The Young Turks - Trump's Putin Out

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Trump AT WAR with Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky. This Republican Wants America To Go To WAR For Israel. Trump CAN'T Keep His Story Straight With Corporate Execs. Hosts: Ana Kasparian 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. What a drag off is. Everybody, welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and as usual, massive newsday, lots to get updated on, including Donald Trump's efforts to cut the federal budget and the federal workforce. in addition to that, of course. We're also going to do some stories on what's happening with U.S. foreign policy, who in the Republican Party is egging on a war with Iran?

So we've got some stories on that as well. And in the second hour, John Iderolla will be joining us to talk about some fun stories, including some of the novel ways in which movie theaters are managing to increase ticket sales, which is important. I'm happy that they're finding fun ways to do it. I'm happy that these strategies are working, you know, going to the theaters, going to the movies, nice way to escape the endless death spiral. I feel like we're dealing with in our political system.

But before we get to the fun stuff, we got to eat our vegetables starting with this. I want to see peace. Look, you know why I want? Because I don't want all these people killed anymore. I'm looking at people that are being killed. And they're Russian and Ukrainian people, but they're people. It doesn't matter where they're from on the whole. whole planet. And I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it's going very well.

President Donald Trump pushes back on Ukraine's Lordemir Zelensky following backlash over peace talks between the United States and Russia. And Donald Trump decided to drop a nuke while he was talking about this issue. Remember, Trump is willing to have diplomatic talks without inviting Ukraine. Zelensky doesn't like it. He spoke out against it. Here's how Trump responds. Three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. You should have never started it, implying that Ukraine rather than Russia under Putin's leadership, started that war. Of course, that's not true. Of course, Russia invaded Ukraine during the Biden administration in February of 2022. But look, that video that you just watched has now sparked major tit for tat verbal war. between Donald Trump and Vlodemir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. Trump is actually now going so far as to refer to Zelensky as a dictator.

And we're going to give you the details on that in just a moment. But before we get to that, here's how Zelensky responded to Trump's statements from his press conference at Mar-Lago yesterday, including this whole notion that Ukraine never should have started a war that Russia actually started. Let's take a look. We have seen this disinformation. We understand that it is coming from Russia. We understand and we have evidence that these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia.

It is unfortunate that President Trump, and with great respect for him as a leader of the American people who constantly support us, unfortunately lives in this disinformation space. So there you have Zelensky accusing Donald Trump of living in a disinformation space, that he's essentially regurgitating some of the disinformation that is specifically sourced from the Kremlin, from Vladimir Putin and Russia. And as you can imagine, Donald Trump did not take kindly to that line at all. In fact, he decided to escalate their spat through a social media post on truth social, of course, where he called the Ukrainian president a modestly successful comedian before calling him a dictator. Let's give you his statement verbatim. He says,

Zelensky refuses to have elections, is very low in Ukrainian polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle. A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left. Now, as you can imagine, there are a lot of unfounded claims made in that statement, including the notion that he's a dictator. Now, there is a kernel of truth to what he's trying to get out here. And it has to do with the fact that Ukraine has not held presidential elections. But that is for a good reason. So let me give you some of the reporting on that. Here's what Trump is citing. This is an Associated Press headline dating back to November of 2023. It reads, Ukraine's president rules out holding elections next spring and calls for

unity in fighting Russia. Now, Zelensky did in fact cancel the elections. He made that announcement in 2023, and here's what he said. Now in wartime, when there are so many challenges, it is absolutely irresponsible to throw the topic of elections into society in a light-hearted and playful way, Zelensky said, adding that the waves of any politically divisive things must stop. He continues with, we must realize that now is the time of defense, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people, not the time. of manipulations, which only Russia expects from Ukraine, I believe that now is not the right time for elections. Now look, it's also important to note that at a time of war, Ukraine is in

martial law and they pause elections. And that's not based on what Zelensky has unilaterally decided. That is literally based on legislation that passed in Ukraine. And so in order for elections to be held at a time of martial law, at a time of war, they would obviously need to either repeal or amend that legislation. And by the way, I mean, you also have to keep in mind that during the war, and as we speak, Russia has taken control of about 20%, one-fifth of Ukraine's territory. And so those Ukrainians who are now living in occupied portions of Ukraine are not going to be to participate in a democratic process as they would if they weren't dealing with this ongoing war and with an occupation. And so, look, you can have a problem with the fact that they're not

