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Chris Cuomo
You need to separate the noise from the signal when it comes to Epstein and transparency. And I can do it for you. Chris Cuomo here. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo project. My brothers and sisters, I've been doing this a long time, and I know exactly what's happening right now with Epstein, and it's not good. Okay, look, here's the problem in playing with fire, all right? We all know what we've taught our kids and what we were taught as kids, right? Closer you get to the fire, you play with fire, you get burned. This is the problem with playing with extreme stuff and conspiratorial things. Now, now, now, here's the problem. Am I dismissing Epstein as all hooey? Nope. Because you had kids that were absolutely, positively set up, trafficked and vict. Okay? Underage kids. And that is the overarching righteous value at play here that must be served. The problem is, is that that value was manipulated and in my opinion, grossly exaggerated for effect. Just like Pizzagate. Great way to get people who aren't critical thinkers to hate Democrats, right? As absurd as that was on its face, it was believable. There's nothing absurd about Epstein. There's nothing. A rich and powerful guy who surrounded himself with rich and powerful people and threw parties and went places and had access, and they just escaped accountability for it because of who they knew who they are and what they could pay for. There's nothing far fetched about any of this. What is far fetched is the notion that this guy was doing all of this and nobody else had a role in it except Ghislaine Maxwell. That has always been curious. Now it's also curious. Well, if there were other guys involved, why wouldn't they prosecute him? Well, because they're rich and powerful. They prosecuted Epstein twice, by the way. People forget. He beat these charges once, and they got him the second time. And Maxwell's the only one who paid the price. So then you have the next question. All right, well, Epstein was a big guy. If they wound up bringing him down, why couldn't they bring down other ones? It's a good question. But let me tell you something. Why wouldn't Epstein, if there were a client list, which I don't believe there is, that doesn't mean that nobody else knew, that nobody else participated. But I don't think that he was running a business that way. Oh, no? No. It was a blackmail scheme. If it were, how come he never tried to help himself? If it were, how come Ghislaine Maxwell never tried to Help herself. Now, what's the easiest thing to do? Release. That's why everybody's calling for release. What bothers me about it is there's such Johnny come lately. Now you could say so. Are you. No, no, no, no. I still haven't come. I don't believe in the client list. I don't believe in the mythology that he was murdered. I'm not Joe Rogan, okay? I'm not okay just repeating whatever the fuck it is, no matter what the basis of understanding is. Now, I'm also a critical thinker, and I am prone to do something which is often a death sentence for me with you guys on social media, but I don't really give a shit about that level of judgment. Which is what? I'll change an opinion, I'll change a feeling if the facts change. For instance, controversial. If I could go back and recover Russiagate, I would have asked different questions, knowing now what I know about the dossier being all raw intelligence and basically just rumor. Learned a couple of things from it, but nothing like what was sold by people who are supposed to know the difference between sound and signal. Right? Noise and signal. Covid. If I could go back to Covid, I would ask different questions. I would have had a different level of accountability because of what I know now. And does that mean that there were people who knew at the time? No. I mean, there are people who are just playing on outrage at the time. I mean, all these people who support President Trump, but you're anti vaccine and say it was all a setup. He brought it to you. He had Operation Warp Speed as what was arguably his signature achievement of his first administration. I mean, that's why it never made sense to me. These POD bros that sold you this shit just happened to be the same guys who were selling you that Epstein was murdered and that there's a client list and that as soon as they got in, they were going to give it all to you. It was bullshit. They were pandering for profit, and that's what they do. Just like people who are trying to get you to hate Israel and to think that everything that there is happening is a genocide when they never ask for Hamas to surrender, even though that's who started the war and it's a terror organization and their swore to Israel's demise. And nobody believes that the end has to involve them, let alone start with them, be initiated by them. Beware these people who will say anything to get paid. This is now Trump's burden. He played with it. He played with extremism. And it worked for him early on, and now it doesn't. And he thinks he could just tell his people to go fuck themselves and that they're weaklings. And I think he's only said that once for a reason. This matters too much to people, and not the same as other extremist nonsense notions. Like even the trans sports thing, they tried to make that about protecting kids from having these procedures, but there's so few. And there's so much reckoning that goes on with it and so much agonizing and the families. It's so not casual that it just didn't stick, as if this is a, you know, walking into a CVS and coming out without a dick kind of thing. You know what I mean? Like, that's not what it is. All right, so it didn't stick the way they wanted it to, but Epstein did. Why? Because it had all the ingredients and it had this patina of moral outrage to it. Not just that the elites get away with shit that you wouldn't, but