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- [00:02]
Ben Meiselas
Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Meiselis and this is Breaking news. Let's get into it, folks. Donald Trump right now experiencing an unprecedented death spiral when it comes to American politics. At least you wouldn't know that if you turned on corporate news. They still want to talk about how heroic Donald Trump was regarding the alleged White House correspondence dinner incident, which has so many red flags, it's not even visible which flag from the next. It's just one gigantic kind of red screen. At this point, we learned that the alleged suspect's lawyer was saying that the lawyer wasn't even able to meet with the suspect in a private and confidential place. We're going to keep you updated there. But there's not really a clear explanation about whether the alleged suspect was actually the person who shot one of the Secret Service agents or whether it was friendly fire. They're saying that the alleged suspect had a shotgun. And it seems that it would be pretty easy to run a quick ballistic to determine if it was a shotgun residue or shotgun spray versus a handgun. But we'll set that aside because I think think you all have the same red flags and questions that we do. But the reality is, is that Donald Trump is historically unpopular.
- [01:38]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Right?
- [01:38]
Ben Meiselas
The latest AP NORC poll has Trump's approval at 33% nationwide amongst all respondents. The latest Reuters poll has Trump's approval at 34% in terms of standard of living. 8% approval amongst independents, 8% amongst independents. That's a very low number right there when it comes to Trump's approval on the economy. And the AP north poll, it's at like 30%. Overwhelmingly Americans don't support this catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran. New polling data as well over here that we're posting from Washington Post ABC Ipsos showing that Americans despise that. Donald Trump's priorities right now are golden ballrooms and 250 foot arches and putting his face and signature on currency. Overwhelmingly the support for these things is anywhere. Top support for the ballroom is 28%. The ballroom is the most popular amongst this cohort. 28% approval and all, all the other stuff that Trump wants to do, it's like 12% approval. He just thinks people are stupid. Like, nobody wants UFC fights at the White House. Nobody wants him to keep posting about reflecting pools or golden ballrooms or arches or putting his face on passports. No one wants any of this stuff. People are struggling here in this country. For most Americans, this economy is in a great recession. And you may be saying, but no one's reporting It's a great recession. I understand that the gdp, the technical definition of a recession is having successive quarters of declining GDP and declining growth. The issue though is that with the spread of wealth being so disparate at this point and rich people being so rich and the rest of the kind of 98% of the country struggling and the rich hoarding all of this money that props up the GDP. So in theory the GDP is like, ah, you know, it's 2% still slow and sluggish. The estimates were that the GDP was supposed to be about 2.3%. But the same way the economy is not the GDP, the economy is not the stock market, the economy is are people getting jobs? Right. The economy is can most people afford things? And overwhelmingly there the answer is no. I think when we looked at past recessions and great recessions because the wealth gap was less wide and less severe, collectively the country experienced the pain and suffering a little bit more as a collective enterprise, if you will. Whereas now you have the super rich and rich doing very well. They call this K a K shaped economy. But in terms of that K shape, it's a very small amount of people who hoard most of the wealth. And most Americans are experiencing great recession or depressionary environments right now. I mean this is a reality. People can't afford their mortgage or their rent. Lucky if they can have a mortgage, meaning they have a home to begin with that they technically may own. But people can't afford rent, they can't afford groceries. Gas is at all time highs. I think the average nationwide now is somewhere close to $4.50. If you're in California, that's above five bucks. Other states for 99, five bucks on average. But nationwide we're looking at, you know, I think it was 423, then 429. The futures, when you talk about Brent and WTI crude, that's where you're looking at like $120 per barrel. But the spot price, meaning what it's actually being sold at right now, not in the future, not a futures market which is manipulated by the kind of jawboning techniques of Trump and leaking information to sycophantic stenographers who call themselves reporters. But the spot prices, you know, meaning
- [06:04]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
if you what does it actually cost
- [06:06]
Ben Meiselas
right now to buy a barrel of oil? Like, you know, it's like $250 a barrel of oil right now and that's translating into higher prices for you and it's only going to get higher and higher. And all of this I Guess Donald Trump's plan is indefinite naval blockade. Just keep this going on forever. On the one hand, he doesn't want to escalate with a ground invasion. On the other hand, he doesn't want to negotiate with Iran, which would require actually making concessions and recognizing that Iran won the war, if indeed the objectives of the war were regime change and obliterating ballistic missile and drone capabilities. And Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. So I understand that it is a fact that the US And Israel dropped a bunch of bombs on Iran, including bombs that killed a lot of innocent Iranians, including little schoolgirls who attended the Manob Elementary School. And yes, we also struck the navy and conventional military equipment of Iran. But Iran, in this so called ceasefire period, trust me, they've been able to very quickly ramp up production and replace the drones and replace the ballistic missiles and replace, you know, all of their, you know, most of their arsenal. It's cheaper for them to make it. But in terms of, you know, who controls the Strait of Hormuz, right. It's, it's, it's Iran. Today's Persian Gulf Day in Iran, where they celebrate forcing out European colonizing forces in the 17th century. As their parliament leader. And Bigala Baf writes, In the year 1622 AD, after 115 years of occupation, we expelled the European colonizers from the Persian Gulf. And we celebrate Persian Gulf Day in honor of this victory today as well. Iran, by exercise exercising control over the Strait of Hormuz, will ensure that it and its neighbors enjoy the precious blessings of a future free from the presence and interference of America. So clearly, MB Golubov is not showing any signs of surrendering. Iran's not showing signs of surrendering to Donald Trump and his regime. We heard from the new Ayatollah Monjaba who posted on social media today after not really speaking out for a number of days. And in addition to talking about Persian Gulf Day, he also had a lot of strong words about, you know, if the US Continues its blockade, it's only gonna find itself at the bottom of the sea and that Iran is never going to surrender. And, you know, Donald Trump thinks that this naval blockade is this cure all, is this panacea, that it's going to solve everything. But I think Donald Trump, like, he's lived his entire life, he wants somebody to try to bail him out. He thinks if he just waits it out, as things get more precarious and more catastrophic, this is how he's lived his life, whether it was with the casinos, whether it was with failing companies. Whatever it's been, either his daddy has bailed him out, or, you know, he's had someone else bail him out, or he blames people for it. And I think that's what sadly, you know, he's trying to, he's trying to do here. And I guess he just thinks he's going to post on social media like a maniac over and over and over again. And that's the plan. Keep a naval blockade and then post like a maniac on social media. You have MB Gallaboff, also Iran's parliament leader. He posted a map of the United States and he said if you build two walls, one from New York City to the west coast and from LA to the east coast, the total length will be 7,755 km, which is still about 1,000 km short of Iran's total borders. Good luck blockading a country with those borders. P.S. for Pete Hegseth, 1 km equals 0.62 miles. And we've been hearing how there have been a number of tankers that have been able to get through the US blockade. But, you know, in addition to those tankers, it does seem that Iran, working actually with Pakistan, has been able to come up with a number of land routes in order to take some of its oil and some of its supplies to break the bra, to break the blockade by working with Pakistan in order to move a lot of supplies on land. And you know, we've been seeing a lot of maps, a lot of overhead visuals that suggest that that's going on right now as well. Remember on Sunday, Donald Trump was on state regime media, which calls itself Fox, and he said, look, Iran's got three days left, which would be Wednesday based on when he said it on Sunday. He goes, they got three days left. The oil is filling up in the pipes. This is how Donald Trump understands, in his words, mechanical engineering. The oil fills up in the pipes. And because of the blockade, there's really no ships that can come and take the oil from the pipes, put it on the ships and then take it out. So the pipes fill up, fill up, fill up, fill up. And then they reach this over pressurization point. This is Donald Trump's explanation. And then because there are no valves that deal with over pressurization, as Donald Trump puts it, everything blows up and
- [11:54]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
then you win the war.
