Former National Security Advisor John Bolton faces up to 20 years in prison after an FBI raid on his Maryland home for allegedly mishandling classified documents for his 2020 memoir. President Trump defends his firing of Bolton as a "warmonger" while contrasting it with his own Mar-a-Lago document retention, framing the investigation as accountability against previous administration overreach. The discussion also covers a federal pardon, New York's proposed bill to close state pardon loopholes, and criticism of Cracker Barrel's new logo amid broader commentary on government business stakes in Intel and legacy media credibility. Ultimately, the episode highlights the new administration's focus on legal retribution and economic stability. [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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August Political Chaos00:14:18
Wow.
Whoever said August was a dull month definitely didn't know what they were talking about or at least live through times like this with this administration.
We got a lot going on.
Welcome to the program, everyone.
It's good to have you.
I'm Trish Regan.
This is the Trish Regan Show.
Make sure you subscribe, share, like, all that good stuff because we have a lot to discuss.
We got John Bolton facing potentially 20 years.
Yes, according to one legal expert, he could be looking at 20 years and it has a little something to do with that book that he published and what is believed to have been intel that he told. from the White House.
Gosh, it sounds familiar, right?
Wasn't that the Mar-a-Lago thing?
And we'll get into that.
Plus, media suddenly turning on Letitia James.
I guess they read the tea leaves.
And Gavin Newsom is getting called out by the Bed, Bath, and Beyond CEO.
I thought that was kind of funny.
Anyway, we're going to get into all of it.
Welcome to the program, everyone.
Again, good to have you here.
We begin on John Bolton.
John Bolton, whom I used to work with actually at Fox.
He was a Fox contributor there.
He has a reputation for, shall we say, being kind of okay with war.
In ways that most normal people just really aren't, right?
He's also gotten the reputation for being a neocon, a warmonger, et cetera.
I would say this this is not just me saying it.
You ought to see what the New York Times has to say about his book.
We're going to get to that in a second.
But first, know the facts.
John Bolton's home was raided early, early this morning.
His poor wife sitting there, the photographers are all around at 7 a.m. this morning.
And it is not clear.
I'm going to have some inklings and I have some sources and I have some information.
I'm going to share that with you.
But it was not made immediately clear just exactly what authorities were looking for.
Again, I have an idea.
And if my idea is correct, then yes, he could be looking at some serious time if, in fact, he's proven to be guilty of taking classified intel out of the White House.
Anyway, this all went down at 7 a.m. this morning, ladies and gentlemen.
7 a.m. The president weighed in.
He said, look, I didn't know this was happening, but I will tell you, I'm telling you this.
I don't think there's a lot of love lost between these two.
Watts.
When I hired him, he served a good purpose because, as you know, he was one of the people that forced Bush to do the ridiculous bombings in the Middle East.
He wants to always kill people, and he's very bad at what he does, but he worked out great for me because every time he doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person, except on television.
If you could say something bad about Trump, he'll always do that.
But he really doesn't talk, he's quiet.
And I'd walk into a room with him with a foreign country.
The foreign country would give me everything because they said, oh no, they're going to get blown up because John Bolton is there.
He's not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy.
I mean, we're going to find out.
I know nothing about it.
I just saw it this morning.
They did a raid.
Do you expect the DOJ to brief you on this?
Yeah, they'll brief me probably today sometime.
I don't want to.
I tell Pam and I tell the group, I don't want to know about it.
You have to do what you have to do.
I don't want to know about it.
It's not necessary.
I could know about it.
I could be the one starting it.
I'm actually the chief law enforcement officer, but I feel that it's better this way.
So he says he didn't know about it, but he probably had an inkling that they were going to do some looking into one John Bolton.
And the reason, again, goes back to what I was just telling you.
There was this book that came out.
I want to say it was in like summer of 2020 that John Bolton published.
I don't think anybody really read it.
Like now I kind of want to go back and read it because I'm like, what exactly was classified that was in there?
There was a lot of, you know, sort of apparently according to the New York Times, because they bothered to read it.
And I guess they were kind of mad that they had to read it.
Look at the headline that they ran in the room where it happened.
John Bolton dumps his notes and smites his enemies.
Apparently it was just a whole lot of his note taking.
Like 500 pages of his note taking, according to the New York Times.
He's not a very talented writer.
And according to the New York Times, he also doesn't have much of a story arc there.
He's just recounting and not being able to accomplish very much.
And it toggles between two discordant registers.
One, exceedingly tedious, they write, and then also slightly unhinged.
Again, New York Times writing about Bolton.
And this is a very interesting point because you heard Donald Trump just talk about how he kind of had a preference for, shall we say, going to war in ways that Donald Trump didn't.
Clearly, the president has no interest in doing.
And in one particular case, and I actually remember this night because I was on the air that week.
I was on the air the night that we actually, that we did strike overseas in the Middle East.
And I remember as we were looking at the lead up, there was one night that we thought it was going to happen, maybe, possibly.
You know, you start to hear things, right, as a reporter.
And it was concerning and somehow it didn't happen.
It wound up at a different time.
But read the New York Times account.
They're talking about how Bolton kind of anticipated this they write in june 2019 iran had shot down an unmanned american drone and Bolton, who had always championed what he proudly calls, quote, disproportionate response, pushed Trump to approve a series of military strikes in retaliation.
You can sense, they write, Bolton's excitement when he describes going home, quote, at about 530 for a change of clothes because he expected, they write, to be at the White House, quote, all night.
It's therefore an awful shock when Trump decided to call off the strikes at the very last minute after learning they would kill as many as 150 people.
Too many body bags, Trump told him, not proportionate.
All right.
So in other words, it was pretty clear Bolton had a point of view and it kind of tended to, and look, I knew him and I've interviewed him many times.
I've gotten in arguments with him on the air because my point was, wouldn't you always rather lose dollars than lives?
I mean, in all seriousness, if you have your choice, wouldn't you rather lose dollars?
Why not use financial tools?
Why not use things like tariffs as opposed to immediately going straight towards troops?
And I'll tell you what he told me once.
This was live on air.
Okay.
It became kind of contentious.
And he said, well, what would Jeannie Dimon think of that?
Jamie Dimon being the CEO of Chase.
And I'm like, who the H-E-L-L cares what the heck Jamie Dimon has to say about anything?
I'm sorry.
This isn't about, again, this is why are we always reducing lives to, oh, money's more important than lives?
No, no, no.
I will lose dollars over lives any day of the week.
And I think the president agrees with that sentiment.
So he and Bolton were always split in terms of that.
But what does it mean for Bolton if he's if he's convicted of taking sensitive information and not only publishing it, but also taking it, which is perhaps what they were looking for today at his home, it could mean, according to Jonathan Turley, legal scholar and expert from American University who went on Fox News earlier today, 20 years up to 20.
It is intriguing here because these are longstanding allegations that the book indicated or referenced classified material that he may have acquired when he was in the administration.
We're not clear as to what that is, but it would suggest that it could be national defense information.
The reason that's important is that creates a heightened potential penalty.
So you can have penalties that range from five to 20 years.
20 years tends to be the census for concealing information, obstructing justice.
Simply having classified information can weigh in at about 10 years, and there are often multiple counts because each of those documents can be charged.
Separately.
So there is a strange history here.
So you had these allegations coming out as early as the first Trump administration.
Then there was an allegation that the Biden administration essentially scuttled a further look at this case.
And now we have this new development.