holding presidential elections, but to call Zelensky a dictator, I think is a bit much, especially from a guy who certainly isn't saying that about Vladimir Putin, who's a dictator. He has literally poisoned and killed his political opponents. So again, real rich for Trump to say something like that. But you know, the argument that you'll often hear from Trump's supporters is, you know, pay attention to what he does, not what he says. And, you know, he's really trying to forge a peace deal here, which I will admit is a laudable goal. I don't have any problem with him attempting to pursue a peace deal. I think that's a good thing. And I also don't have a problem with Donald Trump, meeting with Putin without Zelensky or opening up diplomatic avenues in order to move toward

a peace deal. But as we've reported previously, it does seem based on what we've heard from Donald Trump that is pretty much willing to give everything away to Putin. We'll see what the end of the peace negotiations happen to be. But it's not really looking great for Zelensky. Now, Trump also alleged in his skewering of Zelensky that he admits that half of the money we sent him is missing. Now, that's a provocative statement to say the least, and it's not far-fetched for that to actually be true. But I wanted to look into it. Is that true? Did Zelensky really say that he doesn't know where half of the money is? Well, Trump made a similar provocative statement during his Mar-a-Lago press conference yesterday. Take a quick look at that. I believe President Zelensky said last week that he doesn't know where half of the money is that we gave him.

Well, we gave them, I believe, $350 billion, but let's say it's something less than that, but it's a lot. And we have to equalize with Europe because Europe has given us, given a very much smaller percentage than that. I think Europe has given $100 billion, and we've given, let's say, 300 plus, and it's more important for them than it is. for us. We have an ocean in between, and they don't. But where is all the money that's been given? Where is it going? And nobody, I've never seen an accounting of it. Okay, so is it true that the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, claimed that he doesn't know where half of the aid the United States provided to him is? No, that's not true. It's actually not true at all. So what Donald Trump is referencing here is a statement that Zelensky made

during an Associated Press interview on February 2nd. So he was speaking in Ukrainian, so the translation to English isn't going to be perfect, right? But when translated, here's what he said. When I hear that America gave Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars, 177 billion to be more precise, as the president of a warring country, I can tell you that we received just over $75 billion. We are talking about specific things because we got it not with money, but with weapons. There is training. There is additional transport. There are not only prices for weapons. There were humanitarian programs, social, etc. 100 billion dollars of these 177 billion

were never received. When it said that Ukraine received 200 billion to support the army during the war, that is not true. I don't know where all the money is. Now look, I'm going to say that translated, it's a very clunky statement and it could obviously be taken out of context to sound like he lost the money or the money was stolen, but that's not what he's referring to here. So what Zelensky is trying to say is that not all of the aid that the US provides for Ukraine goes directly to Zelensky or even under Ukrainian control. Only part of that aid goes through Ukrainian control. Now what do I mean by that? Well, there's the military aid specifically, right? And so what Ukraine does is they take the specific money allocated for weapons

and they spend 90% of it to buy American made weapons. Honestly, this is a way of redistributing wealth from working class Americans who pay their taxes to defense contractors, which I have a huge problem with. But this is what the United States does in regard to foreign policy around the world when we provide military aid. It's really a way of allegedly helping out our allies, but also a way of enriching the corporate donors who serve as executives and shareholders and all of that for defense contractors like Raytheon, Boeing, you get the picture. But the rest of that money doesn't go straight to Ukraine. It goes toward humanitarian relief for Ukrainians, the training, U.S. training of Ukrainian forces, the cost of sending more American troops to our European

allied countries as a deterrent as this war continues. So Russia doesn't, you know, consider or get tempted to invade another country in the middle of this war. Also, the U.S. provides intelligence support. Now, I'm just giving you the facts of how this money is allocated, where this money goes. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm in favor of all of the programs associated with this. And you don't have to be in favor of all the programs associated with this. But to say that there's some fraud going on here, that half of the money was stolen or lost, is just a flat out lie. And you have to call a spade a spade. You have to know what's actually happening with these resources.

Now, according to the Center for Strategic International Studies, of the aid that the United States has given to Ukraine, 90% of military aid is spent in the United States. Again, this is the specific money allocated for weapons. 90% of that goes toward buying U.S. made weapons. Of aid overall, 60% is spent in the United States. About 25% is spent in Ukraine. And the final 15% percent. is spent globally. Now Donald Trump is also incorrect to claim that the United States is footing a much larger portion of the bill compared to Europe. And by the way, I have made this mistake because when you look at, you know, $200 billion being sent to, you know, one conflict abroad, it's a lot of money. And I can understand Americans being frustrated with the fact that we just keep shelling out taxpayer resources for conflicts abroad. However, it's just not true that in this specific example, in this war between Russia and Ukraine, that the U.S. has actually provided more aid than the EU has. So according to the economists, which did a deep dive on this, the most authoritative numbers are compiled regularly by the Kiel Institute, a German think tank.

