Speaker 1: And welcome.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: How are you welcome to the Big Podcast on this
Speaker 1: Friday today? It's the tenth day of October, year of
Speaker 1: Our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 1: So as we just finished recording the podcast yesterday and
Speaker 1: we got the word that Letitia James has been indicted
Speaker 1: by a federal grand jury in Virginia, And I mean,
Speaker 1: were you surprised? I wasn't, was it? Well, there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of opin on this, but it basically no question.
Speaker 1: Latitia James went after Donald Trump. A selective enforcement chose
Speaker 1: him and then found the crime to attach to him.
Speaker 1: She promised she would go after Donald Trump. Are you
Speaker 1: surprised that Donald Trump is going after her? And people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, is this political retribution? Yes, yes it is,
Speaker 1: This is no question. But she also will let the
Speaker 1: courts decide on this.
Speaker 3: This is.
Speaker 1: Pretty simple to prove, I would think once they get
Speaker 1: into court. Is there's documents about mortgages, and when you
Speaker 1: get a mortgage, there's two pounds and two inches of
Speaker 1: paperwork to fill out. But in that paperwork there is
Speaker 1: some place where you need to declare is the mortgage
Speaker 1: going to be on a property that's your primary residence,
Speaker 1: or will it be on a property that's a secondary residence,
Speaker 1: or will it be on an investment property, because all
Speaker 1: of those categories have different rates of interest. The banks
Speaker 1: charge different amounts because the risk is higher if you
Speaker 1: don't live in the property, if it's a second home,
Speaker 1: or even more risky if it's an investment property in
Speaker 1: which you collect rents. So let's start off. Well, we
Speaker 1: got that, We've got the Nobel Peace Prize, We've got
Speaker 1: the President had a physical today. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 1: The National Guard, the court in a federal court has
Speaker 1: said no on the National Guard for two weeks in Chicago.
Speaker 1: And the farmers in this country versus Argentina soybeans. So
Speaker 1: we got a lot to cover with. But on Latitia James, Yes,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's going after her because she went after him.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty obvious. So she should have dodded
Speaker 1: her and crossed her t's and we'll find out whether
Speaker 1: she did or not. But would surprise me was the
Speaker 1: left media is sticking up for Letitia James because they
Speaker 1: don't like Trump. I don't know if they like her,
Speaker 1: but the fact that Trump's going after her, they're going
Speaker 1: to take her aside. Listen to this. This is Cassie Hunt.
Speaker 1: She's an anchor at on CNN, and she literally said
Speaker 1: about mortgage fraud that everybody does mortgage fraud, don't they
Speaker 1: just James.
Speaker 4: And again we're still getting the details.
Speaker 5: But if it's related to this mortgage issue, I mean,
Speaker 5: this is something that everyone in America, or many people
Speaker 5: at least if you're lucky enough to be able to
Speaker 5: buy a house in America, you.
Speaker 6: Deal with this.
Speaker 1: Really, everyone does this. You just lie to the bank.
Speaker 1: And it's called bank fraud and lying to banks. And
Speaker 1: though those are both crimes. So here's Letitia James when
Speaker 1: she was running for her office as Attorney General in
Speaker 1: the state of New York.
Speaker 7: He should be charged with obstructing justice.
Speaker 8: I believe that the president of these United States can
Speaker 8: be indicted for criminal offenses, and we would join with
Speaker 8: law enforcement and other attorneys general across this nation and
Speaker 8: removing this president from office.
Speaker 1: About all the music in there, it was a campaign
Speaker 1: commercial where she said she believes that Donald Trump should
Speaker 1: be removed from the White House. She did not want
Speaker 1: him to be elected, and she would do everything to
Speaker 1: go after him. There were many commercials like that that
Speaker 1: were aired in New York that were all about the
Speaker 1: fact that she's going to get Donald Trump if you
Speaker 1: vote for her. Well, even Anderson Cooper, who certainly hangs
Speaker 1: out on the left side of the aisle, asked of pertinent.
Speaker 9: Question, Jeff I mean.
Speaker 10: According to PolitiFact, the day after she was elected in
Speaker 10: twenty eighteen, letician James was asked by a community activist
Speaker 10: as she was going to to President Trump, and she replied, quote, Oh,
Speaker 10: We're going to definitely sue him. We're going to be
Speaker 10: a real pain in the ass. He's going to know
Speaker 10: my name personally. I mean, that's not a great look
Speaker 10: for somebody who has just been elected or just been campaigning,
Speaker 10: who hasn't even looked, I guess at deeply at any evidence.
Speaker 1: She also made a big point of when she got
Speaker 1: Donald Trump indicted in Manhattan District Court. She went to
Speaker 1: the trial, she sat in the first row and just
Speaker 1: kind of had a smirk on her face as Trump
Speaker 1: was going through the process of being indicted in a
Speaker 1: local court in New York. David Urban also responded, Now,
Speaker 1: he does speak for people on the right. He's a
Speaker 1: Republican type of spokesman. This is his reaction.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so Anderson's a couple points. You know, Jeffrey makes
Speaker 11: the point that people, you know, prosecutors are elected their
Speaker 11: political animals. But yet I've never Jeff, maybe I'm wrong
Speaker 11: you point it out. I'm not aware of many prosecutors
Speaker 11: saying I am going after this specific individual. They're usually
Speaker 11: political statements, I'm going to be tough on crime, I'm
Speaker 11: gonna make your lives better, safer communities, those types of
Speaker 11: political statements, not I'm going to go get the governor.
Speaker 11: I'm going to take down the president of the United States.
Speaker 11: So I think that's that's a little it's a little
Speaker 11: too cute by half on that. And look, Leticia James,
Speaker 11: you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
Speaker 11: There is no small crime, as Jeff knows. This is
Speaker 11: relatively small potatoes, as you point out, Jeff correctly, but
Speaker 11: it's still mortgage fraud. It's mortgage fraud. She signed on
Speaker 11: a piece of paper saying I I you know, I allege,
Speaker 11: I affirm, I swear that these things, these facts are correct.