But we really don't know if there's something that has occurred most recently, whether they uncovered something that they believe is sort of evergreen, that this is still a viable criminal case.
So that's the question.
What did they uncover?
What do they think they may have uncovered?
Were they trying to get something there at Bolton's residence?
I mean, a lot of questions right now.
But again, I think a lot of this stems from Trump's concern and people around him.
They're concerned that.
He took some classified information way back when.
Let me go to something that our friend Benny Johnson actually just put out on Twitter.
He wrote, he spoke with somebody, clearly a source at the FBI, just told me that the John Bolton raid is about Bolton's serial theft and publication.
This is interesting.
This is echoing what I just said of classified information that has gone on for years.
The FBI official said to Benny, and I quote, it is widely known that the Bolton, I assume they mean administration or the Bolton, I don't know.
John Bolton mishandled and took classified information for use in his 2020 book after he failed to get approval from the National Security Council for the publication of what they determined to be highly classified information.
This raid on Bolton's residences comes after years of investigation into this potentially criminal disclosure, which started in 2020 before being put on pause for political reasons.
The Trump administration is committed to restoring integrity to the Justice Department and to ending the weaponization of government.
Our investigation will follow the evidence and ensure accountability.
So the question is, what was possibly, in their view, Bolton doing to weaponize the government some more?
I think it's pretty clear, as I said, that these guys eventually were not friends.
John Bolton coming out and making some kind of wild allegations.
I'll give you an example.
There was the one on Venezuela in his book.
And, you know, I was all over that story and continue to have many tremendous sources on both sides down in Venezuela.
And so I was kind of living, sleeping, eating, breathing that every single day.
And what came out in this book was John Bolton saying that Donald Trump thought it would be cool if we could invade Venezuela.
Well, I can tell you, I can tell you with certainty, that was never going to happen, like ever.
Maybe that, you know, was him playing around, kind of trying to pacify Bolton, like, okay, let me see if I can give him something to do.
We're working on a project, right?
Remember the time that Bolton had the notebook in his hand and it said something about Colombia troops, thousands of Colombia troops going in, troops to Colombia, rather, which borders Venezuela.
And everybody was like, whoa, oh my gosh, are we like, Donald Trump never, ever, ever, ever.
wanted to engage militarily with Venezuela.
He was trying to force some kind of compromise, perhaps.
I mean, they would have liked to gotten the guy that kind of looked a little like Obama, right?
Guaido in there, who was better than the alternative in many people's view.
But it didn't happen.
It didn't happen.
And the answer was not to say, okay, we're going to go storm in with the military.
That was never the president's intention.
And yet Bolton published that.
He totally, and like people called me up.
I'm like, what do you think?
No, I told them, there's just no way.
Maybe he was horsing around again, trying to give Bolton something to do.
But what was the classified information?
I mean, now I guess I kind of need to read the book, right?
That Bolton put out.
Anyway, here's Donald Trump at the time of the book saying, you know what?
This guy deserves to be in jail.
John Bolton came out and said, That's not, that doesn't work with country to country.
What's your reaction to that?
Look, this is a guy with no personality.
All he went to do is drop bombs on everybody.
He got us, he was one of the many people that got us into the war in the Middle East, which was a big mistake.
I said to him, Let me ask you, do you think, recently, I said, What did you think?
He said, I think we made the right decision.
I said, You lost me there.
It was the worst decision in the history of our country.
I know you may disagree with that.
Worst, well, now you might agree.
At the time, you would have felt differently.
But also, the Libyan model, you know what that means, right?
Look it up.
One of the dumbest things ever said, I think it was said on DeFace the Nation.
The Libyan model, he said, the Libyan model, that was set us back.
You have no idea.
John Bolton was a stupid guy, and he was a guy with no heart.
And he also had a statement that he would lie whenever he had to.
He has that statement.
It's a well known statement.
And I fired him.
And I didn't think it was a big deal.
And I wasn't around him very much.
But what he did do is he took classified information and he published it during a presidency.
It's one thing to write a book after, during.
And I believe that he's a criminal.
And I believe, frankly, he should go to jail for that.
Judge?
And he could.
Okay.
So that's what we're talking about at this moment in time.
So all this talk of classified information is really kind of interesting.
Because if you go back to when Donald Trump was being accused of stealing classified information and taking it down to Mar a Lago with him, John Bolton came out and said some pretty scandalous things.
I mean, this is going on the heels of Bolton being accused of publishing, remember, classified information.
There was an effort underway.
Eventually, the judge decided in the case to allow for Bolton to publish his book.
But don't forget, How Bolton turned the tables kind of as fast as he could, I guess.
Here's John Bolton talking about the Mar a Lago raid on Donald Trump.
By the way, Biden took stuff too.
It stayed in his garage next to his Corvette watch.
Any given moment.
But I don't think he cared about the classification system.
Bolton Classified Documents00:16:07
I don't think he appreciated the sensitivity of this information.
And he didn't appreciate the sensitivity of how it was often acquired, the so called sources and methods.
So this had been briefed to him before I arrived.
It was repeated frequently.
I think it simply had no impact on him, whatever.
There's a couple of different ways that people think about this, uh, and people who are not friendly to the president who think about what's happened here.
And one of them is, you know, Donald Trump, master thief, you know, criminal, uh, running some kind of elaborate conspiracy to bring things out of the White House and keep them secret, uh, for potentially for political or financial gain.
There are other people whose attitude is Trump is chaotic.
He's careless.
He's not that smart.
He just, he wants, he took these things almost by mistake, and now he's basically stamping his feet and saying they're mine, I don't want to give them up.
Give me a sense of where you think the truth lies with respect to Trump's intelligence, carelessness, and the degree to which he might have brought motive to bear on taking these documents out of the White House and keeping them for this long at Mar a Lago.
Well, I don't, it's very hard to speculate on motive other than that he liked cool things.
He saw things that he wanted to take them, and he was pretty much able to take them, and not just on classified information matters, on all kinds of things that.
Crossed his desk.
Some days he liked to eat a lot of french fries.
Some days he took classified documents.
He wanted them.
Why did he want them?
Because he could get them.
Right.
Wow.
Okay.
So it's just interesting that now things have sort of changed.
And now John Bolton may be the one being accused of taking classified documents.
Now, I get a lot of people are saying, gee, you know, this doesn't really feel right.
It seems like maybe this is revenge of some sort.
And is this really like, I get that, you know, you're going after Letitia, but John Bolton.
People might have a harder time with that.
However, again, I go back to I think the frustration and the fury that the president felt back in 2020 when he put forward this book.
And at the time, there was a lot of concern that there were names and people and information in that book that were classified.
And then the judge allowed for it to go through anyway, right?
Because if you were against Trump, that's all that mattered.
Just anybody who didn't like Trump suddenly was getting through on everything.
And I think to a certain extent, this new administration is coming in and saying, hey, We are going to hold people accountable.
There is accountability in all this.
And it's not a tit for tat, but making sure that this doesn't happen to anybody else again in the future.
It certainly seemed like John Bolton was a little bit worried.
I don't know, maybe a week or two ago, he was on CNN and wishing that Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard were just never around.
Remember?
Well, I don't think I showed you this.
Forgive me for not showing you this at the time.
I'm going to show you now.
Here he is a couple of weeks ago, John.
I think a lot of Republicans right now just wish.
Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and a number of other Trump nominees would just go away.
Hmm.
Kind of interesting, right?
He just wished they would go away.
Well, they definitely didn't go away.
They went straight to his house.
