March 15, 2025 • 18 mins
Brian Fitzherbert from Liberty and Prosperity filling in for Seth Grossman, who’s on assignment. WPG Radio. March 15, 2025.
Discussion topics:
Trump 2.0 early accomplishments.
Democrat messaging in disarray. Infighting. Schumer in trouble.
11 Liberty & Prosperity objectives.
Mass deportations. Over the years, 20 mil illegal aliens.
Need for election integrity.
Recycling scams.
DOGE, Elon Musk. Audit government.
Protect the unborn.
Public education.
Enforce all laws.
Miracle on Ice. Analogy. Russian hockey team.
CR, Continuing Resolution.
Chuck Schumer’s political gamble. Raise debt limit.
Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill.
Gov’t shutdown.
Pushing Schumer to step aside?
No longer can rely on legacy media for cover.
Old school news media spread lies about Medicaid.
Biden administration reported $800 billion in fraud.
Life expectancy is now 78 yrs of age.
Stolen Social Security numbers.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm John DeMasi. We bring in Brian Fitzherbert.
You got big shoes to fill, my friend.
Filling in for Seth Grossman.
What's, what's the latest in in the
liberty and prosperity land?
Oh, so much.
It's it's amazing. Kind of this circles back
(00:21):
to what you were just talking about in
terms of what's being discussed versus what's being
reported, what's actually fair, and everything in between.
And, you know, it's just something that we
continue to strive for at Liberty and Prosperity.
Go to libertyandprosperity.com.
We have our newsletter every week. We meet
at Salisbury Pizza,
where I posted the memes the last I
guess it's been three years now with Seth
coming in,
(00:42):
doing all the other stuff,
administratively on the radio and writing the newsletters.
There's so much to discuss, John, with regard
to how things are happening. You you touched
upon this earlier.
You know, it's only been less it's been
less than fifty days, and people feel like
Trump's been in office
for an entire term already
(01:03):
because of what he's been able to accomplish,
Fast and Furious, you know, try to break
and and and recover a lot of things.
You talked about gas nagged. Obviously, that's that's
significantly turned around just on the policies of,
commerce secretary Lutnick and,
treasury secretary,
Besson. All these things
are happening quickly.
(01:24):
And with all due respect to the friends
on the left, they don't have a leader.
They don't have a response. They don't have
a message. They don't know what to do.
And I liken this back to maybe there's
some hockey fans out there when the Soviets
in the Olympic game, the miracle on ice
game,
were down, and they didn't know what to
do as time was expiring in the third
period. They didn't know to pull the goalie
(01:45):
to get an extra skater on because they'd
never been in that position before. And I
feel like the Democrats are in a position
that is in the wilderness. They haven't been
in,
probably since before my lifetime. Right? The Reagan
years where all of a sudden they have
to do something. And now the infighting is
happening. You know, now there's people calling for
Schumer's head, all those kinds of things. And,
(02:06):
again, this circles back to liberty and prosperity
and the issues that we're trying to
emphasize.
You know, internally, we had with our members,
we discussed
nearly 30 issues,
that we wanted to focus or prioritize
to inform and educate,
citizens about government and politics, and we narrowed
them down to 11.
(02:27):
And I'm just gonna take a minute to
talk about those 11.
There's many more, but these are the ones
that, you know, the members of Liberty and
Prosperity,
majority voted to support and focus on. And
it's one of the things that Trump is
focusing on, obviously, and he got elected for,
and that's mass deportations.
And everything that goes around
(02:47):
that has an economic impact, that has an
education impact, that has a health care impact,
all these things
when
and he talked about this at his address
to congress.
All that needed to happen was a new
president because it just proved that the Democrats
and Joe Biden
chose
to allow
roughly 20,000,000
(03:08):
illegal aliens
to breach our borders just in the last
four years, notwithstanding
what has already been here since the turn
of the century.
And so mass deportations
have to happen and it's whether or not
Trump and his team can fight through the
media b s which
so far they're doing a good job on
(03:28):
that. And the next issue is the honest
elections.
Making sure that we can get back to
something where there's integrity and faith in the
system. Now granted Donald Trump winning the popular
vote, winning the seven swing states, everything else,
I think was a very positive because everyone
assumed that was going to happen. The polls
indicated that was gonna happen, but the media
(03:49):
did not.
So those are those are two main issues.
