Impeachment Is OVER, Republicans Secure The Final Vote, Democrats Have FAILED
Impeachment Is OVER, Republicans Secure The Final Vote, Democrats Have FAILED. There will likely be no new witnesses, the Desperate Democrats delay tactic will not see the Senate floor.With Senator Murkowski now siding with the Republicans those in favor of witnesses now sit at just 49 votes ensuring the impeachment trial comes to a quick end.But Republicans have failed to strike back against Democrats constant scandals and absurd claims allowing the absurdity to continue.Russiagate was a lieUkrainegate was a lieAnd if Republicans do not pursue investigations into how this persists then we will certainly see Russiagate 3.Republicans have secure a victory for Trump but only barely. They have thus far refused to finish the beast leaving Trump and his allies to fight on their own. Lindsey Graham says this is not the venue for investigating Joe and Hunter Biden, perhaps, but if Republicans do not investigate it will be only a matter of time until the next anti Trump scandal occurs.Already the staunchest Russiagaters are calling for more investigations into Trump.If Republicans don't return in kind, then they deserve it.
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We are potentially hours or even days away from the end of the impeachment saga, with Donald Trump making several gains throughout the whole ordeal.
Now, I can say Trump already won when we look at how much money he's raised or his approval rating.
But the reality is Trump won before this even started.
Betting markets consistently predicted Trump would win, and the odds of a Trump victory steadily increased over the past several months.
I can't really understand why Democrats would want to do this, but we all knew that they were going to lose.
The latest news as of the recording of this video is that Senator Murkowski has come out against impeachment witnesses, putting Trump on path to acquittal.
But let's be real.
Trump is going to be acquitted basically no matter what.
We knew this from the get-go.
There's no way two-thirds of the Senate would vote to remove Donald Trump.
If they call witnesses, all it would do is prolong the case.
And why?
Why would they do this?
Now, here's my warning to the Republicans.
You may sit back and laugh at the gains Trump has made or the fact that he was destined to win.
The Democrats aren't giving up, and they're already announcing future plans for how they're going to jam up the president.
Earlier this morning on my second channel, I was heavily critical of the Republicans because they refused to effectively slay the beast.
After Russiagate, what did they do?
Did they bring any of these liars to justice?
No.
Now, there are some investigations.
Trump is certainly looking into this.
We have the Durham investigation, so potentially.
But because there was never justice, Ukrainegate happened.
Now we know that there may have been a conspiracy among some holdovers from the Democratic administration to conspire against the president.
Maybe not.
It's a report from Real Clear Investigations.
Maybe it is.
I don't know.
I don't like entertaining conspiracies.
But Rand Paul brought it up.
Will the Republicans actually go after this and call for witnesses?
The answer is no.
And if they don't get justice to figure out why this keeps happening, rest assured, Russiagate 3 is just around the corner, and some of the most prominent Russiagater anti-Trump personalities are already calling for more.
The Democrats won't stop.
Trump keeps winning.
He will likely win re-election.
But I want to walk you through this and show you we are on the path to Trump's acquittal.
But this may actually extend into next week due to the State of the Union as well as the Iowa Caucus.
So let's do this.
Let's check out the latest data on Murkowski which basically means we're done.
Trump has won.
And I want to show you some of the lies the Democrats have pushed forward in this case.
I want to tell you why I think they want witnesses.
I think for the most part it's just to prolong this I don't know why.
I really can't wrap my head around why they want to keep helping the president.
I'll show you how I raised the money, and we'll walk through the latest details.
As this is a major breaking story, by the time you watch this, a lot of details may have already changed.
However, some people predict maybe late tonight, Trump could be completely acquitted, and you might be watching this video after that fact.
Or, it could extend into next week, but rest assured the desperate Democrats have plans.
And I'll show you.
Not only that, they're already trying to lie about what some of the Republicans are saying to make it seem like there's no fair trial here.
And I'll show you that too.
Before we get started, Head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you would like to support my work.
There are several ways you can give, but the best thing you can do is just share this video.
I know breaking echo chambers is pretty impossible, but at least by sharing, some people might see this, they might agree or disagree, but at least they'll hear something they didn't normally hear.
Not only that, sharing really does help with me growing my channel.
Let's read the news from Fox News.
They say, Murkowski comes out against impeachment witnesses putting Trump on path to acquittal.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski came out Friday against calling witnesses in President Trump's impeachment trial, all but assuring the Senate will move to wrap up proceedings with a likely acquittal in a matter of days, if not hours.
Quote, given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate.
I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything.
It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed," said Murkowski, a key moderate senator who has been closely watching on the witness question.
They say the announcement came after Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who also had been on the fence on the issue, announced late Thursday he would not support additional witnesses in the Trump shallow, hurried, and wholly partisan trial.
Right now, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah are the only GOP senators to signal support for witnesses.
Presuming Democrats vote as a bloc and no other Republicans defect, this would leave the pro-witness side with just 49 votes.
The Senate is expected to vote on the witness question later Friday.
From there, proceedings could drag on through Friday night and into the weekend, and possibly beyond.
But it takes two-thirds supermajority to convict a president.
Few senators have publicly budged from party lines during the course of the trial, leaving
impeachment managers far short of the votes needed to convict Barring some extraordinary turn.
Now, ultimately, what I see here is complete hypocrisy on the part of the Democrats.
Let me warn the Republicans.
This is going to be one of the most important things, and I hope you're paying attention.
As I stated, the Republicans need to seek justice for all of the fake scandals that have now emerged.
Russia gate was a lie.
Ukraine gate was a lie.
We now have the former prosecutor in Ukraine demanding criminal charges against Biden.
It doesn't mean that Biden is guilty, but it does provide A reasonable person with a belief that Joe Biden may have done something wrong and should be investigated.
There's no grounds for impeaching the president.
It's just another scam.
Another desperate attempt that won't stop here.
Let me show you something.
The Democrats are outraged right now that there's not going to be witnesses.
All that would do is prolong the trial.
But let me show you this first.
From the National Review in December, Judiciary Democrats block Republican request for Adam Schiff to testify during impeachment hearings.
Now, you may say, yeah, but Schiff is a politician who's leading the charge.
Calling him to testify is absurd.
Okay.
Well, the Republicans also wanted Hunter Biden.
This story from November 9th.
House GOP asks Hunter Biden and Whistleblower to testify in impeachment probe.
And the Democrats said no.
So why are they now upset that Republicans in the Senate are saying no to witnesses?
The Republicans would certainly just call Hunter and Joe.
Now, I think the Republicans should call witnesses.
I guess they want to end the impeachment as quickly as possible.
But I'll tell you what's going to happen if we don't get clarity.
As to what caused the repeated fake smears against the president and his administration, it'll just keep happening.
We have this story now, Rand Paul brought it up, about a staffer for Adam Schiff coordinating with another individual to remove the president by any means necessary.
MISCO, my understanding now, works for Schiff.
Well, Judge Roberts wouldn't read his question, I can't say the name of the other individual on YouTube, and we'll never know what really happened.
And so long as we don't, guess what?
Guess what comes next?
Well, I'll show you.
What comes next is this.
Jonathan Shate, the man from the New York Mag, who claimed on MSNBC and in New York Magazine that Trump may have been a Russian asset since the 80s, now says the Republican cover-up will backfire.
The House can keep investigating Trump.
And you heard it.
The never-Trumper, anti-Trumper, whatever you want to call them, Russiagator conspiracy crazies are telling you right now, you think we're going to stop?
You're wrong!
It will never stop!
And now the call is on the Republicans.
You need to actually stand up and figure out where the corruption is.
Otherwise, the country will be dragged over and over again.
And if you're a Democrat, you should probably agree.
Impeachment has been a resounding failure.
Russiagate, a resounding failure.
Trump is fundraising like crazy.
His approval rating is up.
His rallies are bigger than ever.
Yet for some reason, the Democrats insist this is the course of action to win.
You know what the definition of insanity is, as they say?
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
That's more of a colloquial or academic understanding of insanity.
But I think that's what we're seeing.
But there's some interesting information.
Now look, I'm recording this, and I gotta admit, I don't like recording on big breaking stories like this early, because by the time this goes up at 4pm, I record about a couple hours early, this could all be done.
Some of you might watch this on Saturday, and this could all be done.
But check out this story from Politico.
Why I decided we should talk about what the Democrats are doing and what comes next.
Trump's impeachment trial could extend into next week.
Dear Lord, help me know.
Please.
I would love to have this video go up and then later tonight them say, we have acquitted the president.
Impeachment is over.
Of course.
You know why it doesn't really matter?
Why does it matter if it goes into next week and it probably will?
Because as I just showed you from Jonathan Chait, they're not going to stop.
And I got more to show you.
They're not stopping now.
Just check it out.
But let's read this first.
This is the important context you might want to know.
They say, White House officials wanted more time to prepare their closing arguments.
In the case said several sources.
Politico reports, the Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump could drag into next week, even as GOP leaders appear to have the votes needed to prevent additional witnesses and testimony from being offered, according to Republican senators and aides.
Republicans suggest the trial could extend into Wednesday of next week due to scheduling concerns over the Iowa caucuses on Monday and Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Could you imagine?
What a time to be alive.
The president will give a State of the Union address and the next day be cleared of wrongdoing in a Senate impeachment trial.
To me, that just seems absolutely absurd.
Politico says, quote, it's probably going to drift a little bit, said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the number two Senate Republican.
May well be into next week.
Maybe we'll be into next week.
I don't know what they're trying to say there.
White House officials wanted more time to prepare their closing arguments in the case, said several sources close to the issue.
A delay would also provide more time for closed-door deliberations by senators and would allow them time to make their own statements from the floor on the case.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to make an announcement on the floor Friday afternoon.
Quote, I think there's probably interest on both sides to bring this to a reasonable conclusion, Senator John Cornyn of Texas said.
The question is, how do we land this airplane in a way that is fair to everybody concerned?
And I think we'll hear more about that from the leader at some point.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested it
will take the Senate leader time to set up the witness vote and the final vote on acquittal.
And then once we've finished the time to set up the final vote on acquittals, then it will
take time to actually go through all the debate.
The organizing resolution controlling the impeachment trial only covers up to the period
when the Senate debates the issue of whether to depose additional witnesses, which the
House managers and minority leader Chuck Schumer have been strongly pushing for during the
last two weeks.
