← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Congressman Joaquin Castro on case of deported 11 year old US citizen and Elise Labott on Trump's trip to Middle East
00:32:46
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Welcome everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. It is Tuesday. As you can see with me today, newsmaker Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas Democrat is with me. Congressman, great to see. As always, thanks for joining us. I, I definitely, I know you just recently came back from a trip to Mexico where you met with the family of this US citizen girl who was deported, a 10 year old girl. I want to talk about that in just a moment, but I have to hit you with the big news of the last couple of days, which is Trump's in the Middle East. He was in Saudi Arabia. He's been in Saudi Arabia. But the story that's been sort of dogging him as he, as he went on this trip, as he embarked on this trip, is whether or not he should be accepting a $400 million airplane from the government of Qatar, from the Qataris. I mean, Even back in 2017, he was accusing Qatar of funding terrorism, saying the nation of Qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. I mean, put aside the national security implications of this at the moment, if we can. I know you're on the Intelligence Committee in the House, but I mean, just the sheer, you know, stench of corruption that exists here with this. What are your thoughts?
- [01:19]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Yeah, no, well, first he shouldn't take that plane. And it's actually that plane is sitting in my hometown of San Antonio right now. And San Antonio is actually where they do work on Air Force One on the inside and so forth. But no, it's absolutely another sign of the deep corruption in the Trump administration. President Trump, his family, a small circle of people, a handful of billionaires. I suspect that after these four years, if things don't change, these people are going to get a lot richer, including he and his family, by doing things like this, taking gifts, enriching themselves, getting government contracts worth billions of dollars. And a lot of other people in this country, including millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for their health care coverage, are going to get poorer and they're going to be worse off. So this is absolutely a sign of the times. And you're right, Jim, besides the fact that it seems to be a kind of bribe, there are really deep national security concerns. I would be surprised if he takes that plane. If the Qataris can't hear everything that's going on, what will become Air Force One, the new Air Force One?
- [02:32]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. I mean, and to think that he wouldn't even, you know, ponder that for a moment is kind of extraordinary. And you know, the White House, I mean, Trump they're saying, well, it's going to go to the library after he leaves office. I mean, that's just kind of a laughable justification for all this.
- [02:51]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Yeah, it's another way for him to just continue to make use of that $400 million plane. And yet the problem you have here is, you know, we're four months into this administration. And so more and more, if there was any doubt for these countries, they understand that the way to influence him is to get him to, you know, side with them, to enact policies that they like, is to bribe him, is to give him gifts, is to help his businesses and his family and the billionaires that he's close to in the administration. And I think that's part of what you see going on today.
- [03:27]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, we'll see if Air Grift one ever flies. But as I described it in my substack yesterday, it's a bit of a cockpit con on Trump's part. But let's get to some other stuff because I know you've been busy working on some other issues. And this is according to the San Antonio current Congressman Castro, other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus traveled south of the border last Friday to draw attention to the plight of a family caught up in the Trump White House harsh immigration crackdown. You were joined by Congressman Espalatz and Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia in visiting the family of seven in northern Mexico where they've been unable to get treatment for a 10 year old daughter who has a rare brain tumor and is a US Citizen. I want to spend as much time as we can on this. I know your time is tight, but to me, you know, it says the, the parents were deported, they were undocumented along with the 10 year old and their four and her four siblings. And you know, the Trump administration is trying to justify this by saying, well, you know, the parents were given a choice. She could have been left behind. I mean, this is what they've been saying about some of these kids. But can you tell us about this visit? You know, tell us what you encountered when you, when you visited this family.
