Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 5/23/2023 – Debt Debacle

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

On tonight’s show: Republicans in Congress are holding the economy hostage by refusing (thus far) to raise the debt ceiling. Is America really going to go with the "Tell em I aint got it" approach to debt? We'll all find out soon enough. Join us.Support the show

Howdy, everybody, welcome back. Happy Skews Day to you. It's May 23rd, 2023. I'm Trey Crowder. That's Mark Aegee. How's it going, Mark? What's up, Trey? We've got a good show, fun, I guess, and laughing through the darkness.

Will the economy exist? That's our slogan. That's our mission statement here. 15 days. It feels like our economy is always on, not always, but very often is on the verge of absolute collapse. But I'm not, don't interpret that as me saying like, so everything's going to continue being fine. I'm not saying that because I remember because of like swine flu and bird flu and things like that when COVID first became a thing, I was like, all right, whatever. I'm sure it'll be okay.

And that was super wrong. So one of these days, you know, it could be the COVID of the economy could eventually show up. It's all going to explode at some point. So it'll be in a couple weeks. I don't know. We'll find out, I guess. Because we're going to talk to the economy, I thought I should mention, did you see that it in artificially intelligence-generated photo of the Pentagon and White House being bombed went viral yesterday and it caused a dip in the stock market?

Somebody put it on a Q&M Facebook page. And then a bunch of blue checkmarked Twitter people started retweeting it to went viral. And I'm not sure why the stock market react to that, that like the Pentagon and White House got attacked. And you're hearing about it from shit dick Patriot 1,2579 on Twitter. Yeah. I was about saying, yeah, you said that, you know, a bunch of blue checkmark started retweeting it. And it's like, well, that means effectively nothing. Right.

You know, now. In fact, that's not, that's actually not true. It does mean something. but not at all the thing it used to mean. You know what I mean? It almost means the opposite of that thing. Yeah, it's a reality inversion field. But I don't understand why the stock market would dip because it's like,

I guess a bunch of day traders who aren't stupid enough to believe it thought that the rest of us to be stupid enough to believe it. So they sold stock and anticipation of the market dipping. So they made it dip. It's stock market's stupid. I don't understand it. May I a couple things before we got you get to the show. I saw this obituary yesterday. A guy named Mark Gleetson died in Kansas.

He's a guy who was a big pro-life advocate in Kansas. His group was the one to harassed George Tiller, who was the only OBGYN in Kansas, who was doing abortions for a long time. They shot him multiple times. They bombed his clinic. Eventually he got murdered in his church. Yeah, see, I don't think you, and I know you didn't like mean it like this, but I don't think you should still be called like a pro-life activist or whatever when you've done all the shit you just said

fucking, you're bombing shooting people and all that like yeah, anti-choice is the way to put it, but the, a terrorist. The fun part of it,

yeah, the fun part of the story, fun, it's about a death, maybe fun's not right. You know what? It's funny to me. He,

he didn't die on natural causes. He died when his sesna crashed, his plane crashed. And, the last time he was in the news was for donating a bunch of money to a recall effort for the Kansas pro-choice ballot initiative. And he said that the $120,000 he donated, man, he would make it harder for him to renovate his Cessna, which he'd been working on for 15 years.

So he essentially put off fixing his plane, tried to immiscerate a bunch of women in Kansas, and then his plane crashed. And he died to make other people more miserable. So condolences to that man's family, but I'm glad he's not fucking up other people's lives anymore. Oh, yeah, I mean, he was, you know, kind of sort of asking for it. So hard to feel too sad about it. Yeah. I wouldn't be a fuck either way.

But, yeah, no, you're right. That part does make it kind of hit. You know, he literally said out loud, and rather than making my plane fly good, I prefer to spend all this money. I'll make it a Borses, making sure it stays illegal and then he, you know, flies his, I was going to say flies his plane into a mountain, but it's Kansas, they don't have mountains. The ground will work just fine.

You don't even need a mountain, you know, if you're high enough. So. Right. Yeah. I've ever seen a statistic once that was like when you're, a reason not to be afraid of flying is that the overall majority of plane crashes happen on take off and landing. I'm like,

well, that's where there's shit to run into. Yeah. also like I don't understand what that's even supposed to mean like those two parts are super important parts of the whole process I guess they're just like don't be afraid while you're actively in the air only when you're going up and coming down it's like yeah I think that's probably when a lot of people are already pretty afraid nervous during turbulence sometimes so I guess I can understand it's like you can put your mind at ease for the 99% of the time you're in a plane right I have heard that, that, like, you'll see footage of even, like, crazy insane turbulence where people get, like, the drink cart gets thrown up in the air and shit like that. And I, and, you know, people will say, like, oh, the plane, even that, the plane is built to withstand whatever, 20 times that or whatever. Like, turbulence is almost never actually a problem. So I guess that is nice to know.

Yeah. Yeah, my wife was on a flight to Austin a couple months ago. And she was, it was really, really bad turbulence. Like I said, she'd never experienced. And she was, like, texting me, I love you, goodbye. I said Jesus, I was like, Jesus Christ. Wi-Fi, though, coming in handy. That's cool.

You know, just a few short years ago wouldn't even been able to do that, you know, so that's nice. I kind of feel like if the plane was going down, they'd turn off the Wi-Fi, but I don't know. So your last tweet wouldn't be like, fuck United or something. One other thing before we get to the show,

WGA strikes in its fourth week. A little bit of an update. David's Lasloff, Zazloff, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, for some reason, was invited to give a commencement speech and get a honorary doctorate at Boston University. And here's how that went. You're going to have to figure out how to get along with everyone. And that includes difficult people. Some people... All right. You can cut it back.

there chanting pay your writers clap clap clap clap clap yeah there were uh seven thousand students there plus all their families and they were chanting uh we don't want you here pay your writers shut and shut up zazlov uh in case you missed what he was actually trying to say there he's trying to say the best way to get rich is to work with difficult people which is a basically a thinly illud thinly veil dig at the writers right u has a top 25 film program uh just completely 10 years from everybody who invited him and the fact that he accepted the invitation or didn't change his mind after this was going on. And it's like Hollywood, like a bunch of industries is so full of nepotism that I imagine a bunch of people in the crowd have families who are in show business. So the speech itself, it was about finding financial success as a lawyer, but not feeling fulfilled because he didn't love what he was doing is apparently what he loves instead is making shows like my 600 pound sisters or whatever.

