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May 8, 2025 - Info Warrior - Jason Bermas
34:15
Do You Stand With Rand?
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Time Text
We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery, we need humanity.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
We know things are bad, worse than bad.
They're crazy.
Silence!
The great and powerful Oz knows why you have come.
You've got to say, "I'm a human being!" God damn it!
My life has value!
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature!
Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think, or what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts.
Yeah, thank you.
You're beautiful.
I love you.
Yes.
You're beautiful.
Thank you.
Ha-ha.
It's showtime.
It's time to buckle up for Making Sense of the Madness.
And who loves you and who do you love?
Everybody, Jason Bermas here, and it's time to talk Tariff Town USA and Rand Paul.
Now, Rand Paul has been one of my favorite mainline politicians for some time now.
His father, of course, really being the baseline.
For Rand Paul, and I'd say this new era about the realization of the corruption in government, the realization that we don't really have a constitutional republic and we're clinging on to the last remnants of that.
His father, Rand Paul, I mean, he's the grand poobah.
He is the all-star.
It's hard for me, again.
To go to another mainline political figure and point to someone that I have agreed with so much.
Now, each of them certainly is imperfect and they are human beings.
Okay?
I don't love the fact that so many mainline conservatives are willing to attack this guy because he's got a different opinion on tariffs.
All right?
And by the way...
They voted on it, and despite the fact that Rand Paul basically said he would have enough votes in the Senate to stop these tariffs, did not happen.
And we're going to get into all that.
We're actually going to play Rand Paul.
This is 19 minutes long on, I believe, April 4th.
Now, on the 2nd, he also gave an even longer speech.
About the economy and the administration, etc., etc.
What I love about this speech is the fact that he's calling out the military-industrial complex and their contracting.
And he's saying, well, what are we really cutting?
All this doge talk is great, but I'm a real conservative and I want to see real cuts that actually work and happen.
In my opinion, he's putting on the big boy pants.
I've seen people attacking Thomas Massey.
Thomas Massey and Rand Paul stand to be 100% still, in my opinion, the best mainline politicians out there.
The best we have to offer as Americans.
And they're both from Kentucky.
I know a lot of people want to take dumps on Kentucky and the South.
Listen.
These guys are articulate, intelligent men that are consistently free speech, anti-war, and pro-American.
Does it get any simpler than that?
I don't know.
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We are going to go...
I mean, this is a long one.
We are going to be cutting in and out of it.
We're going to go over a couple of the stories first, but I do want to remind everybody...
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But there's just so many things over here where you get some raw information.
Also, other appearances.
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Definitely going to be doing a video on that as well.
Let's get into it.
Republican tears into Rand Paul over breaking with Trump on tariffs.
Now, in this press conference that is at the top of this Newsweek article, this young man says that he has heard that Jeff Bezos is going to start putting a tariff information on each product and what the cost of that product comparatively would have been.
Now, I don't know whether this is real or not.
Apparently, if it was real, they're not planning on doing it.
There's some reports now that Trump actually called Bezos infuriated, etc., etc.
But all that is subtext.
The Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to continue Trump's trade war.
And look, if you want to call it a trade war, I'm fine with that.
I'm fine with that.
I'm not necessarily against what Trump is doing.
I've said this for a very long time, right?
I actually like this tariff stuff.
But along with it, you need to cut the military-industrial complex.
Tesla is going to be doing just fine.
The old muskardew is doing just fine.
Haven't seen any prosecutions from Doge and all this fraud.
I'm not saying the fraud didn't happen.
I'm saying if it did, why are we not having investigations and indictments?
Now is the time.
So, we can't just talk the talk.
We've got to be able to walk that walk as well.
With that being said, here is Rand Paul just a few weeks ago.
We're gathered here to talk about the budget.
We're going to be voting on a budget resolution shortly.
And I'm concerned.
I'm concerned that there's so much enthusiasm among conservatives and Republicans for cutting waste and cutting fraud and quit spending $2 million on sex changes in Guatemala and $3 million on girl-centric climate change in Brazil.
$4.8 million on social media influencers in Ukraine.
I'm excited by eliminating all of that waste.
I've been calling for it for years.
But I'll tell you what worries me.
What worries me is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors.
On the one hand, it appears as if all of this great savings is happening.
But on the other hand, the resolution before us will increase the debt by $5 trillion.