that this was about victimizing kids and the lack of accountability for that. But again, I point to the same thing. They had this information for a long time. I do not want to hear Bernie Sanders or AOC or Schumer or Jeffries or anybody on the left talking about Epstein, because they're only doing it for one reason, and it's not because of this righteousness of accountability for people who victimize kids. I give the MAGA folks who want disclosure that high ground. Okay, well, then why haven't I been calling for it? Because I don't think there's there there. I think they would have prosecuted these people. I think prosecutors like big, bold face names. I think they like to bring down bold face names. Frankly. I remember sitting through the Martha Stewart trial. I mean, she definitely did what she was accused of and convicted of. But if it weren't Martha Stewart, I don't think you would ever heard of that case before. And the way she treated Comey and his people when she kicked him out of her office. But with Epstein, you get the high ground about kids. I'm just thinking if there was more accountability for it, they would have done it. Ghislaine Maxwell would have dumped on it. And yes, now Maxwell's back in the mix. Oh, she's going to testify. If she had something to say, she would have said it already. Not to condemn her without cause, but my guess is, if I'm Maxwell, if I'm the people around her, I play this out. If she had any Real information to offer. She would have offered it already. Oh, no, she's too scared and too powerful. Well, then she'd be dead. Well, Epstein's dead. So you're saying that they killed him? No, I'm not saying they killed him. I'm saying it was a suicide, just like his lawyers say. Okay, you know, I mean, consider the source. Rogan says he was murdered because of something he heard about the cameras. That's half true, but the guy's lawyers, who were in direct contact with him right before he died, don't believe that. I mean, come on. So the beautiful thing about a conspiracy is. Oh, yeah. That's because it. You know, there's always some excuse to play on the unknown. That's why it works so well. But sometimes it works too well. And that's where we are right now. Support comes from Soul. And I am happy that it does. Booze doesn't work for me anymore. You don't hear me advertising it. I don't really talk about it. I don't judge it. If it works for you, great. I don't know you. If. If it's age, I don't know if it's stage. But it doesn't work for me. So what do I do to give myself a brain vacation? What do I do to relax? I have taken a different route and I take Soul. Why? Because I like the THC and CBD derived products. I believe that they work for me on different levels of biophysical feedback. I think in terms of relaxation, I think in terms of. Of certainly after effects. There's no hangover, there's no cognitive issues. There's no psychotropic problems. So for me, all those negative aspects are gone when you use Soul. Why? Because Soul specializes in my favorite type of substance. Delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products. They are designed to boost mood and help you unwind. Now, their best seller is the out of Office Gummy. Okay? That's what we split up here among the team and have been trying out and they have worked really well. Now they have a mild. A relaxing buzz. It boosts your mood. And an enhanced creativity and relaxation mode. Now, for me, the weaker the better. I don't know what it is because there's plenty of meat on me. And yet I am really super sensitive to gummies. So the out of Office Gummy for me. I take the most casual level and it's fine. So of the four different strengths, the perfect dose for me is the weakest. And it's a gentle microdose. But It's a perfect buzz to me. I equate it to a two drink buzz and I'll have it for an hour or so. Bring on the good vibes. Treat yourself to soul today. Right now, Sol is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. That's pretty good. I don't get that. You go to getsold.com and use the code Cuomo, getsold.com promo code Cuomo, and you'll get 30% off. You have to release everything. I don't want to hear it from the left. This is about Trump and the Trump administration. These are his people. They were selling it, they were overselling it. They have to own it. Bondi has to explain what she meant when she said she had the client list on her desk. What did you mean? Were you speaking figuratively? Did you actually have it? Is there actually one? I don't believe there is. She has to clear it up. And it is way too long in coming. Huge mistake in politics. And Trump knows better. That's why he is so desperate to distract you. That's what the Obama stuff is about, about intelligence. And I'm telling you, he's playing with fire again. And I don't know why he wants to engage in Lawfare. It will always come back to bite you. You will always be out of power eventually and it will be revisited. And I've read everything that Gabbard has put out and what their notion is, and I do not see the connection to. You want to say the dossier was bullshit and was relied on too much by them? Fine, fair point. But how is that treason? Oh, no, no. There's another piece which is they changed the assessment to make Trump look bad. Now, first of all, there is a gross assumption of damage. The man won the election. You really believe his administration was damaged by this? Well, yeah. All the other lawsuits and things, it was all connected. No, no, no. They didn't fake a Russiagate intelligence thing. And that led to him being prosecuted in New York for two sets of books or for paying off a porn star. That doesn't make any sense. That's not what happened here. You know, that's not a catalytic effect. That's not the cause and effect here. So she's saying that they made up an intelligence assessment that Trump was being helped by Russia. They wanted him to win. They