A (3:16)

The younger candidates are brilliant. I haven't seen a younger candidate that doesn't have what it takes. And I think there would be a wonderful feeling if the old guard made room in this moment, this really essential moment for this new generation.

B (3:36)

Yeah, but you just have people that are just hanging on too long, you know, I mean, we probably saw that in the presidential race, too. You know, I mean, just people from that generation, no knock on them, but, you know, they just feel like if they step aside, that everything's going to fall apart without them. You know, I mean, it's. And I don't know what it is because, you know, really, like, to be honest with you, this hasn't really been a problem with other generations in American history and political history. Yeah, we've had people stay on too long. But it is really systemic to this particular generation of baby boomers. And I know that people say that I hate on them. I don't. I love them. They're my parents. But, you know, I just feel like there. There's something there where they just feel like if they leave, everything's gonna fall apart, and they just gotta let that go and let. Let the younger people take over. I'll say that as much as I can.

A (4:34)

I think he did that. Let's get to the. Let's get to the bill. Are you surprised that the holdouts were the holdouts that they were. And were you surprised who stepped up? And how did you think this was going to go on longer than it did?

B (4:49)

Okay, so Rand Paul was one no vote. There was three. So no surprise there. Deficit hawk. And he means what he says. I mean, you know, you could. We all hate Rand Paul. I mean, Rand Paul's a jerk, but, you know, I'll give him credit. He's like Thomas Matt. He's the Thomas Massie of the Senate. You know, he sticks to his guns. He believes in what he believes in. You may not agree with it, but he's not. He doesn't compromise very often. And so, you know, he wasn't budging despite all of Trump's threats. He just told Trump to go away. Then you have Susan Collins, which is very much an opposite case, who has no spine, no. No principles who just kind of blows with the wind. And, you know, what we know is that this bill has specific things in it that are going to hurt Maine a lot. A lot. It's going to be one of the states hurt the most by this bill, and she knows that. But if she was the deciding vote, she would vote for it, because she's not going to oppose Trump when it really matters. The only time she votes no against Trump is when she knows her vote doesn't matter. And that's. So that's what she did here. She knew this was all going to come down to Murkowski. Murkowski was going to cut the best deal she could for Alaska, and then she was going to cave. So Collins knew that. They're good buddies, they're very close friends. She knew how this was gonna go down. So she votes no and does her little symbolic. Now she can run for reelection in May next year when this bill devastates our state and say, well, I voted against it. I did the best I could. I was very concerned about everything in there, you know, and then. And then, of course, you have Thom Tillis, who voted no and gave up his seat in Senate for it, just like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and others have in the past to oppose Trump. Sometimes that means your career is over. And he understood that, and he was willing to. To accept that. So then all comes down to Lisa Murkowski, who basically just took a transactional approach and just said, I'm going to get everything I can for Alaska. I'm going to hold out as long as I can. I'm going to get all the goodies. I'm going to get Alaska exempted from some of the worst parts of this bill. And then when she got as much as she could for Alaska, she voted for it. But here's the problem. You know, people have this misconception, and it's been the case throughout American history, but some people have stepped up to challenge this notion, and it goes all the way back to Edmund Burke, really talking about Parliament hundreds of years ago, where, you know, they don't represent their state. I mean, they do, but they don't. I mean, yes, their state sends them there, but they are. They're not a state senator from Alaska. They don't take their oath to the Alaska Constitution. They take their oath to the United States Constitution. They are sent there to represent the United States and to do the best that they can for the United States. Yes, to also take care of their constituents at the Same time. But first and foremost is to do what's in the best interest of the United States. And you know what? There were some carve outs in here that would have also benefited Hawaii. But the Hawaii senators vote. Both voted against something that would have helped their state, just like Alaska. Because the odd wording of this was that these carve outs were only going to apply to the contiguous continental United States, and Hawaii and Alaska were going to be exempted just specifically to make Murkowski happy. And the two Hawaiian senators said, no, we're not doing that, because, yes, that would help Hawaii, but it hurts the rest of the country and we're not going to do it. But, you know, that wasn't Lisa Murkowski's approach.

A (8:28)

Let's, let's take a look at Murkowski kind of afterwards, who admitted basically that the, that the bill was awful despite voting for it. Some very weird interaction here. Let's take a look there.

B (8:42)

Senator Paul said that this was. That your vote was a bailout for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country. That's what Senator Paul said.

A (8:55)

We've got the.

B (8:57)

I didn't say ma'. Am. I'm just asking for your response.

C (9:02)

My response is I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska, and I live up to that every single day. I fight for my state's interests, and I make sure that Alaskans are understood. I work hard to take care of a state that has more unique situations, more unique people, and it's just different. And so when people suggest that federal dollars go to one of our 50 states in a, quote, bailout, I find that offensive. I advocated for my state's interests. I will continue to do that, and I will make no excuses for doing that. Do I like this bill? No, because I, I tried to take care of Alaska's interests. But I know, I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that. I don't like the fact that we moved through an artificial deadline, an artificial time to produce something to meet a deadline, rather than to actually try to produce the best bill for the country. But when I saw the direction that this is going, you can either say, I don't like it, not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleep.

A (10:58)

Just so, so weird. I mean, I appreciate that the bill was so bad that a lot of these Republicans voting are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. But, you know, getting into the Weeds of the bill, basically. And just to kind of sum up from how I understood it regarding taxation, that anybody who earns less than $30,000 a year is going to be paying up to 27% more in tax. And anybody who earns over $30,000 a year is going to pay a small percentage lower tax. And when you get up to the billionaires, their percentage lower is significant. It is literally theft of income from the poor. People who earn 30 grand are going to lose 27% of that. They're going to be on the breadline. They're going to end up turning to crime, they're going to end up getting arrested, they're going to end up incarcerated. And Trump will have eradicated a whole sector of America's poorest in society. I presume that's what his plan was all along.

B (12:05)

And those numbers don't even take into account tariffs, which is basically like a new national sales tax on almost everything. So you have that as well. There are so many horrible things in this bill. And, you know, not to mention also the debt. I mean, the debt, the national debt affects everybody. It raises interest rates, makes borrowing, borrowing money for cars and houses more expensive. It impacts everyone. In this bill, despite Trump's assertions that it does not add new debt, adds in the House version, 3.4 trillion in new debt over 10 years, and in the Senate version, even worse, 4 trillion in new debt. And how you know that it's true, despite the fact that they keep lying, is part of this bill, also raised the debt ceiling $5 trillion to make room for that new debt, which is the proof. So, I mean, you know, that's what Elon Musk, for example, and I know we'll get to that. That's what. There's two things that upset him more than anything else. That's one, the debt. And then the second is the renewable energy stuff, which we'll also talk about. But, you know, I mean, what you just saw there is like, I understand the argument, like, I have to do what's best for my state. But, you know, back in 2017, Murkowski made the opposite argument in voting for the budget that, that, you know, she was lecturing people about, you know, you shouldn't cast a vote just to benefit your state if it hurts the country. So this is. Yeah, this is, this is really bad. Now, of course, it's not over. Because, see, if, if the Senate had, had passed the exact same version that the House passed, this would be over. It would be going. And when she's talking about, by the way, arbitrary deadline. She's talking about July 4th because Trump wants it have this big ceremony where he signs the bill on July 4, which by the way, he's also going to have the B2 pilots who did the bombing in Iran there as well. So he's going to turn. He once again used military pilots as political, partisan, political props. And our generals and admirals won't say a goddamn word yet again as he violates the Constitution. But that's what she's talking about. That's what she's complaining about when she says we rushed this through was because he wants it on his desk for this big 4th of July deal.