Its latest report published on February 14th shows that European contributions individually from governments and collectively from European institutions outstrip America's aid. Now, one thing to know here is obviously the United States is one country. So as one country, we have provided a certain amount of aid to Ukraine during this war, whereas the EU is a coalition of European countries. So that's how this data is being analyzed. And if you take a look at the bilateral aid commitments to Ukraine. These numbers are in euros because obviously the think tank that did it is a German think tank. And so they do their research and their analysis through euros as opposed to dollars. But as you can see from this graph, it shows you that

the United States and the EU and the EU have contributed similar amounts of money in regard to military aid for weapons. However, you know, overall the EU has. given 132 billion euros, okay, so 132 billion euros overall in terms of money that's already been allocated, whereas the US has given 114 billion euros. Obviously the US is still the largest single donor, but a super, by a super wide margin, but collectively the EU has given more. But there's additional funding, right? So that's the money that's already been allocated. But there's There's money that has been voted on by Congress that hasn't been dispersed yet. And so let's take a look at the next graph.

And here you will see that the EU is about to essentially disperse more money while the US basically pales in comparison and a sizable portion of the yet to be allocated EU funds will bolster Ukraine's military. So I just wanted to give you all the details on that. Now Donald Trump also keeps harping on how aid from Europe is guaranteed. I'm sure you've heard him say that before, while the funding from the United States is not. And this is what he means. And I do think that he raises a legitimate point here.

He says, or I should say the economists found that almost 90% of the financial aid from EU institutions has been in the form of loans, albeit with very generous terms, roughly 60% of America's financial aid is given as grants. So grants are obviously different from loans. We're not expecting grants to be paid back by the Ukrainian government, but you get the picture. Donald Trump feels that American taxpayers are essentially getting shafted by contributing money in the form of grants, but European countries are not doing the same. And look, I think that is a legitimate point, but let me hear you make that point about the money that we give to Israel. Because I don't hear I'm making that point about the money we give to Israel, and we give Israel $4 billion a year by default. for their, you know, military aid and all of that. And so that's what the reality of the situation is.

I don't think this looks good for Zelensky, the tit for tat, the verbal war that he's at with Donald Trump is not going to play out well for him, considering the little leverage he has. And the fact that Donald Trump seems to be friendlier to Russia in forging ahead with peace negotiations. But it remains to be seen what the terms of that peace deal will be. if that peace deal ever comes to fruition? Remember, Donald Trump forged somewhat of a diplomatic or friendly relationship with North Korea during his first term. And the idea was that they would halt their nuclear testing. They did no such thing.

They continued with their nuclear testing. They continued developing nuclear weapons. Satellite evidence makes that abundantly clear. And so we'll see how this plays out. While, again, I think that the criticisms toward Trump about his willingness to talk to to Russia and forge those diplomatic ties without Ukraine involved at first are ridiculous. I don't think that's that big of a deal. I do think these lies about where the money has gone and, you know, Zelensky being a dictator

is ridiculous and honestly flies in the face of wanting a peace deal. You want a peace deal, you shouldn't go around smearing and slandering someone. The one final thing I'll say is, you know, a few years ago, there was some reporting indicating that some of the funding that the United States had provided to Ukraine had gone missing. It was about $40 million. As far as I know, that was the only reporting indicating that some of the money might have been misspent or used for matters that it was not intended. So it's not far-fetched for that to happen. I don't want to pretend like that's unheard of. But to say that half the money was stolen or Zelensky doesn't know where half the money is, again, is just not true.

