Famous Democrat Predicts Democrats "End Of Days," Says Bernie Sanders Far left Is A Cult
Famous Democrat Predicts Democrats "End Of Days," Says Bernie Sanders Far left Is A Cult. James Carville, famous democratic strategist, has escalated his panicked rhetoric arguing that not only will Democrats lose but that if they choose Bernie Sanders it will be the "end of days."He points to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and the resounding defeat of the Labour Party. In the UK the left had their worst defeat since 1935 with some areas who had not voted for a conservative in nearly 100 years flipping to support the conservative party.The Far Left in the UK consistently pushed Twitter rhetoric instead of kitchen table issues and it got so bad that the left wing Labour party even ran on fringe policy and ideology resulting in their crushing defeat by the right wing.Trump couldn't be happier with the complete disarray among Democrats. As polls show Bernie is surging however, the voter turnout is not so good. If the plan is to get Bernie Sanders and the far left to turn out new voters they seem to be already failing.But with the New Hampshire primary currently underway only time will tell if the Democrats have the enthusiasm they need to overtake Trump and the republican party in November.
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In his now second bombastic appearance, famous Democratic strategist James Carville is warning of the end of days for Democrats.
This dude is in a full-on panic, and I can only assume Bernie Sanders supporters are gloating and laughing How the establishment is in panic mode over his exponential rise.
I think it's fair to say all the polls have been wrong going into 2016.
We now know all the polls are wrong now.
They said Joe Biden was the frontrunner.
And for some reason, strangely, as soon as Bernie wins the popular vote in Iowa, now all the polls start flipping.
I find that all highly suspect.
But there still is some serious bad news for the Democratic establishment.
A new poll from the UK talks about the resounding defeat of the left.
Many of you may not be aware that the left in the UK had their worst defeat since 1935.
Some areas of the UK had not voted Conservative since like 1929 and flipped Conservative over the party, their leader, and the weird fringe ideology that seems to be infecting them.
And now we can see it.
James Carville says, quote, I'm not interested in being in a cult, and actually points to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and the resounding failures of the left there, predicting what comes next.
Dare I say, the end of days for the Democratic Party.
I love how everything is so bombastic.
And I love how this is like the 800 millionth video I've done about Democrats in sheer panic.
But even Van Jones is saying this.
It's just not stopping.
The news is getting better and better for Trump.
And even the Washington Post can't seem to decide if things are truly getting bad.
But let me just add one more thing before we truly dive into the end of days for Democrats.
Voter turnout in 2016 for the Democrats was not that good.
For Republicans, it was very good.
And Democrats are on track for the same voter turnout.
So now we're hearing the murmuring of potential panic today as we're awaiting the results of the New Hampshire primary.
Many of you may watch this after the primary results have already come in.
Maybe it was good news for Democrats.
I just don't know.
But for now, people are biting their nails and sweating bullets.
Because if Democrats don't turn out in New Hampshire, you may as well just spell the end of days, as James Carville said.
Let's read about what he did say before we get started.
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The best thing you can do, however, is just share this video.
I hope, and I say this all the time, that by sharing the video we can crack some echo chambers open and someone might be exposed to information they did not see before.
I can't really count on that because at this point, the competition is so fierce and the rhetoric is so insanely bombastic, I'm just not convinced anyone wants to hear anything other than sweet nothings whispered into their ears.
But we do have people like James Carville, long-standing and famous Democratic strategist, struggling to help the center stay on course.
And I say center even though it's kind of weird.
He doesn't say he's a centrist.
He's talking about liberals.
He's talking about the liberals of the Democratic Party fighting with the crazy far leftists.
I got some bad news based on the polls from the UK.
It looks like Bernie Sanders, at least in my opinion, is on track to lead the Democrats to a resounding defeat, same as we saw in the UK.
Let me just make one thing clear.
Brexit was voted for.
That was the populist movement before Trump.
And no one thought it could happen.
Everyone said Trump would lose, and Trump won.
A populist victory for the right again in the US.
If I was a betting man, I'd say, what we saw in the UK will be replicated here.
You've been warned.
Heed James Carville's warnings.
He's a strategist.
Let's read him.
James Carville warns of end of days if Democrats choose Bernie.
Quote, I'm not interested in being in a cult.
James Carville, a political strategist and former top advisor to President Bill Clinton, sounded the alarm Monday about the prospect of Senator Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, calling such a choice the end of days for the party.
Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Carville said the Democrats must defeat President Trump in November or the country will be in an abyss.
But he said many of the candidates, Sanders in particular, are not appealing enough to appealing enough of the electorate, including African Americans.
Carville likened Sanders to Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing leader of Britain's Labour Party who was soundly defeated in December.
And I think Fox News didn't go far enough when they said soundly.
They should have said crushingly, horrifically, terrifyingly.
It was apocalyptic.
It was a defeat we had not seen in nearly a hundred years.
That's how bad it was.
And if that track stays true for the U.S.
as well, and we tend to follow suit in some ways, man, I gotta say, bad news is coming.
Here's a quote.
The only thing, the only thing between the United States and the Abyss is the Democratic Party.
That's it.
If we go the way of the British Labour Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it's going to be the end of days.
So I am scared to death.
I really am.
I'm gonna stop right here.
And I'm gonna try and end the Bernie... I'm gonna call out the Bernie Derangement Syndrome.
Look, I've got some issues with Bernie Sanders, absolutely with the woke ideological left.
I do not think Bernie Sanders is literally the end of days for the Democratic Party.
Y'all need to calm down.
The same rhetoric they have for Donald Trump and everything he's doing, just calm yourself.
Now, I happen to think Bernie is a bit out there.
I was a bigger fan of him back in 2015, but his rhetoric has absolutely flip-flopped, and we will get to this.
I have some data here, and we'll get to that.
But the point is, I think we're going to be okay.
Like, if Bernie Sanders wins, we're not all going to go up in flames, like, calm down everybody.
But naturally, the establishment is in full-on panic mode.
You see, when Donald Trump ran in 2016, he defeated the Republican establishment.
The Democrats in 2016 said, we're not making that mistake, and they cheated.
They might cheat again.
But in all seriousness, I just think the Democratic Party is in freefall.
And the sheer panic in the eyes of James Carville is the perfect example of this.
He's scared to death.
It's the end of days.
Wow.
You want to talk about panic mode?
This is beyond panic.
I don't even know how to describe it.
Let's read more.
He said African-American voters are not interested in socialism and a revolution and all this foolishness you hear, but instead want to be sold on a vision for how they fit into this country.
If we lose that, we're going to be the British Labour Party and be out in some theoretical left-wing la-la land, Carville said, adding that the country can't continue for another four years under Trump.
Carville said he supports Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado for the nomination, hoping the long-shot candidate can come out of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary with a strong showing and bring his message to South Carolina.
The Louisiana native also compared Sanders' passionate supporters to a cult.
Just like they do to Donald Trump.
Sorry, I'm not interested in hearing it.
I will certainly call it the woke, identitarian left, which is a fringe faction of insane cultists.
I'll call them cultists.
No, I know a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters who are actually good, smart people who believe in Bernie's solutions to the problem.
One thing I find interesting is how Bannon framed it.
Steve Bannon said, Bernie Sanders has correctly identified the problem, but his solutions are wrong.
It's particularly fascinating.
I recommend The Hills Rising with Crystal Ball and Cigar and Jetty because you've got a conservative and a progressive being honest about what's happening and, to a certain degree, disagreeing on the ultimate solutions.
When I look to people like Crystal Ball, who is a Bernie supporter—oh, I should say presumably, because I don't want to, you know, throw labels around.
I see an honest individual who does a good show and is willing to have a real conversation about what the solutions to our problems are.
So, no.
I wouldn't call Bernie's broad base cultists, because there are a lot of, like, YouTube personalities that are not crazy identitarian leftists.
The problem I do see, though, is Bernie is courting those people.
And that, to me, is very, very disconcerting.
But let's read on.
He says, there's a certain part of the Democratic Party that wants us to be a cult.
I'm not interested in being in a cult, I'm 75 years old, I'm just not a very culty person, he said.
I love this tweet.
This person said, breaking, old man yells at socialism.
I love it.
Carville had spoken out repeatedly in the past week following a disastrous first caucus in Iowa, where the party failed to release the results until a few days later.
He went on to say that the Democratic Party was losing their minds talking about open borders policy and giving health care to non-citizens.
That's right, Carville identifies a lot of the same problems I do.
But I've got bad news for you centrist establishment Democrat types, the resistance folks, whatever you may be, and good news for the Bernie Sanders folks.
Now, this to me is very, very weird, but extremely important to bring up.
You see, in the RealClearPolitics average, which is tracking polls of likely and registered voters, for some reason, right after the Iowa caucus, people stopped saying they would support Joe Biden.
Now, I get it.
A lot of people are motivated by who they think is going to win.
But I must stress how strange it is that some of these polls go from before and after the Iowa caucus and all of a sudden Biden is tanking.
I just find that really strange that Sanders is now the literal frontrunner in every respect.
I predicted this, you know, I said a while back Biden's not really running and there's no way he's the actual frontrunner.
It's got to be Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders, sure enough, won the popular vote.
Is he gonna win, you know, the delegate count?
We'll see.
He didn't win the delegate count in Iowa, and New Hampshire is currently underway.
We will see.
But this is a question I have, a serious question.
Why is it that just after the Iowa caucus registered voters, who, I gotta be honest, many probably aren't paying attention, would all of a sudden stop supporting Biden?
I think the answer is, the polls are wrong.
They've always been wrong.
They realized they were wrong again, and are, yes, changing the things.
Well, maybe they're not changing.
They would say if they were, like, oh, our methodology is changing.
But I just find this very suspect.
I gotta admit.
And it makes me question everything.
So let me just tell you.
The polls were wrong then.
They're wrong now.
No one in media has any idea what's gonna happen, myself included.
The best we can do is look at them and say, maybe they're right?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But none of this makes sense.
And now we have this from FiveThirtyEight.
