A gigantic NBA scandal breaks out with prosecutions galore. Plus, Bernie Sanders just let the cat out of the bag on the government shutdown and the latest on AOC 2028. Your reminder that Daily Wire Plus members get this show uncensored, ad-free, and a whole lot more. Become a member for as little as 7 bucks a month.
00:00:36.000Well, folks, the biggest news in the country is a gambling scandal that involves the NBA and also the mafia.
00:00:43.000So it's getting really spicy out there.
00:00:45.000The Wall Street Journal has the details according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:00:49.000More than 30 people, including Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami heat guard Terry Rosier, were charged on Tuesday as part of a sweeping investigation into illegal gambling, rigged poker games, and match fixing in the NBA.
00:01:00.000Federal prosecutors unveiled an indictment against more than two dozen defendants that outlined a nationwide scheme backed by organized crime families to run corrupt poker games and learn victims by offering them a chance to play alongside figures, including Chauncey Billups, then a former player, and former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones.
00:01:17.000The revelations instantly ranked among the most damaging in NBA history, throwing into question the integrity of the NBA product just six years after the NBA opened its doors to the lucrative legalized gambling industry.
00:01:29.000I'm going to get to that in a moment, the legalized gambling portion of all of this.
00:01:34.000So, indictment number one has to do with actual game fixing.
00:01:39.000That indictment charged six defendants, including Rosier, with a criminal betting scheme using insider information and performance manipulation to profit off NBA games.
00:01:47.000This would be what you would consider to be normal game fixing, typical game fixing.
00:01:51.000Apparently, Rosier would take himself out of games at a certain point in order to make the under in terms of minutes played or points scored.
00:01:59.000Or there would be information shared with gamblers that said that somebody wasn't playing tonight and that would change the odds.
00:02:05.000Going all the way back to sort of the guys and dolls days of American sports and mafia, or going all the way back to the 1990 Black Sox, like that kind of sports fixing.
00:02:16.000Then there is a second case here, and that case involves Chauncey Phillips being used at what was called a face card, meaning like a famous person, to get other people to come and gamble with him at these mafia poker games that were rigged, where they were using shuffling machines and x-ray tables.
00:02:33.000Prosecutors said that co-conspirator eight, which would have been billups, told members of the gambling ring the team intended to tank or wrest players to try to lose and improve its drafts position in a March 24th, 2023 game in which the Blazers were playing the Chicago Bulls.
00:02:51.000The attempt to turn that into a game-fixing accusation is kind of silly because, again, unfortunately, teams in the NBA tank in order to obtain draft position all the time.
00:03:02.000There are always teams that are attempting to basically lose more games because you have a better shot at obtaining a higher draft pick if you lose more games.
00:03:11.000However, the gamblers wagered about $100,000 on a Portland loss before the lineup was made public, netting them a significant profit.
00:03:18.000And the Blazers lost by some 28 points.
00:03:22.000Rozier kind of similarly was accused of telling people close to him he planned to make an early exit from a 2023 game.
00:03:27.000He was playing for the Charlotte Hornets in order for gamblers to hit the under on bets tied to his performance.
00:03:33.000And again, prosecutors say gamblers obtained insider information from several NBA players and coaches, including Rosier and Jones, and then distributed that information to a network of bettors in order to profit from another half dozen NBA games through March of 2024.
00:03:46.000Here's the FBI director Cash Patel outlining the sports rigging operation.
00:03:52.000But as you now know, individuals such as Chauncey Phillips, Damon Jones, and Terry Rosier were taken into custody today, former current NBA players and coaches.
00:04:03.000What you don't know is that this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years.
00:04:11.000The FBI led a coordinated takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing.
00:04:21.000And unfortunately, this is not the first such scandal to plague the NBA in the last couple of years.
00:04:25.000Just last year, there was a case about a Toronto Raptors forward named Jante Porter, who was banned from the league for life because he conspired with gamblers to fix his performance in NBA games.
00:04:35.000He pled guilty to a criminal charge after faking injuries to manipulate his points total and hit the under on prop bets related to his individual performance in two NBA games in January and March 2024.
00:04:45.000And he said that he participated in that scheme because he himself was in hockey to a bunch of gamblers that he had huge gambling debts.
00:04:55.000So here is the New York's FBI Assistant Director, Christopher Ria, explain what happened with Chauncey Billips in that case.
00:05:03.000This alleged illegal gambling operation hustled unwitting victims out of tens of millions of dollars and created a financial pipeline for La Cosa Nostra to help fund and facilitate their organized criminal activity.
00:05:21.000Victims were attracted to play alongside well-known professional athletes and coaches like Chauncey Billips, only to be unknowingly deceived through rigged shuffling machines, fixing the odds in their favor, as alleged, and as you just heard from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
00:05:41.000The Eastern District of New York District Attorney Joseph Nosella, he said to the gamblers that their days of winning were over.
00:05:50.000My message to the defendants who've been rounded up today is this.
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00:08:29.000Yeah, well, I wish we were talking about the World Series starting tonight, Ben, but it's not every day you get a gambling sting operation in the NBA.
00:08:36.000So FBI Director Cash Patel came out yesterday and stated that this was a nationwide takedown across 11 states, resulting in 30 arrests.
