Speaker 1: Welcome to Political Beatdown. I'm been mycellas joined by Michael Cohen.
You want to talk about an end of the year beatdown?
How about this end of the year beatdown that Donald
Trump is receiving from the American people, especially among independents.
The New Economist you gov Paul Trump's net approval among
independents of Trump's handling at the start of this stage
of his presidency. In his second term, it started at
negative four and now he's at negative thirty six versus
first term plus a negative seven. Just think about that
right now. Among the for those who are listening on audio,
you have to look at this chart because it looks
like a Trump mean coin of his net approval among independents.
And I think, you know, one of the.
Speaker 2: Things KG right before you go into a full cardiac.
Speaker 1: Arrept exactly exactly. And look, I just think one of
the trends that I'm seeing is that, you know, just
people who aren't even political observers, but people who are
looking at the end of the year and just reflecting
on what the hell has happened are looking at this
and saying, you know, this is dangerous what Trump's doing.
It's also really weird and this whole eco system built
around trying to hoist Donald Trump as this authoritarian feurer figure.
People are like, what is this? I mean like, like,
I know, people don't like when I report on what's
going on on state regime media Fox, But it gives
you a window into just where this cult is going,
because we need to know how we got here and
how we got out.
Speaker 2: So Cohen Riful also an old fantas band, how we
never get back to this place? I mean, you know
they always say that, you know, history is extremely important
to learn, even though in America nobody really understands or
nobody really Udy's history as much as we should. You
go to other countries, they know the history starting at
the very beginning, and they have a history hundreds of
years longer than ours. History is so important because it
teaches us, all right, what you don't want to happen
ever again. And if we don't actually do that, we
could get stuck in another situation with another individual who
is ego driven as opposed to constitution driven.
Speaker 1: Look to me, if you were to go back into
America's founding right and you were to say, among the
various things, what defined America's founding, right, what was it right?
You know? And you could say the Declaration of Independence,
and you could say the Revolutionary War, you could say
all these things. But to me, the common theme, frankly,
is no kings, no authoritarians. Right. The US implemented the
enlightened teaching that was going on in Europe at that
time as a reaction to kings and authoritarians and leading
the way with a very imperfect democracy. I'm not going
to be here and be like America crushed it like
what was always amazing? No, no, no, I mean there
were bad times in our history and there were terrible
things that were done, but the arc of this idea
of democracy and moving away from authoritarianism that was a
significant thing. And then spreading, spreading democracy across a world
that was defined by authoritarianism. And now what we're seeing
it's an international authoritarian movement of the Putins and the
or Bonds and the Trumps and the people like that.
And it's a you have to view this in a
historical context as that this is a wave, a generational wave,
saying decra he had its moment, and now the authoritarians
want to get back into power. As they always did,
and they view the proliferation of unregulated AI data centers,
the proliferation of information paradoxically causing bad information, as a
tool to create a lord versus subject dynamic.
Speaker 2: You know, Ben, One of the crazy things that most
people aren't aware of, and I'm shocked with the number
of people who are not, is the fact that George
Washington is not famous in US history because you know,
he crossed the Delaware or as the first president of
the United States. He's really most famous for the fact
that they wanted him to be president for the entire
term of his life, and he said no, that we
just fought a war, not to have a king. And
it's so important that people understand what would you have
given that up? You know, I remember when I first
learned about the story, and I remember thinking to myself,
I'm not sure if somebody offered me to be, in essence,
the king of a country that I would walk away
from it. Think about the type of man that George
Washington was in order to turn on to say, huh huh,
we just fought a war against against England for our freedom,
and I have no interest in copying what so many
have died for. It is a truly, truly incredible attribute
that George Washington possessed, which is why he is so revered,
which is why he is on you know, currency like
a quarter or the dollar bill and so on. It
is to honor that sort of moral high ground that
we do not see coming out of Washington today.
Speaker 1: Right and then you see state regime media Fox. They're
out there and they refer to Donald Trump as Daddy.
And it's a very strange thing. And it's not just
every now and then. They consistently refer to Donald Trump
as Daddy. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy said this, Daddy said that,
like it's deeply disturbing. There are people who are getting
their news from this network who are hearing hosts say,
let me put this in ways that you can understand.
Daddy's cutting you off right now. And just before we started,
there's this new guest contributor who shows up a lot.
Sunshine is her name, and she seems to be auditioning
for Caroline Levitt's job or a job like that in
the White House. And here's what she says about Daddy,
and she calls him daddy. Here play this clip.
Speaker 3: Let me try to put this in terms that Gavin
Newsom will understand. Donald Trump is daddy, and Daddy cut
you off, and Daddy said you can't use his credit
card anymore. Because why should California and Gavin Newsom be
getting federal funds when they don't even follow federal law.
Nobody is obstructing federal immigration law more than the state
of California and Gavin Newsom. You don't get a penny
if you're not going to enforce federal law.
Speaker 2: Okay, time out. First of all, here's the biggest problem.
Ben join me on this or second, police, because we
have talked about on this political beatdown show during the
course of twenty twenty five. We have talked about the
various states that are fund givers and then we have
those that are fund recipients. New York, California, I believe what, Virginia, Illinois, right, exactly, Massachusetts.
They are states they happen to be blue, that pay
more to the federal government.
Speaker 4: Than they receive.
Speaker 2: So when people like Caroline Sunshine and I know nothing
about her, I don't even know where she came from.
I don't know what her history is, what her background is.