Bernie Sanders is the shoo-in to win with a 2 in 5 chance.
And again, strangely, Joe Biden was the predicted nominee, the potential nominee, and he drops right out of the Iowa caucus.
Why are they basing anything off these polls?
Every single one.
FiveThirtyEight, you were wrong.
You were all wrong.
You have no idea what's going to happen.
None of us do.
And it's going to get messy.
Now, as much as that's good news for the Bernie Sanders bunch, my congratulations to all of you for your coalition and your success, I'm now going to speak bluntly about how I think this is going to play out.
I think James Carville is right, and I have only a couple examples to show you exactly why I think he is right.
In this story from Sky News, damning new poll of real voters suggest reasons Corbyn lost the election.
I'm going to stress this because some of you may not be aware, but it's very, very important.
The left, the left-wing party, it's called Labour in the UK, had one of the worst defeats in nearly 100 years.
Could you imagine if, like, Chicago voted conservative?
That would be mind-blowing.
But there were certain areas that had been liberal, left-wing, blue, whatever, for a hundred years, voted conservative.
That was Jeremy Corbyn.
And many people fear that his left-wing policies are very much in line with Bernie Sanders and the woke, identitarian left, and that Bernie is going to be the American Corbyn.
The subheader says, the poll suggests that the labor leader was seen as weak, indecisive, and lacking in patriotism in December's election.
You want to play that game?
We'll play that game.
How about this?
Sanders apologizes to Biden for surrogates critique.
The opinion piece by Zephyr Teachout accused Joe Biden of having a big corruption problem.
Let's tackle that first accusation against Jeremy Corbyn.
Weakness.
Bernie Sanders had a surrogate send an email accusing Biden of being corrupt.
In fact, there were many people on the left, including socialists, straight up saying Joe Biden and his family are at least engaging in soft corruption.
It had been written about for years.
I said, thank you for calling it out.
I don't care about Biden and neither should any Bernie supporter.
Biden is in the way of Bernie and Biden is not really running as far as I'm concerned.
Let's talk about weakness.
After this email went out and Bernie supporters defended him saying, no, it's true, Biden is corrupt.
What did Bernie do?
Bernie apologizes to Joe Biden.
Grow a spine, man.
Now look, After the Iowa shenanigans, Bernie said he did not want a re-canvas, or a recount, that's what they call a re-canvas, and I criticized him heavily for it.
Again, weakness.
But to be fair, he did turn around and say, no, I think we have to do this.
So I will be fair in that regard.
But I can also cite that moment when the activists took the stage away from Bernie.
I'm sorry.
Weakness is there with Bernie.
And if you don't want to talk about the perception of will, his willpower, we can also talk about the fact, and again, I mean this with all due respect, I'm not trying to rag on Bernie for being old, but he really is a 78-year-old man who just had a heart attack.
He will be seen as physically and mentally weak.
With all due respect, okay?
Because I understand a heart attack is a serious issue, and I'm not trying to drag him for an illness.
I think it's unfortunate, and I really am disappointed, that that will play a substantial factor in whether or not his ideas are good.
Look, I don't think a heart attack should get in the way of his ideas.
I think he should be allowed to say them, and we need to challenge the ideas, because ideas are intangible.
They're bulletproof.
They last forever.
Blaming Bernie Sanders, or saying the ideas are bad, or saying he's going to be a bad president, which could affect the ideas he's presented, simply because he's had a heart attack, is unfortunate.
But you know what?
It's unfortunate that it will play that role.
Sorry, Bernie is seen as weak.
But I do think it's fair to argue his ideas.
So, there's a lot of people who will pick up the mantle for him, and we will continue that great battle of ideas.
But let's go back and see, what's the next bit?
Indecisive!
Okay.
Is Bernie Sanders indecisive?
Well, Joe Rogan said, you look back at Bernie's history, and he's been fairly consistent.
I used to think that way, too.
And then Bernie started saying things that confused me, because I'm someone who pays attention to the news.
And I started to realize that in the past several years, Bernie has been flip-flopping.
He's not being consistent.
He is being indecisive.
Which brings me to the next bit of evidence.
You have not been consistent!
Voter confronts Sanders on immigration flip-flop.
This is from just last week.
Bernie Sanders said in 2015 that open borders was a Koch brothers proposal.
And now Bernie Sanders is on board with tons of open border style policy.
I say open border style because I'm not suggesting Bernie literally wrote a bill saying abolish the borders.
But he's talking about all these little tidbits like decriminalizing border crossings, illegal border crossings.
He's talking about moratorium on deportations, bringing in substantially more refugees, increasing those numbers.
It is very different to where he was before.
Yes, Bernie Sanders is not the same candidate he was in 2015, and voters are calling him out.
Now, potentially, there are some other issues in that regard.
I think it's fair to say Bernie has been consistent on many issues, and he's been honest on many issues, but he's been fairly inconsistent on many others.
I think it's fair to say that many will view him as indecisive.
Which brings me now to the last accusation against Corbyn.
Lacking in patriotism.
This I can't necessarily point the finger at to Bernie Sanders aside from the things he's done in the past like, you know, honeymooning in the Soviet Union and praising some of these countries.
I'll be fair.
But the Democratic Party as a whole will reflect upon him, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I do think it's fair also to point out Bernie's an independent.
But that often uses a dig against him, like James Carville himself said, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, he's independent, he's never been a Democrat.
The people voting for him are not Democrats.
Some are, most aren't.
Fine.
But to the average voter in this country, they will see the D next to his name, and it brings me to the last bit.
Commentary from the morning call.
Democrats look like they're running for president of Mexico.
Because several Democratic candidates literally campaigned in Mexico.
Now that isn't necessarily Bernie's fault.
But Bernie has supported a lot of the same policies pushed by the people who were campaigning in Mexico.
So it all comes together.
Jeremy Corbyn was weak, indecisive, and lacking in patriotism.
And I think it's fair to say that the average American will look at Bernie in much the same way.
Physical and mental weakness, flip-flopping on core issues like immigration, and being party to various policies that would weaken America.
Bernie Sanders was very different in 2015.
He opposed TPP.
He talked about the problems of NAFTA, defended the working class, and said nope and borders.
In fact, people compared him to Donald Trump.
The difference was his populist, like, welfare message.
Medicare for all, college, etc.
Trump had more of a right-wing approach, but they both identified what many feel was the right problem.
That's what Steve Bannon said.
So I think, based on what I've just shown, Bernie Sanders is the likely shoe-in for the nomination.
We'll see how voter turnout happens in New Hampshire, but it's already looking bad.
And then Bernie Sanders will be resoundingly defeated by Donald Trump in the general election.
Many people are betting on igniting new voters.
I've seen it from the progressives.
Bernie's goal is to get people who have never voted before to vote.
And it's fair to say Donald Trump did just that.
I spoke with so many voters back in 2016 who said they had never voted before this.
But Trump was their guy.
He brought an insurgency into the Republican Party.
Here's the bad news.
The turnout for the primary is at 2016 levels.
So even if you have brought in those new voters, you haven't nudged the needle at all.
This is where the media starts getting funny.
First, we saw this.
From February 4th.
The most important Iowa result is in.
Democrats should worry.
And this was about voter turnout.
Because voter turnout was really bad.
Which brings me to today, where nothing makes sense, but hey, let's sit around and see what happens.
Because the Washington Post writes, Time for Democrats to panic?
They'll get a sense tonight.
Turnout in Iowa was disappointing.
It should be better in New Hampshire.
The question is, how much?
And in the same day, Washington Post, with seemingly no editorial oversight, writes this piece.
Calm down.
Democrats are not in disarray.
Okay, calm down panic?
What do you want me to do, Washington Post?
Should I worry about the turnout?
Should I begin to panic as we wait for the numbers?
Or should I calm down because everything is a-okay?
I don't know, Washington Post, but I think you need some better editorial oversight.
So the turnout in 2016 was actually interesting.
And this is important to highlight because Republican voter turnout in the primaries was 17.3 million, according to Pew, and 11.7 million according to the same stats.
Which means, although we're looking at Trump losing the popular vote, it seems like he had the enthusiasm.
I don't know if any of these Democrats are going to have that level of enthusiasm.
The Republican Party united around Trump because they wanted to win, and they did.
And today, they are united around Trump.
As much as many people like to refute Trump's claims that he's got a ridiculous support from the Republican Party around 95%, the reality is it is around 90 or so percent in the aggregate, many, many polls showing.
It's like high 80s to low 90s.
The Republicans have rallied around him.
That Walsh guy, whatever he was doing, trying to run against Trump, and he got booed and jeered and people cheered for Trump.
The Democrats don't have any of that.
Pete Buttigieg was booed in New Hampshire.
So what do you think comes next?
Bernie Sanders, the insurgent candidate, is going to win the nomination.
And right now it seems like they're kind of holding the Democrats hostage.
Here's an example on Twitter.
Tom Nichols, who is one of these, my understanding is one of these never-Trumper guys, said,
someone tried to report me for a violation of Twitter TOS because I'm tweeting what I think
Bernie Sanders will do if he's not the nominee.
Congratulations, Bernie cultists, you're moving into MAGA troll territory. Bernie Sanders
supporters are saying, if you don't vote for Bernie, we won't support your
candidate.
The biggest blank or bust is Yang or bust, but Bernie or bust played a substantial role in Trump winning in 2016.
I have seen the posts, I have seen the articles, the commentary from the high-profile personalities saying straight up, If you want to win, you better support Bernie because only 53% of his base have committed to actually voting Democrat if he doesn't win.
For many Democrats, they're saying, you know, they might vote for whoever.
Vote blue no matter who, they say.
Elizabeth Warren has the biggest vote blue no matter who faction.
I don't think Bernie's going to pull it off.
I don't.
I think he'll win the nomination.
He won't pull off the general.
But hey, I've been wrong in the past.
And hubris is the downfall of any contender.
Hillary Clinton thought she couldn't lose.
The media laughed all the way to the polls.