Speaker 11: For those of you who filled out a mortgage application,
Speaker 11: it says on there at the bottom, you fill it out,
Speaker 11: you sign your name, that this is going to be
Speaker 11: my secondary residence. She did that knowingly that she was
Speaker 11: not going to use it as a secondary resident. So
Speaker 11: that's fraudulently, allegedly fraudulently. And whether it's a small fraud
Speaker 11: or a big fraud, when near the attorney general of
Speaker 11: a state committing fraud, it's a bad look Anderson. And
Speaker 11: to answer your question directly, look, I think the litician
Speaker 11: James action was terrible. I think any selective prosecution is
Speaker 11: bad and should be rebuffed, whether it's by Letitia James
Speaker 11: or by this Justice Department. I think it's bad for America,
Speaker 11: the American justice system, and people's trust in our system.
Speaker 1: So somebody did a calculation about the fact that what's
Speaker 1: the difference in money. Well, apparently the interest rate on
Speaker 1: a investment property that you rent out versus a secondary
Speaker 1: home was about nineteen thousand dollars of benefit to her.
Speaker 1: She said nineteen thousand dollars. So that is you robbed
Speaker 1: somebody at nineteen thousand. That's a felony. Adam Kinzinger, who
Speaker 1: was a Republican congressman but did not rerun because Republicans
Speaker 1: were mad at him because he was on the January
Speaker 1: Sixth Committee. But that's another whole story his reaction, and
Speaker 1: he's very critical of Donald Trump, you know.
Speaker 7: I mean, look, I think two things can be true here.
Speaker 7: I think the first thing is Letitia James never should
Speaker 7: have made those comments. She never should have run on
Speaker 7: I'm going to go after him before she's seen the evidence,
Speaker 7: before she's had anything that was wrong, not illegal, that
Speaker 7: was wrong. And then at the same time, there is
Speaker 7: no doubt and I mean, we can argue about it,
Speaker 7: but there's no doubt that this thing went. They went
Speaker 7: after her specifically for retribution, specifically because it was her.
Speaker 7: I mean, all you have to do is read the
Speaker 7: president's accidental fake tweet or whatever thing that's called posts
Speaker 7: and know that he was basically saying, Pam, here are
Speaker 7: two people we have to go after. And then all
Speaker 7: of a sudden, boy, just miraculously, a new person comes
Speaker 7: in after the other person said that they didn't have
Speaker 7: enough to make a case and get indicted. This thing, probably,
Speaker 7: like like Comy's, is either going to be thrown out.
Speaker 7: I'm not a lawyer, so who knows, either be thrown
Speaker 7: out before trial or certainly will be seen as what
Speaker 7: it is, which is revenge. But I think we can
Speaker 7: hold Anderson. Both things are true. Letitia James never should
Speaker 7: have said that in the campaign. And also they are
Speaker 7: going after her for one reason because it's.
Speaker 1: Her yep, just like she specifically went after Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: So again, like I said, I'm not surprised, But let's
Speaker 1: bring in a lawyer that tell us how this all
Speaker 1: shakes out. Here's Jonathan Turtling.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't remember mon Donnie coming out and denouncing
Speaker 4: James when she ran for office on the pledge to
Speaker 4: nail Donald Trump for something not even specifying what it
Speaker 4: might be, or when she charged him in a fraud
Speaker 4: case where no one lost money and in fact the
Speaker 4: banks wanted additional loans from Trump and his organization. None
Speaker 4: of these people were objecting to any of that law
Speaker 4: fair Now, does that mean that this is a lead
Speaker 4: pipe cinch of a case or that there's not problems?
Speaker 4: Of course not. This is going to be a tough
Speaker 4: case for the Department of Justice to be able to land.
Speaker 4: While they got this case out of New York, it's
Speaker 4: in a very blue district in Virginia. And also there's
Speaker 4: going to be some threshold challenges here, and one of
Speaker 4: them has some merit. It doesn't mean it's going to prevail.
Speaker 4: James is likely to say that the acting US Attorney
Speaker 4: who signed off on these charges was not appropriately appointed
Speaker 4: and therefore should not have held that office, and if
Speaker 4: that is the case, then the indictment would go.
Speaker 12: Down well to the overall case itself. Though, I want
Speaker 12: to rewind the clock back to February sixteenth of last year,
Speaker 12: when Letitia James really was I guess, the lack of
Speaker 12: a better word, bragging about the fact that she was
Speaker 12: trying to hold Donald Trump to account, saying, quote, when
Speaker 12: powerful people cheat to get better loans, it comes at
Speaker 12: the expensive, hard working people. Everyday. Americans cannot lie to
Speaker 12: a bank to get a mortgage, and if they did,
Speaker 12: our government would throw the book at them. There simply
Speaker 12: cannot be different rules for different people.
Speaker 4: Ironic, I think in hindsight. Well, but it's really ironic.
Speaker 4: Is she just asked for half a billion dollars of
Speaker 4: damages against Trump in the case where no one lost
Speaker 4: any money. Infact, the bank made money in this case.
Speaker 4: The government's alleging that she made serious money, that by
Speaker 4: misrepresenting the status of this property, she made thousands of
Speaker 4: dollars and so unlike her case, they can actually cite
Speaker 4: to money that ended up benefiting her. Now does that
Speaker 4: mean that they can make this case with an entire
Speaker 4: jury in Northern Virginia. I think the odds still favor James.
Speaker 4: It also there's also a good chance that this technicality
Speaker 4: that she's likely to raise could delay the case. The
Speaker 4: argument is that the president has one hundred and twenty
Speaker 4: days to assign acting at US attorney, but he had
Speaker 4: already used that period with her predecessor. And there's also
Speaker 4: a estion that the reason that predecessor was let go
Speaker 4: or forced out is that he was not going to
Speaker 4: sign off on this prosecution. So it's going to get
Speaker 4: very messy, very fast in this case.
Speaker 1: So this is the second case that has come up.