00:08:45.000And what I really want people to understand here is these are two separate indictments, but there are three overlapping defendants, so they are related cases.
00:08:53.000Let's start with the first indictment.
00:08:55.000This is your more typical on-court game fixing.
00:08:58.000This is where Miami Heat shooting guard Terry Rozier's name is coming into play.
00:09:03.000It's alleged that he was involved in some of that game fixing, notifying gamblers when he would play, when certain players would not play, or even more specifically, removing himself possibly from games after only nine minutes so that his prop bet point total under would hit, things like that.
00:09:22.000And that's going to be very problematic, Ben, moving forward for all sports leagues as legalized gambling has sort of ushered into this space.
00:09:29.000The second indictment, related but a separate incident, this is where we get into La Cosa Nostra, Italian Mafia, pretty much every crime family name that you've ever heard in any movie or TV show.
00:09:43.000And this is where Chauncey Billips' name and Damon Jones comes into play.
00:09:47.000Now, if you're like me, Ben, you remember Chauncey Billips as being one of those pillars of those great Detroit Pistons teams 20 years ago, winning finals MVP.
00:09:54.000He's now the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers and apparently was involved with these mafia families in fixing poker games.
00:10:02.000So he would lure in quote unquote fish, high-stakes rollers, where he would be the quote-unquote face card because people want to play poker with famous celebrities and famous athletes.
00:10:15.000And then they would take their money through rig shuffle machines, through x-ray tables, pretty much any instrument and gadget that James Bond ever had was being used in this scenario.
00:10:26.000And not for nothing, Ben, I think it is humorous that the night before Chauncey Billup's arrest here, he used the phrase, let the chips fall where they may.
00:10:36.000So sort of an apropos idiom there, the day before you're arrested for a poker scheme.
00:10:43.000So, David, when I look at that, what I see is one scandal that, you know, is kind of a normal criminal scandal.
00:10:49.000And here I'm talking about the billups poker games because we have seen situations before.
00:10:55.000There have been movies made about them with criminal poker games that are happening, illegal poker games.
00:11:00.000The fact that the mafia is coming up makes this more colorful.
00:11:03.000And the fact that obviously there's a famous person like Billup involved makes it more colorful as well.
00:11:07.000But it seems to me that the bigger scandal here, the one that really should be worrying everybody is the Terry Rosiera scandal.
00:11:13.000The idea that you actually have game fixing or effects on actual NBA performance, that's the one that should scare everybody.
00:11:25.000And how does that play into the debate over legalized gambling, for example?
00:11:28.000I was really interested to hear your take on this because I agree with that point 100%.
00:11:32.000One situation, you have a mafia family who's trying to take people's money and they're using famous people to do it.
00:11:37.000And it's sort of an isolated incident.
00:11:40.000Not that it's not nothing in Chauncey Billup.
00:11:42.000Look, all of these guys are facing 20 years in prison, even though they may not be held right now until their court appearance.
00:11:49.000Obviously, this is an ongoing investigation.
00:11:51.000But I agree with you 100% because gambling is legalized now and you have incidents like yesterday, ESPN is reporting on this story and they have ESPN bets at the bottom of the screen and that is not going away.
00:12:04.000And so, you know, part of me, Ben, you and I have discussed at length the Black Sox scandal and shoeless Joe Jackson.
00:12:11.000It was bad enough in an era where you weren't getting paid a lot of money, but you had no respect for the game that you were playing or the teammates that you had.
00:12:22.000But in an era contemporarily here where you're getting paid millions and millions of dollars, these players, even if you're just on a roster, you make more than doctors make.
00:12:31.000There's absolutely no excuse that you would go out and just, you know, throw everything away so that you can win a couple bets.
00:12:38.000And it sounds like there were multiple franchises that were involved in this across these 11 states with these indictments.
00:12:45.000I think you will be happy to know that the Boston Celtics, they did not come up in this investigation as far as I'm aware.
00:12:52.000A rare bright spot for the Boston Celtics these days.
00:12:55.000But when I look at this, obviously I saw what ESPN did.
00:12:58.000I saw that ESPN had the ESPN bet marquee underneath on the screen and they pulled it down in the middle of the conversation.
00:13:04.000I thought to myself, that's incredibly stupid.
00:13:06.000And the reason that's incredibly stupid is because it is not a crime for you or for me or for anybody else to go and put 10 bucks on a sports game.
00:13:13.000And I'm not sure why ESPN would be shy about that or make the implication that because you or I are allowed to go over to Vegas and lay down a few bucks on tonight's Clippers game, that somehow Terry Rosier breaking the law implicates everybody else in that.
00:13:27.000That's sort of like saying that we have to pull down all Budweiser ads because there's a drunk driver who decided to get behind the wheel and then hit somebody.
00:13:38.000And it's bizarre to me that we live in such a sort of black and white society that the minute somebody does something criminal, it indicts the practice as a whole.
00:13:45.000Now, again, this doesn't mean that I think the gambling is like the greatest thing that ever happened.
00:13:49.000But I also don't generally have tremendous objections to people going and playing a hand of poker at the local casinos, so long as they're being responsible and they're just having fun with friends.
00:13:57.000I mean, I will admit that I play poker with friends on occasion.
00:14:01.000As do I. You know, if you don't care about the money that you're losing and that's just the way that you're blowing off some steam and having fun, I really don't see a huge problem with that.
