Latest / Pod Save America / Trump’s Made for TV Occupation of D.C.

Transcript

Trump’s Made for TV Occupation of D.C. · Pod Save America

• 0:00
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• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Tommy is on vacation. Special assignment.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: He's checking out the Epstein stuff.
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  Speaker 3: He's going to figure out. He's going to finally find
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the answers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Digging through court files in Miami.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Down there with a magnifying glass and a black light.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: That's not good. On today's show, we're going to talk
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: about Trump's upcoming summit with Putin in Alaska. His latest
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: comments on Gaza, J.D. Vance's attempt to pin Epstein on
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: the Democrats and predict indictments over Russiagate. And then Lovett
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: talks to The New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick about his investigation
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: into the full extent of Trump's corruption, which has so
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: far made his family more than $ 3 billion richer.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: $ 3 billion. And that's conservative. And that's conservative.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Holy shit. But first, here's how the White House kicked
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: off the week. The president of the United States has
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  Speaker 3: responded to an attempted D.C. carjacking. that targeted the 19-year-old
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Doge staffer, known as Big Balls, by deploying 800 National
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  Speaker 3: Guard troops across Washington and federalizing the city's police force.
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  Speaker 3: That is a thing that actually is happening in America
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  Speaker 3: right now. Doesn't matter that violent crime in D.C. has
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  Speaker 3: dropped to a 30-year low. Doesn't matter that the 5,000
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  Speaker 3: troops Trump deployed here to Los Angeles in June had
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  Speaker 3: basically nothing to do but stand around and look bored.
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  Speaker 3: The purpose of ordering our own military to occupy our
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  Speaker 3: cities doesn't seem to be about fighting crime, but about
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  Speaker 3: getting headlines that Trump is fighting crime and, as always,
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  Speaker 3: owning the libs. This was clear from the president's Monday
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  Speaker 3: morning announcement in the White House briefing room where he
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  Speaker 3: was flanked by half his cabinet, who apparently had nothing
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  Speaker 3: better to do than focus on the fallout from a
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  Speaker 3: carjacking in a city of 700,000 people. Here they are
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  Speaker 3: in all their glory.
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  Speaker 5: Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and
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  Speaker 5: bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs
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  Speaker 5: and homeless people. They love to spit in the face
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  Speaker 5: of the police as the police are standing up there
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  Speaker 5: in uniform. They're standing and they're screaming at them an
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  Speaker 5: inch away from their face. And then they start spitting
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  Speaker 5: in their face. And I said, you tell them you spit.
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  Speaker 6: And we hit.
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  Speaker 5: And we're getting rid of the slums too. We have
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: slums here. We're getting rid of them. I know it's
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  Speaker 5: not politically correct. You'll say, oh, so terrible. No, we're
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  Speaker 5: getting rid of the slums.
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  Speaker 1: Let me be crystal clear.
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  Speaker 3: Crime in D.C.
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  Speaker 6: Is ending and ending today.
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  Speaker 1: They will be strong.
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  Speaker 2: They will be tough. And they will stand with their
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  Speaker 2: law enforcement partners. This is nothing new for DOD. In
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  Speaker 2: Los Angeles, we did the same thing.
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  Speaker 4: I can't touch you if you're 14, 15, 16, 17
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  Speaker 4: years old. and you have a gun.
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  Speaker 2: They go to family court, and they get to do
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: yoga and arts and crafts.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Sounds like Ghislaine Maxwell's facility in Texas.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Yoga and arts and crafts.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the beginning of that sentence, I can't touch a...
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It's like, wait, where... Oh, a different story. We're covering
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: a different story.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to... It's confusing that with you spit,
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  Speaker 3: we hit.
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  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot going on there.
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  Speaker 2: Also, I just... The Attorney General... of the united states
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  Speaker 2: saying i'm going to end all crime.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Crime is ending nancy crime is ending thanks pam bondi
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: so what do you think about this uh... it's it
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: seems as if trump has the legal authority to do
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  Speaker 3: this because dc is technically a federal district and dc
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  Speaker 3: mayor muriel bowser conceded as much in a press conference uh...
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: later on wednesday but it's a wise move so way
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  Speaker 3: to fight crime.
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  Speaker 2: So first of all So, so, uh, Bowser is like
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  Speaker 2: striking a kind of conciliatory posture, which seems like what
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  Speaker 2: she's been doing quietly because Trump refused to even criticize her.
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  Speaker 2: He actually spoke well of her and saying, though she
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  Speaker 2: was failing on this issue, she's a good person, which
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  Speaker 2: is more than he would say about most democratic mayors,
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  Speaker 2: I think.
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  Speaker 3: So there's- Also seems like she doesn't have much of
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  Speaker 3: a choice.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, look, we can, there's, uh, The fact that
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  Speaker 2: the president can call something an emergency and that unlocks
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  Speaker 2: all these powers and who decides what an emergency is
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  Speaker 2: is completely subjective. It's a huge problem. It's a huge
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  Speaker 2: problem across a whole range of issues. That's like the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: shape of a lot of these things. That's the shape
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  Speaker 2: of him invoking the Insurrection Act and a whole bunch
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  Speaker 2: of other abuses of presidential authority. But yes, he's saying
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  Speaker 2: the law is clear. He can say it's an emergency
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  Speaker 2: and then he can take over the police. So there's
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  Speaker 2: two big pieces to this. There is the deploying of
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  Speaker 2: the National Guard. That doesn't look that different than what
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  Speaker 2: Trump did in Los Angeles, except D.C. is a federal
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  Speaker 2: place that has tons of federal law enforcement, military facilities,
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  Speaker 2: all kinds.
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  Speaker 3: Of- Presidents in charge of the National Guard in D.C.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, well, and also that there's just tons of presidential
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: police departments. The Veterans Affairs has a police department. Secret
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  Speaker 2: Service is running around D.C., yeah. So it's just unlike
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  Speaker 2: other cities. But the other part of it is declaring
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  Speaker 2: that Pam Bondi is now in charge of the Metropolitan
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  Speaker 2: Police Department. And I think this gets at the uncertainty
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  Speaker 2: about what happens next, because how are we meant to
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  Speaker 2: know what Pam Bondi is gonna do when she's running
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  Speaker 2: a local police department? She doesn't know what she's gonna
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  Speaker 2: do when she's running a local police department. She has
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  Speaker 2: never done it before, and she didn't know she was
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  Speaker 2: gonna do it till this week.
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  Speaker 3: Look, you got a lot more eyes on all those
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  Speaker 3: Epstein files now. She's got a lot more hands. And
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  Speaker 3: the D.C. police force, they're going to be working around
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  Speaker 3: the clock because there's more pages for them to look at.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. No more no more shifts walking around the block.
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  Speaker 3: We should say, yeah, there's there's the the Home Rule
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  Speaker 3: Act was passed a long time ago that gave D.C.,
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  Speaker 3: you know, certain sort of privileges and and an autonomy.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And in that legislation, there is a provision that says, OK,
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  Speaker 3: in times of emergency, the president could federalize the police
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  Speaker 3: force in D.C., for 48 hour periods because it's like
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  Speaker 3: supposed to be for like, there's like, you know, overwhelming
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  Speaker 3: violence or rioting, whatever else. And then apparently if you
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  Speaker 3: federalize it for longer than 48 hours, every time you
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  Speaker 3: re-federalize it for another 48 hours, you have to like
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  Speaker 3: send a message to the relevant committees in Congress, which
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure they'll, they'll get to that, right?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's also, I believe after 30 days, Congress
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  Speaker 2: might have to approve it, but we're a long way
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  Speaker 2: from that 30 day period.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Pam Bondi, you're now basically the police chief of the
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  Speaker 2: District of Columbia. What are your thoughts? I know what
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's thoughts are. They're not tough enough. They're not
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  Speaker 2: violent enough. They're not knocking heads together. They're letting everybody
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  Speaker 2: get away with stuff. We gotta be tough like we
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  Speaker 2: used to be tough. Okay, that's something you can say
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  Speaker 2: in a campaign speech. You're running the police department. The
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  Speaker 2: police department in D.C. doesn't have enough officers. That's something
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  Speaker 2: that they've talked about publicly. Are there specific issues you'd
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  Speaker 2: like them to address? Are they not... when you say
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  Speaker 2: you want them to be tougher, like presumably continuing to
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  Speaker 2: follow the constitution will have to happen. But they don't know,
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  Speaker 2: they have no idea. So I think it's like hard
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  Speaker 2: to predict exactly what this will actually look out, how
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  Speaker 2: different it will look than just the, than DC looked yesterday.
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  Speaker 2: But what I, what I go to is this is
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  Speaker 2: for headlines and not just for today, right? So what
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  Speaker 2: are the headlines they want in the next couple of
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  Speaker 2: days and weeks? And I think it's, They want to
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  Speaker 2: show people being arrested. They want to show bodies on
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  Speaker 2: the street. They want to see military National Guard members
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  Speaker 2: standing in front of buildings. And then I think they
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: want to show homeless encampments being torn down. And then
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  Speaker 2: they want to declare victory of some kind. And so
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  Speaker 2: that to me is what comes next. Does it have
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  Speaker 2: any actual impact on crime in D.C.? Who fucking knows?
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  Speaker 2: But they don't have a plan for anything other than
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  Speaker 2: a series of photo ops over the next couple of days.
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  Speaker 3: And even if they don't get those photo ops, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we know from experience here in Los Angeles that it
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't really matter to Trump whether he's got... The photo
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: ops are... That's cherry on the cake, right? But if
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: he doesn't have the photo ops, then a month from now,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: he's just going to say, oh, and then we took
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: over DC. And have you seen it lately?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: That city was... dying we saved this city and everyone's
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: going to be like, no one's going to ask them,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: what about the crime statistics? There's a lot of arguing
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: about the crime statistics, right? But let's just take them
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  Speaker 3: at their word that they want to fight crime in D.C.