All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have a little more international news to get to, and then we'll jump right into some domestic policy and some updates on Donald Trump's efforts to basically cut down on the federal government. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I just want to read some super chats in regard to the story I did at the top of the show. Melody N. writes in and says Trump passed an executive order last night that only he and the attorney general can decide what the law is. It was in the same video you're showing. Interesting. Yeah, well, I mean, that needs to be adjudicated in the courts. And if that is in fact the case, if the courts side with him on that, which, I mean, that's,

we're supposed to have a separation of powers. We're supposed to have a system of checks and balances. What's the point of Congress? First of all, Congress seating their power, not just during the Trump administration, but over the last several decades, that is what they have been doing. I mean, giant mistake, they're pathetic. They can't legislate. They can't serve as a check on the executive branch. So why are we paying their salaries? Why exactly are we funding their generous health care benefits? They do nothing for us. They don't serve as a check on executive power. They're pathetic. So I hear what you're saying about what Trump is doing and how that's unconstitutional. But part of the reason why someone like Trump is able to do what he's doing is because, again,

you have Congress over the years, seating power to the executive branch, especially after 9-11. And That was such a dumb mistake to make. Let's go to Titan who says Trump posted long live the king. It's in the open. And the stinky stalking full of lies says Trump has determined over time that what he says doesn't have to be accurate. If he just repeats it enough, his base will buy it. I know I'm supposed to be the stinky stocking, but that truly stinks.

It does truly stink. And I think that partly has to do with the fact that people don't trust our media to tell the truth or to accurately report all the details comprehensively on any given story. And again, that paves the way for someone like Trump to really thrive. And right now, unfortunately, when it comes to certain issues like enhancing executive power, he's thriving. And so we'll see what happens with all that. But let's go back to some foreign policy and what some Republicans have to say about the U.S. engaging in war with Iran. I spent my entire adult life at war as a Navy seal, and I don't want to send our young

men and women into harm's way. I certainly don't want to do that. So if we can do this by applying the maximum pressure that President Trump is speaking about, then that's what we should do. But again, we cannot trust the Iranian regime to have a nuclear weapon because they will use it. So if that means kinetic strikes into Iran, then that's what it's going to, if that's what it's going to take, then that's what we're going to do. Kinetic strikes into Iran. You heard it here, Representative Derek Van Orden, who is a Republican, told Americans that they might have to go to war with Iran on Israel's behalf. Now, he didn't mention Israel, but that's the fine print here.

So what Van Orden did not tell the audience is that the war with Iran would have tremendous consequences for the United States. and it would be absolutely catastrophic, especially if you thought the war in Iraq was catastrophic. This would be worse. And I'm going to make that case in just a moment. Before I do, though, let's get to a little more talk about Representative Van Orden. So Maria Bartaromo brought him on to discuss the ongoing concerns over Iran's nuclear program. A nuclear program that Iran would not have had Donald Trump remained in the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated and agreed upon during the Obama administration. But of course, he ripped it up, paving the way for Iran to continue enriching uranium,

which can be used to build nuclear weapons. Now, after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the following. Over the last 16 months, Israel has dealt a mighty blow to Iran's terror axis. Under the strong leadership of President Trump, I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job. So what he's referring to there is we need to strike Iran. And he is goading the United States to do that on behalf of Israel, much like he did in regard to the preemptive war in Iraq. It's also worth noting that Trump had told the New York Post earlier, quote, I would like a deal done with Iran.

Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, let's go to Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson first. So on Monday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson responded to Netanyahu by saying, when it comes to a country like Iran, they cannot do a damn thing. You cannot threaten Iran on one hand and claim to support dialogue on the other hand. And when he's referring to dialogue here, I think he's making a reference to Donald Trump because earlier this month, he told the New York Post, I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it. That's a good thing. It's good that he said that.

He continues, they don't want to die. Nobody wants to die. If we made the deal, Israel wouldn't bomb them. Okay. And then two days later, the president also wrote on truth social, quote, reports that the United States working in conjunction with Israel is going to blow Iran into smithereens are greatly exaggerated. So he had previously made some statements on the campaign trail about how, you know, Israel should essentially target and bomb, you know, nuclear sites

in Iran, but he is clearly now backing off from those statements. Now, Van Orden told Barteromo that the United States and Israel will do, quote, anything it takes to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon? I mean, if that's true, again, the Iran nuclear deal should have remained in place. But they're not interested in a peaceful diplomatic solution. They want war, okay? People make a lot of money off war. And I'm not talking about a lot of people. I'm talking about a small group of defense contractors and weapons manufacturers who love war. They jump in it, okay? They revel in it. So let's listen to what Congressman Orden has to say. We need to make sure that the Israeli government has as many munitions as they need, first and foremost, to continue to fight against Hamas and Hezbollah, but also if they need to strike into Iran to prevent these people from getting nuclear weapons, we need to facilitate that.