00:14:06.000That's the difference between gambling addiction or somebody actually participating in what would be, if it were in the stock market, insider trading, effectively.
00:14:16.000If you look at that money as if it's entertainment, like you're paying to go to a ballgame, I agree with you 100% on that.
00:14:22.000And look, you're tapping into things that we have these serious conversations here on Crane and Company, and we've had them with you, which is, you know, there are some times where you have daily wire members who don't necessarily have any respect or any tolerance for the concept of gambling.
00:14:37.000But I like the analogy that you use with alcohol.
00:14:40.000Some people don't touch alcohol at all.
00:15:10.000I just worry that this is not going away.
00:15:13.000Obviously, the NFL had a situation two years ago that was much less egregious where you had players simply gambling on other teams.
00:15:21.000But because they're all friends and they have inside information on who may play or who may not play, the NFL did crack down on that hard, even though there was no evidence that they were necessarily throwing games or altering their performance at all.
00:15:33.000And you saw a situation where Calvin Ridley, for instance, wide receiver, was suspended for an entire year, or Jamison Williams, wide receiver for the Lions, I think was suspended for roughly half a year.
00:15:45.000I just, I think we're going to see more and more instances like this.
00:15:48.000I just worry at what point does someone at the executive level get implicated because that's when we're really going to sort of cross the Rubicon there and sport is really going to be tainted.
00:16:01.000Yeah, I mean, we've already seen, obviously, scandals involving referees.
00:16:04.000Tim Donaghy, going back to 2007, who was indicted for betting on games after an FBI investigation.
00:16:11.000He admitted to betting on games that he had officiated in the early 2000s.
00:16:15.000And now we're seeing this with Terry Rosier.
00:16:17.000I just wonder if this is going to crop up every so often with people who are corrupt and if there's any way to really avoid that.
00:16:23.000But obviously, it is going to be a black stain on what is, you know, I think a rising league.
00:16:28.000I mean, if you had to bet on the leagues in America that are that are in fairly good shape and seem to be increasing in size and appeal, the NBA seems like a pretty good bet.
00:16:36.000This is going to be a serious headwind for them for sure.
00:16:38.000David, really appreciate the time and the insight.
00:16:42.000Well, as I was discussing with David Cohn right there, when it comes to this NBA gambling scandal, I think that there are kind of two societal messages that are worth talking about here.
00:16:51.000Obviously, the inherent corruptibility of man is a very, very real thing.
00:16:57.000There are kind of two fascinating aspects to these two scandals.
00:17:01.000One is the legalized gambling aspect, where people are saying that the broadening of legalized gambling, that that is responsible for this sort of activity.
00:17:14.000It certainly makes it easier to make money off of your illegal activity, but it is not illegal for you or for me or for any of your friends to go over to the local casino and place a bet or go on one of the betting services and place like a prop bet for 10 bucks because, you know, you consider it just a fun night out.
00:17:30.000Again, I don't recommend that anybody expend serious quantities of cash betting.
00:17:47.000And I sort of believe about legalized gambling the same thing that I believe about drinking alcohol, which is in excess terrible, bad for addicts.
00:17:55.000Don't get in a car after you've had too many drinks.
00:17:58.000And also, I'm not going to treat it as though there is some tremendously evil thing going on when you have a beer, nor do I think all Budweiser commercials need to be banned because there are people who drive drunk.
00:18:10.000That does not seem like a rational response with regard to legalized gambling.
00:18:14.000So trying to blame Terry Rozier's activities here or Jon Tay Porter's activities here on legalized gambling, they did an illegal thing.
00:18:23.000If they'd done a legal thing, we wouldn't be talking about it.
00:18:27.000Know your limits and don't do illegal things would be the lesson right there.
00:18:30.000And I think it's easy sometimes for us to say, okay, well, well, now we should just ban activities wholesale.
00:18:34.000I need to have to look at the downside of banning the activities.
00:18:37.000And when it comes to activities like, for example, legalized gambling, if you ban legalized gambling, you should just understand the gambling will likely continue.
00:18:45.000And not only will it continue, it will be run not by more legitimate outlets.
00:18:49.000It will be run by, you know, the mafia, which will then actually do the same thing that you saw in the Chauncey Billups case.
00:19:02.000You can make the argument I'm making about a bunch of activities that I think should be banned.
00:19:06.000But I also don't think that gambling in and of itself is of the same ilk of evil as many of the other sort of vice-driven activities that people tend to lump together.
00:19:16.000I don't think gambling, for example, is on the same order as, say, prostitution.
00:19:20.000People tend to put these sort of vice crimes together.
00:19:22.000I don't think these are the same things.
00:19:26.000And pretending that all things are the same is a simplistic way of thinking.
00:19:31.000Again, it's not to say that gambling is like what you should be doing with your life, but it is to say that over-the-top government regulation of particular activities very often is going to result in precisely the counter of what you're attempting to achieve.
00:19:44.000All righty, coming up, Bernie Sanders seems to be picking his 2028 nominee.
00:19:50.000So, first, here's a simple question: When was the last time a headline told you the full story?
00:19:54.000In today's news cycle, headlines move really fast, they often only scratch the surface.