- [04:38]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Yeah, this was two parents who had been here for over 10 years. I want to say around 15 years or so. And they have four US citizen kids. One of them is a young girl who just turned 11 years old, but she had a brain tumor. And I want to say late last year she had surgery in Houston. She was living in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and she had surgery in Houston. Well, folks that have been around the border states and in Texas, you know that if you drive up from the Rio Grande Valley up to Houston or San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, whatever, you've got to go through these inland border checkpoints. And they had done that numerous times, including for her to go get surgery at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. And this girl woke up with a very bad headache. One of the things that she gets because of her condition is seizures. So they raced to take her to the hospital in Houston. When they got to this inland border checkpoint in Sarita, Texas, on the way up there, they were stopped and detained by the CBP agents there. And these folks, they bullied them, they intimidated them, they threatened the parents that if they didn't take all the kids with them, they were going to place them with strangers. They suggested that they had more power than immigration judges. But, Jim, I think the worst part of it is, is they felt like they were treated like animals. Remember, these are. I mean, the parents are undocumented, but the kids are US Citizens.
- [06:01]
Jim Acosta
Right?
- [06:02]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
And the US Citizen girl, she had seizure medication that she had to take daily and these agents confiscated. They took away her seizure medication. They took away this young girl's seizure medication. Another son had heart problems and he had a heart monitor. They tried to take the heart monitor away. Unfortunately, he was able to keep it. You know, but you got to ask yourself, what kind of country are we becoming that we're losing our humanity more and more every day? Regardless of what you think about immigration or border security, there aren't many Americans, I still believe, who think that we ought to be taking away a young girl's seizure medication who's a cancer patient. And unfortunately, that attitude and that treatment and the tone is set from the top. And when Donald Trump speaks about folks in a dehumanizing way, in, you know, in ways that compares them to invaders and animals, that's the kind of treatment that you end up with. And so now you have this girl, she's in northern Mexico. She hasn't been able to get the treatment that she needs either for the brain tumor or these other conditions. She, fortunately, she does have now the medication to stop the seizures, but she's not getting the medical treatment she needs. The kids are having trouble getting enrolled in school, getting enrolled in the Mexican health care coverage over there. And so, as you can imagine, the family is incredibly, incredibly traumatized and devastated by what's happened.
- [07:37]
Jim Acosta
You know, so many follow up questions to ask, Congressman, but you're absolutely right. I mean, this is government sanctioned cruelty toward a child who is a U.S. citizen. And I guess one of the questions that, that I have is whether or not this, this young girl has rights, legal rights to sue the administration, to sue Donald Trump, take them to court, take DHS to court, take Kristi Noem to court and insist that her rights be observed, that they be protected. Because it seems to me if she's, if she has all these medical issues, somebody ought to be able to file a lawsuit on her behalf and that her parents be allowed to reside in the United States while she continues to undergo this treatment. I mean, it sounds like what they're trying to do is get around the whole family separation fiasco that they had the first time around. And they're saying, okay, we'll just deport the whole family, even if there are little US Citizen kids involved, and even if they have cancer, which to me is just outrageous.
- [08:32]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
You know, when we talked about these cases of US Citizen, especially US Citizen children being deported, I think one of the responses is, well, no, the mom just decided to take her kids with her. They didn't give the mom a choice. They. First of all, this all happened very quickly. In less than 24 hours, the mom had a chance to call her law, the office of the lawyer that was representing her. After three minutes, one of the Border Patrol agents hung up the phone on her, so she couldn't talk to the lawyer. They didn't let lawyers come into the detention center. So they threatened the mom that, hey, if you don't take your kids with you, if you don't all get the hell out of the country, we're going to place your kids with strangers. That is not a choice. That's not a real choice for anyone. So they didn't get due process. They should have gotten an order for removal and then been assigned a court to go in front of an immigration judge or then make a determination. And that's what's so alarming. Every American citizen should be alarmed by what Donald Trump and his administration are doing by erasing due process and, and now threatening even to take away a petition for habeas corpus. If they do that, Jim, then it means that anybody, American citizen, anybody undocumented, legal, permanent resident, it doesn't matter. The government can put you in jail and you have no right to petition a court saying, hey, I don't know what I'm charged with, they're unlawfully imprisoning me. That's what Stephen Miller went out to the White House along with.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Congressman Joaquin Castro
Tried. Was, was a country that is basically, you know, over the generations, we've looked at Other countries around the world where that crazy stuff happens. And we've said, man, you know, that really, that, that, that's crazy. We would never let that happen here. And yet that's exactly what they're trying to do here.