McConnell and the White House adamantly opposed that motion, arguing it was unnecessary and could drag the trial on four weeks or months.
Interestingly, Trump's defense said, as they were arguing, Schiff claims he proved impeachment already.
And Schiff apparently said he did, to which Trump's defense said, well then why would you need witnesses?
It's a really interesting question, in my opinion.
There was never an intent to actually win.
It's just chaos.
The Democrats are not helping themselves.
They're helping Trump.
He's fundraising, like I stated.
His approval rating's up.
It's just pure chaos.
For what reason?
I have no idea.
It seems like there is nothing left on the side of the Democrats, I gotta admit.
Trump's doing these massive rallies.
The economy is booming.
He's got a plan for re-election.
On the Democrat side, it's just meaningless.
There's no meaningful talk of policies that make sense.
Nobody really agrees.
Biden and Bernie are neck and neck, and they're not even the same party, at least according to Ocasio-Cortez.
And then when it comes to impeachment, they're basically just saying, I don't know, let's just make it go on longer.
None of it makes sense.
But I want to show you how they're trying to extend and accuse and lie.
Marco Rubio published a statement and he made some pretty good points.
They're trying to misconstrue what he's saying to make it seem like there's not a real fair trial.
Check this out.
Rubio says in his statement, why does impeachment exist?
As manager Jerry Nadler reminded us Wednesday night, removal is not a punishment for a crime, nor is removal supposed to be a way to hold presidents accountable.
That is what elections are for.
The sole purpose of this extraordinary power, to remove the one person entrusted with all of the powers of an entire branch of government, is to provide a last resort remedy to protect the country.
That is why Hamilton wrote that in these trials our decisions should be pursuing the public good.
That is why six weeks ago, I announced that for me, the question would not be whether the president's actions were wrong, but ultimately, whether what he did was removable.
He says the two are not the same.
Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.
He says to answer this question, the first step was to ask whether it would serve the public good to remove the president, even if I assumed the president did everything the House alleges.
The main point here, and Marco Rubio is 100% correct.
First, on the surface he's correct, that just because Trump may have done something wrong doesn't mean it's going to help anybody or the country to remove him, especially this close to an election.
But that's not the way people are framing it.
You see, deep down, Marco Rubio is more correct than most people realize.
But of course, here's what we see.
Blue checkmark Twitter users.
Actual line.
Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.
I see what they're saying.
And Jake Tapper said the same thing.
Rubio.
Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.
Why are they seizing on this line out of context?
Because they're making it seem like Marco Rubio and, to an extent, the Republicans, believe Trump is guilty!
We saw the statement from Lamar Alexander when he said, yes, they've proven that Trump did this.
Why would we need witnesses to prove what they claim they've already proven?
And now with this line from Rubio, the statement is the trial isn't fair.
Republicans admit Trump did wrong and still refuse to remove him.
Full stop.
That's not what he is saying, or at least not how I see it.
Let me rephrase it for you.
Just because we have probable cause for an arrest doesn't mean it would help to convict.
Or better yet, doesn't mean we can.
Just because the grand jury returned an indictment doesn't mean our case is strong enough to convict.
Impeachment is not a conviction.
Trump was impeached and that means there was a probable cause that he may have done something wrong and it should go to trial.
What Marco Rubio is saying is, what they've presented doesn't meet a standard of conviction.
And if we want to take it on the surface, it doesn't meet a standard of removing the president outright.
You can be impeached because you did something inappropriate or wrong, but removal is very, very serious.
Of course, they're already trying to frame it this way.
I was surprised to see Jake Tapper Presenting this out of context quote without giving an opportunity for Rubio to actually explain what he was talking about.
But of course, this is the nature of the beast.
Take a look at this.
Bolton says Trump told him to set up Giuliani meeting in Ukraine.
Why did the story drop today at noon?
Why did the Bolton story about a manuscript no one's seen drop just the other day as we're nearing the end of the Senate impeachment trial?
Well, I'll tell you.
In my opinion, these leaks are very much, well, they're very likely to be selective.
Now, I don't know who's leaking what or why.
I will say, for Bolton's book, how fortuitous.
The maximum press of, you know, you could get.
Just before the end, when everyone's debating whether there should be witnesses, you release some information and everyone then talks about your book and guess what?
When your book finally drops, you're gonna sell a lot of books.
That's PR 101.
It's brilliant.
But it's also very, very convenient for Democrats that they're arguing for witnesses, and then all of a sudden, selective, unsourced information begins to emerge once again.
When the story about Bolton's book dropped, I did not cover it.
You know why?
Because every single time we get a bombshell, a day later, it's retracted.
When I looked at the story, you know what I heard?
Apparently, the New York Times talked with people who are familiar with the manuscript, who heard that a portion of it says John Bolton did X. I don't care.
Unless you present me with the manuscript and a statement from John Bolton, I don't care.
But how convenient and how beneficial to the Democrats when they have no real evidence that all of a sudden a story emerges that literally proves nothing.
Now Trump denies he ever told Bolton to set up this meeting.
And the meeting wasn't a problem.
The problem is whether or not Trump's motivation was to win an election or to stop corruption.
Republicans certainly say Trump was fighting corruption.
I don't know about that.
Democrats certainly say Trump was trying to dig up dirt on Biden.
I don't know about that either.
But the burden is on the Democrats.
You don't gotta convince me of either.
You simply... Well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
It doesn't matter who has... Let me rephrase.
The Republicans don't need to prove anything.
It's the Democrats that need to prove Trump did something wrong.
And they haven't done any of that.
The burden is on them.
I'm not going to assume goodwill on the part of Trump.
I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I don't need to.
Because the Democrats need to provide evidence as to Trump's motive, and they have not done that.
And I'll tell you what.
I don't know how many times Democrats can cry wolf, but I'm just not interested.
Absolutely not.
We already went through years of Russiagate.
Then Hillary Clinton calls Tulsi Gabbard an asset of the Russians, or implies it.
They then deny it was about Tulsi.
I'm sick and tired of hearing it.
This man Jonathan Chait was claiming, they're going to keep investigating.
Yeah, they will.
And you know what's going to happen?
The Republicans aren't going to do anything about it.
How much do you want to bet?
Now, Rand Paul, he tried.
Much respect.
But what about the rest of them?
Lindsey Graham saying, no, it's not the time and place.
Okay.
Well, I'll tell you what I want to see then.
If you believe you're right, Senate Republicans, then I want to see subpoenas and testimony and investigations into these people.
If you're saying now is not the time, then the time should be immediately after acquittal.
It's about time Republicans went on the offensive and pushed back against the endless scandals.
This is not about policy.
This is not about politics.
I don't care for whether you think there should be a certain tax rate or certain choices between different groups.
This is strictly about two tribes that are fighting.
And the Republican tribe never strikes back.
Maybe once or twice.
The Democrats won't stop.
They're relentless.
Even when it hurts them, they just won't stop.
And until the Republicans turn around and say, you know what, now we're going to investigate back, it will keep happening.
I know.
Donald Trump is.
There is pushing back.
He is investigating.
But I think it's fair to say there's a big difference between Trump and the Republicans.
A lot of these Republican senators are wishy-washy on Trump.
Let's be real.
They really are.
Some people are mad that enough Republicans don't have Trump's back, but Trump isn't a traditional Republican.
And these people who have been in office for a long time aren't the traditional Trump base.
They've fallen in line because of how much the people like Trump.
And so now all of a sudden you see these Republicans turning around.
In fact, many of these people and many personalities hated Trump in 2016.
So I don't think they're willing to stick their neck out for Donald Trump to prove him right.
I think it's up to Trump and his appointees to actually do these investigations.
But you see what happens when he looks into Biden?
They impeach him over it.
Perhaps if the Republicans actually stood up and pushed back, we'd see something different.
It's not about Democrat or Republican for me.
Like, policy-wise.
What this is about is that I had to endure three years of Russian insanity, and now Ukrainian insanity, and I'm sick of it.
I want to know who started this, and why they put all of us through this disaster.
Will the Republicans actually do it?
I doubt it.
But let me wrap up with this.
Just a few quick points.
On the 24th, it was reported by ABC News, Trump campaign launches new anti-impeachment TV ad amid Senate trial.
The campaign is scheduled to drop a $10 million Super Bowl ad next weekend.
Yes, Trump has weaponized impeachment to his benefit.
It's obvious.
But it bears repeating.
The Democrats have only hurt themselves.
I really have no idea what they're doing other than being a completely destructive and chaotic force.
Trump campaign credits impeachment for massive $46 million fundraising haul.
Yep.
This was from the end of last year.
Congratulations, Trump.
We now have the Intercept reporting.
During impeachment trial, GOP senators schedule blitz of high-dollar fundraisers.
This is the end.
The home run stretch.
The home stretch.
And all of these Republicans are milking impeachment for all it's worth, and they are loving it all the way till the end.
I'll wrap it up with this.
Trump won.
He won before impeachment even started.
Now, they may not vote until next week.
Maybe they already voted by the time you watch this.
I don't know.
But you know they're not going to stop.
And I really doubt Republicans will actually do anything to stop them.
So it will just keep happening.
But I will leave you with one warning.
In all of the head-to-head matchups, well, almost all, sorry, Trump loses.
The only one he wins as of the 30th is against Pete Buttigieg.
Unsurprising.
As of Monday, Pete Buttigieg.
In fact, on Sunday, he didn't beat anybody.
Then you might say the polls are wrong.
That's fine.
We also see Trump's approval rating higher than it's ever been.
If those polls are right, are these polls right?
I gotta admit, I do think these polls are wrong.
I just can't imagine, after this failed impeachment, that Trump could actually lose with a record economy.
People are very happy, and I've heard over and over again from people all over my neighborhood, at least, that 2019 was the best year for their businesses they've ever had.
I don't see how that translates into Trump losing.
But I'll leave you with at least one anecdote.
I was talking to a local near my house recently.
He told me he didn't vote in 2016.
in 2016. He said that it wasn't really, you know, nah I didn't vote. I don't know. And
guess what he said? He said that he might actually vote for Trump in 2020 simply because
of all of what the, all the impeachment, you know, the nonsense and everything they're
saying about Trump. Someone told me they might actually vote for the guy because they're
sick and tired of what the Democrats have been doing.
And that's why Trump really won.
Trump won the moment the Democrats annoyed everyone to the point where they said, enough!