But you're not wrong when you say that she's obviously
trying out for Caroline Levitt's role. When you start turning
around and making statements like that that we are not
that Texas or i should say California or New York
are not following federal law in this case, specifically California
under Gavin Newsom, I'd be very very curious as to
one what she's even talking about, what federal law are
they are they not following? And two, I'd be very
curious whether there is a way within which California could
withhold sending money to the federal government until its needs
are met and those needs are again from the wildfires
and from the various flooding that has taken place.
Speaker 1: You know, I am you know, would shock you that
this Caroline Sunshine lived in California.
Speaker 4: Actually it would, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm just looking at her background. So she was
born in nineteen ninety five. She previously worked for Trump
in twenty eighteen, so when she had been in what
her twenties there when she worked for Trump, she was
an actor. What she let's see what it says what
her role was and the first Trump administration, it says
she's she's It's just as White House staffer. I'm not
sure what the role was. I'll go look into that.
She was raised in Orange County, California, so grew up,
grew up in California. Families from California. She she was
an actress there there she is. Uh, let's see if
we could try to find the photo. That's a horrible
way of showing photos, especially when I have an editorial
team I can send him. But she she was she
had some role or she showed up at the world
premiere of Cars Too. She wasn't she wasn't in Cars
Too though, but she was a child actress and now she's,
you know, an ultra maga. She was in a movie
called The Outfield and now this is what this is
what she's doing. So isn't that a common theme though,
of maga to like like people who couldn't become actresses
and then they go kind of maga and they act
there like you know, like Lauren Bobert. She was on
like one of those like model websites, and like they
all wanted to be famous somehow and this was kind
of their path to being famous. But in any event, California,
if it was a country, would be the fourth largest
GDP in the world, so a bigger economy than Canada
or Japan most countries. Right, it gives eighty five billion
dollars to the federal government more than it takes, right,
whereas Texas takes eighty five billion dollars more than it gives.
California literally keeps the Red states alive. California literally subsidizes
the existence of most red states. Most red states are
failed states. They literally couldn't exist. They don't have balanced budgets.
They're the worst in every category, whether it's education, standard
of living, economic conditions, you name it. They're like the
crime like, they're usually the worst in basically every category.
And California props it up along with most Blue states.
And so the bigger question should be, well, why is
California paying federal taxes and giving money to the federal government.
If it gets attacked by the federal government, then it
props up. And now remember when all these MAGA people
back in the day where they were, oh, state's rights
were states rights. And now it's like and they would
always be like, oh, Michelle Obama, she wants to change.
She's recommending healthier food for kids. Ruh, that's like an invasion.
They're invading our schools. The federal don't tread on me,
and they have their flags with the don't tread on
the snake's Michelle Obama's invading. And then it's like, okay,
RFK has a weirder version that he calls make America
Healthy Again, which you hated when Michelle Obama did it
as recommendations. Now you want that mandatory while he stops
vaccines and stops the Vaccine Advisory Board, and now you
want the federal government to invade, to invade Blue States
cod At the end of the day, when any one
of these man they come up with their frameworks right
where they're like, oh, we're states rights, we're originalists, we're
strict constructionists. Remember, their frameworks are just evidence of their sociopathy.
They just want to create a situation where they rig
the outcome by putting it through a framework. Oh, yes,
we're strict constructionists. Every word matters. Okay, every word matters.
Then why does the second Amendment say, well, regulated, the
only amendment that uses the word regulation. But then you go, oh,
you can't use the word regulate.
Speaker 2: Why does the first Amendment turn around and give you
the freedom of speech until you're standing on a street
corner yelling at ice for disappearing people and they shoot
you in the top of the head a with a
pepper bullet, right, or they unconstitutionally remind you to prison
because you refuse not to write a book and not
to talk about it on social media or television. Yeah,
that's the problem. What's good for them is what they want,
But if it's good for you, well that's a violation
of their rights. It's we're really in a very dangerous,
dangerous place. And the danger is not just on our
national stage, you know, that's pretty screwed up, but the
international stage takes it to a whole another level because
when they're doing the things that they're doing, like blowing
up these boats. And by the way, Ben, you do
remember even on this show, we talked about how I
had heard from a buddy of mine who is former
military intelligence, that he knows for a fact that we
have boots on the ground in Venezuela. But what's interesting
is when I spoke to a member of Congress, he
said he believes that that's right. He's heard from other
people as well, but he has not heard from the
administration right that we have boots on the ground in Venezuela. Well,
I think that they confirmed it just the other day
that they're you know, that they're striking now, you know,
locations inside of Venezuela. Not to mention that they just
blew up a whole bunch of boats at the dock
that they claim that it's being used to, you know,
to load the drugs onto these eighteen twenty foot aluminum
boats that are going nowhere.
Speaker 4: The whole thing.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's almost like a bad South Park episode, right,
If this was even a South Park episode, I think
they would turn and say, you know, it's so stupid
that we actually just can't even we can't even put
this one out. It's it's that ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You saw the New York Times expose this morning as
one of those fishing boats was arrived on the shore
of Columbia. Here's what it says, Grim evidence of Trump's
airstrikes washes ashore on a Colombian peninsula, And it said,
first came the scorch boat, then the mangled bodies, then
the packets with traces of marijuana. Now fishermen fear the
ocean that feeds them, and it talks about how this boat,
no bigger than thirty feet long, was all like destroyed
and scorched with two mangled bodies in them. Then there
were these charred Jerry cans, and then in this in
these cans, these packets were found there, but what was
in them appeared to be traces of something that looked
and smelled like marijuana like. And one of first off,
there was never any doubt at all that there was
no fentanyl on those ships, which is the pretext. The
pretext was that there's fentanyl and these are Narco terrorists.
