Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down ...

[admin]

What Would Jesus Say About Donald Trump?
Dark Brandon
Jun 14, 2025 The Dark Brandon Podcast

In this segment we explore what would Jesus Christ say about Donald Trump if he returned today. #jesus #jesuschrist #jesussaves



Transcript

Hey there folks. Hope you're doing well
today. You know, I left for 2,000 years.
I come back and somehow my biggest
followers are obsessed with a golden
idol who builds towers, cheats on his
wives, and brags about it on live TV.
Evangelicals,
what happened? I turned water into wine.
You turned scripture into a tax shelter
for billionaires. I said, "Love your
neighbor." You said, "Build a wall." And
then handed the hammer to a guy who paid
hush money to a porn star while his
third wife was home with a newborn. I
healed the sick for free. He tried to
strip health care from 30 million people
and called it a win. I fed the poor with
loaves and fishes. He fed the rich with
tax cuts and called the poor lazy. And
yet I'm the one you stopped inviting to
church. Trump once held a Bible upside
down in front of St. John's Church like
it was a weapon. He didn't read it. He
didn't open it. Pretty sure he thinks
Corinthians is a hotel chain. But you
cheered. You cheered when he tear gas
protesters so he could take a photo.
Then you called it defending
Christianity. Let's talk morality. You
used to say character counts. Then he
bragged about grabbing women by the
And your response was, "Well,
King David was flawed, too." Oh, I know,
David. He wrote songs. Trump writes mean
tweets at 2 a.m. in adult diapers. I
preached, "Turn the other cheek." He
said, "Punch him in the face and I'll
pay your legal fees." I said, "Blessed
are the meek." He said, "Only losers and
suckers get buried in war."
I told you not to store up treasures on
Earth. He stores them in Mara Lago
bathrooms next to classified documents
and Diet Coke. And you still defend him.
You call him God's instrument. Well, if
God ever used an instrument that
bankrupt four casinos and couldn't spell
Bible, it wasn't for music. You think I
care if he stands with Israel? I'm from
Nazareth. That's literally next door. I
was brown, Middle Eastern, broke, and
unarmed. By today's standards, you'd
have called ICE on me and said I was
part of Hamas. Let's not pretend you're
defending me. You're defending power,
comfort, control, and maybe a time share
in the rapture. You talk about family
values, but you backed a man who mocked
a war widow, called Haiti a hole,
and told four women of color in Congress
to go back to where they came from.
One of them is from Detroit.
You wanted prayer in schools. Fine. But
when kids prayed for their lives during
school shootings, he sold more guns and
blamed video games. And the worst part,
you know, deep down, you know, he
doesn't believe any of it. He's not one
of you. He's not pretending anymore. He
just figured out how to sell Jesus like
a hat. He traded me in for a con man
wrapped in a flag holding a Bible like
it's a menu at Denny's. I didn't die for
this. I died for the poor, the
oppressed, the outcasts. The same people
you now call crisis actors and illegals.
And let's not forget the golden rule.
Treat others like you'd like to be
treated. Unless they're gay or trans or
immigrants, then suddenly it's religious
liberty to treat them like garbage.
Uh, Trump Tower, how poetic. A name
built on sand, pride, and unpaid
contractors. You didn't crucify me this
time. You just branded me. And when the
poor cry out, when the refugees beg for
mercy, when the sick knock on your mega
church door, you quote me, but you don't
follow me. So, no, I'm not angry. I'm
disappointed. And when judgment day
comes, don't look for me at the pulpit
next to him. I'll be out back hoping the
people you turned away. And just so you
know, he's not on the guest list.
Birds are eating my face.
Leopards are eating my face.
Birds are eating my face. face.
The birds are eating my face.

[admin]

https://newrepublic.com/post/202435/rob ... of-tylenol

RFK Jr. Admits He Can’t Actually Tie Tylenol to Autism
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said there isn’t “sufficient” evidence to back up his claims.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted Wednesday that he doesn’t have “sufficient” evidence that pregnant people’s use of Tylenol can cause autism in their children.

While speaking about President Donald Trump’s controversial TrumpRx program, Kennedy made a crucial clarification about the administration’s recent claims linking autism to Tylenol, the number one drug prescribed to pregnant patients for pain relief and fever reduction.

“The causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy and perinatal periods is not sufficient to say it definitely causes autism, but it is very suggestive,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy’s comment came just one day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Kenvue, Tylenol’s parent company, alleging that it failed to alert consumers that using its product during pregnancy posed a “significantly increased risk of autism” and ADHD. But that claim isn’t true by Kennedy’s own admission.

Several large studies have found “associations” between substantial use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders in children, but experts have stressed that these studies are not conclusive. During a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, Kennedy cited a number of studies that allegedly support his suspicions about Tylenol but said the existing evidence was “not proof.”

“We’re doing the studies to make the proof,” he admitted—which made the whole thing sound more like a hunch than anything else.

Speaking on Wednesday, Kennedy suggested that pregnant women should consult with their doctors before taking Tylenol, but generally, the Trump administration hasn’t been quite that diplomatic with its recommendations.

In September, Trump seemed to suggest that all Americans should stop taking acetaminophen (though he could hardly pronounce it), especially pregnant women and young children.

“You’ll take a Tylenol, but it’ll be very sparingly. Can be something that’s very dangerous to the woman’s health, in other words a fever that’s very, very dangerous and ideally a doctor’s decision because I think you shouldn’t take it,” he said.

And as recently as Sunday, Trump was still urging people, “DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

“DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON,” the president, who has no medical training, wrote on Truth Social.

[admin]

Trump Gets RUDE AWAKENING from CONGRESS Over SHUTDOWN
Legal AF
Oct 31, 2025

In this episode of Court of History, hosts Sean Wilentz and Sidney Blumenthal sit down with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) for an unflinching conversation about the rule of law, the Trump prosecutions, and the future of American democracy.