- [11:55]
Ben Meiselas
And so Trump said that was going
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to happen by Wednesday.
- [11:58]
Ben Meiselas
And so, you know, that didn't happen, of course, and we know that's not going to happen. But you know, Trump Never gets called out for any of these things. It just is. Ah, you know, that's Donald, Big Donald. He makes up these things and he just lies about it. But, but the reality is, is that the American people are suffering throughout all of this. Like, it's not. When will the consequences hit? The consequences are hitting now, and they've hit before this catastrophic and unlawful war. Americans don't feel that we're in a golden age or a period of great prosperity. People do see rich people getting much richer and their net worths increasing to the point where we may have a trillionaire soon. And everybody sees these billionaires are getting more billions and more billions and more billions, and meanwhile, just regular folks aren't able to afford anything at all. And Trump saying that this is the golden age. Republicans are saying this is the golden age. And, and things are amazing. Like, they can't even acknowledge the reality that people are struggling. One of the things that we've been able to do as the Midas Touch network expands is, as I'm sure you all know, we have a Washington, D.C. bureau, and, and it's led by Scott McFarland, right, veteran reporter, formerly with CBS. He leads our D.C. bureau. We've also got Pablo Manriquez, Pablo, also veteran reporter on the Hill, who's just incredible. And he asks the questions that regular folk, regular people want to have answered. What a novel concept to ask politicians the questions that you want answered. That's what we're doing on Capitol Hill every single day. And so when we all huddled up this morning in our company meeting, we're like, well, what should we ask people? And we said, you know, look, let's not be, let's not even approach this in an accusatory way with Republicans. And don't, you know, we don't need to be yelling or aggressive or say, obviously your constituents are suffering.
- [14:03]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
We just said, what if we went
- [14:05]
Ben Meiselas
up to a bunch of Republicans and just ask them a very basic question, which is, what would you grade Donald Trump if you had to give him a grade, an A, B, a C, a D and E and F? What would you grade him in terms of his handling of the economy? And just, do you think he's kept his promise of bringing prices down? Like, do you think? Right. We all agree Donald Trump promised on day one he was going to bring prices down. That was one of his promises.
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Co-host or Guest Commentator
Right.
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Ben Meiselas
And so I think it's fair, regardless of what political party you're with, whether you're Democrat, Republican, Independent, whether you don't like politics, you don't identify with anything, whatever.
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Right.
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Ben Meiselas
I think it's a fair question for us to ask is just to say, did you know, are our prices down?
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And I think that even if we
- [14:56]
Ben Meiselas
didn't, let's just say we all. I think we all in this chat think that Donald Trump is a. Is a terrible, vile creature. I mean, I think we all feel that way, that he's a horrible human being, that he's a war criminal. But just put that aside for a moment.
- [15:12]
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I think we still, even if all
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Ben Meiselas
of that, you know, I think we all feel that undisputed.
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But if prices were actually lower, I
- [15:22]
Ben Meiselas
think that we should say, you know what, there are all of these things,
- [15:28]
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but prices are lower. And then we should probably still say,
- [15:34]
Ben Meiselas
you know, all that other stuff, you know, ice and war crimes doesn't justify bringing prices lower.
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But I still think we would have
- [15:41]
Ben Meiselas
to live in reality and say prices are lower if that's what happened.
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When I have debates with MAGA people, they often say, even if Donald Trump
- [15:51]
Ben Meiselas
cured cancer, you would not say that he cured cancer. You would find some way to criticize it. Have you seen the debates that I've had sometimes where they've used that rhetorical thing on me? If he cured cancer, you wouldn't say, he did a good thing.
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That's how much you hate him.
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Ben Meiselas
I said, no, that's not true at all. If he cured cancer, I would say, oh, my gosh, great work. He. He cured cancer. That's a, That's a big deal. Except Donald Trump has defunded cancer treatments and cancer research. He's actually created a situation and he's defunded experimental treatments and he's destroyed people's healthcare.
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So when I get that question, I'm
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Ben Meiselas
often like, but that's actually, if you
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want to use that example, he's. His actions have actually led to it
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Ben Meiselas
being more difficult to treat cancer.
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But if he helped it out, we'd all say it.
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Ben Meiselas
And look, when it comes to prices, objectively, everything is more expensive. It's. Objectively, things are worse.
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That's just the way it is.
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Ben Meiselas
If we're, if we're living in reality.
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Now, if you're a MAGA person, you may say, look, what if you said,
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Ben Meiselas
hey, prices are up and he did not keep his promises and things are bad, but try to make the case, I guess that you think it's worth
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it, but don't tell me that the prices are down or things are better
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Ben Meiselas
or things are much better. That's.
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That's not a Normal.
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Ben Meiselas
I think this is why people are so disenchanted with politics generally, because it's like we're just sick and tired of freaking liars who lie about everything. It's like, no, no, people are struggling.
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You have to, you have to recognize
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Ben Meiselas
what people are actually going through right now out there. Especially if you're a politician and you're representing constituents.
