Speaker 1: Hi if Peter Schweizer, that's Eric Eggers. We're filling in
Speaker 1: for Sean. We want you to join the conversation, specifically,
Speaker 1: a question about this new political party that Elon Musk
Speaker 1: might be forming, the so called America Party. Mark Cuban
Speaker 1: says he's in the Texas Billionaire and Anthony Scarmucci, the
Speaker 1: former spokesman for Donald Trump the first term, both say
Speaker 1: they want to join this political party. Would you the audience,
Speaker 1: consider joining the America Party. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: One eight hundred nine for one Shawn one nine one
Speaker 1: seven two six.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There was a moment over the weekend when the idea
Speaker 3: of Elon Musk, the billionaire who helped get Donald Trump elected,
Speaker 3: announcing the creation of a new political party might have
Speaker 3: been considered the biggest story of the weekend. Uh And
Speaker 3: then Donald Trump signs this big, beautiful bill, The New
Speaker 3: York Times outs the you know, mom, Donnie for cultural appropriation.
Speaker 3: And then, of course, last night we get this bombshell
Speaker 3: announcement from the United States Government, or at least from Axio,
Speaker 3: saying that the United States Government has no evidence of
Speaker 3: any attempts by Jeffrey Epstein to blackmail people, essentially saying
Speaker 3: there's nothing more to see here. They are shutting down
Speaker 3: the investigation. A lot of people are reacting very strongly
Speaker 3: to that news, and so we thought who better to
Speaker 3: discuss that than former Epstein attorney David Shoon, who joins
Speaker 3: us now the Sean Handy Programs to Shoan, how are you?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3: We're great. We would love to get just your reaction
Speaker 3: to the announcement. Last night, Axios gave an excerpt from
Speaker 3: this memo that has been on Earth from the Department
Speaker 3: of Justice, saying, quote, this systematic review related revealed no
Speaker 3: incriminating client list. There was no credible evidence found that
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,
Speaker 3: and we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an
Speaker 3: investigation against uncharged third parties. Your reaction to a that
Speaker 3: news and the fact that they're admitting this now.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised by it whatsoever. I never thought that
Speaker 2: there would be a client list or that he was
Speaker 2: involved in any effort to blackmail anyone. Remember, you know
Speaker 2: I knew him pretty well. He trusts me, he said
Speaker 2: once to his in house counsel who said to me
Speaker 2: that I was the only person in the world he
Speaker 2: trusted with his life, and that's why I hired me
Speaker 2: to take over his criminal case. For about a year
Speaker 2: before he died, he was asking me to review his
Speaker 2: lawyer's work. He had a battery of some of the
Speaker 2: top lawyers in the country representing him for a long time.
Speaker 2: So I was very flattered when he asked me to
Speaker 2: take over the case when he was really facing criminal charges.
Speaker 2: But you know, look, if he had information to use
Speaker 2: against other people, logically he would have used it in
Speaker 2: his case, and that would have been the first thing
Speaker 2: that would have used because he certainly could have helped himself.
Speaker 2: I know that there have been all of these stories,
Speaker 2: that there must be files out there in a client list,
Speaker 2: and all that I've never believed it. Frankly, now, listen,
Speaker 2: that doesn't Meanybody knows he ran with wealthy and powerful people.
Speaker 2: He entertained them in his home, he flew with them,
Speaker 2: and so on. Part of what sticks and micro about
Speaker 2: all this is by the way that those people really
Speaker 2: enjoyed their time with him. They used him also, And
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, when the stories came out and
Speaker 2: he was charged with a crime, they all cut their
Speaker 2: ties with him as if they had never known him,
Speaker 2: and so on. I'll tell you one last interesting thing.
Speaker 2: I wanted to just mention. He had a very interesting
Speaker 2: photo array at his home of some of the wealthy people.
Speaker 2: And so for example, he had a picture there of
Speaker 2: Bill Gates with a dollar bill in it. So I
Speaker 2: asked him, you know, what's this all about. He said, well,
Speaker 2: he made a bet with Bill Gates, and what was
Speaker 2: he going to bet Bill Gates? So he bet him
Speaker 2: a dollar and he won. There's no question he had
Speaker 2: close contact with these people, but I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any evidence of, you know, anything further than that, and
Speaker 2: in terms of any kind of list or blackmail effort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the interesting question to me, right,
Speaker 1: is there's no question that he has these relationships. So
Speaker 1: you said, whatever the extent of those relationships, we don't
Speaker 1: fully know. But the fact that there is is the
Speaker 1: Department Justice as not a quote unquote client list, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that there isn't necessarily a problem that some of
Speaker 1: these people have in terms of what their relationship was
Speaker 1: with Epstein. We were talking earlier on the show about this.