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00:20:24.000So, instead of reading a take, you're seeing a trend.
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00:20:29.000So, if you're done just reading those headlines and you're ready to learn the facts, head on over to usafacts.org because it's time we all had access to the data we deserve.
00:20:37.000Again, that's something we try to do here on the show.
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00:21:58.000And meanwhile, Bernie Sanders yesterday let the cat out of the bag.
00:22:02.000He was being interviewed by Axios, and he said what I think we've all been thinking, which is that AOC is almost certainly going to run for president in 2028 with the backing of Bernie Sanders.
00:22:13.000She is an incredibly intelligent person, and in the best sense of the word, a very, very good politician.
00:22:19.000I've been out on the streets with her.
00:22:21.000People come up, and how she responds to people is so incredibly genuine and open.
00:22:27.000You know, it's just something that's a gift that she has.
00:23:01.000But I guess that to the wild left, she is inspiring.
00:23:03.000I mean, sure, she is a dunderhead who says unintelligent things every five seconds, but Bernie Sanders is also a dunderhead and he's been able to get away with it for, you know, 2,000 decades at this point, since he was a contemporaneous follower of Methuselah, I believe.
00:23:17.000Well, Bernie Sanders, he has taken over the Democratic Party wholesale at this point.
00:23:21.000The Democratic Party is moving further and further to the left, of course.
00:23:25.000One of his chosen acolytes is, of course, the Maine Democrat who is now running for the Senate and leads in the polls by leaps and bounds in the Senate Democratic primary race, Graham Plattner.
00:23:37.000Plattner, according to new reporting from our own Luke Roziak over at Dailyware.com, was a member of a radical left group whose members have been linked to a slew of attacks, including an assault on an ICE facility that was designated a terrorist attack this month as part of a crackdown on Antifa.
00:23:51.000Maine's Democrat Senate primary was upended after CNN reported that Plattner called himself a communist in posts on Reddit, where he wrote that if people, quote, expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.
00:24:04.000The forum name, Socialist RA, refers to the Socialist Rifle Association, a group whose members have been repeatedly linked to violent political crimes.
00:24:12.000On July 4th, a group of militants allegedly swarmed law enforcement at an ICE facility in Elvarado, Texas, and opened fire at the unarmed DHS correctional officers.
00:24:20.000One of them, Benjamin Henelsong, is charged with shooting a police officer in the neck.
00:24:24.000He was a member of the Socialist Rifle Association's Dallas-Fort Worth chapter.
00:24:28.000Last week, the DOJ charged two suspects in that attack, Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evitz, with providing material support to terrorists, calling their crew an Antifa cell.
00:24:37.000It was the first use of the terrorism statute against domestic extremists since Trump ordered a crackdown on far-left political violence.
00:24:43.000Arnold, like the founders of the Socialist Rifle Association, is transgender and goes by the name Autumn Hill.
00:24:50.000Membership in that rifle association isn't required for users to post on that Reddit forum.
00:24:55.000But apparently, a New England publication revealed that Plattner explicitly described his membership in the group.
00:25:01.000Images of the main chapter include training: there's a man training in a pink tutu shooting a gun, and one who has facial hair matching Plattner's.
00:25:14.000This is a person who the Nazi tattooed, Antifa training, pseudo man of the people, oyster farmer, who actually went to a $75,000 a year prep school when he was younger.
00:25:28.000Plattner, that is Bernie Sanders' chosen guy in the Senate race in Maine, and he could very well win that Senate seat or at the very least be the Democratic nominee for that Senate seat.
00:25:38.000And herein lies the problem for the Democrats.
00:25:40.000If they wish to embrace this sort of radicalism, I do not think the American people will move alongside them.
00:25:45.000I do not think the American people are for it.
00:25:48.000Now, I know there are a lot of Republicans who are then rooting for the socialists to take over the Democratic Party.
00:25:55.000I've been saying this since 2020 at the very latest when Bernie Sanders was running against Joe Biden.
00:26:01.000What I said in 2020 was that I preferred Joe Biden to be the nominee rather than Bernie Sanders, even if Bernie was more likely to lose to Donald Trump.
00:26:09.000Because the risk factor in having a socialist leader was higher than the risk factor in having a dead leader like Joe Biden.
00:26:18.000That even if Joe Biden had slightly higher odds to win the presidency than Bernie Sanders, if I have to calculate out the damage that a Bernie Sanders presidency would do versus a Joe Biden presidency, astronomically higher via Bernie Sanders than via Joe Biden, no matter how bad Joe Biden was, I feel the same way about the Democratic Party falling wholesale to the wild left Democratic socialists.
00:26:38.000If they do that, yes, there is a lower chance that they will win power anytime soon.
00:26:41.000However, to pretend that chance doesn't exist is to whistle past the graveyard.
00:26:45.000Let's say, for example, that the Democratic Party in 2028 right now has a 40% shot of winning the White House with some sort of pseudo-moderate like a Gavin Newsom or a Westmore.
00:26:55.000And let's say they have a 30% shot of winning the White House with a clear, insane socialist like AOC at the top of the ticket.
00:27:02.000The damage that would be done by a Westmore or a Gavin Newsom, let's say that it's a 7 out of 10.
00:27:07.000And the damage done by an AOC would be like a 10 out of 10.