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  Speaker 3: If you want to fight crime in D.C., if the
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  Speaker 3: crime rate is not declining fast enough for you, there's
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  Speaker 3: a whole menu of options that they could have picked from, right?
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  Speaker 3: Trump's acknowledged in the press conference that there's enough police
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  Speaker 3: that should be able to handle the crime. So I
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  Speaker 3: don't know why you're adding a bunch of troops, military,
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  Speaker 3: that are not trained in law enforcement. They are trained
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: in sort of combat overseas or defending the homeland or
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: doing various other tasks that National Guard do in the
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  Speaker 3: United States. Law enforcement isn't necessarily one of them. There's
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: some courts that could be filled with more judges or
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: prosecutors so they could get the cases done faster, right?
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Like that's a challenge that Judge Jeanine could could fix
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: in her new role. She's also complaining about the way
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: that they treat juvenile offenders who commit violence or have guns. Again,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: if that's a problem for you, that's something that you
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: could address with legislation. None of this is Pam Bondi
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: becomes the police chief and we send out the National Guard.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Also, it was, what, two or three years ago
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  Speaker 2: that Congress rejected a reform law from D.C.? because they
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: wanted to not allow them to do certain kinds of
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: legal reforms and criminal justice reforms in D.C. This has
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: been a roiling topic. So now Pam Bondi is in
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  Speaker 2: charge of the Metropolitan Police Department. There's going to be
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: a couple hundred members of the National Guard. They also
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: are saying that they're going to involve all these other
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: federal police agencies that exist. An incredible bit of coordination
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: that has to happen now, an incredible logistical feat of
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: figuring out how to involve and track police in doing
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: local law enforcement.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Which this administration is known for. Logistical planning.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Pam Bondi, who was a prosecutor and
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: became a state attorney general and then a lobbyist for
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Qatar and a Kuwaiti company and some others, and now
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: is the attorney general. Like, okay, well, this is a
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: very big logistical challenge for you, I guess. You're going
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: to be working around the clock on this.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Well, good thing she's got the help of Pete Hegseth
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: and the military and Janine Pirro, a couple of Fox
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: hosts to the rescue.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Doug Burgum was up there because I guess Interior has some....
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Well, no, Interior has law enforcement. They have law enforcement
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: in D.C.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Cash Patel's there. We already have FBI agents on the
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: streets in D.C. over the weekend. They deployed some federal
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: law enforcement.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Cash Patel said something, I think, that didn't seem particularly
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: helpful because he talked about how crime rates were dropping
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: during the press conference. He's like, hey, you're not on book.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: But the, yeah, I can't, like, So, yes, they were
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: they're turning this carjacking, which is terrible. And there are
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: carjackings in D.C. and that is terrible into like an
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: inciting incident to do this. But they must have been
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: wanting this must have been what they've been wanting to do.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I can think. The show of
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: force was just for big balls. I don't think it was.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: I look, I think big ball. Look, I think big
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: balls maybe got things rolling, you know, but I don't like.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Was this something that they were playing to you in
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, moved it up? Was this always
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: happening anyway? Was this like, who knows?
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Because, you know, the first thought for
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of people were it's a distraction or whatever.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, a White House official tells Playbook, no, no,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: he was driving around the city and he because he
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: complains about the graffiti, too, as well as the violence.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: And he was just like, no, we got to clean
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: this up, which honestly, I'm willing to believe because he's
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: a Again, he's a visual learner. He's a visual learner.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: He's a TV guy.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: He likes, you know, he probably watched cops a lot, right?
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: And he sees crime and he's like, oh, crime's bad.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: We got to do this. And then, well, why isn't
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: crime falling fast enough? Why isn't crime eliminated? It's like, well,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of, no, I don't want to hear
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: the explanation. We just need more force, more force, more people.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I do think the implications of this and the potential
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: consequences are far beyond just cleaning up crime in DC,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: which is like, I don't know if you saw, like,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Greg Sargent at the New Republic got a hold of
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: some memo that was floating around the Defense Department that
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: was like, yeah, DHS is going to need a lot
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: more deployments like they had in Los Angeles of the
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: military to really take care of this political priority for
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: the president of immigration. So one implication, one consequence of
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: this is now there's just going to be, you're going
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: to get more ICE raids, more raids of people like
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: we have here in Los Angeles. And stuff we don't
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: even know, right? You have a bunch of people walking
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: around with fucking guns, militarized in Washington, D.C., who don't
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: necessarily know what they're doing, who don't necessarily have an objective.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: And I don't know. I think putting more guns around
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: the street with people who don't really know what they're
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: doing is probably not the best way to achieve public safety,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: but who knows?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think there's one part in this press
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: conference where he talked about how, you know, it's just
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: starting in D.C. They're going to go from D.C. and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: then go elsewhere. And it Like, look, it's a small thing,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: but Trump saying, I'm ordering all the states to lower
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: their flags for the Pope too. Well, you're not in
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: charge of them. And so for Trump, who either chooses
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: not to know or doesn't know about the distinction between
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a city like D.C. and what it would mean to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: have federal officers in Chicago is saying, oh, we're going
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: to do this everywhere, right? And then you look at
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: what they did in Los Angeles, which, again, is because
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: he wants the headlines and he wants the attention. And
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: so he puts some National Guard troops there and some
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Marines at federal buildings in Los Angeles. But if what
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: he wants is to be policing a whole city, right?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Like it's not hard enough for him to do that
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: if he really wants to do that, right? We have
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: benefited from the fact that he has a short attention
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: span and this is more about a show of force
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: than force, right? But if you really wanted a guard
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: every federal building in Chicago. In Portland, there was some
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: question about where there was federal jurisdiction. Is it just
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: on federal property? It was like, well, no, you have
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to be able to guard federal property, which means it
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: extends beyond federal property. You have to be able to
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: investigate beyond federal property. So it goes beyond federal property.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: It's not hard to imagine them deciding that every post office,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: every federal building, every courthouse, every customs office, every place
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: where you get your passport renewed, those are all federal
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: buildings all throughout every major city in this country. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, they're deploying National Guard there. Oh,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: and they're detailing people from Veterans Affairs and from the
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Interior Department and all these places. And all of a sudden,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: there's all kinds of police throughout a city, right? That
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: is not impossible. And so all of this, every, like,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: do I think that's what they're planning to do?
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: They don't really plan. These people are kind of improvisational.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: But like, that is a step. That is a step
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: they could take. And so they start with this because
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they can get away with this. He sees what the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: press looks like.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: He sees what the.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Attention looks like. And I do worry. That they're going
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to enjoy the stories and attention and press they get
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: from this.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: I do.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And I realize that, you know, calling out hypocrisy is
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: just like fucking spitting in the wind at this point. Sure.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: You spit it, we hit it. It's you. Don't remember.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: You spit it, it hits you in the face.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: But like, do we think this is a tough on
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: crime president? This is a president who doesn't like crime.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: He's very anti-crime, right? Criminal conviction himself. Pardoned a bunch
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: of people who, in D.C., attacked cops. Attacked cops in D.C.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I guess we went through this once before. There was
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: a big crime scene in D.C. It was when a
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: bunch of people attacked the Capitol and attacked cops. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: one of the people who screamed at the time that
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the cops should die was caught on camera saying that.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Kill him.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Kill him. He's in the Justice Department now. He's a
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: top official in the Justice Department, in the Trump Justice Department.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: So I don't know if it's that Trump doesn't like
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: crime so much as he does. He's fine with crime
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: if it's committed by people who are his pals or
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: himself or his followers, but crime that's committed by the
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: libs or Democrat-run cities or people who look a little crimey.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: They look crimey for sure. Look a little crimey.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: He's not going to tolerate that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law. And look, again,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: it's not Trump. Trump is enabled. The fact that there
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: has been so little outcry over the fact that they
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: have put a person at the Justice Department that shouted
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: kill cops at the top of his lungs is, you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I don't care for it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of like, oh, this is what the
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: White House wants us to be talking about, wants everyone
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: to talk about, which I get. I don't know. What
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: do you think? How do you think Democrats should respond
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: to this one?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll tell you. I'll tell you what's a crime.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: This big, beautiful bill. Yeah, man, it sucks. He's the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: assignment editor for the world's most powerful person in the world.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and he's doing terrible and dangerous things with his power,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and we have to talk about it. The answer is
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: not to try to pivot to a different topic. It
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: is to be persuasive, interesting, believable, trustworthy to others who
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: are persuadable on the topics as we start to build
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a larger story about why Donald Trump is such a
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: threat and why we are a better alternative.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I also think you can't just write this off as
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: another distraction because- Most people who don't pay close attention
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: to politics are like, oh, there's crime somewhere. Crime is bad.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: We like when there's less crime. And it seems like
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, he wants to throw more resources at the crime.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: And I think you've got to tell people like, no, no, no,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: that's not what's happening. If like the conversation you and
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: I just had, like if he wants to fight crime
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: and do more crime, there's a whole bunch of things
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: he could do. This is not that. This is putting
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people who aren't trained in law enforcement
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: throughout the city so he can exert more control.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also just like, this is a distraction
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: is not an argument. It's not anything.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Right, because some people will be like, well, And I
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: know that people felt like that about L.A. at times, right?
