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Inside Trump's SOTU Speech for America · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict was centered Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:03
Speaker 1: with you, and it is one am in the morning
0:06
Speaker 1: Eastern time, after the State of the Union. I want
0:10
Speaker 1: to be very clear that I am doing this show
0:12
Speaker 1: in protest right now because I was on a plane. No, no,
0:16
Speaker 1: let me let me rephrase that center true or fosse.
0:19
Speaker 1: You and I hung out yesterday in your office.
0:22
Speaker 2: We did, and you were in DC, and I can't
0:25
Speaker 2: help it that you fled Washington during the State of
0:28
Speaker 2: the Union. And listen, karmes A and so when you
0:34
Speaker 2: decided you were a little girl and you had to
0:37
Speaker 2: get out of town because the Democrats getting mad at
0:40
Speaker 2: the president were scary. Yeah, there was a consequence, which
0:44
Speaker 2: is for those who are watching on YouTube, a coup
0:48
Speaker 2: is a courage. The original co host of Verdict has
0:52
Speaker 2: returned and seize the seat. To be clear, he has
0:55
Speaker 2: relegated mister Ferguson to appearing as a little box on
0:59
Speaker 2: a monitor.
1:02
Speaker 3: He banished Ben. I saw it, not just the seat,
1:05
Speaker 3: but I saw this cigar, and I said, this is
1:07
Speaker 3: pretty good. And this has actually become something of a tradition.
1:11
Speaker 3: I've noticed it. I've only ever been to two stags.
1:14
Speaker 1: By the way, if only TC would tell us that
1:17
Speaker 1: there is a tradition, then I wouldn't have gone on
1:19
Speaker 1: a plane at two o'clock this afternoon leave Washington, d C. Like,
1:26
Speaker 1: think about this, hey, Ben, we should have cigars. I
1:28
Speaker 1: have to say the union and do the show here.
1:30
Speaker 1: Great idea, I'll change my flight. That is how normal
1:34
Speaker 1: people would have done this. Michael a year in advance.
1:38
Speaker 2: This happened late on the fly, and so this afternoon
1:44
Speaker 2: Michael texted me and said, hey, you want to grab
1:46
Speaker 2: cigars after everything tonight? And I was like, well, we
1:51
Speaker 2: have to do the pod, but aha, I have an idea.
1:54
Speaker 2: And I didn't really want to do the pod and
1:56
Speaker 2: finish at two in the morning and then have cigars,
1:59
Speaker 2: and so I'm like, we'll combine it. And by the way,
2:01
Speaker 2: Daily Wire does this great. What is it late night?
2:03
Speaker 2: What is it called backstage? Backstage? So I've done several
2:07
Speaker 2: times done backstage with them where they sit around and
2:11
Speaker 2: drink scotch and smoke cigars, and so I said, let's
2:15
Speaker 2: bring some backstage. This is like a This is like
2:19
Speaker 2: a Marvel Universe crossover, where like Daily Wire and iHeart
2:25
Speaker 2: are intersecting.
2:26
Speaker 3: This also, really it's kind of a double verdict tradition
2:30
Speaker 3: in that two years ago, Yes, I came to my
2:33
Speaker 3: first Date of the Union address. It was Biden State
2:35
Speaker 3: of the Union, the one where they injected him with
2:37
Speaker 3: whatever they injected him with, and he yelled for ninety
2:40
Speaker 3: two minutes.
2:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:41
Speaker 3: And then afterward, actually before i'd set it up, I said, hey, Senator,
2:46
Speaker 3: I happened to be in town. Hate to pressure you
2:48
Speaker 3: for a cigar. Same thing. He said, well, okay, we
2:51
Speaker 3: can have a cigar, but you got to do the
2:52
Speaker 3: podcast first. I said, okay, well that that'd be a
2:54
Speaker 3: lot of fun. And so of course it's you know, midnight,
2:56
Speaker 3: one o'clock in the morning. And this really takes us
2:59
Speaker 3: back because when Verdicts started, it was always one o'clock
3:03
Speaker 3: in the morning, and it was actually not all that
3:06
Speaker 3: far from here in Washington, d C.
3:08
Speaker 2: Though I noticed the digs have improved a little bit.
3:12
Speaker 2: So we're in a high falutin cigar bar in DC.
3:16
Speaker 2: Because it turns out it's actually complicated to find a
3:19
Speaker 2: studio that will let you smoke a cigar.
3:23
Speaker 1: I don't get to light my cigar. That's the part
3:25
Speaker 1: that I'm really chapped about. I did look at my
3:29
Speaker 1: wife and send her you know Anna well, and I
3:32
Speaker 1: was like, what are the chances, for the sake of
3:35
Speaker 1: the show in authenticity, I could smoke said cigar. I
3:39
Speaker 1: literally did not get an answer. I got the look.
3:42
Speaker 1: And when you're married, you guys both know the look.
3:45
Speaker 1: Each one of our wives all have a look that
3:49
Speaker 1: they give you. And I was like, Okay, I got it.
3:51
Speaker 1: I know how this is.
3:52
Speaker 2: So Ben you are thoroughly domesticated, yes, yes, and it
3:56
Speaker 2: doesn't pune your manhood, yes, but and I'm not going
3:59
Speaker 2: to tell a story on myself. So when Heidi and
4:02
Speaker 2: I were engaged in an apartment in DC, and I
4:06
Speaker 2: would host poker games, and at the poker games, we
4:10
Speaker 2: would smoke cigars and we do it at my dining
4:13
Speaker 2: room table, and my buddies that would come over and play,
4:16
Speaker 2: they'd be like, dude, how does Heidi let you smoke
4:19
Speaker 2: cigars inside? And I was in my twenties and stupid,
4:24
Speaker 2: so I'm like, look, if you're the man of the
4:27
Speaker 2: house and you want to smoke a cigar, you smoke
4:30
Speaker 2: a cigar in your damn house, right, And I said
4:33
Speaker 2: it with all the bravado of a young idiot. Yeah.
4:37
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, he didn't own set house. It was an apartment,
4:39
Speaker 1: but like this store.
4:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. So then we get married. We actually get married
4:44
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago May twenty seventh, two thousand and one.
4:46
Speaker 2: That's our twenty fifth anniversary.
4:48
Speaker 3: Wow.
4:49
Speaker 2: And we come back from our honeymoon, and shortly thereafter
4:52
Speaker 2: I'm hosting a poker game and Heidi says, get the
4:55
Speaker 2: damn cigars out of the apartment. You will never smoke
4:57
Speaker 2: another one inside again. And in twenty five years I
5:00
Speaker 2: never have. And so when I say, that's another way
5:04
Speaker 2: of saying, you're actually married.
5:06
Speaker 3: Aren't we all? Aren't we all? In a way?
5:09
Speaker 2: So all right, So, Ben, Ben, what do you think
5:11
Speaker 2: of the damn State of the Union?
5:13
Speaker 1: I actually think it was the best speech Donald Trump
5:17
Speaker 1: has ever given. I actually thought it was one of
5:20
Speaker 1: the most real and authentic responses from him to the
5:25
Speaker 1: Democrats and how they were acting. I love that he
5:28
Speaker 1: was like, you can't even stand for that. You won't
5:31
Speaker 1: even say say.
5:32
Speaker 2: You guys are crazy.
5:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys are crazy.
5:35
Speaker 3: Line, And it came like the third most incredible line.
5:38
Speaker 3: I mean, there were a lot of them, yeah, but.
5:40
Speaker 1: But it came what stood out TV in an amazing way,
5:44
Speaker 1: did it? Yeah? Oh, I mean it was just his look,
5:47
Speaker 1: his demeanor. He was looking over at them. I mean,
5:50
Speaker 1: you were there obviously, so it's going to feel different
5:52
Speaker 1: to you. But like I'm watching, I'm going that line
5:55
Speaker 1: landed and I think the American people probably saw it
5:58
Speaker 1: and They're like, wow, this is going to be really good.
6:00
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there. It was very kind of Speaker
6:03
Speaker 3: Johnson to invite me, and I'm sitting over the Democrats,
6:08
Speaker 3: so I got a prime view of the Democrats. And
6:14
Speaker 3: the first line that really brought down the House was
6:16
Speaker 3: when President Trump looked over and it was beautifully written
6:19
Speaker 3: and beautifully executed. He looked over, he said, Okay, I
6:23
Speaker 3: want everyone to stand up if you agree with the
6:26
Speaker 3: statement that America should protect Americans or something to that
6:31
Speaker 3: effect and over illegals. Yes, and they refuse to stand
6:40
Speaker 3: political malpractice the likes of which one has rarely seen.
6:45
Speaker 3: And it was a brutal moment. He totally took advantage.
6:49
Speaker 2: Then, so that moment will be played in a million campaigns.
6:54
Speaker 3: Yes.