Transcript

Welcome to the Court of History. I'm
Sydney Blumenthal. I'm here with my
co-host
Sean Mal of Princeton
and uh today dealing with the American
crisis, we have a very special guest,
Eric Swallwell, Democratic member of the
House of Representatives from the 14th
Congressional District of California.
Welcome to the Court of History, which
is now in session.
Nice to be with y'all. Thanks for having
me on.
Yeah. Um the shutdown seems endless,
doesn't it? Um and Trump has called for
a nuclear option. The Republicans seem
cornered. Um what's your view of where
we're at and um uh who's being punished
for it?
Government should be open and people
shouldn't get gouged for their health
insurance and that's what Democrats have
been fighting for. yesterday, to your
point, Donald Trump finally admitted
what the American people have known all
along, which is he's in charge of
Washington. You know, when he says in
his go nuclear tweet, he is
acknowledging that they run the White
House, the Senate, and the House and
that they can open up government uh with
the cruel budget uh that they have
proposed. Any Democrats are saying that
we will provide our votes to be a part
of that. uh if you ensure that Americans
are not paying 300 to 400% more for
health insurance and we have now seen
now that the open enrollment numbers are
out there for the Affordable Care Act
and for many people who receive their
health insurance through their employer
that they are indeed going to pay uh 300
to 400% more. I'll give you one example.
family uh of four in Castro Valley,
California in my district. Last year
they paid $56 a month for their uh
health insurance uh under the Affordable
Care Act because of the subsidies. Uh
they will pay $356
a month uh if the Republicans do not fix
this.
Yeah, it's untenable for a lot of
people. Um the New York Times reported
this week a quote from Trump. He said,
"I'm the speaker and the president." How
weak is Mike Johnson? Is he the weakest
speaker we've ever seen?
He is the weakest speaker and that's why
he he can't have the Congress open right
now. You know, unfortunately, I've been
in Congress through uh a few Trump
shutdowns and and also the Ted Cruz uh
shutdown and
both Republican and Democratic speakers
during those shutdowns understood that
having members in Washington could force
a resolution. uh you have the members
there uh you know you're able to try and
strike a deal to open up government. You
have the press corps following you
around asking you you know what are the
terms that you'd accept to open up
government. And so it it forces a
resolution. This is the first time ever
uh that a speaker has completely
abdicated the responsibility you know to
preside over Congress. And we know that
is in part because he is acting as a
pedophile protector. Uh Mike Johnson
knows that if he opens the Congress, he
would have to swear in a newly elected
member from Arizona who would be the
218th signature, which would release uh
or force the release of the Epstein
files. And and so he is in fact
protecting uh Epstein and he's
protecting us from knowing and
preventing us from knowing how close to
Jeffrey Epstein Donald Trump truly is.
This is the Epstein shutdown in some
way.
It is the Epstein shutdown and we should
call it that. What do you what do what
do your Republican colleagues make of
this behind closed doors? I mean, what
what are they saying about this? Are
they are they as much enthralled as the
speaker is or do they have other views
in private?
And in private, they
they appreciate and and and one of them
has told me that look, when when this
vote comes forward on the Epstein files,
like he's going to have to vote for it.
But so he's he appreciates that he's
being protected because if he votes for
it then that's public and Donald Trump
is not going uh to be happy. But you
know frankly it's not even what they're
saying um privately. Tim Burett, a very
conservative colleague of mine from
Tennessee. He was on CNN last night and
and he called for the president to do
everything he can uh to enable SNAP
benefits whether the government's open
or not. So they understand, you know, 20
million Americans are going to go hungry
uh starting tomorrow when SNAP benefits
are no longer available. Uh again, they
have the keys to everything. They they
can open government immediately.
Yeah. Do they know how unpopular they're
becoming and how unpopular Trump is or
are they uh suffering from cognitive
dissonance? They seem to find out on
they're going to find out on if they
don't know now, they're going to find
out on Tuesday because we're going to
sweep the Prop 50 vote in California,
the Virginia governor's race, the New
Jersey governor's race, and the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention
vote. So, there's three Democratic
justices who are up for retention. The
no side, if you're tracking this, has
significantly pulled back uh its spend
in the last uh two weeks, which suggests
that, you know, we can go four for four
and all of those. and and that's going
to be the beginning of our comeback
story. Uh and so if they don't know now,
they should know. But Tony Fabriio, who
is Donald Trump's pollster, has
distributed to House Republicans a
polling memo that has said for the last
couple weeks, if you do not put back in
place these Obamacare subsidies, we are
going to get creamed in the midterms. He
he drew a straight line between
Republicans losing their seats if people
do not see this uh subsidy put back in
place.
Yeah. So, um on the California front,
your own state in California,
um uh there was some question early on
how this was going to do and now it's
overwhelmingly in favor of
redistricting. Uh tell us about
California public opinion.
Well, I hate that we have to do this,
but we can't fight this battle with
Texas and it's redistricting, taking
five seats for Donald Trump. We can't
fight this battle with one hand tied
behind our back. Democrats usually fight
battles with one hand tied behind our
back, and it's usually the upper hand.
And and so this is an allout effort to
match what's happening in Texas. It's a
one-time effort, meaning the independent
redistricting commission will go back in
place in 2030. And by the way, Sydney,
if everything goes to plan, by 2030, we
will have regained the White House, the
Senate, the House will have thrown out
the filibuster, and we will pass the
John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and we
will get rid of the uh dirty maps and
the dirty money that pollute our
politics, and every state will have
independent redistricting for federal
elections. But right now, the last thing
that I want to see happen is that we
stand on virtue and we preserve the
Independent Redistricting Commission in
California and we lose the House in 2026
and say, "Oh, well, at least we
preserved the Independent Redistricting
Commission." That's not going to work.
That's not going to save democracy. Is
Donald Trump is going state by state
telling Republicans, "Don't go to the
polls on our values and what we've done
for the American people. just make it
harder for Democrats to win. And and
finally, you're also seeing states like
Illinois, Virginia,
New York, Maryland considering adding at
least one uh seat to the map in their
states, uh which could at least give us
a shot at countering not one for one
every seat that they take, uh but
getting pretty close.
You know, Trump is treating the 2026
elections like Armageddon, the battle of
Armageddon. And he's called he's talked
about calling out the military
um uh uh to put it in cities. He's
already said he's monitoring some
counties in California and New Jersey.
He's um he's this is very consistent
with what he's done in the past and it's
kind of his rolling coup. and he treats
each election as though it's something
to be overthrown.
And
and we should treat it that way as well
because the failure uh to swear in a
newly elected member of Congress is also
a dry run to to see what is the public's
appetite for that because we are going
to win the midterm elections uh next
November. And so Mike Johnson and and
Trump by not swearing in this member and
Trump sees himself as the speaker, so
we'll take him at his word. What they
are effectively trying to do right now
is to see well what would this look like
in January 2027 if Democrats win the
majority and we refuse to swear members
in because we declare the election
rigged. Putting election monitors in New
Jersey and California. Again, it's a dry
run to see what will this look like?
What's the appetite from the public if
we do this next November to deter people
from showing up to the midterm? So, in
states where you can vote by mail, I
really encourage people to vote by mail.
Uh don't allow them to intimidate you.
But thankfully our system uh is very uh
I would say horizontal in that each
state and county has its own process and
we still have democratic states. And
that's why it's important for Democratic
governors and Democratic secretaries of
state to max out democracy in their
states to insulate us against what
Donald Trump is going to do in red
states where he is going to make it
harder through the governors in those
states for us to win seats. Do do you
have more than a premonition? Do you
hear anything uh including from the
Republicans about their scenarios about
um about this about how they plan to,
you know, take control of the 2026
elections?
So, Sydney, they don't envision
themselves ever being in the minority
again. And and that's what worries me
the most is that they have this
invincibility
complex about them where they see that
Donald Trump and his administration have
become so corrupt and they've crossed so
many lines that they see themselves as
never being held accountable because
they never intend on giving up power. So
that's why they act as if there are not
going to be consequences. And I think
that's why we have to make sure that we
are fullcourt press in the courts
between now and the midterms. And people
like Mark Elias and the ACLU and
Democracy Forward, they are doing that
work and it's important and it gives us
a shot to have a free and fair election
for the midterms. But Democrats also
need to make clear what we will do when
we are in the majority and who will be
held accountable when we're in the
majority. I' I've also suggested, by the
way, as it relates to Adalita Grahalva
and Mike Johnson not swearing her in, we
should not swear Mike Johnson in for the
same amount of days that he refuses to
swear her in. Like, he he should know if
we're in the majority and we have the
speaker table, we can do that. And and
we can go day for day with you, Speaker
Johnson, and and you can sit out, you
know, 45 days uh in your first, you
know, 45 days of the next Congress if
that's how you want to play it. and and
and that would reflect kind of what
Gavin Newsome has done with Texas. We're
not going to play this game, but if
you're going to do it, we're not going,
you know, to allow you to have no
consequences for doing it. And and so
that has to be the new mindset for us.
Otherwise, they're just going to, you
know, run free. Uh and the rule of law
will suffer.
Yeah. Well, you know, if they lose,
Johnson may not even be the minority
leader at that point. So, um, you know,
um, does this worry them at all? Do they
have any compunctions, any second
thoughts, any ethical concerns?
The concerns I hear, the concerns I hear
in private are personal security
concerns. They they tell me that what
keeps them from speaking up is not about
job security. And I always thought it
was about job security. It's personal
security. that if you speak out that
Trump and Musk and that mega megaphone
puts a target on your back and your life
completely changes and and life becomes
very uncomfortable for your spouse, for
your kids. Uh your security posture
changes. Uh you can't go to church, you
can't go to the country club as one uh
member told me, your kids get harassed
at school. And so they look at Liz
Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and while they
may privately admire their courage, um,
they also privately fear that their own
lives could be turned upside down and
they don't want that. To that, by the
way, I say get another job. Like there's
other jobs where
that's not the case. Um, but that that's
what they are sharing with me privately.
Yeah. You spoke before when last time we
spoke about their fear of violence and
that they had received all kinds of
threats including against uh their
families. I assume
city look but look at Thomas Massie who
gets a ton of threats because Trump goes
after Thomas Massie all the time and he
has stood tall fearlessly has not
changed his posture and the job security
threat has actually not uh been realized
there's been no serious primary
challenger who has stepped up to run
against Massie despite Trump trying to
recruit one. So, it actually shows me
that if you're willing to just weather a
little bit of discomfort and and stick
to your principles, you're going to come
out of this. Okay. And and and the more
people who do it, you'll find strength
in numbers. And and and
strikes me that the that the where they
crack first after the shutdown when they
swell swear in Graala is over the
Epstein files and that they're the House
Republican Conference is going to crack
on it. Yeah,
they cannot take a vote where they bury
the Epstein files even farther beneath
the earth. They they know that their
constituents want this. If this was a
cake, the Epstein files uh is the
flower. It's a key ingredient uh to the
MAGA movement. And that's why you're
seeing so many people, you know,
scratching their heads and and walking
away from the movement because this is
something they were promised and now
they are sensing that a cover up is
happening before their very eyes.
And how surprising do you think it would
be to the Republicans
um if they lose the elections on Tuesday
or or have they baked that in? Are they
going to be in some shock? Does does
Trump have any idea of what's about to
happen that he's unpopular?
that and again this is a dry run. So
he's going to declare that you know the
Prop 50 vote is rigged because because
ballots are being shipped as he called
it. You know that that's another term
for mailed in. Um so he again he's doing
that to set up uh his grievance
in 2026.
And you know, the one that really should
concern him is, you know, Virginia is
going to go from a Republican governor
to a Democratic governor. And
Pennsylvania is a state that he won in
2024. And statewide we are going to
retain those justices. Uh, and I
imagine, you know, they will desperately
try and, you know, pivot to the New York
mayor's race and suggest that that is
what people should really be talking
about. Um, but I would just say as as a
Democrat, like if there's a high turnout
in the New York Mayor's race, that is a
reflection of the enthusiasm that is out
there right now. And and Donald Trump
should be concerned if 7 million people
are going to the streets for protests
and that he's losing states like
Pennsylvania, Virginia flips, and
there's high enthusiasm uh in New York
where again, we need to win
congressional seats. So, um I I look at
this as all positive for us as a party
and the comeback story that we need to
tell.
Yeah. Let me uh ask you a question about
their economic message. Trump constantly
gets worse and worse numbers on the
economy. Um and uh his tariffs are
having a
effect devastating especially his base,
rural America, uh small business and so
on. He ran around Asia. Um he basically
ran up the white flag. Um you know, and
um called it a victory. Uh and yet the
tariffs are still in place. He faces a
Supreme Court hearing. They probably
won't rule for months,
right?
And so the effects of these tariffs are
going to go into what I think is a
winter of our discontent. Are the
Republicans worried about this?
Well, yeah, clearly they are because in
the Senate, you know, they just voted uh
in a essentially a non-binding
resolution to undo the Canadian tariffs.
We won't get a vote in the House. So,
that's why it's essentially non
non-binding. But four Republicans
crossed over in a 50 to 46 vote to undo
the Canadian uh tariffs. And to your
point about the Asia trip, I mean he
essentially uh without changing, you
know, the tariff posture, he gave away,
you know, one of our edges, which is
Nvidia, you know, and he's going to
allow, you know, Nvidia to give China
access, you know, to many of its uh AI
uh tools and resources. And and so, you
know, that that's a race that we need to
win. uh and it may be the most important
technological race of our lifetime. And
uh as you said, he he waved the white
flag and gave up a key resource of the
United States. Of course, when we go
into the midterm, you know, I think the
message has to be it costs too much.
That the Trump administration and
Republican governance costs too much.
Literally, it costs too much for what
you're paying uh at the grocery store
and at Home Depot and, you know, for
everything we consume. And figuratively,
it costs too much for our freedom and
our rights that are being taken away.
Yeah. What's what's your sense? Uh uh
you represent uh a district in the Bay
Area. you represent eBay and the East
Bay and
Oakland, but um you know what's your
sense about what he's doing with the
military in California? Um uh he he is
not sending it to San Francisco yet.
Apparently the Silicon Valley guys got
him not to do that, but they're still in
LA. They're running wild in Chicago. Um,
I see them in Washington and they seem
hapless and aimless.
Well, but how much is this just, you
know, people have been saying kind of
dry run for 2006 to 20, you know, for
the 2026 that, you know, that this is a
kind of quasi martial law. I mean, it's
not really, but he's kind of creeping up
to that to normalize the presence, you
know, of troops in in these cities. Um,
does that make sense? But should we be
thinking about that?
He's normalizing the public and he's
training the troops, you know, who have
not been trained, you know, to patrol
American cities. But by, you know, the
midterms next year, they will have had
essentially 18 months worth of training
uh in our cities as the president
declared war against our own people. And
I think there are many cities in America
uh including Oakland that has had, you
know, a lot of violent crime that would
welcome federal government resources to
reduce violent crime. Uh but those
resources do not look like our uniformed
men and women of the armed forces. It it
looks like, you know, Department of
Justice uh grants to increase the number
of police officers that you can hire. Uh
it includes partnerships with the
Department of Justice, you know, to
prosecute um gun cases where the
penalties are much stiffer on the
federal side than uh on many uh state
sites. And and that's what a real
partnership looks like if you're serious
about taking on violent crime. But to
your point, this this is really just a a
show of force to normalize the country
and train law enforcement for what he
really wants to do uh which is to use
the military to carry out his political
will.
Yeah. I remember when President Clinton
proposed and got uh 100,000 um police on
the on the streets as community
policing. It was also accompanied by um
a lot of gun control as well and other
resources for cities. Uh mayor of
Chicago's called for community policing,
more policemen. Um but Trump has
resisted it. Instead, he's wasting money
on the National Guard who can't police,
don't know how. Um perhaps the Democrats
should, you know, take a leaf out of the
page of what happened in a successful
policy of the past and propo and try and
put this on the table and have the
Republicans vote on it.
You're absolutely right. We should do
more of that. during the the big brutal
bill uh what we call a markup in the
Homeland Security Committee, they nearly
zeroed out the community security grant
program which allows nonprofit
organizations to receive hundreds of
millions of dollars uh in security
funding. And I'll give you an example.
You know, our synagogues who have, you
know, been the victims of a rise of
anti-semitism in America have drawn on
those funds to protect their synagogues.
They zeroed out uh that budget uh to pay
for uh you know the tax cuts to the
wealthiest Americans. And to your point,
they have now, you know, used our men
and women in armed forces uh to just go
into our cities and and to intimidate uh
everyday Americans where we have many
resources that could protect our
synagogues in America. And then that's
not the policy or the priority of the
president. safety has never been uh the
intent. It's never been about actually
protecting people.
Yeah. His priority seems to be to build
a ballroom that's twice the size of the
White House.
Yeah. Exactly. You know, I was at last
week and um or actually earlier this
week and as I was getting off the plane
um this guy who was going to watch his
son play college football um he thanked
me for what we are doing in the
shutdown, he also said, "These guys are
going to lead people to starve while
we're sending $40 billion to Argentina."
And and so I think every day folks are
starting to track that like he's you
know his priorities are he's going to
pay himself $230 million of our taxpayer
dollars. He sent $40 billion to
Argentina. God knows where the money is
coming from to fund this ballroom and 20
million Americans are starving. and and
so we have to make we have to make sure
people understand those straight lines
of you know how he prioritizes taxpayer
dollars and who suffers uh when he
doesn't prioritize our communities and
the more we do that I I think the more
effective we'll be at reclaiming the
right to govern
in connection with the ballroom and just
a question with the ballroom though have
you heard any blowback yet from
constituents and among your your
colleagues as well not
a lot of blowback from my constituents
And again, it during a shutdown where
he's not been present, he's not willing
to negotiate, he's not convening the
leaders of Congress, his priority seems
to be, you know, this palace that he's
building for himself, you know, without
any permitting, without any
transparency, uh, as people are going
hungry. So people, you know, they they
they see that uh they see the opulence
of that.
Yeah. So on the ballroom um you know
there's a serious issue. It's not just
symbolic. It's not just a metaphor.
There are many corporations who he's
dunned to pay for this who um who want
and need federal contracts. So this is a
further corrupt shakeddown and
consistent with the pattern of
corruption of the administration. And
and you know, I I suggested last week um
the next president, you know, should
demolish that monument to corruption
because that that's what it is. It's a
monument to corruption. Uh Ruben Ggo, my
buddy in the Senate, said, "Well, maybe
instead of demolishing it, just name it
the Barack Obama Ballroom." Um but I I
do believe uh to to your point, I mean,
this this is just naked corruption. And
the problem is they see no consequences
right now from Congress. They don't
believe the public is up for staying
engaged and going to the town square and
the town halls and and they don't think
the press is up for covering this, you
know, with the same vigor that they
would have in the past. And and so
that's why they're doing that. So we
have to prove them wrong, you know, as a
public, as the press. Uh and of course
support cases uh that are in court that
can reign them in. Otherwise, by the
way, if we if we lose the midterms, I
think the public truly is demoralized
and deflated and does not go to the town
square. The press is more liable to
being like suppressed and and picked off
as he's tried to do with many of them.
And he is more likely to ignore court
orders. So that I guess that's a long
way of saying uh the midterms are
everything. I mean that the midterms are
our last best chance at stopping this
runaway train.
Yeah. Well, on that note, um we want to
thank you for uh taking uh uh your time
in the midst of this uh ongoing crisis
and um we regard you as a friend of the
court of history and hope to have you
back. Um so on behalf of my colleague
Sean Mins um uh this session of the
court of history is now adjourned.
Well, thank you both. It's an honor to
join you.
Can't get your fill of legal AF? Me
neither. That's why we formed the Legal
AF Substack. Every time we mention
something in a hottake, whether it's a
court filing or a oral argument, come
over to the Substack. You'll find the
court filing and the oral argument
there, including a daily roundup that I
do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What
else? All the other contributors from
Legal AF are there as well. We got some
new reporting. We got interviews. We got
ad free versions of the podcast and hot
takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come
over now to free subscribe.
[Music]

[admin]

IHIP News: JD Vance CAN'T HIDE INTIMATE Moment with Erika Kirk! What's Going on??
I've Had It
Oct 31, 2025

JD Vance and Erika Kirk are acting really weird around each other.



