PBD Podcast
RFK Jr. Hearing, Trump & Guantánamo Bay, American Airlines Crash w/ Rep. Byron Donalds | PBD Podcast | Ep. 541
Thu, 30 Jan 2025
Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, Vincent Oshana, and Adam Sosnick are joined by Representative Byron Donalds as they cover RFK Jr.'s nomination hearing, Trump's plan to use Guantanamo Bay for criminal migrants, the American Airlines DC crash, and Jim Acosta resigning from CNN! ---- 📺 VOTE ON TRUMP'S FIRST 100 DAYS: https://bit.ly/4gXLioq 👕 GET THE LATEST VT MERCH: https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 📰 VTNEWS.AI: https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
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Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point?
The future looks bright. A handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here.
You are a one-on-one? My son's right there.
I don't think I've ever said this before.
No, that ain't it.
Okay, so we got a superstar in the house, folks. We got the great Byron Donalds in the house. It's great to have you here.
Hey, first of all, it's really cool to be here. Like, my wife, my friends, they're all real jealous because they're not with me. It's really cool, man, honestly. I'm really happy to be here. And y'all have too much fun already, I can see, so.
Yeah, I mean, again, letting Tom lose. You're learning. Tom is the one we have to be careful with because when we get HR issues, it's because of Tom.
Yeah. But we're working through it.
We're working through it. We had a meeting yesterday specifically for coaching these types of moments. Guys, we got a lot of stories to go through that we'll cover here today, and we want to get your reaction on many of these stories. The one that just came out, the timing of this story is kind of weird.
Rob, if you got the tweet to pull it up that just kind of shows the data, Byron Donalds holds massive lead in poll on gubernatorial contenders for the state of Florida. And it just happened, I believe, yesterday. And the number was, what, 32% or something like that, 31%. Yeah, we'll talk about that here in a minute. They have them at the top. That's right. And there's a percentage on it, Rob.
We'll cover that here in a minute when we get to it. Yeah. State of Florida, you know, what things that maybe we need to work on, what will be, you know, if you do run, if you do choose to go that route, what are some areas that Florida can improve on? A lot of us moved here from other states. We love the states. I want to know what you're thinking about that.
Then, obviously, Jim Acosta had a rough week. You know, this guy was given an incredible job at midnight when no one watches. So even if you make mistakes, no one will know about it. And he said no to it. And he decides to walk, and he said, you know, always focus on your truth, right? Never, you know, sway from the truth. Yeah.
And we're going to talk to Jim Acosta because he likes freedom of speech so much that he turned off all the comments. So when he posted the video, he doesn't want anybody to say anything about it.
Yeah.
We'll have a reaction to it. Coping, coping, coping. Trump administration gives ICE quota of 1,800 arrests per day across U.S. Can you imagine? You're working for the guys. If you're not doing 1,800 a day, you're fired, like a sales team. I absolutely love that meeting. This other story sounds like a spoof, like a Babylon Bee or an onion story. It's actually a true story.
Trump blocks $50 million in condoms for Gaza and trans operations in Colombia. Some of these numbers are staggering. I think one of the representatives actually talked about it. Google Maps will make Trump's changes to show Gulf of America and Mount McKinney. This is Google doing it and choosing to do it, which is great.
White House to offer buyouts to federal workers who won't work and return to office. I think 6% of them only work from the office. The rest of them don't based on some numbers we've all seen. Trump bans taxpayer funding of child sex change operations, chemical and surgical mutilation. Smugglers transporting vans packed with 26 Chinese migrants detained in Florida.
And this is in Coral Gables that this happened. I think they found another 40 that you were talking about, Rob, for a total of 66. We'll address that. Holman demands apology from Illinois governor over lie that ICE targeted Chicago schools, slowing fear. White House to open media access to podcasters and influencers. Is this Kennedy legacy?
John F. Kennedy's grandson slammed for mocking John F. Kennedy Jr. 's voice in a viral video, which you have to see. It's disturbing. When you see this, as well as I think it's his cousin, Caroline Kennedy calls her cousin RFK Jr. a predator. And there's even a story about political Murdoch empire comes out against RFK. Anyway, there's a lot of stories that we'll talk about that.
And then this other story, Anthony Mackie, who's the actor, right? He's the actor that says America doesn't represent Captain America, okay? America doesn't represent Captain America. We'll address that as well and have some thoughts on that. Super Bowl 59 tickets are cheaper than they were last year by a mile, not by $100 or $200, by a mile.
And some people are just tired of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs winning and – The rest are doing a great job. And Taylor Swift and Kelsey and all of that stuff. And Kelsey taking a $20 million check from Pfizer. These are interesting moments that we're going through. Maybe we'll talk about that.
Then he had a passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near D.C. And the president sent a truth message on this. And he's a little bit confused on what really happened and how this doesn't make sense. So there's a lot of questions there. Tragic event to hear.
By the way, we just got the report right now, Vinny, you told me, not a single survivor that we heard about. So tragic. We'll address that. And then Trump moves to prepare Guantanamo Bay for 30,000 criminal illegal aliens. And then signs the Bill Easing Deportation Act.
Former Senator Bob Menendez, sentenced to 11 years, the guy with the gold and all the other stuff for corruption and bribery, is now saying southern New York is the most corrupt. And, hey, almost like asking the president to bail him out. And then we have a few things to show with RFK. And then a couple business stories with Starbucks that we'll address.
And Vinny really, I don't know why, Vinny really, all night he's been asking, Pat, can we please cover this story? Plus size rapper who calls herself BBW, sues Lyft over driver, said she couldn't fit in the car. She weighs apparently 500 pounds. 490 pounds. That's her right there.
And she's suing.
She's suing Lyft. Yeah. She looks great. Yeah. Maybe we'll address that story as well. Maybe go front. It's 500 this morning, Vinny. She had breakfast. Before we get into the stories here with Byron and all the other things that we have going on, Gang, I want to tell you guys a couple things about... Rob, if you can go to vtnews.ai.
And when you go to vtnews.ai, first 100 days, if you can go to first 100 days. By the way, I think we have 89 days left. Can we just do this question real quick here together? I'm going to vote for mine as well because I think I'm up to date in my ranking. And I am way behind with everybody. But what is today's question, Rob, the prediction today?
Will Trump make an in-person appearance at the Super Bowl?
I'll give mine. If Trump's, I'm going to say my answer is a in-person it's saying.
Yes, he's showing up.
I say yes. Me too. Is what I'm saying. Especially with Chiefs and Mahomes. And that's for 590 points. Again, go to vtnews.ai and post your prediction. Here's what we're going to be doing, just so everybody knows, okay? We decided to run a contest behind this, and this will go for the first 100 days. So for the winner at the end, when you win,
The end of a PBD podcast, you'll join us for 10, 15 minutes to tell us how you made all these predictions correctly, okay? And the competitors in the top 10 cannot be value attainment or line-holding employees, okay? If they are, and a lot of them are participating... They're not going to be able to compete in this. It's anybody that's not part of the company that'll compete for this.
So if you win, you're the top. Nostradamus, you'll be invited to come on the show with us and tell us how you were able to make these predictions. What do you have access to that we don't have? What did you use? Did you use ChatGBT or maybe DeepSeek? What were you using? And then the top 10 predictors. With active subscriptions to vtnews.ai, you will be invited on your own.
Find a way to come down here. We'll pick a date. You'll come out with the launch of our cigar lounge that we're doing in our comedy club. You'll be invited. We'll go to the back of the VIP cigar lounge. We'll have a cigar together. We'll spend two, three hours together. The whole crew will be there. Conversations, talking, having a good time, having a drink.
at the new boardroom cigar lounge that we're launching that will be ready, and you will be invited to be a part of that. So again, go compete. There's still 89 days left on this, and there's going to be some accelerator points. So some of the questions will be 5,000 points, 1,000 points, 2,000 points. Put it in your calendar. Every day, 9 a.m., a new prediction is being posted.
So go to vtnews.ai, first 100 days, claim your predictions, subscribe to the membership, and either one of the subscriptions that we have that's paid, you'll be able to participate in this contest that we're running. All right. Having said that, Byron Donalds. You are in the talks with everybody. Everybody talks about you. Stephen A. Smith was here a couple weeks ago. We talked about you.
Oh, that's my guy. Yeah, I mean, him and many others. Left, right, center. Everybody sees you as a superstar. When we were in D.C., you getting up there, the applause, the enthusiasm with you is very high. Even to the point where, you know, you see that chart, Rob, if you can pull up. This literally happened yesterday.
Breaking, Congressman Byron Donalds has surged ahead as the leading candidate for Florida's 2026 gubernatorial race in a four-way ballot, very close, obviously, with you in second place, 31.3, and in Nunes, 4.4, Simpson, 2.9, Suarez, 1.3, undecided, 60.4, head-to-head ballot, Donalds, 33.8, Simpson, 5%, undecided, 61.2. This was brought out, I think, yesterday is when we saw this.
How soon are you planning to announce that you're running for governor for the state of Florida?
Look, before we get to that, this cigar lounge that you have, I think America needs to know I am a cigar guy. Are you really? Oh, yeah, I love cigars.
Well, then you're fully invited. You got a membership on the house anytime you're down here.
Boy, you can't do that because health ethics will come from me. So we will figure out a way where I will pay my way into the cigar lounge. And I appreciate you, though. but I will pay my way in.
But you see, that was a different way of me offering Ferragamo shoes to Governor DeSantis, and he didn't want to take the shoes. And I was kindly giving some nice shoes to him. He didn't want to take it, which I fully understand. By the way, if you're saying... He didn't take Ferragamo's. He didn't take the shoes I offered him. By the way, there were... How nice were they, Vinny?
I wanted that.
Vinny wanted them afterwards. We're like, we're not going to do it.
You stole them, Vinny.
But are you saying from the health standpoint, like from the health standpoint of smoking cigars or no?
No, ethics.
Okay, I got it.
The ethics committee is the place where nobody ever wants to see the inside of that room. The members that get told, they get basically told they're going to be on ethics because it's not really a thing like... You don't go to the speaker and say, put me on ethics. He's basically like, you're going on ethics. It's just a place you never want to be.
So, you know, you just got to be respectful of the process. But to the top question, man, I'm a kid from Brooklyn, New York. So it's really cool to see that post come out. I think about the governor's race in 26, I'm committed to making sure we get the president's job done in Congress. We have so much to do in a little bit of time.
We got to get through all of that before I can definitively say what I'm going to do one way or the other. But to see that come out yesterday, I was just like, it blew me away. Because, like, Jeanette, Wilton, I've served with both of them. When I first got to Tallahassee eight years ago, when I went into the state legislature, I served with both of them.
Ashley Moody, who's now a senator, I know her. And so to see those numbers come out, which I didn't know were coming out. I was, like, leaving Doral because we had our retreat. I was leaving Doral, and my phone is blowing up. And I'm just like, what's going on? And I'm looking, and, yo, you're getting a thumbs up. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I'm in. What are we doing? What's the plan?
Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, whoa. So I called my team, and I go, we didn't release anything, did we? And they go, no, this came out of left field. We didn't know what was happening. So it's really a blessing. It's humbling more than anything else. But in terms of announcements and plans, we're not there yet.
Okay, so then maybe asking a different question. How close are you with Governor, by the way, Governor DeSantis?
We've been better. I mean, look, I never talk about this stuff, but we're here, so we're just going to talk. I think that that relationship got frayed when I backed President Trump in the presidential primaries. And I think from the outside looking in, people remember back in 2022 when the governor was running for reelection, I was at the election night party.
Like, I introduced him on stage, and we had that conversation. They asked me to do it, and I said, of course I'll do it, whatever you need, because he's been a great governor, best governor in the country. I remember when I first got to Congress starting to do interviews, I was calling him America's governor. And I still believe that to this day. He's been phenomenal.
But when it came to a race between him and President Trump, I had to go with President Trump. I just felt President Trump was the right person at the right time. And I think that kind of frayed our relationship because of that. But, you know, that's politics sometimes. But I think we'll find a way to figure that out and move forward. Got it.
So, you know, when you think about the policies in the state of Florida, he's done so many things right. He's the reason why we're here. We love being here. And, you know, a lot of people are still moving here. There's still some issues the state of Florida has, but in specific area of him attracting talent, he's done a phenomenal job. We feel the same exact way.
But going back to it, if you were to run, like if you were to say, you know, one, two, three areas in the state of Florida that we could make better, what would those two or three things be?
So I look at it slightly different. We're the best state in the country. That's to the credit of Ron DeSantis. It's also to the credit of Rick Scott. And in modern politics, the next thing I'm going to say, we typically don't like talking about because how they're viewed in Republican politics.
But this whole business of Florida being the best would not be in the position we are today without Jeb Bush's governorship. So Jeb Bush started the transition from a blue state. He had to take on Lawton Childs.
And so Jeb, yeah, so if you go back to education policy in our state 30 years ago, it was Jeb Bush's A-plus plan in education that started the conservative revolution, first in education and public safety, and then through economic issues, going through the financial collapse in 08 when Rick Scott came in,
And then now to making sure that we are the free state of Florida like Ron DeSantis has done. So you can't tell our story without all three of those men. Now, and I leave out Charlie Crist on purpose because Charlie Crist is Charlie Crist. Now, going forward, you got to keep this thing in the middle of the road. That's how I see it. Your job going forward is we're the best, now stay the best.
I was talking to some friends of mine, and we were having this conversation. I said, you remember the 91 Bulls? Michael broke through. At the time, it was Michael's just – he's just a scorer, but he's not a winner. They break through in 91. And then the hardest thing after 91 was not that Michael's the greatest because he is. It is the consistency to stay the best 92, 93, 96, 97, 98.
And the way you stay the best is you got to be in the gym every morning. You got to make sure you're doing your, your film study. You got to make sure you got everybody on a practice floor. It's the, it's the consistency. So now to your question about what do you do as Florida? Number one, you keep it in the middle of the road. Number two areas for growth.
