Off The Cuff Declassified： North Korea, Kurt Schlichter, Mars & the Belmont Stakes
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
171.13011
Summary
Donald Trump keeps up the heat on North Korea as he says he's ready to walk away from the upcoming June 12th summit if Kim Jong Un does not agree to denuclearize. Kurt Schlichter joins me to wrap up the week.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Today on Off the Cuff Declassified, Donald Trump keeps up the heat on North Korea.
00:00:07.920
A really interesting scientific discovery on Mars
00:00:11.140
and some disturbing information about Triple Crown hopeful, Justified.
00:00:21.640
Now one thing you've got to hand Donald Trump is he always leaves them guessing.
00:00:26.340
Yesterday at a joint press conference at the White House
00:00:32.680
Donald Trump once again gave us a little uncertainty about North Korea.
00:00:37.460
He said, I'm ready to walk away from the North Korea summit.
00:00:41.860
He said, quote, I'm totally prepared to walk away.
00:00:44.660
And he's saying if Kim Jong-un does not agree to denuclearize,
00:00:51.180
Now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that when he met with Kim,
00:01:00.840
letting North Korea know that just because they came back to the table,
00:01:08.860
Trump said, like I said, I'm totally prepared to walk.
00:01:15.620
I believe that Kim Jong-un wants to do something
00:01:19.380
and also great for his family, great for himself.
00:01:23.080
He added that, the president added that the U.S.
00:01:27.540
could also absolutely sign an agreement to end the Korean War
00:01:31.640
and to bring things back to pre-1950s levels with North Korea.
00:01:42.880
And so when asked if he was willing to sign a peace agreement
00:01:49.200
Trump said, quote, we would certainly like to see normalization.
00:01:57.380
But yes, we could absolutely sign an agreement.
00:02:03.520
Sounds a little bit strange, but that's probably the easy part.
00:02:08.200
Now, he did say that he expected to normalize relations with North Korea.
00:02:13.500
The summit, of course, right now, is scheduled for next Tuesday.
00:02:19.220
This coming Tuesday, actually, June 12th at the Capella Hotel in Singapore.
00:02:26.020
Anything can happen over the weekend in this administration.
00:02:33.140
Now, Trump also said some other very interesting things about North Korea.
00:02:37.480
He said, I hope to do that when it came to normalizing relations with North Korea.
00:02:41.700
He said, this is what was very interesting to me, quote, maximum pressure is in full effect.
00:02:49.920
We don't use that term anymore because we're going into a friendly negotiation.
00:02:54.600
Perhaps after that negotiation, I'll use it again.
00:02:58.600
We'll know how well we do with the negotiation.
00:03:03.400
If you see me say we're going to use maximum pressure,
00:03:06.520
you know the negotiation did not do well, frankly.
00:03:09.060
This is a new kind of diplomacy, and I like it.
00:03:19.600
He said, Trump went on to say, in the meantime, we haven't removed any sanctions.
00:03:24.240
And he said that the United States has over 300 massive sanctions that they're ready to impose on North Korea.
00:03:32.400
The president said he decided to hold off on that until a deal is made, and he believes there's the potential to make a deal.
00:03:44.900
And I use the word nice, the one I'm going to read you next.
00:03:47.200
To see a president that puts America first, that understands the weight, the might, the power of the United States of America,
00:03:58.080
But Trump then said, and he said a lot, this was all caught on video, about not using terms like, what was the term he used?
00:04:09.240
Not imposing any of the 300 possible sanctions.
00:04:12.980
The reason he said, he decided to hold off on that.
00:04:15.860
He said, I don't think it's nice going in under those circumstances.
00:04:18.380
Like, I don't want to walk into the deal being a jerk.
00:04:20.680
I don't want to walk into the deal twisting arms by imposing all of these sanctions and leveraging it.
00:04:34.760
I'm going to walk into the meeting in good faith next week in Singapore.
00:04:41.960
Because I can always put those things in a place.
00:04:44.280
But right now, I want to give this meeting the best chance of succeeding.
00:04:51.940
We're leaving all of the existing sanctions on.
00:04:55.960
But he is leaving all of the existing sanctions in place.
00:04:59.640
And he then reiterated that he has many more to use.