I don't want you to have the megaphone anymore.
They have the House.
What's going to happen come November 2020?
They're going to vote R across the board to take the megaphone away from the Democrats to just stop the nonsense.
But it won't.
Because the Republicans in office need to do something about it, and they haven't been.
And it's been now three, almost four years, and they haven't done anything to stop this.
Some of them have.
I know, I know.
I'm not trying to be mean.
Devin Nunes, certainly.
You know, Matt Gaetz, Rand Paul.
There have been some people.
But as a whole, they have not gone on the offensive.
I doubt they will.
We'll see what happens, though.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
at youtube.com slash timcastnews.
Thanks for hanging out, and I will see you all there.
Last night, a potential swing vote, Senator Alexander said no to witnesses paving the way for an imminent Donald Trump acquittal.
And I can only feel like the Democrats have failed so miserably.
You know that saying from The Wire?
Everyone thinks it's Shakespeare, though.
I looked this up.
If you come at the king, you best not miss.
They did.
They will now make Trump stronger than ever.
We all know the great benefits Trump has received due to the impeachment trial.
He's fundraised off it.
His approval rating is up.
People didn't want it.
We're bored by it.
The ratings were down.
But Democrats were stuck.
They moved forward.
And in all likelihood, they've failed.
Now, I'll concede.
I think there's a 4% chance of actual removal apparently.
Let me show you.
I want to read the story about Alexander.
But let me just show you this real quick.
Predict it has right now, look at this, in the past 24 hours, Let's do 7 days actually.
So on the 28th we saw people were betting for some reason Trump would be removed and it just tanked.
Now at 4 cents or around 4%.
These are the people placing bets Trump will be removed.
It is a terrible idea.
You shouldn't have done it.
So here's the thing.
Today, in all likelihood, Trump will be acquitted.
He will then use this to not only prove that he was innocent or exonerated, but it also shows the failure of the Democrats.
They've gotten nothing done.
Impeachment failed.
What did they do all this time?
Passing great bills and negotiating with Trump and the Republicans to make the country better?
No.
Complaining that the orange man was bad.
And then what happened?
The orange man wins!
We all knew it was going to happen.
It's playing out exactly as we all knew, and it's just making the Democrats look completely ineffective.
If the Democrats' goal were to help Trump win his re-election and make a ton of money, that impeachment worked swimmingly.
I can't believe it, man.
There were articles coming out from left-wing publications before the impeachment vote that said, does Donald Trump want to be impeached?
And then he raised like $15 million overnight off of impeachment.
Okay, but let's get to the news.
Senator Alexander was a potential swing vote.
The reason for it, they say that this guy's a Republican, but he's about to retire.
And that means he's not stuck, you know, based on reelection or anything like that.
He can vote however he wants.
He ended up siding with the Republicans for one simple reason.
Adam Schiff claims they have proven their case.
Boom.
So what did Alexander say?
Why call witnesses?
If you've already proven it's true that Donald Trump did these things, then what's the point of witnesses?
And he goes on to say, none of these things reach the level of impeachment.
I'll tell you what, man.
The left is claiming that it's the first impeachment with no witnesses.
The Republicans, they're running a sham.
It's also the first impeachment with no statutory crimes being broken.
So yeah, the Democrats are running a sham too.
Don't care.
Trump wins.
It's over.
What witnesses could be called anyway?
The Democrats claim they've already proven their case, but they provided no real evidence.
It's just at this point, another ongoing witch hunt to quote Donald Trump.
But I mean it.
Think about it.
You look at what started the Russiagate insanity.
The Carter Page FISA, which we now know to be bad.
And now he's suing the DNC.
I don't know if you saw that story.
So now you have all of these investigations beyond this, and they're trying to use Russiagate to claim Trump did this, that, or otherwise.
But that whole thing was started on a false premise.
What do they want to do now?
I kid you not.
On Twitter, people are saying the only reason they're trying to block witnesses is because it would actually ensnare Bill Barr.
And other Trump allies.
Is that your argument?
So what you're basically saying is that the goal of impeachment is not to get Trump?
Okay, I'm being hyperbolic, but the goal is to actually start doing sweeping investigations into tons of other people without merit?
Yeah, we don't do that.
You need probable cause evidence to start this investigation.
And when it came to Russiagate and Carter Page, three years Of absolute psychosis, making lit— like, people I know have actually lost their minds.
And what do we get for it?
Nothing.
Fake news.
Here we are again.
Not only that, there's actually some evidence right now that suggests Donald Trump was correct in his actions.
Yesterday on my main channel, I covered how the former prosecutor general of Ukraine wants criminal charges against Biden.
Now, you may say, but that guy's corrupt.
He's a liar, by all means.
Maybe he's lying.
Maybe he's accusing Biden of things that Biden didn't do.
Okay.
But if a former prosecutor general, corrupt or otherwise, wrote us a letter and signed it demanding criminal charges, is that enough to ask for it to be investigated?
The answer is yes.
Is it proof that Donald Trump was digging up dirt on Biden to win a re-election?
It's not.
It's actually evidence that Trump may have been motivated by a potential for corruption.
Just because he wanted an investigation into Biden, doesn't mean there would have been criminal charges against Biden, doesn't mean there would have been a public announcement about Biden.
If Trump's motivation really was to get dirt on Biden, maybe there wouldn't have been any.
But maybe if Donald Trump said, I want you to look into this, a month later, Zelensky over in Ukraine could have said, nothing there, and Trump would have been like, okay.
But it never happened.
So apparently the Democrats want to impeach Trump for this, but I'll tell you what really happened.
They were looking for anything they could get.
And this is what... I'm gonna jump over now.
There's too much to go through today.
Today is a crazy day.
But I'm actually very angry.
At Fox News.
Fox News, you spineless cowards!
Look at this.
Rand Paul.
Trump would be going against the law if he didn't investigate the Bidens.
Rand Paul wanted to ask a question about a man I call Voldemort, because I'm not allowed to say his name on YouTube, which is insane.
But Rand Paul was correct in his question.
Basically, you had two individuals.
The alleged whistleblower, aka Voldemort, because I can't say his name, and a man named Sean Misko.
Apparently, according to a real clear investigation's story, they were overheard talking about how they must remove Trump by any means necessary.
This man then went on to be the alleged whistleblower, but Sean Misko joined Adam Schiff's team.
Rand Paul asked nothing about the whistleblower.
He didn't say anything about the whistleblower.
He said we have two Democratic holdovers, overheard plotting the removal of Trump, and one of those people then went on to join Adam Schiff's team, and that person helped coordinate with the whistleblower.
Rand Paul didn't actually mention the whistleblower, he just mentioned Misko.
Justice Roberts refused to ask the question.
Okay, I think at this point we know who the whistleblower is.
It is Voldemort, because everyone said repeatedly, I don't know who the whistleblower is.
We're talking about a Democratic holdover plotting the removal of Trump and his friend, who was plotting with him, going to work for Schiff.
We can't talk about it.
I can say Sean Misko over and over and over and over again, but I can't say the other guy who was involved with this.
Now, you want to know why I'm saying Fox News are spineless cowards?
Rand Paul had no problem saying the name And he was right.
I don't know who the whistleblower is.
Schiff doesn't know who the whistleblower is.
But this Democrat holdover was coordinating with one of Schiff's now staff, right?
So let's ask the question.
Fox News said, if you want to know his name, just go to Twitter.
They said, we're going to ask you not to say it.
You know what, man?
Let me tell you something.
I am furious that I can't say the name of Voldemort.
YouTube will actually delete this video, so you can get mad at me all you want.
But if I say it, YouTube will just delete the video and no one will see anything I'm saying.
That is a major restriction.
I have basically screamed at YouTube via email saying this is an extreme violation of First Amendment, of our free speech, right?
It's not First Amendment, sorry.
But of the freedom of the press.
It is a major milestone in the corruption of Google.
And the impending dystopian nightmare that we're already in, where major corporations restrict freedom of speech in the press, yeah, I'm very angry about it.
So I'll tell you what I'll do.
I will do my best to make sure I can still talk about it to whatever degree I can, and I'll call the guy Voldemort.
Can't say his name.
Fox News can.
Fox News, their cable channel is under no such restriction, yet they still refuse to report the news!
Real clear politics.
Many other outlets have no problem saying, here's the person's name, it's newsworthy.
The president himself has retweeted the story with the name in it.
The president's son, the same thing.
At what point do you say, everybody knows Voldemort's real name?
But Fox News won't do it.
And that, to me, is disgusting.
And you know what?
I really do like Rand Paul.
I think he's a good dude.
But if I was Rand Paul, and I was on Fox, and they say, we're gonna ask you not to say the name, I'll say, bye, take off the microphone, and I'd flick him off.
Okay, I wouldn't flick him off, but I'd say, no dice.
Sorry, we're not playing this game.
You know what bothers me?
I was hoping Rand Paul would walk away from this.
That Rand Paul would say, I'm not doing an interview.
You know why?
Rand Paul's question was not about the whistleblower.
Now, CNN tried claiming it basically was, but it wasn't.
He says, oh, it's because Rand Paul knows who the alleged whistleblower is.
No, no, no, no, no.
Full stop.
Our speculation is totally irrelevant to the news story about two Democratic holdovers plotting against the president and one of them going to work for Schiff.
But you can't say his name, because at some point someone said he might be the whistleblower.
Rand Paul made a good point.
Does that mean anyone who ever may have been the whistleblower, we can't say?
What if I said this?
What if I said something like, a source has conferred to me that Voldemort is not the whistleblower?
Can I say his name now?
No!
Facebook will delete the post, YouTube will, and even the spineless cowards over at Fox News, who have the full ability to report the news, won't do it.
So here's where it gets crazy.
Freaky, even.
Real Clear Investigations asserts that Voldemort and Sean Misko plotted to remove the president.
Maybe not in any extreme conspiratorial way.
They were overheard talking about it.
Well, Misko went to work for Schiff and coordinated with the whistleblower.
That's a fact.
We don't know if Voldemort is the whistleblower.
But, you know, if they're two different people, if they're not, whatever.
Two different stories.
Two different stories.
And we can't say this name, no matter what.
You know, I posted on Facebook that I knew a guy, I met a guy from, you know, Dubuque, who is a chiropractor, or dentist, who is a family man, 50 years old.