Speaker 1: JP Morgan situation where you know, apparently they admitted that Epstein,
Speaker 1: over the courses his relationship had you know, drawn I
Speaker 1: think a billion dollars through JP Morgan accounts. There were
Speaker 1: claims that this was related to human trafficking. My question
Speaker 1: for you is, what do you think is perhaps the
Speaker 1: culpability or the vulnerability that these wealthy individuals have, because,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, they clearly enjoy the relationship. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was coercive. I don't think that he
Speaker 1: was somehow manipulating them. It was a friendship. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that there is any legal culpability or problems not
Speaker 1: naming any particular individuals with some the people that he
Speaker 1: was spending time.
Speaker 2: With, I don't think so, quite frankly, And I'll say
Speaker 2: this about the blackmail effort. Listen. I know people have
Speaker 2: painted Jeffrey Epstein as his monster and someone from the
Speaker 2: way I knew him, I don't think he was a
Speaker 2: kind of person who would blackmail someone had that in mind.
Speaker 2: He was a different sort of guy obviously in many ways.
Speaker 2: But he enjoyed their company, they enjoyed his, and he
Speaker 2: wasn't a guy who wanted to then, you know, get
Speaker 2: people in trouble or expose what they did. So much
Speaker 2: has never come out about the Epstein story because it
Speaker 2: doesn't play well in the media. But you know, you
Speaker 2: should be aware of the listeners should be aware. There
Speaker 2: was a woman who sent young women to him, who
Speaker 2: gave a sworn statement to the FBI, who said Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein had one rule, no one under eighteen ever. And
Speaker 2: so she told these people you better either have a
Speaker 2: fake ID or be over eighteen, because he'll throw you
Speaker 2: out if he doesn't think you're eighteen. Now, nobody who
Speaker 2: believes the monster story about Jeffrey Epstein would ever believe that.
Speaker 2: But this is a sworn statement, you know, under oath
Speaker 2: by this woman. So I don't think we've really seen
Speaker 2: the full picture of Jeffrey Epstein. But listen, I don't
Speaker 2: think these people have vulnerability. I was surprised when organizations
Speaker 2: gave back his charitable donations. Quite frankly. I thought they
Speaker 2: should have taken them and enjoyed them. And they were
Speaker 2: and put them to good use.
Speaker 1: So what do you on the question of the suicide. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Epstein's brother says he does not believe that he committed suicide.
Speaker 1: He believed that he was killed. FBI is saying conclusively
Speaker 1: that he did commit suicide. Any thoughts that you have
Speaker 1: on the interactions that you had with Epstein on that question.
Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely, Listen, nobody knows for sure, but I've said
Speaker 2: all along that I don't believe it was suicide for
Speaker 2: two reasons. Primarily one anecdotically, I'd met with him nine
Speaker 2: days before he died. He hired me to take over
Speaker 2: his case. He also asked me to do some other
Speaker 2: work for him, not related to not related to the case,
Speaker 2: that only had an impact going forward. The Friday before
Speaker 2: he died on Saturday, the people around him told me
Speaker 2: he was barking out orders to do the things that
Speaker 2: he and I had discussed would need to be done
Speaker 2: to go forward with the case. I said to him,
Speaker 2: I would take over the case, but the understanding I
Speaker 2: would have to meet with his current lawyers and either
Speaker 2: they approved it or I would bring in my own team,
Speaker 2: and I had already put together another team. All of
Speaker 2: that was finding him. We arranged a fee agreement, and
Speaker 2: so on. That's one anecdotally. Number two. Michael Boden, in
Speaker 2: my view, is the top forensic medical examiner in the world.
Speaker 2: He examined Jeffrey Epstein's body with the New York Medical Examiner.
Speaker 2: During that independent examination, the medical examiner said to him
Speaker 2: she could not this as an assistant, she could not
Speaker 2: conclusively say what the cause of death was. Four days later,
Speaker 2: they said suicide without any additional evidence. Boden says, in
Speaker 2: all of the thousands and thousands of cases he's done,
Speaker 2: he has never seen injuries like this consistent with suicide. Period.
Speaker 3: We're talking to you. A former attorney for Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 3: David shown. David, you are the son of an FBI agent.