And then Trump came in and swept everything up.
If you think it's going to be easy for Trump, you are sorely mistaken.
While I can certainly sit here and say all signs point to a major Trump victory, I was wrong about what was going to happen in 2018.
I thought because of all the woke outrage and insanity that moderate voters in this country would wake up and be like, I can't stand this.
Quite the contrary!
They flipped like 40 seats in the House and took control and then impeached Donald Trump.
They could still pull a comeback.
The polls are wrong.
Trump supporters, if you get lulled into a false sense of security, especially around Bernie Sanders, you will be defeated.
And the important thing to recognize is as much as I'm not a fan of Bernie Sanders, not as much as I used to be especially.
I think it's important to know that he has a large faction of supporters who are not stupid.
They know exactly what they want from Bernie.
They know why they want it.
And they have good reason to support him.
You might disagree with his solutions.
I know I certainly do.
But if you underestimate your opponent, you will lose the same as Hillary Clinton did.
So don't be surprised if you see a 2020 Bernie Sanders general victory because Trump felt like he was invincible.
I don't know what's going to happen.
I do think Trump is going to win for a lot of reasons, and I think he's going to win really, really well.
But I could be wrong.
I could be wrong again.
I could be wrong about a lot of things.
Look, if you're one of those people who wants to criticize me, stop acting like I think I'm smarter than anyone else, because I don't.
I just read the news every day, and then I say what I think is going to happen.
The truth is, I've been right about a lot of things.
There are certain things that I've been able to call out and say, hey, I think this is going to happen.
And they've happened.
I won't get super specific because, you know, I don't want to drag other people into this political debacle, but I've mentioned some things and they've happened.
And I've mentioned some things and they've not happened.
Why?
Because I'm not a prophet.
I'm a regular person just saying what I think is going to happen.
I think Trump is going to win.
But again, watch that hubris.
Stick around.
The next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews.
It is a different channel.
And I will see you all there.
Ricky Gervais has taken a swipe at the Oscars after their ratings have hit an all-time low, saying, I tried to warn them.
Basically, he's talking about the injection of political commentary.
However, I think it's important to note, nobody knew they were going to say these things before they said them, and they didn't watch anyway.
I think we're watching the complete demise of celebrity culture and this faux activism they try to put on To seem virtuous.
You know, the only reason I think these celebrities pretend to care about causes is because they're ridiculously wealthy for basically no good reason, and they're saying these things probably because they're really worried.
If there ever was some kind of American Spring or a much larger Occupy movement, they're gonna get targeted first for more than one reason.
So what do they do?
They show up to their big fancy multi-millionaire award ceremonies where they get $200,000 gift bags and then say ridiculously stupid things like, workers of the world unite.
I kid you not, at the Oscars, Communist Manifesto quoted, they are so insane now, they are actually promoting overt communism.
Congratulations.
But to me it looks like celebrity culture is completely on the way out.
And I mean it.
The internet is slowly becoming the place for content, ratings across the board for everything are hurting, and even cable TV news, which has seen some gains and some highs, is still on a downward trajectory.
There have been big bumps due to politics, because people want to know about what's going on and talk politics.
But generally, ratings for everybody are in a downward trend.
Why?
Well, you're watching YouTube, right?
You're listening to podcasts.
Things have changed dramatically.
And I do want to point out how strange it is that we've kind of gone from Radio to TV and now kind of back to a, you know, some sort of internet pseudo radio.
It's all about talk and audio, less about the visual component.
I find it interesting.
Well, let's read the story and see what Ricky Gervais had to say.
And I want to talk about this story.
The age of celebrity is dead.
The woke foe outrage is going to lose.
And this, in my opinion, is a contributing factor to why the culture war even exists.
See, as this culture of celebrities starts dying out, these celebrities have to become more and more extreme in what they say and promote in order to generate press attention.
It used to be profound when a celebrity got up on stage and said, I am a multi-millionaire, and I care about dogs.
And they were like, aw, we care about dogs too.
And then they were like, I care about the homeless.
Now they're literally quoting the Communist Manifesto.
That's how desperate and insane they are.
Or as I like to say, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard, they've started pulling up wood chips.
Well, Ricky Gervais tweeted, in response to the lowest Oscar ratings ever, Saying, I have nothing against the most famous people in the world using their privileged global platform to tell the world what they believe.
I even agree with most of it.
I just tried to warn them that when they lecture every day hard-working people, it has the opposite effect.
They say ABC's politically charged Oscar telecast averaged 23.6 million viewers on Sunday night, the smallest audience ever, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Hollywood Reporter noted a total was well below the 29.56 million and 7.7 for last year's awards, and down 20% in year-to-year viewers.
The Oscars managed a 5.3 rating in the key demographic of adults 18 to 49, down 31% from last year's 7.7 demo rating.
The lengthy hostless broadcast fell almost 2 million viewers short of the previous all-time low, When the Oscars averaged 26.54, here's what we're seeing.
Obviously, as many of us know, cord cutters, people aren't watching TV as much, but the internet is creating a new opportunity for different subcultures and consumption of different media.
I gotta say, you know, I've had a ton of views on a lot of my content, and I honestly, hey, I'm glad that you guys watch.
Sometimes I don't even know why people do, because I just turn the camera on and start talking about stuff.
But I look at other YouTubers who do political commentary as well, and they're also getting an absurd amount of views.
It seems like this more mature adult conversation that's been happening on YouTube, and podcasts, has been displacing the vapid, laugh track comedy shows and
stupid fake activists of the celebrity world.
Perhaps it's authenticity.
And that's one of the things I've been talking about.
I did a podcast the other day with Jack Murphy and it's one of the things we talked about.
Who wants to watch this pre-packaged fake content where you know they've written a script
and they probably don't believe what they're saying?
Why would someone want to watch that?
Some people do.
Some people live in that strange world.
But many just want to hear an authentic conversation that sounds like real life.
And that's why this stuff doesn't work.
Did anyone actually take this woman?
Who said this?
Julia Reichardt?
Does anyone of sound mind think that these multi-millionaire celebrities actually want communism?
They would be the first to meet the guillotine.
We know how these things play out.
These people are insane.
But there's actually a really good point, like I mentioned earlier.
There actually- I think it was Warren Buffett who was talking about giving a lot of his money away, and there was a fear that there could be a peasant revolt, and guess who gets rounded up first?
The aristocrats.
The nobility.
The peasants are angry.
They look to these uber-wealthy people who are partying and dancing around, and then looking at the peasants and saying, let them eat cake.
It's the same story we've heard over and over again when the workers of the world unite.
They take it out on the people who have more than them.
Many of those people don't deserve it.
And I mean that.
And many do.
But they don't discriminate.
They just say, don't care how, why, or what you've done.
We're coming for you.
Let's read about this quote of communist manifesto thing.
And then I want to make a point about what they would truly receive if their communist dreams come true.
And then, lo and behold, I think I've got more evidence to suggest this woke outrage culture stuff It might be on the decline.
It might.
We've seen a lot of movies fail, and we've seen a lot of people push back.
A lot of studios have tried turning around and changing some of those strategies, realizing that the cult of this woke leftism is not profitable.
The LA Times reports, quote, We believe things will get better when workers of the world unite, declared documentary feature award co-winner Julia Reichert, finishing her remarks while accepting the statuette for the Obama's-backed American factory.
It was probably the first time the Communist Manifesto, the foundational Marxist text published by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848, has been quoted at the Oscars.
Let me just stress to Ricky Gervais, Ricky, I know you were talking about people complaining about, you know, climate change and animal rights.
They're literally now quoting the Communist Manifesto.
So I think we're well beyond them ever taking you seriously and to their own detriment.
I think Ricky is right.
People don't want to be lectured to.
But they've gone beyond simple activism like, let's protect the trees, and everyone claps, oh, how noble, using your wealthy and privileged platform.
Now they're literally just being like, hey, communism, how about that, huh?
And people are like, yeah, I think you've squeezed as much as you can out of this one.
The statement was in keeping with the themes of the film, which follows workers at a former GM factory now owned by a Chinese corporation that frowns on their efforts to unionize.
For the workers on the floor, it's a different success than for the owner of the management.
Reichardt's use of the phrase was one of the most overtly political moments in a generally tame Oscars telecast so far.
Alright, let's talk about this.
The age of celebrity is dead.
Completely dead.
I remember a few years ago, I was at a big broadcaster's convention in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam.
And I was hanging out with a bunch of people who worked in media and I said, celebrity is over.
We are seeing the beginning of it.
And this was seriously six, seven years ago.
And they said I was wrong.
They were like, no, that's not true.
There's always going to be famous people and blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, no, no, no, you misunderstand.
Of course there will always be famous people, but we're just seeing a decentralization of fame.
You know, it used to be that you had certain celebrities who were outspoken and they would dominate the press because the media knew a headline with some controversial or high-profile public figure would sell papers.
Now, there's too many people of note.
This story is actually rather interesting.
It's very short.
Let's read it.
And then we'll talk about the collapse of the woke film industry.
The Spectator writes, Come Friendly Bombs and Fallen Hollywood, it isn't fit for doing good.
Another year, another dreadful Oscars, another round of moral lectures from the beautiful people, it's all so tiresome.
The only reason most people pay attention to these irritating award ceremonies is precisely so that they can be irritated.
So there was a vegan theme at this year's Academy Awards.
So the show had no host.
So Brad Pitt is angry about impeachment.
So someone said workers of the world unite.
So Joaquin Phoenix is mad about what mankind is doing to the animal kingdom.
So Natalie Portman, in what she called my subtle way, had the names of the women directors who weren't nominated for awards sewn into her dress.
So what?
All these people are ridiculous.
Nothing they say makes any difference to anything.
Actors are increasingly aware, thanks in part to Ricky Gervais's wonderful ribbing of them at the Golden Globes, that nobody cares what they think.
At some unconscious level, these actors must know that they don't really know anything about politics or the real world.
They can't admit this to themselves, of course, human nature being what it is, so they double down.