Along with ending green energy subsidies, we've seen
that since the Obama administration. Those have been
a complete and utter failure. If there was
a market for it, the demand would be
there instead of the government propping it up.
Another one is ending mandatory recycling. We all
know, unfortunately, we all try to separate our
(04:10):
garbage and our recycles into multiple bins. They
go up on a barge usually out of
Bayonne. They go overseas and then they wind
up in the in the water, the rivers,
the lakes, etcetera,
and it's just polluted, unfortunately.
Using the constitution to cut spending, obviously, we've
seen that,
on the national level with the creation of
(04:30):
Doge and Elon Musk. Hopefully, we can see
that here in New Jersey after the gubernatorial
election,
should a Republican be victorious,
ending bail reform,
using persuasion to protect the unborn. Obviously, this
is a very complicated issue,
and people are gonna have their positions. And
over time, as we've seen with,
what's transpired with Roe v Wade, more science
(04:51):
learning when,
when there's conception, etcetera,
all that stuff I think is is part
of a persuasion,
to protect the unborn because of how many
how many millions we've lost. Rethinking public education,
protecting the public from the homeless. Obviously, we've
seen this locally. We've seen this San Francisco,
California as a prime example.
(05:12):
Property tax relief, obviously, and then, enforcing all
laws and repealing bad ones. And Trump has
done this
to a tee
where he's done three things. He secured the
border, he's enforcing law, and he's auditing the
government through Doge. All those things that I've
waited for and probably most conservatives have waited
(05:32):
for for decades to finally happen. So those
are some of the issues that Liberty and
Prosperity are focusing on, John. Yeah. You know,
you were going back to the, Miracle on
Ice,
and I remember that. Of course, you weren't
born yet,
but that that's another many times. That's another
story. But but I remember
(05:52):
that that you're right. The Russians just didn't
know what to do. I mean, they were,
like, in a fog.
And, you know, I guess the Democrats are
in a fog now,
rightfully so, and, really, who cares? But, you
know, I I just thought that was an
interesting
analogy,
to talk about the, Miracle on Ice.
(06:14):
Yeah. You know, it's something, you know, for
the listeners that don't know, I grew up
playing hockey. That's why I went out to
college out in the Midwest.
And I've watched that game repeatedly. Obviously, I
wasn't born like you said. When it happened,
obviously, we've seen the miracle movies and and
documentaries, etcetera. And all it does is emphasize
that when you when Herb Brooks, and in
this case, Donald Trump, if if we wanna
(06:35):
extend the analogy, has figured out how the
other side works
and what levers to move, meaning what lines
to change and and to train the players
or train the team, train the political
team he's got
to get to this point. And, again, who
cares if the Democrats are in disarray? It
is a it is a bonus for us.
(06:55):
It gives Trump more time, and that's why
this continuing resolution, which is the other thing
I wanted to talk about,
is so interesting
the way it went down. Look. Everyone hates
continuing resolutions.
I hate them. You know, I'd rather have
the 12 appropriation bills and actually pass a
budget which hasn't happened in nearly two decades.
And
the fact that Schumer
(07:16):
made the case
so he was first trying to play the
political theater game. Right? He was trying to
see if the house with Thomas Massie out
of Kentucky. I agree with him on principle
but not on practicality,
with regard to his no vote. He's like,
maybe it'll be another Republican
and the bill will die and we can
basically say, oh, look. The Republicans came and
passed when they have the majority in the
house. And then that happened and then Schumer
(07:38):
was left in a conundrum
that, okay, if we don't vote for this,
is there a possibility that we get blamed
for the government shutdown? And the way he
framed it was that if the government gets
shut down, it allows Donald Trump and Elon
Musk to do more Doge related activities,
which more or less
is true in the sense of justification
(07:58):
with all these cuts in terms of government
employees. You talked about this earlier in the
segment with regard to the judges trying to
reinstate probationary,
workers that were fired. Ultimately, if this gets
Supreme Court, it'll reinforce Donald Trump. As you
mentioned, he is the chief executive who else
has the authority. Right. And
Schumer is now in a situation
(08:18):
where he made the political calculation from his
perspective that, okay, let's vote for this. And
again, what was the CR? It was to
raise the debt limit. Right? Raise your credit
card,
credit limit because you need to borrow more
and spend more, which means
that this
avoided the math problem that Johnson as the
speaker of the house has had in the
past. If there are Republicans
(08:38):
and I again I agree on principle but
not practicality
that are opposed to more spending, more debt
limits, all that kind of stuff, then what
happens? It becomes a math problem. Johnson has
to find Democrats to get to two eighteen
or a majority
and that means he's got a fork over
things that he wouldn't normally do in a
Republican setting. And that's why you have to
take the best of two worst scenarios because
(09:01):
now that the continuing resolution will go to
Trump's desk and he'll and he'll sign it.