6:54
Speaker 2: Yes, And by the way, it was the longest sustained
6:57
Speaker 2: applause of Republicans. We stood, and we applauded, and we applauded,
7:02
Speaker 2: and he just looked over. He stepped away from with
7:05
Speaker 2: amazement watching them, and the ad rights itself. They're for
7:11
Speaker 2: illegals and not for you. And they were given that choice,
7:15
Speaker 2: do you stand with Americans or do you stand with
7:17
Speaker 2: illegals and the entire party? No, we're the party of
7:22
Speaker 2: illegal aliens and not the party of Americans.
7:25
Speaker 3: It was shocking. So then he doubles down on I'm
7:29
Speaker 3: skipping around a little bit in time because it escalated
7:32
Speaker 3: well by the way.
7:33
Speaker 1: He noticed a trend. He noticed, this is going to
7:35
Speaker 1: be the trend of my speech, Like I don't think
7:37
Speaker 1: he planned it this whole, Like you guys aren't going
7:40
Speaker 1: to stand for that. It was the moment and then
7:42
Speaker 1: it hit and then it was like, I'm going to
7:44
Speaker 1: keep doing this tonight to show Americans how crazy these
7:48
Speaker 1: guys are on the left. That's how it came across
7:50
Speaker 1: on TV.
7:50
Speaker 3: Well, he landed it on the transgender ideology. Yes, kid
7:55
Speaker 3: who had been transed and had destroyed his family, and
7:57
Speaker 3: then the kid finally ended up in the right place,
8:00
Speaker 3: and the he said, isn't that wonderful? The family's reunited
8:03
Speaker 3: and everyone's flourishing, and the Dems wouldn't stand. And that
8:07
Speaker 3: was when he dealt the blow. He said these people
8:10
Speaker 3: are crazy, and that that too lit it up now
8:14
Speaker 3: where it got a little dark. But it was the
8:16
Speaker 3: same strategy. It was the same tactic, I suppose is
8:19
Speaker 3: when he started bringing up violence, and he obviously turns
8:24
Speaker 3: to Erica Kirk, this national hero, this perhaps the most
8:28
Speaker 3: sympathetic figure in the entire country, certainly up there, and
8:32
Speaker 3: the Democrats didn't want to stand for Charlie. They didn't
8:35
Speaker 3: want to stand for Erica again, that itself is disgraceful.
8:38
Speaker 3: But he even gave them it out. He said, we're
8:41
Speaker 3: a country where we say in God we trust, and
8:44
Speaker 3: we reject political violence of all kinds. And I was
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Speaker 3: looking over some Democrats stood for that.
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Speaker 2: I'd said more than half on the political violence. I looked,
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Speaker 2: and it was probably sixty seventy percent think about that.
8:57
Speaker 2: But a third did not.
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Speaker 3: A third did not, third would not stand for we
9:01
Speaker 3: reject political violence of all kinds. It was I felt
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Speaker 3: a disaster of optics for Democrats and disaster of morals well.
9:10
Speaker 2: And on the we don't stand for political violence. The
9:13
Speaker 2: reason two thirds stood is Schumer stood. By the way,
9:16
Speaker 2: have you ever noticed how much Chuck Schumer looks like
9:19
Speaker 2: the villain and the Smurfs? But what's what's the name?
9:22
Speaker 2: I don't remember the name of the villain? Like the
9:24
Speaker 2: curved over like like you know, he's hunched, he has
9:28
Speaker 2: kind of a hunchback.
9:28
Speaker 3: Maybe Penguin from Batman was what I got.
9:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but he sort of.
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Speaker 1: No, I couldn't agree with you more. By the way,
9:38
Speaker 1: you guys are in there, so you may not know this,
9:40
Speaker 1: So I may break news to you. Did you guys
9:43
Speaker 1: see what Rashid Tillie was chanting? Wow? Everyone was chanting USA, USA.
9:48
Speaker 1: At one of the points in the speech, she was
9:51
Speaker 1: chanting kkk kkk kkk.
9:58
Speaker 2: Really yes, well, you know Christon advertising credit credit.
10:02
Speaker 1: For her you guys, I don't know if you can see,
10:04
Speaker 1: but let's be our good friend. Steve Guests put it
10:07
Speaker 1: out there. Watch Democrat representative to leave. She's chanting kkk
10:13
Speaker 1: while everyone else is cheering USA.
10:15
Speaker 2: Well. The KKK was founded by Democrats. It was almost
10:21
Speaker 2: exclusively populated by Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of
10:25
Speaker 2: the clan, was a delegate a delegate to the DNC
10:29
Speaker 2: National Convention in eighteen sixty he was a national delegate.
10:33
Speaker 2: And you look at the Klan was founded by Democrats.
10:37
Speaker 2: Jim Crow. Laws were founded by Democrats. Segregation was enforced
10:41
Speaker 2: by Democrats. They have been the party of racial bigotry
10:45
Speaker 2: the entire history. And by the way, our party, I mean,
10:49
Speaker 2: we often refer to our party as the Party of Lincoln,
10:51
Speaker 2: but we were literally founded to abolished slavery, right, That's
10:55
Speaker 2: why the Republican Party came together. And by the way
10:57
Speaker 2: we did. The first Republican president is who signed the
11:00
Speaker 2: Emancipation Proclamation.
11:01
Speaker 3: Well, you know on racial animus and Rashida Talib did
11:04
Speaker 3: you see. I don't know if you caught this, but
11:07
Speaker 3: when President Trump said, what a wonderful thing. We released
11:11
Speaker 3: all the hostages. We got the ostage released, both dead
11:13
Speaker 3: and alive. We returned even their remains, and most people
11:17
Speaker 3: stood up. I looked Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib were
11:21
Speaker 3: sitting down.
11:22
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. And by the way, mean at one point
11:24
Speaker 2: they heckled when there was a reference to the end
11:27
Speaker 2: of the war in Gaza. They heckled and screamed genocide.
11:31
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's who their party is.
11:34
Speaker 1: Well, and if you look at tonight there was four
11:36
Speaker 1: Democrat responses like, that's not good for your party when
11:40
Speaker 1: you're that broken.
11:41
Speaker 2: Four Who were the four?
11:43
Speaker 1: So you had one in Spanish, you had one that
11:45
Speaker 1: was a progressive radical, you had one that was like
11:48
Speaker 1: at the next level Manter, and then you had the
11:50
Speaker 1: Virginia governor. You had four official res.
11:53
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. I don't
11:55
Speaker 2: even know who they were. But there are four who
11:57
Speaker 2: were progressive radicals.
11:59
Speaker 1: Well, I agree with you. Yes, I'm giving you their
12:02
Speaker 1: official statement, but they literally had Hey, depending on how
12:07
Speaker 1: crazy you are, if you're a Marxist, socialist, communist, or
12:10
Speaker 1: a radical lefty or like the transgender, or maybe just
12:13
Speaker 1: like a normal Democrat, here's your all of your responses
12:17
Speaker 1: for you, and we'll have all of those for you.
12:19
Speaker 2: So right after the State of the Union, I did Hannity,
12:22
Speaker 2: and as I was sitting there waiting to go on,
12:25
Speaker 2: Fox wouldn't put Hannity on air until Spamberger finished her response.
12:29
Speaker 2: So I sit down and put my earpiece in and
12:32
Speaker 2: it's just her voice screeching and loud. Yeah, And I'm
12:36
Speaker 2: turned to Handy and I said, Sean, I haven't led
12:40
Speaker 2: nearly a wicked enough life to deserve to listen to this.
12:43
Speaker 2: As I just turned the volume off, I'm like, I can't.
12:48
Speaker 2: There's just a limit to how much pain I can endure.
12:50
Speaker 3: But you know what's very telling about Spanberger is you
12:54
Speaker 3: had Andy Bisheer come out, who is a serious presidential candidate,
12:57
Speaker 3: Kentucky governor. Yeah, and he said spam Burger is the
13:01
Speaker 3: model for Democrats in the midterms, which means translation will run.
13:06
Speaker 3: They will run as moderates.
13:07
Speaker 2: It means live, don't lie.
13:09
Speaker 3: They'll run as moderates, and they will immediately enact the
13:12
Speaker 3: most radical leftist agenda you could maybe imagine.
13:17
Speaker 1: I love by the way. I know you're a man
13:19
Speaker 1: of the people and you do all of your own
13:20
Speaker 1: yard work. But if you if you lived in Virginia's
13:25
Speaker 1: crazy wearing French cuffs, that would be only that guy
13:29
Speaker 1: right there. I just want to be talking the one
13:31
Speaker 1: where the big cloud of smoke that just went up
13:34
Speaker 1: in the air, that would be that guy's cufflings. Yeah,
13:37
Speaker 1: that's the one there, so there there.
13:39
Speaker 2: Look, it is impressive because at Yale he wore a cravat.
13:44
Speaker 3: I'm going more populous as I age, and I wish Michael.
13:48
Speaker 1: Had to sign it because before we knew what the work.