We need to make sure that we have the intelligence capability and that they have the intelligence capability to take care of any issues that we might have. So again, I want to be explicitly clear to the Mullahs in Iran, every option is on the table to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. Except every option is not on the table. The real option, right, the diplomatic, peaceful option would be to make a deal similar to the Iran nuclear deal that has checks in place. It involves other third party countries that can come in and do examinations to make sure that Iran is. is not in fact enriching uranium or building nuclear weapons. We had a deal like that in place, but Trump ripped it up. Because at the end of the day, the war machine tends to get the last word. So it's now been several years where I've been fearful that we were going to get dragged

into a war with Iran. I don't know what will end up happening with Donald Trump, especially considering the fact that there's a huge portion of his base that does not want to engage in war with Iran, but Van Orden is the typical compromised by corruption congressional lawmaker. So what do I mean by that? Well, in the 2024 campaign cycle, APAC, donated $5,000 to his campaign. Not that big of a deal, although these politicians are, they're cheap prostitutes, okay? They're not really expensive. They're not looking for high-end escorts here. So, but he has collected a total of $97,500 from pro-Israel lobbyist throughout his congressional career, which is not a lengthy career, by the way. He was elected

in 2022. So since 2022, he has collected nearly $100,000 in campaign donations from pro-Israel lobbyists. He also visited Israel along with other House Republicans last April. Now, Apex YouTube channel, this is my favorite, even has a video featuring Van Orden. Oh, good boy, good boy. Yes, why don't you dance for us? Now let's talk about the consequences of going to war with Iran, because they have been somewhat restrained during this ongoing war on Gaza, and that's probably because they want to avoid a war with the United States. If they strike Israel and kill a bunch of people,

which I really, really hope they do not do, well, that is going to spark a massive war with the United States involved, And they don't want that. However, don't mistake their restraint for lack of military capability. Now, the hawkish language from Netanyahu and our own politicians is concerning, especially with the Wall Street Journal reporting that both the Biden and Trump administrations concluded that Israel is, in fact, planning or considering an attack on Iran this year. U.S. military support and munitions would likely be needed for an Israeli attack.

on Iran's heavily fortified nuclear sites, given their complexity, U.S. military officials said. So that's serious. Okay, the U.S. would absolutely be dragged into it. And Trump allegedly wanted to avoid it, right? He wants to avoid it. During the presidential transition, some members of Trump's team considered the viability of Israel launching preventative strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, including having U.S. forces join Israeli aircraft in a bombing campaign now as president, Trump has said he prefers a negotiated solution. And look, I want to be clear about something. I don't care about all the other stuff that he's up to. On this issue, if he is telling the truth and he wants to find a diplomatic

solution and avoid war, he deserves credit for that. But let's wait and see. Because there are all sorts of nefarious figures surrounding him within the Republican Party who are thirsty for war with Iran. Okay? There's a financial incentive involved. There's corruption involved. I have no question that there are some influencing factors that could, you know, point Donald Trump in the wrong direction. But if the Trump administration chooses a military solution instead of that negotiated solution, well, then the United States, in my opinion, and in the opinion of actual experts and analysts, isn't a lot of trouble. So look, as we've reported on the show previously, war with Iran would actually come at a massive price for the U.S.

So Iran's military is designed to prevent such an invasion and impose significant costs on any potential attack by air or sea, according to the Hill. So let me give you some more details on what their military capability is and what this could look like. So in 2012, Pentagon officials estimated that such a strategy would require a minimum of 100,000 troops. Following escalations with Iran in 2019, Pentagon officials estimated that a version of this strategy that sought to destroy Iranian nuclear weapons facilities would require a minimum of 120,000 troops deployed throughout the Middle East. And let me be clear, a ground invasion, that would be a lot worse. Analysts estimate that any ground invasion would require 1.6 million

U.S. troops, almost 10 times what the U.S. committed to Iraq at any given time. Upon arrival in Iran, Washington would face the 13th largest fit for service population in the world, the 13th most armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery in the world, the ninth most towed artillery in the world, and the eighth most mobile rocket projectors in the the world. So again, do not mistake Iran's restraint in response to Israel during this current war on Gaza as weakness or lack of military capability. Don't be Vladimir Putin and assume that you're going to go in and end that war within a week. We would be dragged into a war that would be endless. And it would be disastrous. Our service members would die. Some of them

would be maimed and it would all happen on behalf of a foreign country that bribes our politicians legally. It's just wrong. And I think it's disgusting that you have these lawmakers going around egging on a conflict that they're not going to fight in. They're probably not going to send their kids to. Okay. Your kids are probably going to be sent to a war like that if they're service members as we speak. It's ridiculous. It's going to be costly. It's going to be costly. It's going to be deadly, and it's so irresponsible to promote this idea just based on what Israel wants. And that is, in fact, what's happening here. All right. I can't shut my mouth. I just keep talking and talking. I wanted to do one more story. I'm worse than Jank, and I give him a lot of