They convince themselves that any angry reaction to their moralizing is an indication Do I really believe that some of the most powerful people in the world care about any of these causes?
And so the infuriating cycle continues, actors end up almost trolling the public, and the
public trolls them back on social media.
Do I really believe that some of the most powerful people in the world care about any
of these causes?
The answer is an overwhelming and resounding no.
Come on, neither do you.
We all know it.
We've always known it.
They talk about climate change, they fly around in private jets, and make excuses like, but it's better that I do it.
Oh, please.
You don't care.
It's rules for thee, but not for me.
You're trying to pretend like you care, so that when the angry masses come, you're like, but I'm one of the good ones.
No one's gonna care.
Which brings me to the very hilarious Workers of the World Unite comment.
Lady, You're gonna be the first one brought up to the guillotine by the modern iteration of Robespierre.
They don't care what you did or what you say.
You're one of the privileged and powerful noble elites dancing around in your wealth.
And no one's gonna care about what you've done, nor will they decide to look into your history to determine whether or not you are truly virtuous and in support of the revolution.
The reality is, these people, these ultra-wealthy elites, they've probably learned decently from history.
That those who are callous and out of touch to a certain degree, well, they get marched to the guillotine.
So they try and pretend they're virtuous because they're absolutely terrified of karma.
And I don't mean like some kind of... I don't mean some invisible, intangible, karmic force that floats around in the cosmos.
I mean quite literally that they're going to reap the rewards of a crooked system that empowers them with insane amounts of money, and they contribute very little.
I get it.
Entertainment has its value, and I understand why they make money.
But in the end, are they producing things for the betterment of society?
Well, I understand how industry works.
I'm totally fine with them making all this money.
But they do realize that when it comes to extreme income inequality, poor people don't care, right?
They're angry.
There is a noble class that have been reaping the rewards of a system they view as unfair.
I'm not saying it is or isn't unfair.
I'm saying this is what happens in these workers' revolutions.
Now, who's the biggest threat to the revolution?
And this is something that's been played out over and over again from Russia, even the French Revolution, which you can tell I've been referencing.
And the big thing is, who threatens the revolution?
It's in Venezuela's the same.
It's not going to be necessarily the, you know, the old elites.
They're not necessarily going to be coming for the nobility because what can they really do if they've already seized their assets and kick them to the curb?
They're people with no real influence outside of the access to the economy that they had and has now been taken away.
But what about famous thought leaders who fomented the revolution in the first place?
Guess what, lady?
You want the workers of the world to unite?
You spark the revolution, and then the revolutionaries go down and they drop a list of who they think could actually threaten the revolution.
And that's what they call it!
I was accused of trying to threaten the revolution of Venezuela.
I kid you not.
And so they look to people like you, who stand up in the capital city, in Hunger Games-esque fashion, preaching about how you really care about the little people, and they say, if anyone can cause mass uprising against us, it's gonna be them.
So they go for the elites, the academics, the intelligentsia, the people who started it in the first place, who are the biggest threat to what they want.
But anyway, I digress.
Celebrity culture is done.
And this article brings up a really interesting point about what we can expect or what we should have expected.
The internet has killed the Hollywood star.
Fame has been disrupted.
Andy Warhol got it slightly wrong when he said that in the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.
In fact, thanks to social media, everybody is famous to at least 15 people.
Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook mean we don't have to ogle stars anymore.
We are too busy ogling ourselves.
Yes, different types of celebrities have grown online.
The influencers, the YouTubers, the streamers.
And they too will try to use their position to grandstand.
But the age of celebrity, of mass entertainers, mattering as anything other than entertainment, is dying.
It won't be missed.
Good.
Absolutely good.
I find it really kind of funny.
Why would I care what Brad Pitt thinks about impeachment?
Did you hear this story?
He gets up on stage and he says, they told me I had 45 seconds.
That's 45 seconds more than John Bolton got.
Am I right?
And does a stupid little routine.
Dude, you don't know what you're talking about.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
I loved you in Fight Club.
I think World War Z was great.
But that's what you were good at.
You're not going to see me get up on stage and talk about the technique of method actors and the true skill of the cinematographer in Lord of the Rings.
I know nothing about it.
Actually, I take that back.
I have shot documentaries and stuff, so fine, that's probably fair.
But we all have our area of expertise, and yours is not politics and never was, and the only reason anyone ever took them seriously is because the media, well, the media saw it as a path towards generating traffic and selling papers.
Here's a famous person, what do they think?
The world doesn't function like that anymore, and I'm glad to say it.
Things are starting to change.
And what's really fascinating to me is that more people care about the opinion of a dude like me than someone like Brad Pitt.
It seems to make sense, right?
I was a journalist for several years.
I was on the ground in all these other countries.
Now I am more of a political commentator, and I sit down, I read through all these stories.
There's still a journalistic element to a lot of what I do, especially in breaking certain news stories, digging into, you know, comments and digital information.
But that makes sense, and I understand it.
What's kind of fascinating, though, is that it didn't used to be that way.
I mean, we did have high-profile anchors that people trusted, but for the longest time, celebrity activism was, like, the thing.
And hearing what the elite nobility had to say and what they thought mattered to a lot of people, so much so that celebrity endorsements were massive, and they still kind of are.
Now, in certain areas I find this fascinating.
Celebrity endorsements obviously still exist for experts.
If you're an athlete and you endorse a sports product, it makes sense.
What I don't get is athletes now endorsing weird nonsense.
That doesn't make sense.
Which brings me to the future.
These people are going to start making a lot less money.
It's probably already happening.
I mean, especially when you look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The salaries for these actors and actresses was extremely low relative to, you know, past Hollywood blockbusters because they knew nobody cared anymore.
And that's where it starts.
It's not just about politics.
It's about, you know, they can make a movie with a popular brand and put anybody in it and make money.
They don't need the celebrities.
But more importantly, the celebrities aren't driving forces like they used to be.
The point of getting a celebrity actor was so that if you had a movie and you slapped Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt on top, you'd be like, Alright, well it must be good because they chose to do it and they're good actors, right?
Nobody cares anymore.
I mean, there are millions of great actors that aren't famous.
So now these production companies, no, they don't need you.
But also, why court controversy?
I mean, you literally had a woman quoting the Communist Manifesto.
Why bother with that?
Why bring these people on?
Wouldn't you rather have a safe brand content and not worry about the extreme controversy?
All right, this went long.
So I'll wrap it up with this one quick story.
Maybe I'll do longer later.
But Birds of Prey is getting a new title after disappointing opening at box office, as if that's the reason the movie is failing.
Now, Birds of Prey is a complete trash film.
The motivations are insane.
It has nothing to do with the birds of prey.
I have no idea what the movie was supposed to be about.
Finding a sandwich or something?
I don't know.
It's dumb.
But the motivations of the characters, and I'll give you a quick spoiler alert if you made it this far, I understand most of you have not seen it and will not see it, but the motivations of the characters are just completely insane.
None of it resonates with a regular human being.
You know, if you made a movie about a character who wanted to save a bag of, you know, a box of puppies, we'd all kind of be like, that motivation I get.
But what about the extreme, extremely specific motivation of someone got a promotion that you deserved?
It's like, I know a lot of people have experienced that, but what?
A small percentage of the population finds that motivating and relates with that?
So here's what ends up happening.
Not only are we seeing these celebrities get more extreme in their rhetoric, but the movies have been trying to inject more politics into these movies, into the content.
I think there's one good reason.
As people care less and less, they have to become more and more extreme to get you interested.
It is the rapid radicalization of a dying media system.
So you get the celebrities that used to go up on stage and say something dumb like, you know, hey, be a vegetarian.
And now we're literally at Workers of the World Unite.
Congratulations, you've gone off the cliff, you've gone so far left.
And now we can see the movies that used to be praised for a subtle political messaging are now just overtly political and they brag about it to the media and then no one wants to see it.
Politics has been squeezed so hard that many of these brands are failing and people are just sick and tired of it.
But to go back to Ricky Gervais' point, These industries are dying regardless.
People are going to go on YouTube, they're going to find what they want to watch, and they're going to ignore these vapid celebrities who have no experience and have no idea what they're talking about.
And that's the power of the democratization of media.
Brad Pitt has literally no political experience.
Like, what's his political experience?
Why would his opinion matter?
For me, you know, I was actually an on-the-ground journalist dealing with conflict and crisis, and I've been to a lot of places, a lot of life experience, so I can understand why people might be interested in what I think about things.
Certainly there are other people.
Ted Cruz is doing his own podcast, and certainly his opinion matters much, much more, because he's literally a senator.
And that's where we've come.
Anybody can have a show.
Trump doesn't need to go to the media to get his message across.
Ted Cruz doesn't.
They can do it themselves.
And therein lies the main point.
As this continues, and no one needs the media anymore, and these industries are dying out, and no one cares about vapid celebrity culture, Their message of ridiculous far-left and woke politics goes along with them.
But hey, we'll see what happens, I suppose.
Ricky Gervais is certainly saying you shouldn't have done the politics.
But I think it has to do more with they only existed because it was the only thing available.
Welcome to competition in media.
Your extremist ideas die with it.
I'll see you on the next segment at 1 p.m.
Thanks for hanging out.
Stick around.
It's really hard to know when the media is overhyping things and the story may not be that bad.
They're trying to get clicks.
But we have the story now from the New York Post.
Expert warns coronavirus could infect 60% of the world's population.
There's 7.8 billion people on this planet.
This seems outrageous.
So take it all with a grain of salt.
But considering the coronavirus news has continually gotten worse, we'll entertain this for a little bit.
We have many other updates.
But with a 60% infection rate.
The worst case scenario with a 2% mortality rate is around what, like 90 some odd million people dying from this virus?
And even if we go down to a milder 1%, cut that number in half, we're still dealing with 40 or so million people who could lose their lives because of this virus.
So I want to stop and say for the millionth time, take it all with a grain of salt, but I gotta admit, When I first saw that this person, this expert, warned it could reach 60% of the population, I did not believe it.