Transcript

Okay. On the foothills of a failed drag
queen, Smokeoky eye sociopath, vice
president of the United States, who's
changed his name three times. Of course,
I'm talking about J. D. Vance, whom we
refer to as Little Smokey.
um on the foothills of him uh not really
standing up for his wife and talking
about how he hopes she changes her
religion.
Um some weird [ __ ] is happening at the
CPAC stuff with Erica Kirk and failed
drag queen Lil Smokey. Play the clip.
Ever replace my husband?
No. But I do see some similarities of my
husband in JD and Vice President JD
Vamps. I do.
And that's why I'm so blessed
to be able to introduce him tonight
because
he understands
the fight that we're up against and he
can articulate that
in a way
that transcends. He's an amazing man.
Okay,
I'm kind of speechless about a lot of
this, all of it. Um, but here are the
photographs that ensued of the uh speech
that she gave. So, we have her him first
of all grabbing her waist and then she's
she's hugging him. She's like I mean
she's got the head, you guys. It it
looks so romantic. It's beyond the
normal like meet and greet. Um, so this
is really, really bizarre to me. And
it's interesting that throughout this
entire situation with Charlie Kirk,
nobody has talked about how preventable
his death was. Nobody on the right is
talking about gun control. He was shot
in cold blood on a campus where where
guns should be banned. um and by
somebody we think allegedly radicalized
online to the right or to the left, who
knows? Um because I haven't seen any any
evidence to the contrary, and all I've
seen is a gag order from the Trump
administration.
But instead, they're still like trotting
out all of this stuff. And she says, JD
Vance understands the fight that they're
up against. And I don't even know what
that is. Is the fight they're up against
the libs? Is is that what it is? Is it
to make America a Christian nationalist
nation and for all of the women in
America to be like Steepford wives like
that? I just think the whole thing is
weird as [ __ ] And I just want to say,
can you imagine the freakout that would
happen if Kla Harris um introduced Gavin
Newsome like that and then hugged him
like that? I mean, this was the
political party that said that she slept
her way to the top and all of these
sexist misogynist things.
this woman's husband was just killed and
then that just happened and it's just
weird as [ __ ] and it's the family values
party and all of this stuff, the
pro-life party, yet nobody can talk
about gun control. I just thought that
was eyebrow raising to say the least.
And um the fact that JD Vance continues
to be in the forefront of the MAGA
movement tells you that they all are
realizing that the strong mans is a
frail scenile man and everybody is
looking beyond his rule and a lot of
them are looking to JD Vance is the era
parent and a lot of the others are
looking into Marjorie Taylor Green,
Tucker Carlson. So, the fissures in the
MAGA movement are massive. Okay.
In the last 24, 48 hours, I noticed on
my Instagram, a lot of people tell me I
was ugly. A lot of people tell me they
wish I would die, all of these things.
So, I text Kylie, our producer, and I'm
like, Kylie, am I going viral somewhere?
Because people are it's it's every time
Fox News features me, this happens. And
so there was a clip that I showed you
all on IHIB news about um a boomer at I
believe it was a no kings rally and this
um Christian influencer provocator goes
and asks her if she's upset that Charlie
Kirk is dead and she says no she's not.
And that's her right. She doesn't have
to be upset that a racist is dead, that
a misogynist is dead, that a homophobe
is dead. And then that, you know, the
the Christian influencer is so
triggered. She's like, "Well, would you
be upset if I was dead?" And the lady's
like, "Well, I'd have to think about
it." And the [ __ ] your feelings crowd is
so in their feelings. I laughed at this
and I said, "Listen up, Democratic
establishment. This is where the base is
at right now." Of course, MAGA has stage
five meltdowns. Think that I want to
kill conservatives. They think that I
want to kill Democrats because they
don't recognize that people on the left
are capable of criticizing their own
party. And I want to be very clear to
all of the MAGA people. I don't want you
dead. I want you to have health care. I
want you to get a livable wage. I don't
want you to work your ass off your whole
life to then file medical bankruptcy.
While the billionaires never fly
commercial, they never get their flights
canled. Um, and they don't have to pay
taxes because this administration has
raised them on you. I want to live in a
country where piece of [ __ ] maggot
influencers like Charlie Kirk don't get
shot. I don't want to see anybody die of
gun violence. Period. I don't want
Charlie Kirk to be dead because his
death was avoidable. But it is a real
window into the soul of MAGA that you
refused to talk about the ways to fix
this problem. After the assassination
attempt on Ronald Reagan, there was a
huge push for gun restriction in the
country from the Republicans. That meant
some something to them, but not not from
the right. So whatever, call me ugly.
Come after me. I don't want you dead. I
want your life to be better. even though
I fundamentally disagree with all of the
stuff that you all do. And this is the
same point that Charlemagne the God is
making right here that I made in the
clip that now everybody's, you know,
trigger city about. And it is that the
Democratic establishment
is failing us. They are failing us
miserably. And of course, I'm talking
about Chuckles and Apac Shakur Hakeim
Jeff. And let's just hear a little bit
of Charlemagne the God on the Daily Show
should be focused on is picking exciting
new candidates. What you got?
Main Governor Janet Mills has launched a
bid for Senate. The 77year-old was
heavily recruited by Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer to join the race.
If Mills wins, she would be the oldest
freshman senator in US history.
Damn.
This is the new candidate. Okay. She
shouldn't be running for Senate. She
should be throwing her Titanic necklace
back into the ocean. Okay,
you know what?
You know what? Forget it. Look at Zoron
Wandani. Okay,
see
young, lots of excitement around his
campaign. Overwhelmingly won the
primary. You guys can just endorse him.
Many Democrats in Washington are still
hesitant or even against showing support
for Mam Donnie.
All I can tell you is I'm going to
continue talking to him.
What's the hold up?
I got to continue talking to him and
that's what I'm going to do.
Is part of the calculus that if you
endorse a Democratic socialist, you're
worried it will be damaging to your
party, maybe it even your chances of
winning back the Senate.
I'm going to continue talking to him.
Dana, you can ask me.
Okay. All right, Kylie. We can stop it
there. So, this is what I was talking
about to the Democratic establishment
that we are coming after the messaging.
We are coming after the leaders, the
impotent leaders of the Democratic party
that are hanging us out to dry, that are
not riding the coattails of this
economic populist movement. So to the
MAGA freakout snowflake
um catastrophizers suffering from
histrionic personality disorder,
that does not mean I want them dead. To
the contrary, I want them to live. I
want them to evolve. I want them to
embrace change. I want them to let go of
their corporate donors. I want them to
embrace policies that are not beholden
to corporations that always dick over
the American worker. To the contrary, I
want these Democratic establishment
politicians to evolve and quit behaving
as the party of the status quo. And to
the MAGAS, I do not want you dead. I
want you to have [ __ ] health care.
And I want you to be able to go to a
rally safely and not get shot by a gun
because it is the most preventable death
that we could prevent in this country.
But politicians refuse to do it because
guess what? They're paid off by the gun
lobby. And they scare the [ __ ] out of
you all the time thinking that
everybody's coming after you and you
have to have a gun. And the fact of the
matter is, if you have a gun in your
house, somebody you love is way more
likely to get killed by that gun than an
intruder. And those are just the facts.
All right, moving along. We have some
really dangerous things happening. So
Nick Fuentes is a neo-Nazi, an
anti-semite, a white nationalist, a
white supremacist, etc. It's really bad,
you guys. and he is the leader of these
uh people online called the Gropers.
Okay.
Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green
have been positioning themselves and
I've been covering this on IHIP News
quite a bit. They are positioning
themselves
um in a way by using very simple
language that I think will hit really
hard in middle America that once biology
or Republicans grow a spine and Kanks is
taken care of, there's going to be a
huge vacuum to fill. And so Tucker seems
to be expanding his tent. And he and
Nick Fuentes collaborated.
And this should be disqualifying, but it
wasn't for Trump. Trump invited Nick
Fuentes to Mara Lago and he got elected
again. So now the Heritage Foundation,
which normally would have said, "Okay,
this is disqualifying,"
is basically saying, "Okay, we're going
to bend the knee and we're going to
expand our big temp racist party to the
neo-Nazis, to the real anti-semites."
And I want to read this tweet to you
before I play the video.
Uh, Yashar Ali says, "A watershed
moment. The president of Heritage
Foundation in Heritage Action, Kevin
Roberts, Texas, has announced that the
organization is standing by Tucker
Carlson in the aftermath of Tucker's
interview with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
This isn't Kevin bending his knee to
Trump. This is something new." In his
statement, Kevin condemns what he calls
a venomous coalition that is sewing
division by attacking Tucker. That
venomous coalition includes MAGA
Republicans as well as Jewish
conservative commentators, activists,
and donors. Kevin also frames Nick
Fuentes rhetoric as worthy of debate
rather than something to be condemned
outright. A shift like this would have
been unthinkable for Heritage just three
years ago. So, in all of the um
tiptoeing that everybody has to do when
you criticize the Israeli government out
of fear of being called an anti-semite,
I want to remind you of this. I
encourage people right now to criticize
the American government. And I
personally do not feel um agrieved by
that because that government, Kangx's
government, this fascist regime deserves
all of the hellfire, damnation,
criticism that it can be um thr that can
be thrown at it. The same goes for
Israel. That government deserves all of
the criticism in the world. That does
not mean that you don't support the
Jewish plight or Jewish safety or the
Jewish people because in actuality all
of the human rights are connected.
Islamophobia is connected to
anti-semitism is connected to sexism,
homophobia, racism, and on and on. None
of us are free until all of us are free.
It has to be universal human rights.
The Heritage Foundation wants white
supremacist human rights. That's why
they are so willing to throw
real hateful hardcore anti-semmites into
the mix. And I will say to the Zionist,
and I've been saying this for a long
time, if you start playing patty cake
with these people who were clearly
anti-semitic, at some point they will
turn the knives on you. And Benjamin
Netanyahu and a lot of these Zionist
donors and the IDF made a calculation
because Biden offered them the exact
same ceasefire deal that Kanks and
Benjamin Netanyahu just rolled out. But
Benjamin Netanyahu didn't want Kamla to
win. He wanted Kanks to win. Well, why
would he want a guy to win whose donors
um and supporters uh have neo-Nazi flags
at the rallies. Clarence Thomas's
biggest donor collects Nazi dishes as a
hobby. This uh Mr. Crow out of Dallas.
Why would they do that? Well, because
their ambitions are we need somebody
that is so uh that has such a disdain
for human rights that they won't have
any issue at all giving us money if we
continue to ethnically cleanse Gaza
because they might hate Jews but they
hate Arabs too. And so let's just get
the money while we can and then we can
develop uh the strip into Israel and we
can give them ownership in it. Well, now
they've really really invited these
hardcore neo-Nazis into the party and um
this is this is my thing. Like Cash
Patel, at some point your brown skin is
going to be a liability to these white
supremacists. We're already seeing this
play out with Usha Vance, Scott Bessant,
the gay uh secretary of the Treasury.
You think you're going to remain, you
think you're going to stay on the
chopping block when these Heritage
Foundation hardcore white supremacist
anti-gay people,
they're not doing all this for Trump.
They're doing it because they want white
supremacist Christian reign in America
for decades. And they've been playing
this game and setting this up long
before Donald Trump ever descended on
the escalator. So, this is really scary
[ __ ] I'm hopeful that this swing, this
really, really far swing to the right
that doesn't seem to include kinks at
all.
Is a part of my theory that these
fissures are really forming and that
people in the inner circle know that his
health is horrible. The dementia we've
all seen is through the roof. And so the
frailty of this strong man is causing
all of these fissures to exacerbate. And
this really, really hard pendulum swing
to the right
always causes it to go back the other
way. And hopefully if we're able to have
midterms, it goes back the other way.
and we get rid of the leadership of Jeff
and we get rid of the leadership of
Schumer and replace them with
non-beholden fighters that don't govern
incrementally
that put their foot on the accelerate
accelerator and cram uh change and
reform and civil liberties and uh
regulations on unrestrained capitalism.
They just go bananas with all of that
because when government works for
people, both parties like it. And
lastly, I just want to leave you with
how incompetent this administration is.
So, you may remember Kanks has done
multiple caps lock tweets at like 1:00
a.m. and 2 a.m. regarding Tylenol and
his um apparent sleepless concern
that pregnant women are going to take
Tylenol and then uh give birth to
autistic children. Number one, this is
dangerous because this is putting some
sort of um dark cloud over people with
autism that is unnecessary.
And number two, it's not based on
science or research. So, Kylie put up
this headline. Now, he has to admit it.
RFK Jr. admits he can't actually tie
Dylan to autism. RF Kennedy Jr. said
there isn't sufficient evidence to back
up his claims.
I I just I'm just so speechless
over all of this [ __ ] insanity that
the president of the United States like
72 hours ago while he's in Asia
embarrassing himself and the country and
putting on a master class on how to
travel with dementia
and he is cap locks tweeting about this
Tylenol [ __ ] and then RFK Jr.
admits it that it's all [ __ ] So,
all right, that's all we have for this
episode. Please like and subscribe and
we'll be back later with more news.
[Music]


********************************************

Trump Wants NUCLEAR WAR?! Republicans Are TURNING ON HIM in PANIC!
By
I've Had It
Oct 31, 2025
IHIP News

Dictator Trump is begging to be able to flex America's nuclear arsenal as a show of power and authoritarianism of his dangerous regime.



Transcript

We have an incompetent, dementia-ridden
[ __ ] running the United States of
America right now. He is so over his
skis. It is so abundantly obvious. Shame
on corporate media or any media that
isn't covering this absolute mental
decline the likes of which the world has
never seen, to quote him, on full
display. And because he absolutely does
not understand
foreign policy, he ends up sending out
on his uh social media platform that he
had to form because he got kicked off of
all of the others after he tried to
overthrow the federal government and
have his supporters kill his vice
president. I he calls it true social. I
like to call it lie social. Here's what
he posts. The United States has more
nuclear weapons than any other country.
This was accomplished, including a
complete update and renovation of
existing weapons during my first term in
office. Because of the tremendous
destructive power, I hated to do it, but
had no choice. Russia is second and
China is a distant third, but will be
even within 5 years. Because of other
countries testing programs, I've
instructed the Department of War to
start testing our nuclear weapons on an
equal basis. That process will begin
immediately. Thank you for your
attention to this matter. And then we go
into caps lock. President Donald J.
Trump.
What the [ __ ] I mean,
this person
should not have nuclear weapons. He got
lost in Japan while the Japanese prime
minister was walking him in basically a
square. He couldn't follow the
instructions.
This is a 911.
I remember a time when the Republican
party cared about our country and about
our military and wasn't so blindly loyal
to a demagogue with dementia.
It's unbelievable how cowardice these
MAGA men are. These same MAGA men who
say that women are too emotional and not
strong enough to be in leadership
positions. Yet their leadership is
following this sack of [ __ ] with
dementia to hell and to rip up our
country in the process because they
can't [ __ ] admit they were wrong.
They just can't do it. And it's so
maddening that we have to read this [ __ ]
from the president of the United States
on a daily basis. He should have an etch
a sketch in a padded cell in a straight
jacket in a prison and in the insane
asylum ward of the prison and he can
pretend he's Hannibal Lectar and he can
send out this [ __ ] on his Etch a sketch
and to him it will probably all be the
same thing. You can throw in some
sycopants around him just for spite so
that he feels like he has um his
entourage with him. But this is
unacceptable. It's unacceptable that the
media goes along with this. It's
unacceptable that Republicans go along
with this. This is [ __ ] bananas.
Moving along. He posts on lie social yet
again about his grievances because he's
so [ __ ] emotional and he's such a
titty baby. Why on earth? He thought I'm
real sensitive and thin skinned and I
really hate it when people say bad stuff
about me. So I think I'm a great
candidate for president of the United
States. It's unbelievable. Pop this up.
So he puts on lio. Former FBI agent
Walter Gian uh Gardina is a dirty cop.
He should be along with deranged Jack
Smith, the sinister team of Lisa Monaco
and Andrew Weissman, Little J Brett,
Norm Eisen and his fake charity crew,
Christopher Ray, Merritt Garland, Thomas
Wendam, who dreamt of the corrupt J6
witch hunt should be investigated
immediately. They are disgraced to our
nation. Thank you for your attention to
this matter. Ron Philipowski with the
mightest touch responds and says, "Never
in the history of the US has any
president openly and repeatedly called
for the investigation, arrest, and
prosecution of his political opponents.
While many continue to shrug these
things off and normalize them, I will
never stop pointing out that this is
what autocrats do." And he is 100%
correct. And this is why the cowards in
the Republican party won't speak up when
they know better because they fear that
lie social post and they only care about
their political trajectory and not about
the trajectory of the country. And that
should be disqualifying. But that seems
to be the modern-day Republican party
and they operate that way with impunity.
But I think there's something more
sinister at play here. His desire to go
after all of those people is directly
linked to him and the sophants
surrounding him wanting to say that 2020
he actually won and then he can say oops
I'm already in my third term so the 22nd
amendment really doesn't apply anymore
so I can go for a fourth. Now whether
he's all there or not there by the uh
you know next uh race in 2028 I think
they will weekend at Bernie's this
[ __ ] because he is their useful
idiot. He is their Trojan horse because
the people behind him the Russ uh Votss
the JD Vances the Peter Thiels the Elon
Musks they have very dark and sinister
plans for the United States of America.
They have decided that they don't think
democracy is very helpful anymore and
they would like to do a little
switcheroo and they would like for
America to be governed by a CEO because
they're CEOs. And so they think, "Yeah,
I'm really good at what I do. I have a
lot of zeros in my bank account. I'm
just as rich as [ __ ]
I should run the country." And that's
the problem with um MAGA Republicans.
They think government should be run like
a business and businesses are cutthroat.
Businesses do whatever they can do to
maximize profits. Even if it harms their
consumers, even if they put chemicals in
that cause cancer, they'll cover it up.
Think about the tobacco industry.
Government can't operate that way. It
can't be for profit. It has to be for
the greater good. And the fact that we
even have to [ __ ] talk about this
right now tells you how successful the
Republican propaganda machine has been
long before Kank's ascension to this now
fascist regime MAGA. Moving along, there
are some fissures happening and there
are some Republicans that are standing
up. And I know that these Republicans
are pieces of [ __ ] but listen, we have
to get take whatever we can and find
strange bedfellows in this desire to
withhold and uphold the constitution.
And so yesterday or a couple days ago,
they voted to reverse the 50% tariffs on
Brazil. Five senators crossed over and
then recently they doubled down on that
again and the Senate votes 5046 to
overturn Donald Trump's tariffs on
Canada. Four Republicans joined all of
the Democrats in supporting the measure.
We have Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins,
Lisa Marowski, and Rand Paul. And
listen, I'll take what we can get.
Hopefully, this fissure
is going to prompt more Republicans to
do the same because we are at the
precipice here. Kanks and his army of
psychopaths are doing everything in
their power to consolidate all power
with the executive right now because
they know that Vance or Rubio cannot win
an election. They also know that they've
committed a [ __ ] ton of crimes and they
cannot allow for a Democratic Congress
to come in and open up investigation
after investigation and uncover crime
after crime after crime. So, it's
self-preservation for them at this
moment. It is self-preservation
for them to somehow rig the midterms.
They have to because I believe they have
done so much illegal [ __ ] starting with
Doge to now the boat strikes where
they're killing fishermen and lying to
the public and saying they're drug
smugglers.
It It's breathtaking. It makes Watergate
look Oh, that's kind of cute. That was
really quaint.
All right, let's take a brief moment to
thank our sponsor, Zach, for sponsoring
iHip News. You guys know that I just
recently moved to New York and so I've
had to switch all of my doctors and
everybody knows I love the Zukdoc app
and even after you move or if you're on
vacation or even in your own hometown,
you can get on your Zukdock app and you
can figure out where a doctor is close
to you that takes your insurance and how
quickly they can get you in. Zachdoc is
a free app and website where you can
search and compare highquality in-et
network doctors and click to instantly
book an appointment. Once you find the
right doctor, you can see their actual
appointment openings. Choose a time slot
that works for you and click instantly
to book a visit. Appointments made
through Zdoc also happen fast, typically
within 24 to 72 hours of booking. More
often than not, you can even get same
day appointments. So listeners, stop
putting off those doctor's appointments
and go to zdoc.com/ihip
to find and instantly book a top rated
doctor today. That's zooccdoc.com/ihip.
zockdoc.com/ihip.
[Music]
Moving along, the Daily Beast is
reporting that there are more fissures,
you guys. So this is great news. Kylie
popped this up. The list of lawmakers
sick of little Moses Mike Grinder
Johnson's shutdown strategy has grown
after Republicans buted heads on a
conference call on Tuesday. MAGA stars
are turning on say it together little
Moses Mike Grinder Johnson in heated
strategy call. I read the article and
the uh Congress people in question are
Krenshaw, Marjorie Taylor Green,
Representative Kevin Kylie, and
Representative Don Bacon. I know it's
only four, but you guys, these fissures
get contagious. And why are there
fissures right now? It is because the
strong man is frail physically,
objectively, everybody that sees him can
see he has dementia.
You can see the physical frailty that is
happening to his body. You also can look
at the polling and this guy's underwater
on everything. So, a lot of these
politicians are starting to see the
curtains closing on kanks. So, they are
saying where am I going to be positioned
when this happens? So, we are seeing
fissures in the Senate and we are seeing
fissures in the House. We are seeing all
sorts of fissures with the MAGA uh media
ecosystem.
So that is the good news. But we have to
stay diligent. We have to always
advocate for democracy and apply all the
pressure we can both on MAGA Republicans
and Democrats in our own party that are
beholdened to corporations. The same
corporations that helped elect this
fascist regime. and the same
corporations that are bending the knee
to this fascist regime. So any Democrats
who are playing patty cake with this
fascist regime's um sponsors and donors,
we need to call them out as well because
nobody wins with this. No one. All
right, that's all we have for today.
Pumps is traveling. That's why I'm solo.
Please buy our book, Life is a Lazy
Susan of [ __ ] Sandwiches. The link is
right below in the show notes. Make sure
you subscribe, comment, like, do all the
stuff to boost the algorithm, and we'll
be back later with more news.
[Music]