00:05:02.300
But he doesn't want to use them unless it's absolutely necessary.
00:05:11.820
Now, this is such an interesting kind of diplomacy.
00:05:30.280
And a lot of people thought that looked very bad.
00:05:32.620
But I like that Trump understands how to play Kim Jong-un.
00:05:37.300
Now, John Bolton will not be there in Singapore next week.
00:05:42.500
It doesn't mean that Bolton is out on the outs to president.
00:05:45.120
It doesn't mean that we should read between the lines.
00:05:47.520
What it means is that when Bolton talked about the Libya doctrine,
00:05:51.580
and basically that was taken to mean that if a nation denuclearizes, as Libya did,
00:05:56.600
well, their leader might find themselves dead with their body being paraded through the streets not long after.
00:06:02.340
So when Bolton spoke about Libya, Kim Jong-un, North Korean leader, got visibly upset.
00:06:09.620
But Trump realizes, hey, look, we need peace in that region.
00:06:15.000
We're probably never going to get true peace from this guy.
00:06:17.880
But at least if we can neutralize him a little bit, if we can calm this maniac down, well, that's better than nothing.
00:06:25.980
You've got Secretary of State Mike Pompeo going with the president.
00:06:29.220
And Pompeo has done, so far, an outstanding job at keeping Kim Jong-un in check, at getting him to come to the table.
00:06:39.180
And John Bolton is going to be with the National Security Council in the White House.
00:06:43.640
A video conference or phone call away if needed.
00:06:46.880
Don't bring him if it's going to put the meeting in jeopardy.
00:06:51.980
There's no harm, no foul, and no loss of face to the United States.
00:07:00.640
If a move is made that I don't agree with, I'm going to call it out.
00:07:10.020
So Trump also jabbed North Korea a little bit because he ended the session with Prime Minister Abe of Japan today,
00:07:17.860
where they were mostly talking about North Korea.
00:07:19.980
Japan is seriously affected by whatever happens in North Korea.
00:07:23.680
The weapons, the nuclear weapons North Korea is trying to build can easily reach Japan.
00:07:36.340
And Trump ended by paying tribute to the family of Otto Warmbier, of course,
00:07:40.960
the student who died last June after being released from 17 months in North Korea in captivity.
00:07:52.800
The president said of Warmbier, he has not died in vain.
00:08:00.580
We were tremendously successful in getting our three hostages back.
00:08:05.520
I'm very thankful for the cooperation we received in North Korea.
00:08:08.500
Now, he said about the other three hostages that they are very happily ensconced in their homes with their families.
00:08:15.380
Families, they didn't think it was going to happen.
00:08:19.140
And he said, frankly, it wouldn't have happened, but it has.
00:08:25.660
Trump then wrapped up and said, I really believe that we have the potential to do something incredible for the world.
00:08:35.480
The potential to do something great for the world really is there.
00:08:41.320
He's getting things done, whereas others were rhetorical.
00:08:44.680
All they did was talk about getting things done.
00:08:48.660
You've got people on the left saying, oh, Trump is running there and he did what North Korea asked and North Korea won.
00:08:58.140
They came back to the White House, that big envelope, begging for this meeting, begging for the United States to come back to the table.
00:09:06.260
We're winning this one in a very big, very public and very positive way.
00:09:13.340
We're forcing Kim to not meet us in North Korea where he meets everybody else.
00:09:20.460
We're talking about it with the president of the United States standing next to the Japanese prime minister.
00:09:26.980
Japan has always been a thorn in North Korea's side.
00:09:30.080
North Korea knows they don't have a choice here.
00:09:42.520
That's why their country has no forward momentum.
00:09:58.300
When compared to North Korea, Japan's GDP is bigger than Russia's.
00:10:02.600
And so North Korea is afraid of an alliance, terrified of an alliance between Japan and the United States.
00:10:10.380
You also have to realize that the Asian culture is about respect.
00:10:21.520
So when North Korea saber rattles and Donald Trump talks tough and says, I'm prepared to walk, maximum pressure, I can level more sanctions.
00:10:30.960
This is posturing between North Korea and the U.S.