A (14:39)

Just a mention about those B2 bomber pilots that he has been using as kind of emotional blackmail to anybody who criticizes the bombing of Iran. He was saying you're criticizing the B2 pilots.

B (14:52)

You're saying that they were incompetent. Yeah, right, right.

A (14:55)

And at the end of the day they wouldn't be flying. Nobody said that. And so again, it's him kind of totally skewing the storyline to take the heat off of him and put the blame elsewhere. Let's go back to the bill. Tell me about Tillis. I've got this, this clip of him. You know, some, some of these senators, they just kind of threw their hands in the air, didn't they?

B (15:24)

Yeah. You know, Tillis, you know, interesting case here because I mean, he's a two term senator. He was in for a tough reelection fight. But you know, you have the very popular former governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, who is, who has held elective office since 1987 at various levels in North Carolina, has never lost a race, who's mulling whether he's going to get in. And I think he was kind of waiting to see on Tillis because Tillis is generally considered a nice guy, a kind of more of a moderate, traditional Mitch McConnell type senator, which, you know, Mitch McConnell 10 years ago wasn't considered a moderate, but you would have to consider him now a moderate compared to what's going maga. And Tillis is in that mold, probably a little nicer than Mitch, you know, but, but kind of a similar voting record. And you know, I think, and I think Tillis just had enough. You know, he just had enough. He, he said I don't want to go. Every time I vote my conscience, I get attacked by Donald Trump and I get threatened and I just don't want to go through that. And he already had primary opponents running. And so he said that he was already on the fence whether he was even going to run. And then when Trump put out the truth social post saying he was going to back somebody against him in a primary, Tillis just said, you know what? I'm out of here. I've had enough. 12 years is good. I'm going to ride off into the sunset. And he takes a lot of institutional knowledge with him because, you know, one thing that Tillis really knows probably better than any other senator, energy policy. That was his career. He spent his whole career in power plants and energy. And that's one of the reasons why he hates this bill, because this bill is devastating to the United States ability to produce electricity and energy and to compete with China and other developed countries around the world. We're going back to basically, we're going back 100 years when it comes to energy. We're going back to coal, oil and natural gas, and we are getting rid of basically solar, wind, and other renewables.

A (17:27)

Yeah. This bill is basically everything that Donald Trump ever wanted to do but was never able to do or was never allowed to do, that was never socially acceptable, that was never politically acceptable. Now that he's won, now that he owns, you know, the controlling stake of all three branches and the, you know, not to mention the half the judiciary as well, he's basically. That's why he called it the big beautiful bill, because everything, all of the worst aspects of his personality of Project 2025, the vile nature of the worst of capitalism, is all in this bill.

B (18:08)

Honestly, there's so many things in this bill that are terrible that people don't even know about, that I don't even know about. And I follow this stuff very closely. Musk pointed out one thing last night, which is true. I had read that elsewhere, but I hadn't read it in a while, which is they stuck in defunding the ability for courts, federal courts, to enforce contempt orders.

A (18:30)

Yes.

B (18:31)

So if a court finds the federal government in contempt for refusing to follow an order, there's no money in the budget to do anything about enforcing that order. So, I mean, there's a million little things like that in this bill that people haven't even seen yet. Setting aside all the pork and all that, things that are deferred to the federal, where the federal government has authority to make decisions over things where Congress has delegated that authority to the President. It's. This bill is a nightmare. I will say this, though. A lot of the worst, this is the other trick that they pulled. A lot of the worst provisions in this bill like some of the more draconian Medicare, Medicaid cuts do not take effect until 2027. Why midterm? It's after the midterms. So they don't want most of this pain to be felt until right after the midterms. And then. And then that's when all the bad shit's going to hit.

A (19:32)

Let's take a look at Tillis having his. Having his moment.

D (19:36)

That between the state directed payments and the cut scheduled in this bill, there's a reduction of state directed payments, and then there's the reduction of the provider tax. They can't find a hole in my estimate. So what they told me is that, yeah, it's rough, but North Carolina's used the system. They're going to have to make it work. All right, so. So what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore? Guys, when the White House advising the president are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise. And you know, the last time I saw a promise broken around health care, with respect to my friends on the other side of the aisle is when somebody said, if you like your health care, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep it. We found out that wasn't true. That made me the second Republican speaker of the House since the Civil War, ladies and gentlemen, because we betrayed the promise to the American people. Two years later, three years later, it actually made me a US senator, because in 2010, it had just been proposed, and just anticipation of what was going to happen was enough to have a sea change election that swept Republicans into the majority for the second time in 100 years. Now Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise. It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet Room when I was there with Finance, where he said, we can go after waste, fraud and abuse on any programs.

E (21:48)

Now.

A (21:50)

Can you imagine if every Republican senator spoke their mind in this way? I mean, as you said, he's. He doesn't have to get elected again. But, you know, this is what they're all thinking like that. You know, very few of them thought this bill was worth voting for. They're all basically being blackmailed, and he wasn't having it.

B (22:14)

Yeah. A few observations. Yeah. Number one, what you just said, he's saying what most of them know what most of them believe and are afraid to say. Right. So he's got that short timer attitude is what we called it in the Marines. You know, when you got three months left to go to your. Yet now and you just kind of let your, your hair go a little bit, your uniform go a little bit, you start running a little slower, you know, gain a little weight. You see the dress code, I mean, he's already skirting the dress code rules wearing that.

A (22:45)

Right.

B (22:45)

He's got a polo shirt and he, so he, that violates me. And if he just wore that, that violates the dress code rules. So he puts that little BOLO thing on there. I mean, I think that that's just his little, like, I'm, I'm sure he probably wears that from time to time, but not normally when he gives a speech in the Senate that's just as little like, I don't give a shit anymore. I mean, the only thing I'll take issue with is like, he's hung up on like, Donald Trump promised no Medicaid cuts and this breaks his promise. And he's, you know, Tillis is kind of making the argument that Trump is being misled about that. I don't think, I don't agree with that part of it. I think Trump doesn't care. I mean, you know, this isn't a situation where, like, Stephen Miller is misleading him that there are no Medicare cuts. I think he just simply doesn't care. And so you also heard when he's talking about in two years, that's what he's saying. He's saying that a lot of these cuts hit in two years and that's when, that's when the pain is going to be felt. And he has a conscience about that. Whereas his other fellow members only care about winning the next election. So this stuff isn't going to kick in until right after that election. So they figure they're going to be able to get away with it.