[admin]

Jon on Trump's Third Term Threat & Desi on SNAP Cutoff Panic and MTG
The Daily Show
Nov 1, 2025 #DailyShow #JonStewart #DesiLydic

Jon Stewart's heart breaks for the poor little billionaire president who posted about feeling unappreciated for his "sacrifices," yet appears ready to selflessly seek out a third term. Desi Lydic tracks Trump's tour through Asia this week, where he's been treated to serenades, a gold crown, and captive audiences for his anti-magnet tirades, all while Americans continue to suffer the effects of an endless government shutdown, including the end of funding for SNAP benefits. Plus, Desi gets a Halloween Eve visit from the spookiest of creatures: a reasonable Marjorie Taylor Greene. #DailyShow #JonSte



Transcript

[Music] Our current president, Donald Josephine
Trump, is currently on a tour of Asia where he will be meeting with allies such as the
new Japanese prime minister and rivals such as Xihinping. It's a crucial moment
with huge ramifications for the current tariff regime in this country and for the peace and security of the entire
region itself. But first stop, Koala Lumpur. So let's dance, mother.
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
He loves this [ __ ] I love at the end he was like and then
he just goes like that's all I got.
He loves the red carpet. He loves the hats. None of it makes any They're playing the theme song to Hawaii 5.
None of it made any sense. But he loves the pump and he loves the circumstance.
It's why he loves going overseas. That's what they give him overseas. Ladies and
gentlemen, it's it's what he loves.
Look what we do to him here. This is what he tweeted right before leaving on the trip. I want to thank Donald Trump
for working like a dog for no money to save a country that doesn't appreciate
his sacrifice. [Applause]
I hope you're happy, America. Look at this poor son of a [ __ ]
He just wants
[Applause] He just wants to save his country. And all he asked for in return is a little
bit of total unquestioning feelalty and a few billion dollars in influence
money and new forms of currency. This poor bastard.
Hey buddy, want to go to Malaysia?
Yeah, there we go. Come on. But what do we do when he comes home?
Beef is too expensive. My healthc care bankrupted me. Where's my abuela?
[Applause] Poor
little billionaire president. He hates it here. And why wouldn't he?
Everything he does for us, we have a problem with. What's the one thing that
we've wanted in this country for as long as I can remember? An outsized ballroom.
I have been talking about this. Someday I'll grow up and do the chaa.
[Applause] Remember the march when we all wore the chandelier hats?
No crown molding, no peace. When I say crystal, you say stemware.
Crystalware. Crystal.
I can't believe how well that works. Like we didn't we don't reverse any of
that. How easily fascism comes to America.
Chant with me.
So, we've always wanted a giant ballroom. And then as soon as the man surprises us by completely demolishing
the east wing of the White House after announcing that he would not touch it at
all, suddenly everybody's got a profit. The new construction plans haven't been
filed with the National Capital Planning Commission for public input or by to have review by professionals who
actually work in this field. Well, maybe you'd like to file an appeal
with the thing's already not here anymore board. You know, the man
is just trying to give Americans a $300 million space that we can use four to
six times a year. And you're all worried if it's the right shade of historic federal gray from
Pharaoh and Ball. It's like we don't even want to be happy.
And then as if that's not bad enough, after Trump builds us a double the White
House next to the White House, we won't even offer him the simplest of
thanks. We act like he's in it for himself. ABC News now reporting Trump
will likely name the ballroom after himself.
How dare you, sir? At long last have you no decency? What
makes you think this selfless man? Look at him.
What makes you think this selfless man is so arrogant as to want his name over
whatever he makes? You bastards.
You know, if George Washington had known there would come a day when an American president would be so disrespected that
he couldn't even build a ballroom without filing plans first. Would he even have crossed the Delaware?
[Applause] Or might he have said, "Forget the whole thing, me, boys."
I don't I don't know his accent. Forget the whole thing, me boys,
and don't just say, "Oh, the White House, but it's a historic building and a symbol for the country, and it means a
lot to a lot of people." We have been nagging this man since he selflessly decided not to host a sequel to The
Apprentice and Lead our Great Nation. And these are the complaints just from
the last few weeks. The president igniting a firestorm. President Trump facing new questions
about his latest pardon. Tension rising on President Trump's plan to send the military to American cities.
Tensions rising as the shutdown is dragging on. Cattle ranchers across the country are blasting President Trump.
Cattle ranchers, how dare you? He's personally keeping you in business.
We [Applause]
are taking the joy out of this thing. And then, as sad as he gets, when he
goes to blow off a little steam by blowing up some boats, if you want to engage in a war with
Venezuela, you need to come to Congress for an authorization. There being none, these strikes are unconstitutional and
unlawful. Nag nag nag.
Which one of you murdered those people without due process? Was it you? You get
detention. You see what you've done? You're killing this guy.
You treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. You know nothing about nothing. You fake
news. You should be ashamed of yourself. Quiet. You're really obnoxious. One of the worst reporters that you'll
ever I don't even want to take a question. You're a third rate reporter. Always have been. Frankly, you're a terrible reporter. You know it. And so
do I. Who is that back there? All right. Get out of the room.
Our constant complaining
is turning him into the worst version of himself.
He doesn't want to be this person. Everyone knows a healthy relationship is
a relationship where one person gets to do whatever they want whenever they want. Even if some of that shit's
illegal and the other person has to eat it, just eat it. If you don't
want to eat it, at the very least, just pretend like you don't see it. Like
Speaker Mike Johnson. How comfortable are you with the president apparently seeking $230
million from the Department of Justice? Uh, I I don't know the details about that. I I'm I've just read it. I didn't
talk with him about that. See How hard is that? Uh,
obvious dumb. And by the way, anyone can pull that off
when they're first asked. A real pro can pull it off when they're asked the exact
same thing the next day. You said yesterday that you were still trying to get the details of this $230
million the president has asked for justice trying to pay for his legal bills. Now that you've had some time for us to get the details, are you okay with
taxpayers potentially being on the hook for that kind of money? Um, this I'm not trying to dodge a
question. I I haven't had time to get the details. Okay, that's still on my list of things to do list.
[Applause]
No, he hasn't had the time. He hasn't had the time.
It's he's got a big list of things to do. He's got the covering up of the Epstein files and um well, I guess
that's the only thing on the list, but still there's a lot of papers in that file. It's prolevel ignorance support.
But if you want a relationship to work, you've got to put in that kind of effort every day. You've got to show up for
that person every day. Mike Johnson does. I don't know anything about the Memecoin
thing. I don't I don't know. That's first I've heard of that. I don't know anything about it. I don't know. I've never seen the Epstein evidence. I haven't I haven't
seen the specifics of that. I don't know the details. I just saw a headline this morning. I haven't seen it. I can't comment on
it. I've been a little busy today. Look, I don't know anything about the dinner. I was a little busy uh this past week. I don't know anything about it yet. I've
been really busy. Do you support those comments or not? I don't know what Eric was saying cuz I only heard just a a snippet there. I
don't know the context. You just saw it, sir. [Applause]
What did I did I see it? I haven't had a chance to see myself seeing it, but
seeing myself seeing it is on my list of things not to do. I'm very busy. We've
got a lot of work to do, America. Because if we're going to hold on to this man
for the rest of our natural lives,
it's going to be hard. But lucky for us, even after everything, he's still open
to making it work. Sir, Steve Bannon said in a recent interview that there could be plans for
you to be able to run and potentially win a third term in 2028. Is that something you'd be willing to challenge?
Oh, I I haven't really thought about it. Yes, he's doing it. I haven't thought about
it. That's the tell for whenever he's asked about something that he is definitely going to do that is dubious
legally, ethically, or morally. He says he hasn't thought about it. But of course, we know he's thought about it
because he already has the merch.
Yeah. Now, of course, the negative Nelly's are going to have issues.
They'll say presidents cannot serve more than two terms due to the 22nd amendment. You recall that Congress
ratified it after FDR served four terms and caused irreparable harm to this country by inventing the podcast.
But what's
what's interesting about Trump is he's actually worked through the various scenarios of running for a third term.
He has not thought about one theory on how you might try to serve a third term is that you could run as
the vice president. Yeah, I'd be allowed to do that. You'd be allowed to do that, but I wouldn't want I I wouldn't do I think it's it's
too cute. Yeah, I wouldn't rule that out because it's too cute. I think the people wouldn't like that. It's too cute.
Too cute. That's why you don't go to Build-A-Bear as an adult.
[Applause] Running as the vice president to start the 22nd amendment isn't cute,
but he's the kind of guy who's like, I respect Americans too much to play games. If I'm going to run again, I'm
going to rip off the Constitution's head and [ __ ] down its neck.
And truth is, indications are very clear he's going to do it because you don't move into a house, knock down a wing,
and build a 90,000 square foot ballroom for the next guy. Trump's not a house
flipper. He's not Ellen. He's in it for the long haul. But the
question then becomes, why? We've already let him down so badly.
America is clearly not his happy place. So maybe there's a solution that could work for everybody. I'd like to propose
it. Let's make Donald Trump our overseas
president.
We could give him all the pump and all the adoration. He could be America's
touring company, taking our great show anywhere
but here. He could dance in Malaysia. He could hold orbs with the Saudis. He
could pretend to enjoy literature with the king of England. And when he's done,
we'll put him back on the plane and have everyone ask him questions.
And we'll do it all again. I'd like that.
Would you like that, Donnie? He likes it. The government shutdown is
on day 28, which is when it sheds its uterine lining. So, buckle up. It's
going to be a rough ride. And the longer this goes on, the worse things get. Air traffic controllers are getting
exhausted. Americans are about to lose SNAP benefits. And the White House is falling apart. Oh, I'm sorry. What? Oh,
that was done on purpose. Never mind. This is the perfect time for President Trump to meet the moment with his famous
dealmaking skills and master negotiating to end this shutdown. President Donald Trump currently on his
way to Asia for a high stakes tour of the region. Okay.
Government will be here when you get back. Maybe boys trip.
Let's get into it with our ongoing segment Trump meets world.
[Music] International humiliation one after
another. Donald Trump is spending the week in Asia and today he was in Japan to meet
their new prime minister, Sai Takichi. She's Japan's first female prime
minister. She's also their first Japanese female prime minister. Although
I'm told in Japan that's not really a big deal. if she were America's first Japanese female prime minister. I mean,
come on. Hersy. Anyway, good news. It's already looking
like the beginning of a big, beautiful friendship. In her diplomatic debut as Prime
Minister, Sai Takahuchi heaped praise on President Trump and vowed to make new
investments in the US.
Very strong handshake. So, if you see any weird bruises on my hand, that's why.
Although, it's not surprising when a woman has a strong handshake. We build up our strength by clutching our keys
between our fingers at night like a patriarchy Edward Scissor Hands. Now,
the purpose of Trump's visit was to discuss critical trade agreements and reaffirm our alliances. But first,
Donnie gets presents. Takayichi. Even at this bilateral meeting, we saw her gift
Trump a golf club. She also gifted him a golden golf ball. Wow.
Okay. She is a great giftgiver. A golf ball covered in gold. That is a combination into of two of Trump's
favorite things. I mean, how could you even top that? Maybe an Epstein island made of Lee Greenwoods.
And after the gift giving, it was time for some ceremony. So, the prime minister showed off her new friend Trump
to a gathering of uniform soldiers. We see here in this solemn moment of respect, two allies totally in sync.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Where? Mr. President, where where are you going? Nope. That's That's the kitchen. Whoops.
Nope. Over here. No, Mr. Trump. Back over here. Hold on.
Oopsy daisy. But aside from that one slip up, President Trump did a great job of
letting the prime minister walk him from one side of the room to the other. It kind of makes me wonder if Donald Trump
could have a real future as a show dog. Introducing one of the favorites of
tonight's show, the old American beaver hound. Mhm. He is in the care of expert handler
Sai Takichi. Lively, aggressive, and incredibly horny, the beaver hound is especially popular among rural white
families. That's right. And judges tonight will be looking for the hallmarks of a good beaver hound. Strong veneers, girthy
cankles. Whoops. It looks like he's wandered away from his handler. That's going to cost him some points.
Okay, he looks like he's back on track now. Excellent form on that turn. The beaver hound's golden mane is
glistening indeed. And now one final trick. a leap onto the platform and
nailed it. Wow, what a performance by the old American beaver hound.
Who's a good president? Not you. Not you. Of course, it wouldn't be a Trump trip
overseas without a visit to the US troops who are stationed in every country in the world for reasons that
are never quite clear. And after the prime minister made Trump feel so comfortable, he thought it was only fair
for him to return the favor by bringing her along to make her feel uncomfortable. But the cherished alliance between the
United States and Japan is one of the most remarkable relationships in the entire world. Really, there's never been