00:10:34.460
North Korea is testing the U.S. to make sure that the U.S. is that strong kid on the block with that dignity and self-respect that isn't going to back down.
00:10:45.240
That's why North Korea never respected him, because culturally, Obama showed weakness.
00:11:09.460
I don't think it'd be nice to go into the meeting doing that.
00:11:17.100
Everybody's got air conditioning and flat screens.
00:11:19.560
You, North Korea, can't even feed your own people.
00:11:27.900
And that's what other presidents didn't understand.
00:11:30.880
They did understand, but they really felt they had to play that globalist game.
00:11:35.480
They had to keep the charade going and keep the globalists happy.
00:11:45.480
And now Trump comes in and he's standing next to Japan and he says, hey, look, summit is on, but I can easily walk away.
00:11:56.780
And that's what, that's what the world has been lacking.
00:12:07.800
I believe Kim will denuclearize to a point that will be satisfactory.
00:12:12.140
I never trust that guys like Kim Jong-un, Bashir al-Assad in Syria, Khomeini and Rouhani in Iran will ever fully comply when asked to give up certain weaponry.
00:12:23.200
But I do think with North Korea, because they're so poor, they're going to be much easier control to control than others once that door cracks open.
00:12:33.120
Now, the other part of this that Trump understands, and I say it often, as much as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul, too, brought down the Berlin Wall, so did McDonald's in Moscow.
00:12:44.860
So did Levi's jeans making their way into then Soviet Russia.
00:12:51.780
Capitalism, the flood of capitalism, the flood of Western goods and ideals and media can do far more to change a culture, to make it freer, to make it less oppressive, to make it more Western than any troops can do.
00:13:09.760
Then any amount of troops, any amount of weapons, no matter how powerful, no matter how numerous the troops are, you give people in North Korea a little taste of America, they are going to be hooked.
00:13:27.560
We just have to crack the door open a little bit.
00:13:30.100
With North Korea, we just have to get in a little bit.
00:13:32.140
And once we do, once you let a little bit of water in, and that water starts pouring in more and more and more, and that's like a rushing rapid, that door can never close again.
00:13:47.940
Go to Communist Russia 30 years ago and see what happened there when that wall came in 1989, 29 years ago.
00:14:00.180
And I think that we really owe it to the president as Americans to back this, because I think this will be absolutely historic.
00:14:12.380
And I think Donald Trump is playing this in exactly the right way.
00:14:15.400
With any other president, this meeting would have fallen down.
00:14:17.940
So let's keep an eye on what's going to happen with North Korea throughout the weekend.
00:14:21.620
But I predict, barring Kim Jong-un doing anything crazy, which I don't put past him,
00:14:26.680
But if everything stays on the path it's on right now, I predict the summit will happen on Tuesday in Singapore.
00:14:34.300
And I predict that the United States will emerge from that summit a very big winner.
00:14:55.000
Trump is still threatening to pull out of the North Korea summit.
00:14:57.920
And we find out that MSNBC has been condoning a lot of hate from host Joy Ann Reed.
00:15:03.540
Joining me now to recap the week, our very own Kurt Lector.
00:15:12.260
Mueller is now asking witnesses in the Paul Manafort case to turn over their cell phones.
00:15:16.980
To me, this is an absolute trampling of the Fourth Amendment.
00:15:20.500
But even worse, he doesn't want to look at texts and emails and listen to voicemails.
00:15:30.020
So he can just make sure that there's no witness tampering on the part of Mueller.
00:15:34.220
Yeah, the witness tampering is all for the feds.
00:15:51.600
I have no doubt that Mueller tells them what he wants them to say.
00:15:55.560
Because I don't trust Mueller or the Democrats on his team.
00:15:59.460
If you're representing one of these clients, I look at it from a law enforcement standpoint.
00:16:05.080
And there were a couple of good legal analyses written.
00:16:07.720
Even Lawfare blog, that is no friend, that is no friend of the Trump administration, even they had issues.
00:16:20.340
They also had issues with Mueller's entire witness tampering case, saying there's nothing with Mueller's entire witness tampering case against Manafort, saying there's nothing there.
00:16:31.420
That the only conversation Manafort ever had took one minute and 24 seconds, and he was never able to communicate with anybody else.