So now the stakes have risen, so to speak.
And people are worried.
The media is spazzing out.
You get CNN freaking out.
Of course, he was like the new star on CNN, right?
They had him on every other day, it seemed.
And he would complain about Trump and others there in the intel community, perhaps in some ways worried about exactly this.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure, but here's CNN losing it over this one.
We're following major breaking news this morning that continues to unfold.
The FBI conducting a court authorized search at the home of John Bolton as part of a national security investigation.
That is according to the source familiar with the matter.
A ton of questions around this right now.
Our CNN crew has been on the ground, on the scene this morning, observed FBI personnel near Bolton's home, even seeing personnel go into his home.
John Bolton, as you well know, is President Trump's former national security advisor and a Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. In recent years, he has become a prominent critic of the president ever since he left the first Trump administration.
As recently as this week, he spoke to us about President Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Well, I think it's a reflection of just how confident the Russians feel.
They have escaped the sanctions that have been threatened by President Trump.
They've heard Secretary of State Rubio say on Sunday, we're not going to sanction them because it will cause diplomatic efforts to fail.
And they are trying to keep the table set so that things work out in their direction.
That was just a couple days ago.
CNN's Kaylin Polans joining us now.
Kaylin, you brought us this breaking news and you have some new reporting already.
What's going on?
That's right, Kate.
We can confirm, according to a law, according to a person familiar with this investigation, that the probe is related to the possible retention of national security information.
Specific on what we know about this investigation, this search that the FBI is conducting of John Bolton's home.
Not only is it about national security, it is about the retention of national security information.
Often, Kate, that looks like, are there classified documents being kept outside of where they should be kept?
That often is what we see in investigations like this.
But we're still waiting to hear more of what this is.
The FBI, they are at work still on that scene.
In Maryland, where John Bolton's home is, they took bags out of their vehicles to bring inside.
There were four or six agents.
They have those blazers on, the SAY FBI in the back.
So, this is quite an observable scene right now, very different than when the retention of national security information was being investigated during a search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property three years ago.
John Bolton, he has not been charged with anything here.
He's not been in government for six years.
He did write a book and was under investigation soon after he left the Trump administration in 2020.
He was being investigated at that time by a federal grand jury in Washington.
on the possible disclosure of classified information in that book, and he was not charged there.
So looking at the possibility of a through line, it seems to be more likely, given that this is about the retention of national security information.
There hasn't been a formal comment yet that we have received from John Bolton or from his lawyer.
He was unaware of the FBI activity this morning.
He wasn't home at the time.
And we also are waiting to see if the administration will say anything publicly.
So far, some cryptic messages posted on social media by the two top officials at the FBI.
Kash Patel, the FBI director on the platform X, writing, No one is of the law FBI agents on mission.
That was right after 7 a.m. this morning.
And then the deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino, posting, Public corruption will not be tolerated, not mentioning John Bolton by name in either of those things.
This is a situation that would be court authorized.
So the FBI would have gone to a court with the help of Justice Department prosecutors asking to have the approval of a search like this take place.
They would have had to have probable cause to do this.
But that, as we know, is a far, far long way from potential charges and also potential trial, anything like that.
Kate, long, long way from that.
She seemed a little flustered, right?
Just a teeny tiny bit flustered over this whole ordeal.
her a lot of words to say what I think I told you pretty briefly.
Anyway, she wasn't the only one.
So Andy McCabe as well, don't forget Andy, right, who was part of the whole Obamagate thing.
And the thinking is, you know, they're going to go back after all these Obamagate people.
So John Bolton, that may be different.
I don't know.
I had the same sort of questions over the book and the classified materials, et cetera.
But Andy may be circled for a whole other set of reasons, along with Comey and Brennan and the whole Obama.
Russiagate crew, right?
Listen to Andy's reaction to all this.
Yeah, right.
He went through the process.
The question is, who approved it?
And that was, you're right, that was a big point of contention in Trump One.
Andy, I want to bring you back in and just put up some of the quotes that John was referring to from the current heads of the Justice Department and FBI.
This is Pam Bondi, 7 45 a.m.
America's safety isn't negotiable.
Justice will be pursued always.
During the raid, Kash Patel posts 7 03 a.m.
No one is above the law.
FBI agents on a mission.
How unusual is that kind of post from the heads of the law enforcement agencies in America while this high profile raid is going on?
I can't think of another FBI director or attorney general, and I worked for many of them, who would have done something similar.
This is just simply not the way Department of Justice employees at the department or the bureau operate.
We understand that there's all kinds of Unfavorable attention and reputation impact that comes along with having something happen like what's happening at John Bolton's house right now.
In the past, DOJ leadership has always taken the role like we don't go out of our way to draw suspicion or castigate people unless we are doing it officially in court in the form of an indictment and then going into court and proving our case.
They speak through the court filings and that is it.
So I think what you're seeing from Pambondi and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino.
Is pretty typical for them, but it is absolutely atypical for anyone else who's ever served in those roles.
And I think it really degrades the bureau and the department's image and legitimacy in the way that they are so blatantly trying to.
I'm sorry.
Like this guy, I got to turn him off, right?
Because now I'm just getting annoyed.
Like Andy McCabe, weren't you and all your cronies?
I don't know if he specifically, we got to go back through his Twitter account to check that.
But how many times do I have to hear from them?
No one's above the law.
No one's above the law.
I mean, whether it was the Fannie Willis case, whether it was, excuse me.
Funny, funny, funny Willis case.
Whether it was Letitia James, she was so proud of that.
Boy, she have egg on her face right now, right?
And more trouble's coming for Letitia.
They all did this.
This was constant.
Oh, no one's above the law.
No one's above the law.
And then when Cash says it, oh my gosh, how dare you?
How dare you?
Now this makes it look like a vendetta.
I'll tell you, JD's saying, this is not a vendetta, guys.
This is just about making sure that people are held accountable.
I want you to see him here with the NBC host.
On, they actually ran the clip on MS, whatever the heck it is.
Now, by the way, the president was weighing in on that today.
It was kind of funny.
I'll show you later in the show.
Here's JD.
I do want to start with some breaking news.
We've learned that the FBI is searching the home of former Ambassador John Bolton, his office as well.
Sure.
Can you tell me why the FBI is raiding Ambassador Bolton's home and office?
And did the White House get a heads up?
Well, so we're in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation.
Into John Bolton, I will say we're going to let that investigation proceed.
What I can tell you is that unlike the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI, our law enforcement agencies are going to be driven by law and not by politics.
And so if we think that Ambassador Bolton has committed a crime, of course, eventually prosecutions will come.
But as you know, Kristen, this is all part of gathering evidence, trying to understand something that we're worried about.
And of course, I'll let the FBI comment on the next stage of the investigation.
What's at the root of this?
Is this about classified documents?
Well, I'll let the FBI speak to that.
Classified documents are certainly part of it.
But I think that there's a broad concern about Ambassador Bolton.
They're going to look into it.
And like I said, if there's no crime here, we're not going to prosecute it.
If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court.
That's how it should be.
But again, our focus here is on did he break the law?
Did he commit crimes against the American people?
If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted.
As we have this conversation, has Ambassador Bolton been detained, taken into custody, arrested in any form?
So this news just broke this morning in the FBI.
I haven't talked to the FBI this morning.
I don't know the answer to that.
Question.
I assume that he hasn't been detained and won't be detained until there's an actual prosecution if that actually happens.
As you know, Ambassador Bolton is a frequent critic of President Trump's.