And he said, I was making good money. I was feeling really great and then they started another round of chance and booze. Didn't commencement speeches used to be inspiring? Well, I have to say

my commencement speaker at Tennessee Tech University of Gold Gold Niggles was, and it's funny because now this guy looks you know, totally fine, but it was Senator Lamar Alexander, right, Republican senator from Tennessee.

And like the way I remember it was he spent most of his just kind of talking shit about electric cars or something. Like, like, he wasn't outright calling climate change bullshit, but it was, you know, it was like in that sort of vein, basically. It had nothing to do with college, the future, inspiration, hope, none of that. It was just like basically a conservative talking point stump speech or something is what I got for a commencement address.

And again, Lamar Alexander is like, now as a Tennessee, and I'm like, God, I really miss Lamar Alexander, you know. I love to have Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker back, you know, or give me Fred Thompson, whatever, like compared to the shit we got now. But yeah, mine wasn't great. Were you inspired by yours? Was yours good? I don't even remember. I think we had like a lieutenant governor or something. And by the way, our mascot was also the Eagles, Mary Washington Eagles, baby. So, but I mean, like, some people saying that like their commenced speaker was like Carl Sagan, and he talked about the universe.

I guess he's doing his business school version of that, but it should be about finding hope and purpose in life and learning how to use your skills and stuff you learn in college to make the world better. And he's like, you got to work with assholes to make your dough, baby. And it's like, okay, fuck you. So it wasn't just the kids chanting

and the thing that they get picketed by the Writers' Guild or sympathetic unions. There was a plane that flew overhead with a pay your writer's banner behind it, Davis, I was on paper writer, to see it on screen there. And Scabby the Rat made it appearance outside of a college graduation ceremony.

I think we talked about it. Do you remember how much Trump hated Scabby the Rat? No. Trump's Labor Department made it its mission in life to try to make this inflatable rat illegal. They said it was coercive. And the courts eventually had to be like, we can't ban inflatable cartoon

animals dog it's right for basic reasons of free speech so yeah uh things are going normally and uh hitting us hidden in a month two of a strike and i gotta go i gotta go pick it some more yeah so uh on that note talking about strikes i was supposed to tell you this weekend me cori and drew had shows in knoxville and then ashville in the asheville shows after they were over i met two union guys thomas and blake shout out those two who were like super down for the cause union dudes who told me to tell you, don't you ever fucking apologize for going in on Joe Biden for not being pro-union enough because he didn't do as much as he should have done. And he had to be made to do it in the first place and it could have been better. And they warned you to know that you were right all along and, you know, you don't have anything to apologize for.

Basically, they told me to impart that mess. Sorry to those guys if I butchered your message. But I know it was in the ballpark of that. Yeah. Everybody with the Iowa teamsters who we mentioned talked about before. hit me up after we talked about the WJ Strike 2 and told me I was also being too apologetic by talking about how we're not a sympathetic union knowledge.

All these people are calling me huge pussy for not going all the way on the revolution. I like it. I love it. Yeah. All right. Well, with us as always as producer, Matt. This is weekly skews.

Before we continue, I do want to remind you, of course, of a couple of things. Number one, if you like to see me perform live, and you should, go to traycrouter.com. Got a bunch of dates coming up. A bunch of dates have been added. into the fall going forward a lot of fun stuff those are pretty much all solo shows there i mean i'll have local openers uh but yeah that's my solo tour it's a lot of fun come and see me tray crowder dot com also if you enjoy this program and would like to show your support you can do so by signing up on patreon five dollars a month gets you access to full length bonus episodes uh which

we cover things we don't get to in the main show things that come up between now and next tuesday things we just want to talk about we answer questions from you guys you name it bunch of fun stuff so you can go to weekly skews.com slash more or go on patreon and look me up either way works sign up on there get some more skews in your life now as for the show tonight uh our subject is uh well i'm not entirely sure exactly what the hell it is it's called the debt ceiling right uh and i feel this way every time the debt ceiling comes up so america's got bills to pay much like regular humans do but if america don't pay hers it's how they don't just shut the lights off, I guess. Everything sets on fire. I don't know. Mark's going to walk us all through

it a little later, but it sounds pretty bad. Before that, though, let's begin, as usual. With the Daily Dumbass, Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's D.D. Howard Dean for never being able to lift down everyone else's weird screw-ups. This is Tim Scott in South Carolina. all right so after he did this i felt i don't feel bad for harold dean because he didn't turn out great later i thought he was an exciting candidate when he first came out but they did a bunch of dumb shit anyway but he was he was trending worldwide on twitter because this happened right anytime dude anytime anybody ever does anything like any goofy shit on the campaign trail or whatever

he's gonna come back up like that that's so wild because i don't i'm not gonna lie i can't speak eloquently on the like career or resume of Howard Dane, right? I'm like most people, but he was, I'm sure he accomplished a lot of shit. He did a lot of stuff in his life and I'm assuming. And the thing he's going to be remembered for forever is, yeah, like that's, that's his legacy. That's wild, dude. That's going to be a wild thing to live with.

And he was celebrating having just won the Iowa caucuses and he couldn't hear himself talk. Like, so his. screw up wasn't nearly as fucking weird as this. Anyway, you're saying hello New Charleston, as we was trying to say, it's where he was out in South Carolina. In his kickoff campaign speech, he's announced he ready for president.

I forgot if he contextualized that. His mic cut out halfway through, like the beginning of his speech. He talked about how he's in government despite the fact that he flunked civics in high school. Then he said that every time he goes against Joe Biden,

leftists call him the N-word. and some reporters trying to figure what he was talking about they couldn't find anything online and maybe he gets calls to his campaign office but I'll just say I don't fucking believe him I did a Twitter search and I saw like black people making fun of him using it but like they were using it like you know

burnout and but everyone's response is so weird both Fox and Newsmax did segments they talked about how people are going to get to do his personal life and it's going to be weird and I was like what's going on in Tim Scott's personal life like they were talking like there's kind of like they were

insinuating he's gay and this is 19508 or something, which I don't care if he's gay, except that he votes to emiserate more gay, yeah. Right, sure, but he's, he's like 40s, mid-40s, right? And he's not and never has been married. Is that correct? Take that down for a minute, Matt. We'll get to that a second. Sorry.