- [10:18]
Jim Acosta
Well, and I was going to ask you about that because Stephen Miller went out in front of the cameras, what was it, last Friday? And I'm sorry, this just sounds like full blown authoritarianism when he's saying we want to get rid of, or we want to look at whether we should get rid of habeas corpus for people who are undocumented in this country. And it just seems to me that's a blatant violation of the Constitution. And it sounds like what you need perhaps is a big legal defense fund for a lot of these US Citizen kids to sort of just high powered lawyers who know how to go into court and ground these things to a halt while it gets adjudicated at a higher level. Because it seems like right now, when you look at the, the headlines, Congressman, you see the mayor of Newark getting arrested at an ICE detention center. You see all of these, all these viral videos of these parents being ripped from their kids by ICE agents wearing masks. What is going on with that? I mean, first MAGA hates masks during COVID Now they're okay with ICE agents where, I mean, it's all spiraling.
- [11:20]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
It seems they're attacking Americans constitutional rights. And it's getting more severe as we go on. And we're only in the fourth or fifth month of this administration. You know, I keep wondering, what is it going to be like a year from now? And a year from now we're still going to be four or five months from the next election where Americans might have a chance to change the direction of what's going on. But yeah, I mean, people, you know, government agents with masks on their face so that you can't even see who they are. Oftentimes they're going up to people, including American citizens, and they're not providing identification. They're not showing you a warrant. They're just insisting as masked people that they're gonna take you physically remove you from your car or wherever and take you somewhere. I mean, come on, if that happened to somebody on the street or somebody came into your house at 3am with a mask on and started trying to pull you out of bed, literally, you would shoot them. You would literally shoot those people if you had a gun to protect yourself.
- [12:20]
Jim Acosta
Well, we know what MAGA would do. We know that if this were during a Democratic Administration and you had ATF agents or something, you know, along those lines, government agents coming in for, you know, firearm confiscation, where, I mean, that's what they would want to do. But obviously, you know, I mean, you, when you have terrified migrant families, mixed status families, you know, I mean, this is the thing that people get wrong all the time on Fox News about so many of these families, the vast majority of these families are just trying to get by. They're trying to make a living. They're the most law abiding people out there.
- [12:54]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Yeah. And I say that you would want to shoot them because you wouldn't know who they were.
- [13:00]
Jim Acosta
Right, exactly. I see what you mean. Yes.
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Congressman Joaquin Castro
Right. Yeah.
- [13:02]
Jim Acosta
Because if people, they look like home invaders. Yeah.
- [13:05]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
In the middle of the night, you're asleep, you don't know who they are. That's going to be people's reaction. Right. If people don't identify themselves, they don't say who they are. That's what you're, that's what you would likely see. Right. You have millions of Americans who literally are keeping firearms in their home because they're scared of home invasions, because they're scared of people they don't know breaking in. Well, if people come in and they don't identify themselves and they're in masks, you know, you don't automatically think, oh yeah, they're, you know, this is law enforcement. No. You think somebody is coming to hurt me and to harm me.
- [13:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. It just seems like we have a situation where you have ICE agents in masks. They're not identifying themselves. You have the White House wanting to get rid of a process to challenge unlawful detention, due process and so on. I mean, I'm just, to me, if the tables were turned, if it were a Democratic administration, I mean, you can only imagine what the reaction would be like.
- [14:04]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Absolutely.