And then Trump lies and says for every boat we destroy,
we save twenty five or fifty thousand lives of Americans.
That's right out of a Putin playbook, right, that's Putin saying, look,
my home was attacked by Zelenski, and now Zelenski's a terrorist,
and so we have to stop the terrorist state. It's
the exact, almost word for word, you know, playbook. Okay,
By the way, Trump tried to pull the same fentanyl
and he and you know, Canada resisted and stood up
to it. But Trump pulled the same thing with Canada.
They're trying his justification for tariffs against Canada and initiating
the trade war was Canada is killing Americans with ventanyl.
They're killing tens of thousands or hundreds of us. So
we always knew these fishing boats did not have ventanyl.
Speaker 2: And so it makes this unusually grotesque is the fact
that it was traces of marijuana, whether it's the smell
or whatever particles may remain inside those canisters. The thing
in the United States of America right now, you have
multi national companies, cannabis companies. You can't walk down Lexington,
you or Third Avenue or Second Avenue here in Manhattan
without on every other street corner they have a place
that's literally legally selling to anybody over the age of
eighteen marijuana, cannabis, whether it's thhccbd both, whether it's invade
Penn's who knows, whether it's gummies right, it's a and
yet you don't see them blowing up the headquarters to
a cannabis company. You don't see them when the CEO
of that cannabis company is driving home to his estate
in the Hamptons or whatnot, that a drone takes them
out on I ninety five or four ninety five. Seriously,
So here you have these twenty thirty footballs. I thought
they were more like twenty footers. But if you say thirty,
I'm willing to go with thirty evidence. This is real,
actual evidence. You know a lot of people get angry
at me, they say, oh, you know, you make these
these comments and so on, and you're not really sure.
I'm as a former lawyer right or as a lawyer
with legal training as is, we go off of facts.
These are not pictures of boats that are ai created
or that you can get by going through a booklet
to pick out which twenty or thirty foot aluminum boat
that you want to buy. These are the actual boats
that have washed on shore, and they contain what they contain.
These are facts, plain and simple. These are facts. We
live by facts. And you know what, just imagine, imagine
instead of it being a boat, just make it into
a car, or make it into an office building. And
then next thing they're doing, they're going to start what
sending drones to blow up these buildings or take out
the vehicles of these CEOs and these top executives at
cannabis companies. Then you're one thousand percent right. They are
using lies within which to promote a theme that actually
is a lie.
Speaker 1: And they're not explaining what the endgame is here, you know,
is they're saying what they what would they say about Venezuela,
recar the Venezuela. Now they're saying, actually, they stole our oil,
which Trum's saying, and they stole our land. So we
needed back by the way, right out of Putin's playbook,
you know. And for all our people in the corporate
media news, you know, who were like, you know, they're
moving closer to peace between you know, Ukraine and Russia.
I say, are you listening to anything that Putin? Lavrav
dmitryev Yushikov, Peskov, like, are you listening to what they're saying?
The Russians have not once this entire year made any
statement that they want a legitimate peace deal with Ukraine.
The entire year. Ukraine has been very clear, we agree
to a cease fire, will stop. We've been invaded, there's
something to stop. We want to cease fire. We agree.
The moment there's a ceasefire, this ends, we agree cease
fire Russia. Russia says no. This is Russia's recent statement
before the meeting, between Zelensky and Trump this weekend. Russia says,
and this came through Yushikov, the main kind of Russian
negotiator working with Wikkov, that any ceasefire is unacceptable because
it would lead to a quote prolongation of the war,
that the ceasefire, the cessation of the war creates the war.
That is literally nineteen eighty four war is peace or
pieces war. That's what they're saying.
Speaker 2: So except truth turns around ben and says and says
that according to Putin, he wants to see Ukraine succeed.
I literally almost choked on my coffee when I heard
that come out of his mouth, that he says Putin
claims he wants to see Ukraine succeed. I don't even
know where to go from that one.
Speaker 1: And I think we have the clip of that, Jeremy,
if we've got it, it's the one that let's show,
the one where Zolensky is listening as Donald Trump says that, look,
you know, Putin really just wants to help you, so
like if he takes you over, he strongly wants to
help you. You know, Trump always says strongly, I believe
him very strong strongly wants to help you. Let's play
this clip and let's watch Zelenski's reaction through your place.
Speaker 3: So, in your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss
what responsibility Russia will have for any kind of reconstruction
of Ukraine post in agreement?
Speaker 5: I did. They're going to be helping Russia is gonna
be helping Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed once. It
sounds a little strange, but I was explaining.
Speaker 1: To the president.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: President Putin was very generous and is feeling toward Ukraine succeeding,
including a supply energy, electricity and other things at very
low prices. So a lot of good things came out
of that call today, but they were in the works
for two weeks with.
Speaker 4: So you.
Speaker 2: See, sure he wants them to succeed. That was bef
That was literally right after ten hours of relentless shelling
and bombing in Kiev with more death and more destruction.
But sure, here's an idea. Let's blow up Ukraine's energy
grid so that we can sell them energy cheap, cheap.