He's also on Kash Patel's enemies list.
The administration has already revoked his security clearance, Secret Service protection.
Is Ambassador Bolton being targeted because he's a critic of President Trump?
No, not at all.
And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy nilly like the Biden administration DOJ did, prosecutions that later got thrown out in court.
If we bring a case, and of course we haven't done that yet, the Department of Justice has not done that yet.
We are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law.
We're going to be careful about that.
We're going to be deliberate about that because we don't think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically.
You shouldn't throw people willy nilly in prison.
You should let the law drive these determinations, and that's what we're doing.
Okay, so then the big question becomes you know, did he take classified documents?
If so, what did he take?
And was this related to the book?
Or maybe there's something else that we don't actually know about, but it's clear they get an investigation going on.
I will say this, you know what?
Nobody should be surprised whether it's John Bolton we're talking about.
Okay, whether it's John Bolton or whether it's Letitia James, it's been really clear that this administration is going to hold those accountable.
Okay, so just look at what went down with Letitia James.
We learned yesterday that the appeals court, the appellate court tossed out the half a billion dollar penalty.
Against Letitia.
And we also know that there's two investigations going on into her, one into alleged mortgage fraud, and then allegations, this one coming out of New York, that she violated President Trump's civil rights when she went after him so voraciously.
And even when you look at what they decided there in the court, the reality that, you know, and I'll tell you, even CNN knows, even CNN knows she was over her skis on this one.
But when the reality hits that you got no case, you got to stand back and say, well, what was it about?
Really?
What was that all about?
Here's the CNN guy saying, yeah, this lady was out there with no victim.
I mean, it was wild.
And then to think they slap him with $500 million, a half a billion dollars, guys, there's something messed up with that.
Well, I'm not Wolf.
I have been skeptical of the attorney general's case for a long time.
I'm on record saying that this is a huge win for Donald Trump any way you cut it.
And this is a stinging rebuke to the attorney general, Letitia James.
The finding here is a very long, complicated ruling.
But the bottom line is while the finding of liability against Donald Trump can stand, for now at least, the damages award, which started at $350 million with interest gets up close to $500 million, that is thrown out.
Playing Hardball With Bad People00:15:02
And the core reason.
For that ruling, according to the judges, is essentially that there was not enough of a showing here that there were actual victims.
And just to refresh people's memories, this is the civil fraud lawsuit brought by the attorney general.
The core allegation is that Donald Trump habitually overvalued his own assets when he was trying to get bank loans from banks and other lenders.
And essentially, the argument that Donald Trump made below that has now had resonance in the appeals court is you're talking about very sophisticated, quote unquote, victims.
These are billion dollar banks that made the loans.
got repaid on the loans by Donald Trump with interest and actually profited to the tune of millions of dollars.
So it's not the typical type of fraud case where you have somebody stealing money from other people or ripping off unknowing consumers.
So this ruling by the appeals court is monumental.
It was also very unusual in that it took them nearly a year to reach this decision.
As Caitlin Polance just said, the next step is going to be to go up to the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals in New York State.
I mean, when even CNN is like, listen, this is a huge win, and you really didn't have a case because you had no victim, which they told us very clearly.
You know, I've played you guys the sound, right?
Remember when the judges were like, hey, lady, and they like toss her off because they're like, you have no victim?
I'll fast forward a little bit here.
May it please the court, Judith Bale for the New York Attorney General's Office.
All of the defendants repeatedly violated.
Mrs. Bale, can you identify any previous case in which the Attorney General sued under Executive Law 6312 to upset a.
Love, He talks and talks and talks and talks.
I've played you guys this ad nauseum, so I just want to go to the punchline.
All of them always involved the consumer protection aspect, it involved protection of the market.
And I want to add to his question and little to no impact on the public marketplace.
Right?
Little to no impact.
Of course.
And yet they went forward with that one anyway.
And I'm just telling you, you know what?
Like, there are consequences.
And I realized that one team was in charge.
You had Obama there for eight years and he was pretty skilled at what he did.
And then he put in place allegedly a whole plan of action.
We're talking Obamagate, the Russia, Russia, Russia stuff, right?
That Andy McCabe may find himself entwined in, along with many, many others.
And the next thing you know, they're going after him, trying to bankrupt him, for goodness sakes.
That's pretty wild.
It was very clear from the beginning.
She had one goal and one goal only.
Peter Navarro made this clear.
This is, you know, you're dealing with some bad people, okay?
So when you're dealing with bad people like that, you kind of need to be willing to play hardball.
Letitia James is another one that belongs in jail.
Look, look, the But the Democrats, look, they really overplayed their hand on this because they thought they could take Donald Trump out.
They didn't.
And in the process, they totally destroyed American people's faith in our Justice Department.
And they got President Trump a lot of votes because of that.
I mean, the book I wrote about the I Went to Prison So You Won't Have to, the whole theme of that thing.
Is that I'm the wake up call.
If they can come for me, they can come for you.
So people need to understand that these are bad people.
Letitia James, Fanny Willis in Georgia, Alvin Bragg in Manhattan.
The question is how coordinated were they?
And that's a question that needs to be answered by an investigation.
Yeah, that's my question as well.
I mean, don't forget, Fanny Fanny.
Let's just call her Fanny okay, i'm sorry, if you wanted it to be funny, you could have spelled it f-a-w-n-i-e right, but it's Fanny.
So Fanny's got this boyfriend.
Apparently he's still her boyfriend, what do you know?
Down in Georgia she's paying him.
I still think that wasn't fully fully looked into.
That's another thing to put on the list, for goodness sakes.
So she's paying him.
Wonder if she's getting anything off the top?
I don't know, but i'm just saying, like what the heck was going down when he's traveling to the White House While he's, supposed to be the lawyer on that case against Donald Trump, you know, the one that they got the mugshot on in that now sits outside the White House in the Oval Office, right?
Like, how fantastic is that if you think about it?
But Peter Navarro's right.
Like, they made this bet.
They thought that they could go after him and take him out.
But, you know, the people got wise to it.
They're like, but wait a second.
You told us about that virus.
You said there was no way it could come from Wuhan, China.
It certainly would never have been manufactured in a lab.
All need to learn who done this.
What do you know?
Yeah, came from the lab.
Or what about the Hunter Biden laptop?
You couldn't talk about this.
No, no, no.
That was misinformation.
I mean, you'd get your Twitter account shut down.
All news organizations were under strict adherence to not talking about the Hunter Biden laptop because they, they, the 51X spooks, I guess on a speed dial with the Obamagate folks, decided that was not a problem.
They did everything they could, right?
Throughout.
And then you look at the last four years, he continued to come back and he continued to come back no matter what they did.
threw at him.
And so, you know, Dan Bongino said it very well.
Dan Bongino made the point that, you know, what there's got to be consequences.
And he said this actually about eight weeks ago or so.
I want to play you some sound from my buddy Dan.
He's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful guy.
And he said, you know, he doesn't need any friends.
He's in Washington for one reason and one reason only.
And he warned of what was to be and to come.
And then he put this out on Twitter with two words.
bookmark this.
So I thought it was appropriate at this moment in time as we learn of Letitia James going down, as we learn of perhaps John Bolton getting tied up in something, who knows, right?
With those classified docs, speculation, again, all speculation at this point, but we don't know.
I will say this, these guys mean business.
Listen to Dan.
He's the assistant director now at the FBI to Cash.
