Matt Gaetz Show - Pearson Sharp, James Fishback, Allum Bokhari, Daniel Baldwin, Stefano Forte

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Canceled.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Not your favorite Republican influencer, the meeting between President Trump
and President Putin that could have resolved the war between
Russia and Ukraine. Owen's Pearson Sharp joins us in moments
to analyze the situation in that ongoing conflict. Plus Schumer's
government shutdown just became the second longest in history. We've
got Azoria CEO James fishback here to explain how the

(00:22):
markets are reacting and what to expect for the economic
future of a government in shutdown. And the left is
freaking out about White House renovations?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Is that real?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oen's chief White House correspondent, Daniel Baldwin will join us
this hour to tell us about President Trump's plan to
build a gilded ballroom for America's Golden Age. It's all
next to the Matt Gates Show.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Let's do this shaking up Washington, d C. We're breaking
the fever.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Do you ever watch this guy in television?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It's like a machine.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
He's great Matt Gates.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
As we join you this evening, our attention turns to
the on going war between Russia and Ukraine. Russian forces
have intensified drone and missile strikes on civilian energy infrastructure
in northern Ukraine, killing at least four and leaving hundreds
without water or power. I'm sorry, that's hundreds of thousands,
I should say. Meanwhile, European states like Ukraine are crafting

(01:18):
a twelve point peace proposal that would freeze current battle
lines and place a US chaired board under President Donald
Trump to oversee the implementation of a peace plan. We
have real questions about whether or not the United States
wants to be the Homeowners' Association of Eastern Ukraine determining
who can go where and plant what flag. Then there

(01:39):
is the meeting now that won't happen. President Trump indicated
he was willing to meet with President Putin in Budapest
in the coming weeks. The stage was set for Trump
and Putin to meet, shake hands, and just maybe put
a band aid on the bleeding mess that is the
Russia Ukraine War. But then poof canceled faster than a

(01:59):
bud Light sponsorship at a country music festival. Trump wanted
to freeze the battle lines.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Putin refused.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh and Zone Pearson Sharp was recently at the front
lines of this war in the Dominus region. He joins
US now so Pearson. When I saw the Budapest meeting canceled,
I'll admit I was discouraged because I believe that President
Trump and President Putin have the ability to end this war.
Why was Putin unwilling to accept Trump's terms for a meeting?

Speaker 4 (02:28):
So I think that's kind of putting all the blame
on Putin, and well, I am to be clear, well,
of course, yeah, well not surprising, but to be fair,
before we even start, we don't actually know what happened.
We don't know what was said, we don't know what
the terms were. And to be clear, I'm hearing from
people in Russia that the deal is actually still on,
the meeting is going to happen, and that all of

(02:49):
this is disinformation in the West is trying to shut
these meetings down.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
And breaking some news for you to give credit to that.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Victor Orbun of Hungary said the meetings are still on
and they're still going to have happened. The date hasn't
been seid or, he hasn't announced a date anyway, but
he said they're still ongoing.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Kil Dimitrio again, to be clear, you're you were recently
in Russia, You're well sourced in Russia, and what you're
saying is their officials who are close to the Russian government.
There are media officials in Russia who still expect this
to happen, Yes, and what they believe is actually there's
some folks on the American side trying to get in.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
The way of that piece, trying to stop.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
But that archetype which you just described, I don't think
is all that dissimilar to some of the tomfoolery we've
seen in the Middle East, where President Trump is constantly
trying to get the decision makers in the room to
carve out peace, and there are people who want to
continue violence.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
We have warhawks who want to keep this going. But
Kirol Dmitriev came out and said that this is still
ongoing and don't believe the media.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
So we'll see. I don't know what the facts are,
but that's what's being said.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Okay, Well, then then my blame directed at Putin is this,
I don't believe he has been sufficiently willing to work
with Trump to be Trump's partner in this peace.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Plan, Like, why is this stupid war still going.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
On because their terms haven't been met. What we're seeing
right now is a one sided story. All we're getting is, well,
you know, the West offered the olive branch and Putin refused.
He wants war. We don't know that. The question is
what kind of peace and on whose terms? Because Putin
and Russia from the beginning have outlined what their requirements

(04:25):
are for peace, and at this point they want a
reduction of sanctions, They want recognition of the Donbass region
as Russian.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
I mean, at this point it would be like if the.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
US had to give up Texas to solve a border war,
like that may be realistic. That's not California, but well, yeah, okay,
but from Russia's point of view, that's what they're looking
at this like, they don't this is their territory.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Why should they have to give it up?

Speaker 4 (04:50):
And to say okay, we're going to freeze the fighting
right here wherever it is, doesn't give them the twenty
five percent remaining of Donbass that they say is actually theirs.
They want relief from sanctions, they want these security guarantees,
and we have this image that Russia is constantly attacking.
You know, if Trump offered piece yesterday and Russia is
bombing Ukraine today, what we don't hear is Ukraine is

