Speaker 1: Welcome to Political Beatdown. I'm Ben Macellas joined by Michael Cohen. Cohen,
let's get into it right away, because you've known Donald
Trump longer than really just about anyone, and in your
past life you were there with him behind closed doors
and you got glimpses into what was going on that
nobody else got to see on a day to day basis,
including by the way, most of the people, if not all,
of the people in this current regime. So there have
been lots of reports, including one recently by Wall Street
Journal about Donald Trump's deteriorating health. The Wall Street Journal
headline is a bit odd. It's like, as Donald Trump
ages he still has defiance. And I think the Wall
Street Journal strategy as they cover this and Donald Trump's
connections with Epstein is they give him a headline that's
pretty decent, but then when you actually go through the report,
it's actually pretty bad. It's pretty brutal stuff. We're to
actually go through it, but that that seems to be
their move right now, which you know is it is
what it is. But when you go through this report,
you know, and he talks about his hands being discolored.
He says that somebody whacked him. He says, he gets whacked,
and because he gets whacked, he has to wear bandages.
I'm not even sure what that even what that even means.
He says that he blinks. You know, he takes a
different version than what you've said, because you've said, look,
Donald Trump closes his eyes his whole life when he's
at these meetings. When he doesn't when it's not about him,
he dozes off and just doesn't care and closes his
eyes and pretends he's not there. Trump's what Trump said
is they catch me during a blink, and it's the blink.
And then Donald Trump said that even though he repeatedly
said MRI, MRI, MRI on.
Speaker 2: This show, did I not turn around and tell you
it didn't sound like an MRI that he went for.
Remember I said it on this show that it sounds
more to me like a cat scan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and he says abdominal CT scan, which it doesn't
make it better. I mean, the CT scan uses X rays,
MRIs use magnets. A CT scan takes about forty five seconds.
An MRI takes about forty five minutes. And you would
expect the president of the United States to know the
difference between an MRI versus a CT scan. Regardless, people
don't show up for an annual physical based on all
of the doctors I've talked to, and the doctor goes,
you know what you really need an abdominal X ray.
An abdominal cat scan is not part of a normal
you know, it's not part of a normal treatment. But
even if you were testing it because you were worried
about the arteries and clogged arteries which a CT scan
could potentially detect. Back in twenty eighteen, when the when
the doctor was the candy Man Jackson.
Speaker 2: Indy Jackson or Johnson.
Speaker 1: When it was when it was, when it.
Speaker 2: Was the candy the wrong name.
Speaker 1: Even even the even candy Man said that Remmer back
in twenty eighteen said that Trump actually had some clogging
and it was a problem back then. And so the
fact that now Trump's claiming that his new doctor says
that it was just abdominal and everything was great, that
raises a lot of red flags right there. And you know,
the doctors tell him you got to stop taking this
aspirin every day because he goes, I need thin blood.
I don't want thick blood. And and you know, he
says he takes three hundred and fifty milligrams of aspirin
UH every day. But Cohen, I mean, you've you're an
objective observer of his health and and you know the
fact from the fiction. But but even you believe that
there's something going on here that he is that he's
hiding based on me.
Speaker 2: Look, let's be crystal clear about something. I'm on blood thinner,
and you can see from my hands I have limited bruising,
maybe bruising on my knuckles, you know, from training or
so on. Yeah, you do get black and blue marks,
but it's not the ongoing, repetitive in an area that
you really don't bang. I mean, when was the last
time that you actually banged your hand literally in the
same spot, which is between the thumb and the pointer finger.
It's just not really an area. So there is definitively something.
He also is very private, so chances are he doesn't
want anybody to know. Could it be a hernia, Could
it be you know, could it be they were checking
the you know, the heart and so on, you know,
could it be the liver. That's really what the CT
scan is for. I actually just had and when I
said weeks ago that what it sounds like to me
because of the timing is that doesn't sound like an MRI.
It sounds like a CT scan. Not that I'm a doctor,
I'm certainly not. No stradamis. I'm not a predictor. I'm
just somebody who's actually had many MRIs, and I've also
had many CT scans, so I knew the difference. And
I've never been in an MRI my entire life. As
you just said, that doesn't last at least a half
an hour, all right, as opposed to the CT scan,
which is really super fast. As it relates to his
claim about aspirin and three hundred and twenty five milligram
of aspirin every single day, I want to be emphatic
about something, and I never say anything. And I know
a lot of people like to turn around and have comments.
I don't say stuff simply to say something. I'm telling
you I watched him take a three three hundred and
twenty five milligram bare asssprint every single day that we
were together for over ten years. I know exactly where
the bottle is. I know exactly it's his top left
draw in the office, and I can tell you emphatically
that it's in the same top left draw over there
in the oval office, all right, every single morning. And
it's not even the good ones too, you know, the
ones that are codd like an advil or something like that,
which I know it's not aspirin, I get it, but
they do have codd ones. I was trying to make
a point. These were like the raw, chalky ones. And
he would take his three twenty five bare asprint every morning,
either with his diet coke or he just put it
in his mouth and swallow it. And I remember sitting
in the office and I said to him, Hey, boss,
you know by doing that you can actually cause yourself
like esophagitis. Right, it's really not good today. You should
really drink something with it. You want going to call
if somebody asks you to get you a soda or
water or something like that. He turned around, He's like,
come on, what do you know, I've been doing it
like that forever. I said, I don't know. You know,
my dad is an odor layeringologist. He's an een T
had a neck reconstructive surgeon. I'm telling you. He would
turn around and tell you you got to actually have
some liquid in what if your mouth is dry, you
could get caught in your throat and cause, you know,
a real inflammation. So he was like, all right, whatever.