13:51
Speaker 2: But I'm also impressed because Ben att old miss never
13:53
Speaker 2: wore pants, so so we're kind of reaching a kind
13:57
Speaker 2: of middleman down actually.
13:59
Speaker 1: A man of the people, a man of product. Gucci.
14:01
Speaker 1: It just it is. It is what it is.
14:03
Speaker 3: No.
14:04
Speaker 1: But like in Virginia, they've gone so crazy. They're they're
14:08
Speaker 1: they literally have laws written right now that she's in
14:10
Speaker 1: favor of to ban gasoline powered weed eaters and blowers.
14:16
Speaker 1: And then they're putting a ten percent tax on electric blowers,
14:19
Speaker 1: so they're going to charge even more to be green.
14:22
Speaker 1: That's Virginia.
14:23
Speaker 2: I love that the President brought up that to shovel
14:28
Speaker 2: snow in New York under multiple IDs, you need two
14:32
Speaker 2: forms of ID, which I actually had been advising. I
14:36
Speaker 2: think humor is a really powerful way to drive this point.
14:40
Speaker 2: And I think that and also the fact that John
14:42
Speaker 2: ossoff to get to his rally against photo I D.
14:46
Speaker 2: For voting, you had to show an.
14:47
Speaker 1: Idea, you had to photo, you had to show vote
14:50
Speaker 1: I D. Yeah, this kick.
14:51
Speaker 3: Was the key, I mean, really the reason that the
14:54
Speaker 3: State of the Union succeeded. And I agree it was
14:57
Speaker 3: one of Trump's best speeches. The Warsaw Each in the
15:00
Speaker 3: first term was also an excellent speech, but this was
15:02
Speaker 3: up there, and I think the reason it succeeded was
15:05
Speaker 3: the President had to reassure voters who voted for him
15:10
Speaker 3: on mass you know, he won the popular vote. He
15:12
Speaker 3: had to reassure them that we are still the party
15:16
Speaker 3: of normal, of safety, of flourishing, of sanity, of sanity
15:23
Speaker 3: where I think some voters you have this question after
15:28
Speaker 3: the Minneapolis immigration enforcement Why is it that voters still
15:32
Speaker 3: support mass deportations but oppose ice supporting people. You know,
15:37
Speaker 3: that's kind of a contradiction. Why is it that the
15:40
Speaker 3: fundamentals of the economy are looking pretty good? You know,
15:43
Speaker 3: record I sed, stock market pretty good, inflation, pretty good,
15:45
Speaker 3: job numbers, pretty good. GDP could have been better if
15:48
Speaker 3: not for the government shutdown that the Dems gave us.
15:51
Speaker 3: Why is it that they're a little the voters are
15:54
Speaker 3: worried about the economy, but the economy seems to be
15:56
Speaker 3: doing well. It's this fear that we're in a precarious
15:59
Speaker 3: mone moment, and so I think both sides went into
16:03
Speaker 3: this saying we want to be the party of stability,
16:05
Speaker 3: of security of normal flourishing. That's why Hakim Jeffries told
16:09
Speaker 3: the Democrats, hey, be cool and if you can't be cool,
16:12
Speaker 3: don't show up.
16:13
Speaker 2: You know, I think for Soyle Green got shot thrown out.
16:15
Speaker 3: Al Green couldn't resist.
16:18
Speaker 1: At least at least he had a big sign that
16:20
Speaker 1: he got to walk around with, right he felt he
16:22
Speaker 1: felt just.
16:23
Speaker 2: So in his signs said blacks aren't apes. Yeah, and
16:27
Speaker 2: I turned. I was sitting next to Todd Young and
16:30
Speaker 2: I said, wow, is ow Green protesting Gavin Newsom? Yeah?
16:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, look like it.
16:36
Speaker 2: By the way, Gavin Newsom, he's like the perfect Democrat
16:40
Speaker 2: made in the laboratory. An idiot.
16:45
Speaker 1: He sayscis open racist? Yeah, he says racist.
16:48
Speaker 2: He goes in front of a crowd of African Americans
16:50
Speaker 2: and goes, I'm just like you, You're stupid, and I
16:53
Speaker 2: am too.
16:53
Speaker 3: Unbelievable and I can't what.
16:56
Speaker 2: I got a nine to sixty on the sat which,
16:59
Speaker 2: by the way, Michael got a nine sixty on the
17:02
Speaker 2: verbal portion of his set. And yes, I know it's
17:06
Speaker 2: only eight hundred.
17:07
Speaker 1: But but but still, yes, I love that you just
17:10
Speaker 1: had to geek out and show the giks that you
17:12
Speaker 1: know the Max is an eight hundred. There, to be clear,
17:15
Speaker 1: I can't remember I took the damn thing, and I
17:17
Speaker 1: can't remember what.
17:18
Speaker 2: Did anyone doubt I was a geek?
17:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I just we have to remind you, though,
17:23
Speaker 1: every once in a while.
17:24
Speaker 2: Let's be clear on things like that. I popped, Michael,
17:26
Speaker 2: mostly because my own vulnerabilities are so glaring on that.
17:30
Speaker 3: No, listen the admission rate for Princeton. I think.
17:36
Speaker 1: Let's let's be clear. Both of you know your scores
17:38
Speaker 1: right by heart. What you made? So what were you? Michael?
17:43
Speaker 1: Don't lie?
17:44
Speaker 3: It was higher than Gavin Newsom's. I'll tell you that.
17:46
Speaker 2: No, what was it?
17:47
Speaker 1: I want to know. I want to know what it was.
17:49
Speaker 3: Do you want to know the irony. I'll tell you
17:50
Speaker 3: the irony of my essay?
17:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't. This is this is him delaying the brilliance.
17:54
Speaker 1: Keep going.
17:54
Speaker 3: I did. I did get on the math and the verbal.
17:58
Speaker 3: I got a perfect score.
18:00
Speaker 1: That's what I was.
18:01
Speaker 3: However, you don't want to know the irony. There was
18:04
Speaker 3: at that time the writing component. There was a writing
18:06
Speaker 3: thing that they added. It was kind of optional or experimental.
18:09
Speaker 3: And the funny thing is I did not get a
18:11
Speaker 3: perfect score. I actually don't remember the exact it was less.
18:14
Speaker 3: It was the six eighty or something. But the funny
18:17
Speaker 3: thing is that's the thing I went into and my
18:19
Speaker 3: most famous book has no words in it. So it
18:21
Speaker 3: ended up it ended up working out just fine.
18:24
Speaker 2: Uh Newsome, I am going to decline to answer on
18:29
Speaker 2: the advice accounts, oh wow, because I am in elected
18:33
Speaker 2: politics and running around like squawking about your SAT score?
18:38
Speaker 1: Did you have two three categories? Like Michael, I just
18:41
Speaker 1: want to know what cant.
18:43
Speaker 2: I did not any of that. I did not and
18:45
Speaker 2: I did well on the test. But I am I'm
18:50
Speaker 2: just telling you I may not know much about politics,
18:54
Speaker 2: but I am quite certain it is dumb as hell
18:57
Speaker 2: you say this was my SAT score?
19:01
Speaker 1: Like to prove how much of a man of the
19:03
Speaker 1: people I am. I walked in and took the test.
19:06
Speaker 1: I forgot my calculator and I looked at the lady
19:11
Speaker 1: that does the test, and I said, what is the
19:13
Speaker 1: minimum for NCAA requirements? Can I do it without a calculator?
19:17
Speaker 1: And she goes, I'm intrigued to see if you can.
19:19
Speaker 1: And I was above the NCAA minimum without a calculator,
19:24
Speaker 1: and I took it once and the score came in,
19:26
Speaker 1: and my mom was furious when it came to mail.
19:28
Speaker 1: She's like, you're taking it again. She was so mad.
19:30
Speaker 1: I forgot my remember the TI eighty three or whatever
19:32
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, like the calculator you took
19:35
Speaker 1: with you. And I was like, I forgot it that.
19:37
Speaker 1: My mom's an educator. She was like, you're taking it.
19:39
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not. I'm above the minimum
19:40
Speaker 1: for NCAA requirements. That's all I care about. And that way,
19:42
Speaker 1: I took it once.
19:43
Speaker 2: All right, So I'm going to tell you sat lsat story.
19:48
Speaker 2: So when I show up at college. My first job,
19:52
Speaker 2: I worked at Princeton Media Services, videotaping things and like
19:57
Speaker 2: like a run and operate a video camera and like
19:59
Speaker 2: videotape all sort different programs and things. And that paid
20:01
Speaker 2: either seven or eight bucks an hour. And then I
20:05
Speaker 2: got hired by the Prince to review to teach the SAT,
20:08
Speaker 2: which was a much better job because it paid fifteen
20:10
Speaker 2: bucks an hour. And so I'm like, hot, diggity damn,
20:14
Speaker 2: I could do that math and fifteen is better than seven.
20:17
Speaker 2: So so for like a year or two I taught
20:19
Speaker 2: the SAT. I guess a year and then I'm like, wait,
20:23
Speaker 2: there's no margin in teaching the SAT. I've already taken it.