So he, uh, that any adult Southern man, right, who, especially conservative or whatever, who gets to be 40-something and has never been married, you know, confirmed by. bachelor like people are going to start insinuating it you know he might be gay or whatever i have no idea what's going on he's he's 57 and oh shit i was i thought it was yeah i think he was that old okay he but the thing is like he entered public life as a person who's who's pushed talked about abstinence until marriage and it proudly proclaimed that he was a 30 year old virgin so the first thing one reporter did they he swore he's going to save himself for marriage and again, he's 57 and so not married.

So a writer about yesterday by the name of Ben Terrace asked him if he asked him about the status of his virginity, which may be a dickhead question, but politics ain't beanbag, right? And Tim Scott's answer was, I'm not talking about my sex life with Brian Terrace. Then he stood up and said, I have to go potty. Again, he's 57. Why are all these people so weird?

But if you're wondering, he has answered this question before. He was asked this a few years ago, evangelical Christian who entered public life as a 30-year-old virgin and Mitzie is no longer after 16 years in public life. This was last year, I guess. I know 11 years ago, I guess he was 46. So congratulations to Tim Scott on coming at least once. Yeah.

So, like, he made his name by just being, like, famous for being a 30-year-old virgin. Like, that was his whole thing. It was like, I'm 30 and I had never got none because of the Lord. And that worked. in South Carolina, apparently. These guys are all so weird about sex, man. I know. I do think it's a valid question.

If that really was his whole thing, no sex before marriage, and he never got married, you know, and they're supposed to be principled or whatever, I think it's a fair question. Yeah, right. So, does somebody try to, like, I didn't, I'm not super familiar with Tim Scott's record, but just to walk through it a little bit as we end up on it today. He's super against abortion, right? He said Monday, if he were president of the United States, if I were president in the United States, I would literally sign the most conservative pro-lite legislation that he could get through Congress. But he also doesn't seem to know how prolonged a pregnancy lasts.

He said that Democrats are trying to get ran abortions up to 52 weeks, which is a year. And a human pregnancy runs about 40 weeks. So I'm here to say that Tim, no matter whether or not Tim Scott has had sex, he's still spiritually a virgin. Yeah, so just a complete, complete fucking weirdo. In other primary news, Ron DeSantis is set to announce he's running for president tomorrow. He's doing it on a Twitter space is with Elon Musk. Yeah, that's audio only, right? Right.

It's an audio-only interview with Elon Musk on Twitter's most unused feature. Right, yeah. Just complete clown shit. And it was pointed out by a spokesman for Megan. Incorporated named Carolyn Levitt. Let me read for this because it's pretty, you know, the onion meme when the worst person you know makes a great point. This is from her.

This is one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history. The only thing less relatable than niche campaign launched on Twitter is DeSantis' after-party at the Uber elite four-season resort in Miami. Every day, more and more Americans are realizing just how to step Ron DeSantis is with their values and how unelectable he really is. From his votes to cut Social Security of Medicare in support of a national sale tax, would raise taxes on 90% of families to a support of Obama's TPP would send jobs to China. Just like, just fucking stepping on rakes here.

And all that stuff about DeSantis is absolutely true, even if Trump's spokeswoman is saying it. But choosing Musk is like extremely weird. Like Desantis' biggest campaign narrative is he has to combat the image that he's like a weirdly contemptible weirdo. And so he's choosing to announce this campaign in an interview with a guy who the rest of the world has also decided. is a contemptible weirdo. DeSantis is people are the most online psychos in the fucking planet

if they think this makes any sort of sense? I think that like I could be totally wrong about this because it's not like I really keep up with them or anything. And also I know this is just like

it's a niche cohort I'm about to bring up. But like the people that worship Elon Musk on Twitter, the people that have all the blue check marks now that we're talking about earlier, I feel like they are, they probably are the more like

DeSantis types than Trump, like they were, uh, for whatever reason. I don't know if they want to have somebody to point to and like pretend that there's competence there or whatever, which Trump makes difficult for them or something like that. I'm just saying in my head, I couple, because like, you know, they also probably fuck with Joe Rogan who he, I'm pretty sure he said he likes DeSantis and then him and Musk are boys and all that shit. There's just like overlaps in those Venn diagrams, I feel like. I still think it's a really weird way to announce a presidential campaign where you're supposed to be like the, the next the next big thing like you said nobody fucks with twitter spaces and uh right it is

all just weird i mean that's one of the ways trump gonna like it is like having an army of online psychos is incredibly useful for shaping public narratives but what you do is like you flirt with them and in quiet but you do your campaign launch like a prime time interview on fox or something right yeah yeah CNN town hall or some shit but like this is just very very weird but like i guess he's like saving it's trying to be normal interactions for in person. Here's how that's going. This is from a campaign stop

at a diner, I think, New Hampshire. Yeah, that's that. Okay, don't back down. We won't. Creeping. Yeah, that's that. Yeah, he wipes his nose and wipes him a guy's shirt.

On my television. Isn't that the exact same campaign stop where he like laughed maniacally in that dude's face over nothing or whatever? It looks like the same room to me. I don't know. I don't know either. I'm just,

it's just funny. Yeah, that. It's like the same shirt. Yeah, right. Yeah. All these guys wear blue shirts,

though, so I don't know. Right. So, but he had another one that went viral where he was trying to, another diner who was trying to shake hands in. It was very,

very weird. He walked in loudly announced a good, the food smelled and said, and then basically alluded to the fact he would deign to eat it to be with the plebes. And then he, like, shook hands to the guy who goes, hi,

he goes, hi, What's your name? The guy goes, hi, I'm Tim, whatever. He goes, okay, and walks off. Like, you didn't introduce himself. I know the guy knows he's Ron DeSantis, but you still say, hi, I'm Ron. It's like, geez, this guy was fucking born like a week ago at a test tube or something.

I don't understand how to explain his vibe. But, yeah, even his merch is a joke. Check out his first campaign hat. He says, Desantis, 2024, make America, Florida, except the F is the shape of Florida, but Florida is not shaped like an F? If it looks like anything, it was like a gun. pointed towards America, pointing towards America, yeah, which is appropriate. Make America dead Florida is what it looks like it's saying. It is sort of like we're being held, you know, held at gunpoint by a maniacal Florida.