But meanwhile I watched him take that advil I'm sorry,
that bear aspirin every single day for over a decade.
So when he says that he takes it. Here's what
I remember him even turn and say, ask me if
I take it, and I said, actually I don't. At
the time, I was on lovenox so and also Kumadin,
so I said, no, I don't take it because I'm
on kumiden. But let me be clear, right, I too
have heard for many, many, many many years that people
turn around and they say, taking one aspirin a day
is actually good for your heart. Now, it's not supposed
to be more than eighty two milligrams, which is the
you know, the bare heart one, that's the small little
bottles that have the heart on it. This one is
the big, gigantic one hundred you know, tablet three hundred
and twenty five miligram aspirin. Here's the question that everybody, actually,
we have a right to know. In fact, Republicans made
it their business to constantly, constantly be raped Joe Biden
for the exact same thing, which is his health. And
I believe that as president of the United States, if
there is an issue, I think that the American people
have an absolute right to know it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll pull up the post in a moment
that he made this morning, but yet again he talks
about having just here, they'll send it to you. Jeremy,
He goes the White House doctors have just reported that
I am in perfect health, and he puts that in quotes,
and that I aced meaning was correct on one hundred
percent of the questions asked for the third straight time,
my cognitive examination, something which no other president or previous
vice president was willing to take. Ps. I strongly believe
that anyone running for president or vice president should be
mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven cognitive examination.
Our great country cannot be run by stupid or incompetent people. Well, look,
taking away the words stupid or incompetent, you know, which
we shouldn't because I don't want to refer to people
who suffer from disabilities in any way using this term.
But a big red flag to me would be if
you're seventy nine years old, and you don't know the
difference at the age of seventy nine between an MRI
and a CT scan. They're different tests.
Speaker 2: Though I think you're assuming. I think you're also assuming
that he wasn't lying on purpose.
Speaker 1: Well, and many of them may be. Well, I guess
my point is, I think we know that he's lying, right,
But if you even accept the lie as true, doesn't
it even make it worse? I guess is the point like, in.
Speaker 2: One respect, yes, you're a thousand percent correct. Well, actually
you can't be more than one hundred percent correct, So yes, Ben,
you're one hundred percent correct. It is. It is bad,
But you know, if we're talking about specifically the health
you know aspect of it, it's a very different, you
know scenario. By not telling you even what test that
he was going for, chances are you would not be
able to any way shape or form figure out what
was the purpose of the test, right, Because an MRI
is a much more in depth It really gets into
the muscle tissue, the layers, and so it shows much
much more than a CT scan. So what he was
doing is trying to throw you off in terms of
the reason he was there.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the clip of him when he said MRI, MRI, MRI.
In this clip, he says the word MRI. I think
at least five times in forty five seconds.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Who watch this when he's asked about the MRI that
he got when he was on Air Force one. Here
play this club.
Speaker 3: Because it's part of my physical. Getting an MRI is
very standard. Why you think I shouldn't have it?
Speaker 2: Other people got it. I had an MRI, is what Historius?
Speaker 1: I had an MRI.
Speaker 4: The doctor said it was the best result he has
ever seen as a doctor. That said, but I had
an MRI as part of my standard yearly or everyone
I think they do it every two years, but I
have the physical every year and the result was outstanding.
Speaker 1: Did you know, art?
Speaker 3: I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyze,
they analyzed it well. And they said that I had
as good a result as.
Speaker 1: I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if that doesn't right, I don't know
what they analyzed, but they analyzed something. Whatever they analyzed
was perfect. I'm the greatest. It's it's all good, right,
I mean, it's it's it's silly right in and of itself.
I believe that a president should have to disclose if
there's an issue he chooses not to. And yes, by
the way, a couple of people writing that in their comments,
he is a terrible liar. He's really not good at it.
You know, you would think that somebody that you know,
let's just say over indulges, right it, should be an
expert at it. He's really not. I mean, just turned
around and say, you know, I'm not discussing whatever what
was done, whatever it was done, you know, but instead,
as you said, Ben, you know, he must have said
the word MRI a dozen times.
Speaker 1: In like seconds.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't make sense. But you know, I want
people to also understand, how does this really change anything
that's going on? They continued, Venezuelan strikes against boats. How
does this change anything with the Epstein file, with the economy,
with you know, affordability, How does it affect what's going
on in you know, say, with Meduro, what's going on
with Iran? It doesn't affect anything. And you know when
people say, well, he shouldn't be taking a span without
a doctor's you know, say so the three hundred and
twenty five milligram tablet, that's one tablet that he's that
he's taking. You buy that over the counter? All right?