did want him to win. They hacked the DNC and released the emails because of that. Oh, yeah. But there was also intelligence that they weren't that worried about Hillary and that they thought Trump could be A problem as president. And that didn't come out. Okay, then that should have come out. They should have been balanced in what they put out to the American people about their assessment, especially if they were going to leak it, because otherwise it shows bias. But that's not treason. So. And to have a federal official play with treason just shows how low the level of dialogue and decorum has gotten. I mean, there's just no reason to use a word that carries the kind of penalties that treason does with no proof. Everybody knew that Russia was messing with the messaging in our election. Nobody that I ever remember and I covered it in real time ever suggested that they had a large scale effort to change the tabulations or to affect the infrastructure. That was never the theory. It was that they wanted him to win. That's why they were screwing with Clinton and that's why they were putting out all of the information and misinformation to foment tension on the fringe, which was working for his grievance movement. That's what it was. And they better be careful trying to make it more than that, because it will not end with this administration. It will come back again and we will be stuck in this loop. Do not distract from Epstein with other extreme stuff. Don't do it. You want to talk about the tariffs, do that. You want to talk about what's happening in Syria to the Druze, hello, hello, pro Palestinian people. These brown people don't matter. These ethnic minorities don't matter. A million of them largely in Syria, obviously being hunted down by the Bedouins and by this new government that's so good. They're so moderate. They're not like the other Islamists. Well, that's weird cuz I keep seeing guys in BDU's basic dress uniforms shooting people in the fucking head. Oh yeah. But no, no, it's not genocide. Genocide's in Gaza. Oh no, no, right, because that's the only one you can care about, right? Because Israel, you can't care about what's happening in the Sudan, can't care about that. Right. There's nothing that smacks of cleansing there. Right? Syria, what's too much for you to focus on two things at once? Or are you a hypocrite and are you all in on something because you've decided to adopt the suffering and the grievance of what's happening in Gaza? Because you have an affinity, because you're a brown person or because you're disgusted by your own white privilege and you want to connect with that, whatever it is you should connect with it everywhere you see it, not just in one place at a political convenience. Especially just, you know, one of the one that seems to matter most just happens to involve the Jews. Well, it's the most large scale. Is it? Is it because we killed a lot more people in the war on terror targeting the exact same type of population than what's happening there right now? And I don't remember any of you people doing it the way you are now. Now, we didn't have social media, we did not have it, and we did not have this surfeit of coverage of what's happening in Gaza every day. Every day. And it certainly builds up and it's certainly terrible. I just don't understand how people can want it to stop there and not begin with having the inimical force that initiated it. Hamas surrender. How is it that the people who got attacked have to stop the conflict? When has that ever happened anywhere else? Seriously, what other country has ever stopped attacking an inimical force that has sworn to its destruction? When, when, when has that happened? I mean, I just think it's an unreasonable request. Hamas should surrender, give back all the people and Israel has no high ground. That won't happen. And until that happens, this will continue. Don't distract from Epstein unless it's worth it. That's worth it. What's happened in Syria is worth it. What's happened in Ukraine's worth it. What's happening with our economy is worth it. What's happening with ICE policy is worth it. You didn't vote for him to deport every single person that ever came into this country illegally, did you? Did you really think he was going to be able to do that? Took Obama eight years to do 2 million. You thought he was going to do 20 million in six months. And you didn't think there'd be overreach? You haven't seen the charts that non criminal versus criminal. That non criminal has ballooned because there's so much pressure to get numbers. Oh, well, non criminal doesn't mean what you think it means. It's actually people who have really bad felonies that are out on arrest. Hey, then define it differently and break out the data that way and I'll change my appraisal of it. But right now you're putting out non criminal and criminal. If non criminal doesn't mean non criminal, you tell me otherwise. That's what it means. So we could talk about those things with Epstein. There's only one antidote. Release everything you have. Have Bondi Explain herself. Stop distracting with the Cleveland Indians and with Obama and everything else. It is desperate. It is ugly and obvious, and it is not going to get the traction and make Epstein go away. It's not going to happen. So lean into it. You got Bernie Sanders saying, release the files. I want them all released. If there is somebody in there that is a Democrat, then this will go down to us as well. He's got nothing to lose. He didn't want this out. He's never said a thing about it. Neither is aoc, neither is Ro Khanna. I like Ro Khanna, period. And I like his bill with Massie. And I think it's really screwed up that Speaker Johnson is trying to close down Congress so they don't have to vote on it. It reeks to high heaven. Reeks. I can't believe Trump hasn't talked about it. That reeks. How can you not have a vote on releasing something that's