00:16:41.780
Mueller asking for the phones is an arm twist, it seems to me.
00:16:44.780
I would say, I'll turn something over, but it won't be my phone.
00:16:53.700
Whatever it is, it ain't going to be something pleasant.
00:17:10.900
Let's go into court, and you can explain why, you know, you can't get a warrant.
00:17:27.680
Now, I'm not an attorney, but looking at it through the lens of an investigator, it seems to me that's exactly what Mueller's doing.
00:17:33.520
Hey, hey, we think Manafort might have witnessed Hampered.
00:17:38.280
Therefore, we want to get a sneak peek at all of the private encrypted communications of everybody that may be a witness because we want to know if he witnessed Hampered.
00:17:54.200
If they thought he did, they would have a reason for thinking so.
00:17:59.900
What they're mad at is, Paul, my suspicion—and it's always possible that maybe he was.
00:18:05.060
Maybe he was, you know, da-da-da-da-da, I want you to lie.
00:18:08.180
I want you to commit perjury by saying X when Y is true.
00:18:12.160
One of the people—one of the guys he communicated with said they felt that he was trying to support perjury, but that they felt it.
00:18:20.080
There's no actual evidence that Manafort was doing it because the conversation—
00:18:30.200
Look, there is nothing wrong with a person accused of a crime going to witnesses and saying,
00:18:43.540
Because witnesses don't always remember things.
00:18:45.980
And a person has a right to talk to the witnesses against them to make sure that they're going to be able to provide the testimony that's needed.
00:19:00.580
I'm saying, look, you know, if I have a witness in a rear-end collision—
00:19:05.700
You know, was the—you know, Mr. Witness, what did you see?
00:19:37.440
Yeah, I'm going to freaking—I'm going to charge you with all these crimes if you don't say what I once said.
00:19:46.520
And if any good comes out of this, it needs to be an understanding of what the Department of Justice
00:19:52.960
and its associate agencies have devolved into, using the criminal code as a bludgeon to get innocent people to plead guilty to charges that they could fight in court for fear that they will be charged with greater crimes and take the risk of greater punishment.
00:20:18.600
Look, you and I are the hardest core law and order guys there are.
00:20:23.320
She used to do warrants on the kitchen table, right, when I was a kid.
00:20:28.820
When she was a DA, she became a judge after I was out of the house.
00:20:31.780
But, you know, it's shocking, the abuse of power of these Democrats, because they're all Democrats and all Hillary donors, or most of them are Hillary donors.
00:20:42.500
It's just, if we've learned anything, it's that the power of prosecutors needs to be restrained, not only by a code of ethics, which they seem to have completely abandoned.
00:20:55.580
And that's not me talking, that's the judge in the Ted Stevens case, the judges in the Cliven Bundy case, the judges in a bunch of other cases.
00:21:08.500
But they need to be constrained by a very aggressive inspector general, very aggressive oversight by Congress.
00:21:16.260
And if I were the president, I would be firing people.
00:21:19.400
All right, let's go to the inspector general for a second, because we're seeing some leaks.
00:21:23.760
What concerns me are words like insubordination and defied authority.
00:21:30.180
Seem bad, they'll give Trump cover for Comey's firing, but it doesn't look like Comey will face any more justice than that.
00:21:38.500
Well, look, I want to see what the report says, obviously.
00:21:46.020
I think, you know, the only thing I trust is the absence of leaks.
00:21:51.480
Nothing, for instance, there's not been any link of any evidence showing any collusion by Donald Trump or anyone associated with it.
00:22:06.640
We've seen dozens of times that these leaks are presumptively baloney.
00:22:12.900
I want to see what the Utah assistant of the U.S. Attorney says.
00:22:29.100
Yeah, we have our issues with MIA sessions, MIA Jeff.
00:22:35.520
He doesn't seem very upset about the disaster that he's presiding over.
00:22:45.060
They go away, you know, Colonel Schlichter, Lieutenant, Captain Schlichter, Major Schlichter, whatever.
00:22:52.080
And if I was sent over to the FBI, you know, I would make...
00:22:56.520
Everybody would know real clear, really quickly, what the standard of behavior and professionalism is.