Let me ask you about are you going to be looking into Cash and Pam any potential collusion between the DOJ, Letitia James, the novel legal theory of Alvin Bragg or Nathan Wade or Fonnie Willis and the DOJ?
Is that something?
Has anything come up?
Is there any way to determine whether or not?
Evidence was destroyed in any of these cases?
Well, there's always a way to determine that.
I don't want to comment on that specific case right now for a reason.
I don't want to get ahead of the Department of Justice on that.
But I want to say this: you know, the FBI obviously has the public corruption portfolio.
And yes, if you are a corrupt politician out there, if you are engaged in behavior, you know what you're doing, we're going to find you.
I promise.
No one is going to get off the days of selecting and putting your.
You know, partisan bias on and taking care of your friends.
Those days are over.
You know what, Sean?
I don't have any friends.
I don't want any friends.
Well, maybe outside of you and a couple of them.
I don't care.
I didn't come here for the money.
I didn't come here to make friends.
I know.
I don't want to.
No, you didn't come here to make friends.
I don't give a damn about friends.
I don't have any friends.
I don't want any friends.
I got my wife, I got you, and I got a small crew of people.
So I don't need any friends.
If you're a partisan, we're coming for you.
That'll help.
Yeah, go.
Except you want a friend in DC, right?
Go get a labradoodle like I have.
Because there are no friends in DC.
You've been doing this for what, 30 years?
There are no friends here.
No friends.
Which means even Bolton, I guess.
I'm sure he was on air plenty with Bolton at Fox.
We all were.
No friends right now.
We're just trying to find truth and who did what and when they did it and why they did it.
And so I think Letitia's motives were pretty clear, right?
He's called me venomous.
We will fight back to your attempt to bring. Trumpism to New York City.
He's called me disgraceful.
He's called me radical.
Listen, we know he's crazy.
We know he doesn't have a sound mind.
We know he's out of control.
He's called me a racist.
We've got to stand up to an administration which is too male, too pale, and too stale.
God, she's awful.
Okay, so, like, she kind of had it coming to her, right?
Like, that is one that's very clear.
I'm with Peter Navarro.
She's kind of a despicable person, and you've got to set some kind of precedent.
You just cannot have these rabid prosecutor types out there trying to take others down.
I mean, who the heck is ever going to go into politics, right?
I mean, if you have the threat of the Letitia Jameses out there.
So what Boncino's saying is really important.
Important and well understood at this moment in time.
I want you to just keep this in mind.
She tried to bankrupt him.
And my question now is who was involved in this?
You know, the DOJ was asked, Merrick Garland was asked actually by Matt Gaetz in one of the testimonies.
And Matt was pretty forceful.
He's like, why can't we get some information about whether or not there was any connection between y'all?
Why don't you just show us some of the documents?
My hope right now is that as they investigate her out of New York, as the DOJ looks at whether or not she violated the civil rights of the president, what I want to know, aside from the mortgage stuff is interesting, and perhaps she's just stupid, not just corrupt, but she's just stupid too, I guess.
That's one thing.
But my question still is, in terms of violating the president's civil rights, did she do this?
Did she do this because she was being told to or encouraged to from on top?
I mean, don't forget, like she was willing to totally bankrupt him and make sure he could never do business in New York again.
She wanted to take everything he owned, including Trump Tower.
That would have been the prize, right?
You could just see her gloating on ABC when she got her verdict.
Remember?
Four days after a judge ordered Donald Trump to pay $355 million for a decade of fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James says she's prepared to do everything she can to make sure the former president pays his fine.
Including, she told us, seizing the buildings that bear his name.
If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek, you know, judgment enforcement mechanisms in court.
And we will ask the judge to seize his assets.
God, she was just so happy about that, right?
Well, she really does have egg on her face.
She looks like a total fool.
She is a total fool.
She's a political animal, but she didn't understand this very basic thing.
I guess she missed this part in law school.
And this is the article that Fox put up saying that the five-member panel actually did uphold some of the findings about fraud concerns.
And that will be appealed.
But this is the biggie to me.
I'm looking at the Eighth Amendment, okay?
And what does the Eighth Amendment do?
It protects people from excessive bail.
It protects you from excessive fines.
What do you think the 500 million bucks is, for goodness sakes?
Prevents the government from imposing disproportionately large monetary penalties, right?
Because we didn't want to be like the King of England.
cruel and unusual punishments so we don't have cruel and unusual punishments this is cruel and unusual this is excessive this is extraordinary so the the judges here in this case deciding you know what this goes this is getting tossed out because she has violated violated the eighth amendment and i would just say you know i it's like she's just so So freaking clueless, just absolutely positively clueless.
I mean, when he was, or this may have been shortly after he won the presidency, she was out there, or forgive me, this was actually when he was running.
We're going back in time.
I thought she looked a little bit younger.
Let me show you here on the view when she was first filing charges, and I guess this would have been right before 2020 and 2019 into 2020.
And she's just salivating, right?
Absolutely giddy at the idea that she was going to take down the president regardless of if he won or not.
Take a peek.
You also intend to prosecute him after he is out of office, correct?
Joy, again, our investigation currently is civil in nature.
It is not criminal.
In the event that we uncover any activity or conduct.
In the event that we uncover any conduct.
Oh, yes.
But will you go ahead and continue?
Yes, our civil suit will continue whether he's president or not.
And so after January 20th at 12 o'clock, our investigation will continue, Joy.
There's no way a potential pardon for Trump or his three eldest kids would shield them from anything you're investigating.
Am I right?
That's what you just said, I believe.
Correct.
He cannot pardon himself.
What he could do is step down and allow the vice president, Vice President Pence, to pardon him.
In all likelihood, I suspect that he will pardon his family members, his children, his son in law, and individuals in his administration, as well as some of his close associates.
And then I suspect at some point in time, he will step down and allow the vice president. to pardon him.
Now, it's important to understand he is pardoned from federal crimes, but he is not pardoned from state crimes.
Last year, I introduced a bill in the state legislature, which would close the pardon loophole so that individuals such as the President of the United States would not evade justice.
It's important that we have this check on presidential powers.
And in the legislature, the state legislature, I'm so happy they passed that bill.
Closing The Pardon Loophole00:02:21
And it is now the law in the state of New York.
President Trump cannot avoid justice.
in the great state of New York?
Gosh, I cannot even stand the way she speaks.
It's so contrived.
It's really, really, really contrived.
She always says the same thing over and over again, too, in just different formats, different settings.
But that's going back a ways.
I mean, she's had a vendetta now for years.
And I'm just saying, we can't live in a world where these kind of vendettas get played out.
And actually, he at least had the wherewithal and the ability and the financial stability to keep moving forward.
But what would happen to most people in that situation?
They wouldn't be able to.
And so that's not fair.
It's not the right.
Kind of situation for America, but it could change because I'll tell you, this woman's in trouble.
She's in a whole lot of trouble right now.
She's got two DOJ cases against her.
Recommended that the DOJ investigate New York Attorney General Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud.
The AG, Letitia James, has responded.
We don't have the video, but here's the quote This investigation into me is nothing more than retribution.
It's baseless.
It has to do with the fact that on a power of attorney, I mistakenly indicated.
That I was a state of Virginia resident.
And prior to that, I indicated to the mortgage broker that, in fact, in bold cap letters, that I am not a resident of Virginia and never will be.
They just took the power of attorney and they're using that as a basis for enforcement of their investigation.
Bill, do you know why she said she was a resident of Virginia on the power of attorney, if in fact she wasn't?