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If all you're going to do is
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Ben Meiselas
be someone who blames others. Republicans are in charge, right? They control the House, they control the Senate, they control the executive branch, they control scotus, they control, they control everything. So we're in April or almost in May 2026, right?
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Co-host or Guest Commentator
So you can't keep on saying Biden,
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Ben Meiselas
Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, and then also lie about Biden. Under Biden, inflation was going down and was less than what it is now.
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Co-host or Guest Commentator
That's just an objective fact. You may not like Biden. You go, well, early on in Biden's
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Ben Meiselas
term, inflation was high. I understand that. I would counter with the fact that
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when you rip a, when you actually
- [18:34]
Ben Meiselas
have to address systemic problems that Trump caused during his first term. When Trump added 30% of our national debt with that PPP program he ran, which basically funneled money to rich people and didn't actually help lots of regular day Americans and lots that want to talk about waste, fraud and abuse. The PPP program, like literally lost, like what, hundreds and billions of dollars, maybe
- [19:00]
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trillions of dollars were just flat out lost. What do you think?
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Ben Meiselas
When you print all that money and
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basically lose it, where do you think
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Ben Meiselas
inflation is going to? Like, where do you think it's, it's, it's going to be coming from? It's the way Trump mishandled or didn't handle at all. Covid. And a responsible, grown up administration has to deal with it.
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But I couldn't be like, actually inflation was low.
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Ben Meiselas
Underby. No, it was high and then it
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was low at the end and it was going to head to 2%.
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Ben Meiselas
And if Donald Trump just did nothing and allowed things to go on overdrive and literally did nothing, the stock market,
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I know he loves it would be like crazy booming right now. The Dow would probably be at 70,000 right now.
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Ben Meiselas
If Trump literally just did nothing.
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One of the things that I noted
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Ben Meiselas
when you look at last year and you say, well, America's market was up, whatever percentage it was, 12, 15%, whatever it was not an insignificant amount.
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But compared to the rest of the
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Ben Meiselas
world, actually America's market was far lower
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than most other countries.
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Ben Meiselas
We were in first. We were actually towards the bottom in, in market growth. But I know Trump loves the stock market.
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If he did nothing, the markets would
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Ben Meiselas
just be ripping every day and probably
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be in the 70, maybe even 80.
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Ben Meiselas
And he could have taken credit for
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all of the stuff that Biden did and he could have had that. But setting aside that Biden was creating
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Ben Meiselas
manufacturing jobs, Biden was creating all different types of jobs. You know, Donald Trump likes to disparage a lot of the infrastructure investment that Biden was making, especially in lots of areas of clean energy. One of the major growth areas that has led to China's economic boom is that they've actually focused a lot on clean energy, solar, wind and dominating in that area.
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And that creates jobs.
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Ben Meiselas
You know, I know that Donald Trump wants to disparage climate change and pretend it's not real and say, I like when there's more beachfront property or whatever, the stupid stuff that he says. But from a pure economic standpoint, that's more jobs to be created. So Trump's a job killer. We're in a job recession. The markets are not where they should be anyway. And his tariffs against the world have also been inflationary and they've also created great animosity between us and our allies. All of that is objectively, you know, bad things.
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And I just don't know how we
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Ben Meiselas
could ignore the very reality of these things and we could have grown up conversations. I mean, that's the thing. Like we can dis.
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We, we can disagree about policies and how we get here and how we
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Ben Meiselas
get there and should interest rates be cut or should they not be cut? But we have to agree to basic truth and basic objective data and basic facts. Tariffs are inflationary. Tariffs aren't taxes on other countries. They're taxes on imports that get passed on to consumers. That's that'.
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Once we acknowledge that, we can then
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Ben Meiselas
say, well, how much of a tax is it going to be? Well, if you look at inflation regarding produce and groceries, it's up about 10%. Certain types of produce is up like 90%. I know you feel it when you
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go to the grill, whoa, is that double? Is that double what I spent?
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Ben Meiselas
We can have, I think, adult conversations about the best way to reduce the price of healthcare.
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Right?
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Ben Meiselas
I believe in single payer. I believe in universal healthcare. I believe the government is a basic human right. It should be provided by the government. That's my view. I think everybody should have healthcare. It should be free. The way I think we're able to pay for it is we reduce military expenditures by 50 to 60%, maybe even more. Right. They're doing a $1.5 trillion budget, my military budget. If you elected me president, which I'm never gonna run for, so don't. I don't want to run for anything. Is $400 billion will still lead the world. That's a lot of money for the military, you know, and now I've saved us $600 billion over there. I tax the rich about 1%, 1 1/2% more, maybe, maybe even 2%.
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Add that to the federal tax.
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Ben Meiselas
I probably just brought us another, you know, I don't know, close to another half. Another half a trillion dollars, maybe more.
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By the way.
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Ben Meiselas
I think it should be more than that. But I'm just going to give us a conservative plan right now, right? I mean, I found a trillion and a half dollars right there, maybe more. I put that to health care. And people, you know, people have health care. If you think that there's a market force or technology or other things that can do a better job than universal health care, it hasn't been created yet. So I'm happy to have that discussion. But don't tell me that right now healthcare costs are lower.
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Right? That's what the Trump regime does and the Republicans do.
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Ben Meiselas
They act like healthcare is cheap right now. We did it. We did the most favored nations clause. What do you mean you did the most favored nations right now in America, Right. This is what the Trump and the GOP will say to you right now. In America, if you buy a drug, it is the same price as the lowest price for that same drug in any other in any country in the world. So if the lowest price for drug
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A is being sold for a dollar
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Ben Meiselas
in Canada, in America, you can buy that same drug for a dollar. If drug B, the lowest price all across the world, let's say, is two bucks in Sweden. In America, the drug manufacturers have to match Sweden and sell it to Americans for $2. Trump and the Republicans claim that that's what exists now. That doesn't exist. That's not a real thing. We don't have most favored nations. And your Trump RX thing isn't that. It's literally restating, repackaging the same types of direct to consumer discounts that pharmaceutical companies are already offering on their websites. Stop with the gimmick, stop with the trick. Stop with the two weeks. Stop with the, oh, we've done it. We brought in $21 trillion and $28 trillion. You know, if, if you look at the first quarter GDP numbers and you say, okay, the estimate was 2.3%, GDP growth came in at 2%, which even though that was below the estimate is 2% was not a terrible number. It's not a great number, but not a, not a terrible, not a. Objectively, it's not a terrible number.