00:23:10.220
It is to build cases against potential criminals.
00:23:21.080
Well, we're going to find out that Comey did wrong.
00:23:23.220
Now, I do believe that Andrew McCabe will probably be indicted and criminally charged.
00:23:27.260
I don't think there's any way out of it for McCabe.
00:23:32.280
Remember, you remember the FBI from Zimbalist Jr.
00:23:47.300
And then you see things like their crime lab is putting people on death row with bad testimony.
00:23:57.140
And when you're unaccountable, you stop accounting.
00:24:15.620
Hopefully, we'll see some justice done here, Kurt.
00:24:17.540
But I know a lot of people are losing faith, which gears over to media, where we're seeing
00:24:26.120
But we're finding out more and more every day about MSNBC's Joanne Reed.
00:24:32.900
Now we're finding out that Joanne Reed essentially threatened to beat up her colleagues when she
00:24:40.220
Well, yeah, I mean, let's assume these charges are true, because, you know, you and I believe
00:24:47.320
that people have a right to defend themselves that should be presumed innocent.
00:25:04.800
And, you know, ABC was free to do what ABC wanted to do if it didn't want to be, if it
00:25:17.340
It's saying, we do want Joy Reed associated with our brand.
00:25:24.380
If it's all baloney and she's really a nice lady who got hacked.
00:25:27.800
But, you know, I don't want to see somebody silenced because they're falsely accused or
00:25:38.940
And we've got some pretty substantial people on the record from her old job.
00:25:46.040
He said, let's see, here it is from a story by Ryan Saavedra over at Daily Wire.
00:25:56.180
Andrea Eggelshin, I guess that's how you pronounce her name, former lead host of a morning show
00:26:01.400
with Reed, recently spoke out about Reed for the first time more than a decade, saying
00:26:05.540
Reed created, quote, the most toxic work environment I've ever experienced.
00:26:11.060
And, oh, Andre, not Andrea, and threatened him with violence.
00:26:21.420
She attacked me on a constant basis while I was there.
00:26:25.820
I was even once threatened with physical violence during a break with her.
00:26:30.240
I mean, this is an on-the-record host, but it gets better.
00:26:33.220
Lee Michaels, then National Program Director for Syndication One,
00:26:37.620
confirmed the incident to Fox News, saying it absolutely happened 100%.
00:26:43.900
So this is no more, this is no more, hey, these were hacks.
00:26:48.140
These are two broadcast professionals on the record saying this happened.
00:26:54.300
Well, now, look, let me put on my defense attorney hat.
00:27:00.700
Firm, clear leaders are often accused of being toxic.
00:27:07.520
I think some of the statements, you know, you and me are going to go at it.
00:27:16.340
OK, well, you know, I think it could be taken anyway, and it's probably not an optimal way.
00:27:27.460
Even if you and I play devil's advocate all day and say, this could be construed in any way.
00:27:35.000
Yeah, it wouldn't be construed if she was conservative.
00:27:38.880
No one would make the case I just made and that you just gave a fair listening to if she was conservative.
00:27:46.000
Well, that's that's the point that and you and I have have interacted with hundreds of people in media.
00:27:52.360
There aren't multiple stories like this out there about us, about friends of ours in media.
00:27:59.780
Larry O'Connor, Larry O'Connor, big time radio guy in D.C.
00:28:05.300
You don't you don't hear stories like I mean, we're not hearing stories like.
00:28:17.720
You were up on doing Fox and Friends at like 2.30 in the morning.
00:28:23.680
So North Korea, North Korea, because we're going to run out of time soon.
00:28:27.240
Trump is again saying, hey, the meeting's on as long as this guy plays ball.
00:28:38.640
I think it does, too, because I think it's in everybody's interest.
00:28:44.180
I do these all the time for cases, whether it's somebody, you know, semi associates, a
00:28:49.560
But if, you know, somebody's been killed or it's a big business dispute with millions
00:28:53.520
of dollars, you sit there and if it's in both your interest to settle the case, you
00:28:58.960
know, and you're and you're within a range, you do it.
00:29:02.080
Are we I think it's in both our interests to get this resolved without hundreds of thousands
00:29:08.140
I think it's in Kim's interest to not be killed himself.