Speaker 1: They've got an indictment against James Comy, and they've also
Speaker 1: now got an indictment against Letitia James. The whole thing
Speaker 1: about political retribution was brought up with Pam Bondi, the
Speaker 1: Attorney General, while she was before the Judiciary Committee in
Speaker 1: the Senate earlier this week.
Speaker 5: President Trump is the most transparent president in American history,
Speaker 5: and I don't think he said anything that he hasn't
Speaker 5: said for years. Comy was indicted in the Eastern District
Speaker 5: of Virginia by I may point out, one of the
Speaker 5: most liberal grand juries in the country.
Speaker 4: Well, both the Komy and James are likely to make
Speaker 4: two claims vindictive prosecution selective prosecution. Those are very difficult
Speaker 4: claims to make. They will be citing President Trump in
Speaker 4: that posting of his complaining that why haven't you indicted
Speaker 4: these people? And that is going to be the central
Speaker 4: piece of evidence they use to try to make out
Speaker 4: those claims.
Speaker 3: The question is.
Speaker 4: Whether they will be able to prevail. Now in federal court.
Speaker 4: James went to New York Court and got a very
Speaker 4: favorable judge. We'll see how this plays out. But those
Speaker 4: types of cases, and I've made those types of arguments
Speaker 4: in court as criminal defense attorney, they are very hard
Speaker 4: to make. Judges do not like to look at motivations
Speaker 4: if there is an otherwise valid crime in the indictment.
Speaker 1: So both cases legitay. James and James Coley both in
Speaker 1: the Eastern District of Virginia, which is a very blue
Speaker 1: part of the state of Virginia, So they have that
Speaker 1: going for them. But there's no question Trump's going after
Speaker 1: them because they went after him. It's pretty obvious. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the peace agreement between Hamas and Israel is the first
Speaker 1: part of it is done the first twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and the Israeli defense forces have pulled back to behind
Speaker 1: this yellow line on a map, so that that checks
Speaker 1: one of the boxes on the agreement. Now, the next
Speaker 1: seventy two hours are going to be critical, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people are worried whether Hamas will in fact
Speaker 1: complete the rest of this deal, at least phase one,
Speaker 1: which is to release the hostages. They're now saying Originally
Speaker 1: they said it would be Saturday or Sunday, then they
Speaker 1: said Monday. Now they're saying maybe Monday or Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: so everybody's kind of holding their breath to see what
Speaker 1: that is all about. Now, what about the impact on
Speaker 1: the legacy of Donald Trump. Tim Naftali is a presidential
Speaker 1: historian and he he thinks it is a big impact
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump's legacy.
Speaker 13: This is very important for President Trump's legacy, and one
Speaker 13: would wish that someone could advise him not to focus
Speaker 13: so much on the Nobel Peace Prize and focus on
Speaker 13: the next steps in the Middle East. President Trump, in
Speaker 13: a sense has achieved something that has eluded many presidents
Speaker 13: in the Middle East since the Carter era. He had
Speaker 13: the ability to box in the Israeli leader. He did
Speaker 13: something that Joe Biden couldn't do, and it wasn't because
Speaker 13: of Joe Biden's weaknesses. It's simply that bib Net Yahoo
Speaker 13: played Joe Biden and could not play Donald Trump in
Speaker 13: the same way because Bbtyah, who understood that there was
Speaker 13: no way of getting around this White House. He couldn't
Speaker 13: go to the Congress as he loved to do when
Speaker 13: Democrats were in the White House and get something better
Speaker 13: that if he couldn't get complete support from Donald Trump,
Speaker 13: he wasn't going to get it from any authority, to
Speaker 13: any authority in the United States. So when Donald Trump
Speaker 13: made clear to him that he had overstepped by attacking
Speaker 13: hamas in Cutter, bb was in trouble. And so in
Speaker 13: a sense where whereas Richard Nixon was the only one
Speaker 13: who could go to China, donald Trump was the only
Speaker 13: one who could box in Yahoo. And that's going to
Speaker 13: be a very positive aspect to Donald Trump's legacy. What
Speaker 13: happens next really will to determine whether Donald Trump becomes
Speaker 13: known as a peacemaker. Does the United States play a
Speaker 13: role in the reconstruction of Gaza. Will the United States
Speaker 13: continue to support the fact the right of Gosins to
Speaker 13: stay in Gaza. We all remember that Donald Trump briefly
Speaker 13: discussed moving Gossins out of Gaza. He stopped calling for that,
Speaker 13: of course, which would have been a violation of international law.
Speaker 13: Will the United States help restore a political system in Gaza?
Speaker 13: And finally, it looks as if the United States is
Speaker 13: willing to talk again about a two states solution. That
Speaker 13: was something that was off the table. Certainly is off
Speaker 13: the table as far as bebing net Yahoo is concerned,
Speaker 13: but seemed to be a bit off the table for
Speaker 13: Donald Trump until the twenty point Peace pen emerged. So
Speaker 13: there's a real opportunity for the President to establish a
Speaker 13: world historical role for himself. But let's caution him about
Speaker 13: one thing. When the United States negotiated an end to
Speaker 13: the Vietnam War for the American part of the Vietnam
Speaker 13: War with North Vietnam, Richard Nixon didn't win the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 13: Henry Kissinger won it for the United States. So if
Speaker 13: there is a Nobel Prize for the Gaza process, next
Speaker 13: year it might be Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner who
Speaker 13: win it and not Donald Trump's interesting to me is
Speaker 13: that there was this push in the last few days,
Speaker 13: and it appears that the Nobel Committee had already made
Speaker 13: up its made up, made its decision. So the US government,
Speaker 13: I don't think, even understood the process by which the
Speaker 13: Nobel Committee did its work, which actually surprised me. So
Speaker 13: I think it's healthy for the world that the President
Speaker 13: of the United States is fixated on being used a peacemaker.