Should he probably be doing it? Probably not right, you know,
probably not. But he's been doing it his whole entire life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I have literally watched this guy at eight o'clock in
the morning when we would sit together Monday through Friday,
not including of course, when we were traveling, and I
would watch him take that bay asked for in that
three twenty five milligram every single day. You know, Is
it causing the discoloration and the bruising and so on
on the hand? No? All right, is Caroline machine gun
lips lying Levitt, you know, telling the truth when she
says it's because he shakes so many people's hands his
hands bruised. No again, right, it's is it an infusion?
So it's funny. I was talking to my brother in law.
My brother in law happens to be probably one of
the top five micro hand surgeons in the country before
he just retired. Let me say this. I asked him
that question, and he turned around and he said to me,
I don't think so. I don't think so. First of all,
they would not put it back in the same spot
when you have that kind of bruising because it's unnecessary pain.
Number two, the reason is Trump is extremely, extremely cognizant
the way that the press picks up on him with
his say, left hand, He's constantly covering his right hand
now and so on. So if this was some sort
of an ivy, you know, he probably would do it
in the you know, in the arm or someplace where
you wouldn't be able to see it. So again, when
I asked my brother, I actually have absolutely no idea.
It could be one of maybe ten, you know, different things.
But we really shouldn't even be like with the Epstein file,
we shouldn't be guessing. Everything should be transparent.
Speaker 1: But that's the point though, when you said, what does
this have to do with Venezuela affordability covering up Epstein?
Iran Ukraine people can't afford homes, ninety nine percent of
the country is being really harmed by this economy, What
is it have to do with And I think it
does in the sense that everything this regime does is
a cover up, is a scam, is a lie. And
so it's just another data point in the most basic
of things, where if you can't level with me about
the most basic thing, you can't level with me about anything.
If you think that I am so stupid that I'm
gonna listen to you say you've got whacked on your
hand and that that explains what you did, or that
you don't know the difference between an MRI and the
ct scam. You think that we're all just so stupid.
And that's a broader trend in this regime because Trump
is used to his maga zombifide mush brain followers you
know who behave the way maga Mike Johnson does, who
know better? And they're like, oh, okay, what it is?
Speaker 2: And this is all ego driven, by the way, Ben,
it's all ego driven. You're seventy nine, soon to be
eighty years of age. I'm fifty nine, all right, I
come clean. I turn around and I say to people,
I'm on, I'm on eloquist. Why I have clotting issues?
All right? I blew a whole series of DVTs that
almost ended my life with pulmonary embolists. I come clean.
I'm fifty nine years old, right, He who happens to
be twenty years older than I, you know, So let's
say hypothetically he had a abdominal hernia. Big shit, right,
I mean, show me somebody who's eighty years old that
doesn't have something going on. Little arthritis here and there. Right,
you know, you could have abdominal hernie, You could have
a million and one different things. We all know that
at one point he had most surgery. Okay, big fucking deal.
This shit happens. Everybody has something. We all live with
herniated or bulging or fractured discs in our in our back.
That's simple because we stand up, right, I mean, everybody
has something, So why why fight it? Then?
Speaker 1: That is the same point issue.
Speaker 2: That's the issue, well it.
Speaker 1: You know, But it's the same thing with that because
there's because you can only come to the conclusion that
whatever it is, it must be very bad. Right, at
some point you have to reach the adverse inference, because otherwise,
why fight it unless it's something really bad?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: On Epstein, Donald Trump posted before back in twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty five, he said, I've never been on the
Epstein jet before, when we know he's been on the
jet over and over again. When he's presented with the
birthday card that he sent Epstein in two thousand and
three for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, which is his handwriting, his signature.
You've showed the letters that you have with that again,
you know, there's so many data points. He goes, that's
not my letter, that's not my signature. So Epstein and
Gilaane compile I held a book. Everybody else who's in
there confirmed that it's theirs. But someone time traveled back
and put it in the book that's by the Epstein
estate to frame you thinking you were going to become
a Republican president because he was a Democrat back then
before that, you know, and and so that was the
you know, that was the plan. And so when you
start to go down that path, and when he goes, oh,
well we've released all of the files or Epstein's a hoax,
or it's all a democratic witch hunt or whatever it is,
you know, you start to say you must be hiding
the worst of the worst. Then you take a look
at the Wall Street Journal report that just came out,
and again they gave him a headline that if he
were to read it, Donald would go, oh, you see,
I kicked the guy out in two thousand and three
from the spot because the Wall Street Journal headlines like
the last incident that led to Trump kicking the guy
out of the spot. But then when you read the article,
you go Epstein every and went to the SPA. The
SPA went to Epstein. The issue was throughout the nineties.
According to all of the people who were interviewed as
for part of this article, Trump was sending these SPA staff,
the employees, the messusus, the manicurists, whoever there was, sending
them to Epstein's two miles away in West Palm Beach,
and they would go to Epstein's house and Epstein, the
way they describe it in the journal article was that
Epstein would engage in sexually suggestive conduct is how they
described me.