Speaker 3: I know he died when you were quite young, but
Speaker 3: you are you're your father was an FBI agent. What
Speaker 3: do you make of then the people who run the
Speaker 3: FBI claiming the opposite and trying to Lea's evidence of
Speaker 3: this footage of the jail cell showing allegedly no one
Speaker 3: entering this door that they offer up as proof that
Speaker 3: he did kill himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm disappointed by it because I don't think they
Speaker 2: can say with any level of certainty whether it was
Speaker 2: suicide or not. And I don't like the idea of
Speaker 2: putting their impromater on the idea conclusively that was suicide. Obviously.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a huge fan of the FBI. My
Speaker 2: dad was one of my real heroes in the world.
Speaker 2: I have all of his memorabilia. But I don't think
Speaker 2: in this case that's fair. I think maybe they thought
Speaker 2: there was some need for finality all of that. But
Speaker 2: if Michael Bodden says otherwise, I take him over the oh,
Speaker 2: the FBI on a forensic matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the question then, David is and I'm not asking
Speaker 1: for a list of names per se. But then, if
Speaker 1: you believe that he did not commit suicide, what's the
Speaker 1: profile of the person you think that killed Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: If he did not commit suicide, who would want him dead?
Speaker 2: That's the puzzling part of it. I don't subscribe to
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory, although many people did. He had a lot
Speaker 2: of information and so on. Usually in this kind of situation,
Speaker 2: it would be someone who wants to get credit for killing,
Speaker 2: you know, a sex offender, that sort of thing, especially
Speaker 2: a high profile person. That's the odd thing in this case,
Speaker 2: no one has come forward for credit. You do know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure though, that he was in prison. He was
Speaker 2: locked up there at the MCC with a guy who
Speaker 2: was a hitman for the Mexican mafia, allegedly former policeman,
Speaker 2: huge guy. They moved that guy out and then they
Speaker 2: moved him in with a druggie. Was very upsetting to him.
Speaker 2: And two weeks before this there was an incident with
Speaker 2: the first fellow he was in with in which they
Speaker 2: called it an attempted suicide. It was not, but he
Speaker 2: didn't want to get the guy in trouble anyway. The profile,
Speaker 2: in my view, ought to be someone, you know, who
Speaker 2: really wanted the publicity from it. No one has taken
Speaker 2: credit for it. So that's the oddity. That's what I
Speaker 2: can answer.
Speaker 3: That's one of the oddities. In addition to representing Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 3: you also represented at a second impeachment trial form President
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. His spokes and Carolyn Lovett, was asked about
Speaker 3: the FBI's announcement today as it relates to the Epstein case.
Speaker 3: Here's what she had to say. Here's that interaction with
Speaker 3: a reporter.
Speaker 4: So the FBI looks at the circumstances surrounding the death
Speaker 4: of Jeffrey Epstein. According to the report, this systematic review
Speaker 4: revealed no incriminating client list. So what happened to the
Speaker 4: Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had
Speaker 4: on her desk.
Speaker 5: Well, I think if you go back and look at
Speaker 5: what the Attorney General said in that interview, which was
Speaker 5: on your network on.
Speaker 4: Fox News, go ahead, and Roberts said, DOJ may be
Speaker 4: releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?
Speaker 4: And she said, it's sitting on my desk right now
Speaker 4: to review.
Speaker 1: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Well,
Speaker 1: that really happen.
Speaker 3: It's sitting on my desk right now to review.
Speaker 5: Yes, she was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork,
Speaker 5: all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes.
Speaker 5: That's what the Attorney General was referring to. And I'll
Speaker 5: let her speak for but again, when it comes to
Speaker 5: the FBI and the Department of Justice, they are more
Speaker 5: than committed to ensuring that bad people are put behind bars.
Speaker 3: Just your reaction to how you feel like the FBI
Speaker 3: has handled all of this, including since Donald Trump's election
Speaker 3: and the promises that were made and now the clear
Speaker 3: shift in tone.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that's part of sort of a rush to
Speaker 2: go to the media and so on. I think that
Speaker 2: Karon Levitt's explanation is perfectly plausible. I do think the
Speaker 2: Attorney General is referring to document they file Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 2: file that was on her desk she said to be reviewed.
Speaker 2: There's no such thing. I don't believe there's any such
Speaker 2: thing as a client list. And by the way, you
Speaker 2: can be sure in this day and age, if there were,
Speaker 2: it would have leaked out. You know the number of
Speaker 2: FBI agents who searched his premises, people in the US
Speaker 2: Attorney's office, including mister Comy's daughter who is on the
Speaker 2: related case. You can be sure that there would be
Speaker 2: leaks about this client list and some names on it
Speaker 2: if there really were client lists. That's my view of things.