Speaker 13: I think that's excellent for the world, and I hope
Speaker 13: the President continues his fixation on achieving peace deals. It's
Speaker 13: good the president, I think, should keep in mind that
Speaker 13: the Nobel Committee looks at what happens within countries, not
Speaker 13: just among countries. After all, this year's Nobel Prize winner,
Speaker 13: Karina mark Machado, won it for what she's done to
Speaker 13: try to reconstitute civil society within Venezuela. The while the
Speaker 13: President is certainly engaged on a peace campaign outside the
Speaker 13: United States, at home, he's sending troops into our cities,
Speaker 13: which is not consistent with peacemaking at home, and the
Speaker 13: Nobel Committee will be looking at that in the future
Speaker 13: just as much as they look at his efforts in Gaza.
Speaker 1: The other salient point here is that, apparently the Nobel
Speaker 1: Committee this is for giving a peace prize to whatever
Speaker 1: happened in last year twenty twenty four. The cutoff was
Speaker 1: in January. So maybe Donald Trump will be the recipient
Speaker 1: a year from now, or it could be like Tim
Speaker 1: Daoff Talay said, it could be wit Cough or Kushner.
Speaker 1: But in any case, the Nobel Prize of Ari Fleischer,
Speaker 1: former Press secretary. He surprised everybody when was asked about, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about Trump but getting the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 14: Well, I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but who cares.
Speaker 14: The Nobel Peace Prize has been useless for generations ever
Speaker 14: since they gave Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for
Speaker 14: doing nothing. It is the Democratic Peace Prize. It is
Speaker 14: the Liberal Socialists of Europe Peace Prize. It has nothing
Speaker 14: to do with actually solving problems or getting things done
Speaker 14: outside the scientific realm, where I think the actually do
Speaker 14: good work. But when it comes to peace, no, it
Speaker 14: is a totally lopsided establishment, old school view of the
Speaker 14: world and Here's the key factor got this agreement done
Speaker 14: was the fact that Donald Trump and Steve Whitkoff are outsiders.
Speaker 14: Anybody who followed the regular diplomatic playbook would have made
Speaker 14: no progress in the Middle East. They have succumbed to
Speaker 14: the temptation that the only way to peace is through
Speaker 14: a Palestinian state. Donald Trump did the exact opposite and
Speaker 14: worked around that issue to bring peace to the Middle
Speaker 14: East and now Gaza the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 1: Who Cares, so Arii Fleischer, everybody all flustered because he
Speaker 1: says who Cares doesn't mean anything, never has, but it does.
Speaker 1: It means something to Donald Trump. He said, well, it's
Speaker 1: a prize from back in the old days. Well that's
Speaker 1: where Donald Trump kind of lives. So he really wants
Speaker 1: the Nobel Pce Prize. But the deadline for it was
Speaker 1: for long before this morning, so he did not get that.
Speaker 1: The woman who got it is this lady from Venezuela.
Speaker 1: She was brave enough to stand up and run against
Speaker 1: Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. She ran for president. When they
Speaker 1: did the results, she won. She won the presidency of Venezuela.
Speaker 1: But Maduro said, I'm not going to recognize those results,
Speaker 1: and he stayed in office and then he sicked the
Speaker 1: police on her. She's in hiding somewhere in Venezuela. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, the lady is wildly popular and people of
Speaker 1: Venezuela want her to be the president, but she is
Speaker 1: the arch enemy of Nicholas Maduro. So does she deserve
Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize? I certainly think so. But again,
Speaker 1: it really I think came down more than anything else
Speaker 1: to the fact that the deadline was back in January
Speaker 1: and she did all of her work last year. So
Speaker 1: Trump will have to wait till next year. And he's
Speaker 1: also going to have to wait at least a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks because the federal judge ruled that no, there
Speaker 1: isn't a rebellion going on in the city of Chicago,
Speaker 1: so therefore you are not allowed to send federal troops
Speaker 1: into the city of Chicago. There are laws against that.
Speaker 1: The governor can invite federal troops into Illinois, but obviously
Speaker 1: that's Prince Curry. He's not going to do that. And
Speaker 1: it was interesting because there's some pushback on this. Kevinstead,
Speaker 1: who is the governor of Oklahoma, big conservative Republican guy
Speaker 1: put out a statement in a peace sent to the
Speaker 1: New York Times today. I'll read it to you. Kevin
Speaker 1: Stitt said, we believe in the federalist system, that's state's rights.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma's would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent
Speaker 1: troops to Oklahoma during the Biden administration. And this is
Speaker 1: the point I've been bringing up. Two points. One is, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to you always have to play well, what
Speaker 1: happens when a Democrat is in the White House, and
Speaker 1: would would they play this kind of game? And if so, Stitt,
Speaker 1: who is a good guy, good governor in a Republican,
Speaker 1: very red state, would go people of Oklahoma would go
Speaker 1: crazy if Pritzker decided to send troops to Oklahoma. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what happened with Governor Abbott, who I like a lot.
Speaker 1: He sent troops up to Chicago now that nobody has
Speaker 1: seen them now because the judge says, you can't use
Speaker 1: federal troops in Chicago temporary state for two weeks while
Speaker 1: she sorts through all that. And basically what she's giving
Speaker 1: the government is the time to appeal that. So and
Speaker 1: the government has already started that appeal process. So for now,
Speaker 1: federal troops know in Chicago. The problem with that is ice.
Speaker 1: What the reason the President was going to send troops
Speaker 1: there was to protect federal buildings and to protect ice
Speaker 1: federal law enforcement officers. So they're all on their own
Speaker 1: until the temporary restrainting order is lifted. Mark Short was
Speaker 1: the chief of staff for Mike Pence when he was
Speaker 1: vice president, so he's a big Republican guy. And Megan
Speaker 1: Hayes speaks for the Democrats. They take up this whole
Speaker 1: issue of sending the National Guard art with Mark Short.