- [14:05]
Jim Acosta
It just, it's just, to me, it's just outrageous. I know. Only I have a few more minutes with you. This big beautiful bill, as they're calling it, is winding its way through the Congress. I did want to ask you about that because, I mean, they're talking about. This is, this is what I saw reported earlier today. Some, some $4.9 trillion costs attached to these sweeping tax breaks that they want to provide as part of this legislation. But there are Republicans, like Josh Hawley of Missouri, remember him from January 6th, calling on Republicans not to get rid of Medicare or not to cut deeply into Medicaid. Where does that process stand? Is Medicaid really on the chopping block here?
- [14:47]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
No, I mean, it absolutely is. In fact, the CBO has said that if these Republican bills go forward that it would amount to about 14 million people who would lose Medicaid coverage. And remember, these are among the most vulnerable people in the country. Oftentimes most of the time you have people who are working poor. These are people who are actually trying to make it, working hard. They just can't afford health care coverage. They're not getting paid enough. And so they're on Medicaid. But it's also long term nursing home stays, it's folks with disabilities. So there's a lot at stake for millions and millions of Americans if this bill passes. I'm glad that there are some Republicans who are speaking up and saying, hey, not only is this morally wrong, but it's a bad idea, do it. But you know, I've said that there were two votes on that budget resolution. There will likely be two more votes now that have the specific line item cuts. And they only, they only passed this last bill, the budget resolution bill, by about two votes in the House. So you need a few more people to flip or to hold firm on their position because they've said that enough of them have said they're not going to support it. You need them basically to hold firm.
- [16:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I mean, apparently Chip Roy and Chip Roy had, and I had a little interaction up on Capitol Hill the other day when I was asking about Gulf of America. But anyway, we'll put that to the side. But anyway, he is warning that this price tag could climb to $20 trillion over the course of, I guess several years because the deficit is just going to skyrocket if this thing is passed. And my question is we've heard the Republican. You've heard this countless times, Congressman, how many times have the Republicans complained about the debt and deficits going up in this country? And yet they're willing to pass this, which the cost of all of this could be $20 trillion over the course of several years. That's just going to make the deficits and debt skyrocket.
- [16:47]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
No, that's absolutely right. It's going to add to the debt. And remember, it's in service of tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country, literally multi billionaires and also the wealthiest corporations who just a handful of years ago already got a tax cut and they're trying to do more on top of that by taking away from people that have the least.
- [17:13]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, Congressman, thanks for taking time and I know your time is tight, but really appreciate, please keep us posted on the situation with that, it's a, it's a 10 year old or 11 year old girl. You said now. Correct. But people aren't saying her name at this point because they want to keep it confidential, is that right? We don't want to get into that at this point.
- [17:32]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Yeah. I mean the family is scared of, really of extortion, of being vulnerable in Mexico and so right now they're trying to stay out of the limelight.
- [17:41]
Jim Acosta
Well, keep us posted, let us know if you ever want to just jump back on and if you have a status update on all of that. Because I just, to me it just breaks my heart. You know, we know that they're heartless when it comes to migrants. I didn't know they were heartless when it comes to US Citizen children. American children with cancer. And this is not the only one. There was a four year old with cancer just the other week that had also been removed from the country and sent to Honduras. It's just like you said earlier. It makes you wonder what, what kind of country are we becoming, you know.
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Congressman Joaquin Castro
Oh, absolutely. Good to be with you.
- [18:16]
Jim Acosta
All right, thanks Congressman, Good to see you. Really appreciate the time. Thanks again.
- [18:20]
Congressman Joaquin Castro
Take care.
