Elon Musk and Letitia James clash as Musk sues the AG over X's content moderation, citing a Ninth Circuit victory against California. The report highlights federalization of the National Guard under Title 10 U.S. Code 12406 and criticizes New York's $50 million immigration legal spending. A half-billion dollar USAID bribery scandal involving Roderick Watson is exposed alongside Walmart's stock drop over Christy Walton's "No Kings Day" ads. Speculation turns to Michelle Obama's alleged marital strife with Barack, her potential political ambitions, and a new piano replacing one from the host's New Hampshire childhood home that shaped his ideology. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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First Amendment Violations00:14:03
And it's happening.
We're live.
We're live, everyone.
Great to have you here because we got some, wow, rather big stories going on.
I mean, Elon is not messing around.
He's targeting Letitia James right now.
So this is going to get interesting, right?
We got that story happening.
Meanwhile, Walmart's still under pressure, picking up a little bit today, but that boycott thing's still ongoing.
USAID money.
You know how much we're spending in USAID money.
Well, it now seems that four individuals are pleading guilty.
To some fraudulent stuff going on there.
Oh, and we have here's a headline for you.
The Obamas aren't really working out.
No, not doing so well.
Welcome back to the show, everyone.
I'm Trish Regan.
As you can see, we are on the road.
I'm visiting my family up in a good old liver free die state, live free or die New Hampshire.
So bear with me on the technical challenges.
I may occasionally have to get really, really close to the camera.
But, you know, we're here and that's what counts, right?
Welcome to the program.
We want to get straight to this news coming to us about Elon Musk and one Letitia James, because this is kind of a big deal, guys.
He's saying that she is effectively infringing not only on his rights, right, as a share, as a company itself, X, but on his freedom of speech.
So it seems that this has actually already been decided in the Ninth Circuit Appellate Court, which, by the way, also has a ruling I'm going to get to a little bit later in the program that is in defense of Trump.
And using the National Guard or federalizing the National Guard there in California.
We will talk about that because it is now official.
They're siding with him.
But in this particular situation regarding Elon Musk and Letitia James, she's trying to say that she wants a series of rules put in place so as to make sure that X does not have any disinformation, misinformation, et cetera, on it.
He's going back at her and saying, look, this is a total violation of the First Amendment, and you can't weasel your way in between the company and the individuals and you as a state.
And it kind of reminds me of her going in, remember with Deutsche Bank, and she was like, I'm gonna muscle my way in between this private transaction that's going on between an individual and a bank, an institution.
And we know how that went, right?
Well, I mean, so far, so good for her, but I have a feeling that's gonna be flipped around pretty significantly.
And that $500 million fine that she's hit Donald Trump with is gonna go away.
As for what's going on in New York, this is a big deal because it's actually already been decided in the Ninth Circuit, in the appellate court out in California, where Elon sued out there.
Already last fall, and said, Look, you know, you guys are a total violation of the First Amendment.
And the Ninth Circuit Court, which is pretty liberal, ladies and gentlemen, said, Yes, you know what, Elon, you're right.
And as a result of that, the state had to say, we're going to back away.
They wanted like quarterly assessments of whatever was going on for misinformation, disinformation, et cetera.
And he's making the point that they're a private company, they can do what they want.
So, once again, Letitia James misusing taxpayer dollars.
Again, this has been decided, it's already been decided at the Ninth Circuit, at the federal level.
So, what does she want to do?
Take it all the way to the Supreme Court?
I'm telling you, you're going to get the exact same decision because we have that little thing called the First Amendment.
You know, she doesn't seem to get.
That, right?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.
Okay, that's the key line there.
First Amendment.
Letitia James, didn't you go to law school?
Some law school somewhere?
You know, this woman is so rabidly political.
That's all she cares about is politics, politics, politics.
And, you know, good for Elon for standing up to her.
Somebody's got to, for goodness' sake.
So here's the story breaking on AP Musk's.
Ex sues New York over requirements on how they're going to handle these quote unquote problematic disinformation, misinformation posts there on social media.
You know, Letitia wants them to take it all down.
And he's saying, Hang on, hang on, hang on.
I am a private company.
I can make these decisions myself.
I don't need the state of New York in there deciding what can go and what can't go because that would act as a damper on one's freedom of speech.
And again, I want to point out it's already been decided.
Ninth Circuit already made the decision on this.
New York.
X says the lawyers from X and for Elon say is improperly trying to inject itself into the content moderation editorial process.
They want to have these politically charged disclosures.
And basically, it's the state's way of trying to generate public controversy about content monetization in a way that would put a lot of pressure on social media companies such as X, he's saying.
And you know what?
He's right.
He's right.
And I'm telling you, it's going to go down in this one.
Just like California went down in this exact case.
I mean, the exact same thing was put forward.
To the panel of judges.
And so it's already been decided.
But Letitia, once again, hungry for attention, once again, trying to misuse everyone's money, is trying to bring this forward now.
And he's saying, look, you're interfering in private business.
And most importantly, you are violating free speech.
You are violating the First Amendment.
And so you're not going to get anywhere with this.
Again, to just point out that this went forward last fall and it was a federal appellate team of judges that blocked portions of that California law.
You know, at least for now, and they're saying it's all on free speech.