00:27:11.000And well, if I'm just doing the math there, I would rather take the low risk scenario, even if there's a greater risk that person might become president, than take the absolutely disaster apocalyptic scenario of having a Democratic Party controlled by the nut jobs with the still somewhat plausible shot of taking power.
00:27:29.000This is why the rise of the Zorn Mamdani left is truly, truly troubling.
00:27:34.000And the people who are fomenting this, I think, ought to be noted here.
00:27:40.000There's been this sort of bizarre move on the right to treat people who are fellow travelers of the Trump election in 2024 as though they are leaders, thought leaders in conservatism or for the country.
00:27:54.000And listen, anytime you create a victorious electoral coalition, there are going to be a bunch of different opinions within that electoral coalition.
00:28:01.000But if you are a new convert to the conservative or Republican cause for one election, I'm not sure that you get to lead the church.
00:28:09.000You don't get to go directly from the back pews to being the pastor or the priest.
00:28:14.000And one of the mistakes I think that we make in politics is treating people who are sort of the new converts, because we're excited to have them, as though they ought to be the actual thought leaders.
00:28:21.000And here I'm calling out some of these so-called manosphere boys, the kind of pod bro boys, who are new converts sometimes to conservatism, who show up late to the party and they bring friends, and that's great.
00:28:32.000There are lots more friends at the party now, but who probably ought not be trusted with the future of conservatism or be considered actual thought leaders just because they are reacting to the excesses of the left.
00:28:44.000Because sooner or later, they end up flipping and going right back to the left.
00:28:48.000And it seems as though the answer there is sooner.
00:28:51.000Because, again, it is not coming from any thoroughgoing ideological commitment to conservatism or to conservative principles.
00:28:58.000It's kind of just reactionary ping-ponging.
00:29:01.000And you cannot have reactionaries who ping pong between political positions as the leadership voices of your movement.
00:29:24.000He and I have some rather large disagreements.
00:29:27.000But there are a bunch of people who have suddenly deemed Schultz to be sort of an important voice on the quote-unquote conservative side of the aisle.
00:29:33.000I don't think Andrew would consider himself to be on the conservative side of the aisle.
00:29:47.000Here was Andrew Schultz basically propping up Zorin Mamdani, an overt socialist with jihadist leanings.
00:29:53.000When I say jihadist leanings, I mean here that he is sympathetic to jihadists.
00:29:56.000He is globalized the Intifada is a jihadist call.
00:30:00.000He refuses to say Hamas should disarm, which, if you care about Palestinians, you should want Hamas to disarm.
00:30:07.000And he used to rap about freeing the Holy Land Five, who were, in fact, a front group for Hamas as charged by the federal government.
00:30:16.000He has posed alongside people who are unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
00:30:22.000And here's Andrew Schultz basically glossing him because, again, I don't think that Andrew Schultz thinks of himself as a deep political thinker.
00:30:28.000So, you know, in my opinion, no one else should, probably.
00:30:32.000I also think this idea that like New Yorkers are going to flee because of a 2% increase, it's like, I've been everywhere else.
00:31:45.000I am a person who grew up not rich, and then I made a lot more money.
00:31:48.000And then the state of California kept trying to dig more and more and more of my money.
00:31:51.000And that was a major factor in me taking my company and moving it to Tennessee and me personally moving to Florida, both zero state income tax states.
00:31:59.000The idea that you can incessantly just grab money from people and that at no point will they move, especially when they are the most mobile class in the country, is beyond.
00:32:08.000I mean, listen, if Schultz wants to pay more cash to the government, he's free to do that.
00:32:12.000There's a box you can check on your IRS forms that allows you to send more money to the federal government.
00:32:17.000I assume there's one on the state forms that allows you to send more money to the state government.
00:32:22.000If Andrew Schultz wants to start a charity or he gives more monies, there can be free bus fare in New York.
00:32:42.000To pretend that he's some sort of great shakes politically, at least on the right side of the aisle, he himself would not, Andrew would not tell you that he is a thought leader on the right side of the aisle.
00:32:52.000I keep pointing this out because there are people who keep trying to treat him that way.
00:32:55.000And there are people who do the same thing with like Tim Dylan or Joe Rogan or a bunch of other people who themselves would tell you they are not on the right.
00:33:08.000The reason that Andrew Schultz moved to the right is because he got tired of the censoriousness of the left.
00:33:13.000But anti-left does not make you conservative.
00:33:17.000And that is important when you're defining which voices get to shape and lead the coalition that is going to be running from the right side of the aisle.
00:33:23.000Again, here's Andrew Schultz continuing to gloss an open socialist who hates capitalism, Zoran Mamdani.
00:33:31.000I'm worried about entrenched politics.
00:33:35.000And I'm worried about the people that fund them because they're the same people that have been fundraising against you.
00:34:38.000It doesn't make it a bad thing, but it would be a foolhardy move to say that people who joined the Trump coalition in the waning moments of the 2024 election are somehow conservative voices and thought leaders who we must pay tremendous outsized attention to.
00:34:53.000I just don't think that that's correct.
00:34:54.000All righty, coming up, Andrew Cuomo getting himself in hot water because someone near him made a mean comment about Zorn Mamdani.
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00:36:02.000Okay, meanwhile, the Democratic Party continues to fall under the sway of Mom Dani.