- [18:21]
Jim Acosta
You as well. And that's Congressman Joaquin Castro. And, and, and folks, you need to have members of Congress like Joaquin Castro making these kinds of trips to these places where these kids are being sent because what the Trump administration is trying to do and, and you know, this is the reason why, you know, they want to work with Bukele and El Salvador and that gulag. I don't know if you've seen the commercials that they're running during sporting events lately. They've got Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, you know, strutting her stuff through seacog, talking about how, you know, they're, you know, this is where they're going to put the migrants and so on. If you're in the country illegally, I mean, it just looks like something straight out of the Hunger Games. It's just like this souped up, fascist looking commercial. And so they obviously want to send migrants off into these sort of black hole situations, send them out of the country, make it as painful as possible. They say we don't care if the kid has cancer, we don't care. They say if the kid has an issue with seizures. But just going to make this as painful as possible. We're going to do it in masks. We know that the cameras are going to be rolling. These are going to create viral moments because they want to spread fear in the migrant community. And you just have to wonder at what point in this country do people say enough is enough? And obviously, you know, the intent there is to make people self deport. Okay, obviously, that's the point. They get off on the cruelty. Let's just be very clear about this. They get off on the cruelty and the meanness and the nastiness. But if you think about it, if you're in this family situation, what they're going through, a mixed status family, they're just hoping and praying that the masked ICE agents somehow miss their house so they can continue to live in a country where their kid is still getting cancer treatment and so on. And so somebody needs to talk some sense. And I know this is mission impossible to somebody inside the White House or somebody inside the Republican Party, because how is this going to look five or ten years from now? I mean, that's, you know, not that Trump cares. He'll be sitting pretty with a $400 million jet with some presidential library that'll probably never get built. But the people who are working below him, the people who are working in this administration, you know, ICE agents who are perhaps in their 30s or 40s, you want to live with this the rest of your life? You want to be the person who, in the mask who deports the 11 year old kid with cancer? Really? Is that what you want to do? And this is why I'll just put it out there. I sent a note to Caroline Levitt and I know this is never going to go anywhere, but I do challenge Donald Trump to an interview. I challenge him to an interview on this issue. He won't do it. He's too chicken, he's too afraid. But I challenge him to an interview on this issue. Name the time, name the place, I'll be there. All right. I want to bring in my friend Elise Labett. She's a longtime, a veteran global affairs correspondent. Let's get into, we need to get into Trump's latest trip to the Middle East. He's there right now. You know, he has to go see all the dictators he has to go see. You know, he goes down there and they take notes. Oh, what do you do with your people that you want to terrorize? Let's write that down. Stephen, write that stuff down. Hey, Elise, how are you? Good to see you.
- [21:42]
Elise Labott
Hey, Jim. Good to be with you.
- [21:44]
Jim Acosta
That conversation with Joaquin Castro, really, it got me fired up a little bit here because, and this is not what we're going to talk about, unless you want to weigh in. But when we're talking about deporting kids with cancer who are US Citizens and sending them out of the country without due process. I mean, something's broken. There's just something that that's wrong in this country. And we're starting to look like the countries that Trump is visiting this week. I did want to start at least with this Air Grift one, Air Farce one, whatever you want to call it, this gift from the Qataris that he claimed, well, it's going to go to my library. So it's not really, I mean, let's just be frank about this. It's a grift. What have been your thoughts on this? Because as you know, and I mentioned this at the top of the program, Trump has accused Qatar of funding terrorism in the past. Obviously, he's gotten over that maybe, perhaps when there's a $400 million free plane involved. But what have been your thoughts on all of this as you've seen this unfold and with this trip that's getting started for him?