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Because people who weren't living here, when all of this
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: went down, would be like, whoa, were the riots really bad?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Was there a lot of violence? And we're like, no,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: there wasn't. But if there was, people would be like, well,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: maybe the troops are good to calm down the violence.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: It's like, no, no, no, this is a whole fucking
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: made-up thing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just... This is a distraction. It feels like
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: it's from another era of Trump politics. And it's also
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: just a conversation among a bunch of people who are
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: not distracted and are aware of the threat, right? Like
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: it's like, I'm not distracted. You're not distracted. The people
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: seeing these articles about distraction are not particularly distracted. I
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: suppose if you kind of, I don't know, steer the
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: ship of the great 100,000 talkers that were all surrounded
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: by the 100,000 people that are part of these kinds
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: of debates, you shift it and they what, they talk
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: about what Trump's doing a little less, talk about Epstein
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and tariffs a bit more. That's going to affect what,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: local news coverage and TikToks that'll reach people who are
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: going to find out that Trump federalized the police. I just,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: everything's a fucking distraction. We're a perpetually distracted society.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: I'd say it was going to land with people when
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: in a couple of weeks or a month, there's a
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: bunch of stories about the National Guard not knowing what
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: they're supposed to do. And Pam Bondi's run the police
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: force like an incompetent mess and crime's not going down.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: And then someone gets arrested and do anything. Like then
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: everyone's like, oh, he's fucking incompetent. And he did this
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: for some other reason. Like then we're, then we're able
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: to show what's wrong with it. Yeah.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I'll also say this. The attorney general of the United
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: States just made a huge promise that she's going to
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: end crime in the district of Columbia. They now own this.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: They own the challenges of, of, of, of running a
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: police department in a city and stopping crime where even
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the best, smartest, most compassionate, forward-thinking department will struggle against
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the reality of a city and life in a city
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: and the people that commit crimes in it and the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: people that live there and all the challenges that go
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: along with it. But they claim they have some superpowers.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Because in a couple weeks, there will still be carjackings.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: There will still be challenges. There will still be crimes
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: and petty crimes and sexual assaults and robberies and all
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the rest. Because they're authoritarians, but they're not all-powerful. And
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: We have to, I think that to me is like
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: a lever for us, which is just, all right, you're
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: going to do this.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: You're going to, you're going to be the ones, Pam Bondi,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: you've cracked it. You've cracked the code of crime in America.
• 22:15
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• 23:58
  Speaker 3: So Trump took questions after his announcement and lots of
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: them were about his big meeting with Vladimir Putin. that's
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: set for this Friday in Alaska, the place from which
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: proto-Trump politician Sarah Palin could see Russia from her doorstep,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: thereby bringing the stupidest era of American politics full circle.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: We're right back there. Trump is theoretically looking for a
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: deal to end the war in Ukraine, though he'll be
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: doing so without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who isn't invited
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: to the Putin meet-cute and will apparently get a readout
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: later on the potential fate of his country. Zelensky is
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: understandably ripshit about this, though I'm not sure why, as
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Trump's negotiating prowess was on full display at Monday's press conference.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm going to see Putin.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I'm going to Russia on Friday.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: But it's very complex because you have lines that are
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: very uneven. And there'll be some swapping. There'll be some
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: changes in land. And the word that they will use is,
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: you know, they make changes. They've taken some very prime territory.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: They've taken largely ocean territory. You know, in real estate,
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: we call it oceanfront property. That's always the most valuable property.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: If you're in a lake, a river, or an ocean,
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: it's always the best property. Well, we're going to have
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and at the end of
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I'll know
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: exactly whether or not a deal can be made.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: There's going to be a lot of swapping. There's going
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: to be swapping. They're going to be changing. They like
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: to call it change. Changing.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: They like to call it change. Yeah, there's another quote
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: where he said, it's very complicated. We're going to get...
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: We're going to get some back. We're going to get
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: some switch. There will be some swapping of territories to
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the betterment of both. He also said, I'm going to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: get everybody's ideas. I'm talking to European leaders. I'm talking
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to President Zelensky. I go into that thing fully loaded
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: right up there and we're going to see what happens.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Zelensky, the EU, Laura Loomer. Yeah.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: No bad ideas in a brainstorm when it comes to
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the borders of Ukraine. Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend asking a
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: question in the briefing.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Whoever. He's going to take all ideas from everyone.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: People in Mar-a-Lago that happen to be at the shrimp
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: station at the same time.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: So with Tommy out this week, you finally have the
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: chance to sling that take you've been working on about
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the fate of the Donbass.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's right. But before I let you cook
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: on that, the meeting with Putin, it's already being covered
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: through the prism of whether, you know, President Art of
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the Deal can pull another rabbit out of his hat.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: It does feel like the most important question though, is
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: not whether he can get a deal, but what kind
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: of deal he's willing to make. What do you think? Yeah.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: So first of all, it's, it's hard to know because
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: he said virtually everything a person can say about the situation.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I think JD Vance sat down with Bartiromo and we're
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: going to talk about some of the other parts of it,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: but he talked about this and I do think like
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: he is the, um, like, you know, the, the, the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: first intellectual Zamboni among equals. And like what he says,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I think is like kind of the, the most, the
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: most intellectualized form of Trump's brain at times. And when
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: you watch Vance talk about this, first of all, there's a,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: like that inherent, like kind of moral, like it's just
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: like morally vacant. Like, look, these are just two countries
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: that have been fighting and they both want to get
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: out of this thing, which is so despicable. Like this
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: is the Russia invaded Ukraine. You know, the, the, the,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: the both Trump and Vance tend to say a version of, I,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: you know, I believe Ukraine wants peace. I believe Russia
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: wants peace.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And Vance then does an aside because he's very smart
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and he carefully says, look, I can, we all condemn
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the invasion almost as an aside.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: But then he makes the point about the U S
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: not wanting to fund Ukraine, not wanting to support Ukraine,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: wanting to, uh, push it back onto Europe. And he
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: makes this outrageous claim, which is that the fact that
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Putin is willing to meet with Trump is some kind
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of breakthrough.
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Which is so embarrassing. The president of the United States,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: you're calling it a breakthrough that you got a meeting?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: You scored a general with Putin and now all of
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: a sudden that's an impressive feat?
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: The guy's a fucking fugitive from the ICC for war
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: crimes related to kidnapping 20,000 Ukrainian children, not to mention
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: the torture, rape, slaughter of thousands and thousands and thousands
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: of Ukrainians that Putin ordered. And he's coming to the
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: United States... And look, it's like it is important to
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: talk with even murderous tyrants if we're trying to end
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: a war. But like Putin's pretty psyched he got the meeting.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: So this is not like a big win for Putin.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And so he so he describes Trump getting the meeting
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: as some kind of a win, which is very embarrassing
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: and wrong. And then part of the explanation for what
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: made it happen is because of the pressure that they've
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: applied to Ukraine.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: All of which is a signal to Putin that his
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: antagonism is effective. It weakens Ukraine's position. That's all. Saying
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: that if you don't strike a deal soon, we're going
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: to pull all our support and let Putin's tanks roll
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: across Europe. Finally, the pressure we needed to get both
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: sides to the table. So the whole thing is just,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: it is strategically... incomprehensible. It's like morally empty. And the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: end result is, uh, they would like to validate this
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: whole idea of the U S has been getting ripped
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: off and we're sending all this money overseas. And so
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: they'd like to stop doing that. He wants to say
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: how he wants a deal. He wants to be the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: deal maker and the peacemaker. Uh, and I, I re
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: beyond that, they don't seem to have very many equities
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: in the actual, uh, uh, like the actual outcome of
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: the conflict, what happens, uh, to Ukraine? Uh, what happens
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: if we live in a world where a country like
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Russia is rewarded for what they did? They're apparently floating
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: some kind of a deal where like, ah, it's just
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: a Don boss, which is the lens he has to
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: of course reject because, uh, it is a victory. for
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Russia in this conflict. And then all Vance can come
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: up with is some version of, look, nobody's going to
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: like the deal. That's the thing about a compromise. I mean,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: just think of it from Putin's perspective, right? So he's
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: lost about a million Russians in this war. His economy's
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: in the shitter. He's an international pariah. And now he
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: gets to go into this meeting with Donald Trump, who
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: he knows by now is easily manipulated through flattery, has
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the attention span of a fucking fruit fly, probably can't
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: locate Ukraine on a map, let alone freelance about its
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: territorial sovereignty.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: So he's got this meeting and now he's going to
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: be able to sort of set the terms of this
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: or at least influence Trump's thinking. And what's the worst
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: that can, what's the worst he thinks can happen, right?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Which is like, Trump walks away and he's either like,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: at worst, Trump's probably like, ah, you're on your own.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: I tried something and I can't get a deal. I'm
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: not dealing with this anymore. I'm out. We're out.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Which, by the way, is just worth saying. He said before.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Which is what he said before.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: Sorry.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: He's also said, Daniel Dale, remember our friend Daniel Dale at.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: CNN, that of.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: The cataloging of the lies, you know, Trump didn't just
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: say one time offhand. I'm going to end this on
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: day one. He said it dozens of times. He said
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: it at least 50 times. I'm going to end this
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: war on day one.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: So Putin knows he's horny for a deal.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And as already said repeatedly, you know, I talked to
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: both sides. It's so complicated. You guys figure it out.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe the Pope can deal with it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Remember that?
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Remember when the Pope was going to deal with it?
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And it's just like, what did Trump and Vance and
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: the rest of them think? Do they really think that
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: if you give Putin some territory, who knows how much
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: of the Donbass he gets or how much of the
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: territory he currently occupies he gets, right? If you give
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: him some territory, after three years of losing this many soldiers,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: he's just going to say, I'm out. That's great. I'm
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: happy with a few provinces in eastern Ukraine, and now
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to shrink back and just sort of
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: try to rebuild at home. That's it? They think that's
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: going to be it? I don't understand.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: If he dares to invade Ukraine again, to restart.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: The war, or to invade some other neighbor in Europe? Like,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: who's gonna stop him?
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Trump?