I mean, this to me reminds me so much of
like a crazy Eddie commercial. I was waiting for Eddie
Avadan right to come on and say, but wait, there's
more right, if you're at now, you're gonna get another
fifteen percent off the energy that we're selling you because
we blew up your energy, your electric grids and so on.
This is the craziest shit on the planet. Oh sure,
Russia wants to help go to rebuild Ukraine. I want
to be clear about something because again to those of
you who you know, maybe aren't as familiar with Eastern Europe,
for example, as I might be right, it's Russia has
no money. Russia's economy is in the toilet. Their big
their big export, as you all know, is oil. But
their cost to retrieve the oil per barrel is between
fifty six and fifty seven dollars per barrel. If right
now spot price is around fifty nine. How much money
do you think that they're making off of that two dollars?
That two dollars big And the answer is not enough,
not nearly enough to sustain this war, not nearly enough
for their people to receive benefits that they may need.
Speaker 4: All right, because.
Speaker 2: Again, remember you're not talking about a country like the
United States of America with a twenty eight trillion dollar GDP. Right,
you're talking about I don't even know what what Russias
is right now.
Speaker 4: It's like what one.
Speaker 1: Point five two point five to two point.
Speaker 2: Point five trillion, Right, you're talking about one tenth the
size of the United States. I just want people to
understand that, so they're not in a financial position to
give one dollar to Ukraine. Where this entire bullshit came from.
Where these where these this info, this conversation. By the way,
one last thing, Ben, When these telephone calls take place,
aren't they recorded and then transcribed. Isn't that phone call
the property of the United States, the people of the
United States, American citizens. I'd like to read that two
and a half hour transcript. I would like to know
exactly what they talked about, because there is no fucking
way in the world that Vladimir Putin turned around and
said he wants to see Ukraine succeed and that they
intend to help in the rebuilding of Ukraine unless they
own it completely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe, and I'm giving you my opinion that
whether it was discussed on a recorded line or not
on a recorded line, I believe that Putin told Trump
what the plan was going to be in the next
twenty four hours that Putin was going to claim that
Zolensky attacked his home, which would then be used as
pretext by Russia to try and attack Ukrainian government buildings
and to try to assassinate and kill Zelensky. And that,
I believe is what Russia's trying to do. They both
been trying to do it. But I think that part
of the tactics here that we're at play and we're
taking place behind closed doors, is Trump saying to Zolensky,
you know, you better give up your eastern territory or
else I'm not going to be able to stop them.
I'm not going to be able to to I can't
tell you what's coming next, but all I can tell
you is is that you know it would be nice
if you're around, you know. I think that's what went
down when Donald Trump told the media to leave. That's
I'm giving you my hypothesis based on all of the
surrounding circumstances. Because the very next day, on Monday, you
wake up and what happens. Putin goes a Zolensky tried
to attack my home. Now, let's be clear, if Zolensky
sent a drone swarm at Putin's home. First off, there
are if I've looked at these maps that these open
source military sites post, there's four five touch points where
the drones would be shot at by Russia's kind of
drone defense. So I'm not saying that, you know, Ukrainian
drones couldn't have evaded it, but people in the communities
would have seen some activity, and then they would have
seen activity around Putin's home. Like imagine if by the
White House there was a drone swarm, right there would
be something like okay, did you see that? You know,
it's not like in some isolated area like did you
see what just happened? And by the way, our own
intelligence in the United States and European intelligence would have
confirmed that because we have satellites there, we would be
aware that that's what was taking place. But no, that
was pretext and what was it pretext to because Zelenski,
I think did a very good job with Europe calling
Donald Trump and Putin's bluff, and Zelensky says, look, we'll
give We're open to a territorial conceps. We'll give a
portion of you want, don bas you want some of
the areas of Eastern Ukraine. Okay, but here's how we're
going to do it. Let's all agree to a sixty
to ninety day ceasefire, because how could we give it
up if there's no ceasefire. And then let's put a
vote to the public, and let's make it a free
and fair vote, and let the Ukrainians vote do they
want to be Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: Which by the way, is part of their constitution.
Speaker 1: Which is exactly or do they want to be Russian?
And that's when Putin was like, all right, what do
we do? What do we do?
Speaker 4: What do we do?
Speaker 1: Let's say he attacked us. Let's say that he attacked
and he broke up the settlement. But it's a very
The broader point I want to make here is it's
a very pieces war. War is peace nineteen eighty four
trumpy and tactic. Because then Putin's like, we're going to
have to have a a We're gonna have to proceed
differently now in these negotiations with this terroristic regime. And
though if you look at the rest of the world,
I mean, we're talking about Ukraine, and rightfully so, but
like even today, did you catch the news this morning
that there were Saudi Arabian air strikes in the southern
area of Yemen that were targeting a group that's like
a separatist group, but it was really targeting UAE. UAE
had a presence there where previously they were working with
Saudi Arabia against the Huthis in the Yemen area. But
now Saudi Arabia accuses UAE of working with a separatist
group against the Saudi control in Yemen. And so the
Saudis did a strike that was basically a strike at
the UAE, and UAE's pissed. And never before have you
had the Saudis and the UAE in this direct conflict
like this.
Speaker 4: Everybody in China.
Speaker 2: You got China now making moves, which Trump says, well,
they've been doing it for twenty years. Maybe law right,
much more significant, much bigger, right than what's going on
now out right in off the shores of Taiwan.
Speaker 4: I mean, you have you.
Speaker 2: Know, Trump making uh still claims about taking Greenland. Whatever
happened by the way, to our invasion of Panama, because
you know that's been stolen from us, or you know you.