And his name is, and I posted the same name as, you know, Mr. Voldemort.
Facebook deleted it without notice.
Just, it literally was gone.
Talk about creepy.
So you know what?
Rand Paul's question was good.
Justice Roberts, not reading the question offends me greatly because we're at this point now where simply because someone at one point alleged this guy was a whistleblower, we can't tell any other news stories about the guy?
What kind of psychodystopian nightmare are we living in?
But, Rand Paul, whatever, you know, I appreciate his effort.
But I will show you something else that I find really interesting this morning.
CNN anchor John King says Republicans make legitimate point about the whistleblower.
Wow.
He says that, listen, the whistleblower started all this, why shouldn't they testify?
They should, and that's a legitimate question coming from Republicans, and I gotta agree.
The problem is you can't even say the name of who people think the whistleblower might be, and you can't tell any stories about who the whistle- about someone who happens to- like, you can't tell a story about a guy!
That's it, he's a guy.
End of story.
So let's read this one.
Because I think it's interesting that CNN is basically saying Republicans are right here.
But I will also go back to that line from The Wire.
If you come at the king, you best not miss.
Because I'll tell you what's going to happen.
We got Super Bowl weekend.
We got Brexit.
And Trump's acquittal.
All happening around the same time.
This is, this is kind of crazy.
You know, it is a crazy weekend.
I'm kind of wondering if 2020 has already shot its load.
Is this it?
This is like the craziest weekend ever.
But it's also, you know, it's particularly crazy about it that Trump's acquittal is coming on the same day as Brexit.
Isn't that nuts?
It's like, it's like 2015, 2016.
It just keeps happening.
Trump's gonna win.
Trump's support is crazy.
Trump went to a blue state, New Jersey.
175,000 people wanted to get in that rally.
Only 7,000 could.
Reporters were furious!
Why are we being made to wait outside?
Why can't we come in?
Aw, too bad.
I couldn't get press access either.
But I guess we can wrap up with this because I'll admit, you know, normally I like to do like a very, you know, much more cohesive story.
But today was, this morning was crazy with all the impeachment stuff.
We'll see what happens.
But even CNN now saying that, you know, the Republicans made a great point.
So it's crazy to me.
Let me say this about Alexander, the swing vote.
People are insulting this guy.
The left is furious that a Republican that, you know, the potential swing vote, I guess.
I'm pretty sure he's a Republican.
But they're angry that he's voting with the Republicans.
And I'm like, who cares?
Why does this matter to anybody?
So let's read about what CNN has to say.
They say, CNN anchor John King defended Republicans on Thursday,
arguing they made a legitimate point in asking why the intelligence community whistleblower
who brought the complaint that prompted Trump's impeachment hadn't been questioned.
Quote, you're asking the Congress, the Senate now, to remove the president of the United
States.
It's a legitimate point for the president's team and the Republicans to say, shouldn't
we go to the very origin of this?
His comments come after Rand Paul's, you know, question.
They say he tried asking a question that mentioned the name of a person reported to be the whistleblower that had nothing to do with the whistleblower.
Fox News has not confirmed the name of the whistleblower.
What does that matter, Fox News?
Rand Paul didn't ask a question about any whistleblower.
It's so, so annoying.
King said he wouldn't help Paul air his grievances over the issue, but proposed certain questions for Democrats.
Republicans make a good point.
The whistleblower started all this, why hasn't the whistleblower been questioned, he said.
Shouldn't the House Democrats have found a secure way to do that?
It's a legitimate point of debate as we go through this.
Is outing the whistleblower in a public setting the way to make your point?
I think we can have a conversation about that.
The Democrats' argument is that just about everything the whistleblower alleged has been proven through other sources, so we don't need to do this.
Okay.
An investigation showed that the whistleblower may have been coordinating with someone who now works for Adam Schiff.
So, yeah.
And you know what?
I just can't stand the fakeness of politics.
If these stories are false, by all means, we can ignore them.
But if these accusations are being made by credible outlets like RealClearPolitics, then why won't the Republicans grow a spine and bring these people to justice if they are seriously coordinating behind the scenes to subvert our government?
If Adam Schiff was coordinating with intelligence agency holdovers from Obama or from Democratic administrations, and they are plotting these things, why can't we get justice for it?
Why can't we get an investigation?
Why do we got to sit through years of Russiagate conspiracy stupidity, and we can't even get a preliminary investigation to just look into some of these questions?
Why can't we even ask a question about any of these people?
Because there's no real justice, and I blame Republicans just as much as Democrats.
I mean it.
You look at Lindsey Graham, you look at these people saying, I will not call to testify, it is not the place for this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
None of you want to actually rock the boat and bring these people to justice if they've done wrong.
Instead, you sit back on your hands while the FBI goes after Trump over insane nonsense for years.
You sit back on your hands while conspiracy peddlers like Rachel Maddow spew word vomit into the camera every single day and drive people on the left literally insane, thinking Russia's gonna shut off the electricity to their homes in the middle of winter in Fargo.
She said that, you know that, right?
And then you get Don Lemon talking about black holes swallowing airplanes.
What are Republicans on about any of it?
Alex Jones peddles his conspiracy, you know, vomit into the camera all the time.
But Alex Jones is a kooky anomaly.
But that's fine.
I'm not gonna pretend like Alex Jones is an innocent little snowflake.
But they got rid of him.
They banned him.
Okay, fine.
That's the game you want to play.
I disagree with it.
I think he should be allowed to have his show, same as Rachel Maddow.
But what happens when Alex Jones, when Milo, when Paul Joseph Watson, when all these people get purged from the internet, Where are the Republicans?
Sitting on their hands.
What happens when you get breaking news that Obama holdovers, or Democrat holdovers, were plotting against Trump, and then one of them went to work with Schiff?
Republicans sit on their hands.
Republicans are ineffective.
Oh, congratulations, they're winning the fight.
But there's no real justice here.
The Democrats run around like chickens with their head cut off, doing stupid things like impeachment, I guess, that ended up helping Trump anyway.
But where's the real justice?
I'm sick and tired of this.
I'm... You know, listen, man.
Russiagate was mind-numbing.
And I entertained it.
I said, okay, let's wait for the evidence.
And we had the FBI special investigation, and all that special prosecutor, whatever.
Nothing!
Conspiracy nonsense, and the warrants that started it were fake!
We still had to deal with it.
And I said, fine, thank you, it's over.
Then what happens?
The Democrats play the same stupid game again with Ukrainegate.
Trying to convince us that Trump was trying to dig up dirt on a guy he doesn't care about.
You know there's leaked audio where Trump says, I'm actually worried about Clinton picking, you know, Bernie Sanders as vice president because Bernie Sanders is, you know, a trade guy.
And that was a real issue for Trump.
Yet you want me to believe that he was worried about Bernie Sanders, which all the activist websites are claiming now, but decided to go after Joe Biden a full year before Biden even announced?
I don't care, dude.
I'm sick of the fake news.
I want to see the people who have lied and dragged all of us through the mud for years brought to justice.
Where are the Republicans?
Sitting on their hands.
They say, no, it's fine.
We'll just sweep it under the rug.
You know why?
Because I don't think any of these people, Democrat or otherwise, want to see the system change.
They want to be able... Look, the Republicans and the Democrats flip-flopped from Clinton's impeachment.
You know, you see all the clips and the left is saying, look at all the Republicans' hypocrisy.
And then you look at the Democrats and the Republicans say, look at the Democrats' hypocrisy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Same game, different administration.
You know what I'd like to see?
I respect Rand Paul.
There's very few of these Republican or Democrat politicians I have respect for.
I like what Rand Paul did.
He tried.
He really did.
I respect that.
I wish he would have walked away from Fox News, but I'm sick and tired of the fakeness.
Let's be real.
Why don't you tell people what's really going on?
Well, we get some outlets that do.
If RealClearInvestigations is telling the truth, we got a serious problem.
They're alleging a legitimate conspiracy from one political party to remove a duly elected president.
And they may have actually moved forward with it.
Why can't we get an investigation into that?
Why do we get bogus warrants launching an investigation for years, but we can't even ask a question about Voldemort and Misko?
Because there's no justice.
And the Republicans won't do anything to get it.
Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, they won't actually bring these people to justice.
I would be surprised if after this they actually did, because what did Lindsey Graham say?
Oh, this is not the appropriate venue for this.
Sure.
Fine.
Will you actually do anything about it?
The answer is no.
Once this is over, it'll be election season, the media will completely forget about it, we'll all move on, and we'll completely forget what happened.
When the big tech company said you can't say a name.
When Fox News refused to say a name.
When reports came out this person may have been conspiring against our government.
And no one did anything about it!
I've grown used to this, not seeing justice.
I've grown used to it.
We're not going to see it.
I really, really doubt it.
Now, I know, the Democrats on, you know, people on the left are saying, we're not going to see justice, Trump's impeachment.
Oh, please.
There's not even a statutory crime.
You're making a political argument about the president being removed based on your opinion of what abuse of power is.
That's it.
So we can disagree on that.
If there was a clear violation, if there was clear bribery, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, we wouldn't be having this argument.
But there isn't.
No statutory crime other than, they argue, you know, breaking of public trust.
Oh please, you never trusted him in the first place.
And his supporters certainly trust him.
Nothing has changed.
So they want justice there.
And they're angry the senator wouldn't support witnesses.
But Schiff said he proved his case already!
I'm just sick and tired of the games, man.
I'm looking forward to acquittal.
I'll make this prediction.
There will come a time in a few years, maybe soon, when Republicans once again play the exact same game in the inverse.
When it's a Democratic president, and the Republicans are something similar, and everyone will have their little arguments as to why this time they're right.
I don't buy it.
I think everyone's full of it.
Much respect to Rand Paul, though.
At least he was willing to stand up.
I'll leave it there.
Impeachment is coming soon.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel, and I will see you all then.
Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we may have another Get Woke, Go Broke on our hands, as nobody is buying tickets to the movie Birds of Prey.
I assume most of you know what Birds of Prey is.
If you don't, it's basically about a bunch of females from the DC universe.
And I watched the trailer, and I gotta say, it looks kind of bad.
I heard it was okay, though, from like, I got an older article where they're saying it was good in test screenings before, but there was concern that the studio would kind of muck things up.
But the movie is definitely woke.
I mean, that's what everybody's saying.
It's got, like, you know, LGBTQ representation.