I checked a few other sources, and sure enough, it's being reported by several outlets.
And this is the New York Post.
So let's read the story, and then cover some of the more recent news, and I feel like... Yeah, I got some more bad news after this.
It's just, you know, take care of yourselves, everybody.
The Post reports, the coronavirus epidemic could grip about two-thirds of the world's population if the deadly bug is not controlled, a top public health official said, as another expert predicted that cases in China could peak this month and fade away by April.
I'm gonna stop.
Why didn't they lead with that?
Top expert says, coronavirus will peak in China and then fade away because one is more sensational than the other.
And that's what the media does.
So take it all into consideration.
But I think it's better to overreact than underreact.
I gotta be honest.
So, at least in this instance, it's better that people might be shocked into taking action to protect themselves than for all of us to just say, don't worry about it, don't worry about it.
I'll mention this because I mentioned it before.
There's a concern that because we underreacted with SARS and MERS and these other flus, more people lost their lives than should have.
So at least when it pertains to this, I think it is fair to lead with the more important The more shocking statistic if it means people will take it seriously.
And again, I'm not saying we should mislead the public by no means.
If I have a choice to say, prepare yourself, take it seriously, or don't worry about it, nothing's gonna happen, okay.
Erring in the side of the middle a little bit.
But we have seen this get worse, so let's take precautions.
Professor Gabriel Leung, Chair of Public Health Medicine at Hong Kong University, told The Guardian he was examining the implications of the World Health Organization's Monday warning that cases of the coronavirus spreading outside China are the tip of the iceberg.
Most experts believe That each person infected can go on to transmit coronavirus to about 2.5 other people, creating an attack rate of 60 to 80%, Long told the reporter.
60% of the world's population is an awfully big number.
Yeah, we're talking about billions infected.
Even with a general fatality rate as low as 1%, a possibility once milder cases are taken into account, there could still be a massive global death toll.
He said, yes, we're talking about 40 some odd million people.
Meanwhile, experts are attempting to map out the likely course of the illness, long told the Guardian.
Is 60-80% of the world's population going to get infected?
Maybe not.
Maybe this will come in waves.
Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality, because it certainly doesn't help it.
If it kills everybody in its path, because it will get killed as well.
Something I mentioned before, viruses that kill their hosts too quickly are not successful viruses.
They fade away very fast, because they can't infect people as fast as they, you know, the people are dying.
If you've played Plague Inc, and I mean this seriously, you understand this.
If the mortality rate is too high, not only do humans overreact, but they can't spread the virus.
Health officials are also attempting to determine whether restrictions put in place in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, as well as other cities, have made a positive impact.
Have these massive public health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in China, Leung asked?
If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?
Meanwhile, Zong Nation, 83, China's foremost medical advisor on the outbreak, told Reuters that the numbers of new cases are dipping in some parts of the country.
The epidemic may peak this month and then plateau, he said.
Now I want to go back to that earlier point where they said, Maybe this would peak by April.
Well, at least this guy is working for China.
I don't trust them.
As far as we know, there have been reports and studies from American professionals at, say, Johns Hopkins University, arguing that China is misleading us about what's really going on.
Or, more importantly, people aren't reporting milder cases, which means it could be spreading worse than we realize.
I hope this outbreak or this event may be over in something like April, said Zong, an epidemiologist known for his role in combating a surge of SARS in 2003.
But World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Warned that the epidemic was far from over.
With 99% of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country.
But one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world, Tedros told researchers gathered in Geneva on Tuesday.
A total of 1017 people have died of coronavirus in China.
Where a total of 42,708 cases have been reported, which means it could be substantially higher.
Johns Hopkins said maybe 10 times higher than this.
Only 319 cases have been confirmed in 24 other countries and territories outside mainland China.
The World Health Organization and Chinese health officials said one person has died in Hong Kong, with another in the Philippines.
Okay, so maybe we're going to take action to quarantine this.
Maybe we will stop the spread in its tracks because we're paying attention, right?
I'm sorry, I've got some more bad news, because never underestimate human ineptitude.
First U.S.
evacuee from China to have coronavirus mistakenly released from hospital.
And if what they're saying is true about the infection rate, it stands to reason this just made things extremely bad.
It's gone from worse to even worse.
It just keeps escalating.
So, please, I would rather we overreact to this than underreact, because this is a major screw-up.
And I think if we were taking it very, very seriously more than we are now, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
The Post reports, The first U.S.
evacuee from China confirmed to have the coronavirus was mistakenly released from a San Diego hospital as a result of a botched test result that showed he was not infected, according to reports.
The patient was evacuated last week on a flight from the epicenter city of Wuhan and taken to UC San Diego Health, where he was placed in isolation along with three others after showing possible symptoms of the virus.
After an initial test by the CDC showed they did not have the virus, they were released Sunday and returned to the 14-day federal quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, UC San Diego Health said in a statement Monday.
This morning, CDC officials advised San Diego County Public Health that further testing revealed that one of the four patients tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
They've given it a name now, they're calling it COVID.
The name now is COVID-19, so we can call it that.
They say, the confirmed positive patient was returned to UC San Diego Health for observation and isolation until cleared by the CDC for release, it added.
Another person at Miramar also was hospitalized Monday and was being tested for the coronavirus, bringing the total from Miramar quarantine to eight.
Both patients are doing well and have minimal symptoms, UCSD said.
I don't know, man.
I mean, this stuff is getting pretty worrying, but I gotta admit, it's also getting pretty tiring.
Is this going to be another overhyped, nonsensical illness?
I mean, it's already surpassed SARS.
And I can only say it for the billionth time.
Perhaps it doesn't matter whether it's gonna be the worst or it's gonna be not that big of a deal.
Perhaps it doesn't matter if it's isolated in China or spreading, we just need to take care of ourselves.
And if our quarantines are doing things wrong and letting people out, I kind of feel like it's pointless to a certain degree.
They're saying now, I don't know if you saw the segment I did yesterday, the incubation period can be 24 days, meaning people could be asymptomatic for weeks and they could get released and it doesn't matter.
Perhaps we can't track this like we thought we could.
I did an interview with a higher-up at the CDC several years ago, and the scary reality is, we don't think we can handle an epidemic or a pandemic.
We don't.
We think we can do certain things to protect certain people, and in certain circumstances we can mitigate the damage.
But most people, at least the ones I talked to, said, We can be prepared, but because we don't know the natures of the illness, because the illnesses can vary, there's only so much we can do in prevention.
And then it's made worse when mistakes are made.
You know, I can't understand why they would release someone from a quarantine, even if the test said you were fine, because of the incubation period being two weeks, with a 24-day incubation.
The university said in an email statement to the San Diego Union Tribune that the infected evacuee did not just stroll out of the hospital to head back to Miramar.
The patient left UC San Diego Health the same way they arrived, with all precautions taken.
The patient was wearing a mask per CDC instruction.
The federal marshals transported the patient while wearing protection.
It was unclear how long the patient was at the base before officials realized that the person's negative test result was actually positive.
The statement indicates the patient was discharged from the hospital Sunday and returned Monday, but specific times were not specified.
The San Diego case, the seventh in California, is the thirteenth to be confirmed in the U.S.
Eleven of those cases have been confirmed in people who recently traveled to Wuhan.
The other two are cases of person-to-person transmission.
By the end of Monday, 1016 had officially died of the coronavirus, and the infections grew to about 42,000.
Okay, man.
What we're learning, or what we think we know, is that it can be transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces.
That means skin contact, surface contact transmission.
There are concerns that it can enter the mucous membranes through your eyes, which means the masks might not do anything.
If they really do think it's this bad and it's gonna get to 60%, it is not helped by the fact that people aren't taking it seriously or that mistakes like this could even be possible.
I can't believe, you know...
One of the first things I said was, does it make sense to airlift U.S.
citizens out of a quarantined city?
This is what I'm worried about.
This is exactly the scenario I was concerned about.
The answer is, in my opinion, no.
I'm sorry, man.
I think we should be here for Americans, but maybe we shouldn't be airlifting you out of a quarantine, bringing you back here.
Because it opens the door for Murphy's Law.
What can go wrong will go wrong.
Do not create the opportunity.
Let people stay in Wuhan for at least, you know, until we know things have cleared up.
But perhaps, you know, I don't know.
I just don't understand why they would airlift people out.
We have two more stories here, and we're gonna give some praise to our men and women protecting our border.
six weeks after the outbreak that killed more than a thousand people.
That's basically the general news for this story.
We've got a name.
It is now called COVID.
You get it.
I mentioned it.
Fine.
But now we've got some good news.
If it matters, border agents seize bag of dead birds from passenger traveling from China.
Now, whatever this bag of dead birds is for, I have no idea.
I'm not entirely convinced that dead birds can transmit the coronavirus, or if it even matters they stopped it, but I can tell you this.
This story is getting a lot of play.
It may be overhyped.
Things like this may happen all the time, so take it with a grain of salt as per usual, but at least this makes me a little bit more confident that we've got some vigilance among our border guards.
If they're going to notice a product, even in packaging, that looks legit, and they're going to stop it, perhaps we can prevent the spread of the coronavirus, or at least mitigate the damage better than we can expect.
The Post reports A bag of dead birds was discovered by U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol inside a passenger's luggage who traveled from China to Washington, D.C., authorities said.
The dead birds were packaged in a bag that had cartooned images of a dog and a cat.
Okay, I gotta stop here.
I was wrong.
It seems that they think this is supposed to be cat food.
It looks sealed.
It looks like the top is even sealed.
But maybe this is an instance of someone putting the dead birds in a different bag.
They say the dead birds were packaged in a bag that had cartoon images of a dog and a cat.
U.S.
Customs said in a statement, workers from the agency seized the birds at Dulles Airport near D.C.
on January 27th from a passenger arriving from Beijing.
The passenger said the birds were cat food, and he was planning to bring them to Maryland after his flight.
The birds are not allowed into the United States out of fear they may spread avian flu.