It's on the First Amendment.
And so, consequently, the state had to agree that they weren't going to get in there and try and do all this content moderation reporting.
In other words, it is up to the individual platform.
And this is something, again, that Elon was all over back last fall when Democrats were saying, hey, listen, we need to win.
So, we need to control speech.
This was Elon Musk's tweet that he put out, quoting John Kerry.
I mean, it's wild.
So, John Kerry said, If Democrats win, we can change the First Amendment to fight disinformation.
Our First Amendment, actually, this was the actual quote when it came from Daily Wire News that was reporting on it.
They said, Our First Amendment stands as a major block.
I mean, they're all like, Gosh, darn it, that darn First Amendment.
Like, why do we have to have that, right?
Oh, Kerry wasn't the only one.
I mean, you heard them all over.
There was like a chorus of people.
Actually, they've even got songs that they've made up.
We don't have to listen to those, but they're really bad and they don't sing in tune.
All the Democrats.
With other silly songs about Elon and Doge and Trump, et cetera.
But, you know, they don't seem to grasp this very, very basic thing that is the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
And so he wrote at the time the Democrat Party is openly stating that they want to change the Constitution to end free speech.
And I got to tell you, you know what?
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, she was out almost as though she was anticipating this entire lawsuit between Letitia and Elon this week, stating the following Listen very closely, guys, because.
What Kerry was saying or Elon Musk was insinuating back last fall doesn't sound a whole lot different from one AOC here this week.
You know, I do think that several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is a part of what happened here.
And we're going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can't just.
Spew disinformation and misinformation.
It's one thing to have differing opinions, but it's another thing entirely to just say things that are false.
And so that's something that we're looking into.
Yeah, you know, you keep looking into it.
I'm going to go back to this.
Okay, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.
Okay, guys, so like you just don't seem to get it.
You just don't get it.
So, you know, what do you classify as misinformation or disinformation?
I do recall there was a time when it was misinformation and disinformation to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop, right?
The Hunter Biden laptop that actually belonged to Hunter, which, if you listen to those in charge, didn't.
It was just misinformation and disinformation to say anything like that, right?
That's why we went through everything that we went through with the New York Post, oldest newspaper in the country.
We're going all the way back to Alexander Hamilton losing its Twitter account.
Which was then Twitter, and Elon saying, Well, this is crazy.
He stepped in, he bought X, et cetera.
The rest is history.
But in other words, if AOC is out there saying, Well, I'm not going to allow this misinformation, disinformation, well, who is she to decide that?
Because sometimes, you know, getting to the truth is kind of ugly, as we found with the Hunter Biden laptop, which turned out to be indeed his, despite the fact that you had 51 ex spooks saying otherwise.
And thus, you can't live in a world where people can't express themselves freely.
You can't live in a world where the New York AG like Letitia James is going to come in and muscle her way in and say, Elon, I want to know, how did you verify this or that or this or that?
He's like, okay, you're going too far.
This is a private company.
You can't actually interfere with this.
And you know what?
He's right.
And this has already been decided.
Okay.
Why are we going back and going through all this old territory?
Because Letitia wants her moment in the sun.
For goodness sakes, she makes you want to puke.
And you want me to sit in my seat and stand idly by and allow this craziness to happen?
You can come after me if you want.
But you elected me to stand up.
You elected me to use the law.
You elected me to go to court.
You elected me to continue to challenge this administration.
You elected me to stand up for the least of God's children.
You elected me to continue fighting on.
And I will fight on.
You keep fighting and fighting and fighting and using our money to do all these fights of yours.
Why?
Because you want to be on some kind of national platform.
I think this woman has very big political ambitions, serious political ambitions.
But I think they will be thwarted because, one, I believe that that case, the Deutsche Bank case, is an unbelievable example of her extending and overusing her power.
Something that came up in the appellate court discussion with the lawyer, Judith Vail, who was representing Leticia James, because you see, once it gets to the appellate, Court, they try and get smarter people in there, the less political people.
So she's arguing this case, poor woman.
Like, good luck arguing that thing.
I guarantee you that court is going to turn that whole thing around.
What they may actually have to put forward are some restraints on the use of an attorney general's power in the state of New York because she was just off the reservation, for goodness sakes.
And meanwhile, you got this one going on as well, which is her trying to say, okay, I want this, this, and this from Elon because I want to make sure that he's not pushing forward what I consider to be misinformation and disinformation.
What you, Letitia, consider.
Okay, well, we know what you're going to consider, right?
Because you got your little political agenda.
And that's where the court is going to have to step in.
Once again, a waste of time and resources.
It's already been decided in the Ninth Circuit, but she wants her moment in the sun.
So here we are.
Speaking of the Ninth Circuit, you know, there's a lot of things that have been decided in the Ninth Circuit.
Have there not?
Don't forget, we had the situation most recently out in California where Gavin Newsom tried to say, no, Donald Trump, you cannot, you cannot, under any circumstances, Take over or federalize the actual National Guard.
And he said, You know what?
I can.
And the law is on my side.
And guess what?
The Ninth Circuit coming out just moments ago.
This news just crossing and officially, officially, ladies and gentlemen, deciding and siding with the Trump administration and the legal team on that one.