We're already transitioning to be it, but I believe we should be the financial hub of the world in a decade. The digital assets community in Miami-Dade in particular, but throughout South Florida, it's all coming here. And we have to, I don't want to say accelerate that, but we have to focus that. Our economy as a state is far more diverse than what it was when I got here 20 years ago.
We're not just a retirement state now. We're an everything state. People are living here, growing their businesses here, bringing their businesses here, raising kids here, going to college here, et cetera. Our workforce has to be prepared for the next wave of our economy. And I'm talking AI, quantum technology. et cetera. So those are like the two big things I think are in front of us.
Housing costs are going to be a problem in our state. And part of housing costs is overspending at the federal level. And I know we're going to probably get into that. So we have to find a way to stabilize costs so you can stabilize housing costs. So construction gets better.
I think in a lot of our counties, we have to find ways to streamline permitting because extended permitting only raises the cost of producing homes, et cetera. So that's stuff we got to address. Energy.
we're going to be the hub of digital assets florida should be in my view the incubator state for uh small modular reactors and micro reactors to supplement your energy supply so you have more base load power so you can do mining if you're talking about crypto bitcoin in particular if you're talking about uh blockchain technology and really having to be headquarters here if you're talking about data centers
and all the things associated with the next wave of the global economy. Last piece, and this is like a mix of federal and state. We have forgotten the Monroe Doctrine in America. We, I think, over the last generation or so, maybe closer to two generations, our eyes have been fixated on the Middle East, Asia, Europe. And we all understand the historical significance of why that occurred.
But in that process, we have forgotten Central America and South America. As a nation, we need to get back to that because you may not be able to bring all manufacturing back to the United States, but we have to begin that process of bringing that stuff home. And Florida can definitely be a part of that, especially North Florida.
Between Jacksonville and the Panhandle, that area, you could really do some good heavy manufacturing work up there. But you have to near shore. There's no reason why Guatemala shouldn't be doing a lot of stuff, manufacturing a lot of things to the benefit of the United States. As I understand it, a bunch of our pharmaceutical industry used to be in Puerto Rico.
And then because of stupid government policy throughout the years, that all moved to Asia. We got to near shore all that stuff back into our hemisphere. It will cut our transportation costs down. It would cut the costs of Americans trying to do everything on a day-to-day basis to live. Florida is the epicenter of that because of just where we are geographically in the country.
So I think that our state, if you're talking about what's next to come, those are the things I think are next. And then the other pieces are, you're just fine tuning. We got the best car on the road. What do you do with the best car on the road?
Keep the maintenance up. So here's a question. The question becomes, you know how you used a Michael Jordan example, 91, they break through, they won the first one, the second, third. I think the analogy to use that would be, No one's ever won since Michael. To follow Michael, Derrick Rose tried. He was the youngest guy to win MVP, but they never won a championship, right?
So what is the pressures of following a guy in a state that the people who voted for him are very, very happy with what he's done? So there's not really a – because you've got to find a crisis tool come up, right? Or else it's going to be, well, you have a big shadow of a guy that crushed it during COVID and post-COVID and all that stuff.
How do you overcome that with certain people that are going to say, you know, what are you going to do better than DeSantis? He's done a very good job.
Honestly, I'm not really concerned about that. And the reason why is because unlike sports or business, the job of government is to be in the shadows. and I respect everything that Ron DeSantis has done and accomplished for our state, but I don't look at it in terms of how do I now establish myself?
Because if I go through the process with a great state of trying to establish myself, now that's when you start getting cute and you start making or causing political fights that you really don't need or you're doing it too fast just to get your name ID up, to make yourself look bigger. I would say at this point,
Comparing where I am today to where Governor DeSantis was when he was Congressman DeSantis, I have a national name ID. And I'm not even trying to brag about it. I have one. No, you do. I was in Miami. I was in Miami yesterday. I'm walking down the street to a meet-in. And this guy, I forget the name of his business, and I'm so sorry, sir, because I should remember his business.
He came running out the business, and it was one of those reflexology recovery places where they have the cryotherapy and everything. He comes running. I'm just walking down the street. It's just me down the street, sunglasses on, and I'm looking at my phone. He comes running out in his socks, and it was just like, man, I just want to say thank you.
And it caught me off guard, but I was like, of course, you're welcome. I just do this because I want people to win and succeed. He came out in his socks. He came out in his socks.
Was he Armenian, Assyrian, or Persian?
It's got to be one of those two.
I'm in my socks right now.
He was Middle Eastern for sure. There's no question about it. He was definitely shades lighter than me. I don't even know what it was. But to the point of... I don't feel the political pressure that sometimes politicians feel where you have to try to assert yourself to get into the national conversation.
I think because of the way I've gone about my business, being obviously a surrogate for the president during one of the most, if not the most consequential, one of the most consequential elections in the history of our country, I don't feel the pressure to have to try to create a situation where The job for me is just run the state.
And I have no problem giving Governor DeSantis all the credit that he deserves because he deserves that credit. And I think that in politics, what we should be doing a lot more is that when somebody does a great job, you acknowledge that or you give them their flowers or however you want to phrase it. But I don't have to try to find a way to make myself bigger.
If I'm governor of this state and all they say about me is, He did a great job, but he wasn't Ron DeSantis. I could live with that.
Okay. So then my follow-up for you would be the following. I think the decision you made when you said 2022, you brought him up at the victory. Hey, would you come out and support, et cetera, et cetera. Great. And then that's the one and a half million landslide victory that he had. That's the one. And I remember that evening. It was historic. It was an epic night. It was an epic night.
No question about it. Miami-Dade, all these other things that we're reading about. For you to say, no, I'm going with Trump and I'm not going to go with you. Him not being happy, state, all that stuff. Great. Strategically, from the business and marketing standpoint, one would say between the two, whose tweet has more power? A Trump's tweet or DeSantis' tweet? DeSantis' tweet.
It's not even close. No, it's Trump. Whose endorsement has more power? Trump. Yeah. And I think the part about the governor that this is how I process it is the sequencing as you're going up, right? Sometimes you want to force something to happen too soon. and you make move nine on move four, and you stumble. Make sense?
And it's kind of like, hey, you know, no, I don't need to make a phone call to him and tell him that I'm running for office. Why not? Why not give him the credit not making a call to Trump when he and I are having a conversation? I think sequencing-wise, did you watch that from a distance and say, ooh, that's a fumble. Why are you not giving credit to the guy that helped you become governor?
Internally, you seem like a strategist. You seem like a guy that is stable and you're thinking about it yourself. You seem like a very confident guy. You think very highly of yourself, but at the same time, super likable, very good communicator. You can go in any circle and be able to adapt to that community, whether it's highly intellectual, comedy, culture. You can do that. You're able to. Yeah.
go there, and that's not necessarily something he likes to do. It's not in his comfort zone. He's a very good exec. He gets things done, but he doesn't like to go there. Did you kind of process that yourself and say, oof, that was a mistake. Let me learn from this to not make this a mistake for my political career? Because you're not somebody that people are looking at just as a governor.
On a 20-year trajectory, you're on a list of a lot of different lists. If there's a top 50 names, top 25 names of presidents, candidates on the right, you're on that list. So people are looking at you as somebody that, you know, governor, boom, boom, boom, and what comes next, right?
And that could be 2030, 2028, so it looks like 2026, so forth, say 2028, 2032, 2032, 2036-ish, like that time frame.
I'm getting old now. That's what happened. Now I'm getting old.
You're young is the strength. But did you kind of watch that fumble and say, ooh, that was a mistake right there?
Yeah, I did. And for me, the first thing was, and it wasn't even about politics, it was business. When I was still in finance, my third stop in my career before politics really took off, it was at Moran Edwards Wealth Management, now Moran Wealth Management in Naples. Shout out to Tom Moran, mentor, friend, supporter, love him, love his wife, love his family.
When he brought me into his company, it was really just because he had saw me politically.
Is this Morgan Stanley?
No, Moran. M-O-R-A-N. Moran Group. Let's give him love. Moran Wealth Management.
That's what it is. Rob was about to give credit to somebody else. I want to get it correct so we know who it is.
But you were saying, when you got into this, he was a great mentor. Great mentor. He brought me in, I think it was 2015. He brought me in, and he knew I had political aspirations and stuff like that. He helped me build a book of business. I know economics, but he showed me the ropes of when you're having to manage somebody else's wealth. I'll never forget it. He took a chance on me.
So if a client came in the door and was like, Byron, you know what? I really like you, but I don't really want to mess with Tom. I want to move my money to you. The first call I make is to Tom. Tom, client X came to see me. You need to know this. What do you want to do? Because you put me on. That's something I learned as a kid. You learn that in the streets of New York.
You gave me my opportunity. So I have to come to you first. And I think the other thing in politics, and we talked about it when I was sitting in the green room, because everybody talks about the lists and your trajectory and all that stuff. In politics, timing matters more than talent. This is a timing game. It's not a talent game. Because there's so many people who come through the game
who are super talented in various aspects, but if you don't get the timing right, it doesn't matter. And so, you know, look, again, I speak bluntly. I don't try to hide the ball too much. In my core, and you can ask anybody on my team, ask my wife, I always felt that the right time for the governor to make that run was 2018.
That's how I felt because I felt that at the time with every, as terrible as Joe Biden was as president and how disastrous the bureaucracy was because he was not paying attention. So they were really out there doing whatever with no checks from the elected will of the country. You needed somebody who can step in literally day one and say, yeah, enough. We're not doing any of this.
We never had that conversation.
You guys were never in a setting where it's like, hey, you know, never. No, we didn't have that conversation. So could he have ran but been more diplomatic? Because I remember him getting on Sean Hannity and the shows, and he would say, you know what, I'm willing to debate the president. He should be on that stage. And what does he want to come out and sit down and talk to us?
Sounded a little bit, you know... Out of his element, it's almost like maybe somebody was even telling him to do that. Could he have ran in 2023, 2024, and shined while still edifying and protecting a president? I think so.
But, I mean, he was in a different space than, let's say, Vivek. Because the governor, and again, to his credit, he had established himself nationally because of how he handled and led our state during COVID. And he did the best job. It wasn't close in guiding our state through COVID-19. And he had established himself. So every political campaign is like every boxing match, every UFC fight.
Styles make fights. That's just the way it is. So it would have been really tough for him to play it that way because then the next question would be, well, then why are you running? You see what I'm saying? And I think with Vivek, the reason why it was different for Vivek, just outside looking in, is because Vivek was new to the scene. And people didn't really know.
I remember the early days with Vivek's from, people was like still trying to figure out how to pronounce both names. Right. You know what I'm saying? And shout out to Vivek. Love him. But that's the truth. Sure. So it's different when you are established, but then you pay deference. The next question is, so then why are you here? I'll tell you a quick story.
This is a story that I don't tell publicly much. I'll share it. When I was running for Congress in 2020, one of my opponents, I'm not going to say his name, called me. and wanted to have lunch and meet. And I knew what he was going to try to do. He was going to try to get me out the race to back him. And we're sitting down and we're just talking.
30 minutes later, he goes, listen, Byron, I think you're great. I think you're talented. You could be a future governor. You could be a future senator. But I'm going to have more money in the race. So I think you should drop out and back me because I have the resources to win. And I looked at him and I said,
With everything you just said, my only question is, why aren't you getting out and backing me? Because if you feel I have all these abilities to do all these things, then why are you running?
Well, let me tell you, that's the beautiful part of the experience you have with wealth management. Because that business, if you're able to convince people and speak to them, you have to do it logically and persuade them to move $10 million, to move my $20 million, to move my $100 million. That's not an easy thing to do. It's not easy.
I've been in the industry for a while, and I started off with Morgan Stanley Dean Wooder, so this is not an easy gig. Most don't make it. It's a very difficult business. Tom, for yourself, you've lived in California. You've lived in Florida. You've lived in Texas. Living in three states together. Every time we move, we move together, right?
While we're in Florida, we see what's going on with California with the fires. And they're dealing with the fires. Florida's got the hurricanes to deal with. But regardless, we've been in insurance for a long time. I've been in it for 25 years. Insurance is a topic of discussion both in California and Florida.
What's your question for him from somebody that's looking at it from a more insurance standpoint for if Byron decides to run as a governor?
Well, first of all, I love what you said, and I love what you laid out. You laid out the middle of the road, the financial hub, housing costs, energy, small nukes. All those things are good. The engine of tomorrow is like the family of today. And one of the things that's hitting the family today is insurance costs in Florida. Yeah.
I credit what you and the governor did in response to, not one, not two, but three hurricanes in four years in your district. And what you guys did to get the rock bridge, you know, that bridge, it was just a pile of rocks and got the bridge covered so you could get water and supplies. It was a clinic on just responding to the people.
And right now I feel like there's a hurricane in insurance from an industry that we know pretty well. What do you do to have a similar – because it was such an operational response. It wasn't a political response. There was no grandstanding in speeches. It was get squat done. What do you do on insurance that's such an impact on the family?
And then when we're done with that, I'd like to talk about education sometime today. But right now, the cost to the families, they're flocking here to the magnet of Florida because they see the best state in the nation. Everything you said true.
What can we do from Washington, from the governor's chair, whatever path you take, whether you go Senate or you come back and you go governor, what do we do to help families? Because insurance is huge.
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First thing, I think we have to be honest. Insurance costs in part are higher because the cost to replace housing is higher. So before you even get into the premiums that people pay, the first thing we got to understand is because of the acceleration of building, the massive inflation in the last four years, the
Scarcity of material, the regulatory environment around getting said material, it is much more expensive to build a home today than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And the core part of insurance is the replacement cost of the property. So if the house I own right now, to rebuild it, probably would cost me 10% to 15% more than what I paid for it.
Well, then I can't have an insurance policy written at $300,000 because to replace it costs me X. You see what I'm saying? That's the first part. Nobody wants to say that directly to people. Because housing values are up and building costs are up, it just dovetails that insurance costs are up. Now, how do we stabilize premiums and try to get them to come down?
I think the first thing is you have to deal with the capital deficit. the capital basis of the balance sheet of these companies, are we going to have to make them continue to carry as much capital on their balance sheet like we do? We might need to look at that.