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It should be much higher if Trump
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Ben Meiselas
didn't stall out our economy.
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But if you told me that there
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Ben Meiselas
was 21 to 28 trillion dollars of outside investment into the United States and let's just say you then brought that 21 to 28 trillion dollars and let's
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just say you divided that into different
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Ben Meiselas
quarters, right, so that each quarter you're
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going to add another $7 trillion of capex into the United States, right?
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Ben Meiselas
Our GDP would be like 8% or 10% or 12%. That's not what the results are. So just stop, right? Stop lying. Stop saying you've turned over all the Epstein files when you didn't and you're covering it up. You know, stop saying, oh, the Clintons, the Clinton. I want to hear about the Clintons. I want to hear about Pam Bondi because Pam Bondi's the former Attorney General
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and she's the one who's at the
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Ben Meiselas
center of the COVID up, not the Clintons. Stop talking about the Clintons and Hunter Biden and stop it. You know, it's really a time where we need grownups.
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And I think when you look at
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Ben Meiselas
the data, Americans are expressing the sentiment, which there is this anger, there is this resentment, there is this furiousness that exists. But it's like we need grown ups, we need smart people. We don't want drama. You know, I don't want the government treading on me and you every damn day. Remember those signs with the snake, don't tread on me. Every day they're treading, whether it's physical tread of ice and border patrol Gestapo, killing folks off the street, detaining people, throwing people into concentration camps, you know, but it's also just the government's intervention and Trump trying to throw himself into your life like a freaking stalker every damn day, you know, just get out. Like, just stay away from us. I don't want to hear you. I don't want you to be around in general from a president of the United States. I want someone who behaves normal. I don't want someone who at 12:30am is posting QAnon memes like, and I
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bring it up because I know it
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Ben Meiselas
gets no attention, like uncorporate news.
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I know no one will talk about
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Ben Meiselas
it if I don't talk about it.
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And I know we have a bigger
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Ben Meiselas
audience than corporate news. And so when Donald Trump at 12:30am makes a post like this, the storm is coming. Nothing can stop what is coming. If you're, everybody's watching that, look at this photo. You see on the left that there's a queue. Do you see that? This is a QAnon meme right here, you know, and, and you're posting QAnon memes at 12:30am Then you're posting no more Mr. Nice Guy with the AR15 style rifle in your hand. And you're saying, Iran can't, Iran can't
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get their act together.
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Ben Meiselas
They don't know how to sign a non nuclear deal. They better get smart soon. DJT and it's like a weird AI photo of himself holding an AR15 style rifle. Why are you doing this? Why? This isn't funny, dude. This is, this is war and peace.
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This is life or death.
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Ben Meiselas
There are American people struggling right now. Most American people are struggling.
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What is that crap?
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Ben Meiselas
And of course the Iranians are mocking
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it, but it just makes you look,
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Ben Meiselas
you know, deeply unserious. One of the interesting things too, you know, as I've been studying international affairs and just seeing what's going on across the country, one of the interesting things is that even these kind of right wing MAGA parties in other countries are coming out against Donald Trump. Right now. You have the French Le Pen party with that guy Bardella from the, what's that party called? The National Unity Party or Jordan Bardella, which is Le Pen's party basically, and he's their leader. I mean, you got, I mean this was like the MAGA aligned party, France and, and dudes like, Donald Trump's policy is now completely erratic. No one is able to predict what he wants. By definition, when you change your position very regularly, when you're not consistent, you no longer provide certainty, especially as the leader of an allied country. And obviously the situation harms the reliability and credibility of the United States on the international stage. So what? Like the far right wing French party, that's, that's like their MAGA party is out there and say, I don't need to promote the guy anymore. But you know, you got, and the reality is, is that there is no reliability or credibility. We all grew up and I hope
- [30:09]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
you thought like you are.
- [30:11]
Ben Meiselas
You have to be a person of your word, right?
- [30:14]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And trust is everything.
- [30:16]
Ben Meiselas
And you know, Donald Trump's whole life he's been a con artist and a scammer like, that's his whole thing. Like the whole Trump thing is being a scammer.
- [30:25]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I saw, you know, with this visit
- [30:28]
Ben Meiselas
by King Charles recently, some articles from the 1990s surfaced of Donald Trump would
- [30:40]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
make up all of these lies about
- [30:43]
Ben Meiselas
the royal family buying apartments at Trump Towers and the royal family begging for memberships at Mar A Lago. And all of these things he would say. He would say really weird and creepy things about Diana and, like, going on a date with Princess Di and, you know, and, you know, and also he made some very crude remarks about her as well. And then the royal family back then would like, have to, like, deny it and say, no, he's lying, he's lying. This guy's been, understand, like, the guy's been a liar and a con man his entire life, objectively.
- [31:20]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And my big problem with it all
- [31:22]
Ben Meiselas
is that we need facts. We need the truth.
- [31:25]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And going back to what I was
- [31:26]
Ben Meiselas
saying, too, about the economy in our Washington, D.C. bureau, before I took this circuitous path, which is our Washington, D.C. bureau, people were asking these politicians questions about the economy. And so I'll show you. For example, when our D.C. team spoke with MAGA Republican Congressmember Babin, he gives Donald Trump an A or a B on the economy. I mean, what do you mean you're giving him an A or a B on the economy? That's stupid. Come on. First he walks past our camera and,
- [31:55]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
like, dodges it, and then he's like,
- [31:56]
Ben Meiselas
all right, who you with? Who you with? Watch this. MAGA Republican Congressmember here, play this clip.
- [32:01]
Interviewer
Congressman, real quick, Has Donald Trump kept his promise to lower prices? No, I know, I know. Congressman, has Donald Trump midas touch? Who you with midas touch?
- [32:16]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
Okay.
- [32:17]
Interviewer
Just his. Donald Trump kept his promise to lower prices. I'm asking all your Republicans.
- [32:20]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
We saw the prices come down dramatically, but we're in a. We're involved in a conflict with the worst regime, terrorist exportation regime, and probably in the last hundred years. And this is going to be over soon and we'll get these prices down. I live and my district is in the epicenter of energy in Southeast Texas, the Greater Houston region. You're going to see prices come down as soon as we get through with this president. The president keeps his promises.
- [32:51]
Interviewer
If it was a report card, what grade would you give him on the economy?
- [32:54]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
I'm sorry, I couldn't.
