The Young Turks - Insider Traitors

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

MTG Invests Up to $750K in U.S. Treasury Bonds. Elon Musk Calls Peter Navarro “Dumber Than a Sack of Bricks.” Trump Floats Record $1 Trillion Military Budget Despite Pledge to Cut Spending." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, you know,

Anna Kasparan, we're gonna have an amazing show. Can have an okay show. No, wrong, amazing. So A, more internal fighting in the Trump administration, fun for everybody. Like people are a little talking about choking each other out. We'll get to that, he's not in the administration, but he's a Republican. We got more hypocrisy, I know, shocking in politics. We might be attacking Iran, wait, what?

Okay, we've got news on that. And then normally we do operation joy for the members on Tuesdays, but today a different kind of joy. Greg Casar joins us at 8 o'clock. He is, of course, a representative and a populist slash progressive representative. First time on the show, he's a Justice Democrat. Interesting. So it would be great conversation that's open to everybody. Make sure you stick around for that.

But first, we got tons of news for you. We do. So I actually wanted to start off with a story that I wish more people, cared about because when we talk about corruption, oftentimes you think of money in politics, which is a huge problem. But there's something else that's a huge problem. We talk about it quite a bit on this show. Here's what I'm talking about. Given what the government's been doing and this administration's been doing, it would not shock me, and I hate to speculate, if we were to find out that a whole bunch of people who

work in Washington as our elected leaders, one way or the other, ultimately sold stocks last week or potentially worse than that short of the market. CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin may have been onto something when he shared his suspicion that government officials and elected politicians might have been gaming the stock market or gaming a stock market crash in order to, you know, cash in doing it to their advantage. Because new reporting from sludge has found that Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green has been making some pretty fishy trades, Jank. Interesting.

And the timing of the trades are also very curious. Yes. So I'm going to tell you how they, what scenario those trades might make sense and what scenario they don't make sense. And then we'll see which one Marjorie Taylor Green fits into. So look, you probably won't be surprised to find that publicly, Marjorie Taylor Green has been very supportive of Donald Trump's trade policies. She posts about it on X. She's done so repeatedly. I'll give you a taste of just a few of her

posts. In one example, she writes, America first means American workers first. These tariffs are Liberation Day for steelworkers, auto workers, and every forgotten small town. Empty factories will be full again. President Trump is bringing our economic independence back. Now, that's a common message that you'll hear from Trump supporters, certainly those closest to him and elected lawmakers as well. I'll give you some more examples. She writes, the COVID vaccine experts and couch stock traders need to take a look at the history of the stock market. They didn't care when the stock market was down big under Joe Biden's America last policies. This is a short-lived correction that will end up paying dividends for American workers and manufacturers across the country.

Now, let me just pause and say, I'm still very skeptical that the real intent here by the Trump administration is to bring manufacturing jobs back. In fact, we're getting a little more clarity from his Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, about how this is really just an effort to renegotiate trade deals. But I digress. So all of that that I just shared with you in regard to her post are noteworthy because between March 17th and March 25th, Marjorie Taylor Green bought up to $750,000 worth of treasury bonds. Now, Jake, why would anyone buy treasury bonds? Because when the market crashes, people take their money out.

That's why they're selling the stocks. That's why the stocks are going down. Then they have cash, where do they put that cash? They usually put it in treasury bonds because they're safer. That's where you want to go in times that are volatile like this. So the value of those treasury bonds then go up, and we've now found out, thanks to Bill Ackman, a billionaire donor of Trump, that Howard Lutnik, his former firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, heavily in bonds and are probably making it killing from this.

So when they went into bonds is a different question than this story, but it's another example of, well, if you know the market's gonna crash, you'd go into treasury bonds. That's exactly right. And that's exactly what she did. And that's what she did ahead of Trump's tariff's announcement on Liberation Day. Okay, so she moves ton of money up to that amount, right? $750,000, the reason why we don't know the exact amount is because members of Congress, while they have to disclose what they're trading, they don't have to disclose the exact amount.

They disclose a range, they say that they've, you know, invested a range of money. Now with that said, she invests in bonds right before the Liberation Day announcement, but then something else happens. So let's go to unusual Wales, my favorite X account. They write, this is unusual yesterday, meaning on April 7th, politician Marjorie Taylor Green said that people panicking over tariffs are losers and failures. Today, she disclosed over a dozen stock purchases, purchasing $100,000 or I'm sorry, purchasing hundreds of thousands of numerous stocks.

There we go. So she bought when the market was deeply red. So what kind of stocks did she buy? She bought a stock in Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, Lulu Lemon, Apple, and many, many more. And she bought up to $1.5 million worth of stock year to date. Now, all of this is especially concerning, you know, when you consider that last week, the president himself reposted a video essentially stating that he crashed the stock market on purpose. I'm not kidding, he posted this. Let's take a look. Trump is crashing the stock market by 20% this month, but he's doing it on purpose. And this is why Warren Buffett just said Trump is making the best economic moves he's seen

in over 50 years. Now here's the secret game he's playing, and it could make you rich. So why is he doing this? To push cash into treasuries, which forces the Fed to slash interest rates in May, and those lower rates give the Fed the ability to refinance trillions of debt very inexpensively. It also weakens the dollar and drops mortgage weights. Now, it's a wild chess move, but it's working. Now, you're probably wondering, what about his tariffs?