A (23:58)

Trump kind of tried to, you know, pressure him via Truth Social, didn't he? And wrote numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the primary against Senator Thom Tillis. I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks looking for someone who will properly represent the great people of North Carolina and so importantly, the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I mean, you know, Trump's blackmail is so blatant, isn't it? I mean, he, you know, really, there's no subtlety or hiding. This. This was a Direct threat. And that's why Thom Tillis was like, screw you, I'm done.

B (24:34)

And, and, you know, this is a really dumb move by Trump. It really, it's right up there with like, running Herschel Walker in Georgia, running Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, running Kerry Lake in Arizona. That's why they lost those three Senates. Kelly Loeffler in Georgia. That's four Senate seats right there that they probably would have won, probably would have won, given all the other numbers, if they had decent candidates.

F (25:00)

Right.

B (25:01)

But they instead, they, Trump put forward for, you know, circus clowns to run, and they lost all those races. Nevada, too, same same story. New Hampshire, too, same story. So here we are again. North Carolina is a seat that Democrats have been dying to win for many years.

F (25:21)

Many years.

B (25:22)

This is a swing state that is winnable. It leans Republican, but it is winnable. We've had Democratic governors. And so, and so I think that if Tillis runs, Roy Cooper stays out untilis probably beats the Democratic nominee, whoever that ends up being. But now Tillis gets out. Now, I think that dramatically raises the odds that Cooper is going to run. And I think if Cooper runs, he wins and flips that seat, which could flip the Senate. I mean, that's how big of a deal this is. It is a colossally dumb move by Donald Trump yet again.

A (26:06)

Well, you know, he is the master deal maker, after all. Elon Musk is not happy about the bill, as we know, and he kind of tried to upset it before the vote. The final vote came, came through with various threats on his social media site. If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day. Country needs an alternative to the Democrat Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a voice. He posted on X. It's difficult with Musk at the moment because he's so painfully unpopular that the idea of him even starting a new movement, he would struggle because so many people think that he's a dick.

B (26:50)

Yeah, but he would struggle. But the question is, is he going to be a spoiler here? You know, so there's two takes here. I hear a lot from Democrats who are saying, like, oh, you know, they'll kiss and make up. You know, he'll be praising Trump in a couple of weeks and all, you know, I don't think so. I really believe that the bridge is burned here. This is not a, like a Desantis situation or, or one of these other people. I think Trump, you know, Trump is always willing to make up with anybody, you know, but he'll always keep it in the back of his mind, you know. Yeah, I don't really like this person, but I'm gonna pretend that I do because I want something from them. But Musk is not really like that. You know, if you read everything and I just read it, there was a really good article in Politico, I think, where they interviewed one of his old buddies and, you know, who he's burned bridges with and one of his old business partners, and he just said no once. You know, Musk might sometimes act nice, but once you've really crossed the line with him, he will never forgive you. And he will spend every waking hour obsessing over how he's going to get his revenge. And look, Musk doesn't need to win. Look, if he there. There's an element out there of people that are disaffected by both parties, right? We saw that with the Robert F. Kennedy movement. We've seen that with the Tea Party movement. Even MAGA was a bunch of disaffected people that were brought into the Republican Party by Trump. And a lot of them right now are not happy with Trump. They're not happy with Trump wanting to exempt migrants from deportations who work on farms. Right. And who work in the hospital. They're mad about that. They're mad about the debt. They're mad about a lot of things. And if Musk can pull those people away and there's RFK supporters who are disillusioned with him, if he can pull away 5, 6, 7% as a third party candidate under the America Party, and I think he's serious about it, I really do, that that could flip a lot of races all over the country.

A (28:59)

Trump posted back, of course, on Truth Social. Elon Musk knew long before he so strongly endorsed me for president that I was strongly against the EV mandate. It is ridiculous and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. He writes. Elon may more subsidy than any human being in history by far. And without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more rocket launches, satellites or electric car production and our country would save a fortune. Perhaps we should have some doge take a look a good hard look at this. Big money to be saved. I mean, this is quite the u turn, isn't it, that Trump is effectively going for the jugular. And as we know, I mean, Trump's absolutely right. Elon does live off of and his businesses live off of These government contracts and government subsidies, and it would be a big problem for him. Do you think Trump is serious or is he just playing Russian roulette?

B (30:06)

I don't think he's serious. No. First of all, Musk's response to that was there is no EV mandate, which, I mean, you know, this is a lie that Trump has told for many years that Joe Biden has this EV mandate. And he told it on the campaign trail many times where he said, we're all going to have to give up our gas cars because of Joe Biden in X number of years. There is nothing anywhere that says that there were aspirational goals and all of that sort of thing in some of the policies. But there was no law or policy anywhere that said by X date, you're not allowed to have a gas car. So when Trump talks about that, you know, Musk didn't want me doing away with the EV mandate. Musk is like, there is no EV mandate. And then he's also talking about the tax credit, the 7, 500 tax credit that everybody gets for buying an EV. Trump is, this bill does away with that. Okay, so Musk is like, I don't care about that. Because, I mean, he may or may not care about that, but one could certainly make the argument, which I've seen made in the industry, that that will actually benefit Musk because he's. That is going to hurt more the startup companies than it's going to hurt an established company like his. Who knows? That remains to be seen. But there are ways that, that Trump can hurt Musk, various companies, particularly SpaceX. But will he go there? I doubt it. I think, I think the biggest thing that really makes Musk the maddest is the tariffs, which really hurt him. The electrical grid stuff, the power, the stuff that also is going to hurt him and, and the debt, you know, those are. Those are the big things.

A (31:54)

Yeah, well, the whole point of Doge was to deal with the debt. And that's exactly what he said.

B (32:02)

He said. That was another thing he posted was he said, what was the whole point of Doge? I went through four months of hell. People are, you know, protesting my dealerships, my stock price goes down, all this bad shit happens. And, you know, you just passed. That was a drop in the bucket for the debt that you just took on. Everything I cut was like nothing compared to the debt that you just passed.

A (32:26)

Talk to me about Fetterman, because he has been a bit of a wild card in this. We should kind of caveat this with. He is not well, clearly. And so it is difficult to kind of give a full analysis of what he might be thinking because I'm not sure that he knows himself, what he's thinking. But, you know, this is a guy who clearly kind of inside, has kind of Republican leanings and is, is a Democrat. Before I play the clip of him, just, just bring us up today.