Speaker 15: I think Governor says one hundred percent correct. I think
Speaker 15: the Conservatives would lose their mind if you saw Biden
Speaker 15: or Obama take National Guard from Illinois and send them
Speaker 15: to Oklahoma or to Texas against their will. I think
Speaker 15: the reality is that the president does have an ability
Speaker 15: to send National Guard's troops as he has to Portland,
Speaker 15: per se when there's writing to protect federal buildings, or
Speaker 15: to say I'm going to send him to Memphis as
Speaker 15: a Republican governor has asked for that help. But against
Speaker 15: the will of a governor who has the sovereign rights
Speaker 15: over that state to do law enforcement is a totally
Speaker 15: different step that I think Governor says a hunder percent
Speaker 15: correct on.
Speaker 1: That, and surprisingly the Democrat spokeswoman Magan Hayes agreed with
Speaker 1: Mark Short.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: I do think that he is pointing out that Governor
Speaker 6: Abbott is being complicent to Donald Trump and wanting to
Speaker 6: militarize our streets in a way that is unconstitutional and
Speaker 6: most Americans do not want and is pretty gross, if
Speaker 6: you ask me. And so I do think that the
Speaker 6: Oklahoma governor is calling out Governor Abbott here and saying, friend,
Speaker 6: you should think twice, because do you want a Democrat
Speaker 6: doing this to you next time they're in power?
Speaker 1: Exactly how I like to analyze these things has changed
Speaker 1: the party and say, would you be happy if Obama
Speaker 1: or Biden had done the same thing to a red state?
Speaker 1: And I think the answer would be clearly no. There
Speaker 1: are all kinds of laws about states' rights, and I
Speaker 1: am huge on federalism states rights, and unless it's enumerated
Speaker 1: in the Constitution, all the all the constitutional rights belong
Speaker 1: to the states, except for those that say otherwise. And
Speaker 1: immigration is enumerated to be a federal issue. So can
Speaker 1: the can the president send in troops to protect federal property. Yes.
Speaker 1: Can they send in troops to protect federal law enforcement officers?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: I think that the judge will, especially on appeal, that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the President, will win. But in the mean time,
Speaker 1: you've got to do this in a way that respects
Speaker 1: states' rights, and that's not going to happen because of
Speaker 1: the political bad blood between Democrats and Republicans, especially Ja Brett,
Speaker 1: Governor Pritsker, and President Donald Trump. So we got that,
Speaker 1: We've also got the federal government has announced this afternoon
Speaker 1: that the reductions in force have begun. In other words,
Speaker 1: they're firing federal employees. No, we don't know the details.
Speaker 1: They won't explain the details. Russ Vought or vote how
Speaker 1: waver you pronounce his name? The Office of Management and
Speaker 1: Budget just put out a tweet, one line tweet that
Speaker 1: riffs have begun. So we don't know which departments, we
Speaker 1: don't know which agencies, we don't know how many. But
Speaker 1: this is all part of, again the shutdown of the government,
Speaker 1: which allows them to go about the process of reducing
Speaker 1: the government to employment count. The President also today went
Speaker 1: to Walter Reed for his physical and the eyebrows were
Speaker 1: raised because of the fact the annual physical is annual
Speaker 1: every year, and yet the president was there six months
Speaker 1: ago having a physical, and so the question has been
Speaker 1: raised about how is he doing?
Speaker 2: Oh are you?
Speaker 8: What are you having done?
Speaker 1: And how are you feeling.
Speaker 9: I'm meeting with the troops and I'm also going to
Speaker 9: do a sort of semi annual physical, which I do,
Speaker 9: and I think I'm in great shape. But I'll let
Speaker 9: you know. But no, I have no difficulty thus far.
Speaker 9: Is there what around here?
Speaker 2: On?
Speaker 9: Knockoff? No difficulty physically. I feel very good. Mentally, I
Speaker 9: feel very good. You know I did about six seven
Speaker 9: months ago. I do physicals. I like to when I'm around,
Speaker 9: I like to check always early aways, be earliest, a
Speaker 9: lesson for a lot of people. But I also did
Speaker 9: a cognitive exam, which is always very risky because if
Speaker 9: I didn't do well, you'd be the first to be
Speaker 9: blaring it. And I had a perfect score, and one
Speaker 9: of the doctors said he's almost never seen a perfect score.
Speaker 9: I had a perfect a perfect score. I got the
Speaker 9: highest score and that made me feel good. When they
Speaker 9: asked would I like to do one? I said yeah.
Speaker 9: I said, did Obama do it? No? Did Bush do it?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 9: Did Biden do it? I definitely did. Biden wouldn't have
Speaker 9: gotten the first three questions right. No, Biden didn't do it.
Speaker 9: Biden should have done it. I'm actually a person that
Speaker 9: believes that if you're president, you should do a cognitive exam.
Speaker 9: But last time I took a cognitive exam and it
Speaker 9: was a perfect score. The doctors announced it and by
Speaker 9: the way, not the easiest test. The first few questions
Speaker 9: are pretty easy. Once you get into the middle, it
Speaker 9: gets a little trick here. There aren't a lot of
Speaker 9: people in this room that would get every single question right.
Speaker 9: I can get so.
Speaker 1: Doctor Sanjay Gupta was asked about if he was surprised
Speaker 1: that the president was going back for another physical six
Speaker 1: months after the previous one.
Speaker 16: Yeah, you know, it is somewhat surprising. I mean, you
Speaker 16: think of these as annual physicals, and people will sometimes
Speaker 16: get visits to other visits if there's something that they're
Speaker 16: trying to address or there's some concern. I will give
Speaker 16: you this backdrop as well. The White House Medical Unit
Speaker 16: within the White House, it's a pretty pretty robust unit.
Speaker 16: There's a lot of things they can do there as well,
Speaker 16: in terms of more regular monitoring for things that are
Speaker 16: less serious. What they can't do is more sophisticated imaging
Speaker 16: like cts or MRI scans. Those are the sort of
Speaker 16: things that you know someone would get at Walter Reed.
