 subs this is a very, very good conversation. They had six Secret Service come in. Brad. They patted everybody. They did a strip search for me and they literally laughed for 20 minutes.
Adam
What's crazy is your YouTube channel GDP is the equivalent to that of Cuba right now.
Vinny
Yes.
Adam
So keep up the good work.
Vinny
Yeah, yeah.
Pat
All right.
Vinny
Yeah, it's going live.
Pat
Put the link below. With that being said, God bless everybody. We got another podcast that'll come out tomorrow and we'll do it again on Wednesday. Take care. Bye bye. Bye, bye.
Date: May 4, 2026
Host: Patrick Bet-David (Pat)
Home Team: Tom, Vinny, Adam
Location: Valuetainment’s Fort Lauderdale Studio
In this dynamic episode, the PBD Podcast team dives deep into several major current events and media controversies, including:
Throughout the episode, the hosts maintain their trademark direct, unscripted, and at times comedic tone, emphasizing ownership, transparency, and a hard-hitting critique of both left and right-wing actions.