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Trump gonna stop him?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: You know, a friend of mine would say, and this
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: is glib, but whatever. Tommy's not here. That you can
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: think of a parking ticket as a punishment, or you
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: can think of it as a fee. And if you say,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: if you invade a sovereign country on a completely bullshit pretext, which,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: by the way, you know is bullshit. because you're claiming
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: it's for some kind of your national security and for
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: your protection. Meanwhile, you've put your whole fucking army into
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: this country. You're not defending the border with Finland. You're
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: not worried about your neighbors to the west. That if
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: you do that, if you launch a war that leads
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, that
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: you kidnap tens of thousands of children, you cause all
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: this death and destruction, and your punishment is you keep
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: a third of the territory you took, What does that
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: say to the rest? What does it say to Ukraine
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: in the future? What does it say to other countries
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: in Europe? What does that say to China about Taiwan?
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: What does that say to the world about what borders mean?
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: We haven't even talked about security guarantees as part of
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: the deal either, which no one seems to be floating,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: at least not in a real way so far. And
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: it's like, so, you know, is there a scenario where
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Ukraine gives up some territory in exchange for like a
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: security guarantee from the United States and NATO or Europe
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: or whatever, the EU? But that's not even being discussed
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: right now. It's just like the quote that you said,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: we're going to swap territory that's mutually beneficial. Is Ukraine
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: getting a few Russian cities?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what are we talking about?
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: What the fuck are you talking about?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: It's almost like Trump is confusing his meetings. He's confusing
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: his meetings with Wyckoff about some future fucking deal.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Because Wyckoff's got the Middle East portfolio and he's got
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: the Russia portfolio. He's got one ICC fugitive and another one.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: It's just un-fucking-real. Speaking of which, Trump did not get
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: any questions on Israel at the press conference, but he
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: did do a brief phone interview with Barack Ravid at Axios,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: where he publicly responded for the first time to Netanyahu's
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: new plan to occupy all of Gaza over the objections
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: of his own military leadership. Trump told Ravid that he
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: had a, quote, good call with Netanyahu on Sunday and
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: that he doesn't think Hamas will release the hostages unless
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: something changes. Then he added, quote, I have one thing
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: to say. Remember October 7th. Remember October 7th. What do
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: you think's going on here? Is Trump just trying to
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: wait this one out too? And Bibi certainly seems like
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: he's trying to wait out everyone. Do you feel like
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: attention is waning?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: So what Trump says at the end there, remember October 7th,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: remember October 7th, that is Trump seeing the politics of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: this shifting. That the absurdity, the evil farce of saying
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you're going to what? that you're going to give notice
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: to people in Gaza City, and then you're going to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: occupy Gaza City, a city that we have now seen
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: photos of is in ruins, that you're going to take
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: this territory where the military has told you there's no
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: further military advantage here, that you've leveled most of this country.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: The city you're going to occupy is in ruins. Ruins.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It's an evil joke. It's indefensible. And So when Trump says,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: remember October 7th, remember October 7th, he's seeing that like,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: this does not seem justified. And people have, we are
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: so far from where this conflict began. It seems so
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: disconnected from it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: And that is true.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: The only hope has to be, if this is a hope,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: that this is some kind of threat as part of
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: a negotiation or a potential negotiation about some kind of
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: a deal. Witkoff, went to.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: What's the threat?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: That if we don't... That if you don't return the hostages,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I'm going to... I'm going to take over the entire
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Gaza Strip. I'm going to occupy Gaza City. I'm going
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: to make everybody that's now in Gaza City leave Gaza City.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Where are they going to go? Fucking knows. And that
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: because there apparently was some kind of proposal presented by
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Qatar and Egypt. Today, there's a discussion of like an
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: all or nothing, that's a quote, deal. Wyckoff went to
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: one of the aid distribution sites last week So there
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: are still apparently conversations happening. But the other side of
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: this is, as many have pointed out, the Times reported
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: this in their big reported investigative piece into this, that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu has been reluctant to talk about after the war,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: that in Israel right now, this is the reporting today,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: that obviously Palestinians would be killed and harmed by any
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: kind of occupation. But Israelis do not understand. and what
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: the rationale would be for prolonging the conflict and occupying
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: all of Gaza. It doesn't seem to be any way
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: of getting any kind of hostages back. So the whole
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: thing seems... It's just senseless.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Well, and I think the IDF objected to this in part,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: or senior leaders in the Israeli Defense Forces objected to Netanyahu,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: according to reporting, in part because they think, like, this...
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: why wouldn't they kill the hostages? Like the hostages would
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: be in danger in such a military occupation or another
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: military offensive like this. And then you just, like with
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: every development, you realize, okay, Netanyahu, he doesn't really, his
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: first objective is not getting the hostages back. His first
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: objective is not a ceasefire, certainly. His objective is to
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: completely eliminate Hamas as if like that's a thing that
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: you can do and destroy Gaza, control Gaza, And it
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem to care much at all about the starvation
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: acts like it doesn't exist. And for Trump, Trump's just like, okay, well,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: you know, first I saw the images of the starving
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: kids in Gaza and I didn't like those images. But
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: then one U.S. official told Axios that Trump was moved
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: by the video released by Hamas of an Israeli hostage
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: digging his own grave. Quote, it influenced the president and
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: he is going to let the Israelis do what they
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: need to do. Once again, just very easily manipulated person,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. He sees images of starving children. He'll have
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: a day where he says, oh yeah, that's bad. We
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: should fix that. But then, you know, he forgets the
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: next day and the Israelis were like, yeah, what about
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: this hostage? Okay, well then now I care about this.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: This is how we do it. By the way, they
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: were like, oh, we're going to surge aid finally. Remember
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: last time we talked about this, they were going to
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: do some pauses in the fighting so that people get
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: more aid. Where's that? Has that worked out? It hasn't
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: worked out. No. In fact, a 14 year old boy
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: was killed by an airdrop, killed by the airdrop. So
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: they're still doing airdrops. They're trying to surge more aid
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: in there. Not really working. It's still a trickle. Huckabee,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: our fucking ambassador to Israel, said that the plan to
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: take over, to fix the aid situation, the food situation,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: is to increase the number of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: the GHF, from four to 16. So this organization that
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't working at all, that was a complete fucking disaster,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: we're just going to have some more of that instead
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: of actually changing it and letting the UN in. I mean,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: it's a disaster.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I saw, so there are some conservatives or people trying
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: to defend Netanyahu and Trump in saying, oh, all these
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: people are saying that aid trucks aren't being intercepted. But
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: look at these stats. So many aid trucks are being intercepted.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: And Trump's former envoy to the region was asked about this.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And if there is not enough food, if people in
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: a place do not trust that there will be enough food, people,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: not Hama, people try to get as much, they storm
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the trucks, they try to get the food. Now, when
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: this US contractor backed by the IDF is doing this,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: they like exert order and control and it's led to
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: people being killed. But what UN aid trucks have done
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: is they just step back and they let people take
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: the food. And I've seen some people saying, oh, that's
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: the rationale for why they've cut off aid, because some
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: of that aid is being interdicted by ordinary people, people
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: with guns, potentially Hamas. But that is not an argument
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: for starving people to death. That's an argument for flooding
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: an area with aid. Because if there is enough aid,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: if there's only so much, if there's only enough to
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: feed a precious few people, people with guns may get
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: that aid. But even experts in this say there is
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: an answer. And the answer is to flood an area
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: with aid. Because if people can count on it, count
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: on it again and again, all of a sudden there
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: is not this sense that it must be stolen, that
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: it must be grabbed, that it must be taken.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's all a fucking joke at this point,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: the excuses on this, because more aid is trickling in now.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: It's not really having an effect. More people are dying
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: of starvation. The IDF just killed a bunch of journalists
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: over the weekend who they say are actually Hamas the
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: whole time, even though they've been covering the war for
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: two years. No real documentation of that. And unfortunately, I
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: think that the Folks leading in the polls after Netanyahu
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: are not, you know, they're not dreaming of a two-state
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: solution either.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So not great.
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  Speaker 5: Of $ 100 or more.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: So one topic the Trump White House wants to talk
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: about even less than Ukraine or Gaza is, of course,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: the Epstein scandal, which they are still working diligently to
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: cover up with arguably some success.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: J.D.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Vance seems to be in the middle of a hard-hitting
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: media tour right now. He's been sitting for a series
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: of adversarial interviews with fearless journalists like former Trump staffer
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Katie Miller, the Gateway Pundit. He did one with a gateway.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't catch that one. Didn't catch it.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: And of course, Maria Bartiromo, who did ask Vance an
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Epstein question on Fox this Sunday. Here's what he said.
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: We know that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of connections
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: with left-wing politicians and left-wing billionaires. And now President Trump
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: has demanded full transparency from this. And yet somehow the
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: Democrats are attacking him and not the Biden administration, which
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: did nothing for four years.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: Give us some clarity on this meeting that is reportedly
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: happening or happened last night at the White House about
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: the Epstein files and how you're communicating the Epstein stories.
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: So I've seen so many different fake reports about this.
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: So let me set the record straight. There was no
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: meeting at my house last night.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: There just wasn't.
