Reporter/Journalist (2:41)

For the start of this war.

Mike Waltz (2:42)

Well, it shouldn't surprise you that I share the president's assessment on all kinds of issues. What I wrote as a member of Congress was as a former member of Congress, look, what I share the president's assessment on is that the war has to end.

Host/Commentator (2:56)

By the way, I want to show you some clips of Kevin Hassett. Kevin Hassett is the national, the Internet, the National Economic Council director. And just so you know who Kevin Hassett is, how he got famous. Well, he wrote a book called Dow 36,000, published in 1999, predicting the stock market boom right before the Internet.bot.com bubble burst of 2000. Guy gets it wrong every single time. We literally have the worst people up there at this press conference and in this administration. Here he is being asked, well, if the goal of the spending cuts has been to reduce the debt, why are you imposing the deepest cuts on the IRS that collects revenue? Here, play this clip, every one of you.

Kevin Hassett (3:46)

So we recorded several other outlets have reported that about 3,500 people are due to be lose their jobs at the IRS by the end of the week. If the goal of these spending cuts across the federal government has been to reduce the debt, why impose some of the deepest cuts we've seen so far at the agency responsible for raising revenue.

Reporter/Journalist (4:07)

For the federal government? Well, I think our objective is to make sure that the employees that we pay are being productive and effective. And there are many, many more than 100,000 people working to collect taxes and not all of them are fully occupied. And the treasury secretary is studying the matter and feel like 3500 is a small number and probably you can get bigger, especially as we improve the IT at the irs. And so I think that it's absolutely something that is on the table for good reasons. And the point is that don't just talk about the irs, talk about all of government. That there are so many places I live in D.C. you maybe live in D.C. where you never there. Nobody, nobody's going to the buildings. People aren't commuting because nobody's doing their job. We look back and we see that there are all these people doing two jobs while they're getting a government payroll on the payroll. So the point is we're fixing that and the IRS is a small part of that picture.

Kevin Hassett (4:58)

So you're saying that everybody who here.

Host/Commentator (4:59)

You have Mike Walls, the National Security Advisor. Talk about, oh, we call it here Trump, warp speed. We're going into warp speed mode here. Play this clip.

Mike Waltz (5:09)

President Trump is on what we call Trump Warp speed. We are all, we are all honored to be really serving under, under his leadership and his vision.

Host/Commentator (5:22)

Back to Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council director here. He says that now that inflation is surging once again, the way they're dealing with that is they've hired Elon Musk as their IT consultant and he will make sure that tax cuts are restored and an inflation that's now surging because of their policies maybe will go away. Here, play this clip.

Reporter/Journalist (5:47)

How did they do that? So we're addressing inflation. We didn't have to address it in the first term because it was always in the ones, almost always. But we're going to get it back there. And how are we doing it? Well, we're doing it with a plan that President Trump and I and others have talked about in the Oval that involves like every level of fighting inflation. First, the macroeconomic level. We're cutting spending. We're cutting spending in negotiations with people on the Hill. We're cutting spending with the advice of our IT consultant, Elon Musk. And then we're also looking into supply side things like restoring Trump's tax cuts.

Host/Commentator (6:21)

Back to Stephen Miller, again, North Korea is feeling that this is a little bit over the top here. Stephen Miller says no president has done more than Donald Trump. Here, play this clip.

Reporter/Journalist (6:33)

No president comes close to what Donald Trump has achieved over just the last 30 days.

Host/Commentator (6:39)

Okay, Stephen Miller bet. I guess no president has done more than Donald Trump to literally crater the United States of America, destroying our economy, destroying our alliances, destroying the bond between states in the United States, spreading lies, hatred and just being overall disgusting every day. Let's continue to talk about what happens here in this ridiculous press conference. After all of that, you then have Mike Walls, the national security Advisor, say what Trump really is focused on is stability. We need to restore stability. Play this clip.

Mike Waltz (7:17)

And truly, you know, when we all say, and the president himself says he is a president of peace, he is a president focused on restoring stability.

Host/Commentator (7:28)

I think restore stability. Every day it seems like there's another plane crash. The markets are crashing. Donald Trump is calling Zelensky a dictator and blaming Zelensky for Russia invading Ukraine. Donald Trump has destroyed our alliances with NATO. Stability is the word you really want to use right there. And here Mike Walz says, look, there's no one who can stand up to Putin Xi and Kim Jong Un like Donald Trump. Here, play this clip.