Talk about lost reserve and reinsurance?
Because if you mess with that a little bit, not too crazy because actuarially it still has to be sound, but you've got to try to find some way where you can stabilize the cost side of their reserves and in order to actually issue payments in any event of loss. The second big thing that I think people are more frustrated about is the speed upon which they get paid.
I think people will make the premium payments, but when something happens, They want the company to step in and do it. Part of that is adjusters situation. We, we got to figure out, and we tried to do this a couple of years ago with public adjusters and it's kind of been in the weeds and not really thought through too much and figured out, but we got to address that.
What the governor and the legislature did in special session two years ago. Now I want to say around, around litigation was the right step. And so the reforms they did, People won't really see the impact of that for, I think, another two years because at the Department of Insurance, there's a five-year look back on costs in order to set what the new premiums are going to be going forward.
So I think in about another year or two, they're going to have to go back and do another look back of the last five years to say, okay, now here's what we're going to do. That's like the basis of it. Litigation, lost reserves of the carriers. The other piece is how do we get more carriers into the state?
And that's the toughest issue overall, which is why you have to start looking at what are the capital requirements we're going to put on these carriers because you need more carriers in order to spread that risk out. If you only have a handful of carriers, the premium costs are going to go up, and that's the driver.
But if you start to push down on the loan laws, on the reserve costs, and something happens and the carrier goes bankrupt, well, now people who had that carrier are now really out. This is not an easy situation to deal with.
I think the number one way, the first thing we got to do is make sure that when disaster strikes, we make it as quick as possible for the carriers to step in and try to make people whole. Because then as long as you're being made whole, then you're getting what you pay for.
Yeah, that's going to be interesting because in California, a lot of insurance companies you're hearing about leaving, the FAIR Act is forcing them to do a certain fee. And they're like, wait a minute, I don't want to insure that community. That's a risky community. How do I stay in?
So the way you spread it is by having a lot of guys because some guys, even in life insurance, there was companies that their main specialty was cancer. Right. Like, wait, you guys underwrite cancer clients? Yes, we do. Or ex-smokers. Or ex-smokers. You really target that audience? We do. But they charge for it. But they charge for it.
Right? To that point, to California, what they did in California to deal with what we're seeing here, where they said, we're just going to cap rates, we now see that does not work because the carriers will just leave. That's right. They'll just be like, I'm not writing it. That's right. And you can't force them to write insurance. At that point, it's not insurance.
At that point, it's basically a public subsidy. That's right. And our state in particular – It's state FEMA at that point. Yeah. You just invented state FEMA on the taxpayer. And to be clear, the state of Florida kind of already has that. It's called Citizens. Citizens Insurance – the Citizens Insurance Company is a state-run insurance company. The one issue with Citizens is –
The way it's run, you're supposed to be able to be moved out of the citizens population if you can find a comparable insurance rate. But it has to be dollar for dollar, which just doesn't exist. So the citizens population, which is the insurer of last resort, just continues to rise.
I think when Governor Scott was governor, I think we got the population and citizens down to, I mean, don't quote me, around 600,000. It's rising again. I don't know if it's over a million now, but that's because you had a couple storms come through. Premiums are going up. Carriers are leaving, et cetera. This is the most complex problem we have by far.
Well, it'll be a big – I think the 2026 race for the gubernatorial race, I think this will be one of the things that will come up.
Yeah.
And I think if and when you announce – I would have my team feed me. I would get so deep into this because those coming, you want them to stay. And if guys can't buy a house because premium is so high, so then they're not going to buy as real estate agents going to take a hit. Economy takes a hit and you don't have more inflow of people coming in. That's right.
And then maybe something happens like California where a lot of guys from L.A. were moving to Valencia, to Canyon Country, to Palmdale, going up. So maybe people will be moving up or out like Fort Lauderdale. Some of that could be happening, even all over the place. You're in Naples. You're a different part of Florida. But I think this will be one of the main issues coming up in the race.
Anyways, let's go on to some issues. Thank you for that. So let's go on to current events and let's talk about some stuff. Okay, number one, Rob. Yesterday, RFK Jr. 's hearing— is taking place. And there are so many clips, Rob, that we can go from, okay? I have a few of them here. I don't know which ones you have ready to go through.
You heard his, you know, the one with Mercury, what he said in the past, the worst mayor, McDonald's. Which clips do you have, Rob, just to... So I have... You want to start off with Elizabeth Warren?
Yeah, we have that one here.
Let's start off with that one. Start off with that one.
Doing her Lou Piniella impersonation. So watch this.
So funny.
I'll comply with all the ethical guidelines.
That's not the question. You and I, you have said.
You're asking me, Senator, you're asking me not to serve vaccine.
No, I am not. Yeah, you are. That's exactly what you're doing. No. Look, no one should be fooled here. As Secretary of HHS, Robert Kennedy will have the power to undercut vaccines and vaccine manufacturing across our country. And for all of his talk about follow the science and his promise that he won't interfere with those of us who want to vaccinate his kids. The bottom line is the same.
Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.
Senator, I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule.
Rob, can you do me a favor, Rob, and pull up what you and Vinny were talking about, the amount of money that she took in. If you can pull that up, right? The story on top industrial federal election data for Elizabeth Warren 2020 cycle. So the page contributions from the industry's pay committee, plus any super PACs and hybrid PACs working on his or her behalf. So this is Elizabeth Warren.
Health professionals, what do you see, $2.366 million?
Correct, and there's more, actually, if you give me one second.
And don't forget the legal industry that goes hand-in-hand with that, Pat. There's more. Those are PIs.
Hospital nurses, 1.6. Miscellaneous health, 600. Pharmaceutical health products, 625. Vinny, what do you have?
Yeah, because Anna Mattson did a really, really good piece on X yesterday where she said she's getting, for her lobbyist payments, $125,000 from pharmaceuticals, $491,000 from health professionals, $108,000 from hospitals, altogether $871,000 from the healthcare industry. And then Carla Jevonson's Super PAC gave $14.6 million to support her. She's a physician. She's big pharma.
And then Elizabeth Warren tweeted this, and I quote, Say goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio. That's what's on the horizon if Robert F. Kennedy becomes the Secretary of Health and Human Services. She also said that she's terrified of losing fluoride in her water. It's obvious. She didn't say that. She said that.
She says she's terrified of losing fluoride in her water.
Why would you say that? What does that mean exactly?
What do you mean? I don't know. I don't know what that means. But you know what the main premise of what she was trying to ask him to do? He said, I'll agree to all this stuff. But she's trying to say that you will not be able to sue pharmaceutical companies in the future. Like, what do you mean I'm not going to be doing that in the future? Like, I'm not going to be able to do my job.
Or make money. Yeah. From suing the pharmaceutical companies.
It was sort of a two-step process.
It is. But at the same time, I know what she's trying to get. Byron, when you're seeing this yesterday happen with RFK, and I'm sure you've spent time with him as well, and I'm sure you've been around Warren as well. What are your thoughts when you saw this?
I mean, the first thing is that... I mean, obviously, RFKJ is not a Democrat anymore, but I just personally like watching them on damn crime. I'll be honest with you. I personally enjoy it, especially when you got, you know, Massachusetts going at each other. What I what I really see in that clip was I hadn't seen this until just now. The Democrats are in a bad, bad place.
They don't really know what to do. And so for RFKJ, it's not really about his views. It's the fact that he left their team. And she's more mad about that than anything else. Because his views have been this way the entire time. He's not changed. He's just now coming in for President Trump. And so that's why she's acting the way she's acting.
And that's one of the biggest problems on the Hill is that it's not so much about the policy. It's about which team brings it. And that sets the vitriol, if you will. But she's lost it again. But Elizabeth Warren, and is she smart? Yes. But she's also diabolical. She has been wrong on so many things in this country, specifically financial policy in this country. She has been wrong. And
I'm glad that her vote is not going to decide the fate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Because I think he's going to do a good job at HHS. He's going to do a good job getting to the core health issues that we need to get to in this country. I mean, this is what the American people voted for. Rob, which one is this here, Rob?
This is RFK finishing the confirmation hearing, his final message. And then I also have the reaction from inside the confirmation room.
Before you go to this, because I want to finish with this, can you go to the clip where he's being asked about, you know, I'm not going to do anything. Go back to the grandson, by the way, of John F. Kennedy. This is John F.K. 's grandson, if I'm not mistaken. Correct. Jack Schlossenberg. Right. If you can play this clip, go for it.
Everybody, I... I'm trying to figure out the right present to get Donald Trump for the inauguration. So I found a really rare animal and killed it and I'm going to give it to him.
It's just not funny and sad. Time out. Go ahead. First of all, you know, my family, they're not all Republicans. Some of them were like, we don't know what you do when I first started. Now they're like, okay, this is Byron. This is who he is. Right. But on a family level, man, you're not supposed to do that. You're just not supposed to do that. That's disrespectful of your family.
And I know, like, I guess the sister came out against him, has been coming out against him. Man, if you're my family, you could be doing, unless you're breaking the law, I'm not going to be going out doing stuff like that to you, even if I don't agree with you because you're family. We can have the political discussion all day long. But that's just disrespectful.
Yeah, and you would think from a family that has, he's had two people in his family murdered, right? Murdered. His other family went up, Byron. His father, not just anybody.
His father.
And then they had the whole crew, the whole Kennedy crew went up there and they were supporting. Biden, what what gives you that motivation to go against your blood, which I agree with you 100 percent. I'm even more worried like, bro, this guy, he's not going up against no, just something small like, you know, a city. This guy's going up against big pharma.
And for somebody, Byron, that's already lost two major family members. This is this is he's going to tell you what I think it is, because Byron touched on it.
Remember the video we saw of Snoop a week ago when we were in D.C. in 2016 when he basically called out the black community and says, oh, you're going to be one of them now, right? An Uncle Tom type thing. I can't even imagine how many comments you've received like this. The point with this is it's zero policy. It's all personality.
Yes.
They're just attacking his character and attacking the person. She called him a predator. This was his first cousin, JFK's daughter, right? That's Caroline Kennedy. It's never a policy debate. I've realized this about Trump. Every one of my friends that hate Trump, I say, tell me a policy you don't agree with. They're like, well, he's a jerk. Right. He's the this. Tell me a policy.
That's what they're doing with him. It's when you don't have an argument to stand on, they use the straw man argument and just basically say he's mean, he's a jerk, he's an asshole, he's the orange man bad, the mean tweets, whatever it is.
But RF Bobby Kennedy Jr., the way that they've smeared him and the way that they've vilified him and all they do is just try to attack him and his personality, it's pretty ugly to see.
Is this his cousin, Rob? Yes, Caroline Kennedy. And if you want to play this clip, go for it.
But now that Bobby has been nominated by President Trump to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, a position that would put him in charge of the health of the American people, I feel an obligation to speak out. Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us,
is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill. He lacks any relevant government, financial, management, or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.
Who's paying her?
These facts alone should be disqualifying. Damn. But he has personal qualities related to this job, which for me pose even greater concern. I've known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator.
Dude. Okay. You hear that, right? You hear that. Yeah, that's right. You hear that while they're saying, you know, what they're saying about this. And then... To be fair, with the previous grandson of John F. Kennedy, if we're going to show one clip, we have to show other clips. Not this, Rob, the picture, the clip. Go to the right, exactly where you went, Rob.
Just, no, no, Rob, the tweet by the guy. Okay, I'm sorry. And just go to the video. If we show one video, I feel we have to show both videos because that wasn't a, this is the same guy, John Levine, that was making fun of Bobby. This is another video. Let's just allow him to present himself. Go for it.
She's got a ticket to ride. She's got a ticket to ride.
You can stop it right there. That's enough.
He's a man's man. I get it.
But the point is, you know, and then they're sitting here talking about Bobby has the job. Like, oh, he is not qualified to do this. Are we quick to forget who Biden put on his administration with the guy and all these... I'm a lady. Do you remember all these folks that were getting jobs? Like, here's one of them. Rachel Levine. What was his job?
That was Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Exactly. This is the same exact role. So for the cousin to say, Bobby's not qualified for the job. He is? Yeah. She. He. No, wait a minute. He is. It's a biological male. Don't forget the luggage thief. Yeah, and the other guy with the luggage thief. But the point being this. So the part where Byron makes a point to say they don't know what to do, right? They're kind of trying. They have lost.
Look at the armpit hairs to the left right there. This dude. Is he in prison? Is he in prison yet? What was his job? Stealing shit? They can't. What they can't do is the argument can't be. Yeah. He's not qualified. The argument has to be a different argument because you look like clowns making the argument that this guy's not qualified, yet the other guy's qualified.
Is this the clip where he talks about my boss likes a... So I have two.
This is him talking about how he prays every single day for the last 20 years to be able to be in a position to do something about the health pandemic, which is a good juxtapose to him being a predator from his sister, or Caroline Kennedy. And then I also have the McDonald's clip.
Go for it.
in this country that we must face honestly. And the first thing I've done every morning for the past 20 years is to get on my knees and pray to God that he would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and to help America's children. That's why I'm so grateful to President Trump for the opportunity to sit before you today and seek your support and partnership in this endeavor.
God, I love that. Do you believe him? I believe him. Absolutely. I believe him. Behind the scenes, I've had experiences with this guy on midnight, giving my wife a call because we were concerned about something with our kids. And I don't know what part of the world he's in. This guy's a true believer where he's at. Rob, which clip is this?
This is the McDonald's clip.
Go for it. Understand it and make sure that Americans are away. But I don't want to take... Food away from anybody. If you like a cheeseburger, a McDonald's cheeseburger, a Diet Coke, which my boss loves, you should be able to get them. If you want to eat Hostess Twinkies, you should be able to do that. But you should know what the impacts are on your family and on your health.
And then, Rob, if you want to play the final confirmation, the hearing and out time, I'll come to you. Play this clip here.
So it's two separate clips, but they're both very short.
Go for it.
Should I be so privileged as to be confirmed, we will make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods. We will scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies. We will create an honest, unbiased, gold standard science at HHS, accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people.