So just out, the appeals court, you should know, in the Ninth Circuit, liberal Ninth Circuit in California, making the decision that indeed the President of the United States can federalize.
Federalize the National Guard in a situation like California where they are not actually trying to follow through with the law.
They're not actually putting forward the law.
So, this was, I told you this was going to happen.
Did I not?
We were talking about this all week.
I said, Watch, watch, watch.
Here it is the power to call up the National Guard.
Title 10, U.S. Code 12406.
The federal statute allows for the president of the United States to call into federal service members and units of the National Guard in such numbers as he considers necessary to execute the laws in the United States.
Okay, you got laws.
In the United States of America, one of the laws happens to be whether you like it or not that the federal government does have jurisdiction over who is in this country.
Now, here I am in live free or die New Hampshire, okay?
Live free or die country.
I'm a big believer in states' rights, and states have a lot of autonomy, and that's built into the Constitution.
But there are certain things where the federal government does actually have a lot of power.
And the one thing, perhaps the only thing, they really, really have the federal power in is on the borders and naturalization and who's in this country.
So this is one that they're actually gonna lose all day long in that Congress makes a decision.
About who's here in the country, who can be in the country.
And then the federal government's job again is to carry through on the law.
And so if you have a state that is deliberately resisting this, where does that leave you?
I mean, if you're going to be the United States of America, right?
Where's Alexander Hamilton when we need him?
We need some federalism here in the works.
And this is what we're now seeing.
So the Ninth Circuit, which is historically very liberal, coming through and saying just moments ago here, making the decision that at least temporarily, guess who has the power to call up the National Guard in the state of California?
Federalism and Judicial Warrants00:09:00
It is one Donald Trump, and one would have to assume that that extends to New York.
So, Letitia James, good luck on that one.
I realize, you know, the states don't like it.
And to be fair, the states are trying to say, look, you know, it's supposed to go through the state.
Yes, it's supposed to go through the state, but it can't always go through the state if the state is actually there in opposition, in opposition to the system, in opposition to the actual law.
And thus, that is where we find ourselves right now, where you have states.
Like the state of New York, like the state of California, that have a different view on this.
And until they actually change the law, it is what it is.
Barack Obama notoriously said this.
We played this sound the other day.
He actually came out and said, Look, this is the law, and I have to enforce the law.
And he was deporting 1,000 people a day because he was enforcing the law.
And if a state is choosing not to enforce the law, you can go all the way back to 1962, George Wallace, Alabama.
All right, you're not going to integrate your schools.
Guess what?
We're going to put the federal government in there to make sure that the job gets done.
And in that case, they did federalize the National Guard.
So, there is precedent for this.
It has happened before.
And in this time that we're now living, it's happening again.
So, again, just breaking today, I want to announce that we expected this to come.
We've been talking about this all week.
We had seen sort of inklings along the way.
If you listen to the hearings that were going on on Tuesday, we talked about this how clearly the court was leaning towards allowing for the federalization of the National Guard.
And as much as Gavin Newsom would like to believe he can kick out Trump and not have this go down, At least as it stands now, that's what's happening.
And so New York is understandably freaking out as well.
Letitia James, not too happy about this one because Letitia is now going to be looking at the feds moving in on New York as well.
He's already made that clear.
New York is on the list, Chicago is on the list, and LA, of course, already we know is on the list.
And we've seen this as recently as this week.
You had Brad Lander, the comptroller there from New York City, trying to get in the way of federal law enforcement, trying to do their job.
And guess what?
They put him in cuffs, you know.
You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant.
Where are you taking him?
Hello.
Hi, I'm the controller's prosecutor.
Where are you taking the controller of the city of New York?
I'm not obstructing, I'm standing right here in the hallway.
I asked to see the judicial warrant.
By asking for a judicial warrant?
You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens.
Ask me for a judicial warrant.
We go to, sorry.
No way.
I'm safe.
Where are you taking him?
Hello?
Hi, I'm the comptroller's class secretary.
Where are you taking the comptroller of the city of New York?
And with what authority?
You're saying where are you?
taking them?
And they're just getting them out of the way.
Right?
And it looks like this may wind up in the courts as well.
But ultimately.
Number one right here, right?
Thank you.
Ultimately, what you're going to see is the same thing here.
And that is that New York, if it's not going to enforce the federal law, is going to have to cede that authority to the federal government.
Same as we saw there with the Ninth Circuit making the decision.
In California.
Elise Stefanik, meanwhile, very upset because taxpayer dollars are now being put forward to handle the legal fees of migrants.
This has been a big issue this week because Kathy Hochul is very, very upset.
She's the governor of New York, that basically you're living in an environment where the state does not have the same kind of power from a sanctuary perspective.
Here she is with what I believe is going to be a career ending move, talking about the issue this week.
Do you want to know what I really think?
Please.
It's bull.
How dare they take an elected official who's been going down there for weeks to escort people who are afraid to walk into a courthouse in the United States of America?
So Brad Lander has stepped up to be a guiding help for them.
And this is what happens to them.
What the hell is happening to this country?
I just left Little Haiti.
People are being traumatized.
Small businesses, people walking down the street.
When I was there in August, the streets were mobbed.
People were walking down the sidewalks.
