Wealth Inequality and Trump Vanity Projects

Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? Man I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat, emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately though, Mint story is better. Every plan fifteen dollars a month. Even unlimited. That's it. happappy ending, zero teiars. Give it a try at mintMobile dot com slash switch r pay forty dollars for mons nyll for six mons,yllars for twelth,qured fifteenllars for month equivents to taxess extra, finish for from, c great with gigabyes slow netork busy t. Donald Trump is losing control as it's increasingly clear that the national financial data that gets released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies within the Trump regime seem to be a lot like Donald Trump's personal finances They seem to basically be fake, inflated and deflated. And I think the American people are starting to understand what's going on. And there were a lot of people saying,, you know, you could still trust the Bureau of Labor statistics. They're going to still be accurate. I really under the Trump regime, sorry because this data that we see is raising massive red flags And I just tend to trust the consumer sentiment where consumers, the people kind of like the people I talk to who feel that right now, things are worse than during the Great Depression, the worst consumer surveys like basically in the history of the surveys, that seems to be where most people are right now and not what the Trump regime is putting out there. Also, the Trump regime keeps putting out all of these massive revisions, which they said, oh, we're never gonna do these revisions on jobs numbers But it turns out that even when you get like a bad job print It's actually much worse than that and you find out a few months later. I want to bring in Brian Tyler Cohen, the author of the new book as well, the dayay afterfter, How to wield power in a post Trump world to go over this data with me, Brian, let's just go through some of this data together. Th then I got questions for you So you take a look this over here, the Koby Lasia letter reports this. Since the start of twenty twenty five, US job numbers have now been revised down in fourteen out of seventeen months by a total job loss of seven hundred ten thousand jobs. So the May and April jobs numbers were revised down by a total of seventy four thousand. and those job numbers were not good to begin with. That's the largest two month downward revision since December April jobs were revised down by thirty one thousand to one hundred forty eight thousand, May jobs revised down by forty three thousand to one hundred twenty nine thousand jobs. This means forty one thousand or so jobs have been revised out of previously reported data on average in each period per month at this point If we apply this average to the fifty seven thousand June non farm payrolls, it would imply just fifteen thousand jobs were added last month And then it's even going down from there. So you learn all that. I'll give you another data point as well, Brian Tyler Cohen. You take a look at the Strait of Hormuz right now where the Trump regime says at this point, things look as good as they did before the war started. We're setting records, record amounts of oil. And you know, you have an independent entity like Keplar They say hormus recovery remains very fragile. Tanker Tracker Kepler recorded thirty four, forty eight and thirty eight crossings of the Strait of Hormuz over the last three days against a pre war average of one hundred twenty five to one hundred forty daily. The data undercuts the claim by a US official to Bloomberg this week that oil flows through the strait have surpassed ten million barrels per day with the US military support driving a shipping surge 's figures show that actually it's roughly five million barrels of oil exiting the strait daily on average in June, half of the officials claim from the Trump regime and a quarter of the roughly twenty million barrels per day that transited before the war. Now Brian, this also seems a lot like what went down between the United States and China where Donald Trump was bragging, lookook, I got them to buy thirteen million metric tons of soybeans But under former President Biden wouldn even think about that. It was twenty six million metric tons. So Trump was bragging about half But then when we found the real number, it was probably half of what Trump was bragging about. So now he's bragging and boasting in reality. The truth is we're doing about a quarter of that. And that's kind of the theme with all of this, Brian. And your book, The Day After How to wield power in a post Trump world, which everybody's gota go and make sure you order right now You know, you talk about what Democrats can do to wield power? frrankly, any I mean, my own view is what can people do to wield power with this level of fraud takaking place, Brian I mean, at this point, here's what I think is really important because we do need a forward looking agenda. We need to take care of health carere in this country and make sure everybody has access to health carere. I argue in the book for Medicare for all, we need to confront climate change. We need to make sure that Um you know, that we're focusing on reforming our election laws, making sure that everybody has the right to vote. But at the same time I make the argument that you can't do any of this and still have a functioning democracy if you don't hold people to account for the corruption that they're engaging in right now. Like we have to be able to walk and she gum at the same time. So people are seeing this. They're seeing the overt corruption, whether it's shorting the stock market on a daily basis, you know, obviously, Donald Trump's financial disclosure