heat for talking too long. Anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit about some of the private health industry donors. Donald Trump has been whining and dining over at Marlago. We'll be right back. more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card and then some get your ticket to more with the new bemo v i porter master card and get up to twenty four hundred dollars in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo.com slash the i porter to learn more The social break that we just had, one of our viewers, Jonathan Borzjani, I love your name, by the way, said that basically Donald Trump repeated the lie that USAID provided $100 million worth of condoms to Hamas, even though just last week Elon Musk admitted in the Oval Office right next to Donald Trump that he was wrong about the U.S. providing condoms to Hamas. And he, yes, we just confirmed it.

Trump repeated it again today. And then, Kate, it's okay. Like, what did he say again about? What was the other statement? He said, does everybody know what a condom is? Do you? Do you trust? It seems like you just found out.

That is amazing. All right. We got to get back to the news. So let's talk a little bit about some of the meetings that Donald Trump took during his presidential transition. This is not inspiring a lot of confidence if you think that he might maybe do the right thing or allow RFK Jr. to do the right thing when it comes to private health insurers or pharmaceutical drugs. Let's get to the details. President Donald Trump has unfortunately been bragging to members of his inner circle about raking in half a billion dollars in donations from the health care industry during his presidential transition. In fact, this explosive story and the explosive figures that come along with it was reported by the Wall Street Journal.

And it might give us some insight in regard to what his policy priorities might be moving forward, even though he talks a big talk about making America healthy, allowing RFK Jr. to do something about corruption in our health care industry. I don't know if I'm buying any of that at this point based on the money that has flowed to Donald Trump during his transition. So Trump told his donors that he received a flood of calls from corporate executives and billionaires offering their congratulations after his election and told his fundraisers it seemed like a good time to raise money. So now he's in a position of power. He wins the presidency for a second term. And that's when moneyed interests really do start, you know, pouring the dough toward the individual and in the position of power. In this case, Donald Trump, all told, Trump held more than 50 meetings with business executives at his club after his election.

According to 11 people familiar with the activities. Activities sounds like a fun thing. This is not fun, okay? This isn't fun activities. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, when Trump won the election, his fundraisers told him to give donors a break, okay? And just chill out for a while. And guess what? Trump disagreed.

And so to put Trump's whopping $500 million sum in context, the Obama administration, or Obama, I should say, had raised $53 million after the 2008 election. That's a lot of money. Okay, so that was during his transition. That's the money he raised. President Biden raised a little bit more, $62 million. That's four years ago. Now, in 2017, Trump had already outraised Biden in 2020. Trump raised just over $100 million during his transition for the 2017 inaugural.

Now, fast forward to 2024, and we're literally talking about half a billion dollars. That's how much corruption plays a role within the current Trump administration. Now, Catherine Wilde, who is the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, whose members, by the way, include massive American corporations like Bank of America, Deloitte, Pfizer, and more. Well, she told the Wall Street Journal, everyone or everybody who is anybody, went down, meaning to Mar-a-Lago.

It was a proactive effort to not be a target. Okay, so let's bribe Donald Trump, so he doesn't come after us, members of the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies. And you won't be surprised to hear that all of those wealthy business leaders also pitched their agenda to Donald Trump.

For example, at a November dinner, pharmaceutical executives told Trump that pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies are to blame for hydro costs. In December, Trump publicly vowed to knock out the middlemen, essentially referring to the pharmacy benefit managers.

And then in January, the CEOs of the three biggest PBM, Okay, those are the pharmacy benefit managers, went down to bribe Donald Trump legally, of course, because it's baked into our system. And they made their case to him. They promised that they would work to make the user experience better. But they also pointed to pharmaceutical companies for their high drug prices, telling Trump, no, no, no, it's not us. It's the pharmaceutical companies that are implementing incredibly high drug prices for American consumers. And the truth of is both things are true. There have been cases where PBMs get certain kickbacks from

pharmaceutical companies. And so rather than doing their jobs and negotiating for lower drug prices, they do the opposite. And there's no doubt that pharmaceutical companies are price gouging American citizens. We've done stories on this. There's evidence to prove it. So both things are true. But it wasn't just big pharma and PBM CEOs visiting Mar-a-Lago. Other attendees included Wall Street financiers, cryptocurrency executives, lawyers, lobbyists, and big tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, who considered them Democrats like yesterday.