supposed to matter to you people? Stinks. It's fueling the conspiracy. Now, why is Johnson really doing it? Because Trump told him, leave it alone. I'll deal with it. Trump wants to keep control of it. Why? That's for him to explain. But that's what's going on here. Epstein's not going away. The left is only interested in it because they think it's bad for Trump. But there is an overarching moral imperative here. Kids were victimized, so you're going to have to release it. Oh, but Cuomo, you weren't into it. I don't believe he was murdered. I don't believe there's a client list. I believe that if they had other fancy names to attach to it, the prosecutors would have. I do. I believe if Ghislaine Maxwell had information, she would have given it. If Epstein had information, he would have given it. That's what I believe. But I'm saying release it all. If it's not going away, if this curiosity exists, release it all. I have no problem with that. And transparency has been the biggest non deliverable of this administration. They said they were gonna do it with UAPs. They have not. They said they were gonna do it with Kennedy. They've not. They said they were gonna do it with Epstein. They have not. Why? I don't know. I think it depends. I think a lot of it was that they were just engaging in extremist, bullshit, conspiratorial pursuits, and they made them a lot of money. But now that they got to be held to account and deal with rational people and actually produce. They can't do it. Why? Because of the deep state? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think it's that simple. I think that's an excuse. But let it all out. Why hasn't it happened yet? You see what I'm saying? I mean, this is a real problem for them. It's not going away. And this stuff with Tulsi Gabbard doesn't make it any better. Is not a good distraction. It makes it worse because one, it doesn't make sense. And I think the more you keep feeding people bullshit, eventually they're gonna start to smell it. I mean, Trump has had an amazing run. Whatever he says is believed by 85% of his party. I've never seen anything like it. The stickiness that he has with his support. But there's an end to everything, right? There's too much at some point for everybody and it seems to be approaching. And I'm not just talking about approval numbers, I'm just talking about the nature of the dialogue is that they just keep promising things and not delivering on this level. And then he mocked the people who care about this and believe that there are big name people who got away with things. I don't believe that, but I'm open to changing my opinion. And this idea. Oh, you and your brother, you're on. Fuck you. Okay. I don't even know the guy. I've never met the guy. As far as I remember. I've never met Jeffrey Epstein, okay? Never heard about him, not an associate of my brothers, Never used a plane. This is all bullshit. Never partied with him, never went to a diddy party. All these bullshit things that you guys play with because in the vacuum of unknown, because you have this great little dynamic now in Magaland and now we're seeing the same thing with this populist movement coming up from the left fringe. Well, can you prove the non existence of a fact? Can you prove that you didn't know him? Can you prove that you weren't there? Do you know why the burden of proof is on the prosecution? It's because that is the logical and epistemological conclusion of guilt. You have to prove that something was done. I don't prove that I did not do it. That only exists in the military. Why? Because they're so heavy on top down on following on our way is the way that even if they're wrong, order is more important than justice. That is not true in civilian life. In civilian life, you have to prove it, and you got to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning no other story makes as much sense as the one the prosecution is telling. 95%. Plus you believe it. You guys have reversed that. And you go on 5% of information. Not you guys. You guys are critical thinkers, and you're looking for the antidote. But the people who eat up this shit, you get 5% of what's possible, probable, or even true. And 95%. Well, if they can't just prove it, then it must be true. If you can't show me that it wasn't a murder, then it wasn't a suicide. And if you can't show me that there's no client list, then there must be a client list. I mean, that's childish, but that's where we are. And Epstein's not going away. Release everything and explain what you meant, and do it now. Do it now, and you can do more than one thing at a time. And stop with the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Commanders or whatever the fuck they're called. Stop with that. Stop with this nonsense about Obama. Show me that people made up that Russia was trying to influence our messaging and our political process and that that's why they hacked the DNC and that's why WikiLeaks released it. Show us that it was someone else who did that, or that's what it was. And don't make it into something else just to distract from Epstein. It's so fucking obvious. And I believe that it's actually making it worse, not better, because it's making it so clear that you'll play with anything if it works for you. And meanwhile, you're missing righteous causes. I mean, I gotta tell you, these people who are ignoring what's happening in Syria, I mean, it's just. There's just no integrity to the cause. Unless you are Palestinian, unless you're from that region, how do you not give a shit about what's happening anywhere else but there? Oh, because it's worse there. Is it really? See, that's where I'm coming from on all of this. Reasonable. Reasonable. You care about the big guy beating up on the little guy, even if the big guy is the little guy in terms of numbers and being surrounded and having an existential threat to them. Be consistent. Be consistent. But you're not. You're just playing to advantage because you got sucked into this social media world where there's stakes and sides and you've got to just promote an agenda. That's what Epstein is about. These Guys are all in on it and they don't know what to do. With Trump not delivering the pod bros are in a bad space and you got two of them. Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. Have to explain why were you selling all that other. They haven't. They must. Pam Bondi, why did you say that? You must explain. You haven't. You must. And you must release everything you have and show us that you're petitioning the court and what the resolution is of that. Have it all come out. Otherwise, Trump is proving to them that he is a massive bullshit artist, and I don't think he wants that. So Epstein's not going away. Put it all out. Let's see if there were people who abused kids and got away with it. Put it out. But distracting from it, playing with fire, with lawfare. The expediency of extremism has made Trump and may break Trump. That is the thought of this podcast, where I began and where I will end. The expediency of extremism, which worked, galvanized a coalition of conspirators and people who were just outraged about a bunch of things and put them under the MAGA umbrella. But live by the sword, die by the sword. Now you got to deliver on that conspiracy, and you've delivered on none of them. You've not done the UAP thing, you've not done the Kennedy thing, you've not done the Deep State thing, you've not done the Epstein thing. And it matters to a lot of maga. A lot of maga. I would not say to the majority. And I believe that the president made his bet of playing to the few, to the fringe, instead of to the many. If you were playing to the many, you'd be talking about the economy. You'd be talking about how to make things better in this country. You'd be talking about what is an obviously equitable and fair way to deal with people who are in the country illegally. It's obviously got to be a mixed set of tools, right? The bad guys have to be isolated and thrown the fuck out, period. And you got to have a crazy penalty if those kinds of people get back in. Then you got people who came in the wrong way and have done everything right since then. You've got the dreamers. They've got no relief. They live in constant states of insecurity. Well, that's what you get for coming in illegally. I don't accept that. I don't accept it. Most of us break the law at some point in our lives. In Ways small or not so small. This is a misdemeanor coming in here illegally. The second time it's a felony. Misdemeanor is also when you're going more than 20 miles an hour over the speed limit in some places. So I think you got to slow your roll when it comes to, well, they're all here illegally, they're all illegals. They all have to go. It's not going to happen. And I don't think it can happen logistically, legally, and I don't think it should happen morally and in terms of who we are. And I think the ICE policy should change. And I do not blame the officers for doing their job. I even blame them for covering their faces. Not why they're being doxed and their families are being exposed to this? Nope. Not why they're being targeted and assaulted? Nope. Should they show color of authority? Of course. Of course. Should they dress in a way that they seem official so we know who they are, so communities know? Yes, of course. Of course. But there obviously has to be a change in policy. And if you want to connect to the many, you should talk about that. If you want to talk about the many, you should be talking about the restoring of the artisan class and creating another alternative for professionalism other than college. If you want to talk about the many, you should be talking about how to get money out of our politics. If you want to go the extreme route and play to the few, you're going to have to live and die by the few. And that's why Epstein is not going away. We will not be distracted. You have to just put out everything that there is and let people deduce what they will. And there'll be some who won't be satisfied, but you'll be in a better place than you are right now. And you're not going to make it Obama's fault and you're not going to distract him and you're not going to arrest him and you're not going to try him. It's not going to happen, and I'll tell you why. Because you will have your ass in the hot seat again. The people at the top of MAGA who are in this administration will be targeted right after because that's what they do to each other. And we have had enough. Just be reasonable. Put out what you have on Epstein. Don't distract with other things and then focus on what matters to the many and not just the few. Playing with the fringe got you here. It will not get Donald John Trump where he Wants to be, which is being remembered as a great president. No divider ever has been. Support comes from Oracle. Listen, you can have better, cheaper or faster, but you only get to pick two. Now what if that's not true anymore? I've always thought it was, but Oracle is kind of pushing me to believe it may be time to change my opinion. Why? Well, because if you look at specialized bikes, if you look at Reuters, if you look at Cohere Thompson, I mean a lot of people are choosing Oracle ground infrastructure because they are getting better, cheaper and faster all at once. OCI is the Blaze amazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs. Okay. You can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performing environment and spend less than you would with a lot of other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for compute, 70% less for storage and 80% less for networking. What about better? In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. That's how you get to better. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads. So right now, with zero commitment, you can try OCI for free. All you got to do is head to oracle.com CCP for the Chris Cuomo project. Go to oracle.com CCP Transparency actually crosses over into our next guest because you don't know what to focus on. You don't know what matters. You're being flooded with information, you're being spun all the time. And that's certainly most true with the economy. What do you want to focus on? That's why President Truman said give me an economist with one hand. Because they're always saying on the other hand, on the other hand, eggs are down. But why gas is down? Well, not everywhere. But why the economy is growing. Well, judging by what versus what? Inflation. Same thing. So what metrics do you pay attention to and what is the context? And how do we process everything that's going on around here and figuring out what that means for not just our critical thinking process about our politics, but, but our pocketbooks. That's why I partnered with Dr. Kirk Elliot of KEPM. Kirk Elliot precious Metals. Why? Because he understands the economy and he knows how to relate it to our everyday questions and struggles. And that's why I need him right now, Dr. Kirk to come to the rescue. Great to be with you, doc. We need you right now at report card time, six months into the administration.
- [33:33]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
Well, it's great to be with you as usual. And you know what, there's a lot of noise, like a lot.
- [33:39]
Chris Cuomo
I don't know what is noise, I don't know what is signal. So here's what we're being told and you help me understand them as a metric, which way to look at it. All right, so the campaign, other than immigration, right, when it came to the economy, it was gas and groceries. So we're told, hey, gas is down and that means Trump is a winner. How do you see gas prices and what does it mean to the investment community?
- [34:05]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
I mean, so, so gas prices went up when the, when the conflict with Israel and Iran started, right? That was, it's always a function of like something happening in the Middle east. And then they came back down. So that was a temporary blip. But I don't see gas prices as being massively inflationary right now, which is, which is good for everybody. Now what we do see as inflationary is the battle that we're seeing between Trump and Powell, right? And so Powell says, well, boy, the tariffs are going to cause prices to go up. I can't lower interest rates. Right? But so generally speaking, when you lower interest rates, it kind of stimulates inflation. If you raise interest rates, it slows it down. However, I think that's a little bit of a, of a misnomer to me sometimes That's a little bit of noise. Inflation is going to come from quantitative easing. The more money you print, the more inflation you're going to have. So that's what I want to focus on, is how much money is being printed. It's kind of like insane. You look at some of the, some of the recent developments and some of the statements that are being made, like every, every crypto dollar that's out there in the crypto space is going to have a paper dollar invested in the banks. It's like, okay, that could be trillions of dollars going into the banks. Now is that going to be inflationary? Yes. Is it going to be needed? I think it's actually needed, oddly, because the banks are very under capitalized, right? So if you don't get an injection of capital, you could have a run on the banks, you could have a credit downgrade like in the first quarter of this year. This news just came out yesterday. Wells Fargo had to borrow $188 billion to avoid a liquidity crisis. 188 billion in the first quarter of this year. So banks, this tells me that banks don't have a lot of capital. They're underfunded. And why are banks underfunded? Because you've got years even going back to Covid, right? Mom and Pops couldn't keep their stores open. They had to live on savings. There was more withdrawals coming out than deposits going in. That created stimulus to try to get the economy cooking again. While all that printing of money is inflation. When fewer people were working, more withdrawals coming out than deposits going in. This is why banks fail. Not just picking on Wells Fargo, any bank, right? So now you've got these other policies saying, boy, this supplemental leverage ratio that came into effect after the 2008, 2009 crisis, well, we gotta fix that. We're actually going to allow U.S. treasuries to actually fund people's banks, toxic assets like commercial real estate. That's tanking, right? So it's like what you're calling a U.S. treasury, a risk free asset. It's down 10% year to date. I wouldn't say that's a risk free asset. So. But why do they have to do that? You have to do that because banks are illiquid. They have toxic assets. The rest of the world is de dollarizing, right? Dumping the US Dollar. So how about you say, hey, banks, you can have U.S. treasuries in there to fund. That's built in demand for the dollar. Now what is that going to do? You're going to have to print more money to fund the Treasuries that are going into the banks. So I look at a lot of this as very inflationary and I think inflation is coming. Which brings us to the battle of Trump v. Powell, who's going to win because Trump wants him to lower interest rates, to stimulate the economy, to get growth, to get things moving again. And that would help, that would help. But if you don't and you've got all this debt, all this money that's being printed and people's cost of debt service continues to go up, well, boy, then you have a recession in this country and this is the problem. It's like, it's a hard question, simple question you asked. Hard one to answer. Because what is real inflation to me? You get rid of all the noise, Chris. Inflation is nothing more than printing money, and we're printing a lot of it.