Speaker 2: What does that even sexually assault?
Speaker 1: To them? You think that's hands and he was actually assaulted.
That's what you would do.
Speaker 2: Of course. By the way, you know, one of our brigaders,
Mark actually summed it up exactly the way I was
thinking it. The reason that Trump does what he does
because whatever the condition is that he's hiding, it's a
crack in his armor. It's a sign of weakness, and
he can't stand it.
Speaker 1: All right, what he but in doing that right, looks
weaker though like and it's the authoritarian mindset though, because
the level of weakness that he shows right now is
one of the is one of the big issues. Like internationally,
when Trump goes, I did a trillion dollar deal with
this country, and and I did a two trillion dollar
deal with katar It's like their entire annual GDP is
one hundred and forty five million dollars. You couldn't do
a trillion dollar deal with them, I believe you.
Speaker 2: Are they going to give you eight and a half
years worth of their GDP?
Speaker 1: Like what do you think that they think in that country,
whether it's Katar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, European Union, the UK
when they see Donald Trump hold up fake paper that's
you know, I mean paper, but like that doesn't even
have words on it and goal or here's the deal, everybody,
here's the deal. Or when Trump's like I stopped this war.
I stopped that war. Look, Thailand and Cambo deal, I
stopped it. What do you think that Thailand and Cambodia
really think of him? I'll tell you what they think
of him. How can we manipulate this idiot to help us?
So Cambodia is like, all right, the guy wants to
claim that, you know, he's he's gotting peace, Let's use
him against Thailand. And Thailand's like, we've been long allied
with the US and now you're gonna you just want
a Nobel Peace Prize. Think about the irreparable harm Donald
Trump did to the United States relationship with India by
siding with Pakistan because Pakistan said they were gonna give
him he should get a Nobel Peace Prize for him
claiming he solved the war which he didn't solve, and
Prime Minister Modi saying, I can't give you that, w Donald,
because you didn't do it. And it's a major issue
of our sovereignty in India that we were the ones
and I bilateral way that dealt with Pakistan after terrorist
attacks in Kashmir and we can't give you that. We
just can't say you did something.
Speaker 2: I think you have as much right to that Nobel
Peace Prize as he does, if not more so. So
I'm I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1: But the point, you know, the the data point on health,
the data point on health though needs to be connected
to all of these things, and ultimately it needs to
be connected to what is this regime doing and the
purpose of government right should be to help people, and
we get so far astray because of the way corporate
media covers things as this dystopian reality TV show of
a former reality TV star, right like it becomes.
Speaker 2: That, but that gets enhanced ben By, and this is
going to be a plug once again for Midas Touch Network.
How important it is as we now start twenty twenty
six to help to grow independent media like Midas Touched,
where truth matters. So I'm watching on television today, cable news,
and they bring up doctors, and first of all, there's
nothing that. But I come from a family of doctors
and lawyers. I have my father, my mother medical, My
dad's a surgeon, my mom surgical nurse, my brother in law,
my cousins I mean doctors, my uncle doctor. The rest
of us are all lawyers. And I want to be
clear about something. Never would any of them the doctors
go on television and give a prognosis on somebody that
they did not examine. All right, they just wouldn't do
something like that. It'd be like Ben if I asked
you what's the answer to the mathematical equation and you say, okay,
what's the what showed me the equation? No, no, no,
just give it. Just give me an answer. You say,
I don't know eighteen. No, the answer is six. All right.
You're like, well, how the fuck am I supposed to know? Well,
that's the problem. How do you know if you didn't
have a chance to examine him? They come on television
because they obviously, you know, are following a a script,
whether it's pro Trump or anti Trump, and they start
talking like this doctor starts talking about how there's no
way in the world that Donald Trump was taking an
aspen three twenty five every single day. Nobody does that.
Nobody would do that. I watched him do it for
a decade plus, So don't tell me. I'm sitting there
and I'm like, why are they promoting this false narrative?
Why not promote the narrative that Ben and I are promoting,
which is required transparency. You know, if there is a
real issue, okay, let us know. Let us know. By
the way, president of the United States has the greatest
medical care of anybody in the world. So if there's
an issue, I'm certain somebody in that organization over there
figure out exactly what needs to be done. There's definitively
nothing terminal that's going on here, all right, It wouldn't
be terminal by looking at that mark on his hand
and so on. So let's just stop, all right. Facts matter,
and you know what, because we deal and we are
living right now currently. In fact, it's why Midas Touched
network is taking off. It's the number one independent news source,
bigger in fact than CNNMSNBC and Fox as well. And
there's a reason for it because people don't want to
be lied to anymore. That you can go watch you
can read in half of these newspaper articles. You want
to get lied to, go watch those, go read those,
but not here. You know, sure it's easy. Oh you know,
I don't know. I'm telling you for a fact, he
took those Bear aspirins every single day. If I literally
walked into his Trump office on the twenty sixth floor
right now, I guarantee I'll show you there's a bottle
of that Bear three twenty five aspirink. In fact, if
I was able to get him on television right now
or on a video call, I would turn and say,
open up the top left draw. He always keeps it
to his left. I don't know why. He's a creature
of habit, plain and simple. Was he taking it? Yes,
question becomes why is he taking it? Because somebody years ago,
many years ago, it's an older generational thing that aspirint
is good for your heart. Ultimately it was proven to
be not accurate. But he's a creature of habit and
he'll never stop it. What's causing those bruising, that's the question,
plain and simple.