There were vendors everywhere.
The traffic was crowded.
Today, there was silence.
People are living in fear.
One woman just told me the ICE agents are going in and out of buildings there.
So, part of this is related to the Supreme Court allowing for the Trump administration to strike down the law or the allowance of 532,000 people from the likes of Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela to come to this country.
Biden had allowed for all these people, 532,000, to come in.
Some of them may have been in New York or other sanctuary cities.
And all of a sudden now they no longer have that legal status to be here.
And so ICE is making the decision that one, if you are here illegally and two, if you've committed a crime, that you are then subject to arrest.
And this is where you're seeing this divide, right, between what the state wants and what the federal government wants.
And that's when it's going to get back to all of these laws.
Again, when you look at the federalization of the National Guard.
One can expect that that is also going to happen in New York.
And so Kathy Holkle and Letitia James, they're preparing for it with Kathy saying she's putting $50 million towards the legal fees.
Don't forget, the Democrats were allocating, what was it, $10 million just towards Letitia's legal fees because of her mortgage fraud situation, her own personal doing that she's in that mess.
Anyway, they're throwing money around to try and address these legal challenges.
And I'm just going to tell them right now it is money down the drain.
Go back to the Constitution, look at what it says.
You do not have the right to be completely divorced from what the federal government is insisting upon New York, California, Illinois.
But nonetheless, here's Kathy.
They're walking out of this courthouse, taken away from their families.
They don't have the attention, they don't have the lawyers.
And that's why the state of New York is providing $50 million to cover legal services for people who are finding themselves in this situation.
Okay.
So she's putting taxpayer dollars towards that.
You can see how this is going, right?
What is going to, I mean, the campaign ads are playing out in my head already.
Elise Stefanik already did one with her tweet.
Oh my gosh, you know, she's putting the needs of illegal migrants ahead of people that are here in this country.
Another story that just Broke today, we saw that Pam Bondi is going after the Kentucky governor because the Kentucky governor is, in her estimation, putting illegals first because they're allowing for scholarships for university for people who are here illegally and they're putting those kids effectively above people who were born here.
And so, this is kind of coming to a head.
It's sort of bizarre that it's happened, but I guess we were getting there.
We were getting there because why?
Because they made a decision to bring in some 20 million people illegally and then offer them benefits and offer them possible voting rights.
Look at what was going on in New York 800,000 non citizens that they wanted to be able to vote in the state of New York.
And you can just see the train, right?
Like leaving the station.
Where was this heading?
They thought to themselves, oh, bring all these people in.
You know, let them eat cake.
Let them eat cake, right?
It's the Marie Antoinette thing.
You just give them a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
The Democrats say, we're going to control all the money, we're going to control all the handouts.
AOC is going to make it.
Fair, you know, for everyone.
I mean, she's certainly going to make it fair for herself.
Don't forget, she's the one that was on the private jet along with Bernie Sanders so they could go do that whole socialism tour earlier this year.
There's a method to the madness.
There's only one sort of team of people that succeeds in that, and it's the utter elites, the people in control, the AOCs and the Sanders of the world.
So now we're looking at all the states once again banding together with one, Letitia James, to try and fight.
Oh, California's federalization or Trump's federalization of the National Guard in California.
But I got news for them, just like I got news for Letitia on the Elon Musk thing.
USAID Money Scandal00:03:22
Guess what?
You're not going to get to first base because the Ninth Circuit has already made the decision.
So, once again, you're wasting everybody's time.
You're wasting everybody's money.
It's like the only thing she knows how to do, right?
Wow.
Oh, we got some interesting, interesting news.
Hopefully, you can still see me here.
See, I told you it was going to be a little rough going up in New Hampshire here.
You know, I wasn't going to miss a show.
No, not Trish, not Trish, not when we get this much going on.
We are so proud to be independent.
We're thrilled.
Climbing the charts.
We're getting closer and closer to a million subs.
I know it's going to happen.
It's going to happen very soon.
So thank you for all you do.
And thank you to our sponsors who help make this show all possible.
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We have an enormous story to report.
Report here, USAID.
Look at that, you guys, the camera going out again.
Hopefully, you could hear me.
Hopefully, the microphone didn't go.
Hopefully, that's good.
Okay, I'm going to rely on you to tell me.
A USAID scheme being uncovered.
Don't forget, like, this USAID has been a source of a whole lot of concern, right?
Elon Musk and Doge, they went in there and they started peeling back the layers and they started getting down to nitty gritty really fast.
And we learned there was all this money going to all these crazy projects, kind of pet projects.
You know, the DEI musical in Ireland, for example, or you know, the trans comic book, or whatever you have it.
I mean, just in Peru, like weird kind of stuff.
And you're like, is this how they employ everybody, you know, that's coming out of academia with a PhD and who knows what, right?
Is this where they go?
Is this like, you know, that I don't know.
I mean, it didn't really make any sense, frankly, at all.
You know, I get it.
They want to advance the U.S. agenda, but when did the U.S. agenda become all that?
People are saying, hmm.
And there's been this backlash against it.
And in an environment where, you know, we can't afford a whole lot, we get news that Social Security is on the brink and it's going to go belly up faster than we ever thought.
And you're trying to deal with healthcare costs and rising inflation, this, that, and the other.