anything like it. Born out of the ashes of a terrible war, our bond has grown over eight decades.
My god, look at her face. We all know that face. That is the look
of a woman who's going to be talking about this Ashes of War thing the second they get to the car.
I'm not going to embarrass you in front of your friends, but we will talk about this later. But I'm glad the president is having
such a fun time while the government's shut down. Speaking of which, let's just check in to see how the negotiations are
going. People keep commenting to me, "You look so tired on TV." I am so tired because we're not sleeping a lot. We're
working overtime. Yikes. Yeah. It's okay, though. In my
experience, a tired Johnson should be back up and ready to go in like 30 minutes.
20 if he's been eating oysters. And look, Mike, I know shutdown
negotiations are tough, but President Trump is in Japan working just as hard.
Now remember troops, don't be gay.
[Applause]
Now, I don't want this to imply that this speech was entirely jerkoff dancing. Trump did have some important
updates for the troops stationed in Japan. I'm going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it's
steam for the catapults and it's hydraulic for the elevators. You know, the new
thing is magnets. So, instead of using hydraulic that you can be hit by lightning and it's fine, you take a
little glass of water and you drop it on magnets. I don't know what's going to happen.
What What the are you talking about? You don't you don't know what's going to
happen if you get water on a magnet. The magnet gets wet. That's it. It's a
magnet. Okay. Not a gremlin. Here. You know what? Let me show you.
Water. Magnet. Magnet and water. See? Nothing happens.
[Applause]
Damn it. Well, when he's right, he's right. Now, Trump obviously didn't spend
the whole time talking about magnets. He also asked the troops how they felt about magnets. Which is better,
hydraulic or magnets?
What the hell is wrong with these two?
Well, that's a scientific poll if I've ever seen one. Which option do you like?
The one that I, your boss, prefer or the one that I have an unhinged vendetta against? I am so curious how military
recruitment is going to work in this country. Question one, do you promise to serve this nation and protect the Constitution? Question two, do you with
magnets? By the way, Trump has been baffled by
magnets for quite some time. Now, all I know about magnets is this. Give me a glass of water. Let me drop it
on the magnets. That's the end of the magnets. Instead of using hydraulic, they use magnets. And nobody needed
magnets until they convince everybody 20 years ago, let's all do magnets. But it should have never gotten that way
because we should have been doing the they call it magnets.
Well, I guess this is what happens when your parents don't want to put any of your pictures on the fridge.
Oh. Oh, honey. Oh, honey. Oh, we'd love to, but all the magnets got wet.
No, that's how they work. They work.
Anyway, it was your classic Trump speech. weird, nonsensical ranting, a weird nonsensical survey. But there was
one moment I didn't quite expect. I never forget that our ultimate strength does not come from equipment.
Comes from you people. Incredible people. Good-looking people. Too many good-looking people. I don't like
good-looking people. I never like good-looking people. I'll be honest with you. I've never admitted that before.
What? You don't like good-looking people? That's the last category of people we thought you liked.
We already know that you don't like fat people, ugly people, women people, Democrat people, prosecutors. Why not
good-looking people? Cuz you know they're attractive and you're attracted to them. So, the two of you are drawn
together like a pair of magnet Oh, okay. Now it all makes sense. I see.
Today, Trump was in South Korea where he was dismayed to learn that the hot demon hunter babes are in fact not real
people. But don't worry, he still got a warm welcome. And the South Koreans even
honored our rich American heritage. Overnight, President Trump touching down in South Korea, grieved with the YMCA on
the tarmac.
Unbelievable. The Village people must be so proud that their song became America's official
presidential anthem. To think when they wrote it, they just wanted to make a jaunty tune about
getting railed at the gym. [Applause]
But this is how it's been at every stop on the trip. Trump arrives, they throw a big party for him, then they immediately
try to buy his affection with gifts. So, South Korea, what do you got? Korean President Lee lavishing Trump
with gifts, including a replica of a golden crown. We present this old crown to you on this
joyous occasion of your state visit to Kongju. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.
Wow, a golden crown. What a lovely, thoughtful gift for our president. South
Korea, can I just talk to you over here real quick? Hey, South Korea, what the are you
doing?
Seriously. All right. We've been trying real hard over here to gently steer our
president away from the whole king thing. And then you come along all, hey, President Trump, check out this cool
crown. Try it on. Take it home with you. Not helping. Please just give them a sack of money
like a normal country and stop up our [ __ ]
Everything's great. We were just having a little chat. Anyway, while Trump is collecting more items for his dressup
bin back at home, the government shutdown has stretched to day 29, or what we think is 29. The guy who counts
the days has been furled. Now, so far, many Americans have been insulated from
the worst effects of the shutdown. The airports are mostly still running. Social security checks are still going
out, and the FBI will still kick down your door if you even think about copying a VHS tape.
But 2 days from now, a lot of people are about to feel a shutdown in a big way. SNAP food assistance, a lifeline for
roughly 42 million, now set to run out of money by the end of the week. Food banks already stretched to the limit are
seeing even longer lines. A food crisis some experts say could be the worst since the Great Depression.
All because of the government shutdown. Come on. Are you serious?
On top of everything Americans are dealing with now people might lose their food. Not food. That's our favorite
thing to stress eat. But okay, no need to worry. We have a whole government whose job it is to keep
its citizens fed. I'm sure there's something they can do at this point. There's, you know, there's nothing we
can do at this point. Trump has done all he can to minimize it, but there's nothing else he can do. The Trump administration has done its
best to try to minimize these hardships, but ultimately it starts to run out of funds and run up against the bounds of
law, and there's really nothing more they can do. This is a national safety net, and you're talking about it like it's a
return after 30 days. Oh, sorry the pants gave you a camel toe. There's nothing we can do.
[Applause] So, according to the Trump
administration, the only way to keep SNAP funded is for Democrats to end the shutdown. And sure, I get why they want
people to think that. But what's interesting is that when the Trump administration needed to find funding to
pay the troops, they shifted money around and they found it. Hell, they even got help from one of their
billionaire friends. The New York Times reports reclusive billionaire Timothy Melon gave the government $130 million
to help pay troops during the shutdown. The
Our military has a sugar daddy. I swear ever since Epstein Island shut
down, billionaires do not know how to spend their cash.
[Applause]
However they do it, it's very clear that when our leaders want to fund the things that they care about, they find ways to
fund it. So, I'm sure the Secretary of Agriculture has some ideas about how Americans can feed how America can feed
its citizens. I don't want to speak on behalf of my boss, but if George Soros
wants to step up and write a $9.2 2 billion check to keep those benefits
moving for this uh for the month of November. I am guessing that that would definitely be on the table.
Oh, come on. Are you serious? George Soros, the guy's already footing the
bill for all the paid protesters. [Applause]
Oh my. Look, dinosaur costumes are not cheap. So once again, our lawmakers are
coming together to say that they can't come together to fix our problems. And as always, it's up to everyday people to
step in and fill the void. A New Jersey food bank delivering four tractor trailer loads of food to workers at
Newark who are not getting paid. This week, landing in Washington DC, World Central Kitchen, Jose Andreas's food
charity. often deployed to war zones and natural disasters. It provided free
meals for furled federal employees. Now, some have resorted to unconventional methods to help, like Tik
Tok influencer Kelsey Martin taking advantage of Halloween, putting out non-p perishable goods like ramen and
microwavable meals for trick-or-treaters in need. Wow. It really is inspiring to see
people stepping up to help their neighbors in a time of need. This This is what we need more of. That said, if I
was a kid going trick-or-treating, and you hand me a cup of noodles, I will egg your house.
Trump has spent all week hopping his way through Asia, meeting leaders from Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea. But
today, he went face to face with Asia's final boss, Chinese President Xiinping.
And boy, did he not match Trump's energy. Mr. President, the president of the
People's Republic of China,
Good to meet you. Good to see you again. Good to see you
again. Me, too. And we're going to have a very
successful meeting. I have no doubt.
But he's a very tough negotiator. That's not good.
Remember, call your doctor if your handshake lasts longer than 4 hours.
But this is such a stark difference from how every other leader on this trip has interacted with Trump. Malaysia's
throwing a concert for him. Korea's giving him crowns. Everyone's kissing his ass. Then she comes in like his mom
forced him to have a play date with a weird kid at school. But forget about how their greeting was. The the bigger
question was what happened at that meeting. Trump said that China has been eating America's lunch for decades and
this was his chance to seal a major trade deal that finally makes things right.
President Trump back on Air Force One after his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jong Ping where the leaders agreed to a
tenative truce in the trade war that brings tariffs and other measures back to where they were before recent
escalations. He's basically reset the clock to January.
Wait, January as in earlier this year? in January. You went all the way to Asia
for that. Okay, I think we can agree that meeting was a waste of time. On the scale of from 0 to 10, with 10
being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12. [Applause]
Spoken like a guy who does not know the order of numbers. Meanwhile, back at home on this night
before Halloween, we're still dealing with the government shutdown. And it's been the same story for a month now.
Democrats versus Republicans. And things are only getting more tense. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green
acknowledging she lashed out on a Republican call. What?
You're telling me Representative Kella Deville lost her composure?
What? Let me guess. She's saying the Democrats want to give healthc care to Joe Biden's autopen. In a break with her
party, she confronted Speaker Johnson, saying, "I have no respect for the House not being in session, and I demand to
know from Speaker Johnson what the Republican plan for healthcare is." Oh, I was not expecting that.
I'd also love to hear the Republican plan for health care. All right, good for you, Marjorie. I mean, you know what
they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Or as Marjorie Taylor Green says, clocks
cause autism. Yeah, I I guess we can all enjoy that
because she is literally wrong about everything else. Let's take for example this $40 billion
bailout for Argentina. That's probably one of the grossest things I've ever seen.
Yeah, that is a pretty gross thing. Wait, um something weird is happening.
Am I agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Green?
That was weird. That's never happened before. Uh, but it's a a testament to
the incompetence of this administration that even his ideological allies like Marjorie Taylor Green are starting to
find common ground with his critics. Although, obviously, let's not forget who we're dealing with here. We're not
gonna agree on much more than that. Georgia Congresswoman Marjgerie Taylor Green is now backing a move to force a
floor vote requiring the Justice Department to release all Epstein documents. We should be passing the discharge
petition that Thomas Massie put in to release the Epstein files. Those are the things that we should be doing.
No, no, no, no. Stop the clip. Stop the clip. I do not want that. Okay. I do not want to agree with Marjorie Taylor
Green.
What the is going on? Is it cold in here? It just got cold in here. Okay, this is really starting to creep me out.
What? What the hell am I saying? She's a Trump supporter. She doesn't really want the Epstein files released.
Wait, is that the Daily Show landline? No one's called that since the '9s when I was born. Don't Google it.
Hello. Hello.
Release the Epstein files. Release the ED files. Release the Epstein files. Release the Epstein files. Oh my god.
Okay, breathe. Breathe, Desi. Breathe. Get it together. Get it together. Get it together. Okay, it's probably just the
wrong number. So what? Marjorie Taylor Green has said a few reasonable things.
That doesn't mean that we have the same feelings about the Republican party. I'm beyond pissed off at at my own party
and and the leadership in the House and the Senate that they are totally blowing it. Many times I hate my own party. I'm
mad at Republicans. They never do what they promise they're going to do. I want to hold Republicans accountable. I want
Republicans to do the job. I'm so angry at my own party and I'm angry at all the
men in leadership in the House and the Senate and I'm like, you guys are weak and pathetic.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. M team is roasting Republicans and her
male co-workers. Where does she end? And I begin.
Did she also try to get a reservation by telling the hostess she's Dakota Fanning? No. No. No. Don't let her get
in your head. Don't let her get in your head. Don't let her get in your head. I blame Republicans. They are literally slaves to all the big
industries in Washington. The military industrial complex, big pharma, health insurance industries.
Stop it. Does anyone else see what's happening here?
President Trump, as you know, recently called at least two senior Republicans to ask, "What's going on with Marjorie?"
Exactly. What is going on with Marjorie? I agree with Donald Trump.
Oh my god. I agree with Donald Trump.
[Music]
[Music]

[admin]

Trump Is Getting His Comeuppance From Young Voters
The Young Turks
Nov 1, 2025 The Young Turks

President Trump's approval rating is at a historic low. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks.