(05:12):
also bombing Russia. They just attacked a school, They're bombing civilians.
That doesn't get reported. So it's all very one sided.
Both sides are you know, their fingers are dirty at
this point.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
But we only ever hear one side of it.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
But if Putin has a vision for peace in this circumstance,
known't why doesn't he agree to the terms to get
eyeball to eyeball with Trump to work those things out, Because,
Frankly Pearson, I don't think this is about, you know,
is the battle line a few kilometers this way or
a few kilometers that way. I think what Russia actually
needs is a security structure in Europe that.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
They can live with. Yeah, and that includes a buffer.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
And sometimes that buffer is going to be in the
form of geography. But I think there are diplomatic buffers
that can be provided to like not admitting Ukraine and
a NATO would be a dimblematic great and see.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
It, we're not offering them that, We're not offering them anything.
We're just saying Trump put it on truth.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Trump put on truth social that Ukraine wasn't going to
join NATO. Trump was doing everything he can to end
this war, and I look at Putin as somebody who
you know, I wonder is he trying to externalize his
own conflict.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
I don't think we Again, I don't think we know
what the details are. But the fact is that we've
seen a lot of very good progress recently. Last week, Marco,
Rubio and Lavrov had a great talk. Then we had
Trump and Putin had a great talk. And after that
talk it was so good in fact that Trump took
Tomahawk missiles off the table for Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So that would be a terrible idea about it.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Could just take a moment on that if we were
to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, the risk of accidents,
the risk of escalation.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Accident, Well, I don't think it would be an accident.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
But what I mean is you could have a circumstance
where Ukraine wasn't even launching Tomahawk missiles, but there could
be an accident in an assessment there that would result
in escalation, Like the fog of war can create accidents
just in perception. And I think when you start injecting
Tomahawk missiles into this fight, you don't make an end closer.
You make it more likely that this is going to

(07:10):
be an escalatory environment, Like right now, is it a
de escalatory environment, an escalatory environment, or does this just
keep rolling on.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
It's somewhere in the middle, because.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Why should Putin stop At this point, He's winning, They've
gained three thousand square miles of territory just this year.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
He is winning.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Ukraine is losing, and there's no reason for him to
stop what he considers a matter of national security securing
Ukraine's borders. And the other thing that I want to
point out that nobody is talking about, Russia is in
a position where the United States and NATO, which formed
an ally to basically combat Russia a long time ago,

(07:54):
we have over one hundred bases, military bases, airfields right
on Russia's border all through Europe. We have thousands, tens
of thousands of troop military equipment, missiles pointed out Russia.
The United States of America has over one hundred nuclear
weapons in Europe pointed at Russia. Meanwhile, Russia doesn't have

(08:18):
any basis on our borders. So who is actually being
aggressive in this situation. Russia is trying to secure their
national sovereignty and Ukraine is a big part of that.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
And I think no one's discussing this. I want to
answer the question, why should Russia stop because this is
bad for business for them?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Right, Russia's end state should be re onboarding to the
global financial love that.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, sure, but they have to stop shooting at Ukraine.
We have to give them a reason to do that. Well.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
By the way, that economic cooperation I think can be
the bedmark of the reason. That's obviously how Trump views
a lot of these foreign policy questions. He believes economic
cooperation is step one to broader peace and broader just
recognition of another entity's opportunity and right to exist.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
They would love to open up at this point, but
they're not hurting right now. The sanctions from my experience
in there, have not affected the people. You ask anybody
and they'll say what sanctions. Their economy is growing. Things
look very good for them at this point. They're building
ties with other people. We're pushing them away, they're establishing
internal independence. So on top of that, they're gaining territory

(09:27):
in Ukraine. They are achieving their objectives.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Do you think that Russia worries about further isolation from
other allies? I look at Finland. You know, Finland was.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
I was in a rocky relationship forever, but a rocky relationship.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
But Finland was never considering joining NATO before this conflict.
Now they're a member of NATO. I don't know that
that makes Europe any safer. It it could create more
of this encirclement dynamic that's led to violence. But I
wonder if that's just the front end to the wave,
and if there are concerns with Russia that other countries

(10:04):
would be more willing to.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Isolate them, probably at some point, but again, this is
a matter of national security and life and death for them.
I don't think they're going to back down on this
issue unless we give them these absolute guarantees that they've
been asking for from the beginning. From the beginning, they've
been asking for this.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I think it's going to take a meeting to get there.
Piac Yeah, so if.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I'm concerned, you know this meeting's off. You're saying that
there still is an appetite for it in Hungary and
in Russia.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I know for a fact.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
There's an appetite to get together and work this thing
out on President Trump's behalf. So when do you think
it will happen? What's the timeline and horizon you're looking
at it.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
I think within the next couple of weeks, I think
we're still going to see a meeting.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
And what's the key change in circumstance you think that
brings us from where we are to that possibility.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Oh man, that's a great question.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
Again, there's so much happening inside this that we don't see.
I think Trump and Putin have a much greater understanding
of each other and the situation than we appreciate from
this perspective. But like this non paper that was apparently
released by Russia, you know, we leaked that, and I
think we leaked that intentionally to get the to get
ahead of the messaging before Russia can put out their version.

(11:17):
So all of this, I think is a propaganda war.
Russia is saying the meeting's still on, We're saying the
meetings off, and I think it's everybody's sort of posturing
to niggle behind the scenes to get what they want.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, it's worked on me because I'm admittedly annoyed that
President Putin hasn't done more to meet President Trump at
that end state that I think it looks like some
sort of buffer for Russia, some sort of agreement that
Russia is included in Europe's security strategy, not isolated as
a consequence of it. And then cooperation in the areas

(11:49):
where we can cooperate in the Arctic resource extraction, countering
radical Islamic extremism.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, there are.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Obvious areas of cooperation, and I think it would benefit
both of our countries. And I hope that the nitpicking
you've kind of described comes to an end very soon.
Pierson Sharp the best sourced man in what's going on
in this part of the world.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
I cannot wait.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
You've got a big special coming up on One American News,
and you're going to bring the viewer inside your trip
to Russia, the incredible people you met, the incredible interdus.
I can't wait for it. Pierson, Thanks Rap, thanks for
being on the program. And coming up we will discuss
the economics of the ongoing shutdown with James Fishback. He's
been watching the markets and where to invest if this

(12:29):
thing keeps rolling along. As Chuck Schumer tries to bring
himself back to some sense of logic or reason.