Do we really have money to be focused on all of these weird projects all over the world?
And the short answer is no.
Anyway, one of the concerns in all of this was just exactly what the kickbacks were like who was getting what.
And it certainly was a question on the media front when we saw, for example, that Politico was getting millions of dollars.
And it was all tied to their Politico subscriptions that you get like a Bloomberg subscription, right?
I get it on Wall Street.
You kind of need it for trading.
People have like a Bloomberg terminal.
Well, here you need like a Politico terminal?
I don't think so.
But they were getting all this money.
And if you looked, it actually coincided with the election.
Don't forget.
Politico was actually the group that they put the letter, right?
For the 51X spooks, we were just talking about that who believes what is misinformation or disinformation.
They kind of had them on speed dial.
And then they had some of these other organizations, like Reuters, for example.
Eroding Public Trust00:04:37
They were getting a lot of USAID money.
All these organizations, New York Times was getting USAID money.
And then you wonder why everybody spots the same darn narrative over and over again.
We're not getting any USAID money here on the Trish Regan Show.
No, right?
Fully independent.
But you got to say to yourself, is this why they all sing a Chorus all the time.
And I think the short answer to that is yes.
And so we're learning more and more by the day.
Now, this breaking story just coming to us four people have pleaded guilty in this USAID scheme, which sounds quite colorful involving country clubs and sports tickets.
What do you know?
Okay, let's listen.
Here's a Fox report on it that just came forward.
Well, four people are pleading guilty, all part of a half billion dollar bribery scandal involving USAID.
Mike Emanuel has the story from Washington.
Bill, good morning.
The scheme involving cash, NBA tickets, and a country club wedding.
According to the Justice Department, USAID official Roderick Watson sold his influence starting back in 2013.
Contractors Walter Barnes and Daryl Britt funneled payoffs through subcontractor Paul Young to hide their tracks.
It doesn't end there.
Barnes' company, working in conjunction with another firm, kept receiving federal funds $5,000 for human resources consulting late last year, and then later, after suing the government, a contract worth up to $800 million.
Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, said, Their scheme violated the public trust by corrupting the federal government's procurement process.
Anybody who cares about good and effective government should be concerned about the waste, fraud, and abuse in government agencies, including USAID.
Cutting waste, fraud, and abuse has been a big focus on Capitol Hill across government, a major priority for House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has been a target for those looking to trim government spending.
With some suggesting the agency funneled taxpayer dollars into ideological projects.
When USAID blew it, they showed themselves being completely irresponsible.
It needs to be redone and then the funds need to be directed properly.
Back to the scheme, the Justice Department says this kind of fraud erodes public trust.
Bill?
Yeah.
Wild story, Mike.
Half a billion dollars.
I mean, just kind of erodes public trust.
It's clearly eroding public trust.
I mean, people are losing faith in these institutions, and I think this has been a critical one.
I mean, they've lost faith in a lot of institutions.
Let's not kid ourselves, right?
There was a time when people actually trusted the media.
Those days are over.
For reasons we're all quite aware of.
And USAID, now that we've learned all these crazy contracts that they had that really didn't seem to make any sense, that's once again bringing into clarity, if you would, this idea that there's a lot of corruption in government.
And that's partly what we need to guard against, right?
That's why you want to make sure that you're not leaning towards this socialist system where the government's in charge of everything, because that's when that corruption kicks in.
Just looking again at the article, actually, this is coming from Fox.
Quote, corruption in government programs will not be tolerated.
Watson abused his power of trust for personal gain while federal contractors engaged in a pay to play scheme.
This is according to the acting assistant inspector general for investigations at the USAID Office of Inspector General.
So, a lot more is going to be coming forward on this one.
And I think that the bottom line is you got to restore some kind of trust.
Overall, I would say that Doge has really taken a sharp pencil to the USAID program.
I should Point out that the concern over fraud and waste and abuse has been significant enough to actually reduce the agency's programs by 83%.
So the programs that they've cut have been enormous.
And this is one of the things that also Letitia James is suing on.
Letitia's like got her moment in the sun.
You know, hey, Jasmine Crockett, watch out.
AOC, watch out.
I think Letitia James may be coming for your slot.
She's looking to sue him on literally every.
Thing she can.
Yeah, there was $70,000 going for a DEI musical in Ireland.
I realize $70,000 in the scheme of things is really nothing.
But I think what's getting people here is the principle of it, right?
The principle.
That's what's so upsetting.
You had a DEI program in Serbia to advance DEI in Serbia.
Walmart Tariffs Update00:11:32
By the way, I mean, you look at what's going on now with DEI.
I mean, people can't run from it fast enough, right?
Not to mention that the federal government is now saying, hey, This is actually not constitutional.
Hey, Disney, not constitutional, which is why the FCC is like, you're totally in violation of FCC rules.
And it's finding itself in the middle of a rather serious, rather serious investigation, if you would.
You know, another story we've been following, and you guys have really responded to, so I want to get to this and just give you an update on it, is Walmart.
Shares of Walmart, really, have you been watching these?
I mean, pretty.
Pretty darn incredible.
Walmart has really suffered.
It's on the upswing today in trading, and we can get to that actually.
But take a look at it here overall.