- [22:43]
Elise Labott
Yeah, well, just to kind of quickly sew up the idea of your conversation with Joaquin Castro and the deportations, I'm here at the Council on Foreign Relations today. I'm the Edward R. Murrow press fellow here. And we did a big session with local journalists, and I did a session on deportations. And, you know, how do local journalists, like, don't not all of them really understand all the issues of due process and everything. But it does come down to these families and the kind of fear that is gripping these communities on can they go to work, can they go to church? If they are American citizens, naturalized, can they leave and come back? Because you can talk about the laws and you can talk about the due process, but there's no guarantee that it's going to be followed. And so the kind of fear throughout these communities is really palpable on the plane. I mean, it takes a lot to stun me. And I, I've been on my kind of share of foreign delegations where secretaries of state were given huge gifts or diamonds, Rolex, whatever, not 150, $500 million jet, it's unthinkable that he would accept it on behalf of the United States. Okay, but even if you would want to say, look, when you read about Boeing and when you read about the idea that a new Air Force One could take a long time and this one was read, even if you wanted to kind of stretch the thoughts of the imagination to say, okay, well, you know, maybe we could use this jet, and who Knows, you know, look, the cutteries put it together. I'm sure their intelligence services were very involved in that. What's. What, listening devices, what bugs, what secure communications course hacks are, are on that plane. But the idea that he would keep it for himself, you know, we could talk about grift and we could talk about corruption, but the idea that he's saying he'll do it and it's being normalized, that he just assumes that no one is gonna stop him. And, yes, we've seen some members of Congress, Senator Thune, even some bigwigs in the GOP kind of saying, you know, Rand Paul saying, what the hell, you can't do this.
- [25:03]
Jim Acosta
I think Cynthia Lummis laughed at the cameras when she was asked. I mean, it's just, you know, it's laughable.
- [25:09]
Elise Labott
It's one thing to do, but the impunity with which he's doing all these things, whether it's taking this jet or whether it's deporting a United States citizen, it's really the impunity that's the problem at this point. You know, you kind of don't.
- [25:24]
Jim Acosta
You know, I think that's a good point.
- [25:26]
Elise Labott
It's one thing to kind of say, oh, my gosh, that's. That's wild. But how can we expect anything else, which we should be able to expect, is that there are some guardrails, there are some red lines here.
- [25:38]
Jim Acosta
No. And there's no question about it, Elise. And we can unpack this because, I mean, obviously this is a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. The Constitution says you cannot do this. He is going to do it anyway. And one of the conversations I've had with lots of experts, legal, foreign policy, what have you in congressional in recent weeks has been, well, the guardrails are off and there's nobody to stop Trump baloney. Actually, the Congress can impeach and remove the President of the United States. It's the fact that the Republicans control the Congress, and they are part of, for the most part, the cult of Donald Trump. And they're just not. They don't have the political courage or the will to do anything about this, to hold even a hearing. I mean, has anybody called for a hearing on this? I mean, to me, you know, in the olden days of a much more responsible Republican Party, there would at least be a frigging hearing here. And on your point about the Qataris and the national security, I just want to say one thing, and that is, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of mind boggling how quickly he can bail on the Israelis. How would Benjamin Netanyahu feel if a Qatari built Air Force One were to land at the Tel Aviv airport? I mean, I'm just going to put that out there.
- [26:53]
Elise Labott
But anyway, and you know, you talk about impeachment, I mean, let's just even like how about just saying, no, Mr. President, you can't do that. So. And I mean, look, the Qatar issue is not just about this plane. You know, there are a lot of connections that we've been reading a little bit more. Daniel Pletka of the Substack, what the hell is going on? Wrote a lot about it last week. The connections between Steve Witkoff, the Mideast envoy, the Cutterys, Steve's son, and Eric Trump. There is a lot going on right now there, a lot of deals and it's really not about the U.S. i think it's fair to say it's not about the U.S. it's not about U.S. security. It's really about, you know, the Trump family, the Witkoff family and this kind of, you know, you know, want to call it, you want to say that oligarchy is a, you know, funny wokey word, call it whatever you want, you could call it corruption. But they're, you know, these connections can't be denied. You know, you have Trump towers going up across the region. This trip is not about, you know, President Trump did say he's gonna lift sanctions on Syria that were under the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad. He's gonna meet with the Syrian president in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. This is a good sign. I mean, you know, we'll see what happens with the Iran deal. But you know, President Trump did kind of talk about that he wants a more peaceful region. But let's make no bones about it. This trip is really not about national security. This is about deal making, both for the United States. I mean, you know, look, President Trump did just secure $600 billion in deals from the Saudis today. Whether it's, you know, U.S. defense companies, including air, missile defense, space, maritime security, communications, you know, the Saudis are, you know, dying to get into the US and make investments. And you know, President Trump might think it's good, but you know, a lot of this foreign investment we're getting even more.