Unnamed Reporter (8:02)

I wonder how much of what we're seeing right now out of the administration. And President Trump is a call to Europe and the European leaders and the allies that we've traditionally had to pick up that hot potato and start doing something a little bit more concrete to win and preserve the peace in Ukraine. The second question I have is it's related, is there's been some, a lot of speculation that President Trump and the administration might be manipulated by Vladimir Putin. I wonder if you just talk a little bit about the administration's posture and your confidence in the competence of this administration to go toe to toe with.

Mike Waltz (8:38)

Well, if there's any. I'll take the second question first. If there's anybody in this world that can go toe to toe with Putin, that could go toe to toe with Xi, that could go toe to toe with Kim Jong Un, and we could keep going down the list, it's Donald J. Trump. He is the dealmaker in chief. There is no question that he is the commander in chief. And I, for one, and I think all Americans and around the world should have no doubt about his ability to not only handle Putin, but to handle the complexity of, of driving this war to an end.

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Host/Commentator (10:22)

No, there's no one who is a bigger bootlicker of Putin. Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un than Donald Trump, who's turned America into some like bizarro North Korea isolated country that is a pariah state to the world. Our former allies despise and hate America. Under Donald Trump, massive boycotts have been underway and are underway in Canada. I saw a recent poll out of Canada. Only 30% of Canadians still view America as allies. About 30% of Canadians view the United States of America as an enemy combatant, as an enemy state right now. Then the remainder just doesn't view the US as an ally anymore. That's the state of Canada, to be clear, that only 30% view America as an ally. Going back to Kevin Hassett right here. Here Hassett is asked, so Trump has spoke about replacing income taxes with tariff revenue. Is that something that you're really going to do, try to not collect income tax, but try to raise money off of tariffs? Play the clip.

Reporter/Journalist (11:32)

So, Mr. Hassett, you were speaking about.

Host/Commentator (11:35)

Tariff revenue and you also addressed a question about the irs.

Reporter/Journalist (11:40)

President Trump has spoken about replacing income tax with tariff revenue, especially with all this waste, fraud and abuse that we're seeing cut. Is that a possibility? Absolutely. And in fact, if you think about the China tariff revenue that we're estimating is coming in from the 10% that we just added, plus the de minimis thing that it's between 500 billion and a trillion dollars over 10 years is our estimate. And that's something that is outside of the reductions that markets are seeing through the negotiations up on the Hill. And so we expect that the tariff revenue is actually going to make it much easier for Republicans to pass a bill. And that was the president's plan all along.

Host/Commentator (12:18)

I mean, these people are quite, I don't know how else to say it, like they are legitimately stupid, cruel, arrogant, every bad quality. And it is shocking to me that there are people who fall for this crap still to this day. But I'll tell you one of the plans that they have, it's this right here. This is what this is part of their propaganda machine where they say that the government is going to give Americans $5,000 in rebates from Doge based on everything that Doge is collecting. And we all know that Doge ain't really doing anything. It's just lying about data and just making stuff up over and over again. But they say the government will not actually be spending this money. It will be Doge doing it. Huh? Make this make sense. Here, play this clip on these potential.

Stephen Miller (13:20)

Checks that you might send out from Doge. Is there a Concern, as you're thinking through this, that they could be inflationary.

Reporter/Journalist (13:25)

Oh, absolutely not. Because imagine if we don't spend government money and we give it back to people, then the, you know, if they spend it all, then you're even. But they're probably going to save a lot of it, in which case you're reducing inflation. And also when the government spends a lot, that's what creates inflation. We learned that from Joe Biden. And so if we reduce government spending, then that's, you know, reduces inflation. And if you give people money, then they're going to save a bunch of it. And when they save it, then that also reduces demand and reduces inflation.

Stephen Miller (13:50)

Okay, so you're not worried about it.