- [32:55]
Interviewer
If it was like a report card, say, what grade would you give Trump on the economy then?
- [32:58]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
On the economy? Yeah, I think he's got to be Got a B average right now, but he had an A. It went to a B and it's going to go back to an A.
- [33:06]
Interviewer
Thank you, Congressman.
- [33:08]
Ben Meiselas
I'll show you Byron Donald's maga, Republican Congress member from Florida who's running for governor there. Let's play this clip.
- [33:15]
Interviewer
Congressman, do you think Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to lower prices?
- [33:20]
MAGA Republican Congressman Byron Donald
Yeah, he actually has. I know gas prices are a little bit higher because of what's happening in Iran, but across the country, a lot of prices actually have stabilized. I think, you know, inflation's hard, but I remember where we were with the Biden administration. You know, airline tickets jumped 50%. It was insane. So he's doing a great job. We need, you know, the other side of the aisle to come and help us just do common sense business. But president's doing great.
- [33:47]
Interviewer
If it were a report card, what grade would you give him on the economy?
- [33:50]
MAGA Republican Congressman Byron Donald
Oh, he gets an A.
- [33:51]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
An A. Yeah.
- [33:52]
Interviewer
Got it. Thank you very much.
- [33:54]
Ben Meiselas
What about Senator Tim Scott when he did an appearance earlier today? What about Senator Scott? Let's play it.
- [34:00]
Senator Tim Scott
That's great news, by the way. The fact of the matter is that all of the cylinders are kicking. It is good news. You can even feel in our environment how good things are getting. Gas prices continue to come down, which means that your groceries will come down a little bit as well. We've got a lot of good signs in the economy. We just need to continue to execute and have confidence in the choices the American people have made by making President Trump their president and keeping majorities, Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate.
- [34:33]
Ben Meiselas
I mean, come on, doesn't it just, like, it's such a transparent con and
- [34:43]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
scam and like a little bit impressive,
- [34:47]
Ben Meiselas
like if, if, if
- [34:52]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I don't, I just genuinely don't know how you lie
- [34:54]
Ben Meiselas
like that with such a straight face and go, yeah, of course, things are amazing. Things are great. Things are great. But like, they must think again. They think we're stupid.
- [35:03]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
They think that they can say that,
- [35:05]
Ben Meiselas
like, oh, I guess you said it's
- [35:07]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
amazing and an A.
- [35:08]
Ben Meiselas
So maybe I'm wrong.
- [35:10]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Maybe all of the things that I'm
- [35:11]
Ben Meiselas
feeling are, are incorrect right now.
- [35:14]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And in fact, things are, they are
- [35:17]
Ben Meiselas
saying things are great. They're not. Enough of this crap. And this is why people hate politics. And this is why I think regardless of political party or anything, what we need to be focused on, all of us here, just objective facts, okay? And we need to make sure that we center everything in the people. And yes, We're a network, a news network. So we talk, right? News networks, we talk, but we need to listen. And I think the most important thing that we can be doing right now is just listening to what people are actually experiencing and talking about those things, not this kind of constant gaslighting that you hear over and over again.
- [36:07]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
All right.
- [36:08]
Ben Meiselas
I want to also talk about the Pete Hegseth cross examine, the hearing that took place before the House and the Senate. How atrocious was Hegseth? I want to talk about the Supreme Court ruling, the Voting Rights act ruling, what that really means. I want to, I want to break it down for you in a way that you understand, because I want to explain why it's such a horrific ruling, but what can be done about it also. And a few more things. Let's just take a quick break. We'll be right back. Just make sure you hit subscribe. You may think you're subscribed, but you may not be. Just double check that you're subscribed. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [36:47]
Sponsor or Advertisement Voice
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- [40:29]
Ben Meiselas
Welcome back to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Meiselas and this is Breaking News. Great ad reads right there by Brett. My brothers, the discount code are in the description below. Jordy works really hard on negotiating good discount codes and he thinks these are products that you would like. And the sponsors help support the network. So support the sponsors if you like it. And again, discount codes in the description below. By now you probably heard about this Supreme Court ruling which strikes down essentially section two of the Voting Rights act, passed in the mid-1960s, one of the Crown jewels of the civil rights movement. Section 2 of the Voting Rights act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the various minority groups. And it was specifically enacted because the history of racism in states, and what states would do is they would work and as we see now, they would
- [41:39]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
not say, hey, we're racist states. Everybody look at us, we're the racist state of this.
- [41:45]
Ben Meiselas
But they would implement voting maps and strategies that would significantly dilute the vote of. Very frequently it was of black majority congressional districts. So in a specific state where, say there's 35% of the population is black, a state that may have a 65% white population would say, okay, rather than ensuring that the black community had congressional representation, we will draw maps that basically dilute the black population's voting power by carving up the 35% into various districts and moving those into majority white districts so that there would be no majority black districts in a state or maybe one where the representation, if it was fair and say it was 65, 35 or 60, 40, you know, if there were 10 seats, you would expect there to be, you know, at least four
- [42:52]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
seats that would be reflective of the
- [42:56]
Ben Meiselas
black population in the state or closely reflective of it so that there could be the right representation for the community.
- [43:05]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So the way the Voting Rights act
- [43:07]
Ben Meiselas
dealt with this is they had different procedures to ensure that states would not impose racist maps. And part of the Voting Rights act required something called pre clearance. So when a state would do a gerrymander, we all know about gerrymandering. So when a legislature would want to
- [43:29]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
change their maps, the pre clearance meant that a state had to submit it
- [43:34]
Ben Meiselas
to the DOJ and then frequently to a three judge federal court panel, and
- [43:40]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
it had to be approved and analyzed
- [43:43]
Ben Meiselas
before it could become an effective map.
- [43:46]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
It wasn't presumed to be the right map. It had to go through a doj
- [43:50]
Ben Meiselas
review and then a three judge panel review that was called pre clearance. Well, there was a case in 2013
- [43:57]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
as a concerted movement was taking place
- [44:02]
Ben Meiselas
by the Federalist Society and other right wing forces, they put before a right wing Supreme Court that had a slimmer right wing majority in 2013, a case called Shelby county versus Holder. And there the Supreme Court struck down the formula for coming up with a preclearance determination. And by striking down the formula, it basically struck down the very nature of a pre clearance requirement in the first place.