- [38:46]
Chris Cuomo
A big boost to investors was announced that the Trump administration is going to allow you to invest your 401k in private equity. Everybody's excited about that. Is that a good thing or a risky thing or both?
- [39:00]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
I think it's a good thing because it just offers More choice. I mean, just because you can doesn't mean you have to.
- [39:06]
Chris Cuomo
Right?
- [39:07]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
So. So I think it's a good thing. I think whenever you have more options, that that's going to bring demand into some of those products. It's going to cause them to go up. Now, hopefully you don't have people that don't know what they're doing and say just because it's there, you know, do you invest in it or do you not? I hope they wouldn't. People shouldn't invest in things that they don't know about because it adds more risk. You know, there's also speculation you're going to be able to add crypto into 401ks. Okay. I mean, so, yes, choice, good. I like that. But here's the problem. People getting into retirement, the inflationary pressures are hitting the markets. They need to catch up. They think I just need to hit a home run and try to. Crypto is prime for people to make bad choices because it is extremely volatile. Can be really good, but it could be really bad, too. But again, I like people to have choice. It's up to them to decide. But I think all of these things, when you add them, it's going to be a boost to the market.
- [40:12]
Chris Cuomo
So with a few of these data mines that are getting thrown out there, it seems to be that you have to understand why. So gas prices are down, but why demand is down and the rising gasoline imports, even though we're supposedly pumping more, more than we ever have before in America, we've been bringing more in. And so. Well, is that good? The prices are coming down. Yeah, but they're coming down because of demand and because of how much oil or, you know, refined petroleum the United States is bringing in. Oh, okay. Well, but at least eggs are down. Well, eggs were up because of the avian flu, no matter what we were talking about in politics at the time, and there's still about a dollar more than they should be. Well, so is it up or is it down? Is it good or is it bad? You know, small businesses, well, they're doing well. We had record lending in the first quarter. Wait, is that good that the government is loaning more money than ever to small businesses? You know, how are we supposed to interpret these things?
- [41:20]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
Well, the way that I would interpret them is lending isn't really true growth. It's borrowed money. I don't view record amounts of lending as economic growth. I view that as a precursor to pain because ultimately you have to pay it back. Now you can invest in yourself. You can invest in your company, you can grow your company, and that's great. If you are just borrowing to keep things afloat, to pay your bills, this is a problem, and this is the answer. We don't necessarily know. But if people can grow the economy, grow their business without borrowing, that's the best. When you have to borrow to get to that point, I don't see that as necessarily a good outcome.
- [42:04]
Chris Cuomo
Dr. Kirk, as always, you make what seemed very fuzzy much more clear. Thank you for helping us understand what matters and how we should take what we're being told and use it in our own investments and our own choices that we make for our families.
- [42:22]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
Thank you.
- [42:29]
Chris Cuomo
Thank you for subscribing and following here at the Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for checking me out on News Nation, 8p and 11p every weekday night. Thank you for subscribing at Substack. Every week I do a live and I take the questions and the comments from people who pay and subscribe. And then I use that money to crowdsource contributions to help people get lucky long Covid Care. So please pay and subscribe at Substack. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you want to wear your independence show you're a free agent, get your free agent gear. That money, too goes to crowdsource contributions that we can all feel good about. My friends, the problems are real. The approach is obvious. Let's get after it.