Speaker 1: We're talking to David Shoon, who is an attorney for
Speaker 1: Epstein when he was incarcerated, also has represented Donald Trump
Speaker 1: in the impeachment hearings. David, and again, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about particular names here, but it just seems to me
Speaker 1: that as you acknowledged Epstein had this let's say, very
Speaker 1: destructive lifestyle, these relationships that he had with women, it
Speaker 1: seems to me that based on the stuff that came
Speaker 1: out from JP Morgan a more than a billion dollars
Speaker 1: went through that they said was related to human trafficking.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to believe that Epstein kind of
Speaker 1: did this and kept it to himself, right, that none
Speaker 1: of the friends that went to the island, no one
Speaker 1: at all participated in this except for Epstein himself. So
Speaker 1: that seems to me to raise the question. It wasn't
Speaker 1: coercion necessarily, as you said, it doesn't have to be blackmail.
Speaker 1: It could have just been you know, friends hanging out
Speaker 1: of friends doing this stuff together. The problem that I
Speaker 1: have with this case is it seems like you had
Speaker 1: this massive amount of human trafficing that was taking place
Speaker 1: just on this one billion dollar figure. You had Maxwell
Speaker 1: go to jail, But there doesn't seem to have been
Speaker 1: any other investigation, certainly not any other prosecutions of anybody
Speaker 1: else that could have been involved in this prostitution slash
Speaker 1: human trafficking. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: Well, look, you're is a fair and important point, without
Speaker 2: any question. Look, my personal belief is that many of
Speaker 2: those wealthy people and so called prominent people engaged in
Speaker 2: his activities with him at the various places, but there
Speaker 2: may well not be a sufficient proof of it and
Speaker 2: so on. You know, I spoke out the other day
Speaker 2: and I don't talk about any sort of attorney client
Speaker 2: privileged information, but I spoke out the other day when
Speaker 2: mister Musk suggested that the reason records hadn't been produced
Speaker 2: is because someone was covering up from mister Trump. I
Speaker 2: can tell you unequivocally as I have said, that Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein had no information whatsoever about any nefarious activity with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, and I thought there was an important point
Speaker 2: to make. That's what happens these rumors get out there.
Speaker 2: I'm personally not one hundred percent satisfied with the JP
Speaker 2: Morgan figure that they can track that money to the
Speaker 2: human trafficking and all that. That's a different question. You
Speaker 2: ask an important question, why haven't there been any other investigations?
Speaker 2: And you can be sure again miss Maxwell would have
Speaker 2: spoken about other incidents that she was aware of, and
Speaker 2: she would have been aware of them. So I don't
Speaker 2: have the answer to that.
Speaker 3: Well, we do know, and David Show, we appreciate your
Speaker 3: time today. While the FBI is attempting to, I think
Speaker 3: end the discussion with their memo yesterday. The fact that
Speaker 3: we are talking about as much as we are a
Speaker 3: lot of other people are talking about it suggests that
Speaker 3: the opposite is true. So David showan thank you for
Speaker 3: your time. He's Peter Schweizer. I'm Eric Eggers. We host
Speaker 3: the podcast called The Drill Down. You can find at
Speaker 3: the drill down dot com. We'll be back with more
Speaker 3: Sean Handy Show right after this.