- [44:35]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So what that meant is when the
- [44:36]
Ben Meiselas
new census would take place in 2020
- [44:40]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
and then thereafter when a legislature would
- [44:43]
Ben Meiselas
create new congressional maps based on the
- [44:47]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
new census, that map would automatically be deemed to be a valid map because
- [44:54]
Ben Meiselas
you didn't have to pre clear it. So you can challenge that map by a lawsuit, but the initial presumption is
- [45:01]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
that a state map was valid and then the lawsuits would have to come and you know, lawsuits take a lot of time but. And then if you were preserving the status quo, you could be preserving the racist map. So then what states realized is, look, we're not going to say we're diluting black votes. We're just going to say this is
- [45:20]
Ben Meiselas
a political gerrymander because there is no law against political gerrymandering.
- [45:25]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Democrats have tried in the past to put forward federal legislation that bans all
- [45:32]
Ben Meiselas
gerrymandering, political gerrymandering and all forms of gerrymandering.
- [45:37]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
The Democrat position is no gerrymandering at all. Let's just come up with a system
- [45:42]
Ben Meiselas
where it's fair across the country, okay?
- [45:45]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And that districts don't look like salamanders
- [45:48]
Ben Meiselas
or whatever look like all over the place.
- [45:50]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Republicans fought against that and blocked that
- [45:54]
Ben Meiselas
piece of legislation from becoming law.
- [45:57]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So now we have this, this system. So now if a state says haha or doing a racist map, it would then be struck down under section two. But the state said we're not going to say that because then we'd run afoul of section 2. Even if we put forward the invalid map, it would be challenged. We'll lose if we say it's a racist map. So they just say it's a political map.
- [46:24]
Ben Meiselas
We're just, we're bringing in political interest.
- [46:27]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So the way, you know, the Texas map, we weren't carving it out to put this population or do it based on race, we're just doing it based
- [46:37]
Ben Meiselas
on political considerations because we're trying to get more Republicans in districts, not less
- [46:43]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
black people, more Republicans, which as you know, often Equates though to protectually isolating
- [46:51]
Ben Meiselas
certain, certain racial groups.
- [46:55]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So what section 2 was still interpreted to basically mean is, okay, we can look beyond a state saying that they're not racist or the legislature saying they're not racist. And we can look at its impact and see, okay, is the impact of what they did clearly racist or have a racist effect or effect in the end of the day? And then we can determine, ah, when you were saying it was political, it's really pretextual. We know the reason you were doing this, you wanted to dilute the black vote. It's obvious. Look what you did and how you specifically targeted black voters.
- [47:33]
Ben Meiselas
Right?
- [47:34]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And so we can still look at the implications even if your express words
- [47:39]
Ben Meiselas
were that you were not doing a racist map.
- [47:43]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And so what this Supreme Court case was basically saying is that you challenging the racist map, you saying that we should have majority black congressional districts, that you even saying that that should exist is a racist thing. You being an anti racist to challenge what you believe is a racist map when the legislature says it's political. In essence, what the Supreme Court saying is, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're being the racist for saying you want a majority black congressional district. We've moved beyond racism in this country. That's literally what Justice Alito essentially writes in his opinion, that we should overturn our prior Section 2 of the Voting Rights act precedent because we've moved beyond racism at this point. So there should be nothing that allows people to even ask for a majority black congressional district because that in and of itself is factoring in race. And actually the Voting Rights act says we shouldn't be factoring in race. So aren't you violating, you see how warped this is, section 2 by promoting anti racism, by even focusing on racism at all. And the non racist are the racist because they're just being political and you're making accusations against them. And we shouldn't pry into anything other than what they say their map is. So what this ruling basically enables a state to say is, look, just say that it is a political gerrymander and you're good. We're not even going to look beyond that. So any state feel free to dilute congressional black majorities. Just don't say you're doing it for that purpose. And we're not going to look into its impact or its consequence or anything like that. That we're just going to look into what the legislative pronouncement is. I'm oversimplifying it slightly, but not by that much. So as a result of this, the question is, is how big of a shift can we have? To the extent there's good news, it's that this decision has been made late in the process and it's going to be hard for a lot of states to these Republican state legislatures to all of a sudden change their maps when there's lots of primaries coming up. And so, and, and this Florida was going to do its gerrymander anyway.
- [50:27]
Ben Meiselas
And the Florida gerrymander that DeSantis is
- [50:30]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
working with Trump on may be a dummy mander as well because it's based on Latino voting behavior and the Latino voting population has moved away from Trump. And so if they're going to now create plus 8 to plus 10 Trump districts, we're seeing in Florida and elsewhere, plus 12 to plus 20 Democrat over performances in special elections.
- [50:52]
Ben Meiselas
But the Florida thing was coming regardless.
- [50:53]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
But in 2028, we're now going to see all of these Republican states or these state legislatures, they're no longer going to feel constrained by Section two and they're going to do racist maps. And so, and they're just going to
- [51:08]
Ben Meiselas
say it was political gerrymander.
- [51:10]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So then the Democrats are going to have to respond where the Democrats can't unilaterally disarm. And in states that have constitutional amendments
- [51:18]
Ben Meiselas
that prohibit political gerrymandering, that's going to
- [51:21]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
have to be amended. There's going to have to be referendums put on. And then those other states are going to have to now change their dynamic. And so now we're going to have an entire country that's going to be completely gerrymandered and it's going to be one off. Republicans are going to do this and Democrats are going to do this and then it's just going to be a gerrymander fight. It's going to, I think, create a country that's far more divided potentially. But I don't know about you, but I think that people are absolutely sick of this. And this is what the Supreme Court, this is the resulting more divided country, a more racist country, a more, you know, why would we want any of these things? You know, what we should do is have none of this gerrymandering. Right? We should have, I mean, just think about all of the ways these right wing Supreme Court have butchered our Constitution.
- [52:12]
Ben Meiselas
Butchered the Constitution, right.
- [52:15]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I mean, whether it's the Citizens United decision which allows these unlimited corporate expenditures with super PACs and all of that, you know, to flood the zone with money where Elon Musk's and other people are Trying to buy elections where Miriam Adelson is saying, I'll give you $150 billion, a half a billion dollars, but you have to promise to do this and that for Israel and my agenda's here, or. Or Elon Musk saying, I'm going to do this and that, but you have to do this for Tesla and this for X and this for my companies or, you know, whoever the companies are. Right. You know, Citizen, we had McCain, Feingold. That's bipartisan. McCain Republican, Feingold, Democrat, McCain, Feingold. Campaign finance reform. Democrats, Republicans came together. The legislature's case. Think about this for a second.