Speaker 5 (12:41):
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(14:35):
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Speaker 2 (14:51):
Welcome back to the Matt Kaves Show, where government shutdowns
are just another form of intermittent fasting for Washington, but
instead of losing weight, we're just watching Senate Democrat leader
Chuck Schumer lose his mind.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
And Chuck Schumer is he's got I think he's mentally gone.
He's been beat up by young radical lunatics.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
The shutdown is costing about one hundred and forty million
dollars a day in delayed pay and lost productivity. There
could be real impacts from that. Wall Street, of course,
is watching this like a Netflix drama. Markets dipped slightly
early in the week, but we have seen rebounding once
traders realize that the irs might be closed. They've already
had like half of their employees furloughed. I guess nothing

(15:35):
makes investors smile like the tax man taking a vacation.
The last time Washington shut down this long, Stock's actually
rose three percent by the end of it.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
So maybe the.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Real stimulus plan is just keeping Congress out of the
building joining us. Now the CEO of Zoria James fishback.
So James, how are markets going to react if this
shutdown just keeps going along?

Speaker 6 (15:58):
Well, if a tree falls in the forest and no
one's there to hear it, Matt, did it really even
make a noise? I mean, looking at the markets, there's
no real evidence that the markets are in any way
concerned about it. In fact, the markets may actually be
celebrating the prospect of another round of doge, that President
Trump is actually using this opportunity to once again streamline government.
And so all eyes are on the Friday CPI report,

(16:20):
that's the inflation report that's coming out now, one week
before the Fed meeting next Wednesday, where the markets have
roughly an eighty percent probability that the Fed will deliver
yet another twenty five basis point rate cut. Again too little,
too late from a guy, of course, who goes by
too late. But the big picture, Matt, is no signs
that the markets are concerned about the government shutdown, or

(16:40):
that the average American is The average American keeps their
head down, keeps working hard, keeps saving up, and is
not going to let Washington, DC hold them back.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I get that President Trump has ameliorated a lot of
the economic harm that could have come to the shutdown
by ensuring that a lot of essential workers continue to
be paid. Our military continues to be paid. Representative military
district shutdowns were never fun because when the military is
not getting paid, small businesses aren't seeing cash flow, and

(17:08):
there starts to be some pressure on the lawmakers to
get it resolved. Do you think that any of these
Democrat senators who continue to vote against opening the government
will ever feel pressure at any point in time if
President Trump's tools to ameliorate those those economic pressures are
in any way kind of depleted over a term of

(17:30):
days or weeks.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
That's exactly right, Matt, And you know that you are
well loved out in fl One. Egglin Air Force Base
is just one example of the incredible, courageous service members
who represent Northwest Florida. But to the big picture here,
this is the only downside, of course, to President Trump
coming up with novel solutions to dealing with the Schumer shutdown.
Will you bring up in particular, is using terror prevenue

(17:53):
or using access funding to support our service members or
to support women and infant children with a snap program.
It does take away the accountability mechanism which is pissed
off constituents all over our home state of Florida or
anywhere in the country calling up their Democratic congressman saying, wait,
why are you in bed with Chuck Schumer and AOC
and Quem Sombrero Jeffries, Why aren't you voting to reopen

(18:15):
our government and to do right by the people. And
so that is the only downside of President Trump's novel
solutions of using tariff revenue and excess funds here and
there is that it doesn't it's short circuits the full
accountability mechanism that would come from pissed off constituents.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
It does sound like you're saying a lot of the
features of the shutdown are kind of baked into the market.
But if someone believed that there wasn't really going to
be a come to reason moment for Chuck Schumer and
President Trump is certainly not going to be held hostage.
As he said the other day, like, what are the
things that you bet on? What are the stocks you

(18:50):
pick if you're betting for the shutdown.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
To go on, promont.

Speaker 6 (18:55):
That's a great question, I think you. It's actually not
what you necessarily pick, Matt, it's what you want to avoid. Anybody,
like a government contractor a defense contractor that relies on
the large ESTs and the abuse and the exploitation of
the taxpayer by the appropriators, they're not going to be
in good shape because they're not getting any money. And
so it's less about what you would buy and more

(19:15):
about what you would avoid it. So you think of
the big defense contractor names that for far too long
have profited on these pointless foreign wars, they're going to
be in big trouble at the shutdown continues, and they
should be because they've profited for too long on taxpayer
money being sent abroad for pointless reasons.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
You mentioned the supercharged powers that the Office of Management
and Budget has under a shutdown, and it does seem
they've drawn a bead on some of those foreign expenditures.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
But are there expenditures here at.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Home domestically that you would advise Russfode and Dan Bishop
to take a real hard look at during this time
when they've got the ability to end things that aren't working.

Speaker 6 (19:54):
Absolutely, there are a range of programs. You think about
USA and all the boondoggles that were sent ver Sias,
but there are a range of domestic programs, whether it's
for LGBT youth or phone lines for DEI, whatever it
may be. If there is literally a dollar to be
saved these riff reduction in force, whether it's actually going
in and ripping up particular expenditures, they should absolutely do it.

(20:16):
And anything that could be contested, push for it. Let
the courts rule on this, and we can take it
all the way up to the top where you know, Matt,
we've got that six to three majority because of President
Trump's leadership in his first term and your stern support
for good constitutional justices, and so I say push the
envelope here. But the Democrats have to own it. If
they don't want to see their pet projects defunded, they've

(20:37):
got to come to the table and at the end
of the day, the public debate the marketplace of ideas.
Let them defend whether it's the health insurance subsidies that
apparently we're supposed to only be around for a year
that are now getting extended into perpetuity. They have to
actually own own up to that.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Let's talk about those healthcare subsidies. It does seem that's
the principal demand of Democrats at this time.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
But there are COVID era.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Subsidies like they when they were put in place, the
notion that they were going to live forever wasn't really
part of the promise. Now they're suggesting that, like healthcare
in America itself, is going to crumble if we don't
have an extension of COVID subsidies and Obamacare subsidies. Do
you think that they're like, when does the market start

(21:21):
to react to the piling up debt and deficits from
the spending demands that are coming principally from Democrats.