It's an all-female ensemble lead.
And I kind of feel like we might be looking at, first of all, not only is our DC movies kind of... they tend to be bad, right?
But you've also got a kind of Ghostbusters 2016 vibe going on.
I gotta admit, I don't want to pass early judgment, but I watched the trailers and I really kind of thought it was cringy.
So we'll see what happens, because Wonder Woman looks awesome.
I don't think wokeness necessarily has to do anything with it, but I will tell you this.
Get woke or go broke doesn't just mean people don't like what you make.
Like the product is bad.
It also could mean these woke people you're trying to sell to never had any intention of buying your product in the first place.
Now I want to point out.
Ocean's 8, the all-female reboot or whatever of the Ocean series, made a ton of money, alright?
Wonder Woman, Hunger Games, you can absolutely do female leads, but I think there's something weird about trying to market something as woke where people are just not interested in it, maybe?
Honestly, I can't put my finger on it, but I will also be fair and say...
Get Woke or Go Broke is not a universal law.
A lot of people seem to think that it is a universal constant.
If you go woke, you will be guaranteed to lose money.
No, not true.
There are a lot of things that absolutely have profited off of wokeness.
That's why people try and do it.
And I think what we see a lot with movies like this is they're like, oh, can we make money too?
And then they make something that's really bad and nobody likes it.
Case in point, I worked for a company called Fusion that, for some reason, decided to get woke and then fell in the gutter.
Everybody got laid off.
But let's read the story.
Uh, Birds of Prey is about, like, Harley Quinn and some of these DC characters.
What I get from the trailer is basically she, like, breaks up with the Joker or something, and now she's trying to be, like, emancipated, whatever that means.
The story we have from Cosmic Book News is Nobody Buying Birds of Prey Tickets.
Now, These went on sale recently, pre-order tickets, because it's coming out, I think, next week.
I'm probably not gonna see it.
I wasn't even thinking about it.
I saw some commercials, never even crossed my mind.
But I'll tell you something before we read this, because he shows you all of these tweets where it's like nobody's buying tickets to this movie, and don't ask me why.
I don't know.
It might be a good movie.
Margot Robbie's pretty awesome, and apparently she's heavily involved in the production.
They're trying to fix the DCEU.
But let me tell you this.
I went to go see the movie 1917.
Did you guys see that movie?
It was amazing.
The whole thing is basically done as a single shot as you follow these soldiers as they go on this mission.
It was awesome.
It wasn't like this really crazy story.
It was just following in almost real time these soldiers doing this mission and everything they encounter.
It was incredible.
It was a really, really fantastic movie.
Now, here's the thing.
I had wanted to see this.
I think, like, the first week it came out, all the seats were sold out.
The only seats available were, like, far-end individual seats, and I wanted to go with my friends, so we didn't go see it.
I actually waited, like, a week to go see it.
So finally, a week or so later, the theater was still decently full, but we got good seats.
You know, we got to be in the middle of the theater, but it was still maybe, like, half the theater was sold.
I went to my local theater for pre-order tickets for Birds of Prey.
It's like 20-30% tickets sold.
To me that's crazy considering the first week I couldn't even go see 1917.
Now maybe 1917 was critically acclaimed, like everybody was gonna go nuts for this, but we're talking about a DC Cinematic Universe movie.
You know, we're talking about a big comic book blockbuster.
And the pre-ticket, the pre-sale, I'll admit, it's a decent amount sold.
I think maybe saying 20 or 30 is a bit over, an overestimate.
Might actually be less, maybe like 10 to 20, because like basically the whole thing's open.
But so what this dude did is he went to look at all these other theaters and found basically the same thing.
Now look.
I'm always wary of people trying to be biased to insert their agenda and be like, aha, nobody's buying tickets.
And maybe people will buy some as time goes on.
But the main reason I want to do this segment is because it looks like a get-what-go-broke.
It does.
I gotta be honest.
It could just be that the DCEU is terrible.
And they've done a really bad job on a lot of their movies.
Shazam was good.
Wonder Woman was good.
I'm excited for the new Wonder Woman.
But everything else has kind of been, you know, kind of spotty, hit or miss.
And, uh, nobody liked Suicide Squad.
So it could really just be, Suicide Squad was so bad, nobody is interested in seeing kind of, you know, a part two.
But here's, that's not what I think.
I kind of feel like we're looking at another one of these attempts at a woke female ensemble property that doesn't quite make sense for it, you know?
Like, why, why is this happening?
What is this?
But it probably would be fair to say it's maybe just Suicide Squad 2.
Let's read it and see what Cosmic Book News has to say.
They say, could DC's Woke Birds of Prey movie be DOA before it's even released, as apparently nobody's buying tickets.
Birds of Prey tickets actually went on sale Wednesday, which saw me scoop up three tickets about an hour after they went on sale for the Thursday night preview, which is next week Thursday, I think.
I was expecting the theater to be near sold out, as usually for a Thursday night preview, if I don't get tickets as soon as they go on sale.
I'm S out of luck.
Well, I actually bought the first three tickets in the movie theater.
On our way to the Buffalo Sabres hockey game tonight, I mentioned to my 15-year-old son that I'd bought tickets for Birds of Prey next Thursday.
He asked me how many, in hopes that I didn't buy him one, as he has no interest in seeing the flick.
He really didn't like Suicide Squad, so he isn't too excited about Birds of Prey, though I did tell him the two aren't related, but I did end up getting him a ticket.
So tonight, I checked the theater to see how many tickets have been sold, and to my surprise, only two other tickets have been sold.
When I went to see Infinity War, I had to actually drive, like, 40 minutes to find a theater in the middle of nowhere, because everything had sold out, like, with presales.
It was nuts.
And then, I didn't think 1917 was gonna be that big, but I couldn't go see it!
Now with Birds of Prey, the pre-sale, I'm like, I could have any scene I want!
So I basically replicated, at least locally, what he's saying.
For some reason, nobody's buying the tickets.
Again, fair to point out, Suicide Squad was trash, maybe nobody wants to see this movie, but he points out one important factor here.
The woke culture doesn't care to see it either, okay?
That's the real takeaway.
Let's say everybody hates Suicide Squad, nobody wants to see it.
Let me jump over here and show you this article from seven months ago.
This is from We Got This Cover.
they say, Warner Bros. reportedly unhappy with Birds of Prey,
maybe another Justice League.
They say this, Though the movie won't hit theaters until next year,
test screenings have been overwhelmingly positive so far, with people praising McGregor's performance,
the gritty and violent tone of the pic, and its steps towards more LGBTQ representation on screen.
But while audiences have walked away mostly impressed, it seems the studio isn't terribly happy with Birds of Prey
at the moment.
They say, maybe it'll turn into a Justice League,
League, they'll get their hands in and mess everything up.
I guess my question is, the point I want to bring up is not so much get woke, go broke, but kind of get woke and even woke people don't want to buy your tickets.
It's a common occurring theme when it comes to the push of wokeness into content.
It reminds me of that South Park episode where they're doing the hippie music festival.
And the mayor says to Cartman, like, this festival's gonna bring a ton of money, and then Cartman goes, hippies don't have money!
And then it turns into a disaster that keeps growing, and then, you know, it's silly, they drill into the center of the hippie music festival.
You get the point.
These companies are like, let's embrace an ideology for a group of people who have no interest in actually attending the showing.
So they're marketing not to the core fanbase, they're marketing to people who aren't their fanbase.
Now on the surface that makes sense, right?
The idea is the fans will come no matter what.
We need to get the people who don't want to come, so we'll embrace this woke ideology and encourage them to come.
They don't come anyway.
What does that mean?
You've alienated your core fans, they don't want to watch, and you tried to attract a group of people who didn't want to watch in the first place.
Congratulations, you got woke and went broke.
And it's nothing to do with the content being bad, necessarily.
It may be this movie's really, really good.
Typically, people make the assumption that woke content is bad because we all saw Ghostbusters 2016 and threw up in our mouths a little bit.
But it could be a woke movie just doesn't, I don't know, work for people.
Or I should say, when you change the existing characters, you lose your fanbase.
So here's what I'll say.
It's fair to point out Ocean's 8, okay?
They got rid of the original cast, brought in like an all-female cast, and that movie, it was a $70 million budget, brought in like $300 million.
So you can definitely, you know, make it work.
I think the challenge actually is when you start altering the original content, the original characters, or putting them in positions where the fans don't care, and then you're basically creating a product that is attempting to get people to watch based on nostalgia or brand power, but you're actually marketing it to other people who don't watch.
Don't want to watch.
Like, I think about what happened with Star Wars, and it really does feel like, most of the time, they're slapping a name onto a product that has nothing to do with the original product.
Like, the Star Wars sequels, uh, movies, in my opinion, just really aren't Star Wars.
And the new Star Trek shows just really aren't Star Trek.
They're trying to use that name to get you to watch as a fan, but then dramatically changing whatever it is into something that makes no sense for anybody, and then nobody goes to see it!
Again, I'm not talking about this universal law that some people think exists.
You can certainly make woke content that does really, really well and woke people love a whole lot.
Steven Universe isn't, I don't want to say overly woke, but I think they hit the gender non-binary stuff very well without being super political.
I don't know if you're familiar, but there's a huge fan base for Steven Universe, that Cartoon Network show, among more woke lefties and people on Tumblr.
But, Steven Universe is a bearable show.
It's like, it's original intellectual property.
You know, they didn't change any of their characters.
They have some of these ideas in it, but for the most part, the show follows a story that doesn't bash you over the head with wokeness.
I don't think Suicide Squad will do that, but I think people see this and they're skeptical.
I think the fans see this and they say, I'll chill out, okay?
I'll wait until Rotten Tomatoes comes in.
And then you see people who are actually woke, like, I never intended to see it in the first place.
So why cater to them?
But I get it.
They want to market to people who they think, you know, they need to get to convince.
So here's what the dude says.
He says, a Thursday preview at 9pm showing has no tickets sold.
He says, likewise, the IMAX Thursday previews have sold barely any tickets at all, if any, as it seems odd that a few aisle seats have been sold and a few seats up front.
Yeah, that's really weird.
He says the Friday showings are more of the same.
We scroll down, and he says, Since I'm not from a big city, I decided to check theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
Whenever I go to the New York Comic Con, if I got to see a movie or get an invite to an exclusive, I go to the Times Square Regal.