B (32:59)

So, I mean, this is a curious situation. There's a lot of people are talking about Fetterman. Obviously, you know, he's not up for election in three years. He's basically got Conor Lamb, who ran against him last time in the primary and lost. Former congressman, who's out there, you know, running around Pennsylvania doing town halls and stuff because Fetterman won't. And so he's obviously like running a three year primary already against Fetterman, but it's still three years away. So I mean, it's this, it's this curious situation where, you know, where he's, he says things that when I say not well, I think that that causes him to be too honest sometimes where he's actually like, says exactly what's on his mind. There's no like buffer, no like filter.

A (33:48)

Yeah.

B (33:49)

There's no sense of like, maybe I shouldn't say this because this is gonna make me look bad. Whatever that part of the brain is, is not working because he just continues to shoot himself in the foot. And you know what he said? Sorry about that. Let me just. What he said. Yes, he was complaining, you know, about the vote armor. And this is part of being a senator. You know, it's just like votes go on forever. Amendments, you know, they get called the middle of the night. They run, you know, they run votes all night. It's part of. It doesn't happen very often. Being in the Senate is all, is similar to being in the military where like you do nothing for months and months and months and then all of a sudden you're in combat and it's, you know, 24 hours of hell. That's basically a lot like what their job is. And so, you know, the Senate hasn't worked a whole lot this year. They've had buku off days, many off days where they, they average about two days a week of actual work. Right.

A (34:48)

He.

B (34:48)

And, and so taking that into account, you also have to factor in he's missed the most votes of every senator. He refuses to comply with the dress code. He continues to wear shorts and a hoodie walking around. He misses committee hearings. He's done zero town halls in Pennsylvania since he was Elected. So he's basically just mailing it in. And I get that he's got. Had some medical issues and some depression issues, but at some point, it's like, okay, well, maybe you shouldn't be in the Senate. So, you know, when he's in the middle of this bill, I get what he's trying to say. What he's trying to say here is, like, a lot of these votes are, like, going through the motions where we already know how they're going to turn out. Yes.

A (35:31)

And.

B (35:31)

And so he was complaining about being there, but how he did it was like he said, I just want to go home. I don't want to be here. I want to be at the beach with my family. And it's just like, you know, there's a way to say that this is all a waste of time without saying, I want to be at the beach. And unfortunately, he doesn't have the ability, you know, to filter it.

A (35:53)

Yeah, let's. Let's take a look.

B (35:55)

Did you get any clues on the floor about what time this might rat.

G (35:59)

Oh, my God. I just want to go home. I've already.

B (36:02)

My.

G (36:02)

I've missed our entire trip to. To the beach. My family's gonna be back before we on that, so. And again, I'm gonna vote no. There's no drama. The votes are going to go. In fact, the only interesting votes are going to be on the margin, whether that's Collins or Johnson and those. But all the Democrats, we all know how that's going to go. And I think. I don't think it's really helpful to put people here till when, some ungodly hour.

B (36:30)

And again, thank you, sir. I mean, you could see there at the end, he kind of, like, knows, like. Yeah, I probably said too much right there.

A (36:44)

They were talking about him on. On cnn, weren't they? And, you know, again, it's just very difficult to know how to deal with him. And so, you know, people end up kind of either talking themselves in circles or just, you know, miscommunicating on this subject. It's like Fetterman saying exactly what's on his mind, but nobody else is able to say what they think of Fetterman because they're having to police their. Their own language. Let's take a look.

G (37:15)

I don't think it's really helpful. I think if you have an argument to make, do that in the next five or seven or eight amendments to make that powerful statement, and that really. I don't understand. I don't think people are going to really be paying attention. If you're doing 20, 30 or more kinds of amendment, I don't really think there's a lot of dignity in it.

B (37:37)

What do you think about that? Do, does he have a point or do you disagree with him?

F (37:42)

I disagree with them. There is always dignity in fighting for the American people, especially folks who are just trying to get by. I've talked to so many people in my state that are fearful of this, who have illnesses, who have adopted children, who are on Medicaid. When you adopt a kid through foster care, they're on Medicaid. I met the woman named Kiana Brown who says that this, what's going on here makes her feel like the Republicans are burning down her house and the kids are still inside. She is fearful that they're going to lose their Medicaid coverage, coverage. And one of her kids has special health care needs and she cannot, not afford to buy health insurance for this child. So I mean, if it takes us till six in the morning or all day tomorrow, we should stay here and if we can try to make this bill a little like a lot less bad, but at the same time, we should be here fighting for the American people. I don't care if it takes a month, if we have to stay straight through. So I disagree with my colleague from Pennsylvania.

B (38:57)

As you look towards.

A (39:00)

Yeah, that clip didn't age well, did it?

B (39:02)

So, I mean, you know, you got to read the room, man. I mean, look, yeah, you and I read a lot of comments, right. We read comments that are made to this show on YouTube. I read all my replies on social media. I read replies to my substack columns. And you get the mood of the party and you get the mood of the grassroots. And the mood is fury and anger and frustration.

A (39:27)

Yeah.

B (39:28)

And wanting to, desperately wanting to do something. And you see that in these protests, the people showing up, they don't know what to do, but they want to do something. And whatever little that they can do that might make a difference, they're willing to do it. They don't want to hear what Fetterman just said. I want to go to the beach. You know, they want, they want people fighting.

A (39:51)

We have to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk about Tom Homan, the changes with immigration and certainly this alligator Alcatraz that has been announced in Florida. We'll do that next here on Uncovered. I'm excited to share with you.

E (40:11)

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A (41:07)

As many as one in three people.

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A (41:51)

And of course you can find links to our sponsors in the description below. Ron I think probably the biggest concern outside of the spending bill for people right now is this immigration crackdown, the arrest of invariably people of color from their places of work, from the streets, the rounding up of people who are not criminals, who don't have criminal records. And you know, Tom Homan and the like are. Now their new rhetoric is, well, if they're here illegally, then they are criminals and they have broken the law again, ignoring due process, ignoring the fact that a lot of these undocumented immigrants are going to their court dates and their hearings and they're going through the process to get their paperwork and then they're being picked up when they, when they go to their hearing and thrown into an unmarked van by unmarked so called federal officers, some of whom, and as I said to you last week, you know, I think this is going to end up being one of the biggest stories is that a lot of these federal officers have turned out to be just vigilante bounty hunters. And that story has broken in several newspapers now. I mean, this is an absolute authoritarian hellscape for American people, but certainly for the immigrants who are not leaving the house for fear of being rounded up like the Jews were in the 1930s in, in Nazi Germany.

B (43:22)

I, I actually just heard one of the employers of one in Los Angeles who described it as they're living in existence similar to Anne Frank. Her, her housekeeper was, is afraid to leave the house. You know, it's just, they're holed up in the house, won't go to the grocery store. You know, it's terrible.