So which is it?
Are we cutting spending?
Are we expanding the debt?
If we expand the debt at $5 trillion, that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years.
Now, which is it?
I thought we had an election.
I thought we had an election.
And the other side is complaining loudly that, oh my goodness, there's going to be too much cut in spending.
And our side is saying, no, no, no.
And I'm looking at the numbers.
The budget resolution is going to add $5 trillion over about a two-year period.
Let me just stop it.
Five trill, dog.
Five trill.
And let me say this, you know.
I know that you guys out there, the Making Sense of the Madness crowd, the Burmese grade, checked out that awesome panel we did with Catherine Austin Fitz, Derek Brose, Ryan Christian, Steve from Slow Newsday, Kit Knightley.
The list goes on.
Powerhouses.
They have been outwardly criticized for calling out the fact that the budgets and the war money is all going to remain the same.
And here we are.
And here we are.
Tell me different.
Tell me different.
Yeah, I want to stop the waste from Ukraine too.
We're 100 days in.
I'm waiting.
I'm still seeing dead kids in my feed, not loving it.
And now I'm seeing people post from Europe and other nations that they can't see those dead kids in my feed that I repost and say, I'm sick of this.
They just see a big, nope, not here.
You don't get to see reality here.
So they're going to add more than $2 trillion a year to the debt.
In what world is that conservative?
They say there is a difference between the parties, and yet when you look at the numbers, when you look at the fact that this budget resolution is going to borrow $5 trillion, you scratch your head and say, what's up here?
Is there somebody not really being honest with us?
They're going to borrow $5 trillion.
And yet they'll say, well, the spending is coming down and we've put these numbers in the budget that will reduce spending.
If so, why are we borrowing $5 trillion?
The reason they're going to ask the Republicans and the Democrats, but it will be mostly Republicans voting for this debt, the reason they're asking for it is because they're anticipating that's what they'll need.
They're also anticipating that, you know, it's kind of embarrassing really to talk about debt.
It's extremely embarrassing for Republicans who say they're conservative to be adding $5 trillion in debt and voting for it.
So they don't want to do it very often.
Let's try to spread it out a long time.
Let's try to get through the 2026 election.
Let's try to get to 2027 before we have to have this embarrassment brought back in front of us.
And again, it is really unfortunate.
But just spend any amount of time around the inner circles or even the outer circles of these political figures.
It is all about those elections.
It is all about those numbers.
It is all about the fundraising to get there.
But the embarrassment and the shame is coming much quicker.
We're going to get to the end of September 30th.
That's the end of the fiscal year for our federal government.
And the American people at that time will be told, hopefully someone in the media notices this, that the deficit for this year will be over $2 trillion.
The estimates are that there will be about $2.2 trillion.
And we're going to borrow $5 trillion.
Now some would argue, yeah, but we need to give them a chance.
We need to give them a chance because the spending number actually looks like they might reduce spending.
But here's the problem.
The spending number is lower, but this bill also adds $325 billion in new spending.
Boom!
Let's spend some more cashola.
$150 billion for the military-industrial complex, another $175 billion for the border, but that's new money.
How much money did we spend last year?
A little over $7 trillion.
But that's not enough, according to all the people here on my side today that are going to vote for this budget.
They want more than last year.
Well, if last year was $7.1 trillion, that must mean they're going to want $300 billion more than that.
But the number in the bill says no, $6.5 trillion.
So they're saying, no, we're going to spend less.
I say, you know what?
I've seen the way this place operates, and I don't trust either party.
Why?
Because I've seen the deficit and the debt grow and triple since I've been here.
It's $36 trillion.
Now, I've voted against every last penny of it.
I've voted against the spending bills.
I've voted to balance the budget.
I've introduced budgets that balance over five years.
Now, I like how emotional he seems to be getting.
How you can tell the inflection is there.
Because he's...
I've been kicking and screaming about this issue before Trump, during Trump, after Trump, and now Trump 2.0.
And again, I stand with Rand on these issues.
But you know, the one thing that would happen, even if I had my way and I could introduce and my budget would be accepted, there'd have to be some debt accumulation.
So what I'm offering today is, let's accumulate some debt, let's raise the debt ceiling.
Never voted for this before, but I'm willing to vote for three months, about $500 billion to raise the debt ceiling.
Why?
Because it has to happen.