Speaker 6 (21:31):
That is the million dollar question. Perhaps it's even the
thirty seven trillion dollar question, if we want to get
pecific to the national debt figures.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Matt.

Speaker 6 (21:38):
What's amazing, though, is there's nothing more permanent. And you've
seen it on the inside, you know how the sausage
is made. There is nothing more permanent in DC than
in a temporary emergency government subsidy. These were COVID era
healthcare emergency subsidies that might have made reasonable sense at
the time, given how little we knew in the first
couple of weeks, it very became quickly clear that this

(22:00):
is not what we thought it was or what the
Democrats wanted to push on us, the alarmists. But how
are we the unreasonable ones for pushing back on it,
for saying, no, we don't need to spend hundreds of
billions of dollars to prop up the failed Obamacare regime.
And at the end of the day, what I think
Centerpublicans have proposes a great step forward is Democrats reopen
the government, stop voting for the shutdown, and then we

(22:21):
can have a separate debate, a separate vote on these
health insurance subsidies. And if you actually have the merit
and the evidence behind your argument, then you can win
in the court of public opinion and translate that support
and sentiment into votes on the House and Senate floor,
and so they stop holding the government hostage. That is
the real problem. Let's have an open and separate debate

(22:42):
about healthcare substanies, which we know we're going to win that,
but don't hold our service members at gunpoint over this
government shutdown fiasco.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, I mean like they're taking the position that the
air traffic controllers shouldn't be paid so that they could
argue how long a COVID subsidy lasts.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
And again you're right at the when you said at
the beginning of our discussion that a lot of Americans
are still going about their lives, the economies humming along
because President Trump just hasn't stopped. But if you really
look at the medium and long term impacts of what
the Democrats are doing, I actually think it could have
a pretty significant impact.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
And it would be.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Really sick if that was the point of all this,
if they actually want to see negative economic impact, because
so many of the policies that you've been advocating for
that we talk about of President Trump are working. James Fishback,
CEO of Zoria, thanks for coming on and explaining your
position on this.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
We always appreciate your expertise.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Thanks Matt, and coming up, we'll check in on the
state of democracy. It turns out there are a number
of liberals whining that democracy isn't really democracy if it
results in figures on the right winning elections. Alan Baccari
has been following the matter closely for the Foundation for Freedom.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Online, and he's here next.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
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(24:20):
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Speaker 2 (26:08):
Last evening, we learned from Congressman Jim Jordan that the
House Judiciary Committee is referring Obama CIA director John Brennan
for criminal prosecution based on lies he told when I
was questioning him.

Speaker 7 (26:20):
You're not supposed to lie, but you're definitely not supposed
to lie when you're under oath in front of the
United States Congress. And it looks like that's exactly what
John Brennan did. And one of the individuals he lied
to is the host of the Matt Gays Show. When
you asked him, I thought a great question about the dossier,
and he said, I had no involvement with the dossier.
He told the committee that he didn't want the dossier

(26:41):
in any way referenced in the Intelligence Community assessment.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
But guess what.

Speaker 7 (26:46):
Tulsey Gabberd released the classified version she declassified the Hipsie report,
and it says just the opposite. It says Brennan was
up to his eyeballs with the dossier that.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
He actually put in writing. He wanted it in the report.

Speaker 7 (27:00):
And the best one was when another CIA official came
to mister Brennan and said, you know, mister Brennan, there's
no intelligence to support the dossier. It's ridiculous. It shouldn't
be in this report. He says, yeah, but doesn't it
ring true, which I think got to his motive. He
was out to get the president.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Okay, So clearly what Jim Jordan just described, there is
an attack on democracy that occurred as democrats, we're accusing
us of attacking democracy, But some are asking what the
state of democracy even looks like in twenty twenty five.
If it looks like this, I'm probably out.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
So this is what democracy looks like. This is what
democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like. This
is what democracy.

Speaker 5 (27:49):
Looks what.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
That is what alone and sad looks like.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
A new article published by the Foundation for Freedom Online
analyzes liberal pundits arguing that when populist leaders are overwhelmingly elected,
somehow that isn't democracy. We aren't so sure about that.

Speaker 8 (28:09):
Many devotees of MAGA, you themselves is supremely committed to
democracy and democratic self government, and the Republican Party in Alabama,
which is mega dominated, achieved sixty seventy percent results. I
think this goes to a bigger question that we haven't
really addressed as to whether democracy itself is a desirable

(28:33):
at least unfiltered, uncut democracy is a desirable form of government.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Joining us now Managing director of the Foundation for Freedom Online,
Alan Bacari so Alim, it seems that after spending years
lecturing us about democracy, democrats and other liberals may not
be so into it after they've lost elections.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
What are we to make of it?