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: Was there a meeting at the White House? We did
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: meet at the White House yesterday, but not at the
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: time that they said that we were going to meet
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: and not about the subject that they said that we
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: were going to meet about.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Ooh, that was a technicality. What do you think? Why
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: are Democrats suddenly attacking Donald Trump over this, who called
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: for full transparency?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: It's this whole... I don't wish it on anyone to
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: go to watch this entire Bartiromo interview. You don't have
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: to and you shouldn't. But there is something about watching
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: like watching him like he this is his move. It's
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: his move when he's talking about gerrymandering. It's like, what
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: are we meant to do? We these innocent Republicans simply
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: put upon by these Democratic politicians and their gerrymandering schemes.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like the the anti anti Trump's. uh, online,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: there's like this brand of sort of right wing pundit
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: that for a while, uh, their whole argument was like, well,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to support Donald Trump, but what were
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: we supposed to do? The Democrats are so extreme and
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: mean and nasty that they have just pushed us into
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: his arms.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: That's sort of, that's a JD Vance thing.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: It's very, that is sort of like, like, like that's
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: like the intellectual defense for this kind of like Republican
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: radicalism is, uh, that we have. And, and by the way, like,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: you know, it's not just in politics, right? Like that
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: is the argument that you see around, like, well, they
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: lost the culture war, right? There's gay marriage and there's
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: trans people now. And, you know, the American Airlines makes
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: their logo the pride flag every June. Like we lost. Why?
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: We weren't fighting hard enough. And so that's what this is, right?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: And so when he gets to Epstein, right, what's the
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: actual current real truthful situation with whatever we're going to
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: call the Epstein files, whatever that means. Donald Trump and
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: a bunch of right-wingers, playing off a conspiracy online, which
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: has some truth to it, by the way, promised to
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: bring full transparency to the story. They get into office
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: and they discover that in some ways what they were
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: promising was overblown. But in one important way, it wasn't.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: There are powerful figures in the Epstein files. Their names
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: are Donald Trump, among others. And so we know that
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's name is in the Epstein files, that that
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: was told to Donald Trump. And so in the interim,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: between Pam Bondi saying the files are on my desk,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: the list is on my desk, I'm going to release it,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: and her saying there is no list, and Kash Patel
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and Dan Bongino doing interviews saying he killed himself and
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: there's no there there, somebody told Donald Trump that his
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: name was in the Epstein files. And that's why it stuck.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Well, it's also like, why are Democrats attacking Donald Trump
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: who's called for full transparency? Okay, the whole thing started
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: when a bunch of MAGA influencers were attacking Donald Trump
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: and were demanding full transparency. And Donald Trump can call
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: for full transparency all he wants, but you know what?
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: He is the president and he has the power to
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: actually be fully transparent by releasing the fucking files. So
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: it's like, what are you talking about? It's just, it's,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: it is the ease with which he lies now. I
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: guess he's, I mean, he's always, but like, I feel
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: like J.D. Vance has become, and we'll see it with
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: the next clip too, he's become even more comfortable just
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: like doing this sort of pathological dishonesty. It's bit, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: where he's like, it's not only that he lies, but like,
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: how dare anyone else criticize them? Yeah.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: It's the, it's the, that laugh when he laughs there
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: about the question, it's the laugh of, I know why
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: you're asking because the world is an unjust place. And
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: here we are just doing our best every goddamn day.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: It's because part of it too, is it's, it's yes,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: he will just lie flat out, but it's that he's
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: creating the like unverifiable kind of miasma of, of like
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: a narrative that is not rooted in reality. There's no,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: it's not an actual, like you can't, put it to
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: a fact, right? There's no fact that's true or false.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: It is a kind of manufactured worldview to which he's
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: kind of fitting together different pieces of fact or half
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: fact or lies from time to time. That's like unverifiable.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: But it's the cockiness of it. And it is interesting
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: because it is something that Rubio goes to as well.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: And I do think there's something about the like, it's
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: like the tension between their view of themselves and what
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: they've become.
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Like that's where like in the delta between those two things.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: That's where that tone comes from.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: And it's like the one real solid belief they have is, well,
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: the left is awful.
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: And so like everything else is justified because I know
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: that they are. Right.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: It's like it's like they've they've slid down the moral,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: the more like the side of the moral slope. And
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: they've they've bounced and they're bouncing against the rocks. And
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: the last tree they can grab onto before they fall
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: down into the shoals is like that. The left sucks.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Well, it looks like we're not getting full transparency when
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: it comes to at least the secret grand jury testimony
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: in the Epstein case. A federal judge on Monday, as expected,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: declined to release the testimony in the trial that led
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: to the indictment of Ghislaine Maxwell. What wasn't expected, though,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: was the judge's candor in explaining why he declined to
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: release these files, writing in a scathing opinion that the
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Justice Department's argument that releasing grand jury materials might reveal
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: new information was, quote, demonstrably false and that, quote, the
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at transparency,
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: but at diversion. I can't imagine why they'd want a diversion,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: but maybe it has something to do with stories like this.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: On Friday, Epstein's longtime butler, who worked for the sex
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: trafficker for 18 years in his Paris home, told the
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Telegraph that following the 2016 election, Epstein told him Trump
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: offered the sex trafficker a job in his new administration. So,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: you know, that's just one butler. Who knows? That's just
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: one longtime butler. What job do you think Jeffrey Epstein
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: would have done in the White House?
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know. Honestly, honestly, like, it's a name
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: that could have been floated for Secretary of Treasury at
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: the time. You could have seen him doing that.
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Export-import bank, commerce, something.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: I don't want to have this. No, there's a lot
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: of jobs that would be very bad.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Very bad. Just to be clear, bad.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Here's the bigger point. No grand jury transcripts. No transcripts
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: yet of Todd Blanch's interview with Ghislaine Maxwell that we
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: were told that they were considering releasing to try to
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: tamp some of this down. We're not getting those, even
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: though we were also told, by the way, that Maxwell
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: told Blanch everything was good with Trump. I never saw
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: any misbehavior by Trump in my time. And of course,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: she's very credible and, you know, would never lie. And
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: no release so far of all the files. that are
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: out that we know are there with Trump's name redacted
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: that he knows about because Pam Bondi told him about.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: So is the coverup succeeding here?
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is ongoing. I don't, I guess it,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: you know, it can, it succeeds until it fails, I suppose. Uh,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: you know, every secret, you know, until you, until you
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: reveal a secret, you're keeping it. Uh, yeah, it's the Blanche, the,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: the Blanche, uh, um, interview is the one that's sort
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: of confusing, right? Like what, if, if, If, as we've heard,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I think it was via ABC News, that Maxwell said
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: she never saw Trump do anything wrong, what is keeping
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: them from releasing it? First of all, what were those
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: interviews about? What did they ask about? What names are
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: in there? What are they concerned about if they release it?
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: What information do they not want in the public? Otherwise,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I think we'd already have it. I have no fucking
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: idea because who knows what the context of the conversation
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: was about. What was the ins and outs? Like, are
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: there parts of it they want to redact either for
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: reasons they will claim is for privacy or because there
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: are parts of the conversation that would be embarrassing to
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: the administration? We just don't know. Now, one part of this, like, look, like,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: we're all conspiracy theorists now.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Fine.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: But a lot of the material that the Justice Department
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: is sitting on is about terrible crimes against kids, right?
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: That they can't release and shouldn't release. And so, like,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: that should never be released, right? We do not need
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: to publicize the aspects of these crimes that would be
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: victimizing again to people that were hurt by Epstein, Maxwell,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: and others.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: Fine.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Agreed.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: But it is shocking that given the fervor around releasing something,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: given the attention that has gotten, given the fact that
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: they promised already that they haven't figured out how to
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: get some new information out there. I mean, all Bondi
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: was able to release was stuff that was basically already public.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: That was what was in binder phase one. When she
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: put out binder phase one in her mind, there must've
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: been a, like, I don't know how far ahead it got,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: but you don't put out phase one without at least
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: having conceived of what phase two was meant to be.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: One would think, but you know, who knows?
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: So it is, it is strange, but they can't, they're
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: not getting away with it because there's too many other
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: parts of this to come. There's going to be congressional investigations.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: There's by the way, like, you know, more and more like,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: that Butler who we hadn't heard from before. Uh, there's
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: more reporting coming out of the times. It's just a
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: lot of attention on this. And by the way, like the, the,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: the influencers on the right or the like apolitical kind
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: of more conspiratorial influencers that were talking about this forever,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: they're still talking about it.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Uh, like there was a Rogan the other day was
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: saying like, do they think we're babies? Like, do they
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: think we're children? Uh, because they're trying to make us
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: look past this. So I, I, they can't just make
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: it go away.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: One of the, uh, one of the proposals that CNN
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: reported on was, uh, maybe Todd Blanche should sit down
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: with Joe Rogan. I'm like, that doesn't seem like a
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: good idea if you're the Trump white house. I mean,
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: I'd like to hear that.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: No, for sure.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I bet they've, but they shot that one down. I
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: bet that's not a, I think they are just waiting
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: out everyone's attention span, which you don't have to wait
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: long in this country. And yes, Congress is going to
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: come back to this when they come back from, from break,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: but from recess, whatever you fucking call it. But I
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: don't know, you know, at one point Trump can, make
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: a call to James Comer or Jim Jordan or wherever
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: the fuck it is and be like, Hey, let's not,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: let's not keep pushing on this. You know, like, and
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: they've got other things to think about and they don't,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: they don't like the political, you know, discomfort around this.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: So I don't like, I am more pessimistic than I
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: was about the staying power on this just because, you know, it's,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: it's dragged on over a month and they, they control
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: the federal government with an iron fist and they're going
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: to be able to bury what they want to bury.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: We'll see what they look. Mike Johnson sent Congress home
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: early in July rather than deal with a vote. But
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean the vote isn't coming. I mean, Ro
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Khanna doesn't care what Trump says about this. And Thomas
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Massey doesn't care what Donald Trump says about this. So
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: that means the issue isn't dead. But yeah, like even
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: listening to Vance in that interview saying like, I see
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: you have no problem with James Comer looking into Democrats.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: So then all of a sudden it becomes the, it
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: becomes a hammer.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: You know, they're going to, let's get Bill and Hillary there.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Let's get them all in there. Let's get Bill Gates
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: up in here. Let's get all these people here. and
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: try to make fools of them. And then all of
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: a sudden, they want to make some Democrats feel squeamish
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Well, J.D. Vance and Maria Bartiromo, then they went down
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: the well-worn pivot from Epstein to Obama. Sure. And so J.D.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Vance doubled down on Tulsi Gabbard's attempts to blame Obama
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: officials for the investigation about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Let's listen.