Why don't I want to give them $5 trillion?
Because then you're just turning your back, and they're going to do whatever they always do.
What does the swamp always do?
Take your money, borrow money, spend and borrow.
It continues unabated.
But if you wanted to keep your Congress on a leash, if you wanted to have leverage, if you wanted to have leverage to say, well, what if you're not being honest with me?
What if in three months the deficit's over $2 trillion, and what if in three months the spending levels aren't $6.5 trillion, but in actuality $7.4 trillion?
How would we then rebuke you?
How would we stop you?
How would we stop the spending?
Well, the way we would stop the spending is by not giving you any more borrowing.
Let me just stop it.
He's not wrong.
And in fact, he might be lowballing it.
You know, he's giving you a very realistic scenario.
And he may be giving you a scenario where he's softening it.
He said 7-4.
What about 10-trill?
10-trill, dog!
So what I'm proposing today is an amendment that will raise the debt ceiling by $500 billion.
To me, that's an extraordinary amount of money.
But your government spends it so darn fast that that's about three months worth of spending.
But there's nothing conservative about raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion.
It boggles the mind to try to comprehend how anyone who is self-describing themselves as conservative would vote to increase the debt by $5 trillion.
It makes utterly no sense.
But it also is free reign for the spenders because they've got $5 trillion they can spend.
In recent years, on occasion, they haven't even put a number in there.
Probably the only reason we're getting a number is because the rules of the budget require a number.
But what they've been doing, both parties, they've been just saying, well, why don't we just borrow money for two years or three years?
And many people argue, many on the other side of the aisle say, we shouldn't even have these votes at all.
Why have a debt ceiling at all?
Let's just let it spin out of control.
Has anybody ever seen the debt clock?
Go to thedebtclock.org and watch the numbers spinning wildly out of control.
Now, some will say deficits don't matter.
This was the Cheney family.
Dick Cheney famously said deficits don't matter.
But the thing is, they really do.
Because you have to pay interest on the debt.
We're paying about a trillion dollars in interest.
So the largest item in our spending now, bigger than our military, is actually the interest.
Over the next 10 years, we're going to pay about $14 trillion in interest.
I think it's actually probably worse than that.
That's what the estimates are now.
But it is literally out of control.
And you say to yourself, how would we rein in spending?
You have to look at everything.
Every item we spend money on has to be looked at.
You have to look across the board at everything.
And let me just stop that.
So look, it's not like I'm a fan of USAID.
I liked what they did there.
Where are we doing it?
They talked about the Department of Education next.
Okay.
When does that start?
I've talked about the Department of Defense.
Yes, please.
Yes, please.
I mean, we get into the intel community.
I mean...
The problem you have is that so much of, quote-unquote, corporate America, and really, again, it's a global corporate system, is intelligence-run.
Oh, China is so involved!
If you're a Chinese company, you're just the CCP.
I mean, again, Google's a transnational company.
But it's a transnational company under national security reign here.
What we have is the current administration says we're not going to look at Social Security, despite what the other side says about Social Security.
Nothing's going to happen to Social Security.
They're not going to fix it.
They're not going to make it better.
They're not going to reduce anything.
Social Security is going to be untouched.
So is Medicare.
But then there are reports and complaints saying, well, we shouldn't touch Medicaid either.
And then people say, food stamps?
We can't touch food stamps.
Well, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps comprise all the money that comes into our government.
They're about $5 trillion worth.
That's about what we pay in taxes.
So the government brings in about $5 trillion and spends $7 trillion.
It's about a $2 trillion overdraft.
We're $2 trillion in the hole every year, and we're up to about $36, $37 trillion total.
But how would we actually get there if you're taking off the table Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps?
Those four items...
Or about $5 trillion, pretty close to it.
So if you take all the entitlements off the table, what are you left with?
And people love and they get excited about the terrible foreign aid.
I do too.
I think it's the lowest hanging fruit.
It's the most egregious of the spending.
It's the easiest to cut.
But, you know, I was forced to vote on that two weeks ago, and we got no Democrat votes.
In fact, I don't think there is a Democrat in Congress who will vote to cut one penny.
I'd like to do that sometime.
Introduce a bill to cut a penny or to cut a dollar to see if they would.
Let's cut one dollar from the two million dollars that they spend doing sex change surgery in Guatemala with U.S. tax dollars.