Speaker 1: I'm Peter Schweizer. This is Eric Eggers. We are filling
Speaker 1: in for the Sean Hannity Show today. We want you
Speaker 1: to join the car Conversation one in eight hundred nine
Speaker 1: four one seven, three two six So interesting. The Epstein
Speaker 1: bombshell that came out the conversation that we just had
Speaker 1: with David shown here's the problem. One of the problems
Speaker 1: people don't trust what the government has to say, even
Speaker 1: if it is people that they are familiar and comfortable with,
Speaker 1: like Cash Battel or like Panbonni. They don't trust the
Speaker 1: bowels of government. And one of the reasons, of course,
Speaker 1: is we had another revelation break right before the July
Speaker 1: fourth holiday, and that was this CIA assessment about Russia
Speaker 1: Gate and the fact that they were simply pushing product
Speaker 1: that they did not have confidence in. They claimed that
Speaker 1: it was high confidence that they had all this evidence
Speaker 1: that it was Russia collusion, when they admitted that they
Speaker 1: only had one source and low confidence in it. That's
Speaker 1: the problem, Peter Schweizer, that is Eric Eggers. We are
Speaker 1: filling in for Sean today. We have a podcast called
Speaker 1: The Drill Down. Please consider subscribing to it. We want
Speaker 1: you to join the conversation. We're going to get a
Speaker 1: little political here now right. We talked about the tragedy
Speaker 1: in Texas and the heroic efforts of the Coastguard. We've
Speaker 1: talked about the attempted killing of ICE agents. We've talked
Speaker 1: about the Jeffrey Epstein ruling from the DOJ and the FBI.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the big, beautiful bill. It passed barely
Speaker 1: passed by a couple of votes in the House. It
Speaker 1: passed in the Senate because Vice President J. D. Vance
Speaker 1: had to come in and cast the deciding vote. But
Speaker 1: it was signed by President Trump, and it's very interesting
Speaker 1: the tensions that have been created. We want to talk
Speaker 1: about the details of the bill, but also some of
Speaker 1: the reaction the Democrats is kind of predictable. But you
Speaker 1: also have Elon Musk out there wanting to start the
Speaker 1: America Party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll talk about Elon Musk, who's been steadfastly opposed
Speaker 3: to this bill, and we'll talk about his desire to
Speaker 3: create the America Party. Would love to hear your perspective
Speaker 3: on it. Give us a call. One eight hundred nine
Speaker 3: four one seven three two six that's nine four one Sean.
Speaker 3: Do you support the passage of the bill as in
Speaker 3: contrast with Elon Musk? I think there's several fascinating things
Speaker 3: about the past of this bill. Obviously a key tenant
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration. You know, it's been a massive priority.
Speaker 3: They did a whole bill signing ceremony on the fourth
Speaker 3: of July. They said they wanted to do that. There
Speaker 3: was and it's a credit to him and his political
Speaker 3: ability they were able to get it done by these
Speaker 3: narrow margins. You also, by the way, I think have
Speaker 3: to give Donald Trump credit just as a branding expert.
Speaker 3: We were talking about this a little bit earlier. What
Speaker 3: was the signature policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: The Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they called it the Affordable Care Act. No one
Speaker 3: calls it that. We all call it Obamacare, and not
Speaker 3: necessarily in a positive way. Under Joe Biden, his signature
Speaker 3: policy achievement.
Speaker 1: Was what the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 3: Right again, they try to do that, but we call
Speaker 3: it the Green New Deal, the Green New scam.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But Donald Trump just calling it the one big beautiful Bill,
Speaker 3: like everyone calls it that.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is that? What the name of a
Speaker 1: bill is?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't tell you anything about it's just
Speaker 1: a big beautiful bill. I actually looked on the congressional
Speaker 1: record and that is literally the name of the piece
Speaker 1: of legislation. This is not shorthand, that's literally the name
Speaker 1: of the bill. So you go on CNBC, You're going
Speaker 1: on these news outlets. They are talking about the big
Speaker 1: Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3: So it's sort of just genius that Trump has gotten
Speaker 3: news anchors and everyone to call this thing, which they
Speaker 3: oppose in many respects, the big beautiful bill. It is big,
Speaker 3: and according to depend upon your perspective, it is beautiful.
Speaker 3: It extends the tax cuts, It's got a massive increase
Speaker 3: in funding for ice and for immigration enforcement. That I
Speaker 3: think is the key for many of its supporters. Right,
Speaker 3: They say, the number one domestic priority continues to be
Speaker 3: enforcing immigration laws in this country and deporting people who
Speaker 3: shouldn't be here. This bill gives people funding to do that.
Speaker 3: It also, then, I think, tries to enact some of
Speaker 3: the efforts of DOGE bringing more security and credibility to
Speaker 3: some of these entitlement programs. What some people will tell
Speaker 3: you are cuts to Medicaid and cuts to SNAP are
Speaker 3: in fact just increases in work requirements or more paperwork requirements,
Speaker 3: more validity to make sure that the people that are
Speaker 3: receiving these benefits should be receiving the benefits. One thing
Speaker 3: I very much like you know you and I have
Speaker 3: spent some time talking about the SNAP program, EBT, the
Speaker 3: food stamps and how much fraud is there. A big
Speaker 3: deal now is that states may have to start in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight paying a portion of the food benefit costs.