We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health. Thank you.
And here is the reaction as he finishes. This is awesome. Can you see this?
Mr. Kennedy, I look forward to working with you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're adjourned.
Look at this. Dude. You got people applauding. Gangsta.
Yeah, you don't see that every day. You don't see that, right, Byron? That does not happen every day on the Hill. I'll tell you that.
That's a standing O.
You mean you don't see that after a speaker leaves a standing ovation, a round of applause, that is very uncommon, Byron?
Very uncommon. Really? That is rare. Look, I was in a meeting with RFKJ maybe three months ago, four months ago. I can't remember. And it was him and his team. And it was the entire thing was talking about Maha and all the various things that they wanted to do. I've seen cabinet secretaries come in.
He's like overqualified to to run HHS because it's not just about the technical pieces of the agency, which is what the Democrats like to talk about. This is why they got wrapped around the axle with Pete Hegseth, because they're thinking about, well, how are you going to manage this department, this department and this department? It's not that it is vision casting, really the president's vision.
through the head of these agencies to make sure that the changes voters want to see actually occur, as opposed to making sure you're micromanaging the bureaucracy, which is what the Democrats want to do. Because if you take the long view of the Democrat party, even from Woodrow Wilson to today, what they have always wanted is a technocratic federal government that runs the
automatically, 24-7, regardless of the will of the voters, regardless of the members of Congress, regardless of the president, quite frankly. That's the government that they've always wanted. Woodrow Wilson wanted it, and every Democrat since has wanted it. They actually achieved it under Joe Biden because he was just not mentally capable of being the chief executive.
So they finally have their technocratic government that Liz Warren and all of them want, and now Donald Trump's in. And they're bringing in people like RFKJ, who's like, no, we're changing the vision of this agency, and every bureaucrat within it is going to be brought to heel.
Well, I mean, listen, people seem to be excited about it. And if he gets in, I will tell you, I tweeted something yesterday, and I said, Rob, if you can just go to... To me, the biggest fear isn't... It's all intertwined, and it's all connected, because it starts off with one thing. He's feared by many, but none of them Big Pharma.
Any institution, politician, lobbyist, mainstream media funded by Big Pharma will fight to prevent it from being confirmed. That's how simple it is. These guys are throwing money. Do you realize? So imagine a person that's, let's just say Rachel Maddow, let's say Anderson Cooper, let's say somebody's working at CNN or MSNBC. Where is the funding coming from?
So if this person makes $6 million a year, and God knows how much money they got the previous year from Big Pharma, that goes away, your six million could become three million. If CNN's top line revenue dropped $400 million in the last couple years, how much more will it drop if Big Pharma can no longer advertise with mainstream? I mean, the effect of it is so scary for these guys.
that, you know, it scares the hell out of the establishment to see this taking place. Tom, your thoughts on this?
You know, your point you just made, Congressman, is my point. When you are too qualified or too informed, there is massive risk to the establishment, and they will find ways to scream that you are not qualified. So that's point one. The screams at RFK should ratify for everyone that he's the guy for this job.
The second is there have been things exposed where we have been like a frog boiled in the pot on HSS for a while. Just I'll give you one example. Food dyes. Everywhere else in the world, food dyes and certain red dyes are not allowed in foods. We still use them.
If you look at Froot Loops in Canada and Froot Loops in the United States, Froot Loops in the United States is like high-definition television color. You look at Froot Loops everywhere else, well, we use different dyes. And they use different dyes for a reason, including things that relate to hyperactivity in kids. Gee, is that a problem? Oh, no problem. We'll just fill them full of Ritalin.
That's the color change. Look at that.
There you go. Oh, yeah, they're beautiful. Beautiful. See that? Those are food dyes that are only allowed in the United States because lobbyists ensured they could get them there because they want to be able to market brightly colored fruit loops. And this is just one of the things that RFK has brought up. So he's not out there with these weird vax positions.
He's out there saying, why is the rest of the world doing this with the studies that are here? And then the third thing I get to, whenever you see people in Congress screaming, Find out who screamed at them before they walked in that room. Oh, that's very true. It's like the people that were screaming at Elizabeth Warren were on her phone. You better knock this MF off. You better get this down.
And it's all the money that you pointed out. Especially the $14.3 million in PAC money. Because when they scream and they look a little theatrical, find out who screamed at them an hour ago.
I agree.
Did you see what RFK said about the red dye yesterday, though? This is probably the most poignant part of the entire episode when they basically said straight up, RFK, are you a conspiracy theorist? They just asked him point blank. And he's like, well, what do you mean by that?
Do you mean by the fact that you guys told everybody that if they took the vaccine that we couldn't get it, we wouldn't spread? Well, that turned out not to be true. Do you mean the fact that I've been telling you for years that the red dye causes all sorts of health issues? Is this the clip? The hypocrisy was ridiculous.
This guy walked into a fist.
Conspiracy thirst.
That is a pejorative, Senator, that's applied to me mainly to keep me from asking difficult questions of powerful interest. I was told that I was a conspiracy theorist. That label was applied to me because I said that the vaccines, the COVID vaccine, didn't prevent transmission and it wouldn't prevent infection. When the government was telling people, Americans, that it would.
I was saying that because I was looking at the monkey studies in May of 2020. I was called a conspirator. Now everybody admits it. I was called a conspiracy theorist because I said red dye caused cancer. And now FDA has acknowledged that and banned it. I was called a conspiracy theorist because I said fluoride lowered IQ.
Last week, JAMA published a meta review of 87 studies saying that there's a direct inverse correlation between IQ loss. All right, so I'm going to assume a lot of... I could go on for about a week.
Go on for a week. You're making me look bad. Yeah, let me get off.
This is the most important thing, I think, with him because, you know, Pat, I'm so glad that you pointed out that the previous Joe Biden put in place as the Secretary of Health and Human Services was that transgender person. We're wondering what the hell is going on in this country.
Right.
They just came out very quietly. I don't know if you guys heard, but they basically said, hey, guys, listen, yeah, that whole COVID thing, turns out it actually did come from a lab. Don't tell anybody, though. What do you mean? It wasn't from a wet market with the pangolin? No, it was the lab.
What? It's interesting that they came out yesterday. Byron. In the skiff, I read the Intel report, and I'm not going to get into it because it was a classified report. It was clear reading the report that everybody knew it was a lab leak. It was clear reading the Intel report. That was two years ago.
It was clear reading the intelligence report from the various parts of the intelligence community that it was a lab leak.
And Rob talked about this yesterday on our podcast on The Unusuals, and it's like there's still Radcliffe, who I respect the hell out of John Radcliffe. He's the head of the CIA. He was like, they're still saying, though, Byron, it's most likely to have come. Can we just definitively say we know it came from Wuhan, but the question is who leaked it and why did they leak it?
That's the question. So to that point, typically when the intelligence community
report something yeah it's each agency within the the ic how we refer to it they have their own findings and so then they'll compile all the findings into a report and that's when you get the it's most likely most likely okay because every agency has their own interpretation of what they're seeing or what what they're receiving and how they want to communicate that
And then I don't want to get too technical because some of that stuff is classified stuff. But basically that's where it is.
Rob, you want to go back to that? Is that Ratcliffe talking about it? She's asking her? Yes. Go for it. Play the clip.
And you right out of the gate come out with this new intelligence that the CIA has concluded the deadly COVID-19 pandemic arose likely from the leak out of a laboratory in Wuhan, as our audience expected. Tell me the significance of the CIA now confirming this, sir.
Well, it's one of the things President Trump and I talked about. Part of what we have to do is we have to restore Americans' trust in our own institutions like the intelligence community and law enforcement, and that includes the CIA. And one of the things the president stressed, the purpose of the CIA is to protect Americans, to keep us safe from foreign threats and foreign adversaries.
But we also need to be truthful with Americans. And he has stressed to me and others that these aren't mutually exclusive missions. We can do both. And so in the case of the CIA, which is the best foreign intelligence service in the world, after five years to not have a public assessment, to be honest with the American people about where the likely source of a pandemic that
that killed millions around the world, including a million Americans, and really impacted all 345 million Americans in some way. People lost jobs. They lost houses.
It makes you question the level of competency. If it takes you five years to identify. When you're trying to, like, what is it going to take for you to find it? You are the CIA. And how weird is it that you announce it a week after the president announced is, you know, sworn in. How is the timing of it? Oh, now you want to tell us? You couldn't tell it before?
Again, credibility in these institutions will go up under Trump's administration. I want to go to the next story. White House to offer buyouts to federal workers who won't return to office.
The White House offered bias to federal workers who refused to return to office under President Trump's order aiming to reduce the federal workforce and eliminate remote work policies implemented during COVID-19. Katie Miller, an advisor to the Department of Government Efficiencies, confirmed the email is being sent to more than 2 million people. Federal employees.
A senior administration official justified the move stating we're five years past COVID and just 6% of federal employees work full-time in the office. That is unacceptable. The buyout will offer... cover approximately eight months of pay and benefits, according to NBC News, with White House aides estimating that between 5% to 10% of federal employees will take the deal.
Axios reported that the plan could save taxpayers $100 billion annually. The buyouts follow Trump's recent freeze on federal aid and an attempt to pass grant disbursement, which a federal judge temporarily blocked. Rob, which clip do you have for this one? Because it's...
I have a few. I have the tweet that you put out last night, if you'd like, that video where Trump talks about people being fired if they don't return to the office by February 6th.
Put that one. Go for it.
Most of the time, they're not working. They're not very productive. And it's unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are, in fact, working hard from job sites and not from their home. As federal employees, they must meet a high standard. They're representing our government. They're representing our country.
If they don't agree by February 6th to show up back to work in their office, they will be terminated and we will therefore be downscaling our government, which is something that the last 10 presidents have tried very hard to do but failed.
Byron, thoughts on this? It needs to happen. Period. Full stop. The biggest issue we have is you have a federal bureaucracy that seeks its own interests. During the first Trump presidency, they would literally look at the orders and slow walk them or ignore them altogether. Doing this now puts everybody on notice. You're not going to be able to sit at home and say you're working.
We had the – I think it was the Office of Presidential Personnel. I think that's who it was. It came into oversight a year ago and testified in front of the oversight committee, and we kept asking her – What percentage of the federal workforce is actually in the office at a minimum 30 hours a week? She couldn't answer. She did not have the information. And it's your job to know who's where.
The policies around remote work are that you sign up for it. Not that they check that you actually log into it. Not that you're logged in for an extended session, which is very easy to do. They don't check that. It's just that you have the ability to do it. So, yeah, I'm all for it.
If the workers won't come back into the office, because, by the way, we're paying the light bill on these buildings still. We're paying the heat bill on a lot of these buildings because they're in D.C. and other parts of the country. We're paying the insurance. We're paying the cost of rent because a lot of these we rent. We don't own these buildings. We rent them.
So as far as I'm concerned, if you're not back, we need to downsize the office space of the federal government. And you can actually move that property for other purposes. We talked about housing in other parts of the country. Of course, Florida, you can reset some of these buildings if you have a really creative developer.
But you also get the number of employees down who are entrenched, who quite frankly are the employees who fight us. when we're trying to do the real reforms that this country desperately needs. The fight comes from the bureaucracy because they come in and say, oh, well, you can't do that. Well, why can't I? I'm a member of Congress. I got elected. You didn't. Why are you telling me I can't?
Oh, because this is how we do things. There was a book when I was at FSU College of Business. They made us read. It's called Who Moved My Cheese? Great book. Love it. Great book. I read the book.
Same time, same year, FSU?
That's right, 2002. That is essentially the issue we have in a federal bureaucracy. You have 2 million plus individuals involved. who have their own political vision, and typically it is a very left-leaning political vision, and anything you do to upset the way they want to move is met with recalcitrance, just straight obstruction, quite frankly, leaking.
That happens all the time in the federal bureaucracy. If something comes down they don't like, they start leaking to the press. So, yeah, if you ain't going to come into work, he's the chief executive. You're not going to show up. Bye-bye. At least they're getting a payout.
By the way, you know what's wild when you're thinking about this, Tom? Do you remember four years ago, everybody was selling the idea of work from home is a great idea, and this is the fact that people don't accept it, and Jack Dorsey coming out and saying permanently for the history of Twitter, you can work from home, you never have to come into the office.
Oh, my God, what a noble CEO Jack Dorsey is, and then Elon Musk comes in. And half the company gets fired, 3,750 employees. And by the way, in this story that we're reading, Tom, and I'm coming to you here, this story that we're reading about White House workers getting this offer, an insider story, a business insider story, which we know business insider, which way they lean as well.
They said Trump's government worker buyouts are feeling a lot like Musk's Twitter in 2022. All the stuff that they're doing, which means, hey, coming in, here's an offer. Hey, move out the way. But one thing we are realizing very quickly, that common sense making a comeback, nobody works better from home than they do at an office. Nobody does. There's way too many distractions at home.
Now, this doesn't mean some of you guys, when I say this, some entrepreneurs, well, let me tell you something. As a solopreneur, I'm a laptop entrepreneur, and I do all this other stuff. Listen, I didn't tell you you don't have the right to go do it. I'm telling you.
There's more efficiency when you're around your crew working together and it's becoming very clear that maybe 10% of people are more efficient out of home, but 90% of them are abusing the privileges and they're being exposed. Tom, your thoughts on this?
Well, guess what? What everybody has found out after COVID, going back to work now, is coming to the federal government. And Congressman made a comment here that I want to amplify. There are buildings that your taxpayer dollars are paying for that need maintenance and are practically empty, but the leasing, the landscaping, the basic maintenance, and the power keeping it warm and cool for nobody.
You know, to work there is there. So when all of that comes back on the market, the cost for commercial building space in that market is going to come down a little bit. And maybe a business that is expanding that needs to use the space would appreciate a lease that comes down because if the supply comes up, the price will come down.
It's not going to crash, but it's going to come down a little bit and it's going to come out of the taxpayer pocket. And that resource would be available for business people and businesses are expanding or whoever needs that, like maybe schools in the inner city that need space. Point one. Point two is studies came out and there was, you know, I like to talk about it.