20:27
Speaker 2: And I knew I wanted to go to law school.
20:29
Speaker 2: So I went to the course and said, hey, can
20:31
Speaker 2: I teach the l SAT? And so they paid me
20:36
Speaker 2: to train me to teach the l SAT, which was
20:39
Speaker 2: useful because I had to, in fact teach the l set.
20:42
Speaker 2: So when I was a sophomore in college, I was
20:43
Speaker 2: teaching the l SAT and the students would say, well,
20:46
Speaker 2: what score.
20:46
Speaker 1: Did you take daycare right now?
20:50
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, it was there were real classes. But
20:53
Speaker 2: the hysterical story is, so I taught the l SAT
20:56
Speaker 2: for a year and then so Junie year year, we're
21:00
Speaker 2: taking the l set And you guys both know my
21:02
Speaker 2: college roommatee. It was my law school roommate, and other
21:05
Speaker 2: than Heidi, my best friend of the world. David Panton, Yeah, Jamaican,
21:10
Speaker 2: incredibly talented, became Barack Obama, was the first black president
21:15
Speaker 2: of the Harvard Law Review. David was the second black president
21:18
Speaker 2: of Harvard Larview. So but when David and I are
21:21
Speaker 2: in college, we're both taking the l set. The night
21:24
Speaker 2: before the l set, David and I like complete morons,
21:27
Speaker 2: did I mention that we were like nineteen or twenty.
21:30
Speaker 2: I guess twenty. We stayed up all night playing Nintendo.
21:34
Speaker 2: We literally did not sleep. We pulled an all nighter
21:37
Speaker 2: playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo.
21:40
Speaker 1: The Bistelle check out by the way, OK.
21:43
Speaker 2: The l set was in Newark, so I had my
21:47
Speaker 2: first car was a green seventy eight Ford Fairmont. So
21:51
Speaker 2: I drove us to Newark. We take the l set.
21:54
Speaker 2: It was at eight am. So we leave at like
21:56
Speaker 2: six six thirty go sit for the test. It's like
21:59
Speaker 2: four hours or so. So we're coming home, coming back
22:02
Speaker 2: to college at like one in the afternoon, and we're
22:05
Speaker 2: driving back and I said, so, David, how did it go?
22:08
Speaker 2: And he said, well, during one of the sections, I
22:11
Speaker 2: put my head down and fell asleep, and he said,
22:16
Speaker 2: I woke up with two minutes left and I just
22:19
Speaker 2: filled out B for every question. And he turns to
22:22
Speaker 2: me and says, do you think B is the right answer?
22:25
Speaker 2: And so it turns out you can cancel your LSAT
22:27
Speaker 2: score on the spot if you want to see what up?
22:30
Speaker 2: And just canceled a score. That's the poor guy had
22:33
Speaker 2: to take it again. And then he did. He did well.
22:35
Speaker 2: The second time he took it, but he literally I
22:37
Speaker 2: laughed so hard I almost crashed the car, but I
22:41
Speaker 2: ended up keeping him up all night and making him
22:44
Speaker 2: fall asleep during the elbe What if all.
22:45
Speaker 3: The answers were be they could have been, he might
22:48
Speaker 3: have missed out on the perfect score score. The Newsome
22:52
Speaker 3: thing is is really frustrating because right now he is
22:54
Speaker 3: the leading candidate for the Democrats, I think, without question,
22:57
Speaker 3: and I'm the Munich Security Conference. Newsom's still the leading candidate.
23:03
Speaker 3: And on the one hand, he has these social media
23:05
Speaker 3: posts where he's sitting there performatively reading Beloved by Tony Morrison,
23:11
Speaker 3: performatively reading all these books that.
23:12
Speaker 2: Are by the way, are you aware that Newsom let
23:15
Speaker 2: himself on fire in a social media exchange about Verdict?
23:20
Speaker 1: No?
23:21
Speaker 2: So so coming back from Munich, we did. We did
23:24
Speaker 2: a whole show on Munich, lighting up AOC and lighting
23:28
Speaker 2: up Newsom and Newsom, and Munich said Donald Trump is
23:33
Speaker 2: the first president in history to federalize the National Guard,
23:37
Speaker 2: and so on Verdict, I said, Gavin Newsom is historically illiterate. Yes, uh,
23:44
Speaker 2: And actually you talked about it, defended your use of
23:48
Speaker 2: the English language properly and so I said that, and
23:53
Speaker 2: then he tweeted out he said, calling someone who's dyslexic
24:02
Speaker 2: illiterate is a new low, even for cruise. And mind you,
24:08
Speaker 2: who knew he was dyslexic. I didn't know that until
24:11
Speaker 2: he sent out his tweet.
24:13
Speaker 1: Yeah for a guy that then also claims in a
24:16
Speaker 1: white podcast, so he can read a three hundred page
24:18
Speaker 1: book in two hours. Don't forget that came out yes
24:20
Speaker 1: as well, So so much for being majorly dyslexic.
24:23
Speaker 2: Right, But then, so we had we actually had twin responses.
24:29
Speaker 2: So my staff came up with a response with a
24:32
Speaker 2: gift from Zulander, and I wrote a response and said
24:40
Speaker 2: something like I didn't say you couldn't read, you clown,
24:44
Speaker 2: I said you were historically illiterate because you apparently have
24:48
Speaker 2: no idea about the civil rights movement and the fact
24:50
Speaker 2: that Eisenhower federalized the National Guard. And this is actually
24:55
Speaker 2: a cool I think this is the first tweet I've
24:58
Speaker 2: ever said that was partially written by AI. So I
25:04
Speaker 2: went to Google and I just typed in Eisenhower federalizing
25:09
Speaker 2: National Guard, and instantaneously several paragraphs pop up that are
25:14
Speaker 2: beautifully researched and so I cut and paste one of
25:17
Speaker 2: them that said on date and I didn't know the date.
25:20
Speaker 2: You know, Eisenhower signed executive order number and I didn't
25:23
Speaker 2: know the executive order number. But it was like this
25:26
Speaker 2: beautifully researched. So the second half of the tweet. I
25:30
Speaker 2: actually wrote that tweet while playing Hoops. So, as you
25:34
Speaker 2: guys know, I played Hoops twice a week, so it
25:35
Speaker 2: was like in between games on my phone, I like,
25:39
Speaker 2: type the first half, put it the.
25:42
Speaker 1: Last way, wait time out, timeout? I got it. You
25:45
Speaker 1: opened up something there? You set in between games? Were
25:48
Speaker 1: you the odd man out?
25:50
Speaker 2: Yeah? Did you?
25:51
Speaker 1: I lost? I just wanted to get that on there.
25:54
Speaker 1: Did you hear what he said? Michael? Can you make
25:55
Speaker 1: sure it's Mike's working? He just did? He say he lost.
25:58
Speaker 1: It's going to be very clear.
25:59
Speaker 3: But I think that was recorded.
26:01
Speaker 1: Okay, got it? Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm glad that we
26:04
Speaker 1: got that. That was worth staying up plate for just that,
26:06
Speaker 1: right there. Keep going with your story, sir, This is
26:08
Speaker 1: getting good.
26:09
Speaker 2: So but when I sent my tweet, my social media
26:12
Speaker 2: team was all mad and they're like, wait, we like
26:14
Speaker 2: our Zoolander tweet, and I said no, no, no, put them
26:18
Speaker 2: both out. Yeah, and let's have an experiment. Let's see
26:22
Speaker 2: who wins. Who gets more like like you've got mine
26:26
Speaker 2: and you know you guys, And so it was close.
26:32
Speaker 2: I only beat them by two hundred and fifty percent.
26:36
Speaker 2: So they got I think four hundred thousand engagements and
26:38
Speaker 2: I got one point one million. But I will confess
26:42
Speaker 2: making an admission on this. Although they didn't get nearly
26:47
Speaker 2: the reach the comments on the Zoolander gift, the people
26:51
Speaker 2: that saw it way better loved.
26:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:53
Speaker 2: I mean they're just like the best tweet in the
26:55
Speaker 2: history of the Internet, like they were, so I think
26:58
Speaker 2: it was a smaller niche audience. Yeah, but the ones
27:01
Speaker 2: that hit it really hit.
27:03
Speaker 1: It's almost like as good as when you were the
27:05
Speaker 1: Zodiac Killer. Maybe you still are, but you know, those
27:08
Speaker 1: those never make me not laugh.
27:10
Speaker 2: What do you mean when I was the Zodiac Yeah?
27:12
Speaker 2: Exactly when did I?
27:13
Speaker 3: I haven't shaped the statute of limitations recently. Yeah, but
27:17
Speaker 3: I think you're safe now.
27:19
Speaker 2: So do you know that? In twenty sixteen, an actual
27:24
Speaker 2: poll done in the state of Florida found thirty eight
27:28
Speaker 2: percent of Floridians believe that I could be the Zodiac Killer.