Right. So it's sort of appropriate in that way. Yeah, that's funny. Also, I can't believe you even bothered launching after Trump hit him with this the other day on two social. If you got this, that's tiny Ronda says, this is 5-7. It's over, folks. I'm calling it. dead body bag just left it at that dude what more do you want why use many word when few word

do trick right five words well four words and a couple numbers and just like that took him down uh all right let's see our first honorable mention for daily dumb ass is the people who made laura ingram believe her own bullshit got to make sense of this here clip well it's not hard to make sense up, but you'll see what I make. Well, that's the wrong one, Matt. Sorry. Sorry. It's my bad.

We skipped it. That was Mike Pence. You play that. Actually, this is pretty funny. We'll get the Lori Inger and clip. This is the last primary update on my, this is Mike Pence. It's my bad. We skipped that one.

Okay. Go ahead. Look, Larry, Larry, I like Walt Disney, not woke Disney. All right. But Florida. Let me let me go, those laugh there. These guys, oh, I'm out of touch. I'm going to read with a person who I care about.

Okay, now it's watch Lori Anger. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. Got my bag. Go ahead. This is the Ingram clip coming up here in just a second. All right. Before we go, a little update on a story we brought you this week about homeless vets being displaced from hotels so that illegals could move in. Turns out the group behind the claim made it up. We have no clue as to why anyone would do such a thing, but we'll bring to any updates. No, no guesses. No, you want to hazard a guess on why someone might make up. a story like that after having reported it in primetime on Fox and it used and made it into

all thing and all these congresspeople commented on it and all that stuff you have no idea like the world might be motivated to make something like that up in the first place it's beyond me too I'll tell you what I will say like I mean at least they acknowledged that that had happened I can tell it's at the very end of the show it takes 15 seconds they say it in a throwaway way we and why would you do that and then it's on to the next thing but you know whatever yeah so if you know what why laura ingraham ingram or have you see her name is simply asking why would anyone make up a viral news story to divide america tray right why would people do that laura's just wondering um so if case you're wondering what the story was this was all

the story was all the rage on the right last week and a hour so uh it was basically a the story went that um some homeless veterans were kicked out of a hotel that a home homeless charity had paid for to be replaced by migrants from the border. Yeah. Right. Right. You're a shocked to note that a single fucking word I said about that is true.

They were not, no one was displaced from a hotel. They were not even fucking veterans. What happened was this nonprofit called the Yerick Israel Tony Foundation with this Hussio named Sharon Tony Finch. She's the one who came up with this story. The foundation, this is weird, focuses on

veterans issues and premature bursts. That's like the two things they do. Like, what the fuck does? Okay. Turn out what she did was she created a group of 15 homeless men from a local shelter to pretend to be veterans and talk to the press about their tale of loo. The homeless guys then came forward to tell, to say the whole store was bullshit because she promised them $200 each and did not fucking pay them. I don't know what she expected. That's, dude, also like, I don't know.

finding I don't know finding rounding up some homeless people and offering them $200 to like make up a sob story about how pitiful their existence is and make it sound worse in reality you know by pretending to be veterans when they're not and making shit up in the first place and then not even paying them the $200 is pretty goddamn sorry like you know they couldn't raise enough money between that and premature bursts they couldn't come up with however much money that is $3,000. dollars total not that much but always piss me out by this shit is like they don't care about homeless vets either so like what the fuck like so they don't care about homeless anybody they don't care about veterans at all whether they have homes or not um and the the the this story again fox news kept running says fox news has verified the new york post report that but nobody verified anything because the story immediately fell apart when a local newspaper called up the hotel manager and she goes no those guys didn't stay here right and then they showed the receipt that that that um this local state representative who's allied with this foundation

had been showing to people to like some like digital manipulation expert. And yeah, this is obviously a counterfeit. So like it's like, who was supposed to have done it anyway? Like, do you know what I mean?

I don't know. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, like big Democrat called a hotel. It was like, get all those veterans out of there. We've got to move a bunch of immigrants in. Like what was even supposed to have happened, you know?

It just seems super easy to shoot holes in it from the very beginning, is what I'm saying. But when you're desperate to believe something in the first place, then... It's cartoonish. Imagine living in a reality in this country and think that the government cares by illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, or what planet are you on? I don't fucking understand it. So, yeah. But basically, one of the reasons this happens, they have, like, racism, blue balls because the Title 42 thing turned out to be nothing.

Yeah, we talked about that on a recent episode. It was a Trump-era COVID policy related to immigration where they could just kick people out without any regard to asylum status or something like that. And it was set to expire and everybody said, hey, it's going to be illegal Christmas as soon as this expired. You're not going to be a war at the, an invasion. That's what they were saying. It's going to be an invasion as soon as this expires. And it expired. And what happened, Mark, after it expired?

A big quote from this article, we have seen this, this is from a home and security official. And by the way, just because Biden's in the government in charge the federal government does not mean that Customs and Border Patrol and Homeland Security are run by leftists. According from the top Homeland Security official here, quote, we have seen substantial, substantial decrease in the unlawful crossings of the border and irregular migration, averaging less than half that, half as many encounters since Title 42 expired. I don't know. I don't know, but it is. And they were acting like it was going to be Woolbore Z, fucking with just zombies climbing over the wall. um and but nothing is since nothing is based in reality anymore marjor taylor green a few days ago introduced articles of impeachment against biden specifically because of a huge of a huge migrant surge because of the collapse of title 43 it didn't happen they're just pretending that it

happened and also that veterans are being kicked out of uh of hotels they were uh provided by nonprofits in favor of illegal immigrants and so it's just all everything's so fucking stupid indeed it is speaking of which all right speaking of things being fucking stupid i'm one of those things as is the country we live in so why don't you explain to me and the rest of us mark what the hell is going on with the uh the debt ceiling here let me let me take a quick crack at it the debt ceiling is some uh like nebulous apparatus financially that dictates the amount of money that the u.s government has on hand to pay its bills and it has to be raised that periodically because

yeah because it's not raised in the treasury can't they can't go beyond that amount to pay the bills for things that we've already like bought or things that are we're already on the hook for which means we will default on those things which is bad for a whole host of reasons yeah so it's just an arbitrary number that says the government can't borrow anymore money past a certain number and they're up it every few years they always up it it it's fine and The funny part of it is, like, its origin came from 1917 during World War I. It was something called the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. It was basically designed to allow treasure to issue bonds and take on other debt without specific congressional approval.