There was an organization that failed, but it was at Verizon. It was Verizon Media called Oath. And Tim Armstrong came out almost immediately and said, we have a lot of younger people that are early in their careers working here. And guess what? They're not getting promoted as fast. They're not developing as fast. They're not mentoring their people as well.
They're not coaching their people as well because they're not effing here. That's right. And he got out there because, remember, Verizon was leaning with the FCC, leaning hard liberal, and they were really annoyed that, yeah, Oath, and it was Tim Armstrong that came out of AOL, I believe, sometime prior to that.
But he put his butt on his neck on the line and said, look, this isn't working because people aren't getting mentored. So that didn't happen. Then they started looking at transactional work. How many calls per hour? How many policies processed per hour? And guess what? The facts weren't there. So all of this comment about, oh, I was more effective from home, effective. Yeah, be careful.
I'm so excited that this is being exposed.
Words like effectiveness were used. Feeling words were used. It wasn't numbers.
That's right. By the way, I'm telling you, when we were talking about this on the podcast, when we were talking about it on the podcast four years ago, 70% of America was convinced these guys were right. Mm-hmm. We took heat in our own comments. You guys have no idea. You're so selfish. You're so this. Adam, your thoughts on this.
Well, here's the issue. And, you know, you have a few words that you've coined for 2025. But your number one word was what?
2025.
Year of surprises. No, you said the year of speed. Oh, product speed signal. You said speed. Yes.
And that's all I'm thinking about right now because as Byron is basically explaining, he says they slow walk things down the aisle here. The last story we just did in the segment here was in 2022, I believe, Jon Stewart went onto the Colbert Show and he goes, you want me to believe that... The Wuhan virus, the COVID, came from a bat and a pendulum.
When down the street was the Wuhan lab, and he basically called out Legacy Media and called out the big pharma, and Stephen Colbert looked at it like, oh, my God. Tried to shut him up. And three years later, when everybody already knew what we already knew. Yeah, we're not stupid. They're like, yeah, by the way, it did come from a lab. Okay, so what's the point here? Congress moves so slow.
They're not using speed. These people... Is anyone still using the work-from-home COVID excuse four years after COVID? What is happening right now? And, Pat, here's what I'll say to you. Because you probably get some pushback about working from home or not working from home. If you're an entrepreneur or you work in commissions and you actually have to eat what you kill, that's a big difference.
It is.
So, you know, we're in the federal government where the workers have to show up for work every day. Capitol Hill. If you're a staff member for a member of Congress or House or Senate, you're in the office, especially when we're in town. Like if we're not in town, you might be at home because I'm not there. I can't see you. But when we hit, when we fly in, the staff is there.
There is not a member, Republican or Democrat, that I'm aware of that lets the staff work remotely. Do you know why? Because on Capitol Hill, the staff members for the Senate and for the House are at-will employees. I think there was a move, I think AOC and a couple of them tried to let their staffs unionize.
And I remember I walked in.
This was a couple years ago. I think Pelosi was starting to float it or something. And I walked in, and I love my staff. They're great. I walked in, I looked at them, and I said, let's be very clear about something. If you try to unionize, you're all going to be fired. There's no union here. It is my way.
It's my name on the door, and my name was put on this door by the people back home in the district. So I'm showing up, and you're showing up. They didn't even question it. I just made sure everybody fully understood the situation.
I wouldn't expect anybody from that community want to try to unionize, especially somebody that's wanting to work for you. Philosophically, they're going to be on your page. You know what's the only time I agree with working from home? If you're getting paid commission, go for it.
Yeah, if you can do it, go for it.
If you're 1099, work for them all if you want to do it. Go ahead. See if you can pull up the results or not. If you don't sell, you don't make money, no, you want to stay home.
Stay there.
I'm okay with that. That's right. That part makes sense. W2, zero. Yeah. Zero. Do you know how many times we've had W2 employees working from home that's been successful?
Zero. Zero.
I don't want to get into it right now because we just had a moment a couple weeks ago. I'm not going to be telling stories. The answer, Tom, look at Tom's face, everybody. Just look at his face. I read his face real quick. Not because it's Tom, because we just asked somebody a question. Although it might be Tom.
Yeah, but the point is that I am so glad all these things that people were trying to convince you that was good. Leave your job and go ask who cares, but threat them that if you don't do this, and you're going to say, listen, we had a guy that we hired him for $55,000. 60 days after working with us, a recruiter calls him and says, I have another job for $75,000.
So my COO at the time fears losing him because he doesn't want to go back and do the job of finding another person. Says, we have to give this guy a $75,000 offer. I said, you just started working with me three months. This is how you gain credibility or lose credibility with me. I'll let you make the decision. What do you want to do? Let's give him the raise. Go ahead.
Let's see how you handle this. 90 days later, the guy comes back and says, if you don't give me $120,000 raise, I got an offer to work for my mother company, 120. So then he doesn't. The guy goes back. Do you know those people that did that? When you go and do an interview and somebody says, so tell me about the last four years where you worked.
And you hear the employee saying the following story. Well, I stayed home taking care of my dad because he was not doing well. No, it's called you had eight jobs. You don't want to tell us you had eight jobs. I ran a consulting firm for the last two years. No, you didn't.
It's called you had a bad experience at a job, but you don't want to put them as a reference because I'm going to ask you, can I call your boss at the previous job? You can't put that out. These are red flags you'll learn of people that abused companies. When there's a big break in someone's resume, ask specifically what happened during that time. And if the story goes to...
I was taking care of an aging elderly parent, and they have a wife and three kids, then how did you fund your expenses to do that? I ran a consultant from, can I talk to three of your clients that you did a consulting job for? Well, you know, it was private because we signed an NDN. Oh, okay, I got it.
You hear these scripts, you're like, you know what, guys, too many red flags, I'm not interested in this guy, let's move on to the next person. That's what happened during that time, and employers are now getting smarter asking questions to not be abused of the abuse that we took four years ago, because it was real. So the guys that stick around, take care of them.
The guys that stay loyal, take care of their families. The guys that were playing those games, that reputation is going to follow you for many, many years to come. Let's go to the next story. Next story I want to go to, Rob, is... Florida, where's the one with – there it is. So smugglers transporting because Trump's administration gave ICE a quota of 1,800 arrests per day across U.S.
And, Rob, I don't know if you have the clip on that one. Is this the clip of that one?
No, I have that. Hang on one second. That's Stephen Miller right there.
Yeah, if you can play that clip with the – so these guys are sitting there giving quotas. Just like anybody that's working a job, a sales job with a certain expectations, they're coming out saying, look – 1,800 a day, okay, set the quota per migration and customs. This is ICE. Required a minimum of 75 arrests per day for each of these agencies' offices, 25 offices.
So 75 arrests per day for the 25 offices. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller right here. Rob, if you want to play the clip about the quota.
Sources say that ICE has been directed to ramp up arrests to at least 75 per field office per day. If every field office hits that quota or that number, that goal, that would be 1,875 undocumented immigrants arrested every day. Now, the Washington Post reports that President Trump has been disappointed with the numbers so far. I don't know if that's true. You will tell me if it is.
What is the priority, though, when it comes to these deportations? Is the initial goal, as we had been told by Trump allies after the election, to go after those first as a priority, to go after those who have committed violent crimes and are part of violent gangs? Or is it we're just going to go after anybody who is in this country illegally? We're not going to prioritize.
Well, yes, we are going to prioritize. So first of all, the numbers you cited are a floor, not a ceiling, very importantly. They're a floor. The goal is to arrest at least that many, but hopefully many more.
Yeah, so that's that part. And by the way, so far, according to this report, They're at 4,500 arrests since Trump's return to office. Okay, and that's why they're saying the numbers are not going to be where Trump wants it. I actually could believe the fact that Trump's not happy. He always wants more. That's what a driver's going to do.
But then this goes with the story right next to it with smugglers transporting a van packed with 26 Chinese migrants. Yeah. Detained in Florida. Rob, if you have the clip on this one, is this the one, Rob?
So there's two instances. One happened yesterday where they caught 40 migrants. And then nine days prior in the same town, they found 26 Chinese migrants. This is the overhead helicopter news coverage of them busting the 40 in the van yesterday. Go for it. Go ahead.
Very heavy police presence in Coral Gables. Specifically, we are looking at Old Cutler Road and Kendall Drive.
Let's get right to you, 7. Stephen J. Gray above in 7 Sky Force with what we know so far. Stephen.
Good morning, Tavares. Good morning, Olivia. Yeah, we've got a report of up to 40 migrants in two separate vans here. This is Old Cutler Road northbound here near Kendall Drive. We've got Coral Gables Police on scene, and we're getting word that possibly 40 Chinese migrants have... pretty much been pulled over in these vans. You can see through the trees here that the migrants are sitting down.
Everything's pretty much under control. Everybody's being good. But once again, the 40 folks in two separate vans, those vans must have been jam-packed right here in Coral Gables. I'm sure they're going to wait for a bigger vehicle to transport the migrants to wherever they've got to take them.
So here as it says, it says, similar to the Chinese citizens found on a Toyota, on a U-Haul truck, After an abduction report, Coral Gables Police Chief Edward James Hudak revealed that the vehicles contained 16 Chinese females, 15 Chinese males, one male from Cuba, one female from Ecuador. Yeah, so that's these two instances that they had. Rob, is this a different clip of a different instance?
So this is the very first instance, which happened about 12 days ago, and this is in Coral Gables. This is the story that you just read, the 26th, I think. Go for it.
Wild scene in Coral Gables. More than 20 migrants, mostly from China, part of a suspected smuggling operation, treated inside a city trolley after arriving by boat.
We're hearing that this all started back there by Snapper Creek with a possible abduction and Coral Gables police came rushing this way.
Sources say it all unfolded when they were dropped off by a vessel Friday morning along the Snapper Creek Canal and put into vehicles. An alert resident calls police.
A very alert security professional from one of our homeowners associations observed an abduction in progress. She notified one of our patrolling officers about what she had observed.
And these are the moments an officer drives up on them. Most migrants crammed in this U-Haul van. Three inside the small Toyota in front of it.
The officers removed the rope in the back of the truck, which revealed 21 predominantly... Byron, thoughts on this?
First thought is... this is why in Congress we have to get president Trump's agenda through as quickly as we can. And I know part of the national conversation about what we're doing is been around one big, beautiful bill or, or two bills. And I think the president at this point is like, it could be one bill. It could be two bill. I don't care. Let's get it done.
The number one thing that Tom Holman and Kristi Noem need are dollars from Congress to to provide bed space and other officers and additional resources so that this process can actually function. What Stephen Miller is talking about, about the floor, yeah, that's correct. But the logjam is going to be they don't have the resources right now under federal appropriations. to meet the floor.
We have sheriff departments in Florida and around the country, their local jails are now filling up in part because of the 287 program that helps the repatriation process. So on Capitol Hill, we just left our retreat And I, you know, my, my comment to the, to the speaker and to the other members is we, we have to do two reconciliation bills.
We cannot do one big bill because it's going to take us too much time to get that done. And Tom Holman and those guys need the resources ASAP in order to have this be an orderly and smooth process that doesn't get log jammed or doesn't get, you know, backlogged, which will just back, we'll back spill into sheriff departments, et cetera. So,
What was happening here about how so many migrants are coming in jammed into trucks, vans, and et cetera, that's been going on for four years. This has been the quiet secret that the Biden administration hid from the American people. I don't know if you guys remember. This is probably the last time Joe Biden spoke at a press conference. This was like four years ago. And he – I'm serious.
And he said something like, give us some time. So we can clean up the mess, and then once we get it cleaned up, we'll let you come in and see it. They never let the press come in to see it. And part of the reason was because when you come across the border illegally, what happens is you have traffickers in our side of the border who are moving people through vans, tractor trailers, whatever.
There was a story a few years ago about 40 to 60 people died in the back of a tractor trailer from heat exhaustion down in the Houston area because Houston has become the human trafficking capital of the United States. Because they come through the border, they get to Houston, which is the closest major city. And then from Houston, they're basically dispersed all over the country.
The Biden administration was doing all that. So that's why I'm saying our business on Capitol Hill, we have to get Tom Holman the money he needs. It's about $100 billion to them ASAP. Because if we don't, it's going to slow down this whole process. And we're not going to be delivering on what President Trump has said.
And I believe what he says, because I've seen it on the ground, the number one issue in the country that the voters want changed. They want the border secured. They want people sent back to their home, to their countries where they came from. And it's not just people. It's just not Abuela. It's 184 countries from around the world.
I was with a Haitian group on Saturday, and they were concerned about Haiti in particular. And I said, if we're going to be honest, what's going on with Haiti is a different situation than China because Haiti is run by a guy named Barbecue. Their government has completely fallen apart. That's what asylum is supposed to be about.
But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris blew open illegal immigration so bad that the country has no ability to even take in Haitian migrants who are fleeing legitimate persecution because their government fell apart in Haiti. So to bring it back to center, we have to deliver in Congress.
And my view to the speaker and to the leadership is you got to do two bills because you got to deliver the money quickly to President Trump and to Tom Homan and Kristi Noem so they can get the job done that the American people want to see done. And we can still do tax policy. Nothing's going to stop us from doing that. We can get tax policy done.
We can get energy policy changed, but we've got to deliver the border money immediately. And legitimately what I think we can do is you do border, you raise the debt ceiling, and you do defense money. And the reason why you raise the debt ceiling is because there's only really two ways to raise it. You can do it in budget reconciliation where you don't need Democrat Senate votes to do it.
Or you do it with Democrat senators. And if you do that deal with Democrat senators, they're going to demand a price for raising the debt ceiling from us, which is actually setting us back from the agenda that the American people voted for in November. So to my colleagues on Capitol Hill, they're going to hear me now. Do two bills. Do border debt ceiling and defense money in the first bill.
Let's get that to the president's desk. We can get that to his desk probably by President's Day. I think the really cool thing is if the president signed the bill at the State of the Union on March 4th. Now you talk about imagery? Shoot. We're making America safe right now.