Only seven Birds of Prey tickets have been sold.
Checking LA, Cinemark hasn't even hit in the double-digit numbers.
Man, that's nuts.
I mean, this is basically what I'm seeing.
Around me, too.
He says, so what's going on?
I tweeted that maybe fans are on the fence, and that they are waiting for the Birds of Prey Rotten Tomatoes score and reviews to hit, as well as word of mouth.
But this is a comic book movie we're talking about here, and a DC film, yet no one is buying tickets.
Regardless what you think of the movie, that also means females aren't buying tickets, the quote, woke culture isn't buying tickets, the Harley Quinn fans aren't buying tickets, Batman fans sure as heck aren't buying tickets, Black Mask and Zaz are Batman villains.
Oh, Zaz is in this?
Oh, that's cool.
Zaz is a great villain.
And, as mentioned, the comic book movie and DC fans aren't buying tickets.
I think the tracking number is around 50 million, which seems really, really, really high, judging by no tickets being sold.
Hopefully things aren't as bad as the recent girl team movie, Charlie's Angels, which bombed with an $8 million opening weekend.
Maybe Warner Brothers should take a page out of Disney's book and buy tickets themselves.
Maybe having Jared Leto back as Joker would have helped?
So, uh, he shows more.
Look at this.
All of these tweets.
He says, uh, tickets selling like hotcakes at my local theater.
Nope, none.
Holy S. No tickets sold for 9 p.m.
Screenings not much better for Thursday previews?
Odd.
Why are their seats at the aisle sold but not in the middle?
That's a good point.
Friday opening day 740?
Crickets.
Wow.
Birds of Prey, 10 p.m.
This dude went all throughout these regal theaters and found no tickets are being sold.
No idea, man.
He brought up really good points, though.
I know people, the people I know who are Harley Quinn fans are nuts about Harley Quinn.
They're not going.
That, to me, is weird.
And the comic book fans usually line up out the door.
They buy tickets the moment they go on sale.
Apparently not happening.
I think it's fair to point out.
A lot more tickets have probably been sold.
Maybe.
Look, I went and checked.
And sure enough, I found similar results.
I didn't do an extensive search like he did.
Don't ask me.
I don't know.
I do think it's weird that a comic book movie could not get these ticket sales.
Like, Shazam did super early previews.
I went and saw it.
It was packed.
Shazam was awesome.
But maybe DC has finally just lost favor with everybody?
I have no idea.
It seems odd to me that with the early screenings being overwhelmingly positive, And this being a DC movie, no one's buying tickets.
So, whatever, man.
I don't know if this story matters too much, but I will tell you this.
For those of you that for some reason care, the news about Trump and the Democrats, it's just too much.
I thought it would be fun to take a nice little break and talk about some comic books for a minute.
So, I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at youtube.com slash timcast.
That will be at 4 p.m.
Thanks for hanging out, and I will see you all there.
The other day, the World Health Organization declared an emergency over the coronavirus, and I'm gonna have to say, based on the current reports out of China, I think it's a lot worse than people realize.
Now, I know there are a lot of people who are mad at me because I was saying to remain calm and it's probably not a big deal, and I stand by that.
You're never benefiting anybody by freaking out.
But there's a really good point someone made, so I will stand corrected.
They said, underreaction is worse than overreaction.
You're right.
Absolutely right.
I think it's fair to say don't panic, but you're better off overreacting.
Absolutely.
Now, it's a bit of an overreaction as the local Walmarts by me have sold out of face masks.
Okay, but you know, I'll tell you what.
It's true.
Overreaction is probably a better reaction than underreaction.
So I don't want anyone to fall into an optimism bias thinking, oh no, it's just SARS.
Apparently now it's worse.
But this is the news that makes me think it's actually a lot worse.
Whistleblowers in Wuhan who warned about the risk of a coronavirus outbreak last month were arrested, according to an expert.
You may not be surprised because, I mean, we're talking about China here.
But this actually kind of freaks me out.
Look, we've seen photos of people collapsing in the street.
They're mass producing hospitals.
They're treating it very, very seriously while simultaneously lying and trying to shut up anybody who might say it's worse than it really is.
Sounds to me like it's worse than it really is.
Now, I will say, if you are a young, strapping and virile male, you probably have nothing to worry about.
Okay, women too.
But if you have, you know, siblings that are younger, if you have baby children, if you have grandparents or your parents are older, this could actually be very, very, very serious.
And I'm going to say it for the eight out of the time, but China lies.
A lot.
And they're doing really messed up things.
So while a lot of people think this may have been a breach from, you know, some biomedical facility, I don't care what caused it.
I care about whether or not we're prepared for it.
And now we're seeing the first, I believe in the US, I could be wrong.
I'll pull it up.
The first person-to-person transmission in the U.S.
This is what's scary, okay?
I said when this first happened, the story first broke, we probably don't have anything to worry about because the scary viruses are the long incubation periods with, you know, transmitted through an air or whatever.
Exactly what happened.
There's a story now, I don't know, I've got a ton of stories pulled up, where they basically said that a woman was asymptomatic and infected four people.
And now they all have it.
Let's read the story and see what's going on with these whistleblowers, because this is what really freaks me out.
China and their censorious authoritarianism.
The Daily Mail reports, whistleblowers who sounded the alarm about the coronavirus in China were reportedly arrested for, quote, spreading rumors.
A leading UK expert on China has claimed that the whistleblowers had warned about the deadly virus a month ago.
The revelation comes as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
Look at these photos of people on planes, man.
They're like quarantining planes.
A cruise liner got quarantined.
Look, man, I know a lot of people initially, including myself, were like, it's probably nothing.
I think it's fair to be skeptical.
But I must reiterate that it's better to overreact than underreact.
I have not heard stories of cruise liners being quarantined back during SARS, or planes being diverted, or people being held on military bases.
This is how zombie movies begin, right?
They tell you everything's fine because they don't want you to panic because it'll disrupt the economy, but this seems to be a serious overreaction on the part of the governments.
That being said as well, one thing I heard was the reason they're acting this way is because we learned our lesson about underreaction, which made SARS worse.
So it could be.
It could be.
That China, other governments, these quarantines are a severe overreaction on purpose because we're better off doing so.
At the end of the day, man, I'll just tell you this, forget it all, go to the store, go buy some cases of bottled water, buy some five-gallon jugs, buy some canned food that will last you a decent amount of time.
Not just because of this, as I always say, because hurricanes happen.
Because thunderstorms can shut the power off, okay?
Don't let anyone shame you on not taking care of yourself.
They say the nationwide death toll in China and the outbreak has risen to 213 with nearly 2,000 new cases confirmed, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
In its daily update, the commission said 43 new deaths had occurred as a result of the virus, all but one of them in the hardest-hit Hubei province where the virus first emerged.
Dr. Yukteswar Kumar of the University of Bath told the Mirror that those who tried to warn about the virus were allegedly silenced by the state.
This is why free speech is so important.
Because for the good of the rest of the world, you need to admit when something bad is happening, even if it's embarrassing you.
He claims the spread of the virus could have been reduced if people were made aware of the outbreak in late December.
Quote, they were asked to sign a confession stating that they will not spread false news.
If they had taken steps earlier, the situation could have been better because they did know about it, Dr. Kumar told the publication.
People could have been made aware in late December.
The authorities could have stopped people traveling earlier.
I highly appreciate the efforts made by the government of China in locking down the whole city.
However, if they'd listened to the advice of these eight people and some scientists, the situation would have been perhaps better.
A legal document obtained by Dr. Kumar reportedly appears to be signed and fingerprinted by citizens promising not to discuss the outbreak.
Why?
That's crazy!
That's crazy.
The World Health Organization had initially downplayed the threat posed by the disease, but revised its risk assessment after crisis talks on Thursday.
Quote, we must all act together now to limit further spread.
We can only stop it together.
Who Chief Tedros Adhanom, I can't read his last name, I'm sorry, Gebreyesus told a briefing
You guys know I'm really bad at reading last names, but without trying to be disrespectful, that was a difficult name for someone like me to actually read, being a pathetic one-language speaker of English.
Tedros nevertheless said travel and trade restrictions with China were unnecessary to stem the spread of the virus, which has now been confirmed in more than 15 other countries across the globe.
Many countries have already urged their citizens not to visit China, while some have banned entry for travelers from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first surfaced.
Now, whether or not you want to believe the orange man, Donald Trump says everything's under control.
Remain calm.
That's great.
By all means, I think it's fair to say the U.S.
has a decent amount of control.
But I'm not entirely confident in other people.
And at the end of the day, responsibility lies with you.
You may very well trust the government to take care of this.
You'd be a fool not to take care of yourself to the best of your abilities.
Go get a first aid kit.
Go get some food, like I said.
So let's read what Donald Trump is on about here.
President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus situation very well under control,
saying there is very little problem in the US as global health officials declared a public
health emergency. Trump spoke about the situation from war in Michigan, where he touted a new trade
deal and bashed 2016 rival Hillary Clinton because, okay?
He said Americans who had contracted the disease were recuperating nicely and said, we think it's
going to have a very good ending for us.
I think he's right.
I do.
I do think he's right.
Trump said the administration was working very closely with China where the outbreak outbreak began and where millions are on lockdown.
Bordering nations have shut their borders, searched flights and imposed other restrictions amid fears of a large scale deadly outbreak.
We think we have it very well under control.
We have very little problem in this country at the moment.
Trump said during his remarks Thursday afternoon, those people are all recuperating successfully.
He said he and his team were working very strongly with China.
The president added, hopefully, it won't be as bad as some people think it could be.
Agreeable sentiment.
I'm going to start counting down until they start attacking Donald Trump for downplaying the coronavirus.
Because there's literally nothing he could say, right?
He's going to come out and say, we're doing our best.
We've got things under control.
And then they're going to say, he's downplaying the severity.
Everyone's sick.
Because, you know, everything Trump says is wrong, right?
They say the administration created a new task force to deal with the problem Monday.
And now I bring you to the best part of this news.
That's right.
Donald Trump did create a task force to deal with the coronavirus.
But unfortunately, the coronavirus task force is another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity.
That's right.
Of all the things to worry about when a virus is potentially, I don't know, killing people, it's the color of the skin of the people trying to save the lives of the people who might get sick.
Think about this world we're in.
How insane this is.