27:33
Speaker 2: I to be clear. The Zodiac Killer killed at least
27:36
Speaker 2: five people in northern California in the late nineteen sixties.
27:40
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen seventy.
27:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and yeah.
27:43
Speaker 2: Maybe nearly half of Floridians believed I could be the
27:46
Speaker 2: Zodiac Killer.
27:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's you could have lied about your age.
27:51
Speaker 1: You could have lied about your age. This is how
27:53
Speaker 1: conspiracies begin.
27:55
Speaker 2: I did have one one rally where this kid had
27:59
Speaker 2: a sign and it's like twenty and he had a
28:02
Speaker 2: sign that said, are you the Zodiac Killer? And I
28:04
Speaker 2: went up to him. I put my hand on his shoulder.
28:06
Speaker 2: I said, son, if I was the Zodiac Killer, would
28:10
Speaker 2: you really want to be here with that sign right now? Yeah?
28:12
Speaker 2: You know.
28:13
Speaker 3: This actually was the point, which is how we got
28:16
Speaker 3: into news him the sign. I don't know if you
28:18
Speaker 3: guys saw the memes that were going around.
28:20
Speaker 2: So I lost a bet on this.
28:23
Speaker 3: I bet that the Democrats would not have a member
28:26
Speaker 3: ejected from the speech. I thought they might have.
28:30
Speaker 1: Did you actually believe that?
28:31
Speaker 3: Though I didn't think that. I thought they would listen
28:33
Speaker 3: to HACKEM Jefferies and try to chill. But they can't
28:36
Speaker 3: know Eygreen has no chill, So he opens up.
28:38
Speaker 2: By the way, there's a very real chance al Green
28:40
Speaker 2: loses his Democrat primary a week from now. Yeah, really,
28:44
Speaker 2: he's actually in jeopardy. And so I think the antics
28:48
Speaker 2: were partially. Of course, he did his antics last year,
28:50
Speaker 2: like waving his cane, which like to embody a grumpy
28:55
Speaker 2: old man, like get off my lawn, you kids.
28:58
Speaker 3: It's perfect. But he made it. He made a real
29:01
Speaker 3: optical error, which is he unfurled the sign, which from
29:04
Speaker 3: my angle in the gallery I could not see, and
29:06
Speaker 3: so I said, wow, what's he saying? And I guess
29:08
Speaker 3: the sign said black people aren't apes. But the problem
29:11
Speaker 3: was the way he was holding it, the one the
29:17
Speaker 3: one that I saw, and maybe one of those said
29:19
Speaker 3: that too, the one I also said black people rent apes,
29:23
Speaker 3: which was like an unfortunate any way you slice it,
29:26
Speaker 3: These are very unfortunate optics, And I thought, you know,
29:29
Speaker 3: the Democrat leader in the house asked one thing. He said, hey, guys,
29:33
Speaker 3: please don't look crazy during the speech. And as the
29:39
Speaker 3: President is walking into the room, al Green unfurls this sign,
29:43
Speaker 3: and I thought, you have the discipline of a fruitfly,
29:47
Speaker 3: Like there is no chance they didn't make it five minutes.
29:51
Speaker 1: They're insane, all right. I have to ask you guys
29:53
Speaker 1: being there, because one of the best lines of the
29:55
Speaker 1: whole speech, and that was just one of those little
29:58
Speaker 1: kind of tit for tatlines and it but it worked,
30:01
Speaker 1: was when he was talking about insider trading and then
30:04
Speaker 1: he said Nancy Pelosi's name, And it was amazing on
30:09
Speaker 1: TV because if you didn't know the story, free one,
30:12
Speaker 1: you immediately went to.
30:14
Speaker 2: Every one of us was there.
30:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was too, But like if you didn't know,
30:19
Speaker 1: and then you saw the reaction and you heard the
30:22
Speaker 1: hissing bit whatever it was in the hall. I don't
30:24
Speaker 1: know exactly what they were saying. It was like they
30:26
Speaker 1: were like, you can't say her name like that. You
30:29
Speaker 1: know that everybody went and googled insider trading, Nancy Pelosi
30:33
Speaker 1: and then they learned about the story. Like they literally
30:36
Speaker 1: helped him sell the story. What was the reaction from
30:39
Speaker 1: the were Democrats mad or what was the reaction?
30:42
Speaker 2: You were on the floor, Oh, look, they were mad constantly.
30:45
Speaker 2: So is there one I will say though, there's a
30:48
Speaker 2: difference from this year and last year. So last year
30:51
Speaker 2: they went through the entire state of the Union and
30:54
Speaker 2: they didn't applaud. They didn't applaud when Trump walked in.
30:58
Speaker 2: They didn't applaud for any thing. They just sat for
31:01
Speaker 2: the stone faced and heckled and waved their cane in it.
31:06
Speaker 2: This year, before the State of the Union, I actually
31:08
Speaker 2: went to several Democrats and asked them. I said, okay,
31:13
Speaker 2: are you guys going to applaud for the US hockey team, like,
31:17
Speaker 2: come on? And they all said yes. In fact, several
31:20
Speaker 2: of them had an expletive. They said f yes, And
31:25
Speaker 2: I said, look, to be clear, last year, you didn't
31:28
Speaker 2: applaud for a kid with cancer, and question, Okay. One
31:33
Speaker 2: of the Democrats who I actually like, he's I'm not
31:35
Speaker 2: going to identify it, but he's got a good sense
31:37
Speaker 2: of humor. I said that to him and he said, yeah,
31:39
Speaker 2: we hate kids with cancer, which was like all right,
31:43
Speaker 2: Like don't argue, just kind of vote it. And I'm like,
31:45
Speaker 2: all right, well, well played like.
31:48
Speaker 3: They did it again. This year. By the way, there
31:50
Speaker 3: was a little girl who couldn't walk and it was
31:53
Speaker 3: the same thing. A good chunk of Democrats would I
31:57
Speaker 3: guess they were trying to play the stoic card. It
31:59
Speaker 3: did not reached, at least from my vantage. I thought
32:02
Speaker 3: it looked really callous because there was no unity within
32:05
Speaker 3: the party, so there was no clear messaging. You know,
32:08
Speaker 3: look that it all seemed pretty disastrous. The question that
32:11
Speaker 3: I have as a as a proper conservative who is
32:14
Speaker 3: always looking for the downside of things just to temper
32:17
Speaker 3: my you know, jubilation. Do you think I think universally
32:23
Speaker 3: the speech was viewed as quite good, quite effective. Does
32:26
Speaker 3: it make a meaningful difference in the midterms?
32:29
Speaker 2: Look, I think it does. Do you all right? Layout why?
32:33
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. This speech was the things that
32:38
Speaker 1: irritate Republican slash moderate voters about Trump, that it's all
32:47
Speaker 1: about him, and he doesn't know when to you know that,
32:50
Speaker 1: the mean tweets and when to shut up, and and
32:52
Speaker 1: and the things that irritate those that can stay home
32:56
Speaker 1: watching his demeanor tonight. He came across in such a
33:00
Speaker 1: way of like, these guys don't want this, These guys
33:04
Speaker 1: don't put you first, these guys don't do this. He
33:07
Speaker 1: also was giving incredible accolades and awards and the US
33:11
Speaker 1: hockey team. There was momentum there. It was one after another.
33:14
Speaker 1: It was one hundred year old man, a veteran, It
33:17
Speaker 1: was the guy who was flying the helicopter, the Chinook
33:19
Speaker 1: and telling a story. He was praising what makes America
33:23
Speaker 1: great and the people that make America great. I actually
33:27
Speaker 1: think that if you are a moderate voter, someone maybe
33:30
Speaker 1: a Republican that traditionally stays home during the mid terms,
33:34
Speaker 1: I actually think that this speech landed with you more
33:38
Speaker 1: than any other speech of Trump the way it played
33:40
Speaker 1: on TV. I think it also is going to land
33:43
Speaker 1: on the economic issues of him reminding the no tax
33:47
Speaker 1: on tips, the no tax on overtime, I'm trying to
33:50
Speaker 1: make life more affordable, the gas prices. Those are things
33:54
Speaker 1: that I actually think, Well, you know, they've been hammering
33:56
Speaker 1: him on all the approval rings at forty this or
33:59
Speaker 1: thirty nine or thirty depending on poll. I think he
34:01
Speaker 1: gets a bump that actually stays because he landed it
34:05
Speaker 1: so well in the audience, and he looked really calm,
34:08
Speaker 1: He looked really just like I'm doing this because I
34:11
Speaker 1: want to fix the country, and other speeches haven't come
34:14
Speaker 1: across that way always.
34:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me agree with you in that I think
34:19
Speaker 2: the message tonight was the record of the last year. Yeah,
34:24
Speaker 2: the record of the last year, I believe is objectively phenomenal. Yeah,
34:28
Speaker 2: and I've been in the Senate now fourteen years. We've
34:31
Speaker 2: never had a year where we've accomplished even a fraction
34:35
Speaker 2: of what we did have been accomplished in the last year.