Well, I'll tell you, it's a genius play. It actually forces companies to build here to dodge them. It also forces farmers to sell more of their products here in the U.S. to bring grocery prices way down. We've already seen this with eggs. Now, remember, 94% of all stocks are owned only by 8% of Americans. So Trump, he's taking from the rich short term and handing it to the middle class through lower prices. Okay, Warren Buffett said no such thing. That was totally made up and there were all sorts of inaccuracies in that video.

But can I just say, could point out a couple of those and then we'll get to the point. So he's not handing anything to the middle class. Yeah, he's saying from the rich, but he's also taking from the middle class because this is going to not lead to lower prices. It's going to lead to higher prices. That's the problem. If it was leading to lower prices would be thrilled. And bragging about how you're weakening the dollar is not the brag you think it is. And that could be a huge problem for America. So this guy is playing with fire. That video had so many things that were wrong with it and just simply not true.

And of course Trump retweets it. And so it's frustrating that they're not bothering to get any of the details right. You could make a real case for tariffs as we said before. Because look, this whole attempt to implement or impose tariffs isn't real. Okay, like it's become very clear to me. We're gonna get to that and I'm gonna make my argument in regard to that in just a minute. But before I do, I just wanna stay on this topic of Marjorie Taylor Green's stock and bond trades because the timing is in fact fishy.

This is the reason why I personally have a huge problem with members of Congress trading individual stocks. And it's not just about Marjorie Taylor Green. I wanna be clear. There are plenty of Democrats in Congress who have also made all sorts of fishy stock trades at fishy times of the year when they're, you know, negotiating legislation or they're having closed door briefings. There were all sorts of stories that were coming out during the COVID pandemic where, you know, they had all those closed door briefings prior to the rest of the public knowing about this global pandemic. And they were making stock trades before the rest of

the public was privy to the shutdowns that were about to come. So this is not a Democrat versus Republican thing. This is a corruption thing that is rooted deeply in out in the halls of Congress right now. This is a big problem, in my opinion. And I remember, Jank, you and I, after the show yesterday, looked at how the stock market had rebounded a little bit. And I remember, we looked at each other and said, they know something that we don't know yet. Yeah. But to be fair, it's gone up and down so much now that it's possible that they don't know either. Look, guys, there's always, there's no single they. There's a lot of different factors. And there are people who sometimes drive the market up and down based on giant options trades, long

positions, short positions, that's when you bet in favor or something or bet against something. And so, but I want to break it down to things that are super simple and accurate. So Warren Buffett was mentioned in that video, so he's a good example. So he didn't say this was a brilliant move. In fact, he said the opposite. He's like, look, this is, he's like, Trump is playing around with tariffs that's playing with fire. So I think it'll hurt the stock market. So I'm gonna get out, get in cash. And

then when the market slow, I'm gonna buy again. And that's classic Warren Buffett, buy, low, sell, high, right? And no one else has the foresight to do it and the temperament to do it. And that's why he's been so successful. So there's nothing wrong with that. That's just anticipating Trump and being right. Okay. So that's what Marjorie Taylor Green did. Hey, you know what? I'm seeing everything that Warren Buffett is seeing and everybody else is seeing publicly. And I think this is the direction it might go and I'm gonna go in that direction. Now there's a second scenario which is no, she was in a meeting at the White House and she knew that Trump was going to do tariffs that were super steep. She walks out of that meeting and go straight

to buying treasury bonds, right? So I don't know which one of those it is and it didn't have to be at the White House. She could get inside her information. That goes to the main point that Anna is making and we've been making on the show for a long time. That's why it's problematic for members of Congress to trade stocks. Yeah, individual stocks, yeah. Yeah, and so look, I can find exceptions, I could do like, you know, we could have a reasonable conversation about what are the parameters of that. But what we have now is Wild Wild West.

They're privy to information we are not privy to, and then they can just go trade on that, make millions, sometimes billions of dollars, depending on how much money they have and resources they have. So here's why, like, Elon got killed on this tariff deal and so many others did, because it actually was not easy to predict because the question was the, how steep are the tariffs going to be? Because if the tariffs were relatively light, the market had already priced that in, and it might even even bounced up a little bit if they were light. But instead of it being light or moderate, they were drastic. And so if you knew they were going

to be that drastic, then you could make a killing like Marjorie Taylor Green did. Whether she knew or not, we just don't know yet. But are these the actions of a person who knew? Yes, but she just might have guessed and been right. that I want to bring up because there's what the Trump administration was saying publicly and the conversations that they were having privately. Obviously privately, you're gonna get more clarity on what the intentions are here. Are these actual tariffs that the Trump administration plans to not only implement but keep in place? And it appears that no, according to Scott Besant, who is of course the Treasury Secretary and the Trump administration,

They didn't really intend to keep these tariffs in place. There was a point to the threat of imposing these tariffs. Take a look. We did see what was welcomed yesterday, and that is a bounce from some of the lows and even a higher close on the NASDAQ. Coincidentally, it coincided with your trip to Florida over the weekend, where reportedly you were stressing that the market needed to hear that negotiations about these tariffs We're in play, lo and behold, we did see a bounce.