Transcript

Donald Trump has a problem on his hands
and it is a polling problem. You
probably could have guessed this was
coming since he's taken to once again
claiming that he has the best polls
ever, which is very much the opposite of
the truth. And worse for him, he's
hurting with the exact groups that he
needs the most and that he was most
proud to do relatively well with in the
last election. See, when it comes to
younger voters, those under 30 years
old, he is at 20% approval.
20%.
Yeah,
that sounds like a joke. That sounds
like something they just say on Newsmax
or whatever, but no, it's actually true.
75% disapproval, 20% approval. That is
since February, a 30 point drop. He's
lost more than he was at 50, one and
two, which isn't great, but you know,
honeymoon period or whatever, people are
like, "Ah, the Biden years are rough. I
don't really have a lot of hope in the
future." roll the dice, maybe things
will turn out well. And then since then,
well, more than half have been like,
"Nope, I don't like what I'm seeing."
And so, uh, he has dropped in every age
category, uh, since he was inaugurated,
but there's no age category where he
dropped nearly as much. And this, I
think, makes very clear, I mean, you saw
the dissections of the 2024 election,
how it's all done. They got, you know,
the 18-year-old Joe Rogan fans or
whatever. No, if it was an ideological
shift, if it was something like that, he
wouldn't be dropping as fast, especially
when his power hasn't been constrained.
He's delivering on the things he said he
would do and then a lot of corruption on
top of it. It's that they're paying
attention to what he's doing. It's not
helping them and they're not being given
any reason to think that they will be
helped. They see what's going on with
the tariffs, with inflation, with
healthcare. They saw the big beautiful
bill. They see all of this chaos and
nonsense and criminality and corruption
and younger voters who are very tapped
in and are they're consuming a lot of
news are not liking what they're seeing.
Yeah. So, I want to give credit to a
whole bunch of people here. I'm actually
going to ironically start with Trump. I
don't think that it was a flash in the
pan that he got to eight points in the
positive uh for with young voters. I
mean, 50 to 42 for a Republican to be
winning under 30 year olds, that is
amazing, right? I also don't think it's
a coincidence that he's now gone from 50
to 20 and from 8 positive to 55
negative. That is a 63 point drop. So
the other two sets of folks that I'm
going to give credit to are young people
and online media. And I'll explain that
after we hear the rest of the story.
Exactly. Yeah. And so uh I I referenced
that he's going down overall. And so
that's worth acknowledging. His overall
approval is at netg19.
He's at 39% approval. That's the lowest
I've seen. Usually, I've seen him at
about 41 42. He's now below 40. And
according to the Economist and Yuggov,
that's the lowest net approval he's
received in any of their polls in his
second term and lower than all but one
for his first four years in office. So,
he is now in historically low territory
for himself. And the first year isn't
even done. That, by the way, has swung
22 points since February. He was at plus
three back in February. He's now
negative uh 19. And if we want to break
down the demographics again, you know,
he had talked about how totally
different changed the game in the last
election for Latino voters, for black
voters. Well, perhaps it was, but right
now he's at 16% approval among black
Americans and 30% of Latinos. So even
more so, and particularly for black
Americans, far more than average for
Americans. They're not buying what he's
selling.
Yeah. So guys, don't this is not a small
thing. He's underwater with the entire
American population by 19 points. That's
a disastrous number. And then as we've
been telling you with the young to be
down minus 55,
I mean that goes back to not only a
Democratic advantage but like bigger
than any Democratic advantage I've ever
seen. So, okay. Now, it's a little bit
of a misnomer because as I'm about to
tell you, the young are not in what how
mainstream media thinks about it. Oh,
it's a generational shift. Trump has won
the young over forever and and he's
done, you know, really got in into black
and Latino voters in a significant way.
And now this will be like that for the
next 20, 30 years. No, you're not
getting it, guys. So, and I I mean the
mainstream media, things are moving so
much quicker than you realize. So, what
are young people looking for? Are they
now just going to swing back to the
Democrats and go, "Okay, I now love
Democrats." No. What they're looking for
is real change. And they're not
interested in your BS. So, they can tell
them, "Oh, well, it's okay. You're going
to get something at a later time."
Right? Democrats are famous for that.
There was nothing we could do. There was
nothing we could do. I mean, if you
elect us, there's nothing we can do.
Well, all right, then young people told
you to go take a long walk off a short
dock, right? And that's why in their
frustration, they turn to Trump cuz at
least he was promising change. So now
Trump gets into office, doesn't take
long, they look around and they go,
"Where the f is the change? What
happened? I thought we were against war.
Now we're like going to go to war with
Iran and Venezuela, blah blah blah. I
thought we were America first." And
everyone is like licking Netanyahu's
boots. What the hell's What part of that
is America first? And wait, I thought
we're going to look out for us. And now
all of a sudden, Argentina's got $40
billion and everyone's got money. Oh,
the rich got another gigantic
multi-trillion dollar tax cut. Where's
when are we going to get anything? And
you know, young people, until we kind of
do a political peaceful revolution, my
answer is clear to you. You're not ever
going to get anything. These guys are
all crooks. They They all work for giant
corporations and some foreign
governments. They don't work for us at
all. The donor class has been robbing
us, not just now, for about 50 years
straight. And the worst thugs of all are
mainstream media who hide that fact from
you. Their whole job is to make sure you
don't see it. They're like, "No, no, no,
no, no, no. Donors, donors." Like, how
can you not be furious with the donors?
How could you be in the news business
and not understand,
oh, right, it looks like the politicians
do what the donors want nearly 100% of
the time. That's complicated. You
couldn't solve that. So, now the good
news, online media is destroying
mainstream media. And before they're
like, "Oh, this online media has
disreputable people. They're not as
serious as Jake Tapper, who's so serious
he'll look down your his nose at you and
go, "You don't deserve anything. The
status quo is great." Okay? No, it's
not. The status quo is deep utter
corruption that you're hiding from
everyone. Well, guess what? You're
caught. Okay? Online media is infinitely
better than mainstream media. And we
caught you sons of M. So now
you know how many people under the age
of 30 are watching television?
Zero. None. Zero. So why did they flip
so much? Cuz they weren't brainwashed by
mainstream media. They're not watching
mainstream media. And that's why they
traditional media and politicians are so
mad right now. They're like, "Get back
to the brainwashing machine. We set up
this beautiful machine. It's called a
television set. And we scrub your brains
clean." Oh yeah, once the rich get it,
they'll trickle all over you. Oh, yeah.
40 years later, don't worry. No, we give
everything to the rich. We give
everything to corporations and other
governments and then they trickle on you
and you should celebrate that. No,
brothers and sisters, you're caught,
motherfers. So, you don't what you're
seeing for under 30 now is soon going to
be the whole country. It's going to be
under 45, then under 55 and and so 99
mainstream media and all these corrupt
politicians. Yeah.
So, Trump, you thought you had the
younger on my side. Are they? They
already left the building. You didn't
even realize it.
Yeah. Uh I I think you're definitely
right with Reed right now. I hope that
going forward it works that way. I'm I
harbor a lot of fears about the the
weaponization of algorithms and AI and
we'll see. Um but so far I I find this
to be like it is it's one thing that no
matter how wildly unpopular he grows, he
still will do anything he wants. all
that like prior talk of like whether you
have a mandate or not. He's so far
beyond that. Almost to his credit. Uh
and so that sucks, but it's good to know
that people are paying attention and
they don't like what they're seeing. If
you've ever felt like maybe you're crazy
if the results of the last election make
you think, well, I guess we've been
wrong this whole time. No, people aren't
into this at all. And and the final
thing I want to say about this is so
amazing is like I think it's like one
thing when people take a look at Joe
Biden and they're like ah he didn't do
anything or what he did was too slow or
not enough or like oh he said he was
going to do something and then it got
overturned or he said he was going to do
something and then Kirsten Cinema did
like a thumbs down. Like people I think
got really sick of that sort of like
lazy do almost nothing kind of thing.
With Donald Trump it's not the same
thing. He's aggressively doing terrible
things. He is wielding as much power as
he wants, but if you're a regular
person, you're saying he can do anything
he wants and none of it is with an eye
to me or my family. So, he can throw the
money to Argentina. It's like, okay, so
we had supply chain problems. Joe Biden
didn't do enough. There was inflation.
Trump's just like, no, I'm going to do
tariffs. I'm going to cause inflation.
It's a it's an aggressive version of the
incompetence, let alone all the other
stuff that he's doing. And so what's
been most amazing for me is that Donald
Trump is supposed to have these amazing
political instincts and I don't see it.
He doesn't seem to understand or maybe
he just doesn't care that he's so wildly
unpopular. But the fact that this guy is
at the worst economic numbers any
president has ever been at at this point
in their presidency and the dude cannot
go a day without talking about marble
this, gold that. He's like he's
cosplaying Joanna Gains in the Oval
Office every day. It's like he was
tasked like a challenge mode. How
disconnected from the struggle of the
American people can you seem to be
that's what's been so strange to me
about all this.
Yeah. Uh because once he got what he
wanted power and now crypto is gotten
him $800 million in ill gotten gains,
he's like I don't care about you guys.
I'm back to all the only thing I care
about is marble bathrooms and golden
ballrooms
and lined with both gold and uh national
secrets. Of course,
because if he's got a bathroom in a
ballroom, he's going to put classified
documents in it.
Yeah.

[admin]

Trump’s been played by Xi in China deal
Times Radio's Fergus Macphee and Justin Wolfers
Oct 31, 2025 The Trump Report

Professor of economics at the University of Michigan Justin Wolfers tells Times Radio's Fergus Macphee what the meeting between Donald Trump and President Xi this week means for trade between the two nations.



