In this episode of the Great America Show, John Fawcett talks about President Trump's attempt to get Ukraine to pay back the $350 billion the U.S. has loaned them in the past, President Trump firing 20 immigration judges, and more!
00:00:00.000Hello everybody, I'm John Fawcett with this Great America Show midday update for Monday, February 17th.
00:00:06.340Happy President's Day everybody and happy President's Day to our great 45 and 47 President Donald J. Trump, our savior at this point in time.
00:00:17.960President Trump yesterday heading out to the Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida, the first NASCAR race of the season.
00:00:25.160President Trump talking to the media saying he's working on a plan for Ukraine to pay back the $350 billion that the U.S. has sent to them.
00:00:35.340President Trump has previously floated the idea of taking rare earth minerals from Ukraine or figuring out a way.
00:00:41.760Zelensky doesn't seem to be on board with it. Now, I'm not entirely sure why.
00:00:46.000Zelensky didn't think he was getting that money for free, did he?
00:00:48.860Did Joe Biden make some sort of deal with him before he left the White House or when he came into the White House?
00:00:54.320Scott Besson, who's the Secretary of the Treasury, is actually over in Ukraine right now on an overseas trip trying to put together some documents to figure out how he's going to make Ukraine pay back that money.
00:01:10.320I have to assume some of that money, that $350 billion, found its way into Zelensky's pocket one way or another.
00:01:18.500And the Doge Committee, led by Elon Musk, announced over the weekend they've recovered almost $2 billion, folks.
00:01:25.240Folks, that's $2 billion with a B. Not million, but billion.
00:01:30.480These funds originally allocated to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, under the Biden regime for financial services and administration.
00:01:38.840And they were identified as, quote, unnecessarily due to procedural inefficiencies.
00:01:42.500I'm not entirely sure what that means, but what I do understand is $2 billion of HUD money was misplaced and misappropriated and somehow found just laying around.
00:02:24.260President Trump firing 20 immigration judges, without explanation, of course.
00:02:28.580This is according to a union official, an amid sweeping move to shrink the size of federal government.
00:02:34.520On Friday, 13 judges who had yet to be sworn in, five assistant chief immigration judges, were dismissed without notice, says Matthew Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents federal workers.
00:02:49.100Two other judges were fired under similar circumstances in the last week.
00:02:53.120It's unclear they would be replaced by the U.S. Justice Department or the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the courts and oversees roughly 700 judges.
00:03:01.620They, of course, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
00:03:06.240Immigration courts, of course, are backlogged with more than 3.7 million cases, according to latest research by Syracuse's university.
00:03:14.460And it takes years to decide an asylum case.
00:03:17.240There's support across the political spectrum from more judges and support staff, though the first Trump administration also pressured some judges to decide cases more quickly.
00:03:25.160Folks, it shouldn't take a year to decide if someone is here on a legitimate asylum claim.
00:03:31.740If it takes longer than 10 or 15 minutes, there's probably some sort of foul play going on with regard to the case.
00:03:41.100And Rick Grinnell, you guys all know him too well, a figure in this, this is Trump administration, a pivotal figure in the last one.
00:03:49.920This administration, hostage negotiation, and he's also working over in the Kennedy Center, soon to be renamed Kennedy Center.
00:03:58.160He's reportedly considering a run for governor of California, but only under one circumstance.
00:04:05.020That's if Kamala Harris decides to run.
00:04:10.580As I said, Rick Grinnell currently now is the envoy for special missions for President Trump, saying that he will not turn down the role to run if Kamala decides that she wants to go ahead and pursue that as her next career.
00:04:29.980Kamala Harris is a total mess, even after losing that decisive 2024 election.
00:04:38.020Doesn't seem like she's getting any better.
00:04:40.440She's sort of spiraling out of control in some of her latest media appearances and some of her latest events she's been going to.
00:04:49.880It looks like the drinking problem is only, only getting worse, folks.
00:04:53.880Folks, please be sure to join us each and every day, every weekday, and every weekend, and each and every day for the Great America Show midday updates, along with the Great America Show, where we bring you great guests, A-level guests, with their brilliant insight, along with some of our political commentary.
00:05:12.620And then each and every day for the midday updates, where we bring you leading headlines and the biggest stories happening right now in this country that we feel you guys need to know about without having to turn into that mainstream media.
00:05:25.960Quick five, ten-minute segments where we give you all the news that you need to know for the day that's happening right then and there, broken down into five, ten-minute segments.
00:05:35.520I'm John Fossett with this midday update, folks.
00:05:38.720Happy President's Day once again, and we'll see you later for the Great America Show.