Because before that, Congress had to authorize basically every dollar of spending individually and they were just like tired of that. So the point of the debt ceiling was to make it easier for the executive branch to spend money. But 106 years later, it is now the opposite. it is it's always doing the exact opposite of what's intended to do it's just such an inaccuritism and it's completely fucking idiotic um and yeah this is about spending congresses this is about paying debt on spending the congress already authorized and mad so you can skip that first video let's play this um a clip of kevin mccarthy um to to you can hear him explaining that because if you don't believe me you can take it straight from the republican house speaker

the debt ceiling, that's actually paying for, when you, when you raise the debt ceiling, that's actually paying for stuff that has already been spent. Right. So, also, like, they always act like, because most people are money dumb, including us, all right? Yeah. Right. So they talk about it in terms of like a household budget. Like, when you pay your debt, the government needs to pay its debt.

That's absolutely not fucking true. It's not how anything works. No other country pays off their debts. I read the other day that the UK and France still are carrying war debts from wars in the 1700s and 1800s. It's fine. It's perfectly normal. And one of the reasons it doesn't work like a household debt.

It's like when you get a mortgage, you get a 30-year mortgage. The bank was to make sure you pay it back in an orally fashion because you are going to die. You are going to get old and make less money and have less money when you retire. The federal government's the opposite. The federal government, assuming we don't overthrow it,

will live eternally. And it makes more and more money every year because the economy grows and grows and grows and the tax base grows and grows and grows. So it's fine. It just is. So whenever they talk like it's like a mom and pop around the kitchen table, they're lying. They're full of shit. Okay.

But wait, wait, wait, you're saying, you're not saying it's fine that it, you just said it's fine if they don't pay, it's fine if the government doesn't pay its debts or whatever. No, no, it's fine if it doesn't pay it off. Like, yeah, pay it off, right. Well, of course they're never going to fucking pay it off. Yeah, they do, right. You mean, it's like, oh, this is too high. We can't just keep raising it because it's already too high. And then people who, you know, have bills every month or understand that shit are like, yeah, we can't, this is unsustainable.

We can't just keep this going. But like, we can just keep doing that. Yes. Right. Yeah, right. But they know that because George W. Boyce spent $7 trillion in the war on Iraq while cutting people's taxes. Right. So, like, they know they're full of shit.

We'll get at the numbers during the Trump administration and a little bit. but like the idea that Kevin McCarthy stood in front of the White House today and said that a child born today was handed a bill for $946,000 a minute they were born and not even a minute old and that's just a transparent lie that kid's never able to fucking pay back $946,000.

The government, the debt doesn't have to be paid off. The debt has to be serviced by paying interest on bonds, which is what raising the debt ceiling does. So, and people who can call us a negotiation. This is not a fucking negotiation. This is a hostage. taken. The Republicans are threatened to shoot the global economy in the head if Joe Biden doesn't

basically unravel the new deal and every legislative accomplishment of his presidency. Right. Straight up extortion is what it is. If you don't believe me, let me quote Matt Gates, all right. Matt Gates, who rejects any debt limit compromise of the White House, quote, I think my conservative, I think my conservative colleagues for the most part support the Limit Save Grow Act, which is the one they're trying to pass. and they don't feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.

All right? These are the people Joe Biden spent last year refusing to negotiate with on the debt limit rightfully and is now spent the last couple of weeks trying to negotiate with. They're loudly announcing they're not going to compromise at all. This is also like anytime, like when Biden, when he's running, you know, and I like Biden generally, but when he was running and talked about how like working with them and bringing people back together and like alluding to like, you know, breaching across the aisle and working with these people and that sort of

thing it's like it's just all bullshit because they don't operate in good faith you know what i mean like you say like the democrat like and i'm not saying the democrats should do the same thing no one should use this to hold the whole fucking economy hostage it's bullshit either way but like it's just not on level playing field because the democrats don't do shit like this for the most part and the republicans have no issue no qualms whatsoever with doing it you know with playing dirty and being cheap and petty and all that shit and i don't know how many many times they need to prove that before, you know, big Democrats seize them for what they are or whatever. Yeah. And so, like, they basically slow walk to this, assuming Republicans are just

pretending to be lunatics. Right. Yeah. Why? Why would you think that they're not actually good, that they're, that he's like, oh, no, in the end, they'll show reason. It's like, since when, man? Like, what would make you think that? Yeah. Biden in his defense, it started coming down hard. I don't know I'm trying to vouch about public pressure, but the fight's almost over. You should have been doing this six months ago. But there was a pretty banging quote from him in Japan yesterday. I'm not going to agree to a deal that protects wealthy tax cheats and crypto traders while putting food assistance at risk for nearly one million Americans.

That's a banging sound quote. He also said this, if you have this video already, Matt. Here's him talking. He said, he was a G7 forum in Japan. I was asked about this death limit. This is 100% correct, in my opinion, right? This right here. I think there are some Maga Republicans in the House.

who know the damage that it would do to the economy. And because I am president and president's responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame. And that's the one way to make sure Biden's not reelected. Right. So like, but like, why did he just, did he just, because like when Obama was like the president, when took office in 2009, Mitch McConnell announced it was the Senate Republican majorities, main priority, Senate Republicans, sorry, there were the minority.

at the time. Their main priority to make Obama a one-term president, which is a statement of breathtaking cynicism. You're not saying you're going to pass bills to help people, to save the country, to build the military, to feed people, to give people health care. You're seeing the number one goal is to make sure the next four years are fucking miserable for everybody so Obama loses. Joe Biden was in the White House then as vice president. And I don't know why he didn't see this coming. I'm glad he sees it now, but it might be too late to save his signature legislative accomplishments or, you know, Medicaid.