Will the Democrats support a bill to cut one dollar?
Probably not.
And again, he's being funny there.
But no, they probably wouldn't.
And look, again, he's talking about the headlines.
Right?
I'm with him on the foreign aid, 100%.
But with that foreign aid, that allows the U.S. intelligence apparatus to be involved.
It has their companies in there.
It's so much more complex.
Not that he's wrong.
He's 100% right.
But this is why it doesn't change party to party.
They would probably insist, even if they admitted the program was egregious or horrible or out of normalcy, they would probably insist the money be spent somewhere else.
And that's sort of the debate we have over time.
I have a bill called Bonuses for Cost Cutters, which says that if you are in charge of a budget for government, let's say you're in charge of $12 million at the Department of Energy, if you save a million dollars, you would actually get a personal bonus for the federal employee as an incentive.
When I put this forward, the main complaint that usually comes from across the aisle is they're okay with giving federal workers bonuses for saving money, but they insist that the money not go back to the Treasury.
This is the big debate that's going on also.
What Elon Musk has done and Doge has done is absolutely commendable and we need more of it.
The old place is rotten and it needs to be shaken up and we need to look for waste.
But there's going to be another debate.
Is that waste going to come back and are we going to vote on it?
Are we going to codify it?
Are we going to make it real by lowering our numbers?
But the only way we would have any leverage...
On either party is by only giving them a little taste of the money.
Don't give them so much money they're wallowing in it and it comes out as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it.
Give them about three months worth.
Let's see how they do in three months.
If the spending totals that are in the bill come forward in three months and those are the spending totals that Congress approves, I'd be pretty satisfied with that.
In fact, I've told them the bill on large, I'm for continuing the tax cuts.
I'm for keeping the tax cuts permanent.
I voted for them in 2017.
I'm for reducing spending, which on the surface, some of the numbers look better.
But I'm just not for borrowing $5 trillion.
If we're doing a good job, if we're doing a better job, why are we borrowing $5 trillion?
I love how it keeps coming back to the $5 trillion.
A lot of people out there that don't really follow politics, they couldn't get enough Cory Booker.
What was it, 25 hours?
25 hours filibustering?
You're getting more meat and potatoes in 20 minutes from Rand Paul than 25 hours from Cory Booker.
I promise you that.
And this is a guy.
That isn't sitting there bending the knee to the party.
Right?
He's saying, no, this is a big problem.
I'm already offering a half-trill extra over the next fiscal quarter.
Let's see you keep on pace with that.
Forget about your $5 trillion.
Something doesn't add up.
Something is fishy.
If we're going to do such a good job, and if we have...
Transformed government.
If we are different than the other side of the aisle, and we really are for less spending and less debt, why are we borrowing more money than we've ever borrowed at one time in the history of the country?
This will set a record.
I believe $5 trillion will be the most that's ever been borrowed in one fell swoop.
This will be a vote, and I think an ignominious one in which professed conservatives stand up Stand forward and vote for more debt than Congress has ever voted for at one period of time.
It just disappoints me.
I'm so disappointed.
I'm so disappointed.
But is he shocked?
I don't know that, you know, the guy is shocked.
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Let's continue with Rand Paul.
I'm also disappointed because I think within a few months when the American people see this, particularly when Republicans at home see, oh my goodness, I heard all this good news about cutting foreign aid and cutting all this crazy spending around the world, but the deficit's still $2 trillion this year.
And then they're going to scratch their heads, and maybe they give the Republicans another six months to look.
And then they're going to find...
That another trillion dollars has been borrowed in another six months.
And they're going to find we're two years into a new Republican administration with a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House, and we're going to borrow $5 trillion.
Something doesn't add up here.
Someone needs to stand up and say something.
Someone needs to give conservatives, if we have conservatives in this body, an alternative.
That's what my amendment will be.
My amendment will be an alternative.
Instead of borrowing $5 trillion, sticking our head in the sand and saying, oh, please be nice to us and do what you promised and spend less money, no.
We give them three months and we say, prove to us that you will, for the first time, adhere to your word.
Just the first time.
Three months, prove it.
Is that unreasonable?
I mean, think about it.
That's like a guy.
Who's just been beating his wife and children just uncontrollably.
And then every time, he happens to be the brother of the police chief.
And every time they're like, alright, no big deal.