A (43:42)

Floorboards. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

H (43:43)

Yeah.

B (43:43)

It's very, very similar situation except, you know, deportation rather than maybe a, you know, sent to a concentration camp. But the problem is a lot of people are dying now in these camps. I think we're up to like 11 have died in ICE custody. 11, 14, something like that. Since this has started. Look, this is going in phases and it, the phases are getting worse. The first phase was relatively easy for Trump to kind of claim some numbers, which is he deported all the people that are already in ICE custody, already in detention. Just sped up their hearings. People that were in county jails as well, you know, grabbing them and that's an easy way to get some quick numbers.

A (44:20)

Right.

B (44:20)

But then those kind of ran out and now, you know, you went to the phase two, which was the Stephen Miller, you know, cracking the whip. And basically we're going to ramp these up. We're going to job sites, you know, we're going to the farms, we're going to the businesses and we're going to round these people up and we're going to the Home Depots and the seven Elevens and all that kind of stuff. And that's when things started getting really nasty and intense and painful. And you know, you're also getting pushback. You're getting pushback from employers who are calling the White House, who are calling the Secretary of Agriculture and complaining and saying, you're taking away all our workers. We have crops rotting in the fields. And so Trump is now trying to find some way to come up with, he says he's going to unveil some kind of new work permit program where he's basically going to like exempt people in the farming industry and the hospitality industry, which, which are typically like Republican owned industries for the most part. And, but the problem with that is like every time he talks about that, his own supporters go nuts and Stephen Miller goes nuts because they said, no, wait a minute, you know, you said you were going to deport them all. They're criminals. Why are we going to make exceptions? Why are we making exceptions in the construction industry or other industries? Why just these? So, you know, it's becoming bad. The other problem is this, with these New batch came in. They didn't have, they don't have the facilities, they don't have the detention center. So they're way over capacity. All of them totally overcrowded.

A (46:00)

Yeah. The conditions, conditions are horrible.

B (46:04)

And part of the problem is they wanted to put all the funding for these new beds into this budget bill, omnibus budget bill, instead. They could have passed that as a standalone bill back in February. They could have easily passed it and funded all these new beds months ago. But Trump didn't want to do that. Miller didn't want to do that. They wanted to include it in this budget package so that they could Blackmail Republicans, as J.D. vance did last night, by the way, specifically said that we need this to pass if we're going to do our deportations, we need the extra money. Because not only do they need the extra money for beds, there's 400 billion in here, by the way, for ICE and deportations. They need them for beds and they need them for more agents because they're going to hire tens of thousands of new ICE agents. So, yeah, it's gonna become. ICE is about to be go from an agency that didn't exist a few years ago to the largest law enforcement agency in America.

A (47:02)

Yeah. And, you know, if you combine the, the kidnappings, the disappearings, the snatching of people off the streets, the tearing apart families, if you combine that with what we were discussing earlier about this funding bill that puts people under $30,000 a year earners into poverty, what he's effectively doing is eradicating anybody who isn't white and wealthy. And that is all part of the plan. So he's doing it through the budget and through taxation, but he's. And also the removal of Medicare and Medicaid. And, you know, I've been working on pieces on this, you know, writing substacks about this. And as I see it, and some of the people that I've interviewed suggest that the people that are losing their Medicare or Medicaid have just resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to have a slow, painful death and that this is basically the beginning of the end of their lives. And so when you put all of this together, the funding bill stuff, the loss of public services and the snatching of people who invariably are poor and are doing casual work, it is going to change fundamentally change what America looks like and feels like, without a doubt. And I've just been in New York and I was there for pride. And I also went to the Tenement Museum reading about all of these immigrants that you know, made America. They literally made America. And especially in New York, you know, just this, this whole notion of people coming from Europe and being processed. And you know, interestingly, I was reading about the, the ships coming in to Ellis island and the first and second class passengers, they were allowed to continue on. They didn't really. They got a very brief health check, but it was actually only the third class passengers that got processed at Ellis Island. So if you had the money, you could come in, but if you didn't have the money, then you had to go through the scrutiny and potentially get sent back even then. But the point I'm making is that, you know, a nation that is built off the back of slaves and immigrants is now treating those people and the ancestors of those people in the most abusive and vile way. And it is not just breaching human rights, but it is breaching every right that was ever created for citizens and non citizens alike.

B (49:52)

And look, there's nothing negligent about it. This is intentional. The terror campaign is very intentional. Having them all in the camo, the masks, the assault weapons, pulling up in vans, treating them terribly while they're in custody, not giving them proper nutrition or medical care. This is all deliberate. Why? Because three things. One, they want people to self deport. They want people so terrified of all of that stuff that they will leave voluntarily on their own. They will just split. Okay, that's one reason for it. Reason number two, they want to scare people from coming because they don't, you know, future immigrants, because they don't want to go through that either. And the third reason is, you know, this is, this is, this is, this is like a movie for, for the right wingers. They love it, they love the videos they, they get off. It's, it's, it's almost like sex for them. You know, they, they watch these videos of migrants being rounded up and treated badly and it thrills them. There's, there's a mass. Yeah, and so like, this is very deliberate. This is not like, hey, they're making mistakes or, or they're bumbling around. No, no, no. This is very much orchestrated by Stephen Miller. It's all part of the plan.

A (51:16)

And you know, for the people that say this is not America, well, it wasn't America, but now it is.

B (51:23)

It is now.

A (51:24)

And I think that there has to be some acceptance that this is what we're now dealing with, that it's not that, you know, Trump is heading towards authoritarianism or fascism, that we are in the thick of it. And it's only going to get worse. And if there is a kind of denial through exceptionalism or just, you know, a kind of purposeful blindness to these issues, then we really have to make every effort to open our, our eyes and our minds to the reality and have some empathy for the fact that invariably it's just people of color with, with, you know, foreign names that they just are indiscriminately snatching them.

B (52:06)

But, I mean, but I have to say, like, this is one reason why I feared the numbers that were coming in during the Biden administration, because I understood how it was going to be weaponized by Trump. It could help him win. And I knew what he was going to do if he did win, because we let all these people in and we ended up screwing them over. We really did.

A (52:34)

Because that bill, he had a bill, we had a bipartisan bill, but that.

B (52:40)

Was never going to pass.

A (52:41)

I mean, that was all on the table.