Speaker 9 (28:53):
So yeah, we have this new report of the Foundation
for Freedom Online about the VP of Freedom House, which
was a US government back nonprofit. They get the majority
of their funding from the State Department eighty million dollars
in government grants in twenty twenty three alone, actually according
to the figures from that year, And one of their

(29:16):
vps was on a live stream a couple of months
before the twenty twenty four election that was literally titled
is democracy a democratic form of government? And you know,
you even watch the videos and our report, all the panelists,
including this VP, are saying, well, it's a huge problem
that populist are succeeding around the world. We need to

(29:38):
do something about this, We need to empower judges. The
VP of Freedom House himself talks about how populism is
dangerous and majoritarian and ethnically nationalists. And keep in mind,
this is a nonprofit whose sole purpose is to go
around the world country by country, putting countries on lists

(29:59):
and whether whether on the basis of whether they're democratic
or not. You know, this is a non profit that
talks about how El Salvador is democratically backsliding because it
clean up crime, or that Victor Auban's Hungary is democratically
backsliding because despite winning huge majorities, they kicked out George
Soros's ngngos. And here they are questioning, you know, with

(30:22):
literally our livestream saying is democracy, a democratic form of government.
You can't make this stuff up.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I did not enjoy watching Stanford beat Florida State University
in football, but when I left the game, I didn't
say I wasn't watching football, right, I mean, we are
watching democracy in places like El Salvador and in Hungary.
They are producing results that some elites in America may
not like. But in those countries those leaders are very

(30:51):
popular and that's why they keep winning. So we just
played this clip from the VP who says, we can't
have uncut democracy. So what is like what democracy look
like to them?

Speaker 9 (31:02):
Yeah, they use that phrase, they use unfiltered democracy. They
use the phrase guard rails guard rails as a particular
favorite term for them, and they use guardrails to this product.
There needs to be guardrails on democracy. You'll hear them
talk about them with social media as well. They need
to be guardrails on social media. They need to be
guard rails or artificial intelligence. And all they're talking about

(31:24):
is what can we do to ensure that our ideology
triumphs regardless of what the voters say, regardless of what
results electors turn up. And in the other clips you'll
hear them talking about how to empower judges to overturn
the will of the people in these countries where they're
not getting the election results they want. And this has

(31:45):
been a theme we've seen from these sorts of people,
these democracy experts. You know, how can we give more
power to judges to block what democratically elected governments do.
This is obviously the strategy they used at the start
of the Trump administration to block some of his big moves,
and they want to do it in on the concrees
as well. So that's what they mean by god rails,

(32:05):
that's what they mean by cutt and uncut democracy. They're
just talking about how they can dilute the results of
these elections.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Typically you put up guard rails to stop a car
from going off the road, but in this case, they
just don't like the fact that what is driving the car.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Is the will of the people.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
And we've observed frequently that the judiciary is like the
last bastion of what the elites control. What we've shown
is you can elect a populist congressman, you can elect
a populist US senator. We've even elected a populist United
States president, but it's very hard to get populist judges,
because the mechanism by which one becomes a federal judge

(32:42):
or an appellate judge is typically you know, you're the
head of the local bar association. Both of your senators
agreed to not issue a blue slip, and there's a
credentialing process there that is often out of reach of
populist legal minds. Is is that something that needs reform

(33:03):
in order to get in front of some of the
barriers to democracy that some of these some of these
like fascists masquerading as democratic promoters would would have us believe.

Speaker 9 (33:14):
I think so they do have a massive advantage here
just in terms of recruitment, just because you know, the
whole system is so heavily tilted towards especially the education
system as well. Right law schools they just churn out
liberal judges and liberal lawyers, and there are these huge
nonprofits that exist as well to support liberal, liberal justices.

(33:34):
It's very part of them is very heavily weighted in
one direction. And I think I agree that that is
that that is a massive problem. It's it's kind of
but the positive thing is it's sort of the last
straw that they're grasping at because they know they've lost
the democratic argument. They know they don't have the dominance
of the legacy media anymore to promote their narrative. Who

(33:56):
set the agenda, because that's been that's been a whittled
way by independent media like OAAN, by social media, by podcasters,
by so many other things. So you know, this reliance
on judges is kind of a last straw for them,
and it can only work so far when they don't
when they don't control the information environen.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I wonder what populists on the left are thinking about this.
I am often criticized when I take positions that sometimes
are contrarian to the Republican zeitgeist, and people will say, oh, well,
like you're against surveillance, you're on the same side as
ilhan O mar or you know you're for banning congressionals
dock trading. That's something AOC believes. I never minded working

(34:38):
with left wing populists to achieve the objectives that I
wanted to achieve, But in this case, like the way
the Democratic Party is moving, is definitely away from the
Chuck Schumer types and more toward the Zoron Mamdani archetype.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Are leftist populists.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Going to accept this viewpoint that the real democracy is
a democracy where the voting is really just a recommendation
and at the end of the day, the elites get
to make the operative decisions.

Speaker 9 (35:07):
Well, look, I think leftist populist would be a disaster
in many ways. I think Zoram Mandam would be a
disaster for New York. I think Jeremy Corbyn would have
been a disaster in the United Kingdom. But there's no
doubt that a lot of these tactics that have been
used to shut up and thwart the populist right when
they've been successful in elections have also been used against

(35:29):
the populist left. Or just thinking about Jeremy Corbyn, and
again he would have been a terrible prime minister in
my opinion. But you take an organization like the Center
for Countering Digital Hate, which was used to promote censorship
in the United States on social media, including of RFK Junior.
They put him on a list of disinformation agents during COVID.
They were set up actually to go after Jeremy Corbyn

(35:51):
and the populist left in the UK, and that's how
that's their origin story. And then they then turn their
attentions to the populist right in the US, and obviously
you know there are other cases. Bernie Sanders famously famously
screwed over by the DNC on many, many occasions, despite

(36:12):
the fact that he was so popular, probably the single
most popular candidate in some of these contests. So you see,
you see the same attempts to thwart democracy against the
populist left as well. So it's something and online censorship
as well. Like I said, the Center for Countering Digital
Hate in the UK initially went after Jeremy Corbyn, so
it really is used against both.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Science there seems to be a lot of skepticism about
centralized power among young people on the political left and
on the political right. As you analyze the right and
the left in the United States, which movement do you
think centralizes power most and which is democratizing power most.