Speaker 1: Remember this going you remember when a Kim Jong un
cruise missile test under Obama would be used by all
the right wing to say, look how weak Obama is,
Like you're letting Kim jong un. You know, Kim jong
un just tested as long range missiles in coordination with
China's tests around Taiwan, and it doesn't get a blip.
It gets a blitp maybe from some of these like
military open source sites that I and you and the
minus tench network follows, But like that was the big
right wing talking point Obama's week, You're gonna let Kim
jong un do these tests?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Ben, here's whole thing. And I know
each and every one of you are going to understand
and acknowledge what I'm about to say. For the last
let's just say eighty years, right, there has been an
adage that is strong America means a strong world. A
week America produces a week world right now where week
all right, America is not respected around the world. Here's
what they know. From Vladimir Putin to I don't know,
to the president of South Korea to Japan, to even
companies like Apple, all you need to do is show
up or for example, even bb net and Yahoo with
his Israel Prize, the highest award to be given to
an Israeli, well, the highest Israeli award that's given. You
need to show up with a shiny object, with a gift.
It's like, I don't know, you want to be noticed
at somebody's wedding, you show up with a big gift.
That's what it is. Whether it is a tim cook
five pound piece of gold that is the base of
a trophy, or it is a gold crown, or if
your cutter you give a four hundred million dollar aircraft,
or you know, or if your FIFA you give the
FIFA Award with a I don't know, a little object
to hang around your neck.
Speaker 4: This is the problem.
Speaker 2: They all know that they can do whatever they want,
that the United States under President Donald J. Trump will
not interfere if you bring him a shiny object. It's
really amazing. It's almost like, don't look over there. I
forget the fucking missiles that are flying into Ukraine into Kiev,
that are taking out electric grids and so on. And
by the way, if Ukraine sent a couple of drones
into Moscow into Red Square proper, they would have every
fucking right to do it. They are at war you're
bombing Kiev. So fucking bomb Moscow. I mean, it's just
that simple, right, All of a sudden, it's like, oh, yeah,
you know, they attacked us. They attacked you, because asshole.
For four fucking years, you have been decimating and shooting
at civilians and killing people, just indiscriminately because you think
you can, and you can, because we don't have power.
We don't have power in the presidency anymore. Again, don't
look over here, look over here, and what's over here
a shiny object that we're gonna give to the President
of the United States. All of it's sudden, all of
a sudden, your best pals. Yeah, oh, you know, we
talk all the time. He loves he loves me, I
love it. It's it's a love affair. Meanwhile, it's a
love affair. They're shooting fucking long range rockets. I'm talking
about Kim Jong un that can easily hit the United States.
What are we doing anymore? What are we doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, it The main deterrent right now to a world
war is nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction mad But
for nuclear deterrence, there's a world war happening right right
now because again, if you look at every conflict that's
just taking place this year, Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerating,
Thailand and Cambodia, China and Taiwan. Kim Jong un in
North Korea launching the missiles, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, the Hohoth,
he's there, attacking in the reds, attacking in the Strait
of Hair, moves Israel destroying and demolishing Gaza, and the
massacre that's taken place there. You know, Donald Trump has
Donald Trump is saying, you know, it really is war
is peace right he wants to. It's actually never been
a more unstable world. Then you talk about Donald Trump,
we had troops in Syria, when you're like, we have
troops in Venezuela. We have true we have boots on
the ground in Syria, because our troops in Syria, you know,
got killed recently. And Trump blamed it purely on ISIS,
which he says he destroyed, but also apparently they exist
there and in Nigeria. Although Donald Trump struck an area
in Nigeria saying he's saving the Christians, which nobody wants
to follow up and realize that ISIS doesn't target Christians
in Nigeria. Muslims get hit equally or more than Christians there.
And also Nigeria is more tribal than religious face. But
you may want to look at the fact that the
opposition leader is a Christian and may want to use
that as a way to get Donald Trump to remove
the governing party right now that's doing deals with China,
which has lithium and oil interests in Nigeria, while the
US is going after Venezuela, going after I think it
wants the oil reserves and lithium deposits in Nigeria, wants
the rare earth elements of Greenland and says we're taking
over Greenland. But just listen to the words also of
Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, what they've said about the world.
And you hear that they've made statements that we live
in a multi polar world where America isn't the leader.
They've said that. I mean, go look at Rubio's speeches.
Rubio says Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States. Everything
else is a vassal state. Whether you're Canada, Greenland, Mexico,
Central America, South America, you're subservient to the US. US
owns you and controls you. If you're in the Western hemisphere.
If you're in Europe, Russia control you. Europe you belong
to Russia. Russia controls that entire European sphere of influence.
And then China controls Asia. And so we've like given
up protections to Japan, to South Korea. And it's interesting
because you still have some people in the State Department
and in the military doing their best to show support
for South Korea and Japan. And so occasionally you'll get
these gestures where like we'll fly a plane and have it,
you know, do rounds around Japan, and then the media
will be like, you see the US supported Japan right here.
They'll do things like that, but then they'll will undermine it.
When Donald Trump's asked a question, I think I mean, Jeremy,
Let's find this clip where Trump is asked about Jijiping's
military exercises against Taiwan, and Trump is asked to respond
to it, and Trump's like, yeah, he never told me
anything about you. He like, I have a good relationship,
would you we have a good relationship. You never told
me about it. You're playing this club doing naval exercises
basically to test encircling Taiwan. Can you explain to us
what your knowledge is of that? What do you think
about that? Have you had any discussions.