It's not a fair assessment of what happened over the weekend. I went down to see President Trump, as I do many weekends, and I can tell you, it's all President Trump's decision, and he had a view on, you know, after Liberation Day, that we should go into quiet mode and let our partners think about the kind of the shock and awe that he presented, And over those following few days from April 2nd, we had the, I think we're up to 70 countries contact the White House for how to come and negotiate. So, you know, I would say that the negotiations are the result of the massive inflow of inbound calls to come and negotiate, had nothing to do with the market.

So these astronomical tariffs that Trump announced on liberation. Day was meant to inspire so much shock and awe that dozens of countries, 70 countries have now turned around and reached out to the Trump administration to renegotiate trade deals. And that was the intention all along, clearly. Why else would Trump tell him, let's just keep things hush, hush for the weekend, have these various countries that we do trade with freak out. So they come to us and we can negotiate better trade deals. And by the way, if that's the case, fine, that's the case.

My question is, how many Republicans in Congress were privy to that information? Yeah. So look guys, I'll tell you my thoughts on what's going to happen next. But there's some really important questions in there. So which one is it? Is it we're staying in for a long time to rebuild manufacturing and these tariffs are going to last for years and years? Or it's a negotiating ploy and we're going to just get some reductions in tariffs from

other countries and we're going to take these tariffs up. It can't be both. I know that people supporting Trump keep saying, no, it could be both, it could be both. No, it can't. Like theoretically, he could leave in strategic tariffs and take away the tariffs that were just for negotiation, but he's shown no indication that he's doing that. There's no plan, there's been no talk of a plan. And what most of the critics are talking about, including Trump supporters are, where's

What's a frickin' plan? Which industries are you protecting? But which ones are you gonna keep? Which ones aren't, he doesn't have a plan, he doesn't have one. So look, here's my actual assessment. And I understand what you're saying about Besson. And Besson definitely wants them to be temporary. He wants to be temporary, it's very clear.

Look, he says, oh, that's a mischaracterization of what happened over the weekend. I don't believe him at all. I think Bessett, he's kind of like me. He has difficulty not wearing his heart on his sleeve, right? He's just too obvious that he doesn't like the tariffs, okay? Yeah, I'd love to play poker with Besson. I mean, he's a great investor and all that stuff, but you're right, I think guy is the worst poker face. And to me, the most telling part when he was like, this was all Trump's idea.

Yeah, 100%. Okay, now remember Trump makes the decision, Trump makes the decisions, not me, not me, okay, and I hope to God, these are temporary. I mean, we'll see how it goes. So look, so Besson wants him to be temporary. And remember, this is my theory, right? My theory was that everybody was in on this and was all good to go. You do some light to moderate tariffs, pretend they're going to raise $6 trillion. Meanwhile, beat up to other countries and then say, oh, there's a little dip in the stock market.

Oh, it's a perfect time for tax cuts because we don't need the $6 trillion anyway. The tariffs are going to raise it. And look, the markets took a little bit of a downturn. Oh, those corporations, they need a picker-upper. So let's cut their taxes from 21 to 15%. Except there was one flaw in that otherwise really good plan to trick us, to trick MAGA, and to rob us blind. Well, they're going to trick us. Okay, no, I mean us as an American people, of course not us.

So the flaw was Donald J. Trump because he actually believes in the tariffs and he believes in both of those things. Yeah. And you say, well, you can't have both of the same time, but in Trump's head you can. So if you ask them short term or long term, you'd be like, both, both, they're going to negotiate, we're going to get zero tariffs, we're going to get six trillion in tax cuts, most of it is going to go to me, okay? But then afterwards, we're going to keep it forever anyway. Well, that's contradictory, but he doesn't have a plan. That's why the bestness of the world are so frustrated. They think, well, I mean, he won the presidency twice.

Obviously, he's going to have a plan. Then they go inside and he's like, let's say, 104% on China. Best is like what, 104% on chat, are you, okay, it is Trump's plan, only Trump's plan, right? So that's the monkey wrench is how stupid Donald Trump is. Like they almost had this. It was kind of a great plan to rob a spline, but he ruined it with these mega tariffs. Yeah, well, look, I think that he, and I have a little bit of a different perspective on this, because he was under the impression that if he threatens our trade partners with these

astronomical insane reciprocal tariffs, which I think we've adjudicated that they're not really reciprocal, right? The numbers are insane and they're not really based on anything that makes any sense. But nonetheless, the idea was let's scare the crap out of them, right? That's what Trump does, he acts crazy, he freaks others out, and others are so scared, they're like, let's just try to work something out here before things devolve. You get what I'm saying? And it appears that's what's been happening. If you take what Trump is saying about the 70 countries coming to him to renegotiate at face

value. Well, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, and I question that. Yeah, because that's the other thing I wrote down as Besson was talking. He's like 70 countries have reached out to us. Some countries have to be clear. Japan has, for instance, obviously Israel has. They can't handle 17% tariff even though. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. So, no. And as he said that, I was like, have they? And the stock market bounced up maybe on news that we were going to get these deals. I don't think they have. I'm not even sure about China and Japan.

Because China's saying, hey, man, let's roll all day, all night. Yeah, China. And now I'm going to block American movies and you want to roll at 54% and threaten 104%. I'll threaten the same exact thing. China doesn't look like they're moving at all. You're right. And based on the stock market, why would they? Like, I think if Europe, I want Europe to give us 0% tariffs.