Well, I know that we are mortgage experts and we only refer things that we think are mortgage fraud and we stand 100% behind the letter.
I'll let the letter speak for itself.
I do know and I have seen some reports from that subject's criminal defense lawyer saying certain things.
I'll leave it to the DOJ to correct various things.
But again, when we see mortgage fraud, we are going to report it.
When we see mortgage fraud, we are going to prosecute it within the confines. of our duties.
And we are not going to be intimidated by a subject's criminal defense lawyer.
We are not going to be intimidated by a politician or just because you have an Asquire behind your name.
We are not going to be intimidated by people.
If we see mortgage fraud, we're going to do something about it.
And I think that you're going to see us be taking this on in a big way.
Mortgage fraud is a big yeah.
Mortgage Fraud Investigation00:15:01
All right.
So taking it on in a big way.
Good luck, Tish.
You know who's already casing out the joint there at that brownstone she has?
That would be one, Ed Martin.
He's the investigator assigned to the Letitia James case and uh he, he was recently there and people were getting a little bit annoyed remember, guys did.
Did you see this?
This one where Ed Martin stands outside the Brownstone and somebody starts taping him on a phone?
This woman starts spazzing out, oh my gosh, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
Why are you here?
How dare you?
I know why you're here.
And Ed's the one in the trench coat with the little Columbo look, going on.
Anyway, she's in trouble.
Like he's on the case.
He's investigating her.
He's even showing up at the house.
He's outside the Brownstone ready, willing to take her on.
I want to go to another big story in the news.
We talked a little bit about it yesterday, but there's a lot of heat coming down on Cracker Barrel right now.
And I'm curious to see if you guys have a view on this one.
Cracker Barrel, the company that, you know, is a nice country restaurant, is deciding to remake itself.
You know, Byron Johnson, do you guys know Byron?
Apparently, Byron used to work.
Byron used to work at Cracker Barrel.
This new logo, kind of a politically correct logo.
The old one was seen as maybe too Americana, whatever.
You actually worked at a Cracker Barrel in college.
You have a very close personal connection because you say you converted in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.
So you're very close to this story.
What's your impression of their going woke with this new logo?
I think the new logo sucks.
I don't even understand it.
I saw some of the new renovations.
It looks like it came out of somebody's Pinterest account.
It doesn't make any sense.
I saw last night they started changing the menu.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a staple of America.
Everybody goes there when they're on the highway to go get some good breakfast.
The hash brown casserole is amazing.
Trust me, I served so much of it when I was in college.
People just want to go eat great food and enjoy just the store.
And to change that, because you think you need to do something new, I think they're going to find out it's not going to work.
Look, Bob Evans has great breakfast.
But Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel are two different stores.
Just let Cracker Barrel be Cracker Barrel.
bring back Uncle Herschel.
Yeah, this is the problem.
Everybody's like, why do you hate that logo so much?
Why?
I mean, what's really wrong with it?
Julie Massino, I think is her name, the CEO went on Good Morning America to explain they're doing these revamps.
They're getting rid of the old logo.
They're bringing in this new one all alongside, by the way, like a commitment to wokeness.
They've got their LGBT stuff apparently.
And then they have this one.
I was blown away by this because they have all these, uh, Different affinity groups, which I thought like we had already been through this, wasn't it?
Discovered and decided that you know you can't actually have these, they're not really legal because the Supreme Court had to tell Harvard that.
And now, apparently, ABC News is learning the hard way as well with letters from the FCC.
Well, not Cracker Barrel, Cracker Barrel has these things.
Gosh, I have to lean in to see this, but I mean, they've got an AMPT group, which is the advanced modern professionals for tomorrow.
And well, you have to be a minority of some sort to be part of that.
They've got Be Bold.
I mean, talking about division, right?
Like, there's a group for everyone, except for, I guess, if you're a white man, because if you're a white man, just forget about it.
I mean, white woman, that's not great either.
They'll probably call you a Karen and be done with it.
But I don't even know if I could get into any of these groups.
Would I qualify for AMPT?
My gosh.
And then be bold.
You have to be black to be and be bold.
Oh, there's the OLA group, I guess, because, you know, Hispanics, I'll tell you, they got room for everyone.
They're going to just divide you up.
Divide, divide, divide, divide and conquer.
That is the way they play this.
And Cracker Barrel's CEO is too stupid to understand that those days are over and maybe she ought to be embracing the conservative values that her company once seemed to stand for.
You know, good old country store.
Here's Julie.
Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we're doing.
I'll give you another sound bite.
I actually happened to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers.
We bring them together once every other year.
And the number one question that I got asked, Michael, was how can I get a remodel?
When can I get a remodel?
How do I get on the list?
Oh, really?
So, because the Feedback and the buzz is so good, not only from our customers, but from our team members.
They want to work in a wonderful restaurant.
So we're doing everything for our guests and our team members.
Well, Julie Messino, it's wonderful to have you.
He doesn't seem that convinced.
Look, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Didn't Bud Light learn that one somehow, some way?
I mean, let me see how Cracker Barrel's stock is doing.
They were tanking yesterday.
It was unreal, just tanking on this news.
We've got a few other business stories going on.
Apparently, The US government is going to get 10% of Intel.
What do you guys think of that?
My first instinct is that I do not like the idea of the government being in business, period, only because, you know, the government tends to be a little bit stupid.
And we happen to have a smart person as the quote, CEO of the country right now.
But what if it were Kamala Harris?
I'm just saying.
Okay.
What if it were Kamala Harris?
What would we do then?
I mean, she certainly wouldn't be able to run the likes of Intel.
But I do think that this may be coming from sort of a national security standpoint.
Cracker Barrel has recovered a bit.
But I'll tell you, the thing got, whoo, just massively shot down yesterday.
It was trading down about nine, down nine percent or so.
It's up 42 cents right now.
I don't think that counts for much.
Of course, the entire market is up right now.
The entire market just on a tear today.
And that's in part because of, oh, Jerome Ball's getting the message.
He's suddenly sounding dovish out there at his big shindig.
See, once a year they have this thing out in Jackson Hole for the Federal Reserve and they get to go fishing together and then they talk about what they think is.
coming and in his big speech, this is like the speech of the year, right?
He basically sounded pretty dovish.
And so as a result, you've got gold up 1%.
You've got everything on a tear, right?
Because the thinking is you get the dollar suffering a little bit with the euro dollar, the euro doing a little better, $1.17 to the euro.
But if I look at the Dow now, we're up 2% almost on the Dow.
We've got 1.5% gains on the S&P, NASDAQ up nearly 2% as well.
If you have not done this, I really need you to go over to my company's website.
Where is it?
Did I forget to put that one up?
You got to go to 76 Research because I want you to be investing in this.
What did I do yesterday?
I bought a bunch of stocks.
Yes, because when it goes down, I buy okay, and use cold dollar d-o-l-l-a-r.
And then you get it for a dollar a month and Rob and I are actually working on a piece right now.
Um, I was actually working on it quite late last night and uh, just doing some edits and stuff actually about AI, but now we've got, of course, the the FED to talk about as well.
So it's going to be a busy busy, busy afternoon, 76research.com.
Use code word dollar because it will help you just look at what there is to invest in right now.
But, you know, I look at a company like Cracker Barrel and I'm like, Cracker Barrel, you know, why don't mess with a good thing?
Like you had a good thing going.
I mean, heck, even Gavin Newsom is like, why are you going woke?