So not even coronavirus, but hey!
That's what CBP is all about.
And don't forget that we've heard from AOC saying she wants to completely break up CBP and ICE.
The birds were destroyed by incineration, with approval from the USDA authorities said.
Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists continue to exercise extraordinary vigilance every day in their fight to protect our nation's agriculture and economic prosperity from invasive species and animal diseases, said Casey Durst, Director of Field Operations for the agency's Baltimore.
Field office.
This kind of stuff happens all the time, I would imagine.
So I don't want to pretend like this might be more important than literally any other day CBP catches and seizes something, and I think it's fair to say one of the only reasons the media is reporting it, considering it happened, what, like, two weeks ago, is that coronavirus has become substantially scary.
Or scarier.
So I can recognize that, but I can still say, hey, it looks like our men and women on the border are doing their job.
And you can see that they've probably seized things the media hasn't reported, which could be or are infected with coronavirus.
And so long as we have legitimate border protections, we can prevent these things.
This coronavirus scare is probably one of the best examples of why we need ICE and why we need CBP.
If the Democrats on the left stop, I should say the progressives far left, but yes, many of the Democrats are talking about reform too.
If they stopped hyper focusing on singular issues about say like refugees or downtrodden families and focus on the broader aspect of what these law enforcement agencies do, you would see that they go after smuggling People bringing in illicit products or invasive species.
Criminals trying to enter.
In this time, with the coronavirus, I'm grateful that we have border protections that can check for this and prevent people from bringing in a bag of dead birds.
Because who knows what else might happen?
There is a video going around claiming that a man was trying to spread the virus, that he spit on his hand and then wiped it on an elevator.
There are people who intentionally want to do these things, and we have seen people do these things in the past.
We need people to protect our borders, because I assure you, there are probably some people who know they're infected and want to sow chaos.
And we'll absolutely try and come here when they are.
If we have good border security, we can protect people from diseases.
But these arguments, these points, often are never brought up when it comes to these debates.
They only ever talk about putting kids in cages or some other extreme position.
I'm sorry, man.
We've got a serious crisis with the coronavirus.
And if they're really saying 60% of the population could get it, what we need right now is to redouble our efforts protecting our borders, and so should every other country.
Because we don't want this thing to get worse.
People will die.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 4 p.m.
at youtube.com slash timcast.
It is a different channel, and I will see you all there.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have just gotten a serious and legitimate contender for the Democratic primary in her district.
Dare I say, of all of the dozen or so people who are seeking to challenge her for her seat, this seems like The most legitimate claim, like somebody who might actually be able to win.
Now, I will admit, this is Michelle Caruso-Cabrera.
I don't know a whole lot about her.
I've read a little bit and I'll show you, but it looks really promising.
Like a moderate, sane individual with real-world experience might actually be taking on AOC.
Michelle Caruso Cabrera is a former CNBC anchor, meaning she's probably got decently high-profile friends who can help her with press and relations, and she's got a decent following on Twitter, and a lot of people in media do follow her.
This is not some fly-by-night candidate who popped out of the woodwork saying, I want to challenge AOC because everyone doesn't like her.
This is somebody who might actually win.
Let me read a little bit about the story, and I want to show you some of who this woman is.
Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don't.
But dare I say, I'd love to see a strong, sane, moderate, democratic alternative to the Republican Party, because we need competition in our political ideas.
AOC represents a far-fringe, kind of frantic and narcissistic personality that doesn't really represent a whole lot.
I don't even know what... It's like AOC kind of just flip-flops around all over the place with more and more extreme rhetoric.
But let me slow down.
Let's read a little bit about what's going on here, because this is breaking news.
Like 12 minutes ago, I'm seeing this.
CNBC reports.
Might I add CNBC reporting potential conflict of interest, but hey.
Former longtime CNBC correspondent and anchor Michelle Caruso Cabrera has launched a challenge in the Democratic primary against freshman firebrand rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Caruso Cabrera, who became a CNBC contributor when she left the network in September 2018, served as a member of the board of directors for financial services firm Beneficent.
She will take leave from her role as CNBC contributor for the duration of the campaign, a CNBC spokesperson said.
Okay, so that's literally them saying we're severing ties because she's going political.
According to a filing late Monday, she will run as a Democrat in that party's primary in the 14th district.
Caruso-Cabrera is known to be a skeptic of government and a proponent of free markets.
Heavens!
That's the Democrat going up against AOC, the overt Democratic Socialist who wants more government, a massive government... I'm sorry, hold on.
AOC both simultaneously claimed the Green New Deal would not be a massive government takeover and that, yes, it would.
Pick whichever one you think was honest.
But as most of us really do know, what she's calling for is a massive government takeover.
So here we have, I guess we should call an old-school, sane Democrat who doesn't think that's appropriate.
And, you know, you could have people on the left who don't believe in socialism.
Apparently this is the case.
In 2010, she published a book called, You Know I'm Right, More Prosperity, Less Government.
She has been a registered Democrat for several years.
You know, look, I'm making a bunch of assumptions about this lady.
But I watched her sizzle reel from CNBC and she was seemingly in some international conflict
situations as an international correspondent.
Immediately, I have tremendous respect for her.
I assume most people who have experienced combat, it's one of the reasons why I think
military service is very important for the president.
I think most people who have experienced this stuff are going to be hardened, steadfast,
they're less prone to panic and taking unnecessary risks.
They're going to be smarter and calmer.
So I see that I'm like, wait a minute.
You mean you're a moderate?
Maybe, maybe not a moderate, but more prosperity, less government?
I like how that sounds.
And you've got international experience, real world experience.
Oh, I like it.
Let's read more.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of working-class Italian and Cuban immigrants, Caruso Cabrera said in a statement.
I am so lucky to have had such a wonderful career, and I want everybody to have the opportunity that I've had.
That's why I'm running.
I like how that sounds.
Caruso Cabrera spent more than 20 years with CNBC, serving as a co-anchor for Power Lunch and as the network's chief international correspondent.
Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as one of the most influential voices on the American left, gaining national attention For her outspoken support for policies such as Medicare for All and her endorsement of Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders' run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
President Donald Trump has targeted her in tweets and speeches.
She stunned the Democratic mainstream when she beat Joe Crowley and then, you know, everything after that we get.
About a dozen candidates have already filed to run for the 14th district seat, which encompasses parts of the Bronx and Queens.
This is going to be one of the biggest and most important elections in the country.
It is ridiculous.
But this congressional seat, the desire from so many to remove Ocasio-Cortez from Congress, is kind of remarkable.
It's one congressional seat.
But you've got, what does it say, a dozen candidates running in this district.
Now you have Michelle.
So she, this is her website.
Not super familiar with her.
There's not a whole lot on her website.
She has an about section where she tells her stories.
You know, saying, after graduating from college, she worked at Univision, where she worked as a producer.
She's fluent in Spanish.
So all these things are interesting.
But I'll read a little bit more and then I'll show you something really fascinating.
Her book.
It looks like she might be a Reagan Democrat, which I find really fascinating.
So, actually, let me just do that.
So, her site doesn't have too much, but this is why I think she's a legitimate contender.
She is high-profile in the New York area with friends in journalism, which means— well, presumably she has friends in journalism, but that means that she has a real shot at getting press attention, and she's gonna be— look, I'm sorry, man.
If it comes to the point where Michelle Caruso-Cabrera is debating AOC, I believe she will mop the floor with Ocasio-Cortez.
Single-handedly.
This is someone with real international experience working as a journalist.
Now, not all journalists are these, you know, layabouts in New York City.
This woman, there's video, there's footage of her, like, putting on a gas mask in, like, what appears to be, like, the Middle East.
Immediately, I'm like, thank you.
Teach these children who had snowplow parents, who have never experienced hardship, what real leadership is.
Now, I'm jumping the gun, I know.
I don't know a whole lot about Michelle.
She doesn't have a lot of issues put up on her website yet.
But look at this book, and I think it speaks a bit to what her character is, and why I think this might actually work very, very well for people in New York.
This is on Amazon.
It's not a news story.
It says, You know I'm right.
More prosperity, less government.
The description reads, as the popular anchor of CNBC's daily news show Power Lunch, Michelle Caruso Cabrera puts a new spin on conservatism.
Now, in You Know I'm Right, Caruso Cabrera presents a modern and smart approach to correcting the economic woes of the nation.
Denouncing the hypocrites, she calls out the radicals on both sides of the spectrum who have frustrated voters and left fiscally conservative but socially liberal Americans feeling like a people without a party.
Dare I say, she sounds like the politically homeless.
I'm loving it!
Caruso Cabrera maintains that by focusing on socially invasive policies, our country has lost its course.
The answer is less government.
Not more.
Less spending.
Not more.
And getting the government to stay out of our pocketbooks and out of our private lives.
That sounds awfully libertarian.
Like, who disagrees, right?
You know I'm right, addresses the problems created by government overreach, and speaks to the minds and hearts of nostalgic Republicans, those who believe in the strategy and approach used by Ronald Reagan.
But it will also appeal to Clinton-era Democrats frustrated by the current level of exorbitant spending and excessive interference in the economy.
Citing faults with both political parties, here here, Caruso Cabrera puts a magnifying glass on government structure, healthcare and education, underscoring how we have gone wrong and more important, where we need to go for a secure and prosperous future.
Let's talk about the weird reality we're in.
I remember when there was this idea of the fiscally conservative, socially liberal types in terms of, like, the Democratic Party.
There was a concern over too much spending.
Many of those people would go and vote for Republicans, even though against their social issues, right?
We then saw there was kind of an, well, that was kind of it.
That was a very libertarian-esque kind of era a long time ago. I mean, this book I think is
from 2010, I believe. I don't know if it's up, but you had a lot of people who felt like the
Democrats were spending too much, but the Republicans, while they were saying we need smaller
government, spend less, they weren't as interested in freedom when it came to
individual rights.
Now this was mostly due to the party's more religious moral authoritarianism, but that was a while ago.