Okay, we're gonna segue off and I'm gonna wrap this up with a nice little minute talking about the absurdity of the diversity argument.
When a firefighter kicks in your door, diversity is not what you're thinking about.
I'm sure you don't care about the color of the skin of the firefighter, so long as they're strong enough to save your life.
I don't care about the race, the gender, the income, nationality, religion.
If you know how to cure the disease or protect people, please take the job and do it.
But of course, CNN couldn't resist when they noticed it was all white people.
Coronavirus Task Force, oh geez, they say, who are these experts?
They're largely the same sorts of white men and a couple of women on the sidelines who've dominated the Trump administration from the very beginning.
By contrast, former President Barack Obama's circle of advisors and, you know, I can't read this.
Listen, there's a lot going on with the coronavirus.
Remain calm, but be prepared.
Trust, but verify.
Trump says things are under control.
Don't always take the government's word for it.
Do right by you.
Ignore CNN.
This is disgusting and pathetic.
CNN, what is wrong with you?
I love how they rag on everybody else and pretend like they're the objective news source, but they literally wrote an article criticizing the race of the people trying to save lives.
Could you imagine?
Firefighter kicks the door in, and the person on the ground, who happens to work for CNN, looks up and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
White male?
Coming to save me?
No, no, no, no.
You leave and come back with a Latino firefighter.
A Latino woman.
Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what these people will be thinking.
Could you imagine if, like, these dudes had a vaccine or a way to stem the virus?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We would rather the virus actually expand rapidly than to ever permit white men from trying to save our lives.
We've gone a little bit crazy, haven't we?
Let's be chill.
Let's mourn for those we've lost.
Let's be careful.
Let's be calm.
Let's be prepared.
Stick around if there's any updates on the coronavirus.
I typically wait because there's a lot of breaking news to do a wrap-up segment, but I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Ilhan Omar is back in the news as questions about her ethics, like literal ethics violations, are surfacing.
A new story says Omar paid an additional $215,000 from her campaign coffers to alleged boyfriend's firm.
I think it's interesting The Washington Free Beacon says alleged boyfriend, When the Daily Mail definitively reported that not only was she living with this guy, but she was actually dating him, and this caused her marriage to split up, the reason this is significant is that Omar was accused of an ethics violation for funneling money into this guy, I think his name's Tim Minette,
And also not itemizing what they were.
So people felt, the idea is, I'm gonna be very careful, we'll read this, and I'll let them, the stories speak for themselves, but the general idea is, she was basically paying this guy to go gallivanting around with her as she traveled around the country, and potentially, well probably just the country, but basically using campaign funds to fund an affair.
She was still paying him in November, she's still paying him now, and many people are wondering, Well, why?
If all of these things are coming to light, it could just be that maybe she's just paying a company?
But with the Daily Mail definitively stating they live together and posting photos, it stands to reason nobody cares.
There's not going to be an investigation, no justice, I doubt it.
However, I will say we know that the FBI is exploring and meeting with potential witnesses and collecting evidence on Omar.
So let's read the news, see what's going on and why this is significant.
Free Beacon reports she paid an additional $215,000 from her campaign to alleged boyfriend's firm.
They say, Omar's new committee filing submitted Friday morning showed that between October 1st and December 31st, her committee made $215,000 in additional payments to the E Street Group, a firm run by political consultant Tim Minette, Omar's alleged boyfriend.
These payments were reported as going toward consulting, direct mail, research services, travel expenses, advertisements, and graphic design.
The new payments mark another increase in money funneled to the firm.
Minette's group is yet again the highest paid vendor from Omar's campaign.
This is where, look, if they didn't include that bit of information, I'd probably care a lot less, okay?
Just because she's been accused of dating someone, even if she was, she's allowed to hire whoever she wants.
But now we can see that this company gets substantially more than anyone else she's paying, and, again, there are photos of them seemingly living together.
But we'll get to this.
They say, The committee reported hauling in $403,000 in individual contributions, while disbursing $404,000 over the last three months of 2019.
The $215,000 paid to MyNet's group for its services accounts for 53% of the total disbursements from the campaign during this time.
Over the first three quarters of 2019, Omar's campaign paid out a total of $310,000 to the E Street Group, according to the fourth quarter payments, My Nets firm collected a total of $525,000 from Omar's campaign in 2019.
Omar's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the payments.
Dr. Beth Minette, Minette's ex-wife, said in divorce papers filed last year that her husband was having an affair with Omar.
The parties physically separated on or about April 7, 2019, when defendants told plaintiff that he was romantically involved with and in love with another woman, Ilhan Omar, the paper said.
Now keep in mind that's a jilted ex-lover.
So, she could just be angry.
But I don't see why she would smear Ilhan Omar unless she was mad at Ilhan Omar.
And I don't think she'd be mad at her unless there was a real reason and she was mad about her husband leaving, so I kind of feel like I believe the dude's wife and the dude was having an affair with Ilhan Omar.
Which I believe may also be a serious ethics violation because she's paying his company and, like, there's, you know, you can't do that.
But anyway, let's read.
By way of example, days prior to defendant's devastating and shocking declaration of love for Rep.
Omar and admission of their affair, he and Rep.
Omar took the party's son to dinner to formally meet for the first time at the family's favorite neighborhood restaurant while plaintiff was out of town, the paper said.
Rep.
Omar gave the party's son a gift, and the defendant later brought her back inside the family's home.
Omar has evaded questions on the situation while Mynette has denied allegations of an affair.
The pair, however, has been spotted together on numerous occasions in the same house.
The Daily Mail reported last year that Omar and Mynette are living together.
The Washington Free Beacon also spotted the two together last November at the Posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C.
during a secretive gathering of the Democracy Alliance, a liberal millionaire and billionaire donor club, where they were mingling with other attendees.
I'm gonna criticize that last bit there, listen.
And that's a political consultant.
Of course she's going to be at this high-profile party.
Of course Ilhan Omar will be as well.
And of course they would talk to each other.
They work together.
I don't think we need to dip that far to say there's something fishy going on.
Listen.
This is a video, I guess.
You know, it's this video.
FBI investigating claims that Ilhan Omar married her own brother and will share the findings with ICE.
That's the latest.
There's an article, I guess.
But we can see here the video is they're living together in DC.
I'm gonna call shenanigans.
If she's living with the dude, but paying him more than anyone else, I'm sorry, that sounds unethical.
Pay them a standard market rate.
I don't know if it's illegal or a direct campaign finance violation or anything like that, but to a certain extent, my understanding is, you can't make unreasonable payments because it's an attempt to essentially siphon money out of a political campaign.
You can't do that.
People try and play games where they think like, I'll hire you and pay you $10,000 for web services.
The government's gonna be like, dude, no one makes that much for web services.
You're just finding a way to take money from a political campaign and give it to your boyfriend.
Or to cover the cost of his flights so he can travel around with you.
You can't do that.
Alright?
Doesn't work the other way either.
So, this is a story... I'm not gonna read this one.
I'm gonna go to this one because this one's actually more interesting from the 27th.
Listen, I should mention this.
November 17th, okay?
This is a couple months after the initial allegations, to my understanding.
Ilhan Omar funneled another $150K to alleged lover's consulting group.
So apparently, she got called out in something like August for doing this.
Then in November, she kept doing it.
And then we have another story!
She's apparently still doing it.
You know, it could be, and dare I say, she hasn't done anything wrong.
Maybe she's completely allowed to, maybe it's just celebrity gossip, I don't know.
But I will say, if it is something more ethical, that she's paying off-market rates, like well above, to siphon money to her boyfriend, That's extremely unethical, and we should know about it whether it gets her in trouble at all, but she doesn't seem to care anyway.
What's more interesting, though, is the news that came out a few days ago at the FBI's exploring evidence that she may have married her own brother.
The thing about this is that apparently somebody met with the FBI and gave them a trove of documents.
Will this result in an investigation?
I don't know.
I don't believe in any grand conspiracies, but I do think that it's possible.
When Ilhan Omar was doing all of these things, you know, with this new husband or whatever, I think it's possible that she never realized she would be this scrutinized, and she was living a normal life.
Now that she's a very high-profile politician, everybody wants to know everything about her past, and so they're digging.
She's gone purging social media.
She's deleted posts of her saying things that are like, sounds like that dude's your brother.
But the FBI is at least taking it seriously.
We're not at the point where there's a serious investigation.
I'd like to see something.
But for now, they are exploring the evidence.
The Examiner reports.
The FBI is reportedly looking into whether Rep.
Ilhan Omar married her brother.
Agents held an October meeting with the concerned party, who gave the agency documents related to the Minnesota Democrat's marriage to British citizen Ahmed Nursed Elmi.
Omar's second husband.
According to a New York Post on Sunday, the meeting was first reported earlier this month by The Blaze.
A source told the New York Post the two FBI agents at the meeting agreed to give the documents they had received to the U.S.
Department of Education and the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They did not confirm they would be opening an investigation into Omar themselves.
The lawmaker has been accused of marrying Elmi, who was alleged to be her brother in 2009, so he could gain a green card or scholarship benefits.
I think it's probably scholarship benefits, but the green card is expedited.
One of the arguments we've heard from many on the left is, if she really was related to him, like they were brother and sister, she could file a sibling sponsorship.
She could.
And, hey, makes sense, right?
Except, spousal sponsorship is faster.
Sibling sponsorship isn't.
And it's also possible she couldn't prove he was really her brother in a legal setting.
They have different last names.
They were separated.
Arguably, what happened was when she fled Somalia, as a child, they were separated.
That's what people say.
And so he's in the UK.
She has a different last name.
They have no documents to prove they're related.
So apparently, the argument goes, that she married him instead.
She couldn't do a sibling marriage if she wanted to without the documents, and it's hard to get documents.
In fact, one of her own arguments is that it's almost impossible, or one of the arguments brought forth, I shouldn't say hers, is that it's almost impossible to prove They're related at all anyway.
So she'll probably get away with it even if they are.
I think the argument doesn't make sense.
But I will say the guy she claimed to be her dad has the same name as the guy she married.
I think it's worth looking into at least.
But look, I should at least say I don't have all the data pulled up.
There's a lot of stuff that's fishy about Ilhan Omar.
I don't mean to single her out.
But she is under intense scrutiny because she was found to be in violation of campaign finance law.
She had to pay a fine.