Speaker 3: Previously states have only paid administrative costs. I'll tell you
Speaker 3: why that's a big deal, because right now, this is
Speaker 3: just how much Donald Trump has changed the conversation about
Speaker 3: entitlements and eradicating waste, fraud and abuse in those entitlement programs.
Speaker 3: The current setup, or at least before Donald Trump became president,
Speaker 3: the federal government awarded states who claim to have the
Speaker 3: lowest air rate in the administration of these foodstamp programs.
Speaker 3: So guess what states were then incentivized to do not
Speaker 3: report high error rates and there's been a lot of.
Speaker 1: Which is what fraud is regarded as an error.
Speaker 3: Rate now absolutely so the states with the most fraud
Speaker 3: would pretend it wasn't very much fraudulent, and they got
Speaker 3: paid by the federal government for doing so. We now
Speaker 3: are trying to reward states and say, no, you guys
Speaker 3: have to expose root out the fraud, and you guys
Speaker 3: are going to have to pick up a part of
Speaker 3: the check on this. So you renounce centivized to make
Speaker 3: sure your programs are well run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, here's the bottom line question on all
Speaker 1: of these programs, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security,
Speaker 1: you have to keep them viable, right, You have to
Speaker 1: keep them viable. And the problem with Medicaid is you
Speaker 1: had millions of illegal immigrants that ended up on Medicaid
Speaker 1: program States like California sign them up because they wanted
Speaker 1: to take those federal dollars. What this bill basically says
Speaker 1: is no, if states want to have illegal migrants on
Speaker 1: their medicaid roles, they have to pay for them themselves.
Speaker 1: The second thing that they do with medicaid is say, look,
Speaker 1: if you're able bodied, that's you know, determined by a
Speaker 1: medical doctor. If you are able bodied, you either have
Speaker 1: to work eighty hours a week, eighty hours a month, yeah,
Speaker 1: eighty hours a month, sorry, and that that's two weeks
Speaker 1: out of the month. Or if you can't find a job,
Speaker 1: or you're not looking for a job, maybe you're in
Speaker 1: a situation where you can't have one, you have to
Speaker 1: at least volunteer. The point is you have to do
Speaker 1: something constructive if you're sitting around playing video games, if
Speaker 1: you're sitting around on drugs and expecting people to just
Speaker 1: subsidize you. That's how we got to the point where
Speaker 1: where this program is so expensive and it's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: So these are really common sense remedies that are being pushed,
Speaker 1: and of course what Democrats are saying is no, they're
Speaker 1: cutting everybody's program, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's this truism that the federal government
Speaker 3: programs never get smaller, and unfortunately that's continued to be true.
Speaker 3: We saw massive increase in these spending programs during COVID,
Speaker 3: and it took years, even after the pandemic ended, for
Speaker 3: some of these programs to start to come back down.
Speaker 3: And now you're hearing the screams and the worst case scenarios.
Speaker 3: You know, this is always the case with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter what he does, we're presented with the worst
Speaker 3: case scenario. And the thing with Donald Trump is those
Speaker 3: worst case scenarios never proved to be true. We didn't
Speaker 3: invade Iran. We're able to just go after them and
Speaker 3: take out the nuclear capacity. We're able to you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't start world a civil war here by enforcing immigration,
Speaker 3: despite the best efforts of Gavin News and Karen Bass, right,
Speaker 3: And so now it's like, oh, well, you're gonna you're
Speaker 3: gonna kill people. You heard Larry Summer suggests that one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people will die over the next ten years
Speaker 3: because of this bill. By the way, those work requirements
Speaker 3: can be waived if state unemployment goes above ten percent.
Speaker 3: Do you know what state has the high Do you
Speaker 3: know what the highest unemployment rate is of any state?
Speaker 1: Now, California.
Speaker 3: It's California's close, But even the highest unemployment rates right
Speaker 3: now are still in the fives. It's actually Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: Interesting highest. California is like the fifth highest unmployment rate.
Speaker 3: But so the point is, these work requirements are going
Speaker 3: to be implemented because unemployment is not anywhere near where
Speaker 3: you'd be exempted from it. So yeah, if you are
Speaker 3: someone who currently is receiving these benefits, you will have
Speaker 3: to prove that you are attempting to do something to
Speaker 3: contribute to society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and why is that unreasonable? I don't understand. We
Speaker 1: know why it's being done for political reasons, but it's
Speaker 1: really an eminently responsible reform that ought to be supported
Speaker 1: by the way it used to be supported by Democrats.