If it's a negotiation ploy, even with this giant, terrible thing, et cetera, and he withdraws all of them and us in Europe go to 0%, great. I actually agree with Elon on that, okay? But if I'm Europe, why would I do that? Why don't I just join China, Bricks, that's India, Brazil, et cetera. And Russia. And Japan and South Korea, why don't we all squeeze America until they given instead of the rest of the world.

Their stock markets down, the prices are about to skyrocket, people are going to be super mad, because Poland's going to go in the tank. Like, they'd be nuts to negotiate now. They have us exactly where they want us. I know. Because Trump went nuclear for no damn reason. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out. But long story short, I don't believe that this is actually done in an effort to bring

manufacturing jobs back to the United States. No way. And no chance of that. And later in the show, I want to talk a little bit about how liberals are totally taking the bait and trashing manufacturing workers because they think that's the best way to handle this situation. Oh, no, Americans would never want to do these terrible lowly jobs that we look our noses down on. Don't do that. If you want to stop losing the working class, stop trashing workers. We'll talk about that a little later in the show.

But for now, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about a sack of bricks. has just been, you know, not good. All right. All right, back on TY, Jank and Anna with you guys, but also Cali-Milly Moe, which is an awesome user handle and now an awesome member of our community because they hit the join button. Gerald Willis and Deanna Grimm.

Welcome to all of you guys. Actually, you all have great names. So you can do likewise or you can join at t.com. I'm going to read just a couple of comments here because they're fun. A YouTube member, Charles Lloyd asked the relevant question we're all thinking about. Will someone think of the penguins? And the penguins also got hit with that tariff and I don't know how they're going to recover. Ashanti says, is this what concepts of a plan looks like?

That's really good Ashanti, that's exactly what this is. Concepts of a plan, I might use that from going forward. And on Twitch, a guy you might be familiar with Brett Ehrlich wrote in saying, I'm making a video right now about Ben Shapiro and Superman on Rebel HQ. So Brett's on Rebel HQ as well, and soon you get to check out that video. So everybody go check it out, subscribe there and subscribe here. Casper. Shapiro, not happy about the 17% tariffs on Israel.

No, no. But to be fair, not happy with Trump. tariffs period. And to be fair, the 17% tariff on Israel is unfair. Right now they're at 0%. We should be at 0%. Anyway, let's move on to this. So it just seems like I'm getting, I'm getting my head around the Alla Prima approach. I'm not condemning it because I'm not a trade expert, but I still at some point, and I understand that you are the trade rep. So if you own this decision, then I'll look to you

to figure out if we're going to be successful. If you don't, on the decision. I'm just trying to figure out whose throat I get to choke if it's wrong. Trump advisor Peter Navarro, according to Elon Musk. That's the person who Senator Tom Tillis should choke out if the Trump tariff policies end up failing because the internal battle between Elon Musk and Trump advisor Peter Navarro escalated even more today with Elon basically slinging insults all over his platform X. And we're going to get to that in just a minute. But Jank, dirty, dirty. I thought we were the only ones who were dealing with infighting on X, but no. So look, as we predicted and no, and everybody said wasn't going to happen, there's massive

infighting, right? So Elon Musk versus Peter Navarro, I think it's interesting who's right, but that's a different question. The thing we're asking in the live chat, watch the show, by the way, every day at 6 o'clock Eastern, is who's going to win? Who's Trump going to sign with Elon Musk or Peter Navarro. For now it's been Navarro, but Elon's trying to make a comeback. We're gonna tell you all about it. And I asked a question on X, who's more right on tariffs? Because Elon and Trump disagree.

And I'll tell you which way people are voting, Musk or Trump. So all of this is super interesting, but let's tell you about the fight first. So like, Musk began attacking Peter Navarro, who is very much an evangelist when it comes to tariffs. He's the real deal in regard to actually supporting the idea of implementing these steep tariffs on our trade partners. I don't think he's making it up. He's got a long history of being supportive of tariffs. Now, Elon Musk, not a fan of tariffs. I think for obvious reasons, first of all, after Trump announced his tariff policy during Liberation Day,

stocks plummeted, Elon Musk's wealth dropped by the billions. And on top of that, his business really does require parts, for instance, from foreign manufacturers in order to assemble Teslas, even here in the United States. If you slap a tariff onto those car parts, obviously it's going to cut into Tesla's profits. So he hates the tariffs. Now Navarro, somewhat to his credit,

actually has not been attacking Elon Musk the same way. His jobs have been a little more subtle. I'll give you an example. When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House, and the American people understand that Elon's, a car manufacturer. But he's not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler in many cases. If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets, which in the

EV case is the batteries come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan. The tires come. What we want, and the difference is in our thinking, in Elon's on this, We want the cars manufactured here. Okay, so he basically says, look, Elon Musk's got his own interest. Here's what the Trump administration wants to do, which is sweet. I mean, Peter Navarro appears to be under the assumption that Trump and the administration in general is actually going to implement permanent tariffs against our trade partners when really this is a ploy to renegotiate trade deals.