B (52:43)

It was a fallacy. I mean, do you. Did anyone who thought that Mike Johnson was going to allow that bill to pass was a fool? They were just a fool. That was not the solution. And my concern was that you get to a point where you try and help someone, you try and help people so much that you end up hurting them. And I think that that's what happened here. If there had been the controlled kind of numbers that we saw during Obama, where you've got 2 or 3 million coming in, I don't think that Trump would have been able to weaponize this as well as he did during the campaign. So now what happened is we decided to let many more in, and we did let many more in. And as a result, those people that were let in are gonna be worse off because they're now going to have to go through hell. And we brought in all the other stuff that comes with Donald Trump besides a horrible immigration policy. So it's a bad situation, hopefully. I hope that Democrats learn from this and go into, if they, when, if. When they get another shot here, they come up with a reasonable, sound immigration policy that's clear and makes sense. That's not what Biden did, which is no policy, and not what Trump did, which is Nazism.

A (54:07)

Yeah, I mean, just pushing back a little bit, as I am bound to. You know, we are also committed to the, the kind of international law and the Human Rights act, and that when people seek asylum at the border, then they are entitled to be given safe harbor.

B (54:25)

And so if you want to take to the American people that every person from the globe who shows up at Our border and claims asylum should be allowed in for two or three years. You are going to lose every election.

A (54:40)

I understand that. I understand that. But you know, so, I mean, so.

B (54:43)

You can't, you can't do that. So we have to come up with, we have to come up with our own Democratic Party immigration policy, which we don't have. We don't have it right now.

A (54:56)

Yeah, and it can't right now, Ron.

B (54:59)

It can't be what you said because that is a losing proposition at the polls and it, and it can't be what Trump is doing.

A (55:07)

Yeah, sure. Let's take a look at a clip of, of Tom Homan when he was asked about one of these. It was a Cuban national actually who has died in custody. His response is quite remarkable.

C (55:22)

There are reports of a 75 year old Cuban national who died in ICE custody. He had lived in the United States for 60 years. He was being held in ICE detention in Florida. Is there anything you can tell us about that? There's still not a lot of information how he died.

H (55:36)

I'm unaware of that. I'm not aware of that. I mean people die in ICE custody, people die in county jails, people die in state prisons. I mean if you look at, I was ICE director and we drilled down that the question should be how many lives does I save? Because when they go into detention we find many with diseases and stuff that we deal with right away to prevent death. So I'm not aware of that specific case, but I'll say this. People can argue with me all they want, but the facts are the facts. I think that politicians in New Jersey found this out, that we have the highest detention standards in the industry. I'll compare an ICE detention facility against any state prison, against any federal facility. I'll go, I'll go head to head with any of them. You look at, go to ice.gov and look at our detention standards. It's the highest detention standards in industry at a very expensive cost to the taxpayers. So you know, people say, oh, the detention standards are horrendous. Go look for yourself, then come back and talk to me. I mean when we talked about the facility that Congressman tried to get into up in New Jersey, Delaney hall, once they got in, what do they find out? Tenant standards are outstanding. Private cleanest facility in that entire state. Again, I'll put artist detention standards.

A (56:43)

Anybody? Yeah, the highest standard concentration camps you'll find anywhere. I mean firstly, I should just say, just pushing back on Tom Homan for a second that the state penitentiaries and federal prisons are some of the worst in the world. And so if he is comparing ICE detention centers to those, you know, you can't shine the, you know what is already shit. And so it's not a fair comparison. But most importantly from that clip, he knows exactly about this 75 year old Cuban national. He knows exactly who that is.

B (57:29)

This is a guy who's like the.

A (57:31)

Impression that he doesn't.

B (57:32)

This is a guy, I think it was in the country for 50 years since like Astro, he's been here and they arrested him, they deported him. I mean, they were, they were gonna deport him. So that, that's the first part. You know, this is a guy who's been here for 50 years and he's 71 years old and he's been poor health and you're locking him up. So look, I, I follow so many immigration reporters because I cover this stuff. And, and I'm at the point now where like, I try, I try to include at least one story in each one of my daily columns, but there's so many, like, I used to try and like cover all of these horror stories, but I can't anymore because I can tell you every single day I read like 10 of them from all over the country of, you know, person being denied treatment, person being abused, losing their baby, you know, not getting food, all kinds of these stories, overcrowding everywhere. He's lying. He knows he's lying because even Vance said it last night that we have to pass this bill because our facilities are bursting at the seams and they want to keep cramming more people in. And that's why they just opened this Alligator Alcatraz down in Florida with Ron DeSantis, where Trump was on Tuesday. You know, this is basically just a bunch of bunk beds inside of tents and cages surrounded by alligators and Burmese pythons.

A (59:01)

That's right. I was thinking that the reason they called it Alligator Alcatraz is so Trump can say, see, I told you I was going to reopen Alcatraz. That's one reason, and as an out so that, you know, he can follow through on that. Let's take a look at Caroline Levitt in the press room, relishing the idea that, you know, this is a humane way to treat people.

I (59:27)

Tomorrow, President Trump will travel to the great state of Florida to attend the opening of a new illegal alien detention center located at Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport, alongside Secretary Kristi NOEM, Governor Ron DeSantis, Congressman Byron Donalds, and other state and local leaders. We have hope to see many of you there. The facility is in the heart of the Everglades and will be informally known as Alligator Alcatraz. There is only one road leading in and the only way out is a one way flight. It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain. The facility will have up to 5,000 beds to house, process and deport criminal illegal aliens. This is an efficient and low cost way to help carry out the largest mass and deportation campaign in American history.

A (60:20)

Except there's not that many criminals. This is the designated.

B (60:26)

They're saying everyone who crosses the border is a criminal. Yeah, everyone's.

A (60:30)

But that, that's the designation that has changed. It wasn't that before it was people who had a criminal record, it was people who had broken the law. But now they have shifted the designation because they basically ran out of people to deport. And so they've had to open up now to anybody who kind of fits this description of having crossed the border. Let's look at Trump's reaction to this Alligator Alcatraz nonsense.

J (60:57)

And with the Alligator Alcatraz, it's the idea that it's dumped. They just get eaten by an alligator or a snake. I guess that's the concept. This is not a nice business. I guess that's the concept. If you, you know, snakes are fast, but alligators are. We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator.

H (61:19)

Okay.

J (61:19)

If they escape prison, how to run away, don't run in a straight line. Run like this and you know what, your chances go up about 1%. Okay. Not a good thing.

A (61:31)

I mean, there's just nothing amusing about it. They're talking about human people who are, who have, you know, because of their, their names or the color of their skin are being treated like, like animals. And Trump thinks it's funny to teach them to do the weave with their feet.

B (61:53)

I, I don't know how any American, including a right wing MAGA Republican, can blame anyone for wanting to come here from an impoverished country where there's no rule of law or there might be an autocratic government or, you know, there's horrible health care. I don't blame, I don't even the ones who say we don't want them here, I think would say, would also say I understand why they want to come here and why they're willing to risk everything, risk their life, their safety, all their money, everything that they have just to get here for the opportunity to get a job, a low level, entry level job.