Speaker 1: And why was he getting an MRI and a CT scan,
What were the actual results of it. Why aren't you
producing it? Why aren't you producing the video of the
double tap and the double strike. After the initial crimes
against humanity? I like that you don't call them war
crimes because we're not at a war with Venezuela. But
you know, the whole operation is a crime against humanity.
It's obviously a war crime. But that accepts that there's
a war when there's basically Trump just killing people and
our government in the name of the United States killing
people off the coast of Venezuela. Now we also learn
New York Times at a good report on this that
at least one of the boats that washed up on
the shore of Columbia it had marijuana in it and
not cocaine, and not fent andyl carried with it marijuana.
And there have been over one hundred people that the
United States government has murdered, and they're going to continue
murdering more and more and more. And it's going to
be one of those stories in a few years where
we actually learn what's happening and what happened. And I
think we already know where people will be held I think,
responsible for murder, and these people will go on trial
for murder. You know, Trump will pardon everybody in his regime.
Everybody will get a blanket parted. But that's not going
to stop state crimes. And that's not going to stop
international international tribe, you know, international tribunal. So you know,
when we talk though about what's impacting the American people
and and everything is a cover up. Everything is a lie.
We remember back in May when Donald Trump said prescription
drug prices, the costs of prescription drug prices would be
on a Most Favored Nation status m f N. And
for those who have drafted contracts before, sometimes if you're
representing a client and you want your client to make
sure that they get treated the best, right, Let's say
I represent a superstar client. I will put in a
mf N clause, a most Favored Nations clause in my
agreement for my client to basically say, to whoever I'm
doing the deal with, you have to guarantee me that
no one does better than my client on any of
these terms. It's a great catch all. So I'm sure
Trump knows that term most Favored Nations from the real
estate deals that he does. And so he wants an
MFN for pharmaceutical companies, which, in theory would be great.
Could you imagine?
Speaker 2: Would not who he would not applaud that?
Speaker 1: And Trump said that by executive order mid May that
pharmaceutical companies would sell their drugs to the United States
on an MFN basis, a most Favored Nation basis. So
that means drug companies selling drug X to Canada for
fifty cents, it's now fifty cents in the United States.
Drug company Y is selling its cancer drug in I
don't know, in Europe for two bucks. United States gets
the most favor Nations two bucks. Wouldn't that be great?
Trump said he did it. Trump says that that exists
right now, and that's one of the reasons. He says
that drug prices are down five hundred and six hundred,
one thousand percent, when things can't even go down that
percentage unless the drug companies are paying you the money.
But here's the actual percent. He said, one thousand percent,
three thousand percent. But the actual fact is the following
that drug prices are actually significantly up year over year.
Drug makers raise US prices on three hundred and fifty medicines,
and it says despite pressure from Trump. So in twenty
twenty five that number was two hundred and fifty medicines
had price increases. Now it's three hundred and fifty, and
the median list price increase is four percent. So year
over year, drug prices increasing. And doesn't that four percent
number sound familiar? That's the way inflation is right now generally,
so it's increasing. That number doesn't come out of nowhere, right.
The drug companies said, all right, what's the inflation? How
much can we push it? What's the inflation number. Let's
do four percent, let's add three hundred.
Speaker 2: Did you see my substat ben today which I called
instead of MFN most Favored Nation, I called MFN most
fool nation Because think about what's been going on right
Trump waves MFN like it's some victory flag reporters. All
of his acolytes, enablers, they sit there and they applaud Americans.
We hoped, we hoped, every single one of us wants
to pay less for our medication. Right. But pharma, as
Ben just said, and as he just showed you, they
raised prices anyway, proving proving that Trump's bold words, his
chest thumping, and these headlines, they never buy actual leverage
or relief. It's all a bunch of bullshit.
Speaker 1: So what they do is right. So Trump always talks
about his fat friend that he has, you know, is
the story that he tells, I've got a fat friend
who's on the fat drug. That's what he says, you know,
to refer to ozempic and all those drugs. He calls
it the fat drug. And he goes, I have a
fat friend on the fat drug. So to help that
friend or whatever, who's already a billionaire. Based on Trump's story,
Trump gets the pharmaceutical companies to show up and agree
that they are going to lower the price of ozempic
and all those other drugs. Basically, right now, those companies
are already lowering the prices striking deals in Europe and
China that are already far lower. So they were already
moving to lower the prices, especially as these compound generics
have brought down the prices as well. So it was
part of their business plan to bring it down anyway.