00:29:17.960
But I think that the president's playing it the right way, the way I would play.
00:29:21.840
If we're going to have a problem, if you're not if you're not serious, I'm walking.
00:29:27.700
Look, I stand up in the middle of a mediation and say, I'm done.
00:29:33.200
And then I walk slowly to the door, giving everybody a chance to come put their hand on
00:29:37.760
my shoulder and go, Kurt, can you just give me five minutes?
00:29:41.680
Give me five minutes and maybe we can get this back on track.
00:29:48.900
And they're so used to eight years of a doormat.
00:30:05.500
This is a problem, one which I describe in my upcoming book, Militant Normals, which everyone
00:30:16.760
Sometimes you'll have a lawyer in a mediation who's trying to get to a solution where everybody
00:30:26.340
I'm an advocate for my client, not for anyone else's.
00:30:29.240
If we can work some out where everybody else is happy, that's fine.
00:30:44.640
We're going to have to tweet that out quite a bit later.
00:30:51.680
A really interesting discovery from the NASA Curiosity rover on Mars.
00:31:17.620
The building blocks for life have been discovered in 3 billion year old organic matter on Mars,
00:31:27.740
Now, researchers cannot yet say whether the discovery stems from life or a more mundane
00:31:34.280
They did say, however, that they were, quote, in a really good position to move forward,
00:31:40.340
The findings, they say, were also very significant in that they showed organic material can be
00:31:49.260
Now, it was discovered by the Mars Curiosity rover, which has been collecting the data on
00:31:57.380
These organic molecules were found in what's called Gale Crater.
00:32:01.160
And it's a was thought to be a shallow lake about the size of Florida's Lake Okeechobee.
00:32:08.460
Now, you've never seen Lake Okeechobee down here in Florida.
00:32:15.360
And it's about, oh, Lake Okeechobee is about two hours north of Broward County, where I live,
00:32:20.500
maybe a little bit less, depending on how fast you drive, hour and a half.
00:32:27.100
Now, I'll read this because this kind of stretches my scientific understanding.
00:32:33.380
But apparently, this is organic material that could be indicative of life on Mars as long
00:32:41.100
These samples were taken from two different drill sites on an ancient lake bed, and they
00:32:46.220
yielded what they call complex organic molecules that look strikingly similar to the goopy fossilized
00:33:00.800
They also found traces of methane in the Martian atmosphere.
00:33:04.400
And it's significant because methane on Earth, for instance, comes from biological sources.
00:33:11.040
So what they're saying is if there's methane in the atmosphere on Mars, then it was potentially
00:33:14.860
created by something biological potentially living at one point on Mars or possibly still is.
00:33:22.900
Remember, our rovers are only really searching a very small area of this planet.
00:33:29.300
I mean, it's really equivalent to searching a neighborhood in the United States and then
00:33:33.380
saying, well, we found everything there is to find in the United States.
00:33:38.420
It's like searching a neighborhood in the world and saying we found everything there is to find
00:33:42.900
Now, NASA's Thomas Zerbukin said, quote, with these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay
00:33:49.980
the course and keep searching for evidence of life.
00:33:53.500
I'm confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discovery,
00:34:01.480
And what they're saying is that this makes the question of whether or not life ever existed
00:34:07.120
on Mars much more opportune, much more logical and necessary even to study.
00:34:15.820
Now, the nuclear battery powered rover is really a $2.5 billion mobile chemistry lab.
00:34:22.380
And NASA calls it the largest and most capable rover to ever make contact with Mars.
00:34:31.240
Anyway, you slice it, this is fascinating stuff that we live in a time where we can send a
00:34:37.020
remote control vehicle to Mars, collect samples and and start understanding what happened on
00:34:49.680
Anyway, you cut it, it's a really interesting discovery.
00:34:52.680
And it's a place where our space program should be.
00:34:57.780
We went from moonshots and going to the moon and exploring to low Earth orbit in space shuttles
00:35:07.180
It's not what Americans wanted in their space program.
00:35:09.700
Going to Mars, finding things like this, getting photos, that's exploration.
00:35:18.200
And I really look forward to the day where they roll that rover over a hill and they see
00:35:36.620
Now, I'm a big fan of thoroughbred horse racing.