Speaker 5: With Well, I have a great relationship with Presidency, and
he hasn't told me anything about it. I certainly have
seen it, but he hasn't told me anything about it.
And I don't believe he's going to be doing it. No,
nothing worries me.
Speaker 1: Nothing.
Speaker 5: There's fire.
Speaker 1: Right, So if you're in circle, if you're doing naval
exercises and air.
Speaker 5: Exercises, doing naval exercises for twenty years in that area.
Now people take it a little bit differently, but in
fact larger than they're doing right now. So we'll see.
But they've been they've been doing that for twenty twenty
five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, think about it about naval exercises, about like playing
with his belly button, right, so that you get the
Inny to be Audi and Anadi to be an any
This is some of the dumbest things I've ever heard
anybody say in my entire life. I mean, there is
no so with great friends, they're doing these naval exercises
and yet somehow or another, I don't know anything about it.
But as President of the United States, I'm going to
make a statement that they're not really doing anything. They
don't anticipate and I don't believe anything. I'm not worried
if they do or they don't, I don't really care.
But I'm going to turn around and I'm going to
make a very emphatic statement that I don't believe anything
is coming out of this. How about, as President of
the United States, that some of these idiots that are
around him, these enablers, these sycophans, these acolytes, these these
cabinet members, how about somebody do just a sintilla of investigation,
give him his five talking points onto it. I'm gonna
be reaching out to President g in order to find out,
you know what they intend. I'm gonna send my Secretary
of State Marco Rubio. Oops, sorry, my real political genius
minds Steve Whitkoff, and my idiot son in law Jared.
I meant my incredible son in law Jared over there,
you know, to China, because I want them to bring
me back some Chinese food. I hear it's much better.
Speaker 4: I hear it's much better over there than over here.
Speaker 2: They make it with a whole lot less sodium and MSG,
and so I needed to and then all of a sudden,
I'm gonna send them over there and we're gonna find
out exactly what's going on. But instead they don't even
say anything that's remotely normal. They turn around, they make
these emphatic statements that are so damaging to our country,
to the respectability of our country on the foreign stage.
There really is just no way to explain any There's
no point in having these pressers because you're not getting
legitimate answers. What you're getting is just off the cuff
ramblings that are truly, just truly ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You know, here's my view. I think with these pressers,
I'd actually be okay with the media covering it and
showing up if they used it as a way to
fact check it right away the way we do. Like
if they said, here's what he said, and then they said,
let me explain to you why everything he said is false,
not because you don't like him, as the media, although
you shouldn't like him, but because he's saying false things.
So if they wanted to lead the evening news and
say here's what Trump said, and we're going to explain
to you why it's false, because here's what's actually happening
in the world, and here's the reality, and here's the
objective truth. I think there's usefulness in sending reporters ask
him the questions, have him lie, then fact check it.
You could try to cross examine him there. I'd like
to see the reporters do a better job. But even
if you didn't, then you go back to the studio
and you say why this is a lie? And if
he's telling the truth, you can say he's telling the truth.
Like it doesn't that's.
Speaker 2: What credit is doing. Hold him accountable where he's held accountable.
Speaker 1: But what they do is they will just run the
story Donald Trump strikes isis in Nigeria to save the
Christians on Christmas. I mean, like you realize media, you're
being the Christmas gift, Like you realize that in his
own demented mind, he's just creating his home alone story
of like what you do on Christmas and then using Christians.
By the way, if Donald Trump cared about Christians from Nigeria,
then why is he using ice to round him up
and send him back into port Why why would you
just say that the white people. The white Afrikaaners from
South Africa are the only grouping persecuted. If you believe
that Christians in Nigeria are being persecuted.
Speaker 2: Because then that's what Jesus would do.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you care about the Christians getting killed in Ukraine?
Speaker 2: Jesus wouldn't care, according to Maga right.
Speaker 1: And in fact, what they'll do in Ukraine is they'll
use Christianity and lie and say the Ukrainians are attacking
the Christians in Ukraine and they're buying the Putin talking point.
Speaker 2: So no, the Putin theme wasn't about the Christians. It
was that they're anti Semites, and there was a few
initially it was initially it was that Putin was standing
up for the Jews in Ukraine. You see, here's the problem,
because there's always a scintilla of truth to what's there,
but it's the big theme, the big picture. Yes, there
was tremendous anti Semitism in Ukraine going back into the seventies,
seventy two, seventy three, seventy four when there was a massive,
massive exodus of Jews out of Ukraine because they were
told to leave. And I'm telling this to each and
every one of you from firsthand experience, as my wife
was born in Ukraine, lived there until she was about
six years old, and in nineteen seventy two they were
told that they have six months within which to leave,
and so they did. They were added there by nineteen
seventy three, along with waves. If you ask any Ukrainian,
ask any Ukrainian that's I don't know, fifty years or older,
why did you leave? What ye did you leave? They'll
tell you seventy two seventy three, and why because we
were told to leave. In fact, on my wife's passport,
her Ukrainian passport as a six year old, when it
says nationality, it doesn't say Ukrainian, it says Jewish. I mean, yes,
there was anti Semitism, but okay, fast forward to twenty
twenty twenty one, when Vladimir Putin decided again to now
invade Ukraine. He did it under the guys that he
was protecting the Jews that are in Ukraine, and it did.