Transcript

If I believed what the president
believed that he can use American might
to push China around, the opposite just
happened and realize there's something
deeper than that. You can't unring the
bell. We've had the most belly American
president ever and pro hopefully ever
try to beat China up and China has shown
it's got us by the short and curies and
we cannot exert that leverage. That
leverage is gone now forever.
Hi, I'm Fergus McY and welcome to the
Trump Report on Times Radio. You can
watch us every day, Monday through
Friday, on our YouTube channel, and you
can also listen and follow the show
wherever you get your podcasts. Now,
today on the show, we're going to be
talking a little bit about tariffs, and
that means there's only one man for the
job. Joining me today as always is
Justin Walers, professor of public
policy and economics at the University
of Michigan. Justin, how are you?
Fergus, I do know some economics other
than tariffs, mate. We can go wherever
you want, but yeah, apparently tariffs
are what I do now.
Well, I'm sure we will cover a little
bit. I might have a few uh questions up
my sleeve, so to keep you on your toes.
Great. Uh we will start though with uh
Donald Trump and President Xi. Now
Justin, you know, I don't want to
misquote you, but you've been saying on
this show, I think a few times that
you've been urging Donald Trump to uh
get on the phone to President Xi and
talk to him about uh about tariffs and
the US's economic relationship with
China. He's done one better. He's met
him in person.
Isn't that amazing? I hope they got a
photo together. Maybe an autograph,
maybe a chotchki to put on the the mantle
piece. Maybe he even came back with a
trade deal. Um
it was a really interesting meeting
for two reasons. One for what Trump
thought he got and two for a completely
different subject. What actually
happened? Often those are meant to
overlap, but in this case they don't at
all. Um Trump has declared this an
immense success. He's gotten the US
access to rare earth minerals. He's
gotten the Chinese to promise to send
less fentanyl across the border. and
he's gotten them to promise, I think, to
buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans.
Um, these are all dimensions in which
this week America's business relations
with China look enormously better than
last week.
Is that the crux of where you stand with
it? It looks I think you did a post on
X. You said it's better than last week,
but it's still maybe not as good as it
was from sort of going back to April
2025.
Yeah. So, how should we judge what
someone does? Is it that this week is
better than last week or is it is it
better than how they found it? I'm going
to say we should judge this better than
how they found it. Basically, this is,
you know, classic Trump, which is screw
it up and then screw it up a little bit
less and declare victory because you
improve things. Um, so first of all,
soybeans, we are now going to sell
soybeans again to China. They're
actually going to buy them. I think the
commitment is 12 million metric tons for
this year. If I recall, it was 24
million in 2024 that they bought. Um,
and there's commitments to buy in the
future as well, back closer to those
earlier levels, but basically he's
gotten the Chinese to agree to buy fewer
soybeans than they were previously
buying. Now, they might exceed those
commitments. That'd be terrific. Lovely.
Terrific. Um, Rare Earth Minerals.
Fergus, I don't know if you remember
this, but way back, boy, probably before
you and I ever met, because we only ever
met over the Trump tariffs, but there
was a period a year ago when economists
could go their whole lives without
talking about rare earth minerals. So
could journalists, and so could your
audience. Your audience didn't need to
understand the full table of elements.
There are certain magnets that are
really important for manufacturing.
They're called rare earth minerals.
They're not actually rare. It turns out
they're just hard to get. And the
Chinese are good at getting them. Um, we
didn't have any problems because when
American companies wanted them, they
would call Chinese companies and buy
them. And you and I didn't need to know
a darn thing about it. Um, until Trump
decided to start a trade war, the
Chinese government said, "Stop selling
them." And all of a sudden, America
realized that its factories could come
to a halt because President Xi was
unhappy with President Trump. So, we now
have access to rare earth minerals
on paper for a year.
Um, now we had access before. Um, we
also have um the extension of their
truce. Now you're like, what the heck is
a truce in the never- ending trade war?
So
before Trump came to power, we had
tariffs on China around about 20%. Then
Trump came to power and he imposed a 20%
fentanyl tariff on China. They weren't
doing enough to stop fentanyl coming
into the United States. Then we had
liberation day and he imposed a 30
something % tariff, maybe 40 something %
tariff. Then we had 90 deals in 90 days,
none of which happened. Blah blah blah.
But there was an escalation of the trade
war during that period that saw our
tariff on China go all the way up to
145%.
Which is effectively an embargo. They
did the same. And so they both realized
that this wouldn't work. So they
declared a truce. Now the truth is from
tariffs so high you're cutting the two
economies off from each other. So they
declared a truce where we could get back
to business, albeit with higher tariffs.
They declared that truce. Then I think
roughly 3 weeks later, each was worried
that the other was cheating. Um, this
doesn't sound like the healthiest
relationship. So they got together again
and they decided to agree that the truth
they'd agreed to they were going to
agree to again. That truce formally runs
out on November 10. It's very easy for
Americans to make plans for their future
because we do get to plan all the way
through to several weeks ahead
sometimes. Um, for the American viewers,
that was sarcasm. Um, actually, maybe we
need like a signal or something, Fergus.
Um,
okay. So, that uh and then
Trump got upset in the middle of that
truce.
Maybe reasonably, maybe not. Who the
hell knows? and declared on a Friday
couple of weeks ago he was going to
impose another 100% tariff on China
which again effectively says turn the
boats around.
Markets tanked and by Monday he
remembered he didn't really mean it, but
rather than actually revoke it he just
sort of did what he did which is posted
through it. This whole has middle school
cafeteria vibes to it doesn't it? Um so
he never actually put that 100% tariff
on. So now they finally got in the room
and they talked to each other and
they're like, "You know what? We should
actually trade with each other. Good
idea. We can't do it if we've got 100%
tariff." So then they've extended their
truce. So the truce that they worried
wasn't a truce that they retrused.
They're now rerucing it. And they're
saying this now is a truce for another
year, which is very exciting. Except for
the last truce was a three-month truce,
and they broke it twice.
suggesting that the enormous certainty
that American business craves of getting
12 months of understanding what our
relationship looks like with the world's
second largest economy. Uh,
apparently we're safe for another year.
Fergus, I'm going to place a bet with
you. How about I bet you a six-ack of
beer that you have me back on the show
within the next 12 months to talk about
ongoing tariff struggles with China. I
reckon it's going to happen. of course
you would have the president's word on
your side.
I won't be taking that bet, but I'm sure
we will have you on again within the
next year. Um I think the headline
figure is that the US tariffs on China
have gone been reduced from 57 to 47%.
Is there a 10% cut?
It's actually a lot more interesting
than that. Okay, great. So I want you to
say what the headlines are again because
I think it's important that our audience
understands the headline. Then I'm going
to explain to them the truth. Well,
that's the thing and my question was
going to be headline figures are 57% to
47% cut. So a 10% cut and I was going to
say I mean is that a is that actually a
meaningful deescalation deescalation or
is that kind of a pause in the
it's actually a substantial deescalation
even larger than that? Um and so there's
two ways of looking at this and it's
very complicated. So over when I'm
standing on this side of the room I'm
going to bring my microphone with me.
This is Justin the economist. You can
tell there's an economics textbook
behind me. I think that high tariffs,
high taxes on Americans who buy stuff
from China is bad. So, anytime you
reduce it, I think that's good. When I'm
on this side of the room, this is Justin
talking about the Trump administration's
view of the world. The Trump
administration thinks that we should
tariff China highly, and the higher it
is, the more we win. And if they got our
tariffs down, they won and we lost.
Let me start in the center with the
facts. Okay. The fact uh that we had 20%
tariffs on China before any of this.
If your listeners have ever heard any
tariff numbers over the last 11 months
that we've been doing 10 months we've
been playing this game. They've all been
changes since the Trump administration
came to power. So that was a baseline no
one talked about. So there was 20 then
we added 20 for fentinel and then we
added 34
for uh liberation day. So 20 + 20 is 40
+ 34 is 74
and Trump now is saying we're at 47. But
what he's doing is building in the
original 20 no one talked about.
So there was a number that mattered. We
just never talked about it. and he's now
talking about it to make it sound like
tariffs are high. So he's over here and
he's saying, "Hey man, tariffs are 47%."
Now I'm going to come over here. I'm
going to say actually this a much larger
reduction than you ever thought of. And
I think that's good. Back to the facts.
The facts live right here. Um
so there were three sets of tariffs.
Pre-existing fentinel liberation day.
pre-existing still exist 20 fentinel he
cut in half to 10%. China said, "We
don't like it." And he said, "Okay."
So, when I'm standing over here, I'm
like, "Fantastic. Good job. You got rid
of 10% of these dumb tariffs. I'm so
pleased." When you're over here, you're
like, "You just got played.
You went to China and they got you to
cut the fentanel tariffs in half just by
asking.
The revenue is not going to come in.
You're not beating up China, blah blah
blah." Okay, that's one half of the
story. That also would fly directly in
the face, would it not? To, you know,
the tough stance on bringing fentinel
into the country
right over here.
Where's your balls, mate? You went over,
you were going to beat up this guy, you
could make a deal, and you've come back
and you've cut tariffs on China. Okay,
that's the second reality. I want to
come back to the center now. The center
is um where the baseline tariffs,
fentanel tariffs, we've harved, and then
there's liberation day tariffs. The
president has been unbelievably unclear
about this. So, it's actually impossible
to know what the facts are um based on
what he said because this is diplomacy
by tweet or by truth social post. We
don't have an executive order. We don't
have an American readout of the meeting,
anything. So, what I have is
commentators who read Chinese reading
the Chinese readout.
I can't vouch for them because that's
not a thing I normally do. But if we're
at 47, if it's 20 baseline plus 10 um
fentinel, that means we're at 16 or 17
on reciprocal. Actually, just because of
the rounding, the answer is 16. Okay, so
this is when Trump stood up on
liberation day, I forget what the early
one was, but on liberation day mark 2,
he said we're going to hit the Chinese
with 34%. That's what's necessary to
rebalance the economies. That's down to
16.
So, China really got what China wanted,
right? So, it knocked 10 off and then it
knocked this down to 16. The European
Union's at 15.
One of our closest allies
is being treated 1 percentage point
better.
Um this is astonishing that the the
group that Trump is most wanting to be
at war with
in fact is now being treated almost on
par with our allies. So let me come to
be Justin the economist. Justin the
economist says it's remarkable.
It's remarkable that we have now gotten
tariffs with China down this far and
that's terrific. And actually it's also
so what's even more remarkable is the
more that the president is bellose about
a country in fact the lower the tariffs
the other great example is who else does
he hate Canada
and he yells and screams about Canada
but every time you read that he's
doubled tariffs on Canada or added this
to Canada or this and that. The thing to
remember is
there's a free trade agreement with
Canada and they're recognizing it.
And so basically if your goods are
certified as being compliant with the
rules of that trade agreement which the
Americans call USMCA
then the tariff is zero.
Two years ago most goods weren't
compliant for the simple reason that
most tariffs were so close to zero no
one wanted to do the paperwork.
Then Trump raised the tariffs and
everyone called a trade lawyer. They've
done the paperwork and now 80 or 90% of
American trade with Canada is UMCA
compliant, which is to say a tariff of
zero.
So what happens is Trump goes to rallies
and screams things out loud, which is
about only 10% of Canadian goods.
And the reality is 80 or 90% is actually
at zero. So Canada's in a great spot
right now. And then the second fact I
just told you is China's in a really
good spot right now. So what we're
actually seeing is the average level of
tariffs is sneaking down even as the
level of bellacosity
is sneaking up. Um so I Justin the
economist is thrilled. Let me now just
come over and think about if I were a
magnort. If I had a different view of
the economy, I don't. But if I thought
that tariffs are an important way of
rebalancing trade, I would be profoundly
upset that we're not tariffing Canada
and that the Chinese have managed to
beat up Trump by threatening rare earths
and um uh uh sorry uh uh by by through
the by they've managed to beat up Trump
with the rare earths and the soybeans.
That's the word I was looking for.
Honestly, I remember the days we didn't
have to think about our favorite
different agricultural products. I used
to just talk about it as far as
agricultural output, but they've used
rare earths and soybeans to beat the
president into submission. And now China
is being treated better than many of our
allies. Let me come back to just talking
about the facts.
So, China China is thrilled. Justin the
economist is thrilled. Now, Donald Trump
said on a scale of 0 to 10 he'd rate
this deal 12. He should take he should
rate it a minus two on a Trump scale.
Right? If I believed what the president
believed that he can use American might
to push China around, the opposite just
happened and realize there's something
deeper than that. You can't unring the
bell. We've had the most belly coast
American president ever and pro
hopefully ever try to beat China up and
China has shown it's got us by the short
and curies and we cannot exert that
leverage. That leverage is gone now
forever.
In terms of bargaining chips, we've
talked about you talked about the rare
earth minerals there which China
certainly used. One thing that I didn't
really see talked about not a lot in any
of the readouts. Are you surprised the
US didn't use uh sort of Nvidia and
semiconductor chips?
So part of the problem is we don't have
a clear readout on what happened. So um
let me just bring the audience in on
this conversation. So the US has these
amazing chips that are central to AI um
and China doesn't. And so one of the our
equivalent of a rare earth mineral is a
highly valuable chip. Um, and so the US
has regulated, has said that we can't
really sell that many over there.
Remember, Trump backed off somewhat when
he said you can if you give the US
government 15%, which is a funny way of
running national security. Um, and this
was very much on the table whether we
would go further and open up even
greater access to American chips. My I
saw some reactions from some folks who
are national security folks saying he's
given away too much, but again, we don't
have a readout. So it's possible there's
very little. It's possible there's quite
a lot. It's also possible the White
House framing is wrong. So a lot of the
framing from national security types is
this is like an arms race that if they
get AI, we don't. And that's bad for the
world. I don't think that's obviously
the case. If we're talking about
literally an arms race, if we had a
geopolitical enemy, we wouldn't want
them to have any nuclear weapons because
they can only use nuclear weapons to
destroy us. But if you have But these
are not nuclear weapons. This is large
learning, large language models. Um,
these are computer chips. These are ways
of discovering how better to process
information. And if China learns how to
do that, that doesn't stop America from
doing it. And it may even help America
do it. So, it's not remotely obvious to
me that thinking about AI in the context
of sort of a great powers dialogue makes
any sense.
I want to, now that we're on the topic,
I want to ask you something. This is
slightly uh off track, but in terms of
uh AI, I do a show uh called the Tech
Report on the Times Radio Tech YouTube
channel. Reminder to anyone watching
this video, please go and subscribe to
that YouTube channel.
You're a talented journalist. So, yeah.
So, going on to going on to AI. Like I
said, it's a little off topic, but you
talk a lot on the Tech Report about the
so-called AI bubble. I'm not going to
ask you from a from a tech journalist
point of view, but from an economist
point of view, do you think America is
currently in a bubble?
I think anyone who answers that question
is guilty of malpractice.
Um, it's fine for you to ask it, but in
order for me to look you in the eye and
say it's a bubble, I have to say there's
all these people
investing trillions, not even billions,
trillions of dollars in this technology.
And they're looking at spreadsheets and
complicated models and financial models
and
there's accountants and economists and
statisticians
looking at all of this. That's what goes
into like a stock valuation. And I have
to say all those people
are overpricing say this the stock of
Nvidia
and they're all dumb and they don't
understand it and I do.
Do you see the degree of hubris it takes
to call something a bubble? So, by the
way, do realize everyone who says, "I
know it's a bubble," that's someone sort
of identifying they're a prick. um or at
least remarkably overconfident.
So I will never look you in the eye and
call this a bubble with certainty. Now
different question. Could it be a
bubble? Yeah, absolutely. Um what are
some things we know about bubbles? Well,
we know they create extremely high
valuations. It's definitely that
we but a bubble really is when you're
creating valuations
that are not commensurate with the
economic fundamentals. Now that's
actually a much harder case to make.
Let's do a little bit of arithmetic you
and I Fergus um
in a decade's time what percent of jobs
could be done by AI?
25% 30%.
Okay, you're at the optimistic end.
That's fine. So let's take 25%. Uh US
GDP is 30 trillion dollars. So and by
the way, most the value of a stock is
the future, right? So I'm just going to
forget about the next 10 years. Uh we're
doing very rough math, right? So US GDP
per capita, US GDP is 30 trillion. If
you knock out 25% of the jobs, um then
we're at 7 trillion
per year. Now you could say labor's only
half of that. So, we'll knock that down
to 4 trillion
per year forever.
Uh, what's your discount rate? Which is
to say, what's the the interest rate,
the real inflation adjusted interest
rate we should use to think about the
value of a future stream of earnings?
Make up a number
5%.
Okay. So, that means if I want to think
think about the NPV, I what I want to do
is multiply by 20. Now, I'm at 80
trillion and so far I've only talked
about the American economy.
What's the value of the magnificent 7?
It's below 80 trillion. I know that it's
below it by a lot.
So, and if I think about, you know, the
US a fifth of the global economy. So,
now I want to go from 80 trillion to 400
trillion.
Um, all of a sudden, breaking news,
leading tech journalist Fergus McI says
AI is tremendously undervalued by
trillions of dollars. Right? So there's
a story in which it could be true and
there's a story in fact if I really
believed your story buying AI stocks
would be immensely profitable.
So you should be going long.
So could it be a bubble? Yes. Could it
be not a bubble also? Yes.
That was a very diplomatic answer. I'm
glad I'm glad we covered it. Thank you
for talking about that,
mate. It's an honest answer though. I
get that like not being a confident
bloke who looks you in the eye and
stares and says I know exactly what's
going on makes for great journalism
makes for it's it's it's for your
audience. They deserve the truth and the
truth is anyone who's confident is lying
to you. I'm confident about that
shreddinger's confidence.
We will just end then with where we
started and we'll go back to the start
of that meeting between uh Trump and
she. Now I never really know how much
you can realistically uh read into
diplomacy done for the cameras but you
know both of them sort of said that they
were pleased that the two countries are
continuing to be partners and friends
etc etc. Is the fact that they have met
this week a sign of some progress?
Well, if they hadn't, I guess we'd say
it was the opposite of progress.
So, relative to not meeting, no. But,
um, if what you really wanted was
deep integration,
um, deep partnerships,
it's not enough to go meet a bloke and
shake his hand. You have to do things
like admit Chinese students into the
United States, stop saying explicitly
racist things, uh stop using China as,
you know, by the way, I don't think
China is an obvious and complete ally.
It's a very complicated relationship.
Um, and it just got more complicated
when you layer on someone who believes
in personality-driven diplomacy and who
is moodier than a teenage,
you know, than a than a love struck
teenager.
Justin Wolfers, thank you so much for
joining us as always on the Trump
Report.
A pleasure.

[admin]

Trump's FAKE WAR COLLAPSES as He MOBILIZES MILITARY
by Adam Klasfeld and former FBI counterintelligence director Frank Figliuzzi
Legal AF
Nov 2, 20254

The Miami Herald is reporting that U.S. attacks on Venezuelan military installations could come "at any moment," and it follows at least 15 strikes on boats in international waters killing at least 61 people, the government accuses of smuggling drugs. Is this all just a pretext for regime change? That's the question that former FBI counterintelligence director Frank Figliuzzi asked in an interview. A former assistant director in the FBI's Miami division, Figliuzzi has unique insights debunking Trump's claims about the drug trade and Venezuela. Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News hosts.



Transcript

Breaking news as we tape this from the
Miami Herald. Uh their lead. The Trump
administration has made the decision to
attack military installations inside
Venezuela, and the strikes could come at
any moment sources with knowledge of
the situation told the Miami Herald. Uh
they say that they are confirming
reports also made in the Wall Street
Journal.

So as we record this video,
the US government may be planning to
imminently attack military installations
inside Venezuela. This falls after weeks
of attacks on vessels that the
administration is not revealing lots
about how they know the identities of
the people they have struck in what has
been called by some legal experts
"extrajudicial killings" and by other
legal experts "flat murder."

Here to
discuss this with us today is Frank
Figliuzzi, a former top FBI assistant
director for counter intelligence. He
also served for a time uh in a
leadership position in the Miami
division of the FBI and has insights
into the rationale that the Trump
administration has brought forward uh
for this in the name of counter
narcotics. Frank, thank you for joining
us. For folks who are watching right
now, hit subscribe to see breakdowns
like this. Frank, what's your reaction
to the reporting in the Miami Herald and
the reporting in the Wall Street Journal
on this subject?