Speaker 9 (36:53):
It's hard to say, really, but I mean, because you
have you have this deep steak right, A lot of
the pressure for online censorship came from government agencies, and
most of that was frankly targeted against the first Trump administration.
That's when all of this arose. In fact, some of

(37:14):
the research on this you look at how often government
grants cite disinformation as their reason for existing, and it
basically doesn't exist before twenty sixteen. But after twenty sixteen
you see hundreds and hundreds of government grants with disinformation
or misinformation in the name. So all of this pressure
for online censorship to blunt populist movements happened because Trump

(37:36):
won that election. So there's definitely a partisan's sense of it,
because the populist right has been more successful at winning elections.
That's what the censorship industry, that's what the democracy experts
who want to thought democracy have focused on.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
You begin this discussion by pointing to the fact that
the entities that we're talking about, you know, how to
sand the populist edges off of actual democracy, had received
government funding. You know, we now are in this shutdown.
It seems the Office of Management and Budget has supercharged
powers to be able to terminally end some of the

(38:12):
things that cost taxpayers a lot of money over time.
How would you assess the Trump administration's approach to rooting
out the funding of the censorship industrial complex.

Speaker 9 (38:24):
Well, they came in on day one and pasted an
executive order saying government money can no longer go to
entities that promote online censorship, whether it's through disinformation studies
or anything else. And Freedom House is another great example
because this is a nonprofit that was set up off
the World War Two basically by the government and has

(38:44):
been primarily funded by the State Department throughout its entire existence,
and its entire existence owed to the fact that that's
an arm of US influence because it help it's help
perpots to pinpoint and condemn other countries that aren't aren't
to toeing the line, as it were, and they're the
countries that get called anti democratic. They're the countries that

(39:05):
get called accused of democratic backsliding. And like I said,
El Salvador's at least example of this, but they lost
a lot of their funding because Donald Trump cut USAID
at the start of his administration and a lot of
their funding came from there.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, it's so interesting that they like in places like
El Salvador, where the people show up and are just
genuinely overwhelmingly happy with the leadership of President bukel A
and his party, they continue to vote for him, and
yet you hear this criticism as a consequence of result.
And there's a certain there's a certain tag. They use
illiberal democracy, right, that's well, that might be a democracy,

(39:41):
but it's an illiberal democracy.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
And that's the slight.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
And I guess the vision for democracy that they would
present is what is it? Is it more like what
we see in the UK, where you do have hate
speech laws and empowered judges. Like the folks that hold
these views, what is the kreme delacrame of democracy in
their mind? If the people showing up and overwhelmingly voting
for President Trump or President Bucelly somehow offends their sensibilities

(40:08):
on democracy.

Speaker 9 (40:10):
Oh that certainly love hate speech laws, no doubt. I
will say one thing about the UK. Judges are actually
not very powerful in the UK because Parliament is sovereign
and Parliament has the ability to completely reform the judiciary
if it wants to. In fact, one of the proposals
from Reform UK, which is the new insurgent populist party
in the UK, that is really troubling this faction, this

(40:35):
anti democratic faction, is the fact that on one of
their first actions is going to be to withdraw from
the European Convention on Human Rights, and that is the
European law which has empowered judges in the UK to
block things like deportations. But because the judiciary is not
actually an independent third branch in the UK as it

(40:56):
is in the US, Parliament can do that as long
as the House of Common passes a law saying we're
withdrawing from this where reforming the judiciary, there's nothing that
can really stop that. So that's the other thing I'll
say there. Not every country is the same in terms
of the balance of powers between the judiciary and the legislature,
and I'm saying the UK it's actually chilted quite heavily

(41:17):
in favor of the legislature.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, it seems though the commentators that we're critiquing now
just want to tilt it in favor of the judges
and away from the actual vote of the people. Aliabapari
Foundation for Freedom Online. Thank you so much for joining
us and sharing your perspective.

Speaker 9 (41:31):
Thanks Matt.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
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slash Matt code Matt ten. And coming up, President Trump
has big plans for the East Room. There's going to
be a ballroom that will outlast the Trump presidency. Daniel
Baldwin will explain why the media is going crazy about it.

Speaker 6 (42:34):
Next.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
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(44:29):
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forty five and express yourself with no fear of cancelation.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Ever.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Now, for one hundred and fifty years, they've wanted a
ballroom here.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
We don't have a ballroom. We have a little cocktail area.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
I said, if I do this again, I'm gonna get
a ballroom built in. We're putting up our own money
with the government just paying for nothing. You probably hear
the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear
that sound, Oh that's music to my ears.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
I love that sound. Other people don't like it.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
I love it, Josh. I think when I hear that sound,
it reminds me of money. In this case, it reminds
me of lack of money because I'm paying for it.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
So it's the appissore.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
He's the ballroom builder in chief. That man knows how
to build a ballroom. I actually had my first date
with my wife in President Trump's ballroom, got engaged to
my wife right there outside the ballroom. So if anyone's
going to build ao a ballroom in the East Wing,
I'm glad it's President Trump. He's touting his plan for
this bold renovation at the White House. They're demolishing the
East Wing to build this magnificent ballroom that would serve

(45:46):
as a beautiful place for elegance date dinners. President Trump
is hardly the first president to propose or execute renovations
at the White House, but the Democrats and members of
the mainstream press have just gone into total meltdown over this.
Gavin News posted on X Ripping apart the White House
is just like he's ripping apart the Constitution. Hillary Clinton
piled on saying, quote, it's not his house, it's your house,

(46:09):
and he's destroying it.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Again.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
This from the same Hillary Clinton that was a part
of the administration that was renting out the Lincoln Bedroom
to donors. Trump's goal is to make this planned ballroom classy,
decked out with signature Trump touches like gold chandeliers, marble floors,
and maybe even an iPad so he can dj a
view of few events himself.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Critics will whine about.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
History history the East wings just like an add on
from the nineteen forties. It's not like he's painting over
Mount Rushmore for a parking lot.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
So what's all the hub ub about joining us now?