You raise the debt limit. This allows now
for them to do the budget reconciliation. They
got one or two shots at this in
a congress
to do simple majority, right, 51 votes
out of the Senate and two eighteen in
the house to be able to get tax
cuts extended. Right? Tax cuts and jobs act
(09:22):
from 2017 extended instead of expiring at the
end of this year and all the other
stuff in this big beautiful bill that Trump
wants and whether or not you can jam
it all in one bill is another thing.
We'll see what happens. But ultimately, the tax
cuts, the regulation cuts, the, you know, more,
border security,
they've already restarted some of these contracts in
(09:42):
building the wall. All those kinds of things.
And the fact that my summary in this
is the political calculation that Schumer made was
that the worst would be,
unpalpable if the Democrats shut down the government
because as we know the government doesn't really
shut down. Employees are furloughed. They don't do
any work or productivity. And then once the
government comes back in, they get paid for
(10:04):
back pay for literally doing nothing. So there's
no productivity. And that again buys into Elon
Musk. Why do we have this many people
working the federal government? Is there an actual
need for them? So Schumer's now in a
situation where the the Democrats are breaking their
cracking which is very rare
and they're calling is he the right leader.
The fact that there's media and there's individuals,
(10:25):
you know, squad, AOC, all these other left
wing for lack of terms lunatics,
calling for Schumer to step aside
is very compelling because we haven't seen this
in a very long time where the Democrats
fracture. And that again ties back to the
analogy. They don't know what to do. They're
in a situation.
They're in the wilderness as or or a
(10:46):
fog, like you said, that they haven't been
exposed to in a very long time.
Yeah. That's that's true.
That that is true, you know, because they're
used to being in power pretty much.
And,
you know, even when a Republican's in the
White House, sometimes
it's, you know, the Democrats
control the House or the Senate or whatever.
(11:07):
They they usually get one of them, but
now they don't have anything.
So and they don't have a strategy to
get out of this.
You know? So they're they're they're really in
trouble. The reliance the reliance on the media,
obviously, with new media, podcast, and everything in
between has shrunk the sphere of influence
of the legacy media,
(11:27):
and that's new for them as well because
they can't just lie.
And, again, I don't say that word lightly,
but they do. They say it so brazenly.
I mean, again, use the local example of
the alleged protesters
who were paid $250.
To be outside congressman Van Drew's office, a
lot of them were senior citizens claiming
that Donald Trump was gonna cut
(11:49):
Social Security
and Medicare. Never said that. Never said that.
Never said that. And even even to the
detriment. Look. I'm I'm a conservative. I'm a
realist, and I think something has to be
done with regard to Social Security, you know,
and and we can go down that rabbit
hole. But the fact is that that was
a lie
that is perpetuated
that now you can call that into question
(12:10):
because Donald Trump has never said that. He
said he would never touch it. The only
thing that's been said is that Elon Musk
has said that he will cut the fraud,
waste, and abuse, which is now becoming apparent
in Social Security. Even if half the information
is accurate with how many people over the
age of one twenty are not only in
the database, but taking
(12:30):
direct deposit or check from the Social Security
Administration.
Again, the Biden administration in August of twenty
four, not even six months ago, said that
there's nearly $800,000,000,000
in fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal
government. That was a Biden administration report.
So all these things that have been lied
about
with regard to what Donald Trump is gonna
(12:53):
do, where these cuts are. And again, the
Democrats keep floundering. They're trying to find that
issue that they can ignite. It was they
were trying to say that Elon Musk was
the real president, then they were trying to
say that all these workers in the federal
government,
needed to need to keep their jobs. And
again, they started
in the middle of the story
(13:14):
instead of what's actually happening.
They consistently say that this all started with
Donald Trump. No. We're in the middle of
the story. How do we know that we
needed that many federal workers to be productive
and efficient? We we never knew. They it
just kept growing.