So they give Trump the win. Trump gets to call
it trump RX where he's announcing these drug price website
that he names after himself. And so they give him
that announcement, and then what do they do. They raise
the prices on three hundred and fifty other drugs, including
life saving camp drugs and all this other stuff that
people need.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what RSV, shingle vaccines, cancer drugs fall increase,
like Pfizer's eyebrands and so on, these everyday medications that
people need to survive. Now it's four percent more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also you know Trump talks about ah, I
did this great deal with Jizingping. Under the deal, China
will buy in twenty twenty five eleven point five million
metric tons of soy beans. They've never bought so much
soy beans. Yes, they did. Actually under Biden they bought
twenty seven million metric tons, which is sixteen million metric tons.
More so by your own admission, your deal is sixteen
million metric tons less. But guess what Cohen. Twenty twenty
five is over. You want to know how many soybean
med million metric tons China bought in twenty twenty five,
less than a million, less than a min million in total.
The year is over. But I'll tell you what China
did at the end of twenty twenty five. In addition
to launch its most aggressive military tests around Taiwan in
coordination with Kim Jong un, they raised the tariffs on
American beef exporters into China to help out Australian beef makers,
Argentinian beefmake cattle ranchers, Brazilian cattle ranchers, and they increased
their tariffs on American beef. And they've kept their export
controls on their rare earth elements that they according to
Trump's deal where no one saw the paperwork for this deal.
Donald Trump say they're going to release all the rare earths.
But what they did get from Donald Trump is an
agreement that Nvidia would sell them all of our top
chips to China. And then what China did was they
took exactly what you predicted one or two of them.
Why would we want all of your chips? You just
want to analyze just what one look like.
Speaker 2: Give us do in case, give us two, in case
one of our idiots.
Speaker 1: Fun take two of them. We'll give them to Huaweih.
We'll have our own company copy them. And now we've
got them. Oh and you said, oh, well, you're not
going to give your number one state of the art
chips to China. Well guess where they gave their state
of the art chip to Saudi Arabia. You think Saudi
Arabia didn't turn around, you don't get that chip to China.
Speaker 2: It's so true. And I just want to touch on
something before we get off of the whole pharmaceutical issue
and so on. You know, there were a few price
cuts in pharma, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it
was around nine drugs in total, one of which was
that Jardiance, which is the diabetes medication, saw a major reduction.
But here's the reason why, something that few people are
actually talking about, but we do right here, right here
on Political beat Down with my co host bend myself.
We will talk about why it's because the government negotiated
it directly for Medicare, not because Trump pressured anybody, but
because the law forced it. And that's what my friend's
leverage actually looks like. It doesn't involve press conferences or
chest thumping or bringing people into the office in order
to give you more gold or you know, or some
other trinket to hang around your neck. No, it's them
saying your numbers cannot rise faster than inflation. Because remember
about a decade ago, these pharmaceutical companies exploded in terms
of price. Well, that is now not legal. So what
Trump is offering, all right, is not what they're trying
to put out there. It's completely and totally different when
you have the government, which is like, for example, why
Canada pays so much less for the same medication literally
across the border than we do here. Actually, I believe
that America pays three times more than any other wealthy nation.
Speaker 1: Does everybody understand the I'm sure lots of people do,
But does everybody understand that concept though, because I think
sometimes we talk so fast and when people talk about
single payer and all of these things, like what that
actually means, right, So, like with medicare, if you had
medicare for all the way Biden was actually able to
bring down drug prices is he allowed the government to
negotiate directly on a series of drugs with the insurance
companies and basically said, look, as a single payer, as
one payer the government, right, if you don't agree to
our prices on this, that and the other, we're just
not going to buy the drugs and we represent However,
many millions of people are on medicare, right, I mean
thirty to forty. I don't know what the number is.
I'll go look up the number. So the market effect
of a single payer negotiator is saying we're going to
bring the prices down basically if you want to survive. Now,
the insurance companies can then fight back and say, okay,
we're calling your bluff. Good luck, We're not going to
We're not going to sell our cancer drug or our
HIV drug or whatever drug at the price okay. So
you stare each other down, and at some point, for
that pharmaceutical company that has shareholders, if the bluff gets called,
they're not meeting their quarter and their stock is going
to and their stock is going to plummet. For these
specific drugs and for these pharmaceutical companies. So if you
negotiate with the drug makers, not the insurance, the drug makers,
you can lower you know, you lower their prices. What
Trump is suggesting, he doesn't have a plan, but what
he suggests that let's give the American people two thousand
bucks and then let the American people individually, Joe from Nebraska,
Jane from Kentucky, Right, Jennifer from Idaho, negotiate with you.
Name it Astrosenica or whoever, and tell me how you
think that negotiations. Hello, who's calling. This is Joe from Idaho,
and I think I'm paying too much money for X,
Y and Z. Can you lower it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, if you even get you get through to them.
So fundamentally in this single pay or you've got the
government negotiating the lower prices.
Speaker 2: Sixty seven point three million people in as of April
of twenty twenty four, we're enrolled in Medicare. I suspect
it's probably closer now to say, been d million. That's
a lot of people. That's a pretty big market.