This story has emerged and the FBI is taking it seriously.
And she's been accused of dating this dude who she's giving tons of money to more than anybody else.
Sounds like she might just not care about what she's allowed to do, right?
But I'll leave it there.
Should there be any updates with, you know, stuff like this, of course, I'll have more segments stick around.
I got one more fun segment coming up.
Apparently millennials are rich!
I'm not kidding.
The Bank of America claims so.
Stick around.
I will see you all in a few moments.
Ilhan Omar, once again, tweeted to cancel student loan debt and it totally backfired, says Forbes.
Now, I think the story is funny and we'll read it, but I got to make a really important point.
Right now, there's a big conversation about canceling the student loan debt of people who chose to take out loans and went to school, received a degree which will benefit them for the rest of their lives, and now don't want to pay back the money they borrowed to earn it.
I actually agree to a certain extent.
I think we should cancel the interest rates and make them paid on the principal.
Look, you use the money, you pay it back.
But I do think interest rates are predatory.
I think the lending practice is predatory.
And I think it's jamming up millennials and they're not buying houses or having kids.
But now there's a new bit of information.
Proving Ilhan Omar completely wrong.
I'm going to read this, but I want to show you a new study from Bank of America, reported by Fox Business.
One-fourth of millennials have $100,000 in the bank.
Are we going to give those people $50,000, Elizabeth Warren?
That makes no sense, does it?
Millennials are stashing away money for retirement much earlier than other generations, study says.
Well, Fox got their data a little bit wrong.
It's not so much that one-fourth of millennials have 100K.
It's actually a different number.
It's 17.2%.
I know it's not a big deal, but they got their data wrong, but it's still true.
Millennials have a ton of money, okay?
Check this out.
This is a report from Bank of America tracking the saving habits of Millennials.
They say more Millennials are saving with retirement as top priority.
So I will come back to Ilhan Omar's comments about canceling student debt, but I think it's important for you all to know, Millennials got some loot.
Check this out.
They say, as of 2018, or I'm sorry, 2019, 73% of Millennials are saving money.
That's good, but it does still mean 27% have none.
Maybe they're the ones who need that debt relief, right?
Of the Millennials with savings, 59% have $15,000 or more.
That means 43% of all Millennials have at least $15,000 in their savings.
That's just shy of half.
Are we gonna give these people free money?
You got 15K, you can pay down your debt.
And now it gets better.
Of the millennials with savings, 24%—I'm sorry, this is 2020 data—24% have at least $100,000.
So that's of millennials with savings, so 24% of 73.
17.2% of millennials have at least $100,000 in their bank.
So that's of millennials with savings. So 24% of 73. 17.2% of millennials have at least $100,000 in their bank.
Why would we give them money to pay off their student loan debt?
Now I know, I know, perhaps it makes sense to say the people with $100,000 in their bank probably don't have debt
because they could afford to pay it in the first place.
But I don't think just giving a blanket forgiveness of 50 grand like Elizabeth Warren wants to do makes sense, especially when you now have data showing that millennials ain't doing that bad, okay?
Why should we benefit those who have degrees that will last forever, who benefited greatly from this, instead of, I don't know, poor people who couldn't afford to go in the first place?
But let's see what happened with Ilhan Omar.
They say it backfired.
I don't know if I agree with that.
I'm sure she got criticism.
But of course, Forbes can't resist that good old clickbaity headline.
So it probably backfired to a certain extent.
Let's read.
Forbes says, Rep.
Ilhan Omar tweeted to cancel student loan debt.
Then this happened.
Here's what you need to know.
Then this happened?
What this happened?
This article's probably going to be bad.
Omar tweeted, What dreams would you be free to go after if your student debt was cancelled?
Share with the hashtag CancelStudentDebt.
Let me stop you right there, Ilhan Omar, and I'll tell you a story.
What dreams could you go after if you didn't choose to go after your dreams?
Okay, wait, wait, hold on.
I know that's unfair.
Maybe you didn't go after your dreams.
Maybe you were pressured by your parents and society to take on these loans and go to school to get a degree you didn't need.
And you can't use.
Okay, that I can understand.
From that point of reference, sure.
The problem with canceling student debt is that you still receive a massive benefit from having any degree.
Look, at a certain point I think our society needs to recognize college degrees are worthless.
I certainly don't value them.
They don't prove anything.
In fact, I think college degrees are a massive net negative to an individual.
Let me tell you something.
If you tell me you're 22 years old, you graduated from college, and you want a job, you know what you just said to me?
For the past four years, I've been institutionalized, told what to do at every turn, and just did the bare minimum to get a degree.
I'm not gonna believe that you actually went above board because you have nothing to show for it but the bare minimum, a degree.
Okay, okay, maybe some of you have accolades.
I won this award, I won this championship, fine.
What do you think's gonna happen to me?
I'm sorry, what do you think's gonna happen if someone comes to me and they say, for the past four years, you know, 22-year-old, for the past four years, I was working at Starbucks and I got a promotion and a raise and I have all this money saved up.
I'm gonna say, well, there's someone who took initiative, got into the nitty-gritty, did a job most people probably would, you know, frown upon, saved money, moved up.
That's real-world experience.
You know, somebody who has a degree, they're just telling me, someone told me what to do every day, and I did it.
That's not a good employee, I'm sorry.
You know what makes a good employee?
Someone who is forward-thinking and can solve problems before they come up.
You know, I don't want someone to come to me and say, hey, the water is leaking, what do I do?
Fix it!
How?
No, I need you to figure that out!
Why would I hire someone to say, like, Book my travel.
If they didn't know how to book my travel.
That's literally what you get with these degrees.
People who only know how to do what you tell them.
But when I hire someone, I'm hiring someone who knows how to do a thing I don't.
Let's say I need a video editor, right?
I'll be like, who knows how to edit videos?
If I hired someone who said just tell me how to do it, I'd be like, What?
That literally doesn't make sense.
I need someone who knows how to do it already.
But anyway, let's read how it backfired.
I say, as expected, Twitter users responded with how their life could have changed with the prospect of student loan debt forgiveness.
Quote, buy a house, get my teeth fixed, and start saving for retirement.
Yes, because you're making substantially more than the average person with the degree, and you gotta pay it back.
That's what they don't get.
The people who have degrees make higher salaries.
Unfortunately, some of that has to go back to paying off your student loans.
So, yes, you could buy a house from benefiting from a free degree.
Now, of course, the left are saying, that's why college should be free.
You don't think about these things, do you?
Let me just lay it out for you.
What do you think happens if you take a university, let's say the university can fit full occupancy, 50,000 students in the building.
Let's say the whole university campus.
If you add up the occupancy of every hall and every room, you get, let's do this, 100,000 people.
That's a big university, I think.
When you open it up to everybody, do you think standing shoulder-to-shoulder to listen to one person is going to be a comfortable learning experience?
Or do you think the university is going to say, we're not going to allow everyone in, so if it's free, you don't get to come.
All you're doing is removing the gate so that it's first come, first serve.
That doesn't necessarily make sense.
There's got to be some meritocracy involved.
Otherwise, you'll get people just squeezing their way in, exploiting the system to get that seat, taking it away from someone who might actually deserve it.
Scholarships make sense, right?
Finding underprivileged people or people who might not be able to afford it, and helping them because you think they deserve it.
And there are a lot of these things.
And guess what?
Paying for the service!
So the idea is basically make the public pay.
But if the public paid for literally all college, we'd have to expand every single university to accommodate like ten times more people.
Now again, I know the left says, so Tim, you're basically saying you're okay with some people not getting access to an education?
Yes, I am.
Because someone has to teach, and the space has to exist.
I'd prefer it if everybody got access to a good education.
I don't think colleges give a good education.
But for the most part, there is limited space, there is limited heat, electricity, and labor to teach these kids.
That's why you must pay for it.
If you do what they want with this free college stuff, all you're doing is basically saying we're randomizing.
It's a lottery ticket.
Good luck.
Yeah, that... Well, I'll tell you what.
Maybe that would be a good thing.
Because college, I think, is a net detriment in a lot of ways.
Now, if you want to go to a university and do research, you want to be a scientist, you want to be an academic, that makes sense.
I'm talking specifically about someone going to school for, like, music business.
You want to work in music business?
Go get a job at a bar in the venue and start booking some bands.
Don't go to school and pay tons of money to learn from somebody who's not even working at a venue.
Okay, I know we're supposed to read how this backfired, so we should do this.
They said, here's an example from various Twitter users.
One person said, in this country, if one takes on debt, it is one's responsibility to pay it back.
Not one's neighbor, or workmate, or complete stranger.
To do otherwise is to teach irresponsibility.
Someone said, I already worked my butt off and saved to pay down my student loans.
I refuse to now pay for the loans of others.
Let's hit that argument.
Someone posted this funny meme.
It is funny.
It's the trolley problem.
You know the trolley problem?
There's a train coming, and the track forks.
On one is one person, the other is five, and the train is headed towards the five.
Will you pull the lever, killing the one person to save the five?
It's the famous philosophical question.
What they did was they had behind the train was five dead people, in front of the train was five people, and a fork with no people.
And the argument was, you can save these five people, but because these five people are already dead, it makes no sense.
That's a stupid argument.
Funny meme.
But here's what they're missing.
No one is saying... Well, some people are saying this, but the idea isn't.
Just because one person paid off their loans, we shouldn't pay off someone else's.
We're saying, if you use tax money to pay off someone's loans, the person who already paid their loans is now spending tax money to pay off your loans, and you didn't pay for them.
Why should I, who have no debt, pay for you, who took out a debt and benefited from it?
You know what I could do?
My dream would be?
What dreams would you be free to go after if your student debt was cancelled?
I don't have student debt.
So I'll tell you, my dream would be to not have to pay for people who got a major benefit and don't want to pay it back.
Even though I agree, we should terminate the interest rates and allow them to pay it back without accruing more on the principal.
Because I've seen people go underwater with these things, and it's impossible to pay it back.
I think we need to figure out how to end the predatory lending and solve this problem.
But let me, let me, let me, let me slow this one down and wrap it up.
More importantly than any of this, Millennials got cash, bro!
I'm not interested in hearing your argument about giving money away to people who got money already, so I'll leave it there.
Stick around, next segment's coming up tomorrow at 10 a.m.
We do this new show, TimCast IRL, every Monday through Friday at 8 p.m.