So you can see ticking up a little bit higher, and this may just be because people are like, wow, it was so beaten down.
But you had shares actually seeing their worst 10 day period in 20 years.
I mean, that's saying something, right?
Because Walmart is one of those companies that I think a lot of people look to in the investing world as kind of the stalwart that's going to do okay, sort of no matter what.
Because even in an environment where the economy is struggling, you have a lot of people still shopping at Walmart.
They'll still choose to shop at Walmart.
In fact, a lot of people that may have shopped someplace nicer before will go and shop at Walmart.
So usually it's kind of one of those recession proof investments.
But When you factor in the threat of a boycott from MAGA, oh, now you're talking a whole different ballgame, right?
And that's what came up.
And don't forget, it's dealing with the tariff issue.
And then you couple in the reality that MAGA got really, really, really upset this past week.
And sure enough, you got the stock looking at its worst 10 day streak in 20 years.
And the reason MAGA was so upset.
Was because there's an heiress, a woman who actually married into the family.
Here's a picture of her.
And her name is Christy Walton.
She's one of the wealthiest people in the world.
And she is the widow of the son of the Walmart founder.
So when he passed away, she inherited part of the company.
She's worth some $18 billion and she owns 2% of Walmart.
And she decided to come forward with this ad that she put.
And, you know, everybody noticed on Polina Luna, she was actually on the show last week talking about this.
She actually tweeted this one out.
Look, Walmart heiress Christy Walton is funding a full page color ad in the New York Times for No Kings Day, a nationwide counter protest scheduled for Trump's birthday, organized by far left groups.
And she's making the point that maybe Walmart is actually really, really upset about those China tariffs in ways that, you know, maybe you didn't anticipate.
I'd also say that this is somebody, Christy Walton herself, who has a very liberal bent.
In fact, if you look at her, History of donations, which we did.
She's donated previously to the Lincoln Project, half a million bucks to the Lincoln Project.
And since 2020, she actually hosted a fundraiser in Jackson Hole for Kamala Harris' campaign.
She's very, very much into philanthropy and green stuff and, you know, fine, okay?
But what's the expression?
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
You can understand why conservative voters said, hey, you know, Walmart, that company that we have made a success, that family that we have made successful because we have patronized Walmart, we have shopped there.
And now to have one of their family members come out.
And kind of stick it to us, that didn't go over so well.
I mean, it really didn't go over so well.
And you actually had Walmart as a company coming out and saying, oh, no, You know what?
She's not one of us.
She's not involved in any way, shape, or form.
We condemn this violence, including when it's directed towards law enforcement and the damaging of property.
As a company with associates and customers in the Los Angeles area, we remain focused on their safety and that of the impacted associates.
This is in regards to remember the protests that were going on just recently in LA.
And so you had this Walmart vice president come out, and actually, to his credit, he got on it right away.
So, like, they're no fools, right?
They know where their bread is buttered, so to speak.
They don't need a Target like boycott.
They don't need a Bud Light boycott because one rogue heiress decides to get out there and take out her ads and go really public with something.
They also pointed out that the advertisements from Christy Walton are in no way connected to nor endorsed by Walmart.
She does not serve on the board.
That's an important distinction.
Nor play any role in decision making at Walmart.
In other words, the woman's nowhere near the company.
Don't even think about it.
You know what?
She's distant, distant.
She's just the crazy heiress that's going to do that stuff.
But you can see why people got upset because if Walmart looks like it's inserting itself into the political dialogue like Target did, like Bud Mike did, well, then that's going to be a problem.
So already people were talking about boycotting.
I saw a huge response from you guys.
Even on this page, you're like, I'm not shopping at Walmart anymore.
I don't want any part of this.
I don't want to line her pockets.
Again, I mean, until she divests completely from the company, right?
Every time the stock price is going up, you are technically lining her pockets.
I should point out that Trump has been very hard on Walmart because Walmart is upset about these tariffs from China.
You know, don't forget, this company started in what, 1960, 1962 in Arkansas, and it used to be Walmart with the dash in the middle.
Here I am in New Hampshire, and our next door neighbors were from Mississippi.
They loved Walmart and they knew all about it.
I think they introduced my family to Walmart way back in the day when we first got one.
And everybody used to call it the Walmart.
The Walmart.
I'm going to the Walmart.
And they used to actually sell a lot of American made products.
They had a big campaign and it started to shift.
Maybe in the 1990s, right, with this globalization, China became more and more powerful and started bringing in more manufacturing.
And that's when you started to see this shift.
And now the company relies quite heavily on all these Chinese manufactured goods.
So, what did tariffs mean for Walmart?
They might mean.
They might mean some higher prices.
Does the company then pass those prices on to consumers?
That's what they said they would do.
And Donald Trump had no use for that.
And he was like, hey, tell them to just eat the tariffs.
They're going to eat the tariffs, all right?
Consumers are not going to pay for that.
Now, I'm a capitalist.
You're a capitalist, I assume.
And you know, Donald Trump's a capitalist.
So I think he knows that Walmart probably doesn't want to eat the tariffs.
They're not going to like operate at a loss or anything.
I mean, maybe they can have a little less profitability.
What they're going to try and do is figure out how much people can tolerate, right?