34:38
Speaker 2: I mean, it is staggering. And he did a good job.
34:41
Speaker 2: You know. We talked about on the last pod how
34:44
Speaker 2: I spent thirty forty minutes on the phone with Trump
34:47
Speaker 2: last week, and one of the things we talked about
34:50
Speaker 2: was messaging for the midterms, and I said, listen, we
34:54
Speaker 2: need to focus on results, on the very real results
35:00
Speaker 2: during the border ninety nine percent drop in ELU crossings.
35:05
Speaker 2: And then I encouraged him a message that's not getting
35:09
Speaker 2: the attention it should is the impact on crime. Yes,
35:13
Speaker 2: they murder rates have dropped twenty percent, drug overdose deaths
35:18
Speaker 2: have dropped twenty percent. They're literally thousands of Americans who
35:22
Speaker 2: were alive today because Trump was elected and Republicans won Congress.
35:25
Speaker 3: It's a great message.
35:26
Speaker 2: And that's been lost. And I was really happy, like
35:31
Speaker 2: the first twenty minutes of the speech were laying out
35:35
Speaker 2: that message and going through murder rates and crime rates
35:38
Speaker 2: and d C rates and like how unhappy the Democrats
35:42
Speaker 2: were that crime rates had plummeted in d C. And
35:46
Speaker 2: New Orleans and your hometown of Memphis, Memphis. Yeah, the
35:49
Speaker 2: Democrats were furious that fewer people are being murdered.
35:52
Speaker 3: They wouldn't stand up on mass for murder declining. You
35:56
Speaker 3: know this. I was looking at the polls and aggregate
35:58
Speaker 3: of the polls from just January and.
36:00
Speaker 2: February leading into this, and to be fair, the pro
36:02
Speaker 2: murder community in America is pretty small.
36:05
Speaker 3: It is. Look, it's a constituency, but it's not the
36:08
Speaker 3: one you want. And so I was looking at as
36:10
Speaker 3: aggregate of polls, Maris, PBS, a handful of others. And
36:16
Speaker 3: the hard fact I spoke to some members of Congress
36:19
Speaker 3: about this today. The hard fact is Republicans are underwater
36:23
Speaker 3: on the economy, on economic perception. I think you could
36:26
Speaker 3: could turn it around, but right now we're a little
36:28
Speaker 3: bit underwater on healthcare. Democrats always went on healthcare and
36:32
Speaker 3: on a defensive democracy or it's kind of a contrived category,
36:36
Speaker 3: but anyway, they went on that. So the ones that
36:39
Speaker 3: we're winning on right now quite decisively are immigration and
36:44
Speaker 3: border enforcement, even more so now the border is shut down,
36:48
Speaker 3: and especially on crime. So the key, it seems to me,
36:51
Speaker 3: is one that tells you people are concerned about safety.
36:55
Speaker 3: And two, if you can tie all of that together,
36:59
Speaker 3: the crime relates obviously to illegal immigration, that's why it's
37:02
Speaker 3: called illegal And the housing prices even by the way,
37:06
Speaker 3: to the you know, the fact that you have six
37:07
Speaker 3: months consecutive decline on housing prices coinciding with Mastery petition two.
37:12
Speaker 2: Million people being deported, and that's just less demand, you know,
37:15
Speaker 2: by the way, Like a couple of weeks ago, the
37:17
Speaker 2: Houston Chronicle had a front page story that said murder
37:22
Speaker 2: rates in Houston have declined eighteen percent. Yep, And Heidi
37:26
Speaker 2: showed me the article because she knew it pissed me
37:29
Speaker 2: off because the article, yes, the article the Chronicle says,
37:35
Speaker 2: nobody can figure out why. It's completely inexplicable. The experts
37:39
Speaker 2: we talk about have no idea why the murder rate
37:41
Speaker 2: is dropping, and it like doesn't occur to them that
37:44
Speaker 2: arresting and deporting murderers and gang bangers will reduce the
37:48
Speaker 2: murder rate. Like it's not. This is not rocket science.
37:53
Speaker 2: Fewer murderers means fewer murders. But yet to Democrats that
37:59
Speaker 2: may makes.
38:00
Speaker 3: No sense to them.
38:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that message was good. I also liked
38:04
Speaker 2: on no tax on tips that he had the mom
38:07
Speaker 2: who is the waitress stand up and he said, between
38:11
Speaker 2: no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, she's
38:15
Speaker 2: going to take home five thousand more dollars this year
38:18
Speaker 2: than last year. That was real and it's not abstract.
38:22
Speaker 2: And by the way, the Democrats wouldnt applaud for like
38:24
Speaker 2: the mom waiting tables. They're not rooting for her, and
38:28
Speaker 2: they want to take that five thousand dollars.
38:29
Speaker 3: And that's real money. You know, five thousand dollars is
38:31
Speaker 3: real money. It's not some abstraction. So nuts and bolts.
38:36
Speaker 3: You know, if this was a speech, obviously you're at
38:38
Speaker 3: the midterms, do you think it moves the needle?
38:43
Speaker 2: I did keep message discipline of focusing on it. Yes.
38:46
Speaker 1: By the way, yes, yesterday morning, you and I Adam
38:50
Speaker 1: talking about this. I had breakfast a Speaker Johnson and
38:53
Speaker 1: you talk about the reason why I think this one sticks.
38:56
Speaker 1: There is a very real sense that Republican leadership have
39:01
Speaker 1: our act together for once that we haven't had in
39:03
Speaker 1: a long time. I also think that matters. Speaker Johnson
39:07
Speaker 1: understands he basically has a one person majority. He does
39:12
Speaker 1: not want to have and President Trump doesn't want to
39:15
Speaker 1: have the Democrats take over the House. It is insanely slim,
39:20
Speaker 1: and I think they're working so well together the same
39:22
Speaker 1: way Center that you work so well with the president.
39:25
Speaker 1: There does seem to be that we're actually on the
39:27
Speaker 1: same team for once. I've not experienced that many times
39:30
Speaker 1: in my life in the Republican Party. Like there's always
39:33
Speaker 1: the infighting. We always not as screwed up when we
39:35
Speaker 1: get power. There's different people jacking for positions. There does
39:39
Speaker 1: seem to be a little bit of momentum now that
39:41
Speaker 1: we're on the same team going the midterms. That's the
39:43
Speaker 1: other reason I think this speech will continue in the
39:45
Speaker 1: momentum because you have Johnson and others advocating.
39:48
Speaker 2: Look, I hope so to play Devil's advocates. We're a
39:53
Speaker 2: very divided country, and so the people who hate Trump
39:57
Speaker 2: still hate them after the speech for sure actually listening,
40:03
Speaker 2: and so I do think Ben, you focused on the
40:06
Speaker 2: right area, which is the people who voted for him
40:09
Speaker 2: in twenty four but maybe demoralized by the press narrative
40:14
Speaker 2: that has been driven and to the extent this focuses
40:18
Speaker 2: them on Wow, we're winning some big, big victories. I
40:21
Speaker 2: also really liked. Look, the no tax on tips emphasis
40:24
Speaker 2: I liked because I wrote that bill. And I really
40:28
Speaker 2: liked his emphasis on the Trump accounts because, as you
40:31
Speaker 2: guys know, I wrote that too, and the Democrats wouldnt
40:35
Speaker 2: applaud for that.
40:35
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I actually have to pause here because I'm
40:38
Speaker 3: sitting in the upper part of the gallery to the right.
40:41
Speaker 3: If you're the president appointing and you didn't get everyone
40:46
Speaker 3: was standing up at certain moments. That was one where
40:48
Speaker 3: I bolted up, and other people were kind of slower.
40:51
Speaker 3: I think they didn't quite process what the Trump accounts meant.
40:53
Speaker 3: I'm really into the Trump accounts. Like the Trump accounts
40:57
Speaker 3: I think are such a white pill, you know, focusing
41:01
Speaker 3: on which is an existential issue. It's so practical, and
41:05
Speaker 3: I'm going to confess something. I should follow this, I'm like, professionally,
41:08
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to follow this closely. I did not know
41:11
Speaker 3: that you were pushing the Trump accounts. You were, I
41:14
Speaker 3: wrote it unbelieved I should have known, but I didn't know.
41:17
Speaker 2: In fact, do you want to hear the story of
41:19
Speaker 2: the origin of the Trump accounts. It's a cool story.
41:21
Speaker 2: I've told it on the pod but not in a while.
41:24
Speaker 2: So they originated from a poker game in Vegas. So,
41:29
Speaker 2: as you guys know, I like poker.
41:32
Speaker 1: By the way, Michael, were you invited to this poker night?
41:34
Speaker 1: I just want to be clear about it.
41:35
Speaker 3: I'm very offended, but I was not invited.