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: Look, of course, you've got to have The law follow
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: the facts here. You don't just indict people to indict people.
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: You indict people because they.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: Broke the law.
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: But if you look at what Tulsi and Kash Patel
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: have revealed in the last couple of weeks, I don't
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: know how anybody can look at that and say that
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: there wasn't aggressive violations of the law. What they basically
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: did is they defrauded the American people in order to
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: take Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign talking points and turn them
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: into intelligence that By defrauding the American people, defrauding the
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: intelligence agencies, lying about what the intel said, they would
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: take something that supported a Hillary Clinton campaign talking point
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: and they would overemphasize it and exaggerate it. They took
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: anything that actually contradicted that narrative and they buried it deep.
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: And through that, they actually laundered Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: talking points through the American intelligence services. That's a violation
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: of the people's trust. That's a violation of what our
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: intelligence services should be doing. And I absolutely think they
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: broke the law. You're going to see a lot of
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: people get indicted for that.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: That is, I don't know if you were as deeply
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: triggered by that answer as I was. I started tweeting
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: about it last night because I was like, I cannot,
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: I know that there's been a lot of lies. JD
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: Vance has said a lot of bad things. He's pissed
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: me off. Like that to me, because like he, the
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: guy fucking went to Yale law. He's got a law degree.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: There is no way, that he believes what he just
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: said there. There's no way he believes that, unless he
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: just has not looked at any of the details of anything,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: which I also don't really buy.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so you see him struggling, first of all,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: in how to tell this story, right? Because just very, like,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: what is he talking about? It's impossible to know. If
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: you don't know the ins and outs of the story,
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: it's impossible to even understand what he's talking about. But
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: just as quickly as possible, the gist of it is,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Tulsi Gabbard put out a dumb report- That is not true. Basically,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: it's in the report that says after Donald Trump wins
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: the election, Barack Obama and the deep state colluded to
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: sully that victory by telling the country and the world
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: that Russia interfered in our election to help Donald Trump win,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: but did not actually mess with any vote totals.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: And that and also do not allege any collusion in
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: that intelligence assessment between Trump and Putin.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: And so and so after the election, Donald Trump has
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: won Barack Obama, not for his own benefit, not for
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: shits and giggles, but to warn the world about what
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: has happened, that, hey, Russia is interfering in our elections
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: in these ways. It may happen in your country, too.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: It could happen here again. We all need to step
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: up how we respond to this because this is a
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: legitimate threat that is then ratified. not just by Democrats
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: and intelligence officials, but by Republicans, including the committee led
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: by Marco Rubio, the intelligence committee, saying that the conclusions
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: are fair and fairly reached. That is what this is about.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: And now, J.D. Vance is somehow claiming that the release
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: of this information, which was based on an assessment by
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the intelligence community that the Republicans said was fairly reached,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: is both... an attempt by the intelligence to defraud the country,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: but also to put Hillary Clinton to, to, to, I
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: don't even understand what he's trying to say that it's
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: been laundering into the intelligence committee.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: It's, it's, it's such fucking nonsense that he obviously like
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: to defraud, to defraud the American people of what, what
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: are we defrauding them of? They went to the, they
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: went to the, uh, went to the polls. First of all,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: not knowing that there was an FBI investigation of Trump's campaign.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Just the one of Hillary.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: Because guess what? The Obama administration made damn sure that
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: that didn't leak out because they were worried that it
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: could be taken politically. So voters went to the polls
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: not knowing there was an investigation into the... It turns
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: out there were plenty of contacts between the Trump campaign
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: and Russia. And they also... went to the polls already
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: knowing by the way that Russia had hacked the DNC,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: which by the way, this Trump administration, Tulsi Gabbard, all
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: the rest of them admit that Russia did interfere. What
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: they're pissed about is that the Intel said that they
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: interfered with the, uh, with the hope of helping Trump,
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: which in 2018, Putin said, yeah, I wanted Trump to win.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: He just admitted it. So it's like, what are we
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: talking about?
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: But then, okay.
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Let's say, let's say, let's just say, you know what? Uh,
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: In some ways, that was exaggerated. It wasn't. It just
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: simply wasn't. That's not true. Even Vance has to kind
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: of walk his way back to, he says they defrauded
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: the country. He says they exaggerated. And then he has
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: to add on at the end, oh, and absolutely, I
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: believe they broke the law. Never says how, never says why.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: And I believe indictments are coming, which is also, by
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: the way, like you're the vice president of the United
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: States and you are predicting indictments?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Or do you know them from your meeting? Or do
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: you know them from your meetings that you're not supposed
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: to be having?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Un-fucking-believable. It is wild. I'm like, how can you do... Like,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: you know the law. You are familiar with the Durham investigation.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: No doubt you are familiar with your buddy Marco's investigation,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: which contradicts everything you're saying right now.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Also, another tell in this is, Bartiromo, after that, says,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: and was there an impact? Basically, she's basically saying, but this...
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Even Xi is sort of like, but this was after
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: he won and became president. So what are you talking about?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: And so then he has to kind of make some
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: sort of claims that, oh, absolutely, like that the presidency
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: was harmed because of the Russia hoax, because he had
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: to fight two fronts at once. He had to run
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: the country and be dealing with the ways in which
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: the Department of Justice was distracted. It's all just like fundamentally, right?
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: Like it's like just a kind of like trick that
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: like they're acting as though this happened before the election,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: but it didn't. but it didn't. And so they have
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: to claim like, oh, telling us about this after was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: some terrible crime.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: He is just deeply dishonest and very comfortable with being
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: deeply dishonest. And it's really, I also think part of
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: it is just, you know, you watch these interviews and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I think people like J.D. Vance are like, oh, this
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: must be cool for Trump. Like he spent all these
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: years just only doing these interviews with friendly outlets and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: he never has to get challenged. And if J.D. Vance
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: sat down with any real journalist for five minutes, the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: whole thing would fucking come apart. Marco Rubio just did
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: another friendly interview about whatever. No one asked Marco Rubio
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: in that interview because it was some MAGA person. No
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: one asked him about his committee's report on this because
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio couldn't answer that question either. These people, if
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: they got in front of a journalist for five fucking minutes,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: the whole thing would fall apart. But they've become lazy
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: even in their lying because they don't have to worry
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but with Vance, too, they're such a... It is
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: the like kind of, that like kind of self-righteous and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: smug tone in it. Because does he believe he's lying?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, for sure. He has to. He has to. And
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: there's some things I am willing to believe that someone's like, oh,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know I was lying because they're so like,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: you know, they've gone down the rabbit hole. But this one?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: And again, it's a complicated story, but you don't have
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: to go too far down the rabbit hole to know
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: that what he said was bullshit.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: And he was around for all of this. He was
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: a political junkie for all this.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: There's something about Vance specifically. Maybe it's just the fact
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: that he's younger than us.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: That's part of it.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Or that he is someone who had written this book
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: that had gotten him all this credit and all the rest.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: There's something about him where... I look, I remember when
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: I went to college and like, I went to, uh,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: for some reason, a rural sports college. I don't know
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: why I made that choice, but I remember feeling like, oh,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: I got to learn the language of this place a
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: little bit. Like I don't fit in here. I don't
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: know how to do this. I got to like learn
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: the language of how to fit in with a certain
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: kind of person that went to private school. Like there's
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of different kinds of people, Williams. Uh, but like,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: you know, like the kind of like a kind of
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: a fancier person than I grew up with, like the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: kind of, there's a breeziness to it, like a way
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: people that grew up around wealth with wealth, whatever. And
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: like you learn that. And I see in Vance somebody
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: that like is a student of people and like learn
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: the language of success, right? Like comes from this rural
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: place that comes from a totally different environment and then
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: kind of learns the language of a place like Yale
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: and becomes really good at it. And then I see
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: him do this with Trump again. And I see him
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: take on this persona so fully as someone who's so
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: good at figuring out how to fit in with a
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: group of people. And I just can't tell how much
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: of like you know, you wear the mask, the mask
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: wears you. Like how much of it has, how much
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: of the, how much of it has seeped in and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: how much of it is he just performing and he's
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: going to be the best.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: Boy in the world? Like, I don't know.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it's, either way, it's pretty gross.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: When we get back from the break, you'll hear Lovett's
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: conversation with the New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick about his incredible
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: investigation into Trump's grift. But two quick things before we
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: get to that. Big news, Cricket subscription content is now
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• 1:04:38
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• 1:04:39
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• 1:04:42
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• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Also.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: Come see Love It or Leave It live on stage
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: this Thursday, August 14th at Dynasty Typewriter.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: We have a great show this week. We have Ron Funches.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: We have Tom Papa. In the coming weeks, we've got
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: some amazing guests lined up. Here's the thing. Here in
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles, it's four-year consideration season. That's when all the
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: actors are out there trying to get their Emmys. And
• 1:05:25
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• 1:05:27
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• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: They're turning to their PR firms and they're like, why'd
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: you book me on this podcast?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you. I'm telling you. The yeses we get
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: during this time of year. Oh, wow. Fantastic.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Grab tickets now. Crooked.com slash events.
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  Speaker 2: subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash Crooked. Crypto, real
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: estate deals, watches, club memberships, corporate shakedowns. Trump's corruption is brazen.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: It's staggering. But in a story out today, the New
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Yorker's David Kirkpatrick has done what no one has been
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: able to do, count it up, to tell us just
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: how much Trump has profited from the presidency. Here to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: walk us through the most brazen examples is David Kirkpatrick.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: It's my pleasure. All right.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the pod. Let's start with Mar-a-Lago. You estimate
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: that Trump has made $ 125 million from how he has
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: exploited the club. What changed from before he was president
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: and even in the years since his first term?