And honestly, nothing more. That's the way I see it so far, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong. I guess, we'll wait and see what happens. Now, Elon Musk responded to that clip that we just showed you with Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false. And then he says Tesla has the most American-Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks. Now look, it is true. Tesla, out of all the car companies, is I think one of two that mostly manufactures their vehicles here domestically, and that's admirable. I think that is a good thing. I think Elon Musk deserves some credit there, but he does use

foreign made parts, and so the tariffs would, of course, hurt his business. Now, Jank, real quick, I want to kind of go to you to get your thoughts on what Musk says about Navarro being completely wrong. What do you think? Yeah, so, God, this is so wonderfully nuanced. I know some others don't like nuance. I love nuance. Me too. So first off, can tariffs work? Navarro is generally right about that.

Can nuclear tariffs like the one Navarro drew up here work? No, I don't think he can. Is Elon Musk concerned about this? Because he has some of his car parts outside the country and these tariffs affect him. Yes, Navarro is right about that. But is our Tesla is in a sense the most American made cars? Yes, and Elon is right about that. And Navarra is wrong about that, right?

So it's not clear cut. It's not black and white. It's not good guys, bad guys in that sense. I haven't to disagree with both of them overall politically. I think on tariffs, Elon is more correct. But Navarro's not wrong to point out, hey, Elon's got skin in this game. This cost them billions of dollars. That's why he's opposed to it.

So in a sense, they're both right and they're both wrong, depending on which exact question you're asking. Now, let's put that second post from Elon back up, because I want you to notice one of the hashtags. So one of the hashtags is, or he tagged, I should say, I find regards, okay? You can, it's a slur, he uses a slur. And so he's tagging them on this post about Navarro. Mario Knopfal then posted, Tesla exposes Navarro live. Most American made cars in U.S. are all. Elon's with a list from cars.com showing Teslas are the most American made cars.

To which Elon responded, Peter. to Musk calling Peter Navarro dumber than a sack of bricks. White House spokesperson Caroline Levitt tried to basically dismiss the fighting, saying whatever, we are the most transparent administration in history expressing our disagreements in public. I'm actually

fine with that statement. She even waited on it after a reporter asked during her press conference today. Let's take a quick look at that. Musk actually referred to Navarro today as being quote, dumber than a sack of bricks. Are you, or is the administration the president all concerned that this is maybe impacting the public's understanding of these tariffs? It might be messing with the message on it.

No, look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs. Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue. And you guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history. And I think it also speaks to the president's willingness to hear from all sides, that he has people at the the highest levels of this government in this White House, you have very diverse opinions on very diverse issues, but the president takes all opinions in mind, and then he makes the best decision based on the best interests of the American public. So people are losing their minds about that because she said boys will be boys.

I actually like that it's all out in the open. It's good content. Yeah, I mean, like I could nitpick and go, I don't like that whatever, right, and I, et cetera. But overall, no, no, I totally agree. with that. So would I prefer that they're publicly saying, hey, I believe this and the other one believes that. And by the way, we're both advising the president. That's not such a bad thing. Like Democrats bury all disagreement. And then they come out and say, you have to listen to whatever the Democratic leader said in order unity. Everybody obey and comply. No one's

not to disagree. Well, and by the way, the right wing was famous for that for a long, a long time, right? So the fact that these guys actually do disagree and they're both advising, yeah, yeah, I think that is a good thing. And at least he's hearing both sides. So not guilty on that way. Being open to dissent, you know, is a good thing within an administration and within a party, if you ask me. So just, this is a bit of a tangent, I apologize, but just think about what happened in the lead up to the presidential election in 2024. You have all these Democrats who are close to Biden, who were fully aware of his mental decline, but they're so afraid to speak out against one of their own that they just kind of go along with it until it was too

late. Okay, Representative Clyburn, according to that book Fight that just came out, I've been reading it. He was invited to allegedly dozens of swanky debate watch parties that he turned down because he knew about Biden's mental decline and he wanted to watch the debate alone in case he needed to cry. Oh my God, but think about that, guys. Think about that because that means Klyburn, who's actually one of the worst people in American politics, who's the most corporate, I can go on and on. And by the way, has helped Republicans more than any other Democrat, gave them extra seats in South Carolina to protect his own seat. He's such a terrible guy, okay, and was the number one opponent of Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders, etc. So Clyburn

knew definitively that Biden had dementia and was in such terrible shape that the debate It was going to be a disaster. But meanwhile, publicly before and after debate, he's like, no, Biden's perfectly fine. Yeah. He should stay in the race and be president for another four years. That's the kind of liar representative of Clyburn. I know, but it's not just about Clyburn, right? I'm talking about the culture within the Democratic Party that led to its demise.

So it's good to have dissent within your party and within an administration, because hopefully those fights could lead to the best possible, you know, policies or solution. juries out when it comes to what's happening right now with the terrorist policy, obviously. Now, putting that aside, in response to Musk calling Navarro dumber than a sack of bricks, you heard what White House press secretary Caroline Levitt had to say. Now, in one of Elon Musk's posts attacking Navarro, something really interesting came up. By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of U.S. content, Navarro should ask the fake expert,

He invented Ron Vera. Okay, I love this part. So what Musk is referencing at the end of that post is actually something Navarro did do. He used a fictional trade expert by the name of Ron Vera, an anagram of his last name in his books to promote his trade policy. He had like a dozen, he had a dozen quotes from here. I'll read the rest. Because I love this part of the story. So crazy.

