John from Telford, Pennsylvania, critiques Shell Oil's $1.3 billion wartime profit and CNN's reported $6.92 billion Q1 earnings, contrasting billionaire wealth with working-class tax burdens while citing the nation's $39 trillion debt since WWII. The broadcast honors Ted Turner's legacy before Nestor Stigler from Oklahoma joins to argue that leaders cannot fix the $40 trillion national debt without hitting a fiscal wall, setting the stage for an upcoming UN Ambassador segment on global collective punishment. Ultimately, the open forum highlights deepening economic disillusionment and skepticism toward current political leadership's ability to resolve systemic financial crises. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Time
Text
Rich Don't Care About Country00:03:19
Listen to us.
There's no billionaires calling in complaining about what's going on.
They're happy as ticks.
We got to stop it.
They need to call in and complain, too.
Thank you.
On the Republican line in Telford, Pennsylvania, John, you're on Open Forum.
Yes.
Mimi, I was wondering, can you put on, like I just heard on, I guess it was CNN, Shell Oil, since the war started, has made a profit of $1.3 billion.
I wish that CNN would put these corporate people's earnings up, their quarterly earns, and let the American people see how we're being gouged and ripped off.
I mean, the other callers said, well, why should we tax them?
Because they're not investing back in the country.
They open up shop overseas.
They're not worried about us working.
All they're worried about is points keeping.
And just like the gentleman said, you ain't going to hear no billionaire calling up complaining.
And I'm a Republican and I voted for Republican.
But the Republican Party seems to be the party of the ultra-rich again.
We don't care about the working class.
All we care about is ballrooms and making money and this war with Iran.
We're in control, but the straits closed.
I mean, you're going to have to shoot straight with the American people.
So, John, no, I'm curious why you think that the Republican Party is now the party of the rich.
When did you decide that and what made you decide that?
Okay, let me, I'm 63, 63 years old.
I was always a Democrat.
I left the Democrat Party because I couldn't stand how far progressive they got.
And I always knew, and it was always known, that the Republican Party was the party of the rich, okay?
And then Trump was supposed to come and change that, and you know what I mean, and start caring about small business.
Look, Mimi, I made less, I worked seasonal, I made less than $20,000 and still paid a projective federal tax of over 6%.
So I don't want to hear that crap to people that, oh, don't you make this, they don't play.
Yes, I pay taxes.
Even though I made less than $20,000, I still had to pay taxes on the money that I made.
Okay?
So I'm telling you, the Republican Party is going to get robbed in November.
All right.
And are you voting Republican or are you voting Democrat?
I probably ain't going to vote at all, to be honest with you, because I'm disgusted.
The two-party system doesn't work.
It doesn't.
Look, we've gone bankrupt since what?
The World War II?
And we're 250 years, right?
And in the last, what, 50, 60 years or whatever, we've destroyed our country with debt.
$39 trillion in debt?
Are you kidding me?
How are you going to pull out of that?
So, John, you're usually when the rich don't care, all they care about is points keeping.
Mansions, islands, all this other stuff.
You know what I mean?
Okay, and John.
To get back to your first point about Shell Oil, so I do want to show that.
Columbus Over The Cliff00:02:40
That's CNBC, and that says this.
Shell tops profit estimates as Iran war boosts oil price, cut share buybacks.
It says oil giant Shell posted bumper profit $6.92 billion through the first quarter as the Iran war sent fossil fuel prices soaring.
The London listed energy major cut the pace of its quarterly buyback to $3 billion, down from $3.5.
The earnings came shortly after Shell announced an agreement to buy Canadian energy company ARC Resources in a deal valued at $16.4 billion.
CNBC has that, if you'd like more information.
Also, you might have heard the news that Ted Turner has died.
He was the founder of CNN, and he was on C-SPAN a lot.
He's got 46 videos in our library.
This is a portion of his conversation and Q ⁇ A with students at the University of Southern California back in 2008.
Take a look.
When you were 20 or younger, did you envision yourself or see yourself as being as successful as you are today?
No.
Okay.
I didn't, but I thought I was going to go as far as I could, as fast as I could.
So, but I didn't know where I was going to end up.
I was like Columbus, just like we started CNN.
When Columbus started out, he didn't know where he was going.
When he got there, he didn't know where he was.
And when he got home, he didn't know where he'd been.
You ever heard that one?
You did hear it.
Well, anyway, it's still good.
I didn't attribute that to me.
But this is a line I did come up with.
Life's like a Grade B movie.
You don't want to walk out in the middle of it, but you wouldn't want to sit through it again.
Good Ted Turner has died at the age of 87.
He was the founder of CNN.
Back to the calls to Nestor Stigler, Oklahoma Independent.
Good morning.
Buenos Diaz, Mimi.
Good morning, America.
This is Nestor.
$40 trillion in national debt.
For decades, they say that the cliff was $30 trillion.
Well, now we're over the cliff.
We've hit the wall.
They cannot fix the debt.
They're going to keep spending this money until we cannot certainly.
And we are going to leave our program, take you live to the UN, where the U.S. Ambassador to the UN is speaking.
Braltar in a cynical bid for leverage with the other side.