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: Well, first, I should say, I'm not using the word
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: corruption here. When he took office in 2017, President Trump,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: through his lawyer at a press conference, promised that he
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: would not do anything that could even be perceived as
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: exploiting the presidency. In fact, that was his justification for
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: this arrangement where instead of selling or getting rid of
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: his business empire, he gave it to his sons temporarily
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: while he was in office. And what they said at
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: the time was, if someone else owned our brand name,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: that person might crassly exploit the name and demean the presidency.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: You can trust us, not to do that. So I'm
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: not saying that any one of these things is a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: quid pro quo, but he's exploiting the presidency for money. Now,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: in terms of Mar-a-Lago, what we're talking about there, that's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: the one place where in 2016, in testimony that Trump
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: was involved in, he said that the campaign had made
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: that the best year ever for Mar-a-Lago, according to the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: manager there. And if you look at it, you can
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: look at his financial disclosure forms And see the revenue
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: go up through the roof while the costs stay mostly
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: the same during his years in the White House preparing
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: to come back and then back in the White House.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: Because that's a place where he's got a club selling
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: access to himself and his circle.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: And I hear you on the distinction about profiting off
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: the White House and whether there's any corrupt outcome of that.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: We can leave that to others. You are cataloging the profiteering.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: I'm cataloging the profiteering.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Another example is in hospitality, $ 105 million from deals in
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, another $ 40 million you're estimating from a deal
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: in Vietnam. What are those deals and why are they
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: so interested in doing them with Trump and his family?
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: Well, there you got two different baskets. You know, Vietnam,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: which is a.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: More isolated situation. Obviously, that's a country which is, its
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: future hinges on U.S. trade policy like nobody else, right?
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: High tariffs on China mean more business for Vietnam. High
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: tariffs on Vietnam, where a third of their economy depends
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: on exports to the U.S., would be a disaster. So
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: as Trump's on his way back into office, the head
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: of the Vietnamese Communist Party flies to New York and
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: while here oversees a new deal for a giant golf resort.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: We're talking about a a facility three times the size
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: of Central Park. My estimate for their profits there is
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: probably pretty low. In the first three months after the
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: deal was announced, he said in his financial disclosure forms
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: that he'd received $ 5 million from that venture. So I'm
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: just guessing that the next 10 years are going to
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: be at least as much per year as that was
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: over a matter of months. That's probably quite conservative. On
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: the other side, these Saudi deals around the Gulf Beginning
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: in late 2022, when Trump had declared his candidacy and
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: was the presumptive Republican nominee, the Saudi company began doing
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: a series of five mega hotel or condo deals, golfers
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: or deals around the Gulf with the Trump organization, which really,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: there's no way to explain that without his political career.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: It's just, it's not something that would have happened to
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: the Trump organization. And I extrapolated from some of their
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: previous hotels and golf courses and other ventures to try
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: to estimate what those would be worth.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: And I put them together because they are kind of
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: at the border between how Trump used to make money
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: and how he's now making money, which is something that
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: you explore in the piece. That a lot of the
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: way in which Trump had made money up to and
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: through The Apprentice was by licensing his name. putting his
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: name on stuff that other people ran, and it was
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: kind of pure profit. But in the last couple of years,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: as he's figured out ways of making money off of
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: being president, he's ventured into new and uncharted territory for
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: his businesses. And of course, there's no better example of
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: that than crypto. You estimate that they've made $ 2. 37 billion
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: in through these various cryptocurrency schemes. There are so many
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: different ones and they actually intersect with some of these
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: other businesses as well. But can you just talk about
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: how Trump went from someone who was, as you describe
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: in the piece, quite skeptical of crypto, described it semi-jokingly
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: as a scam or that it looks like a scam
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: to something of a true believer, at least in terms
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: of his policies?
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: You know, so the family has offered two different stories
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: about that. Eric Trump, who's the face of the business now,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: talks about it a lot. And he always tells the
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: story like this. After, well, he doesn't tell it quite
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: like this. The way, what he says is, we were
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: blackballed by the big banks. What he leaves out is
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: they were blackballed by the big banks after the attack
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. So he says,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: We were blackballed by the big banks and it was
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: political bias against our political philosophy. And that led us
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: to love crypto as an alternative to the big banks
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: and even as a kind of means of revenge against
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: the big banks. Trump doesn't tell the story that way.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: He's a little vaguer about it. It's clear from his
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: statements that it wasn't until 2024 during the campaign when
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: big crypto donors were donating to him in crypto that
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: he started to get on board. Uh, and around that time,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: first of all, they started accepting donations in crypto. Uh,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: an old friend, um, uh, named, uh, Bill's anchor who
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: people might know from the learning annex, his previous business
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: got him into selling these NFTs, which are kind of
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: digital cartoons of Donald Trump. And when he did that,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: he started getting paid in crypto. So from that point on,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: he's got an incentive to try to talk it up. Uh,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: and that's around the time when, uh, Donald Trump's interest
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: in crypto begins to take off.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: So you are documenting the money, but throughout you are
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: noting that there are obvious questions of conflicts of interest,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: of whether or not this has meant there has been
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: undue influence from people that have invested with Trump or
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: helped Trump put together these kinds of crypto businesses. Can
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: you talk about Justin's son, how he went from being
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: somebody under investigation to somebody who was a guest of
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: honor at Mar-a-Lago?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: Justin Sun is a really interesting case, right? If you're
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: hunting for a quid pro quo, Justin Sun is as
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: close as you can get, right? So the sequence of
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: events is the Trump family sets up a company called
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: World Liberty Financial, which is going to be a crypto company.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: They start raising money for that you know, in mid-2024,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: before the election. Not much interest. Then Trump wins. After
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: Trump wins, Justin Sun makes two investments that come to
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: a total of, I think, $ 75 million. And that $ 75
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: million for other people interested in crypto is kind of
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: a green light. And they all pile in. And around
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: inauguration day, A ton comes in, and shortly after inauguration,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: they've raised $ 550 million. And what happens when Trump becomes president?
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: The SEC drops its charges against Justin Sun for a
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: variety of infractions, evading money laundering laws, paying celebrities to
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: hype his crypto, selling crypto to Americans when he should
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: have been barred from doing so because they're not registered securities.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: All of this is going away. They don't drop it.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: They pause those charges to negotiate a resolution. Now, that said,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: the truth is, you know, the Trump administration dropped everybody's charges, right?
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: The SEC just stopped pressing charges against crypto. So you
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: can't say it's, you know, a handshake deal. And because
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: of the 75 million, he got off. But the sequence
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: of events there is certainly provocative.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: And I should correct myself here. you know, my, my bias,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: it wasn't a Mar-a-Lago that dinner was at the Virginia, uh,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: at Sterling, Virginia at a different Trump club. I got
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: the club wrong. Now there's a connection here to Trump media.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't know this and I was confused by it.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: So as a, uh, every, there's a complicated transaction that
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: leads to Trump media and true social and the ownership structure.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: But I was hoping you could explain this part of
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: it last year. Uh, Trump Media lost $ 400 million. In
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: each of the past four quarters, it brought in about
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: a million dollars or less in revenue per year reporting.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: There is no plan for True Social to be profitable
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: or how it will be turned into a sustainable business.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: And yet, True Social is sitting on a vast, vast
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: sum of liquid assets. I believe the number was 3.1
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: billion dollars in liquid assets, which is both cash and cryptocurrency.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: How does a money losing venture that only has about
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: a million dollars in revenue per quarter end up sitting
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: on billions and billions of dollars?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I almost had to pinch myself when I figured
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: that out. I mean, it's a crazy amount of money.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: In short, here's the deal. So Truth Social is not
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: really a business. It's not, you know, we don't know.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: There's no convincing plan for it to make money. Trump
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: Media Technology Group, the parent company that owns True Social,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: is basically a meme stock. It goes up and down
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: without any regard to fundamentals, based only on what people
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: think about Donald Trump. So Devin Nunes, the former congressman
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 4: who runs that company now, had the bright idea to
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: basically sell shares at their high meme stock inflated price
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: And to take that money and pile up some cash
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: and then buy Bitcoin. So they've done a few transactions
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: recently in July. They did a big one. where they
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: sold shares to 50 big investors. Shares mostly some convertible
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: debt that could be converted into shares at this high
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: meme stock price. Those investors can then sell that out
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: to retail investors. And they take the money and they
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: buy Bitcoin. So they've taken this.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: Crazy, irrationally priced stock that mostly reflects Trump supporters' opinions
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: of Trump, and they've swapped that for an actual liquid asset,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: cash and Bitcoin. Now, you might say, well, Kirkpatrick, how
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: can you call this $ 3. 1 billion? That's just the price
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: of Bitcoin today. It could fall tomorrow. Be that as
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: it may, there is an actual market for Bitcoin. If
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: you wanted to turn around and sell it tomorrow, you
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: could sell it. When they were out of the they
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: picked up $ 2. 4, $ 2. 3 billion of Bitcoin. It didn't really
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: move the price. So that's a liquid market.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: And this is a group of people uniquely positioned to
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: affect the price of both their own stock and their
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: company and the cryptocurrency market more broadly. We've seen that.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: We've seen they have the ability to move these markets.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you talk about an example that was with
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: a bit more detail, but that was known at the time,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: which is that there were these transactions around the Melania
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: meme coin right before it launched, right? Like there was
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: just so many opportunities here that wouldn't be cataloged exactly
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: in your accounting where there's opportunity for profit just in
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: the ability to kind of play with the moving prices.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, meme coins are, you know, they're not a security.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 4: They don't even pretend to be a security. There's no police.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: There's no reasonable expectation of fairness or transparency. You know,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: there's no such thing as insider trading in a meme
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: coin because there's no pretense of fairness. I mean, you
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: can almost, you know, you get what you pay for.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: It's true. In one of the crypto conferences that I watched,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump Jr. actually said that for crypto enthusiasts, the
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: good news now is that the people who are making
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: the rules are themselves invested in crypto. in the American system,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: it's acknowledged that there are going to be elected officials
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: who have businesses on the side. The founders were farmers.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: And so we require disclosure. So in fairness to Donald Trump,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: he's not lying about it. I mean, it's true. His
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: family's in crypto now.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: So there are a bunch of other parts that you're
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: looking at here. You have You go into Jared Kushner,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: Trump's son-in-law's business interests with the Saudis and the raising
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: of billions of dollars in private equity. But you also
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: talk about Don Jr. 's company that he's a part
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: of called 1789 Capital. There's something that's confusing.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: About all of this.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: Which is they are seemingly frantic about in trying to
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: find ways to make money off of the presidency. It's
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: not just true social and Trump media and the way
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: it's trying to make money and amass a crypto fortune.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: It's not just the crypto investments separately. It's not just
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: the Jared deal with the Saudis. It's not just the
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: other kind of real estate deals that are bringing in
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: north of $ 150 million. There's also this sort of ticky-tack
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: stuff going out and trying to get 500 grand for
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: a social club, selling hats to compete with his own campaign.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: How do you explain the fact that there are schemes
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: that are, there are nine-figure schemes, eight-figure schemes, seven-figure schemes,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: and even six-figure schemes. How do you explain the willingness
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: to fight for a hat sale from their users, their supporters,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: while at the same time shooting for the moon with
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: these billion-dollar crypto moves?