A (62:35)

America's history Ron, of course you don't want to come here because it's America, right? And from every, every movie about, it is about people making the journey and getting to America and being given an opportunity to make something of themselves. That is the, that is the historical story that has crossed borders that, you know, from, from Disney movies and cartoons through to season documentaries, you know, we, we know that that is America's history. And Donald Trump both in his first presidency and this one is changing the, the, the narrative, changing the history and the rules of engagement.

B (63:19)

Well, my point is though, so given that that is the fact, even a MAGA Republican can't blame them for wanting to come. They don't want them to come, but they don't blame them. Once you, and you decide, okay, we don't want you here, we're sending you back. Why do you have to treat them this way? They haven't done anything wrong, but they're treating them like they're criminals, like they've committed some terrible crime because they wanted to come here and make a better life. That's not a crime. That's not something that should get you eaten by a python or an alligator in the Everglades. So to have this sense of glee and this thrill at the prospect, you see, he's smiling, he's laughing at the idea that a migrant could be eaten by an alligator thrills him when what have they actually done wrong? They just came here to try and make a better life. That's it.

A (64:18)

I, I, I, I don't really know where to start with it because we shouldn't even be having this conversation. Ron.

B (64:23)

Yeah, I mean it's, it's, and this is, I mean, look, the only thing that you can hope is that, you know, he's going to take his best issue that he had last year in the campaign, turn it into his worst issue because of the cruelty and the way that he's carrying it out. And eventually, you know, the good hearted nature of most Americans is going to take that out on Republicans at the ballot box. That is our only hope because I don't think that the courts are really going to save us on this one.

A (64:58)

I would agree with that. And I should also mention that I think the figure was around $160 billion in this budget for DHS and ICE. 160 billion extra dollars.

B (65:12)

It's even more than that if you add in like new facilities, training for ice equipment. Yeah, it's, it's actually closer to 400 billion altogether when you add everything in. But yeah, I mean because here's the other thing. You know, when you're hiring all these ICE agents, where are you getting them from? You know, you're getting them from off the street. You're, you're going to lower standards because you're going to be looking to hire immediately tens of thousands of people. You're gonna, they're already talking about shortening the training period, the academy, and rushing them through. So we're going to be putting out on the street in their next few months. Once this bill passes, which will probably happen this week, you know, we're going to be putting out tens of thousands of new ICE agents in addition to the ones that are already out there right now.

A (66:00)

And think about the type of person you would have to be to want to do that job. You are likely, A, to be a Trump supporter. B, Supremacist. Yeah, right. A cowboy. See, See, to be somebody who buys into the Great replacement Theory and has a very kind of vile view of this kind of, you know, making America white again and that it's going to make you more violent. You know, when you're given a badge to wear, when you're, when you're given the opportunity to wear a mask and hide your identity. I mean, all this crap coming out of Pam Bondi saying people are being doxxed and that's why they're covering their faces. I mean, in another hearing, she didn't even know people were covering their faces. I mean, it's ridiculous because there is no doxing going on.

B (66:47)

I mean, you make a good point, which is, you know, what kind of person would want to be an ICE agent right now? Because I'm sure they had many good people that they hired the last decades because the job wasn't what it is right now. You know, it was a different, much different job. Right. You know, now they see what it is. It's on tv. You know, they see what the job. So what kind of person is going to be attracted to the, to the, what they're seeing on TV to that particular job that's happening right now? I, I would not want to see the psychological profiles of some of these people.

A (67:24)

Right. And so when you, when you add the budget and the expansion of these individuals, the snatching, the grabbing and the disappearing is only going to become more violent, more extreme, more totalitarian. They're going to be given more scope. The courts are going to be, you know, in terms of due process, forget it. There's going to be no hearings. People are effectively going to be put into these concentration camps. Until they die or until they are deported, whichever comes first. And, you know, we're talking about America. America, Ron. Like, it's just everything this nation stood for as I knew it, as an immigrant. But also on the world stage, you know, other countries have based their democracies on America because it held up so well until about five months ago.

B (68:23)

Yeah. And you're right. I mean, it's only going to get worse and they're going to start grabbing people that have been here longer periods of time. People with American citizen children.

A (68:33)

Yeah, right.

B (68:33)

I mean, the, the, the, the number of, like, migrants with criminal records, I mean, those are already pretty much already gone. They're already been deported. Now we're, now we're getting at, you know, the nannies and, you know, people working on farms and construction sites.

A (68:49)

But it'll also be people who are critical of the regime. Right. So it'll be anybody. It'll be American citizens who are critical of the regime.

B (68:57)

Yeah.

A (68:57)

And if you, you know that they're now asking for you to, like we talked about, you know, last week, these student visas, where they're gonna have to make their social media public so that they can be scrutinized, but that will extend eventually, I presume, to American citizens as well, starting with people of color, black and brown people, Asians, and then they'll move on to the white people eventually.

B (69:20)

Well, you know, and they, they're now looking to denaturalize. That's, that's another thing that right now, looking at naturalized citizens and they're just passed these new rules that basically said that they're going to go back and look at everybody's applications for when they applied for citizenship and try and find discrepancies on those old applications. So somebody could have been a naturalized citizen for 10 years, and if they find something on your application that they think is inaccurate, they'll look to denaturalize you, strip you of your citizenship and deport you. By the way, as he threatened Elon Musk with this morning, he absolutely did.

A (70:02)

And I was just going to say, as an aside, to do what you just described in previous years would have been quite complex and difficult. But now with Palantir and this new AI software that cross references Social Security and everything, that's why they did it. They're going to write this, this government contract, Peter Thiel's company, that effectively is going to, you know, it's share prices rocketing, and this is how they're going to police this. This kind of, you know, soft power is through software.

B (70:37)

So when you have somebody like Elon Musk, who on his citizenship application and his visa applications said that he was a full time student in the United States when he had already dropped out of college, okay, he lied on his application. So under these new products, that is grounds to revoke your citizenship. So technically his citizenship could be revoked.

A (71:02)

Let's, let's take a look at a clip of Trump being asked whether Musk should be deported.

J (71:06)

The rest, we got a lot of hostages back, but we're going to talk about that. I don't know. I think we'll have to take a look. We might have to put Doge on Elon, you know, you know, Doge is, Doge is the monster that has, that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn't that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies, Peter. But Elon's very upset that the EV mandate is going to be terminated. And, and you know what, when you look at it, who wants, not everybody wants an electric car. I don't want an electric car. I want to have baby gasoline. Maybe electric, maybe a hybrid, maybe someday a hydrogen. If you have a hydrogen car, it has one problem. It blows up, you know, so I'm going to give that one to Peter, going to let Peter test it off.

A (72:00)

It's just gibberish, all of it, gibberish. I mean, firstly, he already bought an electric car very famously on the front lawn of the, of the White House a few months ago. But, and secondly, hydrogen cars, we know, have kind of come and gone and that hasn't really, really, really worked. But he just has no interest in the subject. It's all about supporting the oil and gas industry.