And yes, it should be noted that Zelensky happens to
be Jewish, even though I don't know if he's a
practicing Jew, but he's still Jewish by birth. The point
is I've been to Kiev, I've been to Ukraine. Let
me tell you, I never felt the anti semitism there.
I'm sure it exists as it exists here in the
United States, but you don't invade a sovereign nation on
that theory.
Speaker 1: Right and so but you know Putin throws whatever against
the wall in season six, right, So first it's denotification
then or at the same time they go Ukraine's an
artificial state. Then it is you know, Zelensky's a dictator
and we got to depose the dictator because there's no elections,
even though there's martial law, because there's the unlawful invasion.
Then they launder into the United States. Oh look, Ukraine's
going after the Christians, and watch they're attacking the Christian
community there while Putin's blowing up the churches there. And
so you know, my my home is being attacked by Zelenski.
And by the way, just replace some of that stuff
with all of you know, the stuff that Trump basically,
the twenty twenty election is rigged. You know, everyone's spying
on me, and you know it's it's this, it's comes
from the same playbook. And going to your point where
you say, sometimes there's some truth to these things, and
then they create a broader narrative to achieve power. I mean,
you take a look at Minnesota, for example, and there
was fraud in Minnesota. You know who prosecuted the fraud
in Minnesota? Biden. Biden's DJ uncovered the fraud, which now
the Trump DJ and FBR was like, look, we did it.
Biden's DJ found it. By the way, there's like one
hundred billion or fifty to one hundred billion dollars. Unfortunately,
that takes place almost on a yearly basis with kind
of Medicare medicaid fraud and people looting government programs. It's
something that happens. That's actually where the waste, fraud and
abuse is. And when you have a functioning DOJ, you
go after the bad guys.
Speaker 2: Ben can we can we just stop for one second
and remind the audience here that one of the largest
Medicare medicaid frauds was by Tim Scott, who was the
former governor of Florida.
Speaker 4: That's part there you go.
Speaker 1: That's where that's where I was going next with them.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, really, yeah, of.
Speaker 1: Cour we just have graphics lined up for you when you.
Speaker 4: I apologize that wash.
Speaker 2: I was really impressed for about a half a second.
Speaker 1: There, no go go with him that The editors are impressive.
They anticipate where Cohen's gonna go.
Speaker 2: You know, That's that's one of the problems when you
have what's called instant recall memory I r M, which
Tim Scott, who I have met several times. This is
a guy who more than more than a billion dollars
in medicare Medicare for it. By the way, I can't
tell you the number of what's that, Rick Scott, Rick Scott, exactly,
Rick Scott. The interesting thing is, do you know how
many members of mar Lago are committing the same sorts
of fraud day in and day out. But if you're
a member there and you're actually making a let's just
call it a gratuitous financial gesture, you know, to the
president or to one of his companies, well, lo and behold,
and that's okay. You know you're let's just say you're forgiven.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, this whole waste fraud and abuse, we all
know that it exists, all right, It exists from the
Department of Defense. Well, I'm sorry, the Department of War.
All the way down to I don't know your local
store that takes food stamp. There's always fraud, waste, and
abuse in everything. It's just unfortunate, all right, but it happens.
In fact, then do you know that when they were
taking money from the government, the PPP money for COVID
relief that there is right now still to this day,
and nobody talks about it. One trillion dollars, not a billion,
not a million, one trillion dollars of money that is missing.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows where the hell is.
Speaker 2: How the fuck do you possibly lose a trillion dollars
that you don't know where that money went. And that's
one of the three trillion dollars that Trump earmarked for
COVID relief, by the way, if that was what was
necessary to keep the country going, and so I'm all
for it, But there's one trillion dollars of the three
that nobody knows where the hell it went. There's another
trillion dollars, so two out of the three are fraud,
waste and abuse two of the three trillion. Right also
deals with people who took advantage of the system, people
like Jared Kushner who went ahead and despite making I
don't know what it was forty million, fifty million a
year just from managing Saudi Arabian money that they took
like twelve or thirteen million dollars of PPP money because
everybody thought it was free. How about take the money back,
how about get the money back. It's not supposed to
be a gift. I didn't take a dollar. I didn't
get a dollar. I paid my taxes. They took the taxes,
they used it, and they gave it away and nobody
kept an eye on it. So don't talk to me,
mister president, or Rick Scott's of the world, or Kushner's
or any of these enablers that are inside there about
for God's sakes, about fraud, waste, and abuse. You are
the fraud, waste and abuse. One point seven billion dollars
by Rick Scott? What's one point three billion?
Speaker 4: Right? By Epstein?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: No, phyllis formis.
Speaker 2: By the way, I happened to know happened to know
him as well, one point three billion. Trump pardoned him.
He was actually on the other side where I was
at in Otisville. He commuted his sentence all together. Right,
four money, plain and simple. This nonsense of using fraud, waste,
and abuse one hundred percent. I would love to see
no fraud, no waste, no abuse in the entire system,
not gonna happen, not today, not tomorrow, and ever. And
you know what, let's let's turn around and let's at
least be honest about you know where this fraud, waste
and abuse is coming from. And a whole lot of it,
a whole lot, not one hundred percent, but a whole
lot of it is coming out of this administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you give some of the stats. Trump
has pardoned over thirty five plus criminals who were convicted
of committing over one point seven billion dollars in fraud.