It just really pisses me off because you know that it, that he's right, like that that's exactly how it will play out. You know what I mean? Like if he like stuck to his guns and didn't reach an agreement and we did default and that's why it wasn't raising, we defaulted and all this bad shit happened, right? Which you're going to enumerate at some point what that would actually look like. But if that did happen, it would 150 percent. entirely their fault, right? But they're not going to treat it that way. They're going to point it all the bad shit and be like,

why they're going to shoot the economy in the head, then point at the corpse of the economy and go, why would Joe Biden do this? And people are going to, people are going to be like, why would Joe Biden do this? And I'm just, I'm preemptively so pissed off about that. Yeah. It makes me so mad, dude, because that's exactly what we'll think.

what will fucking happen. The media's coverage of it, very both sides, how no other side can compromise or come to an agreement. But like, that's one of reasons, that's one of reasons I don't like our structure

of government. We prefer a parliamentary one. A parliamentary system, the majority priority rules, right? In our system, you have a president of one party and often a congressional majority from another.

Right now, the Republicans control 51% of one chamber of the legislature, and they can destroy the economy, and with an understanding that people generally blame the president for the way things are going, even though he can't control his own, like, you know, legislative program. It's like it doesn't work. It's fundamentally mismatched.

And so you're going to have Republicans around screaming that Joe Biden ruined the economy, well, people who aren't watching the news because they're running around looking for work because they just got unemployed. And it's going to feel bad. So people are going to vote for change. So if you're wondering what the heck, what the Republicans actually want here, it's not super clear. It's not super clear they agree on what they want, which means they do. There's probably almost no bill that Kevin McCarthy can get a majority for with Republican votes.

So basically, they want spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. They want to roll back to spending to 22 levels, which would undo the IRA. In the financial legislature. Yeah, Biden's signature accomplishment is president. I also would cap future spending for the next decade. So if we elected over one Democratic majorities, they would have to like do some rejiggering to like, be able to, you know, fulfill their mandate. They say our current debt's unsustainable.

I've already covered that. It's not. Everything's fine. They also want to, like, add stiffer work requirements on recipients of government cash aid, like food stamps and Medicaid. Medicaid, for people who are too sick to work. They want work requirements for people who are too sick to work. We never pass up a good opportunity to fuck poor people over.

You know what I mean? Like, if you're going to be, you know, if you're going to the hill anyway, you might as well fucks for poor people over while you're there. McCarthy's ruled out any to reduce the, the debt, national debt. McCarthy's ruled out new tax revenues, any military spending cuts, or any Social Security and Medicare cuts, which, of course, I agree with. You shouldn't cut those. The other two would be absolutely in favor of.

Their plan would also dial back funding for the IRS, so it wouldn't even be able to capture the tax money the government's supposed to get. So it would actually probably expand the debt, but whatever. If you're wondering what else they want, where the cuts would come from, basically all that leaves is 15% of the federal budget to be chopped. So we're looking at cutting back on air railroad and maritime transport program, the DOT, right after a huge, you know, train derailment. All programs for early childhood, elementary and secondary education, cut health and benefit

programs for veterans. Remember, they're super concerned about homeless veterans. Cut back on scientific research and space programs, no science, diplomatic and consular programs, law enforcement programs, the DOJ and DHS. They want to cut back on border funding while they're crying about immigration. They want to cut housing assistance for low-income tenants. They want to cut management of the nation's natural resources and environment, including the National Park Service.

So all the stuff the government does that's good, they want to cut, but not the bad stuff. Yeah, that checks out. Yeah. So, but anyway, this is such a small percentage of the federal budget they want to take an axe to. I think this is a really serious situation, but this doesn't do anything. if you think it's a serious, the rhetoric doesn't match with your goals. If you think it's a serious situation, you've got to cut

military spending in Social Security. Right. If you do think it's like a serious situation, you can't like balance the federal budget by going after the National Park Service. It doesn't make any fucking sense. It's a whole thing's a charade. It's like charade, like a French person,

charade, sorry. You should apologize for that. That's okay. Another farcical part of this is that under Donald Trump, we raised the debt ceiling three times. There was no drama over it. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

And 40% of the national debt was actually accumulated under Trump. Seven trillion to that 31 trillion came from fucking Trump. We could, again, we could show up a lot of this, like make the budget more balanced by closing tax loopholes. Dems have proposed that, but they won't talk about raising taxes on the wealthies. That's a non-starter. So, like, but anyway, let's talk about the stakes of this for a minute, so you understand why I'm nervous. I was about to ask you. to go there.

Go ahead. If the U.S. defaults on its debt, all right, it means there's no more money to spend because more money needs to be spent, so if you hit the limit, you can't spend any, basically. The government wouldn't have cash or in basic operations like roads and schools. Government workers might stop getting paid.

The government have to decide because they have less money than they have to send out. It basically would be pick and choosing who they pay. All right, we'll get to that in a minute because it's sort of like a line on veto that might be unconstitutional. Business that contracts with the government

won't get paid, and that means a lot of layoffs. Social security checks could stop going out. It would shock financial markets. It might even cause a panic. After all, a lot of that debt is money owed to banks who own a lot of bonds and T-bills. So maybe faith in banks goes down. Maybe banks collapse. The financial system probably freezes up.

That means it no more borrowing. So businesses stop investing. The markets go haywire. And that's why this very, very, very quickly could look like 2008 or maybe even worse. But the thing is, this is totally self-inflicted and for no fucking reason. And other countries do default on their debt fairly regularly, like Greece did it recently, like a decade ago. But U.S. isn't any other country. It's the biggest, wealthiest economy on the planet.

Like, if other countries own billions of dollars of our debt. So, like, we will collapse other countries' economies. Right. This is like, this would spread worldwide. We might be looking at Great Depression 2 or some shit. I don't fucking know. Like, I saw some estimates the market would immediately collapse 45% and unemployment would jump 5% virtually immediately. But no one knows because this has never happened before.

Because you've never been this fucking stupid before. Right. So, but anyway, the long-term cost of this, even if they just default for a day or two, is that our mortgages will be higher forever. Yeah. Right. Because if you, yeah. I mean, I get the whole country works like anybody, like a person's credit score would.

If you default on something, any time you get, you know, you're going to be having an outrageous interest rate in the future. if you borrow money again because of defaulting the first time. So, like, it would work that way just for the U.S. Treasury or whatever. Right. Like, default and interest rates go up and just stay up for forever. It's like having a, you know, being a bad driver and having a high car insurance or whatever. Right. The, yeah, the rate, we have to pay higher rates from T.U.