That's what happens in a free market.
You'll say, well, can we raise prices?
And if we can, we will.
If people will pay it, then that'll be that.
But if they won't pay it, then we're going to have to reduce our margins.
And that's how it'll play out.
But let's go back to what he said on True Social.
He said, Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain.
Walmart made billions of dollars last year, far more than expected.
Between Walmart and China, they should, as is said, eat the tariffs.
Gosh, they should do like a little, you remember the cats and the dogs thing?
That would be a good one.
Eat the tariffs.
And they can do a little meme to that one and not charge valued customers anything.
I'll be watching and tell your customers.
We shall see.
You guys, you know, I'm laughing at Sam Walton, right?
Like Sam Walton was amazing.
And I think Sam Walton would be like just shocked by everything that has happened.
And the world has changed so much and it's going to continue changing.
Scott Besant was on NBC recently saying, Yeah, they're going to have to eat the tariffs.
They're going to eat them.
So, as a shareholder, hey, no wonder the company.
I mean, between the tariffs and the boycott, I mean, yikes.
That's why it was looking at losing 5.4% over the course of 10 days.
Its worst showing in a 10 day period in 20 years.
Okay.
Again, it has.
Picked up a little bit, a little bit today.
And Barron's actually was predicting this, saying, you know, it's gotten so beaten down, there may be some opportunity in this stock.
And, you know, indeed, we'll see.
We'll see how it shakes out.
I actually don't think the tariffs are going to be as miserable for Walmart or the country as some have suggested.
Meanwhile, Besant speaking about this recently on NBC.
Let's listen.
Ask us about Walmart, this big news from Walmart.
It says it will start raising prices on its consumers, Mr. Secretary, as early as this month due to the tariffs.
Now, President Trump out with a very stern warning on social media saying Walmart, quote, should eat the tariffs, adding the company made far more than expected last year.
Is the president asking American companies to be less profitable?
I was on the phone with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart yesterday.
And Walmart is, in fact, going to, as you describe it, eat some of the tariffs just as they did in 18, 19, and 20.
The other thing, though, that we are seeing that Doug passed along to me, that with their consumer, the single most important thing is the gasoline price.
And gasoline prices have collapsed under President Trump.
So, we are seeing that.
The other thing that will happen is a direct tax cut for consumers.
Then, the transportation costs are also a big input.
So, let's see what happens.
And that's fair.
I would say that everything that's going on overseas right now is leading to some higher prices on the oil front, at least temporarily.
Although today, crude oil futures are down slightly, almost two tenths of a percent.
So, again, we'll watch this pretty carefully.
Over the last three months, you know, or rather, even just in the last month, I should point this out because prices had gotten down.
You were looking at crude oil around $60, $61 a barrel in the futures market, and now we're looking at $75.
So that's a pretty significant uptick between you and me.
I actually bought an oil ETF right around that time, actually anticipating some of this challenge.
And, you know, look, it's not going to be great for the administration.
Obviously, what's going on overseas is a problem for oil prices.
Perhaps just another reminder.
Why we need to be energy sufficient and independent ourselves, right here in the US of A, right?
All the more reason why you want projects that are investing in energy here in the USA.
But, you know, the Walton family, they've done pretty well, shall we say, off of mainstream America.
And as a result of that, I think people have really Kind of sort of reacted very negatively and understandably so because they feel a little jilted when they see a family member out doing what Christy Walton has done.
Michelle Obama Podcast Rumors00:05:20
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Really, really important to do right about now, right?
Is it not?
Again, use code word dollar, my gift to you guys.
I'll tell you, um, one other thing I want to get to because it's always kind of funny to talk about.
Let me make sure we get our camera fixed here.
Oh, okay, okay.
Hopefully, the audio is still on.
I told you, you know, this is this is this is how you know I'm live.
Because I would never allow those mistakes to happen if we were on tape, okay?
This is how you know I'm like.
The Obamas, you know, I think they're getting closer and closer to a divorce.
Michelle speaking on her podcast.
I mean, maybe she's just desperate for attention.
I don't know what's going on, but Michelle Obama saying once again some rather critical things about her husband.
It's really kind of weird.
She goes on there once a week and she bashes Barack.
Oh, you guys are so funny.
Scott, thank you for your generosity.
And Trish for Fed Chairman.
Ah, you know how hawkish I would be.
Trump wouldn't like me.
You know why?
Because I'd never want to lower interest rates.
I'd never want to flood the system with capital.
Or if I did lower interest rates, I actually would do it at the right appropriate time.
One of the things I always get mad about the Fed, don't forget, is that they're always too late, okay?
They're too darn late and then they do way too darn much.
And that's why they just flood the system with liquidity and you run into inflation challenges for sure.
Anyway, yeah, in another lifetime, Fed Chairman, I'd be better than Janet, honest.
I just would.
Yeah.
You know, Jerome, look, he's got a hard situation.
I realize that Trump would love to have lower interest rates right now.
And look, you know, whether he's right on that remains to be seen.
I think that the economy is actually doing really well.
So I'd be hesitant to flood the system with too much money.
But I digress.
Let's go back to Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama and the looming divorce.
I mean, there were all those rumors.
About Jennifer Aniston.
I was like, oh, okay, Barack, who knew?