41:40
Speaker 2: To the We're on the same team again. It was
41:43
Speaker 2: a poker game for political donors. If you guys will
41:46
Speaker 2: write me a check, okay, rich podcasters, so you know
41:56
Speaker 2: you ought to Michael.
41:58
Speaker 1: If you and I ever have a poke, I think
42:00
Speaker 1: we will will organize it next time. We'll invite the
42:03
Speaker 1: Center in advance. You agree with that.
42:05
Speaker 3: We're very generous people.
42:06
Speaker 1: Yes, we're very kind podcasters. Keep going with your story,
42:09
Speaker 1: all right.
42:09
Speaker 2: So I do a poker fundraiser typically in April in Vegas,
42:13
Speaker 2: and so not last April, but two aprils ago. I
42:16
Speaker 2: was there and and typically several poker pros will come.
42:20
Speaker 2: I'm buddies with a number of the poker pros. And
42:23
Speaker 2: so we're sitting at the Bellagio three in the morning
42:26
Speaker 2: and Phil Hellmuth, who's one of the greatest poker players
42:30
Speaker 2: to have ever lived. Phil would tell you he is
42:31
Speaker 2: the greatest poker player to ever live, and he's got
42:34
Speaker 2: a real argument to it. He's got I think fifteen bracelets,
42:38
Speaker 2: so it's it's crazy.
42:40
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
42:42
Speaker 2: So we're sitting there playing poker and he asked me.
42:44
Speaker 2: He says, hey, do you know Brad Gerster And at
42:48
Speaker 2: the time I didn't. I'm like, yeah, who's he? And
42:51
Speaker 2: he's a very successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
42:56
Speaker 2: he has this idea that was called in West America.
43:00
Speaker 3: Like what's that?
43:00
Speaker 2: And Phil describes it for a minute, and I said, Hey,
43:04
Speaker 2: that sounds like something I'd be really interested in. And
43:07
Speaker 2: so Phil pulls out his phone and he puts together
43:11
Speaker 2: a text thread and connects me and Brad and says,
43:14
Speaker 2: you two should should talk. You would really like each other.
43:18
Speaker 2: The next week, Brad gets on a plane, flies to DC,
43:23
Speaker 2: comes to my office and pitches the Invest America accounts.
43:27
Speaker 2: I immediately called my policy team in and said, let's
43:31
Speaker 2: start drafting this. So we drafted the legislation. Now, Brad
43:34
Speaker 2: has said for months he had talked to a bunch
43:37
Speaker 2: of other senators and none of them did a damn thing.
43:41
Speaker 2: He talked to them and they'd all kind of nod
43:43
Speaker 2: and be like yeah, yeah, that's a great idea, and
43:45
Speaker 2: then no one would do anything. We sat down and
43:47
Speaker 2: wrote the bill. That is the bill that is Trump Accounts.
43:52
Speaker 2: It was my bill's great that we wrote. And it
43:57
Speaker 2: is literally the case that if Phil Hellmuth does not
44:01
Speaker 2: connect me with Brad Gersner April a year ago, there
44:05
Speaker 2: are no Trump accounts and the American the kids of
44:08
Speaker 2: America do not have trillions and investments, which is what
44:11
Speaker 2: they're going to have through Trump account.
44:13
Speaker 1: You know, this is Michael, Michael, you know what I
44:15
Speaker 1: heard there by the way I heard that. Could you
44:17
Speaker 1: imagine the bills that could have been written if you,
44:20
Speaker 1: Michael and I were there at that table. I know,
44:23
Speaker 1: I mean, we could have come up with we could
44:27
Speaker 1: have cured cancer. Maybe at this point, we could.
44:29
Speaker 3: Have ended the ninth and tenth wars. That could have
44:31
Speaker 3: added to the record.
44:32
Speaker 1: We could state department, the ending of the Michael and
44:34
Speaker 1: Ben Warres. I like this.
44:35
Speaker 3: You know. The thing that I love about the Trump Accounts,
44:38
Speaker 3: in particular from the Republican coalitional standpoint is, you know,
44:43
Speaker 3: the right always has all these different ideological factions because
44:47
Speaker 3: we're more independent thinkers, and the left has progressives and
44:50
Speaker 3: very progressives and John Fetterman, I guess and we you know,
44:53
Speaker 3: we kind of have all these divisions. And so one
44:55
Speaker 3: of the divisions that's come about in recent years, last
44:57
Speaker 3: five or ten years, is people who were focused on
45:00
Speaker 3: more the common good, you know, kind of an Aristotelian
45:03
Speaker 3: view of politics, and people are more focused on the
45:05
Speaker 3: libertarian view that comes from classical liberalism up through Seyhayak.
45:10
Speaker 3: And what I love about the Trump accounts is it
45:12
Speaker 3: actually marries the two. It's this beautiful. It just hits
45:15
Speaker 3: this sweet spot. It's good that no flattery because I
45:19
Speaker 3: actually didn't even know you were behind it. That is
45:22
Speaker 3: really good.
45:23
Speaker 2: By the way, we had Brad on Verdict. You know,
45:26
Speaker 2: he's come on Verdict and talked about the whole idea.
45:29
Speaker 2: And Brad came up with the idea with his two
45:32
Speaker 2: teenage sons, and they spent years pushing it and and
45:38
Speaker 2: Brad was there and recognized by the President of the
45:40
Speaker 2: State of the Union. So Brad had put together a
45:43
Speaker 2: CEO's council behind the invest America accounts, and the chairman
45:47
Speaker 2: of it was Michael Dell. And Michael's a good friend
45:50
Speaker 2: of mine, He's a Texan. We spent a lot of
45:51
Speaker 2: time together, and the CEOs had all committed that they
45:57
Speaker 2: would contribute or match to Trump accounts. So they're two
46:00
Speaker 2: accelerators that are written into these these Trump accounts that
46:02
Speaker 2: make them even more potent. Number one is that employers
46:06
Speaker 2: can contributor match. And listen, when Congress passed Section four
46:12
Speaker 2: oh one K of Arissa, nobody knew how fundamentally they
46:17
Speaker 2: were changing how Americans save for retirement. Today, there's more
46:20
Speaker 2: than twelve trillion dollars in four to one K accounts.
46:24
Speaker 2: Trump accounts are four to one case for kids. Yeah,
46:27
Speaker 2: so in very short order, you're gonna see trillions of
46:29
Speaker 2: dollars in there. The two accelerators one is that employers
46:36
Speaker 2: can contributor match, and so all the employers on the
46:39
Speaker 2: CEO council had already committed, we're going to contributor match.
46:43
Speaker 2: This is gonna become a ubiquitous as standard employee benefit,
46:47
Speaker 2: just like a four to one K contribution is a
46:50
Speaker 2: pretty standard employee benefit. You're gonna see employers. We're already
46:54
Speaker 2: seeing a bunch who will match or contribute to the
46:58
Speaker 2: Trump accounts of the kids that their employ So that
47:00
Speaker 2: accelerates massively. The second thing and we deliberately wrote this
47:05
Speaker 2: so that it can accept philanthropy and it can accept
47:08
Speaker 2: charitable gifts. And as you know, Michael and Susan Dell
47:14
Speaker 2: have given six and a quarter billion dollars and what
47:18
Speaker 2: they've given is two hundred and fifty dollars for America's
47:21
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty Birthday to every child in America
47:27
Speaker 2: under age ten who lives in a zip code where
47:31
Speaker 2: the median income is one hundred and fifty thousand or less.
47:34
Speaker 2: And so we wrote it so you can turn the dials.
47:37
Speaker 2: You can turn the dials geographically, you can turn the
47:40
Speaker 2: dials age wise, you can turn the dials income wise.
47:44
Speaker 2: So Michael's done that. Brad Gersner has given two hundred
47:50
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars to every kid in Indiana under age
47:54
Speaker 2: five in zip codes with median income of one hundred
47:58
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand or less. And Ray Dalio, the hedge
48:01
Speaker 2: fund billionaire, has sponsored the kids in Connecticut. And I
48:06
Speaker 2: actually have talked to a number of gazillionaires and Michael
48:12
Speaker 2: Dell and Brad are getting on zooms and talking to
48:15
Speaker 2: people with great wealth. That's awesome, encouraging them give your resources.
48:20
Speaker 2: And here Michael and I have talked at length about that,
48:22
Speaker 2: and one of the things that he got excited about. So, look,
48:27
Speaker 2: Michael and Susan have between one hundred billion and two
48:30
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars, Like it's a massive amount of money,
48:34
Speaker 2: and they're smart and responsible, and so they've had serious
48:37
Speaker 2: conversations about how do you give away your fortune? And look,
48:44
Speaker 2: you look at people who achieved great fortunes. They create
48:46
Speaker 2: a foundation. The foundation gets taken over by a bunch
48:50
Speaker 2: of Marxists who spend all their money undermining everything the
48:52
Speaker 2: founders believe. Every time Henry Ford is rolling over in
48:56
Speaker 2: his grave, John D. Rockefeller is bidding in his grave.