- [53:04]
Ben Meiselas
Pull back.
- [53:05]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
This is what I teach my law students and undergrads. And maybe I won't get into the Hegset stuff because I'll just focus on the type of lectures that sometimes I give. And this isn't political. It's actually apolitical what I'm saying right now. Just think about it. Campaign finance reform, Democrat and Republican come together. McCain and Feingold, they pass this incredible piece of legislation that would reduce corporate influence on our campaign, you know, which we know is so horrible today. They saw the problem because it was building and building and building, and they created something to stop the problem. They diagnosed it. They created and they created the medicine. And on a bipartisan basis, we worked together and we created a great piece of legislation. And then the Supreme Court goes, that violates the Constitution. Why? Why does it violate the Constitution? Explain that to me. Why does it violate the. Corporations are people. What? They're people. They have a First Amendment right.
- [54:08]
Ben Meiselas
What are you saying?
- [54:08]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Corporations should do whatever they want because they're a human being. A corporation's a human being? Yes.
- [54:14]
Ben Meiselas
That's my Supreme Court voice. I'm not sure why, but yes.
- [54:17]
Sponsor or Advertisement Voice
Really?
- [54:18]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Yes. Okay. I'm not really sure. Show me where in the Constitution it says a corporation is a freaking human being. So you're going to overTurn what Article 1 did and was signed into law by Article 2. You right wing Supreme Court just. You're going to say that the Constitution says something that the Constitution doesn't. Yes, we're going to say that. Clearly corporations are human.
- [54:42]
Ben Meiselas
I don't.
- [54:43]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I don't know. But think about all of these laws, you know, the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights Act. Right. The Voting Rights act of 1965 was passed on a bipartisan basis. You had Democrats, you had Republicans, you had, during that era, Lyndon B. Johnson pushing through a lot of this legislation as well, based on his background as a lawmaker, as an unexpected person. To be a champion of a lot
- [55:12]
Ben Meiselas
of this civil rights legislation.
- [55:14]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I mean, heck, the environment, the EPA was created basically under Nixon and expanded, you know, and expanded under some other Republican administrations. I mean, just think about Maine. Some big environmental protections in California were done under Reagan. In California, Nixon signed the epa. These weren't actually, these weren't controversial things. They've been made this way, but that's not actually the way it has been. And you know, I often ask my students and I ask you, I'll ask you in the chat, like, how many of, how many people believe that the Civil Rights act of 19 or the Voting Rights act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act, Title 9, all of these
- [56:02]
Ben Meiselas
civil rights legislation, Right?
- [56:04]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Do you think, think that in 2026 the Voting Rights act could be passed
- [56:10]
Ben Meiselas
in 2026 with our Congress?
- [56:12]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Of course, the answer is no.
- [56:15]
MAGA Republican Congressman Babin
Right?
- [56:15]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Do you think that McCain Feingold campaign finance reform could be passed in 2026? Of course it couldn't be. Do you think Title 9, which, you know, respects men, female equality in sports, you know, or another, educational institutions in general and also prohibits like sexual harassment and discrimination at a federal level in
- [56:40]
Ben Meiselas
education institutions that take federal money, do
- [56:43]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
you think that could be passed? Of course it couldn't be passed. None of it could be. I mean, look, and a major part of it is Trump is what Trump and Trumpism and maga, what this cancer has done to our body politics. And as, oh, you don't like Trump, you don't like Trump. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. On a bipartisan basis, Biden worked with Lankford, a really right wing Republican senator. Lankford, right. And Biden worked on a bipartisan piece
- [57:19]
Ben Meiselas
of legislation for immigration reform.
- [57:22]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And it would have had strong, this is what Biden was trying to do during his term. It would have strong borders pouring millions of dollars. At that point. It was to ICE and border patrol for the borders, not to invade the places and go after Americans and people who were hard working people to stay at the border, Border Patrol border, not go and invade Minnesota or California, this place and throw gas in people's faces and torture them and terrorize them for the freaking border. It would have invested hundreds of millions in immigration law judges. It would have expedited asylum proceedings to ensure that only meritorious asylum claims could get through the system quickly. It created a pathway to citizenship that was compassionate, recognized that your country got to have borders, but at the same time we should come up with a pathway for citizenship. People who have Been living in the shadows so they can pay taxes and continue to contribute if they raise families. So they're not scared. It would have actually addressed a lot of these issues. But what did Donald Trump say? Trump said it out loud. He said immigration is a winning issue for me. I get to win by creating chaos and I want there to be problems because I can use the issue to divide. Now that is a tactic that actually is not unique to America. We see that with Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary, going back to, in, you know, in, in France, that national, so called National Unity Party. We see it in the tactics that are used by Nigel Farage. We saw that, that in the Reform,
- [59:14]
Ben Meiselas
so called Reform Party in the uk
- [59:16]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
they all have names like that. By the way, we saw Maple Maga, right, with Pierre Poiev, who was before Trump and before Prime Minister Carney ascendancy. You know, Poiev probably would have been the Prime Minister of Canada. And he was dragging Canada into a big Maple Maga, Daniel Smith kind of direction over there, which would have been disastrous and catastrophic because. Catastrophic for the country. But using the same divisive tactics and masks and nail masks. It's about finding issues that divide, you know, and this is what the Russians were great at. Their, you know, their intelligence services and, and, and, and others are, are able to kind of find the cultural division points that naturally exist and then just, just push right on those things as ways to divide us. And that's kind of the very right raisin for existence of maga, of what it's all about. Find ways to divide, you know, bathrooms, male, female, sports, bully, transgender, eating cats and dogs. You know, blame the immigrants. Let's talk about Somalians. Let's do this. That, you know, it's, it's always creating a crisis, finding division points, accentuating divisions, pushing hard and preventing actual results from happening.
- [60:42]
Ben Meiselas
Right.
- [60:42]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
We could have had bipartisan immigration reform and that would have been great. I mean, you know, there was lots
- [60:48]
Ben Meiselas
of legislation coming out of the Biden administration that Trump is undoing right now,
- [60:53]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
you know, which invested in clean energy and all these things. That's jobs. Clean energy equals jobs. Regardless of what you view about climate change, in my views, you should believe it's a real damn thing. Of course it is, but, but it's also, economically, it's creating jobs. Like, I don't like windmills, I don't like solar. What do you mean you don't like those? You don't like creating jobs. What are we talking about here?