Well, that's him trying to pretend he's Donald Trump.
Whole other story.
Whole other story.
We got into that yesterday.
We now got the Bed Bath and Beyond CEO coming out, calling out Newsom.
Like he's just, you know, he really has no use for the guy.
I'm going to get to that in a second.
But one thing that I did want to mention right now is just sort of one of the problems that these companies continually make is they forget about what is so unique about America, right?
And what makes us special.
And it's not really our wealth.
It's not our principles, all of which are great.
You know, the highest standard of living in the world, our principles, it is our principles, I should say.
It is our principles.
And that's where our power is derived from.
Again, not wealth per se.
We are, and I think capitalism is the reason for it, the most successful with the highest standard of living nation in the world.
But it's really because of our people, right?
Our people who are grounded in these principles.
And it's important to remember this, especially as we see, you know, the likes of Letitia James trying to bankrupt somebody like Donald Trump.
You got to remember about our foundation, right?
There are sort of great American foundations and this experiment that they did some 200, nearly 250 years ago.
I'm celebrating the birthday all year long here.
You're going to hear a few more renditions of.
The Star Spangled Banner at some point.
But, you know, we are great.
We are great as a nation because of our people and because of the risks that people were willing to take nearly 250 years ago.
And this is something that I just don't think you should ever lose sight of.
And I'm proud to have partnered with my friends over at AFP just to remind everybody of this.
That's all.
I mean, nothing that we're not asking for money.
We're just asking that you remember like how wonderful and tremendous this.
great nation is.
Well, I'm not asking for my, I can't promise anything from that.
But anyway, go over to taketonesmallstep.com to get started.
Take a look.
You know, this is a whole prescription, if you would, a whole set of ideas of what you can do this year.
Like just, you know, invite some neighbors over for tea and like, you know, I don't know, like read the Declaration of Independence, something, right?
To kind of ground you in that tremendous legacy that we have.
And not just you, but the rest of your community and your family and your friends.
So go check them out at takeonesmallstep.com.
We need to remember our history right now as people try and tear it down.
And then, you know, for political reasons, then they get mad at one another.
And now Newsom is suddenly the new Donald Trump and he's calling out Cracker Barrel saying, why are you getting so woke?
And I'm like, who the hell are you, buddy boy?
What is wrong with your Cracker Barrel?
Look, you keep your beautiful logo.
The new one looks like cheap Velveeta cheese from Walmart, the place for groceries, an old fashioned term.
Fix it ASAP.
Woke is dead.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I mean, he's not joking either.
Like at first I was like, oh, this is a joke.
But no, no, he's literally, he's literally.
trying desperately to imitate one Donald Trump.
And we went through yesterday all the criticism.
I mean, even MSNBC is like, buddy boy, what's going on?
But here's what's going on.
The guy's got a lousy situation out there in California, whether it's the fires or whether it's the economy or whether it's every single company leaving in droves.
It's not working out for him so well.
And now Bed Bath and Beyond, they're calling him out.
This is fantastic.
I want to show you a soundbite from Hannity's program last night where he had the CEO, the new CEO of Bed Bath and Beyond.
Don't forget the company had its troubles and now it's trying to rebuild.
And salvage the name.
And there was this whole back and forth with California.
California.
I'll let him explain it, but he's got no use for Gavin after this.
Well, I think the thing that was really surprising to me is that I tried to articulate in a non aggressive way exactly why our company wasn't going to reinvest capital in California.
And what I found out this afternoon is that Governor Newsom has enough time to respond to a tweet as opposed to a private DM or having somebody reach out to remind everybody in America that in 2023, before we bought the intellectual property, the company went out of business.
We all know that Bitbath went out of business a few years ago.
Now we're trying to make a comeback.
And I would Think that a governor would want to attract investment, attract capital into the state.
In fact, he did the opposite.
He rejected it.
It's a very simple model for me.
As a capitalist myself, I want to do business in all 50 states and I want to do business with all people of all political parties.
But Gavin doesn't.
I mean, look, we've seen this movie before.
Just think AOC, right?
There was an opportunity to have all kinds of good paying jobs in Queens with Amazon.
And she didn't want it.
She turned it away.
Why?
Because these aren't really capitalists, right?
These are people that want to have total control.
Over everything, and they believe all the resources belong to the government.
And heck, they ought to be cheering this Intel thing right.
The government taking 10 of Intel, that's got to be right up Aoc and Gavin Newsome's alley, for goodness sakes, you know it makes me uncomfortable.
I think that it's because of national security reasons we can do some more reporting on that and get back to you tomorrow on it but I think because it's a semiconductor company, the fear is, you know what, if this thing kind of spirals out of control too long, you run certain risks vis-a-vis Taiwan and China, And so that's part of the thinking in terms of why we would be taking a 10% stake in Intel right now.
And Donald Trump's always thinking, right?
Not just as a businessman.
And I hope he's thinking about, well, gosh, that this falls into the wrong hands.
But I do think he's committed to making sure that we have the security in terms of our tech sector.
And again, just look at the market, which is flying today.
So they're not having any problem with it.
I want to go to Glenn Beck, who also spoke with Mark from Bed Bath and Beyond.
And it's an interesting sort of Dilemma that he's got, and he's making the choice to just stay out of California.
Don't blame him.
You started yesterday saying this is not about politics.
And I just want to point out that you're not a Trump supporter.
You know, in 2017, you came out, and I'm not going to go through it because you went back and forth and Corrected and everything else.
But, you know, you criticized what Donald Trump said in Charlottesville when it was thought that he had said, you know, hey, and the Nazis are pretty good too, which we now know because the full audio and video is out and we can show that that's not what he was talking about at all.
But you came out, as did a whole buttload of other CEOs, and said, you know, if that's what you believe, then, you know, please, we don't necessarily want you shopping here.
So it's not.
That you are doing this because you're a big Trump supporter.
When I saw your name attached to this, I thought, no, no, this is about business because he's not on either side here on this.
Yeah, I'm not on either side.
Is that accurate?
But I will say, yeah, it's kind of accurate from a historical standpoint.
It's not accurate from a modern day standpoint.
I think as time has gone on and the facts have been revealed and things have played out and moves have been made by this administration that I think advance business and advance the American, you know, Uh, citizen, wow, okay, so I'm gonna agree with him.
Cable News Is Over00:03:27
Yes, this administration is advancing business, and just look at where we are right now again on the Dow up 1.9%, SP up 1.5, Nasdaq up nearly 2%.
I would encourage you to go to 76research.com for more information on sort of how you think about these markets right now.
But I'm telling you, like I've said it from the beginning, this you want to invest in MAGA right now, you want to be, and regardless of politics, and this guy was no fan of Trump's, but he likes what he's doing.
from the business standpoint.
And that's an important thing to remember right now.
We've talked a little bit about from the business standpoint, right?
And you've got all kinds of challenges when we look at, for example, what all these media companies are up against right now.
Oh, I'm here.
Almost, right?
Now, you've got the end of MSC, MBC, literally the end.
I mean, well, it's going to live on in some other form.
I guess they're calling it MS now, but.
Nobody really knows how to pronounce it, not even Rachel Maddow.
Rachel Maddow saying, I don't know how to pronounce this thing.
And so when I look at, for example, even the ratings that they're seeing at some of these networks, I mean, wow, look at how challenged they are, right?
And by the way, it's not just MSNBC and CNN.
It's actually also other networks, including Fox, Fox, which has really been leading the way.