Speaker 1: Look in, America is really one of the only countries
in the world that has this bizarre system where there's
all of these insurance companies out there, and you often
get it through your work, and that insurance is something
that like the money, the money's taken out of your
check or the employer pays for it as part of
your job. And there are private markets and they could
in the past deny on pre existing conditions before Obamacare,
where healthcare is not a human rights. That's a concept
that's unique in the United States and it's deeply problematic.
So you know, it's interesting that the right wing will
say ah Medicare for all is radical. You know, all
the right wing parties right whether it's even for most
of the time, the Conservative Party in Canada because Pierre
Poliev there right now is a little bit maple maga,
and I think if you were to put in right
now a Polliev in Canada, he would destroy a lot
of the social contracts with the people in Canada. But
in any event, you know, the right wing party in
the UK right, the right wing parties in Australia, the
right wing which is the Liberal Party, not the Labor Party,
the right wing party in you know, AOC would kind
of be in some of these countries viewed as kind
of moderate to right wing based on some of the
things that she said, which is an interesting concept, but
here in the US that's viewed as so radical. So
I want to show everybody this because Zoron mom Donnie's
inauguration speech. I'm not sure if you saw it, Coen,
we had it here. I watched, you know. And when
you just watch his speech, in contrast to what Trump
is saying, when Zoron goes up now or going to
have to deliver, he knows he's gonna have to deliver,
right He has a bold agenda, bold promises, and a
lots writing on it. Because I think there are a
lot of people who want him to succeed, and a
lot of people on the right root and for his
failure right now to say, see, we told you that
can't be done. But when he's speaking, what he's saying
to me sounds the least radical out there. Like let
me show you what he said in his speech, that
I will be the mayor for all people, whether you
voted for me or not. Let's play this click.
Speaker 5: I stand alongside over one million New Yorkers who voted
for this day nearly two months ago, and I stand
just as resolutely alongside those who did not. I know
there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain,
or who see politics as permanently broken and while only
action can change minds. I promise you this, If you
are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. Regardless of
whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you,
mourn alongside you, and never not for a second hide
from you.
Speaker 1: Let me show you.
Speaker 2: You gotta honestly give the guy a lot of props. Right,
Kem's out of nowhere, the youngest in over one hundred years.
It's about twenty two decrees outside, and he has a
full park there. You know, to hear him speak, to
watch him get inaugurated, you got to give him credit
for that. Now, I do believe, as you just said,
he has a l hell of a ladder so to
speak to climb because some of the things he ran
on are just simply impossible to deliver on. But the
doesn't mean that you don't want to see him succeed
as a New Yorker, right as a New York City
height I want to see. I want to see my
mayor succeed, whether he's Democrat, Republican or independent. I mean,
why would you want to see the same way I
want to see our president succeed. Unfortunately, we're in a
situation where, you know, what he's what our president is
doing just is not making us successful. And so we
need to talk about it. And by the way, as
Mandani tries to get things done, rest assured, I'll be
talking about that too. I will be praising his successes
and I will be criticizing the errors, just as I
do everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'll show you what Bernie Sanders had to say during
his speech about demanding that the wealthy and large corporations
pay their fair shore share should not be viewed as
radical at all.
Speaker 6: Your play this clip, sleep and maybe most importantly, demanding
that the wealthy and large corporations.
Speaker 7: Start paying their fair share of toxins. As I was saying,
demanding that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their
fair share of toxines, it's not radical.
Speaker 6: It is exactly the right.
Speaker 5: Thing to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, But here's the problem that needs to be on
a federal basis. Let me be crystal clear, just as
soon as the tax breaks in Trump one came about
what happened here in New York, there were at one
point in time, and I'm going to make up the
number three hundred billionaires that lived in Manhattan proper. And
as soon as those opportunities came, each and every one
of them, from our president all the way down to
the next billionaire, they all changed their primary address and
they became citizens, whether it's of Puerto Rico where there's
no tax, or Florida where there's no city or state tax,
and they all left. So that's great, that's great. Assuming
this is on a federal level. On a Manhattan level, well,
you already chased all the billionaires out. By the way,
they're not wrong, all right. They were paying less in
terms of taxes than there, you know, than their employees,
then their secretaries, and you're talking about guys who were
making you know, a billion dollars a year plus plus plus.
It's one hundred percent correct. It's just you need to
do it on a federal level, not on a city
or a state level.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you need to do it on all
of the above, and city, state, federal should be working
hand in hand. And I think we'd like to see
local governments be laboratories for success versus laboratories for autocracy.
And David Pepper coined that term former head of the
Democratic Party in Ohio, who's a good friend of mine.
Laboratories of autocracy. We used to view states as laboratories
for experimentation to improve democracy. But what you've seen in tennessee,
what you see in Florida, what you see in Texas
are ways to experiment. How do we mimic the type
of legislative surrender to an authoritarian governor or a right
wing fascist agenda that we see with the Russian Duma,
what we see in or on, what we see in
you know, in China, North Korea and Hungary, you know,
and in places and in places like that, and you know,
these aggressive state level gerrymandering efforts. But you know, look,
I think that running on hope and empathy and collectivism
over rigid individualism, on making the rich pay their fair share,
believe that's radical at all. I think that that's a legiment.