Speaker 1: It was after all, Bill Clinton who back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six set up a work requirement to be on
Speaker 1: welfare to receive food stamps. So this used to be
Speaker 1: the position of at least some Democrats.
Speaker 3: And that's just one portion of the overall big beautiful
Speaker 3: bill structure. It's attempting to do three things as we
Speaker 3: understand it, right, They're trying to, okay, lower taxes for
Speaker 3: many individuals and so not, in addition to kind of
Speaker 3: making the tax that's from twenty seventeen, continue them in place.
Speaker 3: They lower to stay tax, they have lower tax on
Speaker 3: a number of other things, including corporations. So they wanted
Speaker 3: to do that. They wanted to cut some spending, which
Speaker 3: they're trying to do with getting rid of the waste,
Speaker 3: the fraud and abuse, which is what they're attempting to
Speaker 3: address in these financial programs here with the entitlements, and
Speaker 3: then with the tariffs, which we're expecting more news on
Speaker 3: that any day. They're a tempting to bring in new revenue.
Speaker 3: So like, those are the three streams they're trying to
Speaker 3: do at one time, which they think will ultimately benefit
Speaker 3: the economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's all going to come down to revenue
Speaker 1: and growth, right because all these estimates are ported by
Speaker 1: the Congressional Budget Office, they assume a low level of growth. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to explode the debt. The fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is if you have a high growth, it
Speaker 1: brings in large amounts of revenue. That's really going to
Speaker 1: help on the debt and on the deficit. And here's
Speaker 1: the interesting political jiu jitsu that's going on here. So
Speaker 1: you have, on the one hand, Donald Trump's big, beautiful
Speaker 1: bill comes and barely passes, but it does and he
Speaker 1: signs it. It's got all these good things in it.
Speaker 1: You have Democrats who say, oh, the cuts are horrific,
Speaker 1: it's going to kill all these people, and these tax
Speaker 1: cuts are responsible. And then you have Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: some members of the House of Representatives and in the
Speaker 1: Senate who said the cuts don't go far enough. In
Speaker 1: other words, Trump didn't go far enough in this direction.
Speaker 1: So you have these three sort of points of politics.
Speaker 1: And Elon Musk has said he apparently took a survey
Speaker 1: of his followers on Twitter x and they came out
Speaker 1: i think two to one saying they would support the
Speaker 1: formation of a third political party. And this is all
Speaker 1: based Musk says on the fact that the cuts did
Speaker 1: not go far enough. He argues that joj was disrespected,
Speaker 1: that all the efforts they took in doage to slash
Speaker 1: all of this waste and abuse has now been gutted
Speaker 1: by this bill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's interesting to see people who would
Speaker 3: support the idea of a third party. Yet, like in concept,
Speaker 3: I could see you being into it. But how many
Speaker 3: of the people who support Elon Musks creation of a
Speaker 3: third party would support that party being even more aggressive
Speaker 3: in terms of cutting government programs and entitlements. I suspect
Speaker 3: not very many of your pro cutting government spending. You're
Speaker 3: probably much more conservative, And I wonder I don't see
Speaker 3: a space in which a third political party is more conservative,
Speaker 3: although obviously Republicans haven't been great in terms of fiscal management.
Speaker 3: But you know, you get so much criticism, so much pushback,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't make sense. It's actually hypocritical, or at
Speaker 3: least it's contradictory because on the one hand, people say
Speaker 3: that this bill explodes the deficit, while at the same
Speaker 3: time people say the bill cuts medicaid for people who
Speaker 3: rely on it. You kind of can't say both.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And I would say to Elon Musk, there
Speaker 1: already is a third political party. It's called the Libertarian Party.
Speaker 1: They want to slash government extensively. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, Elon Musk says it's over principle if it's overcuts.
Speaker 1: But let's keep in mind the bill, the Big Beautiful Bill,
Speaker 1: did a couple of things that are not great for
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's businesses and not great for his bottom line. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one of the things in the bill is
Speaker 1: after September thirty, if it's ending the seventy five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars tax credit for evs for electric vehicles. Tesla produces
Speaker 1: large amounts of electric vehicles. The bill immediately scraps the
Speaker 1: highly profitable zero emission credits. Other automakers would buy these
Speaker 1: credits from Tesla so they could meet the admission requirement, sorry,
Speaker 1: the emission requirements from the federal government. In the first
Speaker 1: quarter of this year. Tesla would have actually lost money
Speaker 1: except for the fact that they were able to get these,
Speaker 1: you know, monetize these credits. And then finally the issue
Speaker 1: of tarifts. Tariffs are going to dramatically increase the cost
Speaker 1: for the Chinese batteries that Tesla actually uses. So maybe
Speaker 1: it's partly principle, but there's no question in my mind
Speaker 1: that he cannot be happy with some of the details
Speaker 1: of this bill and how it's going to affect his
Speaker 1: bottom line.