Speaker 16: But you know he has done this before where he's
Speaker 16: had more than one check up through the years. Go
Speaker 16: back to his first term. You may remember he had
Speaker 16: a check up one year and then about a year
Speaker 16: later a third teen months later. He had another check
Speaker 16: up in February of twenty nineteen. Then he had that
Speaker 16: visit to Walter Reed. May remember in November that was
Speaker 16: an unannounced visit. We weren't told necessarily what that was
Speaker 16: all about, just that he had that visit, and then
Speaker 16: again in June of twenty twenty. My point being that
Speaker 16: he has had a sort of more rapid or frequent
Speaker 16: cadence of visits in the past as well well. I
Speaker 16: think with regard to his ankles in his hands, you
Speaker 16: know so, I think for a lot of doctors it
Speaker 16: looks concerning, which is why you then ask the questions
Speaker 16: and you investigate what's going on here. And the answers
Speaker 16: that the White House Medical Unit has provided in the past,
Speaker 16: I mean, they do seem very plausible and very reasonable.
Speaker 16: So when it comes to the ankles, for example, you
Speaker 16: have blood that's pumping throughout the body. If the blood
Speaker 16: for whatever reason is not circulating as well, it can
Speaker 16: start to pool or accumulate, which is what seems to
Speaker 16: be happening in his ankles, and usually in the ankles
Speaker 16: because of just gravity. They say this is something known
Speaker 16: as chronic venus insufficiency. The veins that bring blood back
Speaker 16: to the heart just aren't working as well, and that's
Speaker 16: you know, somewhat common one in twenty people, and it
Speaker 16: gets even more common as people get older. With regard
Speaker 16: to the hands, again, asked about that, say, he's on
Speaker 16: blood thinners, he's shaking a lot of hands, so he
Speaker 16: has his frequent hand trauma, but he's also had a
Speaker 16: lot of sun damage over the years. If you look
Speaker 16: at the hands, you can see more bruising on the right,
Speaker 16: for example, than the left the hand shaking hand. So
Speaker 16: again that seems plausible. But to your question, yeah, these
Speaker 16: things look concerning, which is why they are. Then an
Speaker 16: investigation is warranted, and it sounds like they did that.
Speaker 16: It's pretty remarkable, right, I mean, if you think about
Speaker 16: just lifespan overall, in this country. It's around seventy six
Speaker 16: years old, so last two presidents have exceeded that. You know,
Speaker 16: so he's seventy nine years old. A few things that
Speaker 16: we know, basic things that they always give after these visits.
Speaker 16: Things that we'll probably get today, his weight, blood pressure.
Speaker 16: A lot to be made of this screening test for
Speaker 16: dementia known as the mom Treol Cognitive Assessment Exam, and
Speaker 16: I know he's had this done a few times, I
Speaker 16: believe at this point, and according to him and his doctors,
Speaker 16: he's always scored a perfect score on that. We know
Speaker 16: he's on certain medications, statin medications, cholesterol medications. His cholesterol
Speaker 16: levels are back down to very reasonable levels, aspirin as
Speaker 16: I mentioned, maybe associated with this hand bruising. And we
Speaker 16: know that he's had a cardiac CT scan in the past.
Speaker 16: I'll just leave you with this that CARDIACCT revealed that
Speaker 16: he had a high number which was indicative of pretty
Speaker 16: common form of heart disease. But that's all we really know, so.
Speaker 1: We'll find out later what the results were of his
Speaker 1: medical exam. Today. There was the President was back at
Speaker 1: the White House and this kind of late breaking news
Speaker 1: this afternoon that the President has upped the trade war,
Speaker 1: putting more tariffs on China one hundred an additional one
Speaker 1: hundred percent tariff on China that brings the tariffs on
Speaker 1: products from China to one hundred and thirty percent. He
Speaker 1: will also impose new export controls on critical software that
Speaker 1: American tech companies are selling to China, and he's going
Speaker 1: to put controls on those. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: controls are at this particular point, but the tariffs. The
Speaker 1: reason for this is because of the fact that he
Speaker 1: said that China is not selling us the rare earth
Speaker 1: materials that we have asked, and so China made an
Speaker 1: announcement earlier this week about new restrictions on exporting their
Speaker 1: rare earth materials, their critical components for products such as
Speaker 1: semiconductors and electric vehicles and jet fighters, and so they
Speaker 1: dominate in China for the production of rare earth minerals.
Speaker 1: So Trump earlier had suggested he was going to meet
Speaker 1: with President shi Jing Peng in South Korea at the
Speaker 1: coming APEC summit coming up later this month near the
Speaker 1: end of this month, and now today he said he's
Speaker 1: no longer going to meet with him. He says I
Speaker 1: was going to meet with President she in two weeks
Speaker 1: at APAC in South Korea, but now there seems to
Speaker 1: be no reason to do so. So on that stock
Speaker 1: market took a big dive today and we'll get in
Speaker 1: to those numbers in just a little bit. Well, i'm
Speaker 1: speaking of health. And for those of you that are
Speaker 1: March Madness basketball fans, we got the sad news today
Speaker 1: that Sister Jean from Loyal University in Chicago has passed
Speaker 1: away at one hundred and six. This is the little
Speaker 1: old nun that used to attend all of their games
Speaker 1: and back the NCAH they made it to the final four.
Speaker 1: They were a cinderella team. They weren't supposed to go anywhere,
Speaker 1: but she was over there on the sidelines praying for them.
Speaker 1: And this little nun not only would pray for them,
Speaker 1: but she also would scout for them. And she would
Speaker 1: send an email to the coaches of Loyola Basketball's coaches
Speaker 1: about what the other team could do, and who's good
Speaker 1: and who's not, and what kind of rebounding they did
Speaker 1: and everything else. So she was born Dolores Bertha Schmidt
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. In nineteen fourteen, she joined the Sisters
Speaker 1: of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: and she basically started with the college in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: She became an advisor to the team and she was
Speaker 1: a mainstay on the sidelines for the NCAA March Badness Finals.
Speaker 1: And there was Sister Jean who passed away today at
Speaker 1: the rifled age of one hundred and well, let's get
Speaker 1: some phone calls in phone calls from the week. Let's
Speaker 1: see where we start today. How about with David in Nashville,
Speaker 1: who wants me to work harder.