Yeah, thanks for having me jump on with
you on this. This is kind of the
breaking news of the day, in of course a
news cycle filled with breaking news.
But um yeah, so I was to kind of put the
context in place here, I was the head of
counter intelligence for the FBI. So I
got that that 30,000 ft view. I led
field offices throughout the United
States, so of course that included
supervising counter narcotics
operations, drug operations, and then
specifically I was in the number two
position at FBI Miami, the fifth largest
field office. Why is that significant
for today's discussion? Well, this is
the Miami Herald breaking this news. And
I find that interesting. But if you
understand what goes on in
South Florida, not only is there of
course a significant flow of drugs
through South Florida in and out, but
what's headquartered in South Florida?
US Southern Command, known as Southcom,
Southcom in the military vernacular. And
I've had occasion in my position
there, particularly with
counterterrorism,
to get to Southcom with some
regularity and give briefings and
receive briefings. So, I'm familiar with
Southcom's operation. We aren't going
to get into classified information here,
but Southcom's significant. Why? Because
the operations are being led that we're
going to discuss today are being led
out of Southcom. And you may recall
from recent news reports that the
admiral in charge of Southcom,
the guy who calls the shots on blowing
vessels out of the water, we're up to
what over 60 deaths, dozens of
vessels being blown out of the water
allegedly because they're carrying drugs
from Venezuela to the United States,
that admiral retired early. Retired
early. He that means his pension is
affected. Not that he's not getting his
pension. He's already an admiral, but
advancement would have likely happened.
Would promotions would have beyond his
admiral status. Maybe an extra star
would have happened. He decided I'm out.
I'm out. I can't keep doing this. And I
think we we need to understand that.

So, is it possible not to give up Miami
Herald's sources because I don't know,
but is it possible that Miami Herald is
getting source information out of South?
That sounds logical to me. So, we got tocom
pay attention to this when we see them
tell us hostilities between the US and
Venezuela are imminent. maybe in hours,
maybe in days, maybe by the time this
airs, Adam, maybe the missiles are
dropping on Venezuela. So, a real hot
topic today.

And you make a good point about
Southcom. There's been a lot of
discontent about this policy, and people
have said for a long time it looks
like this isn't about counter narcotics
at all but about plans to have military
action in Venezuela. Does this reporting
sort of vindicate that perspective?

Well, this is interesting because you know, being credible,
fact-driven people, we want to present a
balanced picture here. And two things or
three or four can be true at the same
time. Let's talk about that. First,
with regard to the boats being blown out
of the water, we simply have not been
given the facts that uh convince anyone,
including members of Congress that
allegedly have been briefed. as recently
as yesterday as we record this,
walking out of this briefing, saying
they're not satisfied with the
information that had been provided about
the degree of confidence that we
have in targeting these vessels,
specifically knowing who's on them. In
fact, there's really been an admission
that we don't really know specifically
by name who's on these these vessels.
We don't know whether they're truly
loaded down with drugs. Uh whether
they're even capable of directly
reaching the United States. Many experts
have said looking at the boats have said
no. They'd have to stop somewhere.
They'd have to be refueled. And that's
typically not a route a direct route
from Venezuela to the United States that
drug flows.

Next, let's put
to rest this mantra that keeps coming
out of the White House that Venezuela is
a source of fentanyl killing American
citizens. Fentanyl is a deadly plague on
on our country. Absolutely. But guess
what? I can't find any experts, and I've
been working the phones to
talk to people who are more recently
from the government than I am --
I'm retired -- and I can tell you they're
telling me the same thing. No, Frank,
fentanyl does not come out of Venezuela
in any significant quantity, but this is
important. Cocaine does to the tune of
according to sources about 500
uh tons a year uh of cocaine from
Venezuela to the United States.

So, there's a lot of questions, but let
me ask this question. It's a
rhetorical question. Why would Trump lie
about that? Is it sexier to say
fentanyl than it is to say cocaine?
Does it say I'm doing something about
the fentanyl deaths in the United
States? Well, I I guess either that or
people in his staff are lying to him. I
But I've got to say that from an optic
standpoint, from a PR standpoint, he's
decided he's going to say fentanyl's
coming from Venezuela.

Right, and to underline that point,
Frank, was it the also true during your
tenure at a leadership position in Miami
division of the FBI that it wasn't a
place where significant quantities of
fentinel were put over the border? As I
understand it, as far as the
international component of fentanyl
distribution, it's coming over the US
Mexican border. Isn't that right?

It is. the precursor chemicals are
coming from China into Mexico and it's
and it's being manufactured uh in Mexico
and then hauled over uh the border in
various uh methods uh including through
mostly through legal ports of entry uh
quite honestly in trucks and cars.

So all right. We've addressed the
vessel issue. Why are we doing this?
Let's assume it's the intel is good. Why
wouldn't they share the intel with
cleared members of Congress, a handful. I
don't want to know the sensitive sources
and methods. Trump claims they have
incredible intelligence. I applaud
that. I'm glad they they did. In
my time in Miami, Venezuela was not
a major player and certainly not in
fennel, which really, um, was kind of on
the horizon, uh, in the in the drug
trade. But, um, so why why not share the
intel with a handful of members of
Congress if it's that great? I'm very
concerned that it's not that great.

I also think, and and this is going to
apply to our our next kind of topic here
which is okay now now we allegedly have
imminent imminent war um and let's
define that as well we have now
positioned the largest aircraft carrier in
the world I believe, the USS Ford,
off the coast of Venezuela
along with that is an entire strike
group it doesn't carriers don't move by
themselves they they come with friends
And so we've got multiple vessels. We
have uh last report 90 combat aircraft.
Last report we're approaching 5,000
troops on this associated with this
strike group. We are ready. This looks like an imminent attack.
So what's going on?

And again, as I said, several things can be true at the
same time. We could be fudging the truth
on fentanyl versus cocaine. We could be
claiming we have great intel when we
really don't. We could be murdering
people in the water in an illegal
fashion without proper authorization.
But Maduro could be an awfully bad dude,
right?

And he is. And what is the
allegation? The allegation from this
administration is that he is a
naroterrorist. That he's essentially
running or aligned with a Venezuela-based
cartel called the cartel de solos cartel
of the sun.
Um and that even here comes here comes
the the nexus to an attack that the
cartel uses military installations in
Venezuela as part of its drug
operation. So therefore, we're going to
attack the military installations. I'm
going to tell you right now, an attack
on a foreign country's military bases or
installations is absolutely inescapably
an act of war.

And that gets us to the
to the big question. Who can declare
war? This is where this this gets
complicated. Who can declare war? Why
wouldn't Congress be told? Who can
authorize this? Is it war, or is it a
limited hostility? We can have
this discussion, because I'm telling you
if people think there's you know as has
has been the case since the first Trump
administration right where we keep a
legal pad things we need to fix right
and and put this down as the next thing
that needs to be fixed we need clarity
on who can declare war and when and why
because if you think it's clear, it's
clear as mud.

and uh to the point of that back In
2016, you had Trump uh in endorsing the
slogan America first, and he he's stuck
with that slogan even despite its
wretched history back in the early 20th
century and the time of World War II. Uh
he he chose that slogan by rewriting his
history of the Iraq war uh where he
initially supported it, but he said, "I
was an opponent of that. I'm not going
to drag us into foreign conflicts on
false pretenses. Should folks be worried
about him doing just that right now?

Boy, I I hope that the media gets a clip
of him saying what you just said and
starts playing it now. Um, as we
approach imminent warfare, we need to
the American people and the people who
voted for him need to hear him
denouncing this act of involving us in
foreign hostilities. So if if people if
people are saying what happens next how
is this supposed to work Frank? Well let
me a quick primer a quick primer.
There's something called the
declare war clause. The declare war
clause is article 1 section 8 clause 11
of the constitution. It grants
congress the power to declare war.
That's a clue that we we said congress
should be the one declaring war. Um, I
will say the interpretation is
complicated. It's been debated for
years, but the reality is that there's a
Supreme Court decision on this. There's
multiple Supreme Court decisions on this
that says Congress can not only declare
war, but they can declare something less
than war by authorizing a limited
operation that's less than a full scale
scale war.

So our founders um more
recently Supreme Court have clearly
acknowledged the power of Congress to
declare war, and not only war, but
something less than war through what's
called an authorization. All right. So
to an investigator like me,
that's a clue that we like Congress to
do this.

Here's the reality. Since World
War II, our Congress has never declared
war. Since World War II, I believe only
11 times in history have they declared
war. So all of the things that you you
kind of referenced, Afghanistan, Iraq,
um all of that and the Panama invasion
have been something less than fullcale
war, but have in some way shape or form
involved Congress, whether they
authorized it or got briefed on it. And
we can talk about that in a second cuz
people might be looking if if you're
getting enraged listening to this that
we're imminently going to war. Um and
you're going to ask what do we do? I've
got some suggestions there.

Um, the next
thing, let's fast forward 1973.
In order to check the powers of the
president with regard to declaring war,
and to enhance Congress's uh oversight,
we passed the War Powers Act, also known
as the the War Powers Resolution.
It limits the president's
ability to initiate military actions
abroad. It checks the president's
ability to commit our military without
Congress
and potus would have to notify Congress
within 48 hours of military action and
even then can only commit forces for 60
days. So, um that's where we are.

There's confusion and debate. The
president's going to claim that he's the
commander-in-chief and can could do
whatever he wants. We know from this
presidency that he's doing everything he
can to bypass Congress in every way,
shape, or form. Um, I do not expect him
to wait for an authorization because
he's not even providing the intel.

And in many ways in this and other
issues, Congress, the particularly the
GOP, Senate and House uh has forfeited
their power on tariffs, on any number of
other issues. How much do you think in
the post 911 era Trump is trying to
muddy the waters about his powers of the
presidency
uh in the post 911 era to prosecute
terrorism when an actual link between
groups like tren de aragua and the
Venezuelan government are hotly
disputed?

Yeah, there great question
because there's a common thread
throughout this administration which is
uh I can I am a king. I can do whatever
I want and I I have no accountability.
Whether you're talking about ICE
operations in the United States and
deporting people, grabbing American
citizens, sending people to countries
they never even came from and can't
speak the language; whether it's
destroying the Department of
Education and other agencies that have
been funded by Congress, whether it's
pulling foreign aid for USAID;
whether it's giving
millions to Argentina, all of this
without congressional authorization. And
we're seeing the same thing here with
regard to calling Maduro
a narco-terrorist and then justifying
that to blow vessels with civilians out
of the water and choosing that's a by
the way that's a deliberate choice to
not go the law enforcement route. right
now on the on the positive on the best
end of that spectrum,
it's lazy action. Um why do I say that?
It's hard to make federal cases and take
down a cartel. I did that. Um you know I
made federal cases for 25 years. Um and
you got to go to court. You got to you
got to have this tricky thing called
evidence, right? You also let's not kid
ourselves. if you've got sensitive
techniques and methods on the
intelligence side that are classified,
you have to consider giving those up if
you're going to prosecute, right? So,
um, that's a that's a problem. And I
think we have a deliberate decision
clearly from Trump that I'm going to I'm
going to take military action instead of
criminal justice action for for a host
of reasons, but it bolsters his kinglike
agenda. The same will go for if we
start attacking Venezuela targets. I
don't need Congress. This is my
prediction. I don't need Congress. Um
I'll tell them after the fact. They'll
watch about it on TV. And even more
disturb disturbingly, Adam, this looks a
whole lot like something called regime
change.

So if it's not just narco, you
know, oh, let's get deep before we get
to regime change, let's get deep into
what narotism is and isn't. The
definition of terrorism is the use or
threatened use of violence to uh
influence
a government or a civilian population
for ideological purposes. Now, if if
it's true that they're moving 500
tons of cocaine a year into the United
States, let's assume that they are. Is
that does that sound like terrorism to
you? Does that sound like a state
sponsored, ideologically-based
action or does it sound like I make I
need to make a ton of money
and I'm corrupt? It sounds to me like he
needs to make a ton of money and he's
corrupt.

Not that he's not that what we're
watching is terrorism.
Um, now now if you want to move this
scenario to Afghanistan and talk about
the poppy fields and heroin funding
terrorism and the government,
Now I like that
discussion. Yeah. Okay. If that's a
main source of funding for actual
terrorist groups that we designated, but
I'm not seeing it in Venezuela. Not
right.

And Trump has pursued from the
beginning of his second term alien
Enemies Act use that was very much
part and parcel of the everything that
we saw of whisking hundreds of people,
in the dead of night on a plane to El
Salvador to an El Salvador prison. Uh
that litigation is still ongoing and it
has to do with the administration's
linking of train dearagua with the
Venezuelan government and most federal
judges haven't been on that. To your
point, Frank, you had mentioned the
thing that viewers might be thinking,
what can I do? How can they try to urge
Congress to take the power that they're
supposed to have under our constitution
and laws?

I think you have appropriately
framed the approach which is I would
love to see everyone contact not only
their members of Congress, House and
Senate. And by the way, this is going to
be increasingly challenging because
their staffers aren't getting paid. The
government is shut down. We can't
literally can't communicate with our
elected officials.
But to the extent that they're
monitoring emails or anyone's answering
a phone, or you get a voicemail, good
luck, that's the approach you should be
taking. You are ceding your
constitutional oversight authority in
perhaps the most significant way
possible if we are going to war with a
foreign country. All right. Maybe I can
overlook all of the stuff you've done so
far, which is to look the other way
while we dismantle our government,
but a war that we know nothing
about, I want you to be briefed on it.
And that would be the approach. And
I would specifically call
you say, "Well, my senator's
Republican. He's going to bend over and
do whatever Trump wants." that I still
say the approach you suggested which is
you you you sir will no long you you are
obsolete we no longer need you why are
why are we paying you uh if you're not
doing your job number one number two um
I'd like people to to specifically
contact
um the the House and Senate leadership,
because this is the group if you've got
sensitive techniques, you're going to
you're going to go to war, or let's call
it a limited action
Because those are questions we should
be asking like, "Hey, are we prepared?"
I always told my agents in the FBI, the
agents I worked with, are we prepared
for success, right? We always plan for
what if? How about what if we succeed?
Are you ready for that? What does that
look like? What is the objective here?
Are you are we going to occupy
Venezuela? Who who is? Could it get
worse? Could we actually if somehow the
drug cartel takes out Maduro because
he's just too much of a problem, are
we going to have a drug cartel running
Venezuela now? So, you know, how bad can
this get? Does Cuba get involved? What
does Russia say about it? Nobody's
talking about this. So, who do you call?
Not only your own elected members, but
get get to that group that's got the
clearances and would get briefed if we
were living on a normal planet. Your
your leaders of the House and Senate
Intelligence Committee.
Um, your leaders of the House and Senate
Armed uh Services Committees for sure.
Um, and of course, you know, the
speaker, the House minority leader, the
typical gang of eight folks that you
hear about, those are the people who
should be getting at a minimum should be
getting briefed on what in God's name
we're about to do in Venezuela.

Thank you, Frank, for breaking it all
down. You've been watching Allrise News.
To find out more about our reporting,
visit http://www.allnews.com.