Bills for the rest of the life with this country. So they're going to make the debt more expensive. Right. It's, this is the stupidest thing. But like, but caving to the GOP. That's what I was about to say. That's what I was about to say. So where does that like leave him, leave them? You know what I mean? Because that all sounds pretty bad, right? But the demands that the GOP has, you know, I don't want them to just bend over and just take that either. But Biden put it off for so long, you might have to. But what caving means is according to, these numbers might be juiced because the progressive caucus in Congress. But they said that the cave in the GOP debt limit demands could trigger a recession, which is possible because it cuts a lot of federal spend. ending, rendering 780,000 people jobless, 1.2 million left without nutrition assistance, and up to 21 a million Americans stripped of Medicaid.

But caving also sets a precedent that you can do this, and it works. Yeah, right. So they'll do it again next time. So, like, if you're going to cave, raise the debt, if you're going to make this deal, do it to eliminate the fucking debt ceiling, not rig to it. Because there's no reason, we didn't have one in 1970. I know, that's what I was going to say. But, I mean, I guess, you know, I got, I, I,

get why they can't just eliminate it right now because they don't have both sides, but they didn't for a while. I don't know. It seems like something that we should probably take care of in the future at the earliest opportunity to me because you're right. It's just this, they've already done, they've done it before. They're doing it now. They will do it again, especially if it works, you know. Corey said something on here once when he was subbed in for you. They're basically like, I hate the Republicans for what they do, but I'm frustrated with the Democrats for what they won't do. So like, it's not a completely fair situation because it's asymmetrical. but if I am hanging out with a deranged lunatic who's mad at me and I hand him a loaded weapon

and he shoots me it's not my fault but I did fuck up do you understand yes yeah okay so like Republicans are the bad actors here but yes talk about how Biden left himself open to this all right Democrats control Congress the last two years they could have raised or eliminated debt sling that whole time right after they lost um the uh the uh the house in last election, Bernie was running around screaming. They needed to raise the debt ceiling now because you're going to negotiate with these fucking

psychopaths. And everybody's like, nah, don't worry about it. Nah, it'll be fine. Yeah, right. Right. And is it just hating doing stuff that much? Like, I know they don't like to do anything, but I mean, my God, it's just like, you know, we got Christmas coming up. I'm sure it'll be fine.

You know, like, it's just so short-sighted and naive. I think Joe Biden thought the project of his presidency was trying to lower the temperature in politics and to make it more standing again. And so it's kind of what I was saying earlier. Like he harped on that a lot. And I'm saying like, dude, what made you actually believe that that was going to be possible

with these people on the other side? Like, they're not going to do that. You know, you give your kids responsibility to see if they can handle them and to encourage them to be more responsible? I think he thought if he gave them a little bit of power, it would be like, okay, we have to be responsible now. But here we go. And by the they did this to Obama in 2011 or whenever, when we had this sequestation crisis where, like, federal government spending, domestic spending got slashed 10% across the board in every department.

And it slowed the economic recovery, probably cost to Democrats to the House and the Senate. But that also set the president that it's sort of negotiable. So this, and again, Biden is around for all that. So I don't know why he was shocked with. But anyway, these are the people he thought he could negotiate with. This is the leader of the MAGA movement, Donald Trump, when he's posting over on truth social. Well, I think I have to do Sandstorm like that.

But what's the... You can cut it mad. So he's drumming on the heads of the... If you can't... Listen to the podcast. version is Donald Trump, like an out of fishing animated video of him playing drums to that beat over the heads of the CNN Town Hall anchor Nancy Pelosi and the host of The View and Kathy Griffin.

Don't know why. Right. But Joe Biden thought he could negotiate with this movement. Also, this story is from the day. Another person Joe Biden thought he could negotiate with. Marjor Taylor Green bids $100,000 for Kevin McCarthy's used chapstick at a GOP fundraising option. Instead of negotiating over the debt ceiling today, I try.

trying to figure out that, they held a campaign fundraiser or Marjor Taylor Green paid $100,000 for a used chapstick and exchange to get to have for her and a couple of her donors to have dinner with Kevin McCarthy. I personally feel like getting $100,000 to go to dinner with Marjorie Taylor, go to dinner with Marjorie Taylor Green is too low of a price to be paid for that. No doubt. Use chapstick. Who wants Kevin McCarthy's used chapstick? Yeah, this is, so that's, so I was going to ask you to make sense, like, There's something else going on there, right?

So in exchange for doing that, she's getting some kind of political favor or something. There's some kind of underhanded thing happening here, right, obviously. Yeah, she gets a couple of her donors to go to the dinner with Speaker of the House. Yeah, right. Okay. And they pay for it. They're the ones paying for it. I mean, she's rich.

Maybe she did the $100. I don't know. But I'm saying not like effectively. Like, you're a couple of her donors or puppet masters or whatever, basically the ones paying for it. in exchange, I get a private audience with Kevin McCarthy or some shit like that, right? Yeah. We won't play this next video, Matt, because we're running a little behind. I'll just play good.

There's another element of this, the 14th Amendment. And in case you wonder if there are, Republicans are negotiating good faith on that, either. Josh Halle gave an interview to his home down paper back in Kansas City. It said, if he was president, he would just raise the death selling without Congress, he was in the 14th Amendment. But then he said, but I'm not necessarily going to give him that advice because it's against my interest. All right. So the 14th Amendment, how would that help here?

So the 14th Amendment is one of the, you know, reconstruction amendments passed by Congress in the 1860s after the Civil War. It basically granted citizenship to black Americans, gave me equal protection of the law. Part of it also because Confederate states, former Confederate states, we're maybe going to try to reimburse former slave owners for the people they used to own. And so the amendment forbade that because fuck that.

They also said, there's also a debt part of it, which is related to that, which said that the U.S. government would not adopt Confederate debts because Confederacy borrowed a bunch of money from the UK and France. We're like, we're not paying you dumb fucks back. Fuck you. Right. But it said that they would, the Constitution required the executive branch to fulfill all their debts because they were. I couldn't find an explainer for it. I'm guessing they were fearful that former pro-Confederacy politicians would take to the presidency in Congress, which did happen many, many times, and they would forgive debts owed by the Union army to fuck the same way that the union had fucked the Confederate debt holders. Yeah, basically, there's a section in the 14th Amendment that says, like, you know, the debt of the United States authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services and suppression, interaction, or rebellion should not be questioned. So they're also where they wouldn't pay like Union soldier pensions.

right but after that they say any debts related to like the confederacy shit on the other hand we are not responsible for and we're not so that's the context in which they said it but still it's written so it's written in the constitution yeah the debt of the u.s. government is sacrosanct basically right um the basic argument here is that the the constitution says the debt must be paid but constitutional laws cannot be obeyed so the debt ceiling's not in void because how can you stop the president from paying debts, the constitutional reasons to get debts. I mean, it makes sense to me. Obviously, I'm biased, but like, you know, I'm biased and I'm dumb.