Speaker 17: Hey, Tom, this is David in Nashville. Is it possible
Speaker 17: you can extend your podcast to three shows per day
Speaker 17: like your radio show used to, because I'll listen to
Speaker 17: all different types of podcasts, and for some reason, your
Speaker 17: show is the only one ever that makes time fly
Speaker 17: while driving and as a truck driver, that I really
Speaker 17: made my life one hundred times better. And also you
Speaker 17: used to provide so many details on each show about
Speaker 17: certain topics. There were things at the media didn't you
Speaker 17: recover that you did which was really informative.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you, I think for the for the nice compliment.
Speaker 1: Well liked Sister Jean who's going to cover the Sister
Speaker 1: Jean story. Nobody? But about doing three hours like the
Speaker 1: radio show. That's the whole concept about semi retiring is
Speaker 1: that I want to work less selfishly. I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: wish I could do longer, but I just it's a
Speaker 1: lot of work to put a podcast together. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm sitting around doing nothing, So it takes time
Speaker 1: to put this together. And I do want to put
Speaker 1: something together that is worth listening to. I hope it is.
Speaker 1: But doing three hours, I'm sorry, David. I just I'm
Speaker 1: trying to retire a little bit here. Then rena homeless
Speaker 1: guy called and he's concerned about the brutality that he
Speaker 1: sees with all the coverage of ICE arresting people, shooting
Speaker 1: people with paintball guns, things like that. Here's the homeless guy.
Speaker 18: Hey, John, we know homeless gut. That brutality is just
Speaker 18: not and weren't had a good look, bro. And as
Speaker 18: far as I was going to say, now they got
Speaker 18: eighteen year old doctor, I think we're gonna get more
Speaker 18: than a I think we're gonna get a Kent State.
Speaker 18: People are gonna guy listening to Neil Young's Ohio not
Speaker 18: a good look. I don't care what what part of
Speaker 18: your career. I think your voters are more responsible than
Speaker 18: anybody else then, or even the politicians. When you vote
Speaker 18: for somebody that's your endorsement and noverre qualified. Good luck.
Speaker 1: Well, homeless guy. He may be a homeless guy, but
Speaker 1: he brought up some really good points to unpack here.
Speaker 1: One of them is he talked about we may have
Speaker 1: a Kent State. I've been thinking the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Read a homeless guy if you have to. If you're
Speaker 1: of a certain age, you know what Kent State was
Speaker 1: all about. But it was during the Vietnam War protest
Speaker 1: and it was on Kent State University in Ohio. Neil
Speaker 1: Young wrote a song called Ohio that went on to
Speaker 1: become a big hit, and was talking about the fact
Speaker 1: that the National Guard was called in to quell the
Speaker 1: rioters on the campus of Kent State, and they had
Speaker 1: rifles and they were armed, which a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought they shouldn't have been. Anyway, they pointed their guns
Speaker 1: at the crowd and somebody opened fire and there were
Speaker 1: a number of Kent State students that were shot. I
Speaker 1: forget the number that died, but there's an iconic photo
Speaker 1: of a woman kneeling down over a student that was
Speaker 1: bleeding to death on the sidewalk at Kent State. And
Speaker 1: so it was a big turning point in the anti
Speaker 1: war attitude of his country back during the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: And he's saying, we may get another Kent State. Here's
Speaker 1: why I'm concerned about it too. You may know I
Speaker 1: did wear a badge and I also was in the Army,
Speaker 1: so I've seen I've done both of those jobs. They're
Speaker 1: not the same. And so sending in National Guard. The
Speaker 1: first of all, these these men and women they have
Speaker 1: they're civilians, they have jobs, and they're being taken away
Speaker 1: from their jobs, which I'm sure is distressing them because
Speaker 1: I'm a number of them. That means they're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot less paid from the Army National Guard
Speaker 1: in any case, that's one thing. But the Ice officers.
Speaker 1: What bothers me about this. I'm concerned about it is
Speaker 1: that they are recruiting for ice officers and they're offering
Speaker 1: a fifty thousand dollars bonus. So there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that are signing up to become ice officers. This
Speaker 1: is a law enforcement agency, a federal law enforcement agency.
Speaker 1: I don't know of any professional police department that doesn't
Speaker 1: have a minimum of months and months of training. I've
Speaker 1: been too long, but I think I was in the
Speaker 1: academy for seven days a week, live in for four
Speaker 1: months before they turned me loose on to the public.
Speaker 1: And I'm going I don't know how they're going to
Speaker 1: get these people not only vetted. There was I mean
Speaker 1: when I joined the law enforcement agency I was with,
Speaker 1: it was a huge attrition for people that applied. Most
Speaker 1: of the people that applied did not make it through.
Speaker 1: They look at your background, they look at your credit record,
Speaker 1: they look at your did you get traffic tickets? To everything?
Speaker 1: They look at you up one side and down the other.
Speaker 1: If you want a real professional police department, you have
Speaker 1: to have good background checks and you have to put
Speaker 1: them through months and months of training. My concern is
Speaker 1: there's going to be a bunch of rambos and are
Speaker 1: going to want to sign up. Do they want to
Speaker 1: go get fifty thousand dollars bonus and they want to
Speaker 1: go out on the street and bust some heads, And
Speaker 1: that is I'm sorry, that will lead to more trouble
Speaker 1: for ICE than they already have you think the public
Speaker 1: in some areas are turning against ICE? Some are I
Speaker 1: think they have a majority of support. I support them.
Speaker 1: I support them one thousand percent. They're going around picking
Speaker 1: up illegals. It should not be in our country. I'm
Speaker 1: all for that, but I want them to be a
Speaker 1: professional police force. And the idea that Christinoman Homeland Security
Speaker 1: is offering fifty thousand dollars dangling the bonus out there,
Speaker 1: You're going to get every Tom Dick and Harry that
Speaker 1: has the wrong, wrong, wrong reason for wanting to be
Speaker 1: an ICE officer, and it will lead to possibly bloodshed
Speaker 1: on the streets. That's what the homeless guy was referring
Speaker 1: to when he talked about Kent State and listen to
Speaker 1: Neil Young's Ohio. That's my concern. I'm watching this get
Speaker 1: nastier by the day, and it will get worse if
Speaker 1: they bring in a bunch of unprofessional people. Now, if
Speaker 1: there are people that are trained law enforcement officers that
Speaker 1: want to leave their departments and join ICE, they still
Speaker 1: need training to do the job that ICE is doing,
Speaker 1: but they'll be at least have law enforcement background in training.