Things have started to change, notably with the Trump insurrection.
You now have high-profile, more libertarian religious people who, like Ben Shapiro says, he takes a libertarian approach to his religion.
It's very, very different to the kind of moral grandstanding we saw in the 90s and 2000s.
So there were a lot of people who felt we shouldn't be demanding socialist remedies to these problems, but we did want to see certain civil rights.
Now it seems like we have people on the left who are advocating for civil rights but are overt socialists.
And it's not even about civil rights anymore.
They've taken it way off the edge.
You now have a lot of these socially liberal, fiscally conservative individuals more in line with Trump, even though the debt is going up under Trump.
I think, you know, I did a podcast the other day with Jack Murphy and he mentioned something really important about what made it easy for him to join the Republican Party was that many key social issues came off the table when Republicans started agreeing with certain things like, you know, pot legalization or same-sex marriage issues.
Now, all of a sudden, I don't know exactly what Michelle Caruso-Cabrera wants to do or plans to do or what her policies are.
It seems like she's going to be at least better than AOC, but it also seems like she's got around 71,000 followers on Twitter.
She's got connections, and so I think she'll be able to actually compete with the powerful media message that AOC is going to push, having millions of followers.
We will see what the people of New York decide.
But I will tell you this.
In my opinion, AOC has been a grandstander, a narcissistic, arrogant individual who is more interested in her celebrity than she actually is in doing the right thing.
I think she's young and naive, but she is very, very popular.
I think she flip-flops.
I'd like to see a sane, rational center, or center-left liberals.
You know, actually bringing up real reasons, you know, real issues to combat, say, like, the Republican Party.
I disagree with you, here's what I propose.
The problem is right now, the Democrats don't do that.
They don't actually offer up what they think would be a better alternative to what a lot of the Republicans offer, so instead we get orange man bad.
If she can stay off the orange man bad path and actually talk about what she plans to do in terms of moderate policy and helping, you know, New York City and her district get jobs, I think she can win.
Especially considering she's got a following.
We'll see what happens.
71,000 followers is nothing compared to AOC's 6 million, but I think this might be a real contender.
And keep in mind, this is a primary battle.
Very few people will turn out.
So we'll see.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up in a few minutes and I will see you all shortly.
Democrats are making one of the biggest mistakes they could ever make by excising pro-life individuals from their party.
But as the purity tests continue, and they increasingly cater to the woke Twitterati, they embrace more and more radical positions and excise their own base.
What's really funny about all this is I've talked about in more nebulous terms that it feels like moderate Democrat types are being forced out of the party.
Now we know for a fact it's true.
Bernie Sanders said at an event recently that there's no future for pro-lifers in the Democratic Party, saying being pro-choice is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat.
Bernie Sanders just said to the majority of Democrats, the majority, you are not welcome here.
Now, hold on.
I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but let me explain.
It's complicated.
Here's a poll from Gallup.
Democrats view on legality of abortion 1975 to 2019.
And you'll find something truly fascinating right here.
In 2019, the amount of Democrats that believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances increased to 14%.
The amount of Democrats who believe that abortion should only be legal under certain circumstances increased to 45%.
And the amount of Democrats who feel that abortion should be completely legal for any reason dropped to 39.
That means 59% of Democrats want at least some regulation or restriction on abortion.
But what have we been seeing in like Virginia, for instance?
Third trimester, late term, removing restrictions, no longer needing multiple doctors, doesn't have to be performed in a hospital.
And then you had that shocking back and forth between a woman named, I believe, Kelly Tran, who said that, when asked, when could you perform an abortion if it would affect the health of the mother?
What if the mother's about to give birth?
She said, there's no limit.
Now, you'll go to Snopes and you'll go to these fact check sites and they'll say it's all not true.
But it is.
It wasn't a blanket you can abort whatever whenever, but it was thin enough to remove tons of restrictions.
And that means in the Democratic Party, at the very least, 14% have been told GTFO by not just Bernie, but also Buttigieg.
Now, Buttigieg definitely gave a way better answer than Bernie Sanders.
But I want you to seriously look at this poll.
I hope.
If you're a liberal, if you're someone on the left, you recognize the sheer absurdity of where they're going with these abortion provisions.
Tulsi Gabbard said we should have some restrictions and she got attacked in the media for it.
These people have lost the plot.
Keep in mind that 14%, it's the most important.
We can argue that in the 45% who want some restrictions, it could vary widely between, you know, third trimester, who knows, with some restrictions.
We just don't know.
We don't know exactly.
But I can say this.
Bernie Sanders, while trying to, I guess, pander to the woke Twitterati, basically told pro-life Democrats, we don't want your vote, we don't need your vote, you must be pro-choice.
Well, where do you think these people are going to go?
Because pro-life is a serious, serious moral issue.
And that's why someone like me, I'm able to sit down with Glenn Beck, and we talked about this, and I said, look, I'm pro-choice, but I'm willing to concede I don't have the moral authority to dictate how everything should be.
It's called a republic.
We have representatives, we have democratic institutions, and that means your voice is weighed the same as mine.
Now, we do have a problem with campaign finance.
Rich people can just dump money however they want, and that gives them disproportionate power.
This is a long-standing problem, for sure.
But when it comes to the moral opinions, I'm no better or worse than Glenn Beck.
Now, you might disagree with me, and that's fair.
And that means we have to work together because we're in this system.
In the end, if you can muster up more votes than I do, I lose everything.
Which is why concession in some fields is important to make sure the pro-life Democrats Don't leave.
And they will, especially when Bernie says something like this.
Let's read the story from The Blaze.
Oh, interestingly, I mentioned Glenn Beck.
This is his outlet.
They report...
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders doesn't see a future for people who believe in protecting the rights of the unborn in his vision of the Democratic Party.
At a presidential candidate forum in New Hampshire on Saturday, Sanders was asked, is there such a thing as a pro-life Democrat in your vision of the party?
Sanders responded in the negative, saying, I think being pro-choice is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat.
If you're asking me, to applause and cheers from the audience, this is because they are catering to the woke Twitterati.
I know many boomer Democrats.
I know many people, Gen X Democrats.
Unfortunately, they're not paying attention.
At least some of them aren't.
And when I ask them about this, they tell me I'm a liar.
It's not true what happened in Virginia, they say.
Snopes told them it was false.
So I actually sent the Virginia bill which states abortions can be performed, it removes the restriction that abortions be performed in a hospital.
Where would you then have them performed?
You're not proposing restrictions, you're removing them.
You can say some kind of facility, I guess, nope.
Gone.
It also says that it removes the restrictions for any reason.
But they do say, so long as it would impact the health, mental or physical of the woman.
And that's where things start getting muddy.
NewsGuard, which I often use, was critical of the Daily Wire for saying this bill would essentially allow them to perform abortions for any reason.
But that's just hyperbole.
It's technically the case.
I understand there are some restrictions, but think about how lax that is.
The woman might have her mental health impaired, so you take a baby at the point of birth and kill it?
Like, there's a line, man.
There's an absolute line.
But these people don't know because they don't watch the news, so I send them this bill and they're shocked.
I mean this literally.
I was talking to a friend and I sent this to them and they said, oh my god, I didn't realize.
It's right.
Because right now so many Democrats think pro-choice means nothing after, you know, nothing in the third trimester and only the second trimester with like extreme conditions or certain conditions.
No.
They were moving the conditions and they're saying third trimester up into the point of birth.
In fact, Ralph Northam actually talked about delivering the baby for some reason.
I don't know what his deal was, but that was weird and it literally happened.
He was asked about abortion and he said the baby would be delivered, resuscitated, and then the mother and the doctor would have a discussion about what to do next.
What was he trying to imply?
That kind of talk is shocking to many Democrats.
And so I think there's gonna be a ton of people who have no choice but to say there's a hard line for me and this is it.
They want the social justice issues.
They want the social policy issues.
But they don't stand for what this is.
Bernie says, I think being pro-choice is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat, if you're asking me to applause and cheers.
And I may be wrong on this.
I think in the Senate, probably 95% of the Democrats are pro-choice.
But you have a few who are not.
Sanders continued adding that there is maybe even a higher percentage of pro-abortion Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Pro-choice.
I understand the Blaze is conservative, so they're gonna, you know, frame their language.
I don't think you need to do this.
In fact, I think the Blaze would be better off just quoting Bernie verbatim and showing the Gallup poll to say, we don't need to call them pro-abortion.
We don't need to say that they're all about killing babies.
I understand that is a legitimate perspective held by the right.
Even Louis C.K.
talked about it.
He said, that would freak me out too.
Use their language.
Explain to them in their terms.
And then talk about how they are sacrificing their own political party.
I don't think they care though.
He says, so that's kind of what my view is.
I think by this time in history, I think when we talk about what a Democrat is, I think being pro-choice is essentially an essential part of that.
Princeton University professor Robert George took to Twitter to condemn Sanders' remarks as officially excommunicating pro-life Democrats.
He added, So if you're pro-life, you're unacceptable, unwanted, and intruder.
Time to go elsewhere.
I don't think we need to even be that hyperbolic.
But if you're going around saying, vote blue no matter who, by the way, the no matter who is all about third trimester abortion and has no interest in compromising with you, Well, do you think they would really consider what you're asking?
Pete Buttigieg was confronted by a pro-life Democrat, and she wrote this op-ed.
I'm the pro-life Democrat who confronted Pete Buttigieg.
He's pushing out valuable voters.
I support all the major Democratic causes of our day, but my party won't tolerate any dissent on abortion, and it is driving away voters like me.
Pete Buttigieg gave a pretty good response.
I know a lot of people ragged on him for it, but he said something like, I know we disagree, but I know that you're looking for someone smart to make the decision and I hope you'll trust me to do it.
Okay, that was a good answer.
And I think it's fair to say, I won't trust you to do it if you're pro-life.
But what I do respect about what he said was, I'm not gonna pretend.
I'm not gonna try and trick you into getting your vote.
I'm pro-choice.
I thought that was great because I feel the same way.