form, which has, you, I think it's nine hundred twenty seven pages long for comparison, Joe Biden's was eleven pages long shows the amount of trades that he's done, which directly correlate to when he's giving speeches that impact the very things that he's trading on. So all of this is happening in plain sight. We're watching the Trump family get rich hand over fist. We're watching the Pentagon give loans to Don Junr., for example, to the tune of like six hundred twenty million dollars for companies that he just invested in five minutes ago So these people are making so much money, The grrift and graft and corruption is so overt. If we want anybody to have any faith in a true constitutional republic, a real law and order system, then that has to mean we hold people to account for the criminality and corruption that they're engaging in right now. So we cannot do what we did during the Biden era, where you lean on somebody like Merrick Carland who decided to prevent the optics of politicization and allow Donald Trump and Republicans to get away with all the crimes they engaged in because God forbid, we look politicized. Because you look at this now, the system that we're in right now where it almost feels like crime is legal on a daily basis. We wouldn't be here if there was any deterrent effect, but there was no deterrent effect for these people. And so now the lesson that they learned is I can get away with it so long as I'm powerful enough You know, the concept of the big lie was coined by Adolf Hitler in his nineteen twenty five book, Meine Kemp. and Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana said that that was a book that Donald Trump you kept near and dear to him. Joseph Goebels, Hitler's propaganda minister, said, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it peopleople will eventually come to believe it, you know, with the colossal nature of his lies. that are, you know, the algae is put in there by algae crooks And they and they threw the algae and, you know, it sounds so farcical. versus, you know it sounds so out there that at first, you know, and this is a pattern, people treat it like a, whatever. But then he keeps on saying it. then Fox repeats it over and over again. And before you know it, he gave his Magault base a hook and they believe it and they go, got it. I guess that's the case. You know, the numbers of his fraud, the numbers, when we're talking about hundreds of billions and billions and trillions, It's hard for people to even kind of process it. You know, I think people can process, got it, you know, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. But when you're talking about the scope of some of these things that the Trump regime is doing, and then you're talking about like the schemes that he's involved in by buying these, you know, different funds and this and that and this gets shifted over there. I just think, you know, it overwhelms people. How do what do you think about that? How do we deal with that Look, think I think it's such a great question, but I think all we have to do is look at look at the numbers that we're dealing with here. I mean When Republicans and Trump specifically vilify Snap recipients, for example, they are making like an anemic amount of money to be able to put some modicum of food on the table. When we're talking about Medicaid recipients, these are the poorest Americans who are able to get the bare minimum of health carere in this country. and you know their Medicaid has been cut by to the tune of you know, seventeen million Americans have less healthcare than they did before. ACA recipients, twenty four million Americans. And we saw four of them lost their health carere altogether because they couldn't afford to renew when those prices went up after Republicans refused to extend those subsidies. So we see Republicans vilify people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in this country for using the scraps that were available to them But then you turn your attention to the amount of money that Donald Trump is either pocketing himself His net worth increased from two point four billion doars to six point three billion dollars. That is insane. I think the only person that made more money than Donald Trump is like Elon Musk and maybe a few of Trump's other donors at the top, but like, this is a massive amount of money. So for him to make that much money personally And then you add on top of that, the amount of money that's been squandered on the reflecting pool, the amount of money that's been squandered on retrofitting Donald Trump's personal jet that was gifted to him from Qatar, the amount of money that was squandered on the ballroom, which was supposed to be paid for by private donations and suddenly isn't, the amount of money that's been squandered on Trump's military parade on this great American state fair that can just serve as thisade propanda outlet for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. I mean, on issue after issue after issue, we are lighting millions or billions of dollars on fire so that Trump can engage in these vanity projects if he's not just taking the money himself And these people have the audacity to vilify people who are just trying to get by in this country. The very people, by the way, who Trump appealed to when he was on the campaign trail talking about the price of housing and rent and groceries and eggs. Now those people are being left high and dry. They're being vilified while Republicans and Trump and his family are consolidating more wealth, more power, more money than ever before. Yeah,' so disgusting because just a very basic understanding of how Medicaid works It's not like people are making it rain by requesting medical treatment and medical services for themselves. The Medicaid recipient