I don't think that even includes the latest Ponzi schemer
who he pardoned, who was involved in a multi billion
dollar Ponzi scheme fraud with consumers and small investors getting
really screwed as well. You mentioned Philip as formas Medicare
fraud one point three billion dollars. You literally have the
maga Republican senator who is the main guy that they
use as like their healthcare guy, Rick Scott. He made
his money like he got the golden parachute. He got
three hundred million dollars personally as he retired and basically
ran away after invoking his Fifth Amendment seventy five times
to avoid to avoid prison.
Speaker 2: So you know, even your dogs are angry, as am I. Hey, coach,
I think is a great time for my two fingers salute.
And I know this is going to be crazy because
I promised in twenty twenty five that I would not
ever give the two fingers salute to the president. But
in all fairness, with all of this shit, when I'm watching,
for example, individuals who stole one point three billion dollars,
all right and then gets a commutation, you got another
one point seven billion and just thirty five people, and
that again, as Ben said, does not include does not
include who for example, you know, like the like the
crypto guys and so on, which probably brings it to
a whole other level. Altogether. It's fucking bullshit, all right.
Let's all just call it for what it is. It's pure,
unadulterated bullshit, all right, And you know what, fuck you, seriously,
fuck you for doing that.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: As the president of the United States, you are your obligation,
all right, is to protect not just America, meaning the soil.
But Americans are values, the Constitution and none of this
shit that's going on right now. And I give him
I everything always has to start at the despite the
fact that he is being he's being pushed by these
enablers who are all doing it for their own financial
and personal gains. Just like what happened during the very
first administration, everybody, everybody figures out that they can stick
with Trump long enough that they could make a shit
ton of money.
Speaker 4: And that's all that's happening right now.
Speaker 2: It's these uber uber rich are getting richer by the second,
while the rest of the country, all right, especially the
middle class, getting squeezed down to nothing. And you know what,
fuck you guys for doing that, all right, And mister
President again, you know, shit flows from the top.
Speaker 4: This is on you.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody for watching, and because this
will be our last political beat down before the New
Year's our next episodes. On the first, I want to
wish everybody a very happy new year. It's been an
honor fighting by your side every step of the way
this year. It's of course been a challenging, difficult, at
times very depressing year, but it's also been a year
filled with just being honored by your courage and your strength,
and the resilience of the American people and people across
the world who have held the line, who have not
back down. And while institutions have crumbled, while people we
used to respect ben the knee, and it was difficult
for us to grasp to see that take place before
our eyes see that betrayal take place. You know, new
leaders have risen, a new group of leaders are here,
and I'm glad that independent media has been one of
the things this year and I think has made a difference,
along with so much, so much else. The grassroots organized,
the individuals who show up at no kings, the people
at home who just do their part every day to
get the message out and to keep the faith and
to keep the hope. You know that to me is
really the defining word to me of twenty twenty five
is resilience, resiliency against all odds. And let's turn that
resiliency into victory as we go into the next year.
So thank you, everybody. Make sure you subscribe to Michael
Cohen's other YouTube channels called at the Michael Cohen Show.
That channel's on its way to one million subscribers. You
probably saw the Legal AF channel got to one million.
We got to get Cohen's channel to one million as well.
I want to see all the Midas channels hit one
million subscribers. So go over there and subscribe to that.
Subscribe to the Maya Culpa audio podcast. Go and check
that out. Wherever you get audio podcasts, subscribe to Maya Culpa.
Subscribe to Michael Cohen substack. Cohen's a great I mean,
truly mean. Cohen's a great writer, and I love I
love his work. I love reading his work. There's so
many people that you know.
Speaker 2: Cohens are really number thirteen right now in the substack list.
Speaker 1: Let's go, Let's go a lot of it.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Midas Touched Network because they also they post
my substack articles on a regular basis. And forever appreciative, Ben,
to you, and to Brett and to Jordi, into the
entire Midas Touch team, Jeremy and Salty and Sydney, you know,
our EPs and everybody at the company. I can't tell
you how important independent media like Midas Touched Network is
a place where whether you like what you're hearing from
me or you don't, I know many of you get
angry at me, but you're only.
Speaker 4: Gonna get facts.
Speaker 2: You're not going to get opinions here because if you
want opinion TV, then turn on Fox, turn on CNN
or MSNBC. But if you want it predicated on fact,
this is the place to come. And let's try to
get Midas to twelve million. They're about six million now.
If each and every one of you brings one person,
that'll be your job, right for twenty twenty six. Bring
one person to this network, just one. You double it overnight,
and then we're gonna do it again and again and
again so that we could make sure that twenty twenty six,
you can't. We'd be so big, so unstoppable, so vocal,
so angry that nothing and I mean nothing can stop
us right from ensuring that both the House and maybe
the Senate to go our.
Speaker 1: Way right and and the way let me and I
just want to say this at the end too. The
way I define our way, you know, is no matter what,
this is what I want Midas Touched to be for
now and in the future. Our way I define as truth, democra,
see as empathy, as love, as trying to uplift and
not punch down to marginalize communities. And so wherever that is,
wherever that points that to me is my guiding star.
And I think one of the things that have been
important over about building this network is not chasing politicians.
Where we've led with our values and our principles here
and have led with the mightas way what that is.
Let others join in that way, but lead with principles
and values. And when you lead there, it's not difficult
to figure out where you side on an issue because
the values and principles guide you, guide the way for you.
And so anyway, I'll leave you with that to think about.
Thanks everybody for watching hit subscribe, go check out all
of Always channels, and we'll see you next time on
Political Beatdown. Happy New Year, everybody, m
Speaker 4: HM.