Boom. Boom. Just like you signed the executive order.
Just like you signed the executive order.
Boom. Can I say why you're saying it's so important and why I think the American people are behind it? But I'm going to give it not so much a political diplomatic twist. I'm going to give a guy who was born and raised in Miami twist. Okay? 30 Chinese migrants just roaming around Miami? That literally doesn't happen. We don't have Chinese people here in Miami.
I have literally hundreds if not thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Argentinian, Brazilian friends. The list goes on. Bolivian, Uruguay, Paraguay. Dude, I have like two Asian friends straight up. We don't have Asians here, much less Chinese migrants. So do you know how quickly these guys were sighted? What are 30 random Chinese people doing on the street?
Yeah, are they sick? Are they bringing anything here? I mean, any questions? You just don't see it.
Do you know how much they get paid?
You see it in California, of course. Or you see it in Houston, of course. You don't see it here. So it's the most obvious thing. So what am I saying here? So, OK, so they're just people that are showing up left and right in this country, this open border policy. And I fully agree with you what you're talking about in Haiti and Cuba and the political persecution.
But the worst thing is going to happen is, OK, so these are Chinese migrants, whatever. What happens if they were from whatever terrorist country that wants to do very bad things to America?
They're already here. That's my point.
How are we going to find those people?
Because this is great.
We found these Chinese migrants. Whatever they're doing, they're doing. How are we going to find those people?
And that's why we've got to speed this whole process up. I'm going to dovetail quickly. This is happening in the state right now. Most people don't know what's happening, but it's happening. The legislature and the governor are having a fight right now over the Florida immigration bill. My hope is that they resolve this quickly.
The one aspect of the bill, and this is where the governor is, in my view, correct, is that the police powers around the immigration czar, if you will, have to reside with the governor because the governor has police powers, not just in Florida, but in every state. So to change that, to me, is not the appropriate use.
But that being said, the reason they need to resolve their dispute quickly is because They have to be working seamlessly with the federal government in order to make this process work. Because we know New York, they're trying to fight it. Illinois is trying to fight it. Massachusetts is trying to fight it. California is trying to fight it. Their people don't want that.
It's their crazy politicians in their state capitals that want it. So we got to get the business done in D.C. immediately. Because the longer this thing goes, if we don't get it resolved, you're going to start seeing more and more stories of we're running out of space. Look at all these people in these tight quarters, et cetera. And that's what the liberal crazy media is just waiting for.
So we got to be disciplined. We got to be about business. Get that done. Get the president what he needs. He'll get a huge victory. The American people will see they didn't just campaign on it. They were serious about it and they got it done. And that's what the country needs.
Well, overnight there was a story about Gitmo and potentially being used because it will hold up the $30,000 of the criminal element, the absolute bona fide criminal element among the illegal aliens with the president overnight saying, I kind of like to use Gitmo.
That will take some stress off the— Guantanamo Bay, just for people that don't know the acronym. Go ahead.
Thank you, Wikipedia. And use that because these people are criminals and they should be in a jail. And I guess the president said, and the last time I checked, Gitmo is hard to get out of. So maybe that's a good place for the criminal element that is illegal aliens and to save the space while we're moving the rest of the folks.
But even in Gitmo, there's what, 30,000 beds? Joe Biden let in 10 to 15 million people. So this is what I'm saying. You have a logistical system that Tom Holman is having to stand up overnight because the Biden team was not helping us do anything until they were officially out the door.
So the logistics of this at scale to deal with 10 to 15 million illegals over the last four years, not to mention the people who are here illegally before that time. And then that doesn't take into account the gotaways. And by the way, you talked about China.
The Chinese migrants, the reason why they show up here is because they'll pay the coyotes and the cartels anywhere from, the last number I heard was, $10,000 to $60,000. Yeah, they're willing to pay. Ahead to come into the United States. $10,000 to $60,000 per person. To come into the United States. This is big business for the cartels and for the coyotes.
And that is why what Joe Biden did was complicit. They were complicit in allowing this. They empowered the cartels. They empowered the coyotes. And it has been the great humanitarian disaster of our time. And if a Republican allowed that, the big media would have crucified them.
I'm just wondering if Selena Gomez is going to cry when they start exporting Chinese migrants out of there.
By the way, just to give you some numbers here, do you know the number of, they call it the unaccompanied alien children? There's two names, unaccompanied minor children and unaccompanied alien children. So both of them are pretty much the same thing, but let's just go with the UAC. Do you know in 2008 where President Bush was, it was his last year,
149,000.
Unaccompanied. Just walking. Let me say it one more time, guys. Unaccompanied. Children, do you know what the average age is? 11 years old. The median age is 13 years old. So the system that they have is broken through ICE because ICE is, you hear the stories that they talk about that one, they don't have the bandwidth. So look, we don't have the bandwidth. We don't have the system.
So 32,000 of these. They don't have the system to report to each other. So you know like how in insurance we build a software that the agent can see what is the status of a policy. The carrier can see and report it. The employees can see. Everybody can see what's going on with this one client. So the more eyes are on it, the more we can help the policy get approved.
So imagine they don't have a system to say, where is this kid at? Oh, he didn't even show up. The kid didn't show up to the court. Who's following up with what's going on with the, who's, Mallorca's being asked the question. So what do you guys do? Do you guys go back and investigate to see what's going on with the kids?
You know, and the lady from ORR, do you know this lady, Marcus, I think her name is, Brandon, if you can send the clip, she's being interviewed and she says, the leader of ORR, type in ORR. The Office of Refugee Resettlement.
That's the one.
Right, the Office of Refugee Resettlement. So they're asking her, hey, so what do you do? Brandon, can you send that clip to Rob, please, that we were looking at yesterday? How often after... Vinny, you're about to lose your mind when you hear this data.
I'm already pissed off.
So do you know what percentage of these 300,000 kids are assigned to family? Less than a third. Of 300,000 kids? Less than a third are given to family. So the other two-thirds are giving to somebody, and then there is no follow-up to see what's going on with the kids, school and food, all this stuff. So they don't know if it's human trafficking, labor trafficking, sex trafficking.
There is no follow-up. And so they said, well, why is that? Well, because he mentioned this, which is a very good point. While this whole thing was taking place, you remember we were in communication with Tom Holman, Bernard Carrick. We were trying to go to the border to do that stuff, and every time there was something coming up, we're planning on doing a podcast on the border, right? Right.
Guys are sending me proposals. Listen, Pat, to be able to get $10 million out, you're going to need this many trucks. You're going to need security. You're going to need people to go chase them. He says, this is not an easy job. It's a $100 billion job. You know how hard that is to find that? This is a catastrophic situation.
So when you're hearing these stories being talked about, here's the lady, Rob. Did you find a clip where she's being asked about?
So I found a bunch of different clips. I'm waiting for Brandon to send me the right one.
But it's that one right there. The one you're on, it's with Josh Hawley asking her questions.
That's it.
Yep. Ms. Marcus, can I just start with you? You testified a moment ago to Senator Butler that every child gets a know your rights presentation. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Is that before or after you release them to labor traffickers? Senator, every child that comes into our care gets a Know Your Rights presentation as well as... Have you read these New York Times reports, these stories, the series of stories the New York Times has done on the children who are in your care? Have you read them?
Yes, I have.
Have you read that children are scrubbing dishes, they are operating heavy machinery, they are delivering meals, they are harvesting coffee, they are working construction, they are working as housekeepers, they are working overnight shifts at plants where they are not paid, they are not going to school, they are not cared for, they are not giving meals, almost all of it illegally.
Are you aware of that? That's a yes or no.
Yes. Are you kidding me? So she's not even denying it, that they know about this, right? Then you look at the report to say, okay, so let's see how many calls of traffic and abuse of migrant children are coming in. Go back to that one that you had, Rob. Look at this here, guys. Zoom in. So that's 2018 to 2021, 2022 under Biden. Blue is reports of abuse or neglect.
Yeah.
This is what they're going through. So for us to sit there and say, let's send more money to Ukraine, so Ukraine's more important than, I mean, let's send more money. It's almost as if we were talking with Brandon, and it almost feels like someone is benefiting from looking away. Now, I don't know if that's the case or not, but these are not complicated things that we're looking at.
It's pure data. If a stock goes from $8,000 to $149,000, In 14 years, what do you say? Wow. Yeah. $8,000 to $149,000. It's pretty solid. You tell me what goes from $8,000 in 2008 to $149,000. Oh, you know what does? The number of unaccompanied alien children to 2008 to today. You don't want to go figure that part out? Where are these people? Where are these kids? What are they doing?
It's a travesty what's going on. So the fact that Tom Holman's out there, him and Kristi Noem were out there, right, being questioned about some of these things. Rob, if you have that... And one of our old friends, I think, is in the back. If you can play this clip, go for it.
Mr. Hammond and Secretary Noem, can we ask you a few questions here, please? Would you guys gaggle with reporters for a few moments? You are both the top immigration advisors to President Trump, in addition to Stephen Miller. He just announced that he's signing an executive order to put 30,000 detention beds at Guantanamo Bay.
I know, Mr. Homan, you've talked about needing more beds, but how exactly would that work and when do you expect it to open?
You know, that is something that the White House is working on to use resources that we currently have there at Guantanamo Bay. So we'll go through the process. The worst of the worst is where that could be utilized. So that potential is there. We know we need the infrastructure. We're going after these guys. But who would run that? DHS? Wait, wait, wait.
What you probably don't know, there's already a migrant center there. It's been there for decades. So we're just going to expand upon the existing migrant center.
How would logistics work for that? How would you get migrants down to Guantanamo?
We'd climb to Guantanamo. Close character. They encounter people in maritime, they can take them straight to Guantanamo Bay.
The way he answers it, it's like, what are you talking about? We've been doing it for a while.
We just haven't been doing it the last four years.
We're already doing it. We're building it out and using more resources.
Mr. Holman, what kind of civilian oversight would there be?
civilian oversight yeah the current civilian oversight that we have in our federal government today we had an election in november that clearly said the american people don't want these criminals and dangerous individuals on our streets anymore we're taking care of it polish americans who voted for president trump and may have neighbors or family members who are undocumented who are illegally here
Listen, the law applies to everybody. It applies to American citizens. It applies to people who come into this country illegally.
You will be held accountable for breaking our laws. So, Byron, this is where I'm coming from. So when we talk about Biden, I honestly genuinely do not think he had any decision making the entire time. Speaker Johnson just did that podcast. I forgot. Bear. Barry Weiss, where he was saying basically he gets ambushed by Kamala, the Schumers.
He doesn't make any – he didn't even know what the hell he was signing. When it comes to that blatant invasion, Byron, because that's exactly what we've had for the past four years, brother. It's been an invasion. They have terrorists. They have the kids. They have the drugs. They have Chinese – it's on all different fronts. Byron – A, how did they get away with it?
I understand he's the president, but who's really behind it, and what was their actual objective? Was it for all this turnstile stuff? Was it because they're like, all right, listen, we're going to have all these kids. We can do whatever we want with them, labor, sex trafficking, whatever. We could have terrorists just in case we want anybody to ever do whatever, and we have all the drugs.
Who's really making the decision? I know Alejandro Mayorkas was the head of Homeland Security, but what's the main goal of saying, guys, open the border, let everybody in? What?
The Democrat Party has wanted open borders for decades. And what's the main goal? Because there's a... Back up. The Democrats are largely a faction, a factional party. They're a party of factions. Abortion... open borders, et cetera, all of their different planks.
So how they kind of operate as a party is you may not really, this might not be your issue, but since this is a party, we support all the issues, the staff. And that's why personnel is policy. So what Donald Trump's doing with, with federal workers and how they just came in with their team ASAP is because personnel is policy.
When you have staffers in the White House who are committed, who work with La Raza, who work with these other groups that are totally fine with illegal immigration and open borders to expand our welfare state here in the United States, All they have to do is write the order on day one. They just stuck the thing in front of Joe Biden.
When Joe Biden became the nominee of the Democrats in South Carolina back in, I think it was 2020, the deal had been cut that they thought Bernie Sanders would lose. So they all came together, cut the deal and said, OK, we're going to do Joe Biden. So the deal, part of the deal that basically everybody knows now is Joe Biden had to agree, had to basically sign off on all the crazy policies.
So that was the deal. The staff that went in, it was their vision to do this. That's why overnight they ended Remain in Mexico. They stopped border wall construction. They did all these things. The reason why unaccompanied minors were the first big tranche was because of COVID-19 and Title 42, because Title 42 would not allow adults into the country. That was under Title 42 because of COVID-19.
They wouldn't let adults in, but our policy was, but if a child comes in, we will let that child in. So the cartels knew this, and what they did is they would send tranches, 50 kids, 75 kids, 100 kids. I've seen it where they would walk right up to our border agents and say, we're here, and we need you to process us. And the kids are given a script to say something. I was on the border.
There was a girl in this group that got stopped and we were talking to the girl and she's like, yeah, this is my fourth time coming across. This is business. The Biden administration knew that it was business. The staffers at Homeland and at the White House knew this was going on. They wanted it to go on. They knew young girls were being raped on the journey to our southern border. They knew this.
They didn't care. And any other people who are who are part of this complicit in this are the NGOs. The NGOs operate on both sides of the border in order for this entire process to happen. And they use kids as the first wave of it because we as a country would say if kids come to our border, we will accept them in. But because of COVID rules and Title 42, we're not going to accept in adults.
And that's what happened. It is a staffing issue. It is an ideological issue in the Democrat Party. Even today, they argue against Tom Holman and what he's trying to do, because for them, they have always wanted open borders. And this is where people who who have studied and read about the Cloward Piven strategy of you overwhelm the system in order to rebuild the system.
That their strategy, some Democrats, not all, some are, you overwhelm each aspect of the federal system. And so that when it breaks down, then you get to point the finger and then you get to design the new. And that's really, at the core, what's going on. But that's why Donald Trump was elected to stop all this.
Who are the NGOs that you're referencing?