Host/Commentator (13:52)

So he says inflation happens when government spends money, but government won't be spending money to give money to people. And they just dangle this stuff the same way they dangle. No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. The same way they say that they're going to do all of these things. And what they really do Is they cut $880 billion in Medicaid, $250 billion from farmers, 350 billion in education. They go after Social Security. Is it obvious what there should be obvious what they're, what they're doing $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the billionaires. That's going to increase America's national debt to over $25 trillion in debt over the next 10 years, according to conservative think tanks. They predict that if the spending bill goes down this way, increased the debt by $25 trillion. Bringing you down to this press conference that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was holding in California here. Sean Duffy, who got famous off of the Real World Road Rules Challenge, and now he's the Transportation Secretary and He's overseen over nine plane crashes in the first 30 days before lethal plane crashes. Some staggering numbers right there. He says that the reason that he's fired a lot of these FAA workers is because they're actually not the highest skilled members of the faa. Here, play this.

Stephen Miller (15:23)

We talk about the FAA layoffs. Industry experts say it's unsafe, it's impacting safety. How can you assure the American public that they're okay to fly right now?

Sean Duffy (15:33)

Yeah, so the question was in regard to FAA layoffs. So to be clear, the FAA has 46,000 employees. This was, I think, 352 employees. And the employees that were laid off were temp, were employed for less than a year. So these are not the highest, the highest skilled members of the faa, you.

Host/Commentator (15:57)

Take a look here. As people in California were booing Secretary Duffy and he and the MAGA Republicans in California, they were showing up in California today to announce that they wanted to investigate the high speed rail project and they want to dismantle it. And I'll talk about that project in just a second. But the same way Donald Trump posted about himself and showed that he said that I'm a king regarding New York, like he literally posted a photo of himself wearing a crown and said, long live the king, or something like that. And he's screwing with New York's projects to help congestion traffic there, which was actually working. Trump wants to screw over the high rail project in California, which actually a lot of Republicans, people like red state, I mean, in California, the red areas, red counties, especially the Central Valley, has been helping their economy. Just watch the people. Boom. Play this clip. Now here is Sean Duffy yelling at the protesters here. Play this clip.

Sean Duffy (17:12)

Million dollars and no rail has been built. So if you want to go protest somewhere, if you want to shout at someone, go to the Governor's mansion, go talk to Democrats in the legislature who have brought us this crappy project, Right? So we've seen over the course of the last month what Doge has exposed with regard to fraud, waste and abuse, and we're done with it. And you know what? You're gonna have people who love fraud, who love waste, who love trains to nowhere. But all of us up here, we do not love fraud, waste and abuse. We are going to use the taxpayer money efficiently and effectively. And this is a boondocker. There isn't. And again, I would love if they built rail. It was supposed to be done in 2020.

Host/Commentator (17:56)

Wild stuff. Going back to the press conference at the White House. Here's again, Mike Wall's national Security Advisor. Let's play it.

Reporter/Journalist (18:07)

Who does he think is more responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin or Zelensky?

Mike Waltz (18:13)

Well, look, his goal, Peter, is to bring this war to an end, period. And there has been ongoing fighting on both sides. It is World War I style trench warfare. His frustration with President Zelensky is that you've heard is multifold. One, there needs to be a deep appreciation for what the American people, what the American taxpayer, what President Trump did in his first term and what we've done since. So some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and insults to President Trump were unacceptable, number one. Number two, our own Secretary of Treasury personally made the trip to offer the Ukrainians what is can only be described as a historic opportunity that is for America to co invest with Ukraine in.

Host/Commentator (19:06)

Their and finally, here is Kevin Hassett, National Economic Council Director. Let's play it I'm being told by.

Kevin Hassett (19:11)

A lot of people who have been let go at other agencies that they were told they were being dismissed because of poor performance, when in some cases they haven't even had a performance review yet because they've only been on the job a couple of months.

Reporter/Journalist (19:23)

Yeah, I've never seen a person who was laid off for poor performance say that they were performing poorly. Okay, good point.

Sean Duffy (19:32)

Sure.

Stephen Miller (19:32)

Caitlin.

Host/Commentator (19:33)

Let me just get you the fact sheet about California high rail. Just so you know, here's a reason or a few why Duffy was getting booed out of the building today. This project has generated more than 14,000 good paying jobs in California. The route from San Francisco to L A is fully environmentally cleared, meaning it's shovel ready. The track laying phase has begun and of the $13 billion spent, 10.5 billion has come from the state of California and 2.5 billion has come from the federal government. Not the exaggerated hundreds of billions that are falsely claimed. And a lot of these jobs in Central California helping people who are there. So there you have it folks. We'll keep you posted. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas plus substack for ad Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.