00:36:05.000Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, he doesn't want to give up the ghost of Mom Dani, but he also doesn't want to let go of Mom Dani.
00:36:11.000Here he was basically avoiding all hard questions on Mom Dani.
00:36:17.000What do you say about the criticism that Momdani is getting from the Jewish community, specifically a lot of rabbis signing documents saying he's a potential threat to the Jewish community in New York?
00:36:31.000Well, I'm going to continue to stand up strongly for the Jewish community, of course, to uplift the special relationship that the United States and Israel continue to have with each other and lean in on supporting, hopefully, a path toward a just and lasting peace in Israel.
00:36:46.000I'm thankful that all the hostages have been returned.
00:36:49.000I'm thankful that humanitarian assistance is being surged into Gaza.
00:36:54.000Well, I mean, thank you for not answering the question at all.
00:36:58.000He was asked about the New York City mayoral race directly.
00:37:00.000He said he'll have more to say on that in the future.
00:37:02.000Well, I'm sure you will after the election takes place.
00:37:09.000Will you finally make an endorsement, Leader Jeffries?
00:37:13.000Well, as you indicated, Wolf, early voting starts in a few days.
00:37:16.000And, you know, I look forward to saying much more about the mayor's race, as I've promised, in advance of that moment.
00:37:23.000I haven't gotten a chance to actually review the debate clips from last evening.
00:37:30.000Yeah, well, I mean, they can only avoid this meat grinder for so long.
00:37:35.000Meanwhile, Mom Dani is asking, deeply outraged, over a situation that arose on Sid Rosenberg's show.
00:37:41.000So Sid had on Andrew Cuomo, and Rosenberg made some sort of joking comment about how Zorin Mamdani would have cheered 9-11 and Cuomo kind of chuckled at it.
00:37:50.000And this apparently is a scandal for the Islamophobia.
00:37:53.000Here's the deal: Cuomo is not saying that every Muslim in New York would have celebrated 9-11.
00:38:57.000How dare he, again, if you are a New York voter and you're more offended by Sid Rosenberg's joke or Andrew Cuomo not slapping down Sid Rosenberg for making the joke than you are by the fact that Zorin Mamdani legitimately like a week ago refused to say that Hamas should disarm and posed last week with an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing then Let me just say, I don't think that you care very much about terrorism.
00:39:37.000I'm fighting for the family of New York.
00:39:40.000That's why I'm here today to endorse Andrew Cuomo to be part of this fight.
00:39:46.000And I'm going to give him my all these next few days.
00:39:52.000So, you know, again, we'll see whether that matters at all.
00:39:55.000If Sleevo doesn't drop out, it probably will not.
00:39:58.000Meanwhile, the Democrats who continue to radicalize, they actually made a move yesterday that I think is actually kind of politically insane.
00:40:06.000They insisted that federal workers not be paid during the shutdown.
00:40:10.000So Republicans keep pushing forward these clean CRs, these clean, continuing resolutions.
00:40:15.000So then Senate Republicans put forward a bill to continue at least paying people during this government shutdown.
00:40:22.000Senator Ron Johnson had put forward a bill to pay employees who are on the job despite the closure.
00:40:27.000It failed 54 to 45 along mostly partisan lines.
00:40:32.000Republicans blocked two bills to pay all federal workers.
00:40:35.000Democrats tried to pass that by unanimous consent.
00:40:37.000So that would have just, I guess, allowed for all federal workers, even the ones who are currently furloughed, to be paid for not doing their jobs.
00:40:47.000The shutdown continues into its fourth week.
00:40:49.000The Trump administration, according to the Washington Post, has moved money around to pay some of the workers who are required to come in, mostly in military and law enforcement.
00:40:56.000About 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed without pay during the shutdown.
00:41:00.000Workers whose jobs involving protecting life and government property have been expected to continue working without pay, including air traffic controllers, TSA officers, employees of law enforcement agencies.
00:41:12.000Senator Johnson said, we're talking about making sure that 2.8 million federal employees aren't worried about getting their next paycheck.
00:41:17.000That overwhelms, quite honestly, the smaller differences.
00:41:20.000Democrats are arguing that Johnson's bill gave the White House budget director Russ Vaughat too much leeway to determine which workers would get paid and which ones would not, which give me a break.
00:41:32.000Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer is trying to make the case that because Donald Trump is trying to reconstruct the east wing of the White House as a ballroom, that means that Donald Trump doesn't care about the shutdown.
00:41:41.000Dude, all you have to do is vote in favor of the continuing resolution.
00:41:45.000This would be a you problem, not a Trump problem.
00:41:50.000It's hard to fathom someone more out of touch and oblivious to our nation's struggles than the current president.
00:41:58.000Let's take the ballroom, for instance.
00:42:42.000Meanwhile, by the way, the governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin has now declared a state of emergency because SNAP is set to expire November 1st without a continuing resolution.
00:42:52.000Governor Youngkin said the Democratic shutdown will cause SNAP benefits to run out for over 850,000 Virginians in need starting November 1st.
00:42:59.000I refuse to let hungry Virginians be used as leverage by congressional Democrats.
00:43:05.000The Commonwealth will provide food benefits until congressional Democrats put the interests of Virginians in need ahead of their politics.