The biggest ones are Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities is an NGO. They get money from the federal government for... nonprofit goodwill work. We have NGOs operating all over the world. I would argue we have too many NGOs that are not operating in the interest of the United States, but the deep state has been funding them for decades.
Catholic Charities is one of them.
So Catholic Charities is one of the larger NGOs. They operate, I believe, yes, on both sides of the border. And they'll do things like bring clothes, bring water, bring food, stuff like that. Because when these kids or even adults, when they're coming up to the border, they might get a liter of water in their journey. That's it. So they come up starving. They're starving. They're hungry.
They're malnourished, et cetera. Catholic Charity steps in and provides aid. And the way the Catholic Church views it is, We're providing aid to people who are truly in need, and that's their mission. They are given federal funds through the NGO process in order to do that. The problem is, is that we fund this, but it's against our national interest to do this.
And that's why you have all these funding fights in Washington. Because when you start turning these spigots off, it goes to a lot of groups or a lot of contractors who've had their hand in the kitty for a long time And then when you start dialing that stuff down, that's when you get these reactions of you're cutting off poor people, you're doing this, you're doing that.
No, we are right-sizing the federal government, one, so it can actually be efficient for a change, and it can actually do the things that are in the interest of the United States and its people.
If I can just kind of summarize exactly what I heard from you. Yeah. And, Rob, if you can show that stat again. It seems like there's two types of people on that left side of the aisle. Yeah. There's sort of like the strategic villainous people.
Mm-hmm.
who are here for open borders and they just want to flood the system. And then there's the deeply empathetic but uninformed people that basically know, like the Selena Gomez's of the world. Oh my God, they're crying, they're emotional. But okay, we have to let them in, we have to help them. But guys, there's a flip side to it. What's the flip side? Well, look at this. Pat pointed this out.
So when we do let them in, you know, you say, don't take my kindness for weakness. All that empathy that you're ingratiating to this side of the border, look what happens to the kids that you're letting in. What does it say? It says reports of abuses, abuse and neglect and trafficking. Look how much that's skyrocketed since 2020.
That's the report. Those are the kids that could get to a phone.
Those are the kids that even speak English.
We so for Selena Gomez and anybody who, you know, I understand that they have in their heart, they feel the most empathetic thing is to just do whatever you can to help people who are impoverished.
But when you allow what occurred under the Biden administration, you create a manmade humanitarian crisis because those young kids in particular, the girls and young boys who were sold into sex slavery by the cartels who never make it to our border, they're down the rabbit hole. That's not even the unintended consequences. Those are the real consequences of what occurred.
So the most empathetic thing is to secure the nation and not allow illegal immigration because you're not selling adults and, frankly, yes, young kids down a life that is unspeakable.
And by the way, didn't Rambo, Stallone do a movie on human trafficking that came out a couple years ago? Didn't he do that? If you haven't seen it, I think it's worth watching. Didn't do, I don't know if it was like something everybody talked about, but it's worth watching. It's about him going to Mexico trying to rescue a young girl that's trapped in a sex trafficking ring.
highly, highly recommend watching this flick. And when you talk about Francis Fox Piven, you know what I love about the debate with her and Thomas Sowell. Remember that one from back in the 50 years ago?
That was a great debate.
It was on Free to Choose, wasn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. It was unbelievable.
when you see the exchange between the two, and she's trying to say, well, you don't understand what you're going through. Thomas Sowell, man, he is a- I just finished a book that your son, Tico, told me to read. Did you finish it? The reader.
Tell me. I feel dumber and dumber every page I read. He is brilliant. No, Thomas Sowell is in a league of his own.
Thomas Sowell is a freaking- If you haven't read the reader, read it. He's in a league of his own. Wait, wait, real quick. For the American people, the free to choose- You can get this on YouTube. The free to choose episodes were phenomenal. Because it wasn't just Milton Friedman pushing his economic view and his political view.
He brought on left, right, and they would have real intellectual debates about some of the same stuff we're dealing with today.
That's right.
Everybody should go back and watch that stuff.
Listen, if you can consume 40 hours of content of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, you'll never be the same ever again. If you can go through 40 hours of content of these guys, you'll never look at the world the same way ever again. Let's go to the next story. Rob, passenger jet. With 64 broad, collided with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near D.C.
This tragic event, we've seen these clips. If you want to play this clip, Rob, there's multiple different angles. This is one of them. It's the one at the bottom, right, Rob?
Yes, sir. Yeah, that's going to close up on it. That's the helicopter coming in from the left.
It's coming. It's coming.
Oh, my God.
There's the explosion. Okay. So you're seeing this. United Airlines... Sorry, American Airlines Flight 5342 carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with a UH-60 Blackhawk Army helicopter on a training flight near Ronald Reagan Airport right before 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
The FAA confirmed that the crash occurred just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol in some of the most controlled airspace in the world. Video footage captured two sets of lights.
Consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball, the air traffic controller constructed PAT-25 pass behind the CRJ moments before the impact, but the plane lost altitude rapidly and its transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced, we are going to recover all fellow citizens, but... declined to confirm fatalities.
I think they just announced that not one survivor from them. And Rob, which one is this? Do you have the traffic air controller talking to each other? Is this the one or is that a... This is one. Go for it. Play the clip.
Fire command. The accident happened in the river. Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river. It's east of the approach end of runway 33.
Is the airfield closed?
Yes, the airfield is closed. The airfield is closed. Runways as well? Yes, all runways are closed. Nobody's landing. No one's moving at all. It was probably out in the middle of the river. I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. So I haven't seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit. I would say maybe a half mile off the approach end of 33. Wow.
Rob, do you have the other one where the air traffic controllers appear to try to stop collision? Yes.
I haven't been able to hear that or listen to that, but yes.
This is from BBC Story, if you have it. I just sent it to you. Let me see if we have the recording of it. Yeah, if you can see what they're saying here. After the commercial, let's see what it is. Let me see this one here. Trump even tweets about this. Okay, go for it, Rob.
The crash... Flash X3, can you return to base?
The crash hasn't happened yet or it's happened already, Rob?
Blackjack 3, proceed directly to Glades. I'm not sure, to be honest with you.
I need you to land.
I need you to land immediately. Can you go to Dallas for a few minutes? Westbound, contact Dallas Tower 12041.
Oh, they're trying to prevent it. This is before the crash.
Can you go to Baltimore?
Wow. Obviously, a lot more is going to come out. And can you go to President's reaction to this? He tweeted something. The airplane was on a perfect and routine line approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight to the airport for an extended period of time. It is a clear night. The lights on the plane were blazing. Why didn't the helicopter go up or down or turn?
Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of just asking if they saw the plane? This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. Not good. Tom, your thoughts on this story here.
Yeah, it appears, you know, I'm not the NTSB, but I was reading everything this morning. Everybody else said that the airport was operating normally. No rain, no snow, you know, clear night and just comings and goings and landings. And the CRJ from Wichita just coming in normally. And there's a routine training mission and we're.
The helicopters cross over airfield and over flight lines, which – and it just appears that the helicopter, for whatever reason, didn't pass behind it, obviously, and so that the CRJ was just on a normal land. So this is – The military helicopter and its operations or what it was doing on training just ran right into the civilian traffic. That's what I saw this morning in reading all this.
Myron, your thoughts? It's horrible. The airspace at DCA is probably the busiest in the country. Like if you sit out on – on a top level in a building, you can see there's always military craft moving around, man. It's just, it's just a tragedy.
And I think the bigger thing for me is the families of not just, you know, our military personnel that were in a helicopter, but of course everybody that was on the floor on the plane that was coming in from, uh, from Wichita. Um, I don't even know. I, how does the helicopter not see a passenger jet and then maneuver, uh, And so then, knowing that, was it mechanical failure?
What else was going on? I think there's going to be a lot of investigation with the three members of the crew that were on that chopper. We're going to have to kind of dig in to what was going on with them. Because when an airline is coming in, everybody knows this at this point, when an airline is coming in on approach... it is clearly visible.
If you've ridden in a helicopter, the biggest thing when you're riding in a helicopter is you're trying to watch out for birds because you don't want birds to get caught into the propeller system. So you're kind of always watching for birds, but an airliner is massive. A commuter jet is still a massive plane. It's not a 747, but it's a massive plane.
So what was going on in the chopper that you couldn't Go up, down, take evasive action, whatever the case might be. How do you even get that close? I got real concerns. I want to stop there. I don't want to comment anymore. But to the families, my prayers go out to you because you lost so many people.
And think about how sad this is. This is the number one story on every single outlet, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, you name it. But it's also the number one story on ESPN. Why? Because apparently the flight was made up of a whole team of the U.S. gymnast... I'm sorry, U.S. figure skating community. Okay, so this... Look, whatever you are on this plane, you're just getting on a flight.
Horrible. But now on top of it, it's a whole team. It's athletes. We all saw the movie or the story that was based around the Marshall Pride.
Matthew McConaughey.
This is horrible. This is tragic. I mean, I don't know if it's me. I mean, we see what's going on with Boeing. These plane crashes every single week, every month. There's something new. And the number one thing that they say in sports is, okay, if the other team is better and they beat you, cool. But no unforced errors. This was a nice night out. It wasn't snowing. It wasn't raining.
This was a complete screw-up unforced error.
I don't know if this is the one on the plane, though. I don't know if this is the one. I mean, obviously, we're going to find out as the investigation gets done. The chopper, like he's saying, your job is to be looking for things. You fly a chopper in a different way than you fly a plane. Right.
Because, you know, it's a very different lens to have that, especially in a place like three miles away from the White House, like from you're right at Reagan National Airport.
Like you can't miss it. You cannot miss Reagan National. People who have never flown in, it is the Potomac and then the strip. You can't miss it. Very weird to me.
And it's weird because these are commercial flights. They all have TCAS, Traffic Collision Avoiding System. It tells a pilot how to avoid smaller aircraft. That's the reason it was put in.
because you know to avoid hitting commercial you know airliners helicopters stuff like that it tells the pilot when there's tracks that's climb climb descend descend you ever hear that on an airplane that's what that system does so there's a lot of freaking holes in this and you know again like byron you said it prayers to these freaking families because tom you mentioned it too that water god you know it's freezing and it's only what seven and a half feet deep
Yeah, and just to show you what it was, they say the aircraft is traveling 140 miles an hour. That's two miles a minute, right?
Yep.
And they're saying it was 2,400 feet off runway, and a mile is 5,280. So it is a half mile off, so it's 15 seconds off runway.
Jeez.
So this is not, you know what I'm saying? That's like you've seen it where you see the lights going underneath you and you're about to land. They were just about to land.
That's the point. That's what he's saying. They were literally about to land, and this happens. Well, again, prayers goes out to the entire family, and I am sure we're going to learn more about what happened with this tragic event. Let's go to the Jim Acosta story. Jim Acosta. is at CNN. He gets credit for helping President Trump coin the phrase fake news, right?
He is the originator when he got up there and did what he did. Tom, he's trying to get a, you know, CNN is firing 200 people. Their top line revenue dropped $400 million. They're really taking a hit. And then while all this stuff is happening, They offer him a job at midnight. Right, Tom? It's a show at midnight that they offer him. Yep.
And this is the kind of a way of saying, look, if you want to walk, walk. But we're not trying to give you a job. What do you want to do? And he decides to walk, and I think this is the last clip of his, Rob, that he can put this. Is this the video or is this the tweet that he posted the video on?
This is the farewell to CNN viewers, and then the second one, I have that as well. This is the tweet that he put out about his substance.
Okay, so I want to watch both of them, but go ahead. Play the first one first. Go for it.
I wanted to end today's show by thanking all of the wonderful people who work behind the scenes at this network. You may have seen some reports about me and the show. And after giving all of this some careful consideration and weighing in alternative time slots CNN offered me, I've decided to move on. I am grateful to CNN for the nearly 18 years I've spent here doing the news.
People often ask me if the highlight of my career at CNN was at the White House covering Donald Trump. Actually, no. That moment came here when I covered former President Barack Obama's trip to Cuba in 2016 and had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island's political prisoners. As the son of a Cuban refugee, I took home this lesson.
It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. I have always believed it's the job of the press to hold power to account. I've always tried to do that here at CNN, and I plan on doing all of that in the future. One final message. Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth and to hope. Even if you have to get out your phone, record that message.
I will not give in to the lies. I will not give in to the fear. Post it on your social media. Right. So people can hear from you, too. Fantastic.
Oh, big time.
That's the word. Hey, guys. It's Jim. And let me just say this. I've had quite the day. But as you could see earlier today, this was my last day at CNN. And I did want to jump on Substack Live here for a moment and say welcome to my new venture. I'm going independent, at least for now. This is just the beginning. But I wanted to invite you to join me here on this platform.
Is this on Twitter?
This was, yes, this was the tweet that he put out.
Can you go to his Twitter account? Because this is the one world he's about to enter that I don't know if he's going to like or not. If you can go to his account, Jim Acosta, zoom in a little bit if you could. So this is the latest one, right, to go to Substack. So go a little bit lower, go a little bit lower, go a little bit lower. And then there's another clip of him.
with the main video, the last farewell message that I'm sure you have. Go up a little bit. Is that the one? Yes. Okay, zoom in a little bit, if you could. Zoom in a little bit. I want to show something to the audience. It's got 3.4 million views on the bottom right, 116,000 likes, 23,000 retweets. Oh, but he's turned off comments. Oh, wait, why would you? Jim.
When you're in the social media world, you are no longer protected by CNN. You have to allow people to tell you what they think about you, and some of it is very painful. And I don't know if you're going to like that, buddy. I mean, it's a different story when you're reading a teleprompter and you're getting out there. That's easy. You've got good writers. You're doing great things.
This is why a guy like Tony Hinchcliffe and some of these comedians that are getting up there and just doing their thing with trying to come up with stuff on the cuff, it's not easy to do. When I watch Vinny do some of his work, I'm blown away by it. I will never look at animals the same way because of Vinny and the stuff that he does with Animal Voices, right? It's tough to be a comedian.