Now Trump is clearly loving all the attention and I'm sure the funds that he's collecting. Speaking of visitors at his club in January, Trump described Mar-Lago as hot as a pistol. This is the hottest club in the world. Gross. And in December of last year, he said this. I did have dinner with Tim Cook. I had dinner with sort of almost all of them and the rest are coming. And this is one of the big differences, I think, between we were talking about it

before. One of the big differences between the first term and the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something. They want cookies, Trump, and you have the power to give them the cookies. And so far from what we've seen in the short period of time, he's served in his second term, he is willing to shell out the cookies. And that's what really bothers me about what's currently transpiring. He ran on a populist message. He ran on a pro-working class, pro-blue-collar worker message. And one of the first things that has happened under his administration is he has done away with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the only federal government agency whose sole

purpose is to look out for Americans who get defrauded by or ripped off by banks, by financial institutions, by payday lenders. We're talking about a government agency that's so independent and so bipartisan or nonpartisan, I should say, that they don't even get funded by Congress. They get funded by the Federal Reserve. They received $700 million in order to conduct their investigations by the Federal Reserve, and they returned to $21 billion to Americans who had been ripped off and defrauded by financial institutions. And the fact that that has now been dismantled under Russell Vott, acting director for the C. the FPB under Trump is pretty gross and shows you just how transactional Donald Trump happens to be.

The populace in his base have lost. I don't think they realize it yet, but they've lost. The corporate interest came in right away and they co-opted your movement. And that's really disgusting and sad because I do think there are voters who supported Trump who did believe that he was actually going to do the right thing in protecting blue collar workers. you know, going after some of the scum that have essentially outsourced jobs abroad and done things that hurt American companies and American workers. But so far, he's backed off his messaging on wanting to do something about inflation. In fact, during a recent interview with Sean Hannity, in addition to Elon Musk, he was sitting by him as they did this joint

interview, you know, he just kind of backed off any responsibility in regard to inflation. I don't think the current inflation we're experiencing right now is his fault per se. It's too early in his presidency. But he seemed to not really want to deal with it anymore. And that's concerning. Finally, the money that we're talking about, the money that was donated to him during his transition, which Trump has told others he would use as a rainy day fund, was split among Trump's inaugural committee and various other accounts, including a large political action committee. The inaugural committee itself raised more than $200 million officials say. That money doesn't get donated out of the kindness of corporate CEO's hearts. It is a bribe. Our Supreme Court has

legalized these bribes, and that really does undermine our democracy. In fact, our democracy has been undermined for quite some time now, under both Democratic leadership and Republican leadership. But for some reason, that very real, tangible way in which our democracy has been undermined never really gets called out by our lawmakers, especially the democratic lawmakers who talk about protecting our democracy all the time. That's their whole identity, apparently. But when it comes to corruption, they revel in it. They love it.

They've made that bed, and they love to roll around in it. And now Trump gets to benefit from that system. and we're going to see how that's going to play out over the next four years. efforts to pass a budget. President Donald Trump is encouraging congressional Republicans to back a big, beautiful bill in the House. At least that's what he's calling it, following his rejection of what the Senate wanted to do. Now, this is the first sign that Trump is actually breaking a massive campaign promise. At least that's if he goes along with the House bill.

But we'll get to the details on that in just a moment. Before we do, here's the context. So Donald Trump has three major policy goals, and he wants all those policy goals to be put in one giant bill, a big, beautiful bill, as he likes to call it. And those policy goals include tax cuts, of course, spending cuts, which it seems like he's already kind of implementing without Congress by firing federal workers and border security. Now, the Senate and the House actually have two different approaches in getting Trump's agenda accomplished. So House and Senate Republicans are using a process called reconciliation that allows them to pass their plan through the Senate with a simple majority, 51 votes, rather than the 60 vote usually required, but have been working on different tracks. So the Senate, where Republicans have a slim majority, 53 to 47, and Stephen Miller, by the way, would actually like to pass a border bill right away, a separate border bill to provide, you know,

funding and all the goodies that Donald Trump wants for the southern border. And they argue we're going to get to the budget and tax bill as a separate bill later. Now, the House, where Republicans have a majority of 220 to 215, at best, by the way, if they fill their vacant seats, wants to do this all in one bill. And that's why Trump likes it. That's why Trump is saying, go with the House bill. Go with the House bill. Now, Trump threw cold water on the budget blueprint, devised in the Senate under Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, which calls for $342 billion in new spending over $4, years paired with an equal amount of spending cuts. Senate Republicans argue that they are funding immediate priorities and that they need more time to work on complicated tax policy before December 31st or the December 31st deadline when tax cuts from 2017 are set to expire. So just to give you a little reminder of how the 2017 tax bill was written. So the tax cuts that go to individuals are set to expire,

the corporate tax cuts are permanent. So what Trump is seeking to do is further cut the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, and he wants to extend the tax cuts for individuals. Now, Trump did throw a monkey wrench into this House bill that Republicans are cooking up because, well, he said something during his interview with Hannity that I think you should be aware of,