So I think the fact that the Democrats
can't say that, oh, this the story starts
with Donald Trump. No. We're in the middle
(13:35):
of the story, and we're trying to fix
what's transpired
previously.
And all these things, like, I'll circle back
to Social Security. Right? Donald Trump, like you
said, I said most listeners know. Donald Trump
said definitively he would not cut benefits or
anything else to be paid into it. People
paid and they should get what has been
(13:55):
guaranteed to them by the federal government.
Now when you think back to the original
intent of Social Security's to prevent old age
poverty, it was a new deal policy of
FDR
and the idea at that time when the
life expectancy was 58 years old and people
were taking out at 62
was a financial calculation that not everyone's gonna
(14:16):
live to be able to take it out
because in the thirties, obviously, life expects me
what it was what it was. So they
were counting on the fact that people would
pay into the system and not necessarily take
it out or there would be a generation
of more workers than there are of those
taking it out. And now unfortunately that's changed.
Life expectancy is now 78 years old which
by that same government logic almost a hundred
(14:38):
years ago, then Social Security recipients shouldn't be
taking out until
82.
But again, you paid in. There's other there's
other things that come with that, so you
can't really use that as justification.
What I'm saying or what I wish conservatives
or Republicans would say is, here, we're in
2025.
Why can't we say that starting in 2026
(14:59):
and on, those who haven't been born yet
have an adjustment
in terms of the target dates and ages,
but they don't even start that at all.
They say, no. We we can't talk to
you. It's a third rail. It's this. It's
that. But and that was my mindset. But
now with all of what Elon Musk has
been able to identify in a few simple
things, the efficiency that these are these retirements
(15:22):
from a government standpoint are processed in a
in a limestone mine in Pennsylvania by hand
instead of automated systems,
as well as we have a database
where there's 20,000,000 people over the age of
20.
And then you have to figure out out
of those 20,000,000 people how many are actually
taking
direct deposit or what are other social security
(15:42):
numbers that have been stolen
to illegal immigrants that are that are processing
all kinds of benefits, that needs to be
investigated. And if any of the if even
25% of that remotely true, that's how you
make Social Security solvent for decades to come.
You know, it's it's so interesting. You know,
an aside to this, how many times have
you heard or have you read
(16:04):
Elon Musk is an unelected official?
Yeah.
I mean,
is any of the cabinet members elected?
You know? Right. I mean, that's He's a
government
adviser. Right. Right. He's not taking a hundred
and $78,000,
salary. He's an adviser
just like anybody else,
(16:26):
and all the Doge workers are actually federal
employees that literally go from department to department
week by week. And that's another thing that
the Democrats are masking
with regard to these employees that Elon Musk
and his Doge whatever tech whatever derogatory term
they wanna use, but they're actually government employees
that get access
to each of these systems and databases to
(16:48):
be able to see things. And Elon Musk
is doing what Donald Trump has asked him
to do. And the thing about Elon Musk,
if anyone's ever read Walter Isaacson's book on
it, it's like 800 pages. It's great.
And, unfortunately, Isaacson's probably got to write a
sequel because this was all before,
you know, Musk did the turn.
And Musk is the wealthiest,
(17:08):
richest guy on the planet and in history,
and he reports to Donald Trump and has
no problem doing it. Yeah. That alone is
fascinating. Yes. And the attacks on Elon Musk
of not being
elected,
Donald Trump was elected
with his decision making as chief executive.
So,
essentially, Elon Musk was supported by those 77,000,000
(17:31):
people who elected Donald Trump as is to
your point, all the cabinet members, all the
other advisers, all the other appointments
that Donald Trump makes throughout his term. Yes.
Yeah. That's right. That that is exactly right.
Brian,
good stuff, and, I'll tell Seth you did
a good job.
Oh, I appreciate that. One last thing for
your listeners.
Next week on the twenty second, Saturday morning,
(17:53):
we're gonna have,
assemblyman Paul Knitra as our guest speaker with
us at Liberty and Prosperity. He's,
been a big advocate in Ocean County against
the wind turbines. He's been a big advocate
for showing, shining a light on the illegal
immigration problem in New Jersey. So if you
have a chance, come out to Sal's Coal
Fired Pizza at 09:30. Come listen to assemblyman
Paul Kanentra speak with us. Sounds good. Thanks
(18:15):
for, thanks for filling in for Seth.