49:02
Speaker 2: And one of the problems with that much money is
49:07
Speaker 2: it's hard to give it away. Most charities can't take
49:09
Speaker 2: a billion dollars like it's too much money and it
49:12
Speaker 2: swamps them. So Michael and Susan have given six and
49:15
Speaker 2: a quarter billion dollars, but they've told me they are
49:19
Speaker 2: contemplating giving much much more than that.
49:23
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
49:24
Speaker 2: One of the things that's really powerful about these Trump
49:27
Speaker 2: accounts is they're infinitely scalable. They could literally absorb the
49:33
Speaker 2: entirety of Michael Dell's fortune and the fortune of every
49:39
Speaker 2: other gazillionaire. And what is really potent is the time
49:44
Speaker 2: value of investing. Look, if someone starts saving or investing
49:48
Speaker 2: when they're sixty, it's hard for it to grow and
49:52
Speaker 2: accumulate enough to be really significant by the time they retire.
49:58
Speaker 2: What makes the Trump account so incredibly potent is we're
50:03
Speaker 2: starting at age zero, We're starting at babies. So you've
50:07
Speaker 2: got a time horizon where the kids of a single
50:11
Speaker 2: mom waiting table can accumulate hundreds of thousands and even
50:16
Speaker 2: millions of dollars. And so for philanthropy, the math is powerful.
50:21
Speaker 2: If you put another thousand dollars in at the outset,
50:24
Speaker 2: it really really grows. And so that's something that is
50:28
Speaker 2: going to be really significant to speed these up. And
50:32
Speaker 2: and the point, Michael you made, which which got me
50:34
Speaker 2: really excited, is we're creating a new generation of capitalists
50:39
Speaker 2: that every kid will have skin in the game and
50:43
Speaker 2: be an owner of the biggest employers in America.
50:46
Speaker 3: I thought this was a really important point. The President
50:48
Speaker 3: touched on well one that the Trump accounts just do that,
50:52
Speaker 3: so it gives people skin in the game. Even when
50:54
Speaker 3: the prison pointed out only half of Americans have access
50:57
Speaker 3: to for a one case. Yeah, they said, we want
50:58
Speaker 3: to we want to bring that other half of them, let.
51:01
Speaker 2: Them opt in to the thrift savings plan. That's an
51:03
Speaker 2: idea I've talked with the President in the White House about.
51:05
Speaker 2: I think it's a brilliant idea. I strongly support it.
51:08
Speaker 2: I'm working on legislation to do that as well, to
51:10
Speaker 2: codify that because it's Look, the more you can create investors,
51:17
Speaker 2: get people with equity. And one of the important things
51:20
Speaker 2: about how how the administration is designing the Trump Accounts
51:24
Speaker 2: app is that it is not gonna simply say you've
51:29
Speaker 2: got X dollars in the S and P five hundred.
51:32
Speaker 2: It's gonna break down every constituent stock they own within it.
51:37
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
51:37
Speaker 2: So a ten year old will be able to see
51:40
Speaker 2: I own a hundred bucks of Apple or Tesla or
51:43
Speaker 2: Ford or McDonald's, and they'll see so so a kid
51:48
Speaker 2: won't be rooting. I hate evil corporations. I want them
51:51
Speaker 2: to fail. They're gonna be like, wait, I own that corporation.
51:54
Speaker 2: I want them to do better. That changes their whole worldview.
51:57
Speaker 2: It makes them capitalist, you know it.
51:59
Speaker 3: Even during one of the big crises of capitalism in
52:02
Speaker 3: the early twentieth century where you had real excesses of
52:06
Speaker 3: industrialization that created you know, like child labor and all
52:09
Speaker 3: this stuff. There was this movement among serious Christian thinkers
52:13
Speaker 3: to try to resolve these tensions between capitalism and the
52:17
Speaker 3: working poor. And there were all these chesters and had
52:20
Speaker 3: a version with Bellock distributism. But the whole point, and
52:23
Speaker 3: there's didn't really work. But the whole point was you
52:26
Speaker 3: need people to really have a stake in the society
52:31
Speaker 3: in following subsidiarity, and you know all these principles that
52:35
Speaker 3: are so enshrined in the American system too, and this
52:39
Speaker 3: really does that where you think, oh, I have a
52:41
Speaker 3: stake in the corporations, I have a steak. He by
52:43
Speaker 3: the way, I.
52:44
Speaker 2: Miss geeky, cerebral academic stuff on the pod. I will say,
52:48
Speaker 2: the sort of tenor of verdict has shifted. I don't
52:52
Speaker 2: know why. I can't imagine the cause, but I'm just saying,
52:56
Speaker 2: you know, I'm having a waft of nostalgia.
52:58
Speaker 3: There's a little more Chester comes it.
53:00
Speaker 1: Yes, all the people that just tell us the wake
53:03
Speaker 1: back up, I got you back, keep going, wake up.
53:07
Speaker 1: Our audience level just went like this but we're back now,
53:10
Speaker 1: they're all awake again. Make your final point.
53:12
Speaker 3: Go ahead, this this this key is really important because
53:17
Speaker 3: this is what really jazzed me about it. I don't
53:21
Speaker 3: like it when the right fractures into a million directions,
53:23
Speaker 3: because you know, I feel for Speaker Johnson. He has
53:27
Speaker 3: the worst job in all of politics. Yes, he has
53:29
Speaker 3: to hurt a bunch of cats. They all have all
53:31
Speaker 3: sorts of views, they have all sorts of principles, some
53:33
Speaker 3: of which conflict with each other, and so it's hard
53:35
Speaker 3: to get the right to do anything together. And these
53:38
Speaker 3: he is a.
53:39
Speaker 2: Good and decent man.
53:41
Speaker 3: Amazing, Yeah, he's a one. He's a wonderful guy, and
53:44
Speaker 3: he's doing a great He happens to also be doing
53:46
Speaker 3: a great job. But I just think what what the
53:49
Speaker 3: president was speaking on, especially these kinds of issues, These
53:51
Speaker 3: are the kind of things that can actually rally the
53:54
Speaker 3: way together with moderate voters, frankly even central so who
53:59
Speaker 3: don't want the crazy.
54:00
Speaker 1: Question for each of you. Quickly, as we are hitting
54:03
Speaker 1: about an hour here in our say the union coverage
54:07
Speaker 1: over under on the midterms. Now, how much better do
54:11
Speaker 1: you feel going at leaving the end of the night
54:14
Speaker 1: compared to going into the beginning of the speech tonight,
54:16
Speaker 1: how much more optimistic are you that we can hold
54:18
Speaker 1: the house.
54:21
Speaker 3: Hold the House. It's going to be very hard in
54:25
Speaker 3: my view, to hold the House. I would say, look,
54:28
Speaker 3: I feel I'll just pick a number. I feel twenty
54:30
Speaker 3: percent better. If the Republicans can stay on message, if
54:35
Speaker 3: the Republicans cannot devolve into petty in fighting, if the
54:38
Speaker 3: Republicans can be disciplined in the way they campaign, these
54:43
Speaker 3: are all you know. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
54:47
Speaker 3: I still think historic headwinds, best of circumstances, the party
54:52
Speaker 3: and power, especially with unified government, loses the House in
54:54
Speaker 3: the midterms. However, I think that the President did every
54:58
Speaker 3: single thing possib to put the party in an advantage
55:02
Speaker 3: heading into the center.
55:05
Speaker 2: And look, my view right now, the political environment is rough. Yes,
55:12
Speaker 2: if the election were today, it would not be a
55:16
Speaker 2: great outcome. We are nationally in about a D plus
55:20
Speaker 2: six environment. What that means is where polling is nationally
55:25
Speaker 2: is about six points more Democrat than it was an
55:27
Speaker 2: election day in twenty twenty four. If we're in a
55:30
Speaker 2: D plus six environment, we lose the House and the
55:36
Speaker 2: Senate is potentially in jeopardy.
55:38
Speaker 3: Crazy.
55:39
Speaker 2: If the election were today, that would be a real possibility.
55:43
Speaker 2: The good news is we got eight months and the
55:47
Speaker 2: substantive record is phenomenally good. It's not just a little
55:50
Speaker 2: bit good, it is insanely good. And so tonight was
55:55
Speaker 2: encouraging because Trump focused most of his time on laying
55:59
Speaker 2: out methodically that substance record and just how good it
56:03
Speaker 2: is and what we have to do. I mean, I
56:06
Speaker 2: do like that we have eight months. Most Americans don't
56:10
Speaker 2: know all these victories we're winning, and so our task
56:14
Speaker 2: is communicate the victories that are making a real difference
56:18
Speaker 2: in people's lives. But the good news is we have
56:22
Speaker 2: a monster amount of substance to talk about. We just
56:25
Speaker 2: need to talk about it. And and I think if
56:28
Speaker 2: we make that case, we could certainly keep the House
56:33
Speaker 2: and the Senate and grow our majorities in buds there