I would never go to someone who's pro-life and say, I'm pro-choice, or try and trick them into taking their support so I can turn around and do something totally opposite to what they're looking for.
Nope.
I will tell you this straight up.
Here's what I believe in.
If you disagree, please do not vote for me.
I in no way want to take your support and do anything you would oppose.
If you think you agree with at least enough of this to support me, know that I will do these other things.
But straight up, don't vote for me if you don't like what I'm proposing.
It's not a matter of disrespect.
I won't take it personally.
In fact, I take it very much as a sign of respect.
When you say, I humbly disagree, and I will give my support elsewhere, that's what makes the system work.
So it was respectful, I think, for Pete Buttigieg to say this.
But in the end, all that matters is the only person I've seen who's actually been willing to talk about compromise is Tulsi Gabbard.
I think she's the only one who's been smart about actually reading the signs and looking at what's going on.
Did any of these Democrats look at the polls?
You just lost 14% of your voters and potentially risked another 45.
This is why Trump wins.
I don't know what the solution is.
I never do.
And I say that a lot.
But I can tell you this.
You can't just assume it's your way or the highway if you expect to win.
Because you've got people on the Republican side who are pro-choice.
I mean, there was Bob Hugin in New Jersey.
He was a fairly moderate Republican candidate.
He wasn't excised from the party.
Yet Jeff Vandrieu just become a Democrat.
They welcomed him with a handshake and an endorsement.
On the other side, they're basically saying, get out.
Stick around, one more segment coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Roger Stone has been a major trend on Twitter all day because, for one, the Department of Justice was seeking nine years in prison in his charges for a sentence, and then Donald Trump called it a miscarriage.
What did he call it specifically?
It is a horrible and unfair situation.
The real crimes were on the other side as nothing happens to them.
Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice, he called it.
I was curious if Donald Trump would actually intervene to help Roger Stone considering, you know, I don't want to say they're friends, I don't want to play any games, but considering, you know, Roger Stone's a very pro-Trump guy and he's part of those circles, but I didn't think he would do it so soon.
My assumption would be that Trump would absolutely pardon a ton of people the moment he gets re-elected.
I don't think he's gonna let any of his faithful supporters rot in prison, especially when some of these charges are ridiculous.
Like, if you've been following stuff with Michael Flynn, it's absurd.
Apparently, they argued that because he slightly said something kind of wrong, it was lying.
And then we learned from his lawyers, whether it's true or not, the documents, their argument is, they altered essentially what was said in notes later on, so that they could claim he lied to them.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
And this is what I talk about when I warn people of a potential for civil war.
When they're going after General Flynn, Okay, you can see the chaos within our own government.
That's scary.
But now here's the breaking news.
Donald Trump inadvertently, maybe on purpose, but he passively intervened in this case.
I mean, Trump runs the executive branch.
He can pardon or commute sentences.
He didn't.
I think it would be bad for his re-election, but he's probably going to win regardless.
But now here's the story.
Department of Justice abandons call to jail Roger Stone for nine years after Donald Trump slams demand as miscarriage of justice.
The Daily Mail reports, The DOJ is to walk away from its demand to jail Roger Stone for up to nine years in a move announced Tuesday, hours after Donald Trump slammed it on Twitter as a miscarriage of justice.
Leaders at the department I believe it.
I do.
led by Attorney General Bill Barr, found it extreme and excessive and disproportionate
to Stone's offenses, one official said.
The walkback will inevitably be painted as designed to fall in line with Trump's demands.
But one official told Fox News the decision had been made before Trump's Twitter rant.
I believe it.
I do.
Listen, it's because of Trump's Twitter rant, but it's because they could predict it.
OK.
I think there were some journalists... The original tweet was from Chuck Ross.
prosecutors recommend up to nine years in prison for Roger Stone.
They call foreign election interference a deadly adversary, even though Stone was never accused of working with
Russians or WikiLeaks.
Naturally, the DOJ probably knew when the story got out, it was going to get really bad and they were going to face
political flak.
They probably recognized the charges or the sentence was a bit excessive and decided to walk things back.
And then Trump tweeted about it.
They probably knew Trump would tweet about it because Trump does this.
Now I don't want to I don't want to speculate.
They're saying right now, they made the decision beforehand.
I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.
I don't typically trust the government, but I'm not also going to pretend that Trump wouldn't just say, don't do this.
Like if they really wanted to claim that Trump did it, they probably would.
However, I do believe it's a bit fair to say there is a decent probabilities chance that Trump, behind the scenes, wiggled his finger and they said, we'll get on it.
We'll see.
Or, at the very least, they knew Trump would do that and they said, don't make him angry because he can intervene.
They say, they did not explain why the reversal had not been announced until after the tweet.
The DOJ has not said what sentence it will now seek.
Veteran Dirty Trickster Stone is due to face sentencing by U.S.
District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on February 20th after a jury in November found him guilty on seven counts of lying to Congress, obstruction, and witness tampering.
Trump had tweeted in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
This is a horrible and very unfair situation.
The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happened to them.
Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice.
And they have a bunch of photos of, you know, Roger Stone.
Prosecutors will now have to ask the judge for permission to abandon their initial recommendation and submit a new one.
She could refuse and can also ignore either recommendation in any case.
Now that bit of information says to me, I think Trump intervened.
I think Trump deliberately intervened.
If he tweeted about it, it's possible he was really angry behind the scenes.
Some people heard and said, like, don't do this to Roger Stone.
I'm not here to praise or defend Roger Stone.
Not at all.
But, you know, if they're gonna legitimately argue the sentence is excessive, I'm not gonna tell you.
Look, man, I'm not a legal expert.
I just don't know.
Quote, We look forward to reviewing the government's supplemental filing, Stone's lawyer Grant Smith said in an email to Reuters.
Stone is one of several people close to Trump who faced charges stemming from then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Which was bunk.
Should never have happened.
Was based on false FISA warrants.
And I gotta say right now, you know what I'm kinda thinking?
You don't gotta like Roger Stone.
In fact, I don't know a whole lot about the guy.
But if this is why he's facing these charges... I'm sorry, man.
The Mueller investigation was bunk.
I get it.
Regardless of why they did the investigation, if you commit the crimes after the fact, you're gonna get in trouble, but... I don't know, man.
I really don't like the idea that a lot of people are in prison because of a fake investigation.
The FISA warrants were bad.
Trump has the power to pardon people for federal crimes, although he has yet to use it in the cases of other former aides convicted in the wake of the Mueller investigations.
His tweet... So, actually, let me stop.
Like, the Manafort stuff, like, he was actually money laundering and, like, serious crimes going back a long time, that makes sense.
But, like, getting someone for lying or obstruction or whatever, for telling another person to plead the fifth, I think is... It's kind of scary, considering that the investigation was bunk in the first place.
His tweet hinted he could use that power, or his power to commute sentences, if Stone were to get the level of custody demanded by prosecutors.
That could be why they decided to reduce the amount before Trump tweeted.
Because they knew Trump would simply negate the whole thing.
And if they want Stone to actually do prison time, it's gotta be low enough to where Trump says, Fine.
Roger, it's gonna be a year or two.
If they go for nine, Trump's gonna come out right away and be like, whoop, gone.
So if they want something, they gotta concede.
Stone's own defense had asked for probation.
During the trial, prosecutors pressed their case that Stone lied to lawmakers about his outreach to WikiLeaks, the website that disclosed many hacked Democratic emails ahead of the 2016 U.S.
election that proved embarrassing to Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, to protect Trump from looking bad.
Stone, who has labeled himself an agent provocateur and has the face of former President Richard Nixon tattooed on his back, Wow.
Was charged with obstructing justice, witness tampering, and lying to the U.S.
House of Representatives Intelligence Committee during its investigation into Russian election interference.
Stone's colorful trial featured references to the film The Godfather Part 2, an impression of Senator Bernie Sanders by prosecution witness Randy Credico and testimony by political heavyweights including former Trump campaign chief executive Steve Bannon and former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates.
Those witnesses said they believed Stone had inside information about when WikiLeaks might release more damaging emails about Clinton.
In truth, he had no such information.
Stone was also accused of tampering with Credico's testimony, when Credico was summoned to testify before Congress and speak with the FBI.
In emails and texts, Stone told Credico, among other things, prepare to die, you're a rat, a stoolie, and Stone wallet.
Don't play games. Don't play games, the feds, and if people are bad at what they're doing,
I don't know what to tell you, man.
You plead the fifth, you call your lawyer, and this is what you're supposed to do.
Man, Roger Stone has danced on the razor's edge.
Do I think nine years?
Honestly, it worries me because we know the Mueller investigation was nonsense.
That's what worries me.
But there's a part of me that says, At what point do we say he did, you know, try and tell this dude, prepare to die?
Like, come on, man.
So here's what they say.
The six Trump associates to be convicted in the Mueller probe.
And I'm just going to read you the Roger Stone one.
They say, convicted in November 2019 on seven counts, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, lying to Congress, about WikiLeaks.
Due for sentencing on February 20th and faces between seven and nine years.
Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigation long before the January 2019 indictment.
Thanks in part to his public pronouncements, as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeaks.
And my understanding is, the dude was lying!
The dude was lying.
In campaign texts and emails, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.
According to the federal indictment, Stone gave false and misleading testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks.
He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails.
Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a rat and threatened to take that dog away from you, in reference to Credico's therapy dog, Bianca.
Stone warned him, let's get it on, prepare to die.
And that's where Stone literally crossed the line.
Now, I don't trust this whole system.
Like, this is freaky stuff.
Like with Flynn, you know what I mean?
The FISA warrants being bad, that's scary.
FISA abuse may undermine all of these cases.
Alright, but I will always concede when someone says something dumb and crosses the line.
A lot of people have done it.
So that I could understand.
They're trying now.
You know, I don't know where the line is drawn, but I'll leave it there.
I'm willing to bet, regardless of what happens, Donald Trump is going to issue a bunch of pardons as soon as he can, but not before he's reelected.