Thanks for having me. Okay. Brian Fitzherbert,
Liberty and Prosperity,
the website libertyandprosperity.com,
filling in for Seth Grossman today. Of course,
Seth will be back next week right here
on WPG Talk Radio ninety five point five.
I'm John DiMasi. It is Talk with a
Purpose
every Saturday, nine till noon, WPG Talk Radio
(18:38):
ninety five point five.
I'm John DeMasi. We bring in Brian Fitzherbert.
You got big shoes to fill, my friend.
Filling in for Seth Grossman.
What's, what's the latest in in the
liberty and prosperity land?
Oh, so much.
It's it's amazing. Kind of this circles back
(00:21):
to what you were just talking about in
terms of what's being discussed versus what's being
reported, what's actually fair, and everything in between.
And, you know, it's just something that we
continue to strive for at Liberty and Prosperity.
Go to libertyandprosperity.com.
We have our newsletter every week. We meet
at Salisbury Pizza,
where I posted the memes the last I
guess it's been three years now with Seth
coming in,
(00:42):
doing all the other stuff,
administratively on the radio and writing the newsletters.
There's so much to discuss, John, with regard
to how things are happening. You you touched
upon this earlier.
You know, it's only been less it's been
less than fifty days, and people feel like
Trump's been in office
for an entire term already
(01:03):
because of what he's been able to accomplish,
Fast and Furious, you know, try to break
and and and recover a lot of things.
You talked about gas nagged. Obviously, that's that's
significantly turned around just on the policies of,
commerce secretary Lutnick and,
treasury secretary,
Besson. All these things
are happening quickly.
(01:24):
And with all due respect to the friends
on the left, they don't have a leader.
They don't have a response. They don't have
a message. They don't know what to do.
And I liken this back to maybe there's
some hockey fans out there when the Soviets
in the Olympic game, the miracle on ice
game,
were down, and they didn't know what to
do as time was expiring in the third
period. They didn't know to pull the goalie
(01:45):
to get an extra skater on because they'd
never been in that position before. And I
feel like the Democrats are in a position
that is in the wilderness. They haven't been
in,
probably since before my lifetime. Right? The Reagan
years where all of a sudden they have
to do something. And now the infighting is
happening. You know, now there's people calling for
Schumer's head, all those kinds of things. And,
(02:06):
again, this circles back to liberty and prosperity
and the issues that we're trying to
emphasize.
You know, internally, we had with our members,
we discussed
nearly 30 issues,
that we wanted to focus or prioritize
to inform and educate,
citizens about government and politics, and we narrowed
them down to 11.
(02:27):
And I'm just gonna take a minute to
talk about those 11.
There's many more, but these are the ones
that, you know, the members of Liberty and
Prosperity,
majority voted to support and focus on. And
it's one of the things that Trump is
focusing on, obviously, and he got elected for,
and that's mass deportations.
And everything that goes around
(02:47):
that has an economic impact, that has an
education impact, that has a health care impact,
all these things
when
and he talked about this at his address
to congress.
All that needed to happen was a new
president because it just proved that the Democrats
and Joe Biden
chose
to allow
roughly 20,000,000
(03:08):
illegal aliens
to breach our borders just in the last
four years, notwithstanding
what has already been here since the turn
of the century.
And so mass deportations
have to happen and it's whether or not
Trump and his team can fight through the
media b s which
so far they're doing a good job on
(03:28):
that. And the next issue is the honest
elections.
Making sure that we can get back to
something where there's integrity and faith in the
system. Now granted Donald Trump winning the popular
vote, winning the seven swing states, everything else,
I think was a very positive because everyone
assumed that was going to happen. The polls
indicated that was gonna happen, but the media
(03:49):
did not.
So those are those are two main issues.
Along with ending green energy subsidies, we've seen
that since the Obama administration. Those have been
a complete and utter failure. If there was
a market for it, the demand would be
there instead of the government propping it up.
Another one is ending mandatory recycling. We all
know, unfortunately, we all try to separate our
(04:10):
garbage and our recycles into multiple bins. They
go up on a barge usually out of
Bayonne. They go overseas and then they wind
up in the in the water, the rivers,
the lakes, etcetera,
and it's just polluted, unfortunately.