Although I'm going with the pronunciation, Ron Vara, who's right? No one knows because he's made up. Okay, he put him in real books as if he had real quotes. So here, Ron Vara has appeared as a cryptic voice of economic wisdom, more than a dozen times in five of Navarra's 13 books, dispensing musings like, you've got to be nuts to eat Chinese food. And quote, only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath,

a baby crib into a lethal weapon, and a cell phone battery into a heart pierce, piercing shrapnel. Okay, well, this, by the way, he said, he said in the book that this guy has a degree in economics from Harvard and was a reservist who served in Iraq. I mean, made up significant details about this fictional character. And here's another quote from the legendary Ron Vara, ride the stock market cycle or be run over. Is this, is this, are we sure this is Ron Vara and not Ron Burgundy?

Okay, and then here's another one, the manufacturing dragon is voracious, the colonial dragon is relentless, the American Eagle is asleep at the wheel. And here's another one, no, no, this is hold on, we're getting it. Another one is, do you know what San Diego means in German? All right, now we found our own expert, and he says if Ron Vera has a degree in economics, It's in home economics because he's cooked. That's Kenzie Guru, our expert. You won't be able to figure out who can see guru is. Okay, so look, Navarro went to Harvard.

He has a PhD in economics from Harvard. He's quoting himself, basically. He's the expert. Of course, we know, but he doesn't tell his audience that. And these are not joke books. And they reached out to two of his co-authors, and they're like, no, no, we didn't know that Ron Vera was a made up fictional character. They were writing real books about economics and politics.

It got published. I want to know how the hell that got published. Oh my God, my book was fact checked a billion times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. We've got like 30 pages of end notes and right wingers can come in, oh yeah, Rob Varro says this and they're like, oh yeah, no need to check, let's go. But the thing that sucks is, look, I'm not a fan of Navarro's,

but I really loathe the person you're about to hear from, okay? He was tasked with dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Trump's first term. He actually succeeded in doing away with some of the regulations pertaining to the loan sharks and payday lenders who basically push Americans into bankruptcy at their most desperate times. I'm talking about Mick Mulvaney. Here's what he has to say about Navarro. Let's watch. Peter Navarro, who went to prison for the president, does he need to be fired? I would have fired him a long time. I would have fired him when he got caught making up his academic sources for his papers with his Ron Vara imaginary friend. But I mean, that was Donald Trump's call then. It's Donald Trump's call now. I think folks watching this show are caring more about what is the policy of the White House. What is the policy on tariffs? What is the future hold on this? And Peter Navarro is not a reliable source for information about that. I really dislike Mick Mulvaney, so I'm on Peter Navarro's side on this one. That's how we're making the decision.

But by the way, in all seriousness, Trump is so lucky with his enemies. He runs against the establishment twice to win, right? Yeah. And it was strategic of him to pick that as an enemy, even though he didn't mean it in terms of being a populist. And now he has enemies like Mick Mulvaney and Bill Ackman and the disgusting billionaire owner of Home Depot, Ken Langone, came out against him, that's the guy who set up Elliot Spitzer and laughed about it.

That guy looks like a monster. And I'm like, man, with enemies like that, you don't need friends. So stop putting those billionaires on TV, they're hurting our cause. So all right, now I want to get to our polls. So on X, I asked, so Elon Musk and Donald Trump disagree on tariffs. That's definitely true, Elon tried to get Trump to change his mind and couldn't in the beginning. Who's more right, Elon Musk or Donald Trump? Interesting, 50, so far with 36, over 36,

Over 3,600 votes. You know what? 56% say Elon Musk is right and Donald, and only 44% say Donald Trump is right. But now they'll put up that live chat again. Now who will Trump ultimately side with? There's a different question, we're asking the live chat, 53 Navarro 47 Elon Musk. Look, I'm as flummicks as you guys are. So in terms of who's he gonna go with, I think that in the beginning he's going with, well, we know for in the beginning he's going with, well, we know for in the beginning he's going with the

borrow, not Musk, right? But I think in the end, he's going to go with the billionaires. And so I think that Elon, so in the first poll, I think Elon is right about the tariffs. And in the second poll to won in the live chat, I think eventually Elon's side will win. We'll see. We got to take a break for now. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about, well, is Trump going to cut the Pentagon budget? Probably not. And that's based on what he's been asking for from Congress. We'll be right back. Let's see how Earth responds to that. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna and Nazim Salur.

Nazim, thank you for hitting that join button below and becoming part of us. Cat Dad, thanks for joining through t-y-t.com slash join. You guys are amazing. Casper. Well, let's talk a little bit about the fact that we're going to spend more on the Pentagon. Let's watch. We rebuilt the military during my first term, and we have great things happening with our military. We also essentially approved a budget, which is in the facility.

you'll like to hear this of a trillion dollars, one trillion dollars, and then nobody's seen anything like it. The military is very, very powerful, and it's going to remain that way. We spent a trillion dollars on servicing U.S. debt last year. And according to Donald Trump, we are poised to spend now a trillion dollars on the Pentagon when we heard all sorts of promises, Jank from the Trump administration about how they wanted to cut spending, including over at the Pentagon. Yeah, we're about to give you direct quotes from Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. on that. But lo and behold, it turns out they're not going to cut the Pentagon. They're going to add to it spectacularly, which is exactly why we challenged them in the first

place. Are you actually going to cut real waste, fraud, and abuse? Or are you going to do the same exact thing that establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats do, add more pork and more pork the defense. Well, our answer is in. So here's more from Trump's Oval Office meeting yesterday. This was the press conference that he held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the middle of that press conference, he addressed the Pentagon. Let's take a look. We have to build our military and we're very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you've got a lot of bad forces out there now. So we're going to be approving a budget.