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: I'm as puzzled as you are, right? I mean, Donald
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: Trump is the first to tell you that he and
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: his family are very, very rich. And I would think
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: that if my father was president for four years, I
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: would take that as a good time to refrain from
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: making money in ways that would embarrass him. And, you know,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: licensing their name for a phone company that's going to sell,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: you know, Trump cell phone subscriptions, I do find it puzzling.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: And I, you know, I went into this thinking, you
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: know what, the people who really don't like Trump are
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: going to be disappointed in me because they imagine that
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: he's stealing, actually stealing vast sums, which is definitely not happening.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: But by the end, I had to say to myself, like, $ 3. 4
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: billion and so fast. You know, it's one thing after another. It's,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: they're really not slowing down. And I don't know why
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: it is that they seem so almost desperate for money.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: If we go back to what you were saying before,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: in the arc of things, Trump was a medium successful
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: but very high profile builder. He was a great reality
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: TV star. And when he was a great reality TV star,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: that's when he got into the licensing business. And for
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: a while, he was able to sell just the right
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: to use his name, to use his name to sell
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: a steak or a piece of pizza or sheets or something,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: or the right to use his name on a hotel
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: abroad or a golf course. As the apprentice ratings started
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: to come down, that whole apparatus did too. And in
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 4: a way, he needed a new show, right? He needed
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: something else to keep his name in the public eye,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: to keep that machine running. And that's where the presidency
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: came in. Why now? Why in the second term there's
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 4: such a greater desperation to cash in on that than
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: in the first. You know, it's very speculative. You do
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: wonder about the enormous legal verdicts that he faces. You know,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: 88 million that he owes E. Jean Carroll, if that's
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: not overturned on appeal. 500 million he owes New York
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 4: State because of the fraud case there, if that's not
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: overturned on appeal. As much as they talk about their money,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: that's a pretty big hole for the Trumps. So it
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: might be Well, anyway, here I'm speculating, but you get
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: the idea.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You talk about how he had to sell some
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: of his holdings at a certain point and that he
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: may not have been, that he may have been in
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: a pretty tough position coming into this second term, but
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: that still doesn't, that, look, the rapaciousness is what it is,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: but it is strange, the watches, the sneakers, the the
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: kind of hats that siphon from the campaign, the smaller
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: moves to take advantage of his biggest supporters, while at
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: the same time, these sort of huge real estate transactions
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: that could be worth 10, 100 times anything that they
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: could get from moving a bunch of hats around. Maybe
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: it's just the thrill of the game.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: Well, a more charitable way to put that is, if
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: he and his family see themselves as business people, they're
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: going to stay in business. And that means doing the
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: deal to license the Trump Bible, the Trump guitar, and
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: so forth, the Trump NFTs.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: At the end of this reporting, what was your takeaway
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: from how quickly we became a nerd to this staggering
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: amount of profiteering? The joke a few years ago is
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm. You make
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: reference to the $ 400, 000- some- odd donation to the the Clinton library
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: over that became a controversy around the Mark Rich pardon.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: And yet now we have just brazen and open profiteering
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: conflicts of interest left and right. And it's only speeding up.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: And it's become a kind of part of our daily
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: understanding of how Trump works, even as we think about
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: the fact that he's about to go meet with Putin
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: and Zelensky and his intersecting personal interest there? What did
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: you take away from all of this once you got
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: to that number of 3.4 billion?
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: You know, one of my old bosses used to say,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: you know, a billion here, a billion there, sooner or later,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: you're talking about real money. And I think to a
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: certain extent that just the number of digits that we're
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: talking about kind of goes over people's heads. And the
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: other thing about Trump is, and this is maybe his genius,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: as I say, he's not hiding any of this. He
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: holds his head high. He pursues all these money-making ventures
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: like it's something that he's proud of, which I think
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: leads people to believe there's nothing wrong with that. How
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: people are going to feel about that in the long term, though,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: I think remains to be seen. And one reason I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: thought it was worthwhile to do all of this math
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: is to try to make it a little bit more
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: concrete and tangible. Maybe you're right. Maybe it turns out
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: we were all wrong for decades to think that Americans
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: did not like profiteering off the presidency. Maybe Americans, in fact,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: don't care about that. But it might also be that
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: people just didn't understand it concretely enough. And over time,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: they will. So I'd say the jury is still out
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: on that.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: Last question. What was the hardest number to figure out?
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: What was a part of this where figuring out exactly
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: how much they were making was actually pretty difficult?
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: Well, in a lot of these things I'm extrapolating, right?
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: A lot of the, where I'm trying to value how
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: much they're going to get from their five new deals
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: in the I've got to go and look at an
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: existing property. I've got to figure out what they've declared
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: in terms of revenue, what the profit margin is on that,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 4: and then multiply it across the new venture. So that's complicated.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: And I'm not saying that's science. You know, if they
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: want to come forward and tell me, no, no, David,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: here actually is what we're genuinely going to make. I
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: would welcome that, but they're not going to do that.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: The one that was the toughest, honestly, is Vietnam. This
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: vast complex, 54 holes of golf, a hotel, residences, all
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 4: in one big area three times the size of Central Park.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: In an economy where the golf industry is growing really fast,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: the whole economy is growing really fast, very hard to extrapolate.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: I came up with an estimate of $ 50 million over
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: 10 years. That's almost certainly low, but that one's a
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: jump ball. That's the hardest one to come up with.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: Plus, we'd like, you know, there's the minibar money. That's
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: hard to figure out in advance.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: You know, with their stock.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And the other one, the Trump media and technology
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: group money that we talked about before. I just couldn't
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: believe it. You know, when I realized that they'd sold
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 4: this overvalued meme coin stock and then bought Bitcoin and
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: hoarded cash, I just, it's an incredible kind of alchemy
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: to have $ 3. 1 billion in liquid assets on their books
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 4: when their business is failing.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: And a business that could only exist because he is
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: president and using it to put out statements and trying
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: to get his people to use it. Coins that could only,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: you know, profit coins that could only exist because his
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: name is attached to them. A market that because he
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: is the president has great influence over. It really is
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: like the intersection of all these different ways in which
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: in the second term, Trump has realized he was unfettered
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: and able to kind of once he threw off the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: shackles of expectation and shame and previous rules and norms,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: and he was free to do all of these different things.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: In the first term, people were pretty upset about people
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: staying at Trump properties and the profiteering off of Trump properties.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: And I was surprised to learn that by your reporting,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: it turns out They might have been losing as much
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: money from people who didn't want to stay at a
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: Trump hotel as they were gaining from people who were
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: trying to curry favor. And that we were just so,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: we were focused on that. We had absolutely no idea
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: what was to come.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's right. In retrospect, that looks quite overblown. Now,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: you know, some of my critics for the left will say, well, Kirkpatrick,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 4: don't be crazy. You know, all those people, Rudy Giuliani
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: buying his $ 30 martinis or whatever. that was helping Trump.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, even if it was just reducing his losses,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 4: that still counts. But, you know, if we're going to
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 4: be fair, he did, anybody in the hotel business in Washington,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 4: anybody who's familiar with the performance of that hotel will
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: tell you it's done better as a wall of Astoria
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: under Biden than it did as a Trump hotel under Trump.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 4: And it's just not only indisputable, but it's also sort
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: of intuitive. You know, if you're a If you're a
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 4: foreign leader from, say, a European country who doesn't wanna
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: get caught up in an influence scandal, you're not gonna
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: stay there, even though the location is superb. You know,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 4: as a Waldorf, it's a great place for a British
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: prime minister to stay, but would a British prime minister
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: have stayed there when it was the Trump Hotel and
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: Trump was downstairs at the bar with Rudy Giuliani? No,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: no way.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta, you know. It was attracting an unsavory element.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: David Kirkpatrick, thank you so much. The story is out today.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: carefully cataloging and estimating just the vast sums of money
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has made off the presidency. Thanks for being here.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 4: My pleasure.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to David Kirkpatrick for
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: new show on Friday. Talk to everyone then. If you
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