I'm following all those. I'm connecting all those dots. Yeah. Making sense to me. So the way this word work is like the president goes, doesn't go to court and say I'd, he doesn't say I invoke the 14th Amendment, like Michael Scott from the office saying, I'd declare bankruptcy. He just keeps doing what he's doing, which is the Treasury Department issuing more debt

and paying interest, paying interest, using the money to pay insurance. interest on old debt, right? But what Biden's afraid of is it because it's unprecedented, he's basically said he's not going to do it because it would get hung up in the courts. Of course it would. The markets would have the same instability. Yeah. That would be, that would basically be the same. Also, you can't trust this court in particular to, you know, like, because any kind of question of constitutionality or whatever, right, that's a, that's going to be a Supreme Court thing. Like this, if I did that, it would end up in front of the Supreme Court. and this Supreme Court is pretty wild.

It might end up in the Supreme Court unless the Supreme Court just agree with the lower court decision and didn't fuck with it. But there would be a lot of uncertainty. But the thing is the Supreme Court, yeah, they're pro maga, but they also serve as capital. Right. They don't want the economy to be fucked up.

Right. Do you think Terence Thomas is going to vote for his good buddy, Harlan Crow's net worth to create about a few billion dollars? I don't. So like, that might influence their vacations they take together, right? So like, the thing about this is Joe Biden's worried about potential litigation over the debt ceiling.

he's already in litigation of the debt ceiling. And this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my entire life. So basically last Friday, the National Association of Government Employees filed for an emergency injunction, basically requiring Joe Biden to invoke the 14th Amendment to keep issuing debt to pay the government's bills. They want a speedy ruling. Basically, they're saying that like by picking and choosing who to pay, that's given the power of line item spending vetoes over congressional bills, and that's unconstitutional as well. So there's two constitutional reasons you can't fucking pass through the debt ceiling. The people being sued named the lawsuit are Janet Yellen and Joe Biden. So the government employees unions already blaming Yellen and Biden for this fucking situation.

So if you want to know who's going to take the heat for this, you can look at the lawsuit. So this would be a way out of their fucking problem because they can say like, well, the courts are ordering us to use the 14th Amendment to keep the economy rolling. All they have to do is not defend themselves from this lawsuit. Nothing makes you defend yourself from a lawsuit. You can just, you know, agree to like not do anything you're getting sued over. But there was a video conference about this case today because they're asking for a quick decision before June 1st when this is all supposed to come to a calamitous end. And the justice, the judge, the guy named Judge Stern, this is in Boston, did not get a direct answer and he asked Justice Department lawyer

Eli Alexander Eli whether the department disagrees with a central argument of the suit. He asked him, do you guys want to get sued? And he's like, I'm not authorized to, I can't make a decision on that. The government does not have a position over whether Joe Biden should be president.

This is insane. The attorney for the union a guy named Thomas Goghahan, I can't pronounce his name. It's one of his weird Irish names of extra letters in it, pointing out that the claims of an imminent cataclysm from a possible to fall originate with the very officials named the defendants in the suit.

He's saying, we're quoting from Janet Yellen and Joe Biden here saying this is going to be a fucking disaster and they won't agree that the judge needs to be in a hurry about this. And the judge said, if the emergency is dire as you think it is, I think that it's within the power of the president to address it

using executive branch authority. Everybody's just saying Joe Biden, do something. Do something. Yeah, right. And it's like, again, the bad actors here, Republicans, but Joe Biden might have the authority to, like, not deal with them. I think you can at least try it. I don't know how it would

ultimately play out, but I would love to see that happen, though, because, dude, you know they'll be apoplectic. Like, if it, the way that actually looks in action is he just, like you said, he just says, fuck it, we're going to keep paying the bills. I don't give a shit about the debt ceiling because it's unconstant. Like, they will, they will lose

their minds and that'll be and I'm saying I'd like to see it. Every time the White House, makes a statement about this. They say how they would almost definitely never use the 14th Amendment. It's their main negotiating wedge, and they keep taking off the table. Because, again, they're afraid of dragging out in courts would be mildly as bad as default. So they don't want to do that either.

What Joe Biden wants to do instead is give away Medicare and make Medicaid patients go and work requirements and fucking defund the national parks in a deal, probably because no Republicans are going to vote for this. But McCarthy just has to make a decision. good enough deal to keep his speakership. We're going to end up with a situation where every Democrat in the House, plus like four or five moderate Republicans, votes for a bill that makes Biden's re-election much, much harder, and Biden signs it.

Yeah. That's the compromise we're heading towards. And it's frustrating. That is frustrating. Shep, on YouTube, says, hit the like button, skewers. Thank you, Shep. Appreciate that.

Yeah, get in there and do it. Do it to it. Like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. And, yeah, we'll see how it all plays out. I don't have high hopes, but, you know. Maybe Republicans cave. Maybe Joe Biden's gambit works. Maybe they get sane by the end of the week and all this works out.

Maybe it's all a big bluff. I don't think Matt Gates and Marjor Taylor Green a capable bluffing. I don't think they have any guile. I think they say what's on their mind all the time. Well, we're going to be doing another Patreon episode later this week. And so I imagine this will come up. So if you'll see some further discussion on how this ultimately pans out, you can do so by signing up on Patreon,

weekly skews.com slash more $5 a month. you'll get that bonus episode that we're going to record later this week, and also when you sign up a whole archive of existing bonus episodes that we've already done. So, yeah, and you'll support the show in the process. So give it a shot. And yes, thank you, Matt. People also go to Trey Crowder.com. Check out my upcoming tour dates.

Got a lot of fun ones coming up and adding more all the time working on some Michigan dates to be added as we speak. There's a lot more that we're already getting to that haven't been added. to the graphic but we'll be soon so i'm going all over the place come and save me tracrouter com but most importantly keep coming back here every skews day and we will too and uh we'll see you next time see you love you bye skew