B (72:18)

And Elon never mentioned the EV mandate. Nothing to do with what Elon is mad about.

A (72:24)

It doesn't exist. Exactly. Okay, we don't have long left, but there's a couple of things to talk about. Firstly, Trump posted about Bibi Netanyahu's kind of corruption case. And you know, we often say birds of a feather flock together. And he posted, it's terrible what they're doing in Israel. To Bibi Netanyahu, he's a war hero and a prime minister who did a fabulous job working with the United States to bring great success in getting rid of the dangerous nuclear threat in Iran. Importantly, he's right now in the process of negotiating a deal with Hamas, which will include getting the hostages back. So the whole diatribe, I won't read all of it because it's just gibberish.

B (73:04)

Well, the key Part. The key part is dead, is the last couple sentences, you know?

A (73:11)

Right. So it basically says the United States spends billions of dollars a year, far more than any other nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We're not going to stand for this. We just had a great victory with Prime Minister Bibi at the helm, and this greatly tarnishes our victory. Let Bibi go. He's got a big job to do. I mean. I mean, the similarities between Trump's kind of corruption cases and Netanyahu's corruption cases should not be ignored. You know, this is what they have in common. And so invariably, criminals like to protect each other. And there has always been this bromance. Netanyahu is obviously manipulating Trump, manipulated him to drop bombs in Iran, clearly. So what's changed here? What's at stake here? Why is he. Why is he pushing for this?

B (74:01)

And Netanyahu is coming to the White House on Monday where they're going to have a little celebration of their bombing of Iran and declare victory and all that again. So, I mean, this corruption trial has gone on for five years. It keeps getting delayed because Bibi keeps getting in new wars, and he keeps using that as an excuse. I'm too busy dealing with all these important national security problems that I can't come to court and I can't do this trial because there's more important things to do. And so what happened was the court ruled last week that, no, there's no more excuses after the Iran. The ran was the latest excuse. The ran's over with. Gaza's winding down. You need to come testify, you need to stand trial. They finally had enough. And then Trump puts that out. And the interesting part is that last part, because, look, what is he saying? He's saying that we provide a lot of aid to Israel. Israel wouldn't survive without U.S. support and aid. It would be in big trouble. And he's saying, hey, we provide a lot of aid. Maybe, maybe we might not provide that aid. If you force my friend to go to trial and convict him, maybe that aid could get cut off. Where have we heard this before? We heard this before in 2017 when he contacted a guy named Zelensky in Ukraine. Perfect phone call and said, I want you to open up an investigation of Joe Biden, and if you don't, I'm going to withhold military aid. This is the same exact thing. It's exactly the same thing right out in the open, because he doesn't care. He figures now, like, what are they going to do? Nobody's going to impeach him. So he's got immunity. He doesn't care anymore. He's basically just openly admitting he just threatened to withhold aid for from Israel unless they postpone Netanyahu's trial.

A (76:07)

Yeah.

B (76:07)

And you know what happens? The day after Trump sent that, posted that on a Sunday after the court in Israel had already denied Bibi's continuance, they changed their mind. Amazing. And they postponed the trial again because of Donald Trump's threat.

A (76:29)

There was a time when America had an authority on the world stage. That time has been and gone. Trump has no authority on the world stage. He only has the ability to extort people and threaten people and blackmail people, and that's how this transactional kind of business is done. Okay.

B (76:51)

And the people he can't do that to, which is Putin and President Xi in China.

A (76:57)

Xi. Yes.

B (76:58)

He gets nowhere with him because he has no other. He doesn't know how to do diplomacy. So if the threats don't work, then he gets nowhere.

A (77:10)

It's remarkable that this is where we are at now. This is the America that you grew up in. And the America that I proudly moved to and embraced as my home is completely gone. It's unrecognizable. Literally doesn't exist now. And to top it all. And this is our final story, is Trump is now selling his personal scent. Let's take a look.

J (77:40)

Fragrances are here. They make a great Christmas present. I've named them Fight, Fight, Fight. Because they represent winning. We all want to be winning. We have to win as a nation. We want to win as a family. This fragrance is all about. About strength and success and confidence for men and for women. Get yourself a bottle and don't forget to grab one for your loved ones, too. They'll thank you, and they'll even smell good. Enjoy. Have fun. Keep on winning. And Merry Christmas.

A (78:10)

Yes. As Michael Cohen says, Colonel Von Schitts and Pants wants you to smell just like him. I mean, there's not a shred of irony in that commercial that he's made.

J (78:24)

And.

A (78:24)

And this is why, unfortunately, people don't take the authoritarianism as seriously as they should do. You know, Hitler didn't sell his armpit fragrance. He. You know, he was a. He was a threat, and he was a serious person. And the problem with these videos and these sales pitches, selling all this bullshit merchandise is it kind of takes the edge off the dictator.

B (78:51)

Yeah.

A (78:52)

And that's my biggest worry about these things. Yeah.

B (78:55)

It makes him sort of like a cartoon clown, like character. Yeah. Trump being Trump, he's our, he's our, he's our rogue, right? What can we do about him? Oh, you know, there's nothing we could do. He's just a shyster. Well, this is, this is corruption at the highest level. This is the President of the United States unveiling products. I mean, last night in the middle, in the middle of budget negotiations. So the mail, by the way, the male cologne costs 199 bucks. So, you know, this is like a five dollar made in Indonesia product. You know, there's no way this is made in the United States. 199 bucks for the, for the male cologne. For the female perfume, 249. So. So you even got a little pink tax in there. You even got a little extra tax for the ladies, right? They got to pay more.

A (79:47)

Take advantage of the ladies. Yeah, of course, of course. It's a, it's a chauvinistic administration and, and business model. I mean, I just, you know, and this is, but it's a very serious point, you know, it. Let's not allow his, this evil dictatorship to be diluted by infomercials for Trump branded products because it does. It, it really smooths the edges on something that is dangerous and sharp and needs to be taken very seriously.

B (80:18)

You know. Okay, I know, I know we gotta go. But real quick, you know, I just thought about, I thought about, you know, if the Democrats ever control everything again, you know, what do we do? Do we just like go vindictive revenge, you know, and payback? Or do we spend all our time passing all kinds of new laws and amendments and stuff, making sure shit like this never happens again? I don't know the answer to that.

A (80:40)

But we did have four years to do that. We had four years to do that. And unfortunately, it didn't really happen. All right, we have to finish now, but Ron, thanks very much. Don't forget to download the audio podcast drops later tonight. Check out the sponsors in the description below, and we'll come back next Wednesday for another uncovered here on the Midas Touch Network. Thanks, Ron.

B (81:03)

All right, see you next week.

J (81:09)

Sam.