So I think this is speaking about the overall challenges within the industry.
But for sure, you know, a lot of change is going to be happening and that's to be expected.
The president weighed in today.
He weighed in on the name change for Msnbc to whatever it is, MS NOW.
Uh interestingly, they're keeping poor Microsoft Microsoft's like, wait a second, we just gave you a few bucks initially and now we're stuck with this forever.
Here's the president speaking about the end of Msnbc.
Then you turn to CNN, which is fake news and nobody watches it, or Msdnc.
They change their name now because they were so bad, But they're the worst, owned by Comcast, run by a guy named Brian Roberts, who doesn't have a clue.
They change Msnbc.
He's a terrible manager.
But they're not, I don't think, selling it.
They're changing the name because they're ashamed of it.
And they're disassociating it from NBC, which is also fake news.
They should be ashamed of that, too.
But a lot of fake news.
I think the news is getting better.
They're learning that they have no credibility.
ABC, CBS was just sold to a great person that I know very well.
A great man, he actually just bought CBS, and I think he's going to do the right thing with it.
NBC is run terribly by Comcast.
I call it Comcast because it's a whole con.
Comcast, you get it?
So, Comcast is the one that owns NBC and MSNBC and CNBC and all of these cable companies, and they're spinning them off in this spinoff called Versant, and that's supposed to happen by the end of the year.
And they can't get away from their talent.
People like, they already got rid of Joy Reid, but I even think, you know, Rachel Meadows in that crowd as well, which may explain why she's being kind of reluctant and resistant and won't actually say the name, whereas.
Joe Scarborough is the survivor and out there trying to sing a different tune in this day and age.
But it doesn't matter.
I think just fundamentally, the whole sort of cable thing is over.
It's funny what happened to me earlier in the show.
Losing Top Reporters00:06:28
If you guys were watching and the camera went out and, you know, look, you're here with me when the camera goes out.
And I'm sorry about that.
Right.
But I'll tell you, I wouldn't trade it.
I really wouldn't because to be able to have this kind of autonomy and transparency with all of you and not to have middle management in the way is a big freaking deal.
And this is the first time in my entire career where I've owned my content and I'm a thousand percent responsible, literally even for the camera.
Right.
So, you know, we take the good with the bad, but overwhelmingly it's good.
It's really, really good.
So we're coming up on a million subs.
I mean, think about that.
It's wild.
And it's because of your commitment and, of course, my willingness to get up here live every day and deal with, and you deal with me.
Right.
You know, because sometimes the audio works with the camera.
Because that's the first time that's happened, actually.
I think.
I think.
The audio.
Well, we've had our day.
Have we not, Leslie?
Leslie will be like, you know, your mic's not on.
Hopefully it is.
But I look at these networks right now.
And they're so clueless because they're spending all this money for these very, very big productions with lots of lights and 40 people in the control room, this, that, and the other, and very controlled.
And everybody's writing the scripts.
And maybe, maybe you get a little impromptu action during. the actual interviews, but I still say maybe because, you know, you're only allowed to stray so far.
You got middle management and upper management breathing down your back constantly.
It's not the way to live, as we say, or not the way to report.
I get a kick out of this guy, Kernan.
He's a good one.
He's one of the, you know, a few, but I do think business reporters tend to be a little bit smarter, shall we say, than the political reporters.
He's over on CNN, and I loved seeing this because the other day he had Hakeem Jeffries on, and Hakeem, like, doesn't know what hit him.
Just doesn't.
He's like, wait a second.
This is, Who put me on CNBC?
I thought it was going to be MSNBC, you know, where all my friends are.
But it was.
Kernan, watch.
All I can tell you is that the inflation rate itself was 2.7% in the most recent read year over year versus it got to a high of 9% under Biden.
Stocks are at record highs.
Unemployment is 4.2%.
That's full employment.
The GDP was 3%.
The border is actually secure.
We've got trade deals with the EU, Japan, many more in the works, and trillions of dollars of foreign investment coming here.
Iran's nuclear ambitions have been set back indefinitely.
And I just wrote down a few things.
So I just have to ask you, where is the calamity that you're talking about?
And it almost seems like for Democrats, socialism is the answer to these problems.
Or, I don't know, an end of democracy or something.
We just don't get it.
I'm here.
Now we're scared every time, right?
Anyway, you know, look, I think that there's going to be a lot of changes coming.
And Hakeem, you know, somehow managed to fight his way through that interview.
But I wanted to show you that because I think it's important, one, for you to know that at least over on the business news side, where they get to keep their name, interestingly enough, CNBC gets to stay CNBC, whereas MS can no longer be MSNBC.
So CNBC coming out the victor on that one.
It actually was the original name, believe it or not.
Back in the day, consumer news, consumer news and business, something, whatever it stood for, but it was actually an acronym that stood for their channel name.
And so they're going to stick with that.
Again, I think that you've got to get some kind of middle ground, right?
I'm not saying that we're going to just praise Trump.
For goodness sakes, that wouldn't be right either.
You know, credit where credit's due.
And then when it's not due, you know, you say it.
And then when you're not sure, like sometimes we get live breaking news and, you know, I have a different views on Intel.
One is that I don't want the government running companies in any way, shape, or form.
But two is this is a semiconductor company.
So it's a little bit different because let's face it, we have to kowtow to a certain extent with China because why?
Because they turn off, if they take over Taiwan, okay, let's just like game this out for a second.
If they take over Taiwan and all of a sudden we don't have semiconductors, it's like what powers everything.
It's like oil all over again, for goodness sake.
So I mean, I look at Intel and say, why haven't you guys been able to figure out how to do this here at home?
Why are we so reliant on Taiwan?
And I know the president is looking at it the same way.
So that may be a reason why they're saying, okay, we want to have a stake in the company.
We need to actually have more ownership.
We need to know that you guys are doing the right thing for the country.
Because as great as capitalism is, occasionally, especially when it comes to certain industries, it could really make or break you, literally, you do need somebody looking out for the future of the United States.
I mean, that's been my complaint with politics for as long as it's been around, right?
You don't really have politicians looking out for the people.
They look out for themselves and how to get reelected.
And in looking out for themselves, what do they do?
They need to make sure that they have plenty of donors and plenty of money.
In their coffers so that they can run their election campaign.
And everything's changed, of course.
I mean, you have a way to go direct to the people now, and Trump figured that out before anyone.
But still, this has been their focus.
And as a result of that, you know, they're kowtowing to every CEO and every business group, and they're not thinking about what it means for the American economy and the American people in the process.
And so, sure, if a company wants to go over to China and make more money because they're in China and China steals all the technology, that's okay.
That's just the price of doing business, right?
The CEO doesn't care.
He or she's only looking at three months down the road or maybe six months and at most a year.
We need a longer plan, okay?
We need somebody who's looking out for the long-term future of the United States.
And so you have to bleed that together with capitalism in order to have the greatest productivity.
And I think that's where the challenge is.
And that's what this administration is trying to meet.
So that's a long-winded way of saying, one, I think the Intel thing is going to be okay.
And two, yeah, MSNBC is going bye-bye because it can't make it as a business, same as all these other legacy media networks.
Short Term Business Focus00:00:44
And a lot of the talent's going to have to go bye-bye because you cannot pay 25 million dollars for one show a week from your you know, signature gal there.
Good deal for her, heard she took a pay cut.
Apparently she was at 30, you know look hey, if they're that stupid and they are, then more power to her, I guess, I guess.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you so much.
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