Speaker 2 (46:40):
One American News chief White House correspondent Daniel Baldwin. So,
Daniel tell us about the plans for the new ballroom, Well.

Speaker 10 (46:49):
Matt, I think there's a lot of fake outrage over
this from liberal media outlets and people who generally just
dislike the President and don't enjoy anything. I can tell
you from a reporter perspective, many reporters are actually happy
out of the ballroom, considering there's been a lot of
different space issues for covering President Trump's event. I can
tell you firsthand. There was one event back in August

(47:10):
where President Trump decided to federalize the DC Police Force
and crack down on crime. Here in Washington, DC. The
President held a press conference in the James Brady Press
Briefing Room, and in order to get a decent spot,
I actually had to show up at six point thirty
in the morning, about four hours in advance of that
specific press briefing, just to get a decent shot at
asking the President a question. I succeeded but I had

(47:32):
to stand in place for a better part of five
to six hours, and I've never seen a room that
crowded before even the presidents that I've never seen the
briefing room this crowded. Considering the vast amount of media
interest there is and covering the White House under this administration,
there's been many people saying that we need bigger spaces
to hold events. Even the East Room is not big enough.
That's when the functionality of a ballroom that's allegedly going

(47:54):
to be ninety thousand square feet and have a capacity
of six hundred and fifty people, that's where something like
that was actually prove to be very functional. Matt and
of course the President, he's very much in his respective
zone or element here when it comes to constructing and
touching things up. We've seen it in the Oval Office,
We've seen it inside the Palm Room doors where he's

(48:14):
replaced tile. We've seen it with the Rose Garden. This
is just the latest piece of evidence with that, and
it's another opportunity that Democrats are taking to try to
attack the president shamelessly.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Daniel Baldwin will get there at midnight if you need
him to to get the Scoop That's why we Love You.
On One American News, Daniel talk about the utility of
this space to enhance America's soft power when hosting major
state dinners and bringing in global leaders.

Speaker 10 (48:42):
Well, the Press Secretary has talked about this a little bit,
Caroline Levitt, emphasizing that sometimes when you want to have
events here at the White House, you need to rent
out this massive, ugly white tent and you got to
put it over the south lawn and you've got to
hope for good weather. This eliminates any type of issue
with that. When the President wants to have a event
bringing forth a lot of different people, he can now

(49:03):
once this ballroom, this majestic ballroom befitting a president of
the United States, the elegance and the opulence befitting the
world's biggest superpower gets put up, the president can have
events where he invites three hundred, four hundred, five hundred
people and appropriately allow the media to cover it. It's just

(49:24):
incredibly functional when you think about it, Matt, because when
there are events here at the White House, you know
you've been here for some of them. Space is at
a premium. It is undoubtedly a tight it's a tight
space here. And you know it may not seem that
way for people who are watching on TV, but the
press briefing room is tight.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
The east room is tight.

Speaker 10 (49:47):
Just areas when you walk around, you got to get
very comfortable being shoulder to shoulder with other media members
standing for long periods of time. This ballroom is incredibly functional,
not only for the president when it comes to event
planning and logistics, but it's also functional for the media
when it comes to being able to comfortably cover presidential events.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Matt, Yeah, and this is not some big aggrandizement to Trump.
The ballroom is principally going to be used by the
presidents who come after President Trump, and they will get
the benefit of it. And hopefully we don't have any
more who have such small crowds. They have to draw
those circles in the ballroom and have everyone eight feet apart.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
But what is the estimated time for a completion.

Speaker 10 (50:29):
There's no exact estimated time at the moment, but the
White House I think is hoping to get this done
before President Trump's term is up. Obviously that's very optimistic,
but you know, I don't think we've ever had a
president who quite understands construction like President Trump does give
in his background as a real estate developer in New
York City. Matt, So, as you know, the President is

(50:50):
very focused on making sure that the White House is
properly renovated and it looks the part, and it feels
the part, and I think he's going to do everything
he can to make sure that this is up and
this is part of the lasting legacy that Donald J.
Trump leaves in the White House for years to come.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
And I just think there might be a little bit
of this that is trolling Chuck Schumer because as Schumer
is trying to bring the government to a shutdown here,
Trump is out working on peace deals around the world
and even announcing new construction projects. There is an optimism
and an energy and an activity that just that won't
be shut down by anyone. Chief White House Correspondent Daniel Baldwin,

(51:26):
thanks for being on the story, my friend. Thanks Matt,
and coming up in New York City, there is this
demand now to somehow get everybody to fall in line
behind Cuomo. We're not here for it, and neither is
our next guest Toefinal Forte of the New York and
Republican club, don't go anywhere.