- [29:02]
Jim Acosta
I would be fine with all of that. And I would say, okay, you know, nice going there. If this did not have the stench of just a self enrichment tour, that he's just going from authoritarian regime to authoritarian regime with a bag in his hand and saying, let's fill the bag with as many goodies as possible. And he's got his sons out there peddling these meme coins. And, you know, the possibilities there are kind of endless. I was talking to Chris Murphy last week about the, the meme coin scam component of all of this. We don't know who's buying these meme coins, you know, who's buying them, to the extent that they get, you know, they're trying to raffle off a tour of the White House and all of these, a private dinner with Trump and so on. And so you put these things together. I mean, this is why the Constitution says what it says. I mean, you cannot have foreign governments or foreign. Foreign entities piling money into bags for the President of the United States. It's just, you know, the, the, the potential for mischief. It just lies right there out in the open. And I think Trump. What Trump thinks is that, well, if I do it out in the open, then nobody can say anything about it.
- [30:09]
Elise Labott
Exactly, exactly. And then you have, you know, you have this Saudi summit, this US Saudi investment summit today.
- [30:16]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [30:17]
Elise Labott
Business leaders including, obviously, Elon Musk.
- [30:20]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, we saw you.
- [30:21]
Elise Labott
CEO Sam Altman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the Blackstone CEO Steven Schwartzman. And he's kind of facilitate. You know, on one hand, you want to say, oh, this is great, all this investment in the United States. But when you see those guys were also at the inauguration.
- [30:39]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Elise Labott
You know, what is this doing this investment? This is, you know, possibly enriching Trump down the line. It's also, you know, the Saudis are getting a lot out of it. They're trying to diversify their economy. All of these Giga projects, you know, they're gonna benefit Trump in the long run for sure.
- [30:58]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Elise Labott
This trip is focused on investment and deal making. This is not. There is little about diplomacy going.
- [31:06]
Jim Acosta
No question about it. And when Trump announces that he was willing to accept a $400 billion plane from the Qataris, he's basically saying, okay, the bidding starts there, you know.
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Elise Labott
You know, it reminds these other countries.
- [31:17]
Jim Acosta
That's where the bidding starts.
- [31:18]
Elise Labott
We spoke about this a few weeks ago, if you remember. We're talking about these feudalist systems where people are going up to the king and being like, oh, I have this water bottle made out of gold. Oh, I have this, you know, everything.
- [31:31]
Jim Acosta
Wasn't that a single Ten Commandments or something?
- [31:33]
Elise Labott
Yeah. And this is how they're showing up. This is how they're showing up. I don't know if you saw. We should have put a picture together of it. But we'll put it up on substack of this McDonald's.
- [31:43]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yeah, tell us about the McDonald's. What was that about?
- [31:46]
Elise Labott
Okay, well, the Saudis are rolling out the red carpet. They're also rolling out the, you know, carpet of French fries. They put together the Big Macs made container size mobile truck of McDonald's because they know that the President loves his fast food.
- [32:05]
Jim Acosta
Oh, he's loving it all right.
- [32:06]
Elise Labott
Yeah, they know how to cater to, no pun intended. They know how to cater to this guy. They're speaking his language. Steve Witkoff is the Middle east envoy, is also his kind of consigliere on all of these matters. He's a businessman, he's a deal maker. And it's like an Arabian bazaar right now.
- [32:28]
Jim Acosta
Would you like fries with that grift? And the way that the White House is trying to paper over all of this. Oh, well, Pam Bonney said it's okay. We should note, as a FARA registered lobbyist, Bondi lobbied Congress on behalf of Qatar, earning $115,000 a month. That was all raised during her confirmation hearing process.