In more ways than one, right?
All right, wow, okay, more power to you.
It seems like those weren't really true.
And she went on to Jimmy Kimmel's show and like refuted it, even though you had all the tabloids writing about it.
So that's neither here nor there.
But there are just definitely like a lot of rumors out there, a lot of rumors suggesting that there is trouble in the works.
And Michelle's not helping things, okay?
So every chance she can get, she kind of bashes the guy, whether it's on his Finances and his inability to kind of manage his finances early in their lives, or just how hard her marriage is, etc.
And now there was this little whammy where it's like, okay, tell me you hate your husband without really telling me you hate your husband.
Let's play this sound.
It's about what he needs as a grown man in the world.
That would be.
You should have thrown a boy in the mix.
I would.
I'm so glad I didn't have a boy.
You would have thrown a boy in the mix.
Because he would have been a Barack Obama.
The baby Barack.
It would have been amazing.
No, I would have felt for him.
What is that?
Wouldn't you be delighted, right?
If you love your husband, like, wouldn't you want a son who kind of was in his image?
I mean, she's a strange lady.
I gotta say, I think they have a really strange marriage.
Maybe she thinks she's being self deprecating.
Maybe she thinks she's gonna bring in more women.
You know, her podcast is really challenged.
It's really having a hard time.
And I think they paid a lot of money for it at one of those podcast places that wanted to promote her.
And she's running into some challenges similar to Meghan Markle, but different.
I mean, I think she's trying very hard, right, to be one with the people.
But does anybody really want to hear about her lousy marriage?
I don't, I mean, you know, I mean, it's kind of a kicker story for us here on the show.
You know, we're talking about serious stuff.
And then it's like, okay, you know, at the end of the show on a Friday, let's have some fun and look at Michelle Obama.
She's trying to get attention, right?
She's trying to get viewers for her podcast.
I don't know if this is necessarily the way you're going to do it.
What is her ultimate goal here?
To create an empire of some sort, a business of some sort, so that she can distance herself more from Barack?
Or maybe does she have political aspirations herself?
People have talked about that in the past.
A lot of discussion about whether or not Michelle Obama might run for office.
I still think she has managed to really alienate herself from.
The base of the American population, even the Democrat Party, which increasingly now is getting crazy, crazy left, like even too left for the Obamas, right?
So I don't know if she has a future in that department.
I don't know what this is about.
Maybe she wants to employ her brother, for goodness sakes, for all we know, right?
Classical Singer Piano Tour00:03:13
Like now he's finally got a job that maybe he likes or maybe he doesn't.
You got to sit next to her for an hour.
Michelle Obama, we wish you lots of luck on your podcast.
We're very happy here on the Trish Regan Show because we are in the top 100 again, again.
So thank you for all your support.
And all you guys have done to make this a success here on the show.
I wanted to get to some of your questions because you wanted to know about the piano in the background.
You know, that actually is not the piano I grew up with.
It's actually a new piano that my parents got recently because they had to replace the piano that I did grow up with that had been there for, well, a whole lot of years.
I was telling you guys, this is the house that I came home to as a little girl.
The very first house, yes, that I ever lived in.
And I have a lot of fond memories here.
And I'll tell you, My kids also have very fond memories because they've been coming here for years, ever since they were born, up to New Hampshire, live free or die.
And we are going to go to the beach a little bit later to have a little cocktail, maybe down at the beach, and then head out to dinner.
But it's a beautiful place.
It's a great place to come home to.
I think it probably informed a lot of my ideology, right, as a kid.
In terms of the piano, I do play the piano.
Of course I do.
David, you know, I mean, I sing, I play the piano.
Do you know that I could actually read letters on music?
Like, I could read music before I could actually read because I knew A, B, C, D, E, F, G on the piano, and I could read that on a sheet of music when I was maybe three or four, long before I ever learned to read English.
So, you know, music's another language, if you would, and it's one that I was always surrounded with and always appreciated.
And I love jazz piano.
I can play jazz piano.
I'm not as into classical because, you know, But I'm a classical singer, so there you go, right?
Classical singer, but a jazz pianist who likes to improvise a lot.
I think improvisation is kind of like what we're doing here, right?
Like this whole show is sort of improv, and that there's no prompter, there's no script, there's no middle manager saying, you can say this, you can say that.
I think it's similar to my sort of musical style.
While I do sing classical, when I sit down to play the piano and I sit to play for fun, and we have a piano in our house and I still play, it's It's more improv.
So I'll look at the music that's on the page and then I'll kind of go off and do my own thing because, you know, I like having that independence.
Anyway, I see so many of you.
Peace of my mind.
I need to play that piano, right?
Yeah, I, you know, maybe tomorrow.
Okay.
We'll do a little tour tomorrow.
Anyway, it's good to see all of you guys back here.
Thank you for everything you do to keep this channel sort of high on everyone's list.
And I love it.
And we're going to be back again tomorrow.
I think tomorrow.
We'll see what's going on in the news.
Certainly, of course, on Monday.
But right now, I'm going to just spend a little time one on one with my folks and with my son, who came up with me.
And we're going to enjoy our evening.
I hope you enjoy your weekend.
And we'll talk again, if not tomorrow, for sure on Monday.