Speaker 2: I just jump into that for one very quick second
with a hypothetical. Stay with me on this one. So
imagine God willing you make something your your salary, with
your bonuses and everything. Let's say two hundred million dollars,
all right, And I think everybody would turn around and say, yeah,
that could be a pretty good year, right, And let's
say your taxable consequence is on that federal let's just
say it's seventy million dollars. You can now under the
tax code pay zero on that two hundred million dollars
on the seventy million dollars that you should have paid
if you buy an airplane. So you now improve your life.
I mean, I don't understand this. To me, it's as
stupid as allowing our members of Congress to insider trade.
Instead of paying Uncle Sam seventy million and say buy
you now, all you have to do is buy G G,
a G five, a G six right aircraft for seventy
million dollars, and you could depreciate that aircraft in one year,
two years, ten years, fifteen years, I think is the
max something like that. So now instead of giving Uncle
Sam that seventy million, which would be used, of course
in order to support programs and the country and so on,
you've now just now enhanced their life because now they
don't have to go to airports and sit and wait
like the rest of us. They just jump onto their aircraft.
And you know the part that really infuriates me the
most is they then put it into this pool where
people also who make a lot of money but don't
want to own the aircraft are now chartering it, so
they actually make money off of the plane that you
and I ended up paying for because they didn't have
to pay the taxes. Again, I just get so I
get so infuriated. You know, at one point in time,
you were also allowed to do that with golf club
memberships like amar A Lago or any of his other
golf courses. In fact, you were allowed to do the
same thing with with yachts. I think they did away
with the yachts and the golf course exclusion, but that
may be coming back to but the aircraft and other
sorts of things. None of this makes any sense to
me if, in fact, you know, as Bernie says, that
you need to tax the rich, that the rich should
be paying their fair share, which I'm certain one hundred
percent every person in this in this subs in this
political beatdown live has to agree with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think that's where people agree with,
you know, and so all of these culture wars, you know,
when the Trump's latest target, and you know, we could
do a whole show on this. So I'll just very
briefly mention it here, although it deserves a lot more attention.
Go after the Somalis. All the Somalians are bad. Ignore
the fact that it was actually a white lady who
was the one who was the ringleader of all of
this and Somalia. You know, they do this very skewed
and kind of fabricated video that Elon musk amplifies. And
again that's not to say that there's no fraud. There
is fraud. It was being prosecuted by former President Biden,
multiple convictions. Fraud exists in every state. Fraud should be
prosecuted fully. One of the problems is that Trump regime
is actually pardoning the fraudsters versus the opposite. And they're
helping the fraudsters. But you know, they want us divide it.
You know, they want to pit religions against each other.
They want to pit against each other based on religion
and and and attacking marginalized communities and attack you know,
and all these culture war issues and this and that,
and and the whole goal of it is to do
the blocking and tackling for the billionaires and the deca millionaires.
One of the reasons they like Trump is that he's
a weapon of mass distraction while they sneak in the
back and pick your pockets and further enrich themselves. I mean,
they've increased their wealth by trillions while you are while
the rest of the people are suffering and fighting over
you know, the the culture war issues that are thrown
out there. And when you think about it like that,
you know, state regime media, Newsmax, Fox, Newsmax, all these things,
you know, sowing cultural discord, having everybody fight while while
those hosts are super rich, and while they're at the
Marra a Lago party, and they're at the Golden ballrooms,
and and and and the caviare and and and and
and all of that. So just you know, they hate
the term woke because when you are woke, when you
see what's actually happening, you realize this is an effort
of the billionaires to enrich themselves by screwing over everybody
else who they try to distract with culture war issues. Cohen,
before we go, two finger.
Speaker 2: Salute, Yeah, two fingers salute. Uh. It's sort of like
a tough one today because as always, you know, it's
so easy just to give it to the president himself.
I got to tell you the two fingers salute goes
to all of these pieces of shit who decided that
it was okay to go tomorrow Lago, to party up
like you know that for the New Year, you know,
drowning themselves in caviar and champagne, with the ice sculptures,
with the marrow Lago face. You know, that's where you
pay a doctor to take away any expression that you
could ever have. And you sit there and you say
to yourself, you know, I'm not anti rich, I'm not
anti capitalism. What I'm anti is taking advantage of the
system so that you actually pay nothing right. And the
purpose of you paying nothing is so that you can
go ahead and buy yourself another house or another. You
see the numbers that are coming out of all this
two million, two and a half million for a painting
by somebody. There, the the vulgarness of the group, while
so many Americans can't afford to put food on the table,
to send their kids to school with a full with
a full belly. You know, it's it's absurd. And to
all of those that thought that it was okay, to
all of them that you sat there partying like this,
No tomorrow, you know, we're great. Fuck the rest, no,
fuck you all, all right, they absolutely deserve it.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody for watching this episode of
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