And then we'll get back to what House Republicans are trying to do. Social security won't be touched. Other than this fraud or something we're going to find, it's going to be strengthened, but won't be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched. Nothing. You don't have to. Now, if there are illegal migrants in the system, we're going to get them out of the system and all of that fraud, but it's not going to be touched.

Illegal migrants are actually paying into the system and not getting those benefits back. And by the way, that's the elephant in the room that no one seems to be talking about. So for those who are concerned about the solvency of our social security system, understand that there are a lot of undocumented workers who have social security numbers that don't actually belong to them, obviously, because they're undocumented. But they use those social security numbers in order to work. And they pay taxes, but they never get those social security benefits in return. And so if mass deportations are carried out, if we root out, you know, migrant workers in this country, that is going to lead to a loss of revenue to bolster

social security. What do you do after that? How do you, and by the way, I don't think that's a fair system. I'm not applauding that system at all. I'm not saying it's a good thing that undocumented immigrants are paying into a system that they don't end up benefiting from, which is why I think we need an actual reform bill that's comprehensive related to immigration. But what is Trump going to do to, you know, find additional revenue for Social Security? Is he going to significantly lift the tax cap on Social Security? I mean, I doubt it. But that is the elephant in the room.

But let's get back to that House bill from Republicans, because that big, beautiful House bill that Trump was touting does actually include massive cuts to Medicaid, something that he just told Hannity, he's not in favor of touching. House Republicans' budget blueprint calls on the energy and committee to on the energy and commerce committee, I should say, to find $880 billion in deficit reduction.

Spending less on Medicaid was seen internally as a key component of hitting that target. Nonetheless, though, Not only did Trump say what he said on Hannity, apparently earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal also reported that Trump told House GOP during a closed-door meeting that he wants to be very careful with Medicaid. And then the journal says that his comments to Hannity basically represented a more forceful assertion that he has a red line in regard to Medicaid. We'll see. But remember how Trump wanted to cut defense spending as well? Like that's allegedly another goal. of his, well, House Republicans revealed a budget resolution that would add $100 billion in defense funding, although it is one-third less than the Senate blueprint, which would raise defense spending

by $150 billion. Now, the final thing I want to just add about all of this is, while Republicans are in fact cheering on the notion of cutting funding in the federal government, and do Doing so by essentially dismantling the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed under the Biden administration, they sure have benefited from billions, tens of billions of dollars that were allocated specifically as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act. So I want to give you a few examples. Okay. So Senate Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley, well, his state of Iowa has had investment jump 40% to $2.7 billion since, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022. Just give you a few more examples, as reported by the Financial Times. Among other committee members, investment in Senate Majority Leader John Thune's home state of South Dakota grew nearly fivefold.

And Majority Whip, John Barrasso's state of Wyoming, has reaped an almost 90% jump. And there's more. There's like countless examples in this Financial Times piece. I mean, if I gave you every single one of them, this would be a 40-minute long story. But I'll give you a few more. On the House Ways and Means Committee, Blake Moore, vice chair of the House Republican Conference, had investment grow more than 400% in his district in Utah, while Jody Arrington of Texas, who also chairs the House Budget Committee,

had investment grow 20% in his. Investment in Senator Tim Scott's state of South Carolina has grown 380% since the I. was passed, he insisted the windfall is not the result of a short-term spending spree by Biden and the Inflation Reduction Act. Except that's not the case. As the Financial Times notes, Harry Leitze, the state's commerce secretary, told the Financial Times in a 2023 interview that the Act's incentives had helped spur the development of a battery supply chain in the state. So if you want to dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act, by all means, go ahead. But are these Republican lawmakers going to return the billions of dollars that were invested in their states,

which also then helps spur business opportunities and jobs in their states? I think the taxpayers would like their money back. For now, we're going to take a break. When we come back, John Ida Rolla joins us for the second hour. I don't know.