00:35:51.480
And it's just a really fun day to be out at the races.
00:35:57.780
This year, we have another Triple Crown contender in Justify.
00:36:03.940
He's done such an amazing job in the Kentucky Derby.
00:36:07.580
And now going into tomorrow's Belmont Stakes, Justify is the big favorite to win the Triple
00:36:29.000
And this is so disappointing because all I wanted to do was root for Justify to win tomorrow.
00:36:41.900
Liberal billionaire donor George Soros' company is a part owner of Justify, a Kentucky Derby
00:36:48.240
and Preakness Stakes winner, hoping to win the Belmont Stakes and ultimately the Triple
00:36:55.740
Justify would become just the 13th Triple Crown winner in history.
00:37:01.720
And the Belmont Stakes is, of course, a Belmont racetrack in New York.
00:37:04.740
Now, I grew up not very far, 10 minutes away from Belmont racetrack.
00:37:12.940
And I've been to a Belmont Stakes race, several of them, actually.
00:37:16.280
It's really, really an event you should go to if you haven't.
00:37:19.800
Belmont Stakes, I've been to the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and the Preakness
00:37:22.880
all in different years, as well as to Breeders' Cup races.
00:37:26.740
It is really, really, these major horse races are really an event on their own.
00:37:31.520
It's, to me anyway, similar to going to a championship game in any other sport.
00:37:35.580
The New York Times reported that a company controlled by top employees of Soros, Soros Fund
00:37:47.500
It wasn't that Soros himself is a horse racing aficionado and he bought into Justify.
00:37:54.900
I understand that because Justify right now is a very valuable commodity.
00:38:00.020
Even if it doesn't win the Belmont Stakes, having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness
00:38:04.340
Justify's bloodline is now worth quite a bit of money.
00:38:10.360
The Soros is a longtime investor in racehorse through SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group operations.
00:38:18.400
The Soros' group does not actually own racing rights to the horse, which it's sold along with
00:38:23.480
the racing rights to third place Kentucky Derby finisher Audible.
00:38:26.560
Quickly after acquiring them, Soros' group hopes to capitalize on what Justify will be worth
00:38:34.000
if he were to win the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown.
00:38:38.160
The remainder of his breeding rights, of Justify's breeding rights, are owned by a U.S.-based
00:38:46.060
And those could net tens of thousands of dollars annually, just the breeding rights, if he were
00:38:54.140
Now, the previous Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah, he won in 2015, three years ago.
00:39:00.280
His fees to date, he won the Triple Crown in 2015.
00:39:05.300
He's racked up $35 million in breeding rights over those three years and other stallion fees
00:39:14.220
So in just those three years, he's made his owners about a million dollars a month.
00:39:18.960
So it becomes a very lucrative game, a million dollars a month just to breed him.
00:39:25.380
And listen, upkeep of a racehorse is no small feat.
00:39:34.860
And Justify and American Pharoah were both trained by Bob Baffert.
00:39:43.040
And he's talking about Bob Baffert gave an interview where he said, quote, we've had
00:39:46.800
a lot of new people getting involved in the business, buying horses.
00:39:52.580
You're getting money from all over the world, he says.
00:39:54.640
So it stands to reason that somebody wealthy like Soros would do it.
00:39:57.800
But it is a little disappointing to know that George Soros has an interest in his horse
00:40:05.620
The horse has a winning team and his Baffert is a Baffert, Bob Baffert is a trainer.
00:40:10.060
If you don't know horse racing, Bob Baffert as a trainer would be, you know, akin to Joe
00:40:16.620
Torrey as manager of the Yankees or Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots as head coach.
00:40:21.880
He's a very, very winning trainer and his horses are top quality.
00:40:31.280
It's just unfortunate that 15% of this magnificent horse.
00:40:35.340
So I really do hope to see become a Triple Crown winner tomorrow because the sport means
00:40:41.500
But it is a little unfortunate that George Soros has an interest in Justify.
00:40:45.220
Although, like I said, I'm rooting for Justify to win the Belmont Stakes and ultimately the
00:41:05.340
Though it is a miniature horse Power nghĩa as a player could rival your Baffert.