Speaker 1: That would be a much much better solution than just
Speaker 1: rolling out the fifty thousand dollars dangling that bonus out there,
Speaker 1: going to You're gonna get all kinds of wrong people
Speaker 1: to come in. So that's from the homeless guy. So
Speaker 1: Eric also calls about similar about the about the crime
Speaker 1: in the big blue cities out there and how to
Speaker 1: handle it.
Speaker 2: What I think about what Trump needs to do about
Speaker 2: the crime in those blue cities like Chicago, Portland, LA,
Speaker 2: New York. He needs to take over their police departments. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because those civil rights of the people living in there,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, you have a right to be,
Speaker 2: you know, free of crime. I mean, this is just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Obama did it.
Speaker 19: He was taking over police departments here in a Bay area.
Speaker 19: They couldn't follow their you know, their their crime statistics
Speaker 19: were crazy. And then they took over some you know,
Speaker 19: civil rights or some some kind of quot fine violation
Speaker 19: and police department and they take over. So I think
Speaker 19: Trump needs to do the thing. The same thing is
Speaker 19: all those police departments.
Speaker 1: Eric may have an excellent point. There are police departments
Speaker 1: that have become corrupt or have super high violations of
Speaker 1: civil rights, and the federal government will come in and
Speaker 1: will basically restructure the police department because of the fact
Speaker 1: that police chiefs are at the beck and call of
Speaker 1: the mayors and the mayors or politicians, so police departments
Speaker 1: have to basically reflect the wishes of the mayors. In Chicago,
Speaker 1: Brandon Johnson at the chief of Police has to salute him.
Speaker 1: So to have the federal government come in and take
Speaker 1: over the police department and install a new police chief
Speaker 1: and install the top brass and put down some hard
Speaker 1: and fast rules for a police department to be professional,
Speaker 1: I think that's a valid idea, and I would rather
Speaker 1: see the President do that through the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: than the National Guard, because then you're going to have
Speaker 1: police departments. The rank and file. They know about the
Speaker 1: administration of their police departments, and they know where the
Speaker 1: mistakes are being made. So it wouldn't hurt the rank
Speaker 1: and file police, it would. It would basically clean out
Speaker 1: the top level of incompetent or corrupt police officials. So Eric,
Speaker 1: I like your idea. And finally, like we always like
Speaker 1: to do. And on Lourie the comment line, lady has
Speaker 1: some observations about Katie Porter.
Speaker 3: When Katie Porter said she didn't need those people who
Speaker 3: supported Trump, she was absolutely right, because she's not going
Speaker 3: to get any votes at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you're right. If you're not familiar the
Speaker 1: Katy Porter story. She's running for governor of California. She
Speaker 1: was a former congresswoman from southern California, and she as
Speaker 1: a very nasty personality. She treats her staff poorly, She
Speaker 1: swears at him all the time, cusses them out. She
Speaker 1: thinks she's better than everybody else, she thinks she's smarter
Speaker 1: than everybody else. So Katy Porter did a very uptight
Speaker 1: interview with CBS and it didn't go well, and she
Speaker 1: basically said, I don't need the forty percent of people
Speaker 1: in California who voted for Donald Trump. And that has
Speaker 1: led even the Democrats are rolling their eyes on that one.
Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of CBS, so they were sold
Speaker 1: and the son of Larry Allison, who is the second
Speaker 1: richest guy in the country I believe, who runs Oracle,
Speaker 1: his son has some extra money around and bought CBS
Speaker 1: and he's going through and making changes at CBS. One
Speaker 1: of them is he has he bought The Free Press,
Speaker 1: which is a online media organization started just a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago by a woman named Barry Weiss, and
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss was an opinion writer maybe editor at the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and she bucked heads there and the
Speaker 1: New York Times. Her fellow employees did not like her
Speaker 1: because she was talking about being more moderate, not being
Speaker 1: so liberal anyway, so she basically had to leave there.
Speaker 1: She started The Free Press. It became very popular, and
Speaker 1: she just sold it after a couple of years to
Speaker 1: CBS for one hundred and fifty million dollars. And she
Speaker 1: is now the head of news operations at CBS. So
Speaker 1: keep an eye on CBS to see if maybe some
Speaker 1: of their far left leaning ways are going to moderate somewhat.
Speaker 1: So we didn't moderate on Wall Street today. No, the
Speaker 1: President with his bumping up the trade war, especially against China,
Speaker 1: did not go over well at all on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: The Dow, oh my gosh, we should almost get almost
Speaker 1: to the kazoo player. The Dow was down eight hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy eight points, the now at forty five thousand
Speaker 1: and four to seventy nine, The S and P down
Speaker 1: two and three quarters percent, down one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: two points, the Nasdaq down almost four percent, down eight
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty points. So Wall Street got clobbered today
Speaker 1: because of the President's ramping up the trade war with China.
Speaker 1: I mean one hundred and thirty percent tariffs on anything
Speaker 1: and everything coming from China. That's essentially putting trade with
Speaker 1: China out of business completely. Price of gold, well, they
Speaker 1: rallied people run to gold when there's times of trouble.
Speaker 1: Gold was up sixty three dollars, new record high four
Speaker 1: thousand and thirty five, and the price of oil fell
Speaker 1: three dollars today it's now down. I haven't seen a
Speaker 1: five in front of the oil prices in I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe a year or more. Down to fifty eight dollars
Speaker 1: now for one barrel of oil. So that's it for today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming by, appreciate your patronage, and we'll
Speaker 1: try this again on Monday. In the meantime, have a
Speaker 1: wonderful weekend.