00:43:12.000So this is something that Democrats are facing down.
00:43:15.000According to Politico, it's a shutdown cliff that could hit Democrats hard.
00:43:17.000Again, November 1st, SNAP, that's the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Which helps to feed more than 40 million people.
00:43:24.000It starts to run out of funds November 1st.
00:43:26.00025 states plan to cut off benefits starting on that date.
00:43:30.000Democrats are going to have to explain why they would prefer for SNAP funding to expire rather than just signing on to a normal continuing resolution.
00:43:40.000So, again, this seems to be a gigantic mistake.
00:43:43.000Senator Josh Howley of Missouri said, What's it going to take for Democrats to say, jiha, maybe people should be able to eat?
00:43:49.000One White House official told Politico the shutdown is Democrat performance art.
00:43:53.000The audience starves while the elitist critics applaud.
00:43:59.000So, again, Democrats, I do not know the game that they are playing, but it does not seem to be a particularly smart game.
00:44:05.000Meanwhile, Caroline Lovitt was at the White House yesterday speaking with the press, and she was asked about illegal immigrants receiving health care because this has been an argument made by the administration, including Vice President Vance on this show, that basically what Democrats are stumping for is changes to the one big beautiful bill that would allow for fungible money to be given to states that will effectively go to funding health care for illegal immigrants.
00:44:28.000Here was Caroline Levitt talking about it from the White House.
00:44:32.000An illegal alien from Laos was arrested for murder, robbery, and felony possession of a firearm.
00:44:38.000An illegal alien from Guatemala who was arrested for burglary.
00:44:43.000An illegal alien from El Salvador who was arrested for strangulation, DUI, and burglary.
00:44:50.000An illegal alien from Mexico who was arrested for attempted murder.
00:44:55.000The Democrats' open border policies allowed these threats into our country, and then they provided them with free health care.
00:45:02.000The president and the Republicans, through the One Big Beautiful bill, implemented a common sense reform to end this fraudulent scheme.
00:45:13.000So, again, I think this is not an argument that's going particularly well for the Democrats.
00:45:17.000Again, the fact that they are relying on the destruction of the current East Wing as though this is like a major scandal that Americans are going to get up in arms about, that is their big move here.
00:45:32.000First of all, it is not going to be taxpayers who are paying for this.
00:45:34.000According to the New York Post, billionaire donors and top corporations are footing the bill.
00:45:39.000The 90,000 square foot Grand Hall will soon sit at the north end of the mansion's executive East Wing, thanks to contributions from companies including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
00:45:52.000That also includes Coinbase and Gemini, the Winklevoss twins, Mary Maddelson, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and his family as well.
00:46:00.000President Trump said it's four sides of glass, beautiful glass, but totally appropriate in color and in window, shape, and everything else with the White House.
00:46:09.000It would be near the East Wing, but not touching it, apparently.
00:46:12.000And somehow, again, like this seems to be one of the least controversial things ever.
00:46:16.000Like, I wouldn't care if Barack Obama did this.
00:46:19.000I mean, first of all, I think Barack Obama would build something incredibly ugly.
00:46:21.000If you take a look at his presidential library, which looks like a sand crawler from Star Wars Episode IV, with maybe fewer windows, I think he had worse construction taste than President Trump.
00:46:34.000And I'm not even a fan of the gilding that the Trump administration has done in the Oval.
00:46:38.000But the idea that this is like a major thing and people are freaking out about it, I'm just having a tough time seeing it, folks.
00:47:35.000Now, what's amazing to me is the Democrats do have a bit of a target-rich environment, but they're ignoring all the stories they should be focusing on.
00:47:40.000So, for example, a story that I think is problematic.
00:47:43.000Yesterday, President Trump pardoned Chang Peng Zhao.
00:47:46.000He's the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance following months of efforts by the Zhao to boost the Trump family's own crypto company.
00:47:53.000This is according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:47:55.000The president signed the pardon on Wednesday.
00:48:48.000They don't give you voting power of any real sort.
00:48:50.000And there are a lot of people pouring money into World Liberty Financial.
00:48:53.000This is not to say that everything World Liberty Financial related is a problem, but if you keep having situations where people who are under legal scrutiny keep pouring money into World Liberty Financial, and then they find themselves on the other end of pardons, it seems to me like Democrats, if they were smart, would be focusing on that.
00:49:20.000The biggest danger to the Trump administration is this sort of activity, having to do particularly with the crypto world, connected with an economic downturn.
00:49:31.000If the economy goes the wrong way, then all of the sort of edgy play in which members of the Trump administration and family members are engaged is going to become the number one issue.
00:49:47.000You get Democrats in the media jumping on the yelling about World Liberty Financial and all the deals being made in the Middle East and with Chinese figures.
00:49:58.000And that turns into an oligarchy campaign, which is what AOC is already laying the groundwork for.
00:51:16.000According to CNN, the September CPI inflation report shows prices rose at a slower than expected rate of 0.3% last month, but annual price hikes for a range of consumer goods rose to the fastest pace so far this year.
00:51:27.000The Federal Reserve is very likely to continue cutting those interest rates.
00:51:30.000The White House has said there's very unlikely, it's unlikely that there will be inflation in October.
00:51:36.000Now, again, inflation is still running 50% too high, according to the Fed's own benchmarks.