Speaker 3: So you're keeping score at home. Elon Musk is against
Speaker 3: the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill. The Big Beautiful
Speaker 3: Bill passes. You just mentioned three things in that bill,
Speaker 3: it will be very bad for Elon Musk. The bill passes,
Speaker 3: he says, he's going to start his own political party.
Speaker 3: That's essentially it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's got Mark Cuban and Anthony Scarmucci are
Speaker 1: two of the people who've said they're interested in joining
Speaker 1: this political party. It's interesting, by the way, he announced
Speaker 1: this new political party and then people put up documents
Speaker 1: from the Federal Election Commission saying that the party had
Speaker 1: been formed. They were fake. Elon Musk said, no papers
Speaker 1: have been filed, so sounds maybe like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a paper tiger. The other thing that's happened is
Speaker 1: Tesla stock is down eight percent with the announcement of
Speaker 1: this new political party. So maybe the people that have
Speaker 1: invested in his business are a little tired of the
Speaker 1: politics for Melon, and they're probably saying, get back to
Speaker 1: work and build those great businesses that you built in
Speaker 1: the past instead of trying to change the party system
Speaker 1: in the United States.
Speaker 3: It's you know, just like Donald Trump, it's probably impossible
Speaker 3: and not fair to try to put Elon Musk into
Speaker 3: a box. You know, not everybody fits as neatly into
Speaker 3: a box as something like oh, I don't know, mister mom.
Speaker 3: Donnie's race. As we found out over the weekend with
Speaker 3: the new York Times coverage is the African American. We're
Speaker 3: gonna talk about the New York mayor race, this push
Speaker 3: to make Democrats more socialists, what it means for the
Speaker 3: future of Democratic Party. We've got a lot more to
Speaker 3: get into in the Shawan Handy program. He's Peter Schweizer.
Speaker 3: I'm Eric Eggers. We host a podcast called The Drill Down,
Speaker 3: which you can find at the drill down dot com.
Speaker 3: We've backed with more Sean Handy. Right after this. Eric
Speaker 3: Eggers and Peter Schweitzer are filling in for Shawan Handy.
Speaker 3: We'd love to have you join our conversation. It's one
Speaker 3: eight hundred and nine for one, seven three six nine
Speaker 3: for one Shawn. We're gonna talk about the pending disaster
Speaker 3: about to impact New York City. That is the Zoron
Speaker 3: Mom Donnie mayoral campaign and on the other side of
Speaker 3: this break. But first, we've got some interesting news about
Speaker 3: one of the people connected to one of the people,
Speaker 3: Zoron Mam Donnie beat former aide to former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Speaker 3: Peter Schweizer is a Chinese agent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is Linda Son. She's charged by the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice for acting as an unregistered agent for
Speaker 1: the Chinese government. That was a case filed a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago. They are now accusing her just recently,
Speaker 1: alleging that she directed New York government contracts worth approximately
Speaker 1: thirty five million dollars to Chinese companies controlled by her
Speaker 1: husband and second cousin in exchange for large kickbacks. The
Speaker 1: question was she worked for the State of New York.
Speaker 1: Her husband was an unsuccessful businessman, but they had a
Speaker 1: four million dollar house on Long Island, a two million
Speaker 1: dollar condo in Hawaii, and a ferrari and they couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out how they made it. This is the explanation. Son,
Speaker 1: through an attorney, is denying the charge. But this happened
Speaker 1: during COVID, remember when there was a scramble for PPE supplies.
Speaker 1: Linda's son now has been charged with taking kickbacks in
Speaker 1: addition to acting as an agent for the Chinese government.
Speaker 3: Linda Sun, by the way, was the chief Diversity officer
Speaker 3: for Governor Quovo's office. And what I like is that
Speaker 3: when the New York Office was trying to get PPE
Speaker 3: equipment from China, they decided to reach out via Linda Sun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to pick the Chinese aide. She's the
Speaker 1: one to do it. Uh So, in the next hour
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about the political tsunami about
Speaker 1: to hit New York. Join the Conversation one eight hundred
Speaker 1: nine four one seven, three, two six