And I'm proud to say, actually, the biggest one we've ever done for the military. We're cutting other things that were under Doge, but under a lot of other, when you look at a woman getting $2 billion for environmental, and it had nothing to do with environmental, and they had $100 in the bank, and they give her $2 billion, many, many of those cases, all that stuff is going to be cut out. But we are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now, the likes of which we've never had before. We've never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered. And of course, it's not lost on me that Trump is sitting next to Benjamin Netanyahu, who's been egging the U.S. to go to war with Iran on behalf of Israel, as Trump is mentioning increased spending for the Pentagon, which we'll talk a little bit about Iran later in the show.

But Pete Hegseth was very happy about this, of course. He's celebrating it. He's the head of the Department of Defense, and he says, thank you, Mr. President. Coming soon, the first trillion dollar Department of Defense budget, President Trump is rebuilding our military and fast. P.S., we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely on lethality and. And readiness, by the way, I seriously doubt that. The Pentagon has failed every single audit that has been done. They can't pass a single audit because there's a lot of waste fraud and abuse of the Pentagon.

But fascinatingly enough, there hasn't been much attention on that waste fraud and abuse when it comes to cutting spending. And look, we're not going to cut spending. We're going to add spending when it comes to the Pentagon. So, Jake, take it away. Yeah, so we're asking in the live chat poll. How many Trump voters do you think want to cut the military budget? None, some, most, or all, okay? I would definitely not go with all and I would definitely not go with none.

But I know the sum wills, but let me give you some facts on this. So if you remember, I did this tweet right in the beginning of the administration. I said, actually not even then, but after the election before they came in. Hey, Elon Musk, I said, put me in charge of the Pentagon, I'll slash $400 billion each. That'll get you 20% of your goal of $2 trillion right out of the gate. I went to Wharton's three years before you. I own a media company, so I know how to run a business. If you really want to cut, put me in coach.

Now, I did that because I wanted to see what the reaction was, both from, mainly from the right-wing commenters, right? To be honest, I didn't think Elon was going to reply. When somebody told me that Elon replied, I didn't even quite believe it. And so I went and it turns out he did reply, and several times, let me show you one of them. one of them. And he said, dramatic changes for the better are coming on another tweet. And he said, if massive change is not made, America's security is in danger. So he agrees

that we should be cutting. And then not only that, let's go to Graphic Five now, then Donald Trump Jr. jumped in and said, and oh, by the way, earlier Elon had asked for suggestions on how to cut on my tweet. Okay, so they're definitely, at that point, they're saying we're cutting, no question, we're cutting the Pentagon. Then Donald Trump Jr. says, I'm for all of this. So So those pretty much everyone I know on the right. If the left doesn't believe me, there's probably countless tweets, interviews, and my triggered podcast to refer to.

This seems more like a universal to most Americans I've spoken to. This is about cutting the Pentagon, okay? And then he adds one more, he says, only contention I know would come from the establishment on both sides. Permanent Washington likely does not like a lot of this. You heard it here first, folks. Don Jr. says that his father is part of the establishment.

But by the way, guys, that's part of you have a conversation with the right thing. That's why you talk to them and say, okay, what do you think, what are you going to do? And then they went on the record and they said, yeah, we're definitely gonna cut the Pentagon. And then here comes Trump and says, yeah, I'm just kidding. Of course, I'm not gonna cut the Pentagon. I'm gonna add $150 billion to it. But this is why I told you guys all throughout leading up to the election and afterwards,

that Donald Trump is a fake populist. Now, there are important parts of that. He was smart enough to at least pretend to be a populist, while the Democrats kept punching themselves in the face about all the corporate CEOs are on our side. Woohoo! Well, nothing will fundamentally change. We love the status quo. I'm like, ah, stop, stop, you're gonna lose the elections, right?

But does Donald Trump mean any of the things that he says in terms of sticking it to the, you know, the billionaires and deliver for the average guy? His cabinet has more billionaires than any cabinet in history. Did he actually reduce the debt last time he was in charge? No, he added to it more than any American president in history, $8 trillion, $5 trillion of which came before COVID. It was record breaking, you know, debt and deficit creation. Why, giant tax cuts for corporations, the wealthy, et cetera.

And then there was COVID, of course. And then COVID added another $3 trillion on top of the five he'd already created. Yep, okay, so that was it. So this time around, he's going around and saying, oh, I'm going to cut taxes for tips and social security. There's this hilarious rumor that some poor folks in MAGA have believed that he's going to eliminate income tax for everyone under $150,000. There's no chance. Quote me from here to eternity. There's no chance that's going to happen.