- [61:16]
Ben Meiselas
What are we doing here?
- [61:17]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So I know I veered off a
- [61:19]
Ben Meiselas
little bit and talked about some of
- [61:21]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
these topics instead of showing you the hexa clip and this and that and the other. But I think it's important to reflect on that. There was a time when we were able to talk about these issues and
- [61:30]
Ben Meiselas
we were able to, to bring people
- [61:32]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
together and have bipartisan legislation and then ultimately, whether it was the Supreme Court or Trump or whatever would cause divisions in bipartisanship, I still believe that there's about most issues are actually 70, 30 or 80, 20 issues on some of the biggest issues that Americans mostly agree on things.
- [61:55]
Ben Meiselas
I think we all agree on common sense gun control and gun reform.
- [61:59]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I think we all view in common sense climate legislation. I think generally people overwhelmingly believe, as I do, of course, in women's reproductive
- [62:08]
Ben Meiselas
rights and bodily autonomy.
- [62:09]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I think we all believe in equality. I think we all believe that America is a country of immigrants and that we should have, yes, there should be strong borders, but there should be a compassionate policy regarding immigration. I think we all agree that there should be a more fair tax code that addresses the fact that billionaires and Deca millionaires are not paying their fair
- [62:36]
Ben Meiselas
share and have all of these loopholes.
- [62:38]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I think we all agree that some of the critical issues impacting people are issues like people needing to be paid wages with dignity and that the corporate CEO should not be paid, you know, a thousand x of what the workers
- [62:53]
Ben Meiselas
you know, are making.
- [62:54]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
People should be able to. I think we all agree generally that people should have health care and it should be free or at the very least very affordable.
- [63:02]
Ben Meiselas
And I believe free.
- [63:02]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I think we all believe that health is a human right. I think we all agree that, you know, these data centers and unrestrained AI poses very serious risks and that we could recognize the importance of technological innovation, but that there needs to be a balancing of interests to make sure that the significant, significant natural and job related consequences are not catastrophic. I think, you know, I, I, I, I think that there are very basic things that we agree on and I think that it's the plan of MAGA and the right wing Supreme Court often to find ways to break that and in breaking that hoist up a strong man proxy for the right wing oligarchs, a la Putin, a la what Orban
- [63:58]
Ben Meiselas
was doing in Hungary.
- [63:59]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
And if you've all been following Hungary, right, you all know that those oligarchs in Hungary, they've been fleeing, they've been trying to push their money into the United States and hide their money here and there and elsewhere. And Peter Magyard, their new prime minister keeps on aggressively calling out what's happening there. But you know, that's, that's, to me it's just fascinating when you hear, you know, all these right wing people talk about capitalism and this and that and, and rail against socialism. I mean right now there's socialism for the billionaires. That's what exists. There's socialism for the billionaires and they're getting all the benefits. I mean, I mean, you know, I just, I'll give you an, I'll give
- [64:39]
Ben Meiselas
you an example example right here because
- [64:41]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
something that I teach them as, as
- [64:43]
Ben Meiselas
my semester wraps up, it's, it's, it's something that I teach as well.
- [64:47]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
So if you're a billionaire and you buy a sports team, your purchase price of the sports team is 100 deductible over the course of like a 10 year. I forget if it's a 10 or 12 year period under the tax code code. So if you're a billionaire and let's say you buy the Carolina Panthers, I think this is a real example, for $2.6 billion over the next 10 to 12 years, you can deduct that purchase price to reduce your tax basis generally by the purchase price. So while the asset appreciates and you're not being taxed on the appreciation of the asset of your sports team. Right. Go. What, what's the Carolina Panthers valued at right now? 5 to 6 billion, $7 billion. Right until this, there's a sale and then there's schemes to not actually pay the tax on that. But you're not being taxed on the increase in the valuation of your team. And in fact your purchase price is then deductible. So if you're making like a wealthy person like that, that say they're making a billion dollars a year and you purchase the team for $2.6 billion. Do the math. You divide 2.6 into 12 separate parts, whatever that number is, you get like a 200 million dollar deduction or one, whatever it is every year for, because you bought the sports team. So your tax basis is already decreasing and you apply that over the next 12 years while your asset is appreciating. And then you have the municipalities buy the stadiums for you. And so it's a way to shield your money ultimately from the taxes. And then ultimately when you make a sale, you have it at a lower tax bracket based on the capital gains or however they've structured it. And so you, you just think about all of these things and it's so detached from the everyday experience of what Americans are experiencing. What Americans are experiencing, you know, and I just think it's so to benefit all of these right wing oligarchs while people on a day to day basis
- [67:12]
Ben Meiselas
are just getting screwed.
- [67:14]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I think people get it, I think people see it. I think people are sick and tired of the lingo and the desire. You're a socialist. Ah, you're a lefty there. You're like people. Just, let's just be normal, let's be fair. I don't think anybody's saying, you know, we want to, you know, not have people who reach levels of success make money. I just think we're saying make the system, keep the system fair. Don't rig the system, keep it fair. So people. And if we keep a fair system, then everybody benefits. We all live in a better place with better services. Everything's better anyway. That's my, that's my spiel. That's my spiel for you before I go watch the brother show tonight.
- [67:58]
Ben Meiselas
I didn't even show you any of the clips. I just ranted. I hope you're okay.
- [68:02]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I didn't even do the show I
- [68:03]
Ben Meiselas
was supposed to do. I just went off on that tangent. What can you, what can you do
- [68:09]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
next time watch the brother show. I'll go over the stuff that I
- [68:12]
Ben Meiselas
was supposed to cover.
- [68:13]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
I'll save it. Save it for the brother show.
- [68:14]
Ben Meiselas
Exactly, exactly.
- [68:15]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
You're gonna get a very different brother show than this show.
- [68:17]
Ben Meiselas
This is the show where I just start talking about something that end up. That end up talking about this.
- [68:23]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
All right, there. There you go. That's been on breaking news and me
- [68:28]
Ben Meiselas
ranting about whatever I just ranted about.
- [68:30]
Co-host or Guest Commentator
Hopefully you liked it. Hit subscribe. Thanks for watching. Help us get 7 million subscribers.
- [68:36]
Ben Meiselas
We appreciate you. I'll see you on the brother show tonight. 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific. Shout out Midas mighty want to stay plugged in?
- [68:44]
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