Speaker 5 (51:47):
Hey everyone, here's a question for you. What does Roku TV,
Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV all have in common?
The answer is that all three platforms offer you the
ability to lie stream One America News Network from your
Roku TV AppleTV or Amazon Fire device. Simply go to
the app store, search out for an then enjoy all

(52:10):
the great programming offered by O in, including my show
Real America. Viewers are always asking me how can they
watch OAN live? The solution is simple. It's a streaming
platform called cloud tv. Now it's spelled klowd TV. Simply

(52:32):
go to cloudtv dot com and subscribe to watch twenty
four to seven live feeds of OAN. The live package
is only two dollars and fifty cents per month for
all you can watch. Again, simply go to cloudtv dot
com and do it today. Hey, did you know that
One America News Network has launched a twenty four to

(52:54):
seven Twitter like social media replacement. We're calling it free
Talk for so why is it branded free talk forty five? Well,
free talk because you will not be censored for expressing
your opinion there, and forty five because forty five is
a really lucky number. So join us at free Talk

(53:15):
forty five and express yourself with no fear of cancelation. Ever, Hey,
if your cable provider doesn't offer one America News Network,
you should give them a call and kindly demand that
they CARRYAN. Now you're the customer, and without your feedback,
your cable provider will not know that there is a

(53:37):
strong demand across this country for one America News Network.
So please call your cable company today and kindly ask
or demand that they ADDANN to their channel lineup.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
We've noticed a trend online.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
People started to wake up up to some of the
New York City mayoral canon. It's Zoron Mandami's actual views,
and they say, if you don't vote for Cuomo or
basically for a communist, I reject that frame. Zoron is
gonna be elected. Maybe the people of New York deserve him.
He will probably fail, but so will Cuomo. Cuoma's already failed.

(54:20):
It's loser talk to suggest that it's better to help
Cuomo keep it close than it is to ride with
a more authentic Republican. Joining us to discuss the state
of the race. New York and Republican Club President Stefano Forte.
So Stefano, tell us, have people just given up to
the sense that Mamdani is gonna win? He's going to
be your mayor and everybody just gets to cast their

(54:41):
protest vote for either Sliwa or Cuomo.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
First off, thank you for having me on, Matt.

Speaker 11 (54:48):
I don't think that it's a protest vote at this point.
I think a lot of people are a bit dooming gloom.
I think that all the campaigns could be doing better
and trying to make themselves viable against Mom Donnie. But look,
Mam Donnie has an energy behind him and this young
socialist movement that's trying to push him to the finish line.

(55:11):
But look, we're going to be doing everything we can
to get city council people elected in districts that can
hold Mamdannie accountable if he becomes mayor, and we're really
hoping that he does not. But Congress can step in
and act as well. In the New York Republican Club
put together a legal memo outlining how Mam Donnie could

(55:33):
be kicked off the ballot this November or denied entry
into Gracie Mansion. So these are all things that we
can do to stop Mam Donnie, I don't think New
York is done yet.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Well, I don't think you have a candidate that's going
to stop him from winning the election. And it seems
that your strategy, and it's a smart one, is to say, okay, well,
what are the things we can do to ameliorate or
mitigate some of the worst features of his policy proposals,
and trying to constrain him legally and trying to get
good people in the city council.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Those are effective strategies.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
But like, the reason I wanted you on the program,
stefan O, is that you came on earlier and you said, look,
I'm not buying into this whole. We have to all
fall in line behind Cuomo if we're going to lose,
like I'd at least rather lose with someone who's a
conservative rather than the people the guy who was killing
grandmothers when he was governor. And it got me thinking,
is this why, other than maybe Lee Zelden, we haven't

(56:26):
had really promising campaigns come out of New York because
there's such a willingness to just like go with the
least worst option, and we haven't carved out the type
of like iconic Teddy Roosevelt type characters that have made
the Empire State famous in politics for some time.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (56:44):
Look, I mean I don't want to say that we've
kind of been settling.

Speaker 8 (56:49):
I do love Curtis.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Curtis is a friend.

Speaker 11 (56:50):
Of mine and he is truly an iconic New York figure.
I think you could place a lot of the blame
on the party apparatus itself. We need a better party
apparatus in New York. We need a party apparatus that
is going to invest in New York City. Saying that
we're just going to leave the cities, that we're not
going to try to be competitive in New York City,

(57:12):
that's utter nonsense. This is the mecca, the epi center
of culture in the United States. We cannot just abandon
New York City. And you know, I do believe that
next cycle we can have a very viable governor candidate
if we have great minds on the campaign that are
willing to be brave and courageous and do what's necessary

(57:34):
to actually win. And to your point on Andrew Cuomo, exactly,
I'm I'm not going Andrew Cuomo has done nothing to
try to earn my vote and there is a kind
of sentiment among Republicans where it's like, you're Andrew Cuomo,
You're not entitled to our vote. You're not entitled to
anything here. You've got to come to us and try
to make a deal of some kind, and he hasn't.

(57:56):
So if he's not looking to do that, then we're
not going to be holding water for Andrew Cuomo. We
owe him nothing.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
I worry that New York may be the front end
of the wave. We're starting to see these democrat socialist
candidates in places like Minneapolis and elsewhere emerge. What warning
would you give a city that might be the next
to have a rising socialist to emerge as a front
runner from mayor?

Speaker 11 (58:21):
You know, I'm going to go even farther than just cities.
I'm going to go for some of these rural towns
as well. This is a message truly to the entirety
of the United States. They are coming for everything. The
barbarians are at the gate. They will not stop at
New York City, they will not stop at Minneapolis. They
are going to go and slowly march through the entirety

(58:43):
of the United States. They want it all. They're not
stopping here that's all. We need to fight now and
win now to stop them from coming after so many
beautiful cities and towns in the United States.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Stephano Forte, president of the New York Young Republic Club,
thanks for the warning, best of luck, Thank you. That's
all the time we have.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
We'll be back tomorrow, nine Eastern six specific Make sure
to sign up for the o AN Live app if
you haven't already, Just go to O a n n
dot com, follow me on X at Mattgates, email us
the Matt Gates Show at o a n n dot
com and stay right here.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Fine Point with Chanel Ryan is up next. Let's go
get them