is somebody who would be going to a doctor to ask for help and where the fraud takes place when it does and it's been prosecuted before are people like Senator Rick Scott from Florida, people who are running these kind of know these corporate boiler rooms. They're makingoney they're the ones enriching themselves by creating fake patients that don't exist or over billing for services that weren't provid. It's not happening at the level of a human being who needs to get a treatment and a surgery where you have to show a verifiable surgery of this is what I got. I mean, it's just something to me so basic like that, but they'll just repeat it all of the time that there are all these group of people, you know and often the attack now is directed at a lot of young people I've noticed, you know, too, you know,'s like, you know, and if these young they're just sitting around playing video games collecting all that Medicaid money at this point. It's like what? What are you talking about Well also you have to recognize that while Republicans are accusing everybody else of engaging in all of this elusive fraud They haven't brought any convictions forward. L the federal government, the same federal government that's claiming that all of this fraud is just proliferating across the country, notice that they aren't convicting anybody of the exact crimes they claim are rampant. And this isn't just Medicaid. I mean, everything that the Trump administration claims is rife with fraud, fraud, waste and abuse There haven't been convictions or indictments on any of this stuff. They claim that the elections are constantly stolen. Every election they don't win is an election that was stolen from them. And yet there is nobody convicted for engaging in this elusive fraud that apparently resulted in a stolen election. So you know this is a talking point that they'll engage in. They know that it's red beat Red meat for a very undiscerning base But look, that base also has to pay prices at the grocery store. That base also has to pay their utility bills. That base also needs health care. and they're going to realize in short order, if they haven't realized already that the same problems that Donald Trump swore he would fix and Republicans swore they would fix When they won in twenty twenty four have not only not been solved but have been exacerbated under this administration. was L at his approval in Pennsylvania, for example, it's twenty nine percent, you know? And when you And when it's on issues like inflation, it's like eighteen percent and you're seeing and it makes sense because I mean, that was what he exploited. Joe Biden was supposed to be public enemy number one because of his because of him presiding over a high inflation environment He left office when inflation was three percent. It's four point two percent. So it's thirty three percent higher than it was when the biggest offender of inflation left office. And so what does that say for Trump Everybody, I want you to go get this book right now. A this ends on july fourth weeke and let's get it the day after how to wield power in a post Trump world Brian Tler Ch, Brian, An anythingthing else people should know about the book though as well. I know, you know, you're doing some cool things in terms of you know, where some of the money goes to Yes,' glad I'm glad you asked that. Thankk you. So I work with Mar Elias who is Big a hero for democracy as you could possibly have. He's engaged in, I think, eighty three or eighty four lawsuits right now against Republicans or the Trump administration itself. And he has a five hundred one C three called the free Election Fund. And that supports the free election Fund supports litigation for voting rights cases pro democracy cases, you name it That fund is supported by outside folks. And so I decided along with my editor and my publisher, so all three of us are going to donate proceeds from every single book sold to the free election fund. I thought it was important not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk here. And so if we have the opportunity to get some eyes on what I think is a good blueprint for Democrats to learn how to fight moving forward, some of that money should also go to the fight right now. So again, every book sold is going to mean a portion of the proceeds go to the free election fund from now until the end of the pre order period. So if you order between now and july thirteenth we'll do a big donation for that fund. And I think that's going to be especially important as we watch Republicans continue to undermine democracy, voting rights on a daily basis. Everybody, go get a copy of the book. Here it is The dayay afterfter How to Wield Power in a post Trump worldorld by Brian Tyler Cohen. Thanks Brian Thanks, Ben Want to stay plugged in? beccome a subscriber for our substack at Midasplus. com You'll get daily recaps from Ron Philipkowski, ad free episodes of our podcasts, and more exclusive content only available at Mitasplus. com When maintaining your daily wellness rituals is important to you, the change in routine during the summer can feel daunting. Kachava's new travel packs help you stick to your daily ritual, even when you're on the go. Just one packet of Kachava's all in one nutrition shake provides complete nutrition with twenty five grams of protein, six grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens, and much more So you'll be fueled and ready for wherever life or your summer adventures take you. No fillers, no nonsense. Just the good stuff your body craves. pllus it actually tastes delicious. But you can try it for yourself because the variety pack includes all six delicious fan favorites, chocolate, vanilla, chai Matcha, coconut asai, and strawberry. 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