Using the constitution to cut spending, obviously, we've
seen that,
on the national level with the creation of
(04:30):
Doge and Elon Musk. Hopefully, we can see
that here in New Jersey after the gubernatorial
election,
should a Republican be victorious,
ending bail reform,
using persuasion to protect the unborn. Obviously, this
is a very complicated issue,
and people are gonna have their positions. And
over time, as we've seen with,
what's transpired with Roe v Wade, more science
(04:51):
learning when,
when there's conception, etcetera,
all that stuff I think is is part
of a persuasion,
to protect the unborn because of how many
how many millions we've lost. Rethinking public education,
protecting the public from the homeless. Obviously, we've
seen this locally. We've seen this San Francisco,
California as a prime example.
(05:12):
Property tax relief, obviously, and then, enforcing all
laws and repealing bad ones. And Trump has
done this
to a tee
where he's done three things. He secured the
border, he's enforcing law, and he's auditing the
government through Doge. All those things that I've
waited for and probably most conservatives have waited
(05:32):
for for decades to finally happen. So those
are some of the issues that Liberty and
Prosperity are focusing on, John. Yeah. You know,
you were going back to the, Miracle on
Ice,
and I remember that. Of course, you weren't
born yet,
but that that's another many times. That's another
story. But but I remember
(05:52):
that that you're right. The Russians just didn't
know what to do. I mean, they were,
like, in a fog.
And, you know, I guess the Democrats are
in a fog now,
rightfully so, and, really, who cares? But, you
know, I I just thought that was an
interesting
analogy,
to talk about the, Miracle on Ice.
(06:14):
Yeah. You know, it's something, you know, for
the listeners that don't know, I grew up
playing hockey. That's why I went out to
college out in the Midwest.
And I've watched that game repeatedly. Obviously, I
wasn't born like you said. When it happened,
obviously, we've seen the miracle movies and and
documentaries, etcetera. And all it does is emphasize
that when you when Herb Brooks, and in
this case, Donald Trump, if if we wanna
(06:35):
extend the analogy, has figured out how the
other side works
and what levers to move, meaning what lines
to change and and to train the players
or train the team, train the political
team he's got
to get to this point. And, again, who
cares if the Democrats are in disarray? It
is a it is a bonus for us.
(06:55):
It gives Trump more time, and that's why
this continuing resolution, which is the other thing
I wanted to talk about,
is so interesting
the way it went down. Look. Everyone hates
continuing resolutions.
I hate them. You know, I'd rather have
the 12 appropriation bills and actually pass a
budget which hasn't happened in nearly two decades.
And
the fact that Schumer
(07:16):
made the case
so he was first trying to play the
political theater game. Right? He was trying to
see if the house with Thomas Massie out
of Kentucky. I agree with him on principle
but not on practicality,
with regard to his no vote. He's like,
maybe it'll be another Republican
and the bill will die and we can
basically say, oh, look. The Republicans came and
passed when they have the majority in the
house. And then that happened and then Schumer
(07:38):
was left in a conundrum
that, okay, if we don't vote for this,
is there a possibility that we get blamed
for the government shutdown? And the way he
framed it was that if the government gets
shut down, it allows Donald Trump and Elon
Musk to do more Doge related activities,
which more or less
is true in the sense of justification
(07:58):
with all these cuts in terms of government
employees. You talked about this earlier in the
segment with regard to the judges trying to
reinstate probationary,
workers that were fired. Ultimately, if this gets
Supreme Court, it'll reinforce Donald Trump. As you
mentioned, he is the chief executive who else
has the authority. Right. And
Schumer is now in a situation
(08:18):
where he made the political calculation from his
perspective that, okay, let's vote for this. And
again, what was the CR? It was to
raise the debt limit. Right? Raise your credit
card,
credit limit because you need to borrow more
and spend more, which means
that this
avoided the math problem that Johnson as the
speaker of the house has had in the
past. If there are Republicans
(08:38):
and I again I agree on principle but
not practicality
that are opposed to more spending, more debt
limits, all that kind of stuff, then what
happens? It becomes a math problem. Johnson has
to find Democrats to get to two eighteen
or a majority
and that means he's got a fork over
things that he wouldn't normally do in a
Republican setting. And that's why you have to
take the best of two worst scenarios because
(09:01):
now that the continuing resolution will go to
Trump's desk and he'll and he'll sign it.
You raise the debt limit. This allows now
for them to do the budget reconciliation. They
got one or two shots at this in
a congress
to do simple majority, right, 51 votes
out of the Senate and two eighteen in
the house to be able to get