No, what's going to happen instead is a tiny amount of cuts for the middle class just as window dressing, right? And then massive cuts for the wealthy and take corporate taxes from 21 to 15%. So, but hey, five and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts, but don't worry, Doge is cutting. Oh my God, and the tariffs and the gold card and stuff, but doge is on top of this. If you take them at their word at what they published publicly, they cut $130 billion. Now there's a lot of people that have shown that that's not really true and it's a lot less than that. But 130 billion compared to five and a half trillion in tax cuts is literally nothing. And they said, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay because we're gonna cut the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has a lot of waste, broad and abuse. And don't worry, Don Jr said everyone he knows in the right wing agrees we should cut the Pentagon. And by the way, it wasn't just- And now where are the savings? The $130 billion that Doge cut? They're gonna add that every single year plus $20 billion to the Pentagon. So they've done no net cuts at all.

They've added spending and they're going to do massive tax costs. Yeah, that's exactly right. And look, I was one of those folks who would like roll my eyes at Republicans, like the fiscal conservatives that would like, they kept talking about the debt. And the reason why I rolled their, rolled my eyes at them is because they would only talk about the debt when Democrats were in charge and when Democrats were proposing policies that would require some spending. And then they would come in when they're in charge, they add to the deficit and the

debt. And so that's why I would roll my eyes. But look, for those who are actually interested in the truth and like a genuine concern with what's happening economically speaking in this country, it is definitely true that our debt has become a huge, huge problem. When we're spending a trillion dollars a year now servicing our debt, that's a problem. So when you hear some of the actual legitimate fiscal conservatives, you know, the economists who are raising alarm over our massive debt, they're right, right? At some point, servicing that debt is going to become unmanageable. And no, I don't believe in modern monetary theory. I just don't. I don't think that the argument is good at all. And I think what we're doing right

now is going to lead to a lot of pain and suffering for future generations in this country. Yeah, well, one last thing here. So some folks, you know, either purposely or accidentally misinterpreted what I did with Elon as thinking that, oh, I trust Elon. And if I ask him to cut the Pentagon, I bet he'll do it because he likes me. No, of course not, of course not. But what happened? You asked them, and by the way, if you're in the right wing, it's also not a trick.

Do you want to cut defense or don't you want to cut defense? I'm genuinely curious. My guess was that some of their voters wanted to cut defense, but that their leaders would never do it. So now, not only are Elon and Don Jr., etc., even Hegsith pretend to cut defense for a second, but he's a neocon, he was never going to do it, right? So all those guys are on the record, but so are a lot of the right wing hosts on shows I went on and had these conversations on. So let's watch that as well. Pentagon racks up $35 trillion in accounting changes in one year, and they cannot account for 63% of $4 trillion of assets.

DoD regularly buys parts and equipment that does not need because it can't keep track of parts and equipment it already owns. They're not even keeping track of it. So they keep buying stuff. They don't even know what they have in their inventory. Think about how crazy that is. Again, you and I are paying for it. The Pentagon has failed.

Pentagon started doing audit seven years ago. They have never once passed one. Will the Defense Department budget be cut? It's $850 billion, and we know there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse inside the Pentagon spending craziness. Yeah, because we hadn't had a decent audit of any of the money spent in years and years and years. We have to start in the Pentagon. We need to make a trigon three sides instead of five sides in the Pentagon. It is way too big.

We have to cut back. The Pentagon never passes an audit. They say, oh, we can't find the $400 billion. Well, then you're geek then I'm going to cut your budget by $400 billion. Because apparently you can't find it. I'm not going to give you money. That was Tim Poole saying absolutely. That was Patrick Bed David after I went on his show and talked about cutting the Pentagon.

Laura Ingram's segment, she did a bunch of them. One of them was on the night that I was on Tim Poole's show. This became a real thing in the right. And they really believe, see, they really believe that. that they were gonna cut the Pentagon. They believed that they're actually cutting waste foreign abuse. By the way, that's another reason why not to hate Trump voters. So I know it's super frustrating as you see like,

oh guys, of course they're not gonna cut the Pentagon, but they really think they are. But think about it guys, they genuinely believe that. So today they're genuinely disappointed. And yes, for the 18th time, not all of them. Some of them will defend anything that Trump does. And let's be honest, some of us will defend anything anything that a Democratic leader does.

No, Joe Biden is young, Kamala Harris was flawless, right? So but here we are, we now have right wing, left wing in the middle going, why on God's green earth are you going to add to the Pentagon and make it a trillion dollar budget? When they never pass an audit, they can't account for $400 billion at a time. And this is bankrupting us, all for waste, fraud, and abuse. Look, this is going to continue as long as Americans view politics as a tribal blood sport where you defend your side regardless of what they do. It's really important to hold your own side accountable when they break promises.

So if you have super strict standards for voters on your side, they have to follow everything perfectly or else, you know, if they're not perfect adherence to the cult, you know, you're going to turn on them, he should have the same, you know, culture in regard to the politicians who actually have the power to pass the policy. So if they make promises on the campaign trail and they turn around and do a 180, hold them accountable. Otherwise, this is never going to change. We're going to keep having the same situation play out over and over again. All right, let's take a break when we come back. We're going to talk about the prospect of going to war with Iran on behalf of Israel. There's been some movement in regard to us sending bombers to the area.

And then later in the show, we'll also talk about what Trump had to say to reporters on Air Force One in regard to sending Americans to that El Salvador detention center for terrorists and gang members. We'll be right back.