00:51:43.000Does that mean that they're going to stop cutting?
00:51:45.000Probably not, because there are some indicators that the economy is starting to slow a little bit, including cuts in retail.
00:51:51.000So, according to the Wall Street Journal, Target plans to cut around 1,800 corporate roles as part of an effort to remake its strategy to reverse a period of stagnant sales.
00:51:59.000Target announced on Thursday it will lay off around 1,000 global corporate employees and cut 800 open roles.
00:52:04.000The move will cut around 8% of its approximately 22,000 corporate employees with around 80% of the cuts in its U.S. ranks.
00:52:18.000Its net income dropped 37% in the third quarter despite growing vehicle sales, marring an otherwise record-setting quarter for a company ahead of the November vote on a new pay package for chief executive Elon Musk.
00:52:31.000So the bet that Tesla investors are making is really not EV sales.
00:52:58.000I enjoy driving it more than any other car I've ever driven.
00:53:02.000Also, again, these are some indicators that people are starting to downscale in terms of their expenditures.
00:53:09.000People are instead shifting, it appears, their buying habits and cars to kind of the old-style pickups and SUVs because oil prices are comparatively low right now.
00:53:19.000And, you know, without that $7,500 tax credit with regard to EVs, it might be cheaper for people to go and get a Ford.
00:53:27.000Bottom line is, again, as always, every administration, the strength of the administration rests on economics.
00:53:34.000If the economy continues to move under President Trump, he'll be fine.
00:53:39.000If it doesn't, that is how you get a radical left backlash.
00:53:46.000They have been covering this week another insane story out of the state of Massachusetts, where foster parents have now lost their license after they refused to sign a policy that said that they would have to respect the gender-affirming care chosen by minors.
00:54:02.000John, what's going on with this story?
00:54:11.000In some ways, there's a real opportunity here, I think, for Christians and people that are just pro-freedom of religious expression, free speech.
00:54:21.000So, what's happened here is that Lydia and Heath Marvin, they're both Christians, they're both foster parents.
00:54:28.000They usually take on really special needs, medical needs, kids under the age of four.
00:54:34.000They've had eight in the last five years.
00:54:37.000So, what happened here is that their license was suddenly revoked in April.
00:54:43.000The reason is, let me read the full: the LGBTQIA plus policy out of the state requires you to affirm the gender identity of the kid, also dress them in gender-neutral clothing, as I understand it.
00:54:59.000They said, Look, this is a violation of our religious perspective.
00:56:09.000So, this is where I think that we have an opportunity in the state of Massachusetts to really change the situation there.
00:56:16.000There's tens of millions of dollars on the line, as we've seen from the Trump administration.
00:56:21.000They're not afraid of pressuring major states like California to make sure that they're following their policies, that they're not discriminating in these kinds of ways.
00:56:33.000There's a major already we have some statements from the state that are pretty weak, kind of saying, Hey, look, we're just trying to protect children.
00:56:43.000That argument doesn't hold up when you say, Well, you're also not allowing families that are actually taking real action to protect children's lives, raise children that have special needs again.
00:56:57.000We're going to see where this goes, but I have a good feeling that Massachusetts is going to be feeling a lot of pressure in the coming weeks.
00:57:06.000Well, Massachusetts has been psychotic on these issues for decades at this point.
00:57:10.000I remember when I was in law school over in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there was a case that came down in 2006 in which Catholic adoption agencies literally shut down across the state.
00:57:20.000They've not operating that for 20 years because of the same-sex adoption policies that were put in place by the state of Massachusetts that said that if you're a Catholic adoption agency and you say that a child should go to a mom and a dad rather than two moms or two dads, that this is an act of discrimination and therefore you can't operate in the state of Massachusetts.
00:57:36.000And Catholic adoption agencies literally shut down in the state of Massachusetts and have not been operating there for two decades because of this.
00:57:44.000The kids never seem to be a priority for all these people who are significantly more interested in the social implications of gender ideology than they are in the actual fate of kids who require parents and kids who require adoptive and foster parents.
00:58:04.000I mean, there's Supreme Court precedents that is set that specifically addresses Catholic adoption agencies out of Philadelphia.
00:58:13.000So this was a situation, I think it's 2021 Supreme Court decision, Fulton versus City of Philadelphia.
00:58:21.000And the city was discriminating against this Catholic, they call themselves the Catholic adoption services.
00:58:29.000They would not let them participate because they would not affirm, they would not allow in same-sex couples as potential adoptees because of, again, deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics.
00:58:45.000And eventually, SCODUS ruled against the city.
00:58:48.000So there is precedent here that I think works against the state of Massachusetts.
00:58:54.000Again, they might back down before this goes further.
00:58:58.000If they don't, they could be in real trouble.
00:59:00.000Trump administration is going to lean in.
00:59:02.000And SCOTUS, we've seen how they're already leaning on cases.
00:59:05.000It kind of reminds me actually of some recent, we've seen some recent oral arguments where we've heard similar arguments in the Supreme Court.
00:59:15.000And we've seen even some of the liberal justices having a hard time rationalizing some of these policies that are these, like, for instance, anti-conversion therapy, so-called conversion therapy arguments.
00:59:30.000I think Massachusetts would lose and lose big if this goes up the chain.