It's tough to be a content creator. But you're about to be told by audience that don't agree with you, and dude, I just don't know how you're going to handle it. I don't. As an independent content creator yourself now... Maybe, you know, you're going to be having to make certain adjustments. You're going to realize how the field really feels about you.
And I'm sure deep down inside, this guy cannot wait to get another job offer to go to traditional mainstream media. Traditional where you're at least protected by a bigger brand. Because in the free market of content creators... People will tell you when they can't stand you. And I wonder if we can handle that. Byron, your thoughts. I'm sure you're devastated when this was announced. I was so sad.
Is that why you were crying when you walked in here?
Yeah. Do you have the clip when Trump basically told him to sit down? Because I think that's the proper way to end. Sit down on the fake news. I think you're right.
Yeah, not the fake news.
But while we find the clip, look, my thoughts on him are he was awful to go and deal with. He was pompous and swore he'd know everything. And then when you give him the facts, because he can't admit that he's wrong, and it's just the smugness he always had. So it made sense when they were like, look, dude, we ain't giving you a good slot. Take midnight or go bye. And whatever.
I think you're right. He's going to try to find his way back into network life because out there where you guys have to operate, where it's it's killer be killed.
Oh, yeah.
It's it's tough business. Oh, yeah. And by the way, that's where all media, all news media is going anyway, is going independent. That's the future. Right. He won't be able to hack it. How thick is his skin? I mean, he might be on. Didn't they just end CNN Plus? That was a couple years ago.
But they're trying to do it again. They're actually trying to do another subscription.
That's where he'll end up.
He'll end up there. And just to be honest, think about it. Let's see this when it comes to you. Go for it, Rob.
Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on. Well, that's true. But they weren't actors.
They're not going to be doing that. They weren't actors. Well, no, it's true. Do you think they were actors? They weren't actors. They didn't come from Hollywood. These were people, this was an actual... You know, it happened a few days ago.
There are hundreds of miles away, though. There are hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
That's not an invasion. Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings... If I may ask one other question.
If I may ask one other question. Are you worried? That's enough.
That's enough. That's enough. That's enough.
Pardon me, ma'am. Excuse me. That's enough. Mr. President, I had one other question I may ask on the Russia investigation. Are you concerned that you may have indictments? I'm not concerned about anything with the Russian investigation because it's a hoax. That's enough. Put down the mic. Mr. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation?
Here it comes. Mr. President. I'll tell you what. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN.
Watch, watch, watch, watch. I think that's unfair.
You're a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. And the way you treat other people are horrible.
Oh, and I love the other guy opens his mouth.
He didn't say fake news, though.
No, no, this wasn't a fake news one. What the funniest was is the other guy that is about to speak right now, who is still a White House correspondent, he says, you know what? I've chatted with Jim. He's cool. He's like, I'm not a big fan of you either. Anyway. But if you think about it, this dude came in reporting fake news. He's on his way out. Even his last message is fake news.
And you just saw two instances and one stupid speech that he's saying. The caravan migrant caravan, of course it was an invasion. We're living through the invasion right now. And the Russian hoax. They did that. People are still convinced to this day that Trump is a Russian asset.
And when Trump said that these guys are the enemy of the people, I believe it in my bones that if you're spitting out that fake stuff about COVID, about Russia, and you're making us divide each other and people die because of your stupid rhetoric, you are the enemy of the people. And I'm so happy that he's gone. Go on Substack. Go start a show with Don Lemon.
Go on the street and see how fun that is in the freaking cold asking dumbass questions.
I'll tell you what I find the most interesting because... Obviously, what Jim Acosta is best known for is the you are fake news. He started it. That's what it is. Yep. And so people probably say, all right, this was your monumental moment. And then he said, no, that actually wasn't my most proud moment.
My most proud moment was in Cuba when questioning when Obama went to Cuba, questioning the brother of Fidel Castro, the dictator of Cuba. Raul Castro, and this is how you stand up to tyrants, obviously trying to equivocate to basically that Trump is a tyrant. But here's what he's failing to really understand.
And you're going to know this when you announce whatever you plan on announcing for Congressman Donald. The people of Cuba, the people of Miami. The people who live in Miami that came from Cuba are deeply, deeply Republican.
Yes, they are.
Shout out to Reagan. Deeply conservative. So anytime they think of Cuba Fidel, you bring up socialism, communism, they go crazy. So it's so crazy to me that everyone who came from Cuba, escaped socialism, persecuted, made it to Miami. You know, what is it? One foot, dry foot, everything. Right.
And then this guy, this intellectual, holier-than-thou, smarter-than-thou, doesn't understand what every other Cuban immigrant that makes it to Miami, makes it to Florida, understands, is that socialism ain't no good.
I'm just glad he's gone. Bye-bye, Jim. Bye, Jim.
Yeah, and I'm going to wrap up on this story, Vinny, because you keep texting me.
Well, I can't wait, because I'm glad that he knows about it now, because I wanted to surprise him.
Plus-size rapper. who calls herself BBW, okay, sues Lyft after driver said she couldn't fit in the car, okay? So first, this is the Lyft driver denying Kerr, and she's recording Kim, and she posts this, right? So, you know, Rob, if you wanna play this clip here, go for it.
My best friend has a Benz that's newer than this that I can fit in. That's the same time. Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. So you're really telling me I'm too busy in your car. So I got to order another lift.
She's out of breath just speaking. She's out of breath talking.
What I got to do with your tires?
You said my tires are tired.
Do we have an actual image of her? Yeah, you'll see. How do you know I don't have no faith? Because I've tried before. Huh? Because I've been in this situation. I've been in this situation before. So every big person, you turn down because they can't fit in your car?
Yeah, because they need to order. Because what? He goes, Uber, Uber, Uber XL. Uber XL. You can pause that rap. So plus size rapper Dank Demos, also known as Dejoa Blanding, soon left after Detroit Drive allegedly refused her drive, telling her she was too big. This happened on January 29th. She posted a video and she has publicly shared that she weighs 489 pounds. That's her.
And told the driver, I can't fit in the car. The driver, identifying himself as Ibrahim, responded, believe me, you can't. Adding that there was no room in the back and that his tires wouldn't be able to handle the weight. He later told her she should request Excel. DeMasso describes himself as BBW. Wait. Look at the dog, man. Pay that queen lawsuit, sharing that she once weighed 554.
So she's lost 60 pounds. Speaking to Fox 2. I've been in cars some of the time. Anyways, so her viral TikTok video of exchange has been viewed more than 340,000 times as of Tuesday. Vinny, why are you so deeply concerned about the story?
There's so much because I actually want to hear, Byron, because we're both from New York. Besides the funny part, we're going to be busting chops. Rob, can you go back to that? Listen to me, guys. She's doing a rap video. What vehicle? She can't even be in the – because if you're in a rap video, Byron, you're in the driver's seat chilling. She's in the back.
Look at how folded – the car, the muffler's about to hit the ground. Look at the dog, Pat. The dog is like, what's happening in there? Look at the dog. That. This is disgusting. And here's the thing. You're almost 500 pounds. Baron, I'm not trying to show off, guys. And I know a lot of people like to show off. I have a Toyota Corolla 2019. Shout out Toyota. My tires are this big.
If I add, I'm not even joking, just Humberto and a couple guys go to lunch, the car drops. She weighs 500. Do you know what the average weight of a female polar bear is? 300 to 500 pounds. She weighs the weight of a female polar bear. Google it, Rob. And that's my car.
That's my baby.
That's my baby girl right there. She can't fit in that.
No, you can't. You can't.
And here's the thing.
By the way, can you pull up the lawsuit, like what the lawyer said?
I'll tell you what the lawyer said while he's looking at the video.
Here he comes. Fat shaming, discrimination.
You know what he said? Here he comes. Him not letting her in the vehicle is like not letting a black man or a gay person in the car. Stop. Stop. It's discriminating. No, no. It's not. It's a tire thing. It's my tires. It's my transmission.
And she can't get in.
No, she's like, yes, I can. And, brother, that guy. What's he going to do?
Cut the roof off?
Yeah. I mean, she climbs in the top.
It's not the roof. It's not a roof issue because she's not tall.
No, my point is you open the door and she cannot fit through the door to get in.
Because knowing Tom, Tom's trying to find a way to fit her in the car. He's doing the logistics part. Because Tom's a problem solver. Yeah, 100%. Tom, that's not what the point Vinny's trying to make. Can you go back to the arguments the lawyers are making? Is this it, Rob?
You can find it. There's a news story. Let me keep looking. Yeah, Rob, you can find the one with the lawyer.
Oh, here it is.
Oh, yeah, listen to these guys. Does he come up, Rob? Keep going. Keep going. There's no audio. You'll find it where he is going to interview her. And here's the thing, Byron. We're not fat shaming. We're not being those people. Shame on your friends. Shame on your family. Shame on everybody that's like, you girl, you're big and you're beautiful. No, no, no. This is morbidly beyond morbidly obese.
Is that it?
Yeah, that's it right there. Two.
I knew it was illegal and I knew that it was wrong.
Her attorneys, John Marco and Zach Runyon, say weight is a protected characteristic in Michigan by law.
It would be no different than a driver pulling up and saying, you know, I don't want to have black people in my car. I don't want to have Christians in my car, Muslims in my car. It's the same. Under the law, it's the same.
The lawsuit is filed. Since she posted the encounter on social media, other full-figured folks have reached out saying the same thing happened to them.
2025.
Actually, I said this, but this is when reality actually comes back. You're too big to get in the door. When I was in college, you know, I used to move stuff and use whatever you can in somebody's car or whatever. You remember the big tube TVs? Now we got all flasks and spray. The tube TVs and everything over a 32-inch TV, you could not get into a sedan because the back of the tube was too big?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You shooting the music video sitting in the trunk of an SUV, and it is clear that you cannot get in the door of a sedan. I don't care if it's a BMW, a Corolla, a Camry, an Accord. You know, it could be an old school Acura Legend. You too big to get in the door.
Yeah.
Period. Done deal. Full stop. And listen. I know I'm a politician. I'm not supposed to say this, but we got to be honest with people. Just get the SUV. That's it. Get the minivan. Yeah. Let the minivan pull up. Yep. Let the Toyota Sienna pull up with the automatic doors and things slide out.
Yep.
Hop in and you're good. To me, I think what's really happening is she knew this was possible. And you get in publicity. Thank you very much. Because you're a rapper I'd never heard of before. So maybe you get in publicity. So you get your YouTube. Shout out to her. Or her marketer.
Dank Moss.
They should have, like, forklift. Like, forklift lift. Rob, if I could just see a picture of this girl again. Because I have a couple things written down here. Because, you know, not. That's not Miss Alabama. That's Miss Alabama. We all know. Dank Moss. Yeah, good. We'll pull up Alabama in a second. But if you would just go back to the beautiful lady that we're talking about.
You can't miss Miss Alabama.
Okay, so as I said before, shout out to Sir Mix-a-Lot, Baby Got Back, Baby Got Front. We know what's going on here. Listen, there was a rapper that I grew up with. He was one of my favorite rappers. His name was Big Pun.
I love it.
Big Pun. I know a great verse, too. I got a great verse. I can spit the verse. I'll never forget he had a lyric where he goes, I just lost 100 pounds. I'm trying to live. He died the next week straight up. So this dude and then his homeboy was Fat Joe. If you take a look at Fat Joe these days in the Terror Squad, he's like, you know, slightly overweight Joe at this point.
He's lost a lot of weight because he got the memo. He was just at 11 last night. They were doing their thing, Terror Squad. So this woman out here, she's trying to say that she's, you know, full figured or she's big boned. Chick, you are obese. No. Remember Biggie? Biggie could fit in the car and drive. Of course he could. The video with Diddy, whatever happened with that?
When he was driving backwards? Yeah, of course. Okay, he fit in the car. This woman is not fitting in the car. No. I think the question is the following. Big was not that big. No, Big wasn't that big. Even Big wasn't that big. She's making Lizzo look like a Victoria's Secret model. But the reason that I think that you're right about the marketing, I take Lyft and Uber every single day.
Never once. And they cancel all the time, Byron, Pat, Vinny, Tom. They cancel all the time. Never once in 10 years do I have a conversation with them when they cancel. Not once. They cancel and leave. They're not like, hey, look, I wanted to tell you something, but what I got to do is go see my kid. No, they just cancel. They're never like, hey, you're fat, you're this, you're that.
They just leave. So this leads me to believe there's some marketing going on here. Oh, like they're working together? Something's happening here. I can see that.
He's just going to sit there and be filmed? He canceled already. He just drove away. They're on the clock. They got to get to the next ride.
There's no reason for him to have to continue this conversation with his BBW. I'm just curious to know if Lyft's going to pay. Because if Lyft pays... And by the way, if the driver has to pay anything, oh, I mean, you're going to be like looking from afar, which one's the one that's coming? Oh, shoot. Whoa, I'm just going, right? You're going to be looking closely to see who you're picking up.
I don't even want to have the conversation. And you're going to come in, you're going to say, hi, what's your name? And she's going to say, Mary. And let's just say Mary's your, oh, I'm looking for Joe. Thank you. That's what you're going to do. I'm sorry. I was looking for Joe.
Where is Joe? You see Joe?
No Joe here. I'm Mary. Okay, great. Thank you. I got the wrong person. This is going to set the tone for these guys to be thinking about it. Anyways, gang, great podcast today with possibly the future governor of the great state of Florida. Byron, it was a pleasure having you on. This was a blast. Looking forward to seeing you do some big things. You're doing big things.
We're looking forward to seeing you do even bigger things. And I think we're going to have many, many more conversations. for many more years to come. All the best to you, buddy.
Thank you, man. It was great to be here.
And if you do become president, I'm just going to throw that out there. I'd like to just come to the White House and hang out as a New Yorker.
As a New Yorker, if it comes to that. Trump's the president right now.
You already heard. The future looks bright because of people like him.
Timing over talent. And let's focus on Florida first. The future looks bright because of people like him.
Have a great weekend, everybody. God bless. Bye-bye, bye-bye.