We're going to let you do it.
They have some more kids.
Have a mistress on the side.
Beat her.
Just beat, beat, beat away.
Okay, now, now, alright, we're still probably going to let you beat them a little bit.
But not to the tune of, like, a whole new family.
A $5 trillion family.
Prove to us you can cut the beatings down.
Just a little bit.
We'll give you a little bit more time.
A-OK.
I mean, obviously, he's just going to beat more.
Beat away.
Beat boxing.
And it isn't just a couple individual people.
This is the history of the institution.
Occasionally, through the last several decades, there have been people come forward and they put forth rules.
There was Graham Rudman Hollings.
There were different rules that said you have to pay as you go.
So if somebody brought up $300 billion in new spending, you'd have to cut $300 billion from somewhere else.
But you know what's happened?
These things have been evaded.
Time and time again.
Why are people like me cynical of the process?
Why do people like me not believe them when they say they're going to cut spending?
Because they've always gone back on their word.
They exempt themselves from the rules they create.
Graham Rudman Hollings, pay-as-you-go, would have been effective, but it's been evaded by Congress 60, 70 times now.
So I say trust but verify.
I say Trust, accept your colleagues if they say they're really going to do this, but give them three months worth of borrowing.
Don't give them two years worth of borrowing.
Don't give five trillion.
Don't put yourself on record.
Today, if this is passed, or tomorrow morning, early, if this is passed, Republicans who vote for this will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts.
They will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed.
So there really is a disconnect here.
Something is not as it appears.
There is a smoke and mirrors.
There is this great enthusiasm across the land for what is happening, and I share that.
I share President Trump's desire to balance a budget.
I'm pleased with his cabinet.
I'm super pleased with having Elon Musk and Doge and these young people look for waste.
I'm for all of that and more.
But if it's going to be reflected in something, we have to borrow less.
If we're still borrowing the same amount, maybe it isn't real.
Maybe we're just talking about things and we're not actually doing them.
It is hard to cut spending.
Everybody wants something.
Everybody wants something from government.
But there is no such thing as something for nothing.
It has to come from somewhere.
Most people know this in their daily lives as you work.
A lot of people don't.
A lot of people don't.
There are so many people that are on some type of government assistance program that is literally something for nothing.
I mean, let's look at it as a microcosm.
It's a lot less prevalent now.
But I know people that still make a fake email and address and the whole nine.
To get three-month subscriptions of something, some streaming service or whatever.
Something for nothing.
And they cancel it right away.
They make sure, you know, most of them, you need a credit card to put on there, right?
But they make sure they cancel it, that they got it for nothing.
There's no holds.
There's so many people out there that truly believe in the something for nothing system.
Oh.
I had a bunch of kids and the father's not involved or we're separated or he doesn't work and he's not around.
Something for nothing's around.
Big time.
Big time.
And culturally, the something for nothing victimhood mentality has basically gone at the same pace and level as the erosion of the traditional family.
And I'm not Johnny Conservative.
But I am Johnny Reality.
And that is real.
And what do most of us crave?
As children, you want nothing but a loving family.
As an adult.
If you really value things that are outside of total and complete true narcissism, true vanity, right?
There is no feeling like creating You know, a system of love and passing that on.
Being real.
Sorry, I went on a little bit of a rant there.
You get something for work and you feel good about yourself because you've worked for something.
You can't simply just hand out money to people.
You can't print up money like it grows on trees.
But I can tell you there's an absolute historical record of abuse by both parties.
But what saddens me in particular for Republicans is Republicans will go on record today to increase the debt more than the Democrats ever had.
The new world's record for accumulation of debt, the new world record for expanding debt in our country, will belong to the Republican Party with this.
This is a sad day.
I will vote against this bill and object to it unless we get rid of this enormous amount of borrowing.
If we get rid of the $5 trillion and adopt my amendment, I'll vote for the bill.
The bill would borrow, if my amendment were passed, $500 billion.
Is it enough?
No, we'd have to do it again.
We'd come back in three months.
But this is the idea of trust but verify.
If the promises are real, and if the big spenders in both parties are doing a good job, when they...
Come back and prove to us that they've actually done something they've never done in the past.
They've changed their ways and they're not going to keep adding massive debts year after year.
Then we give them another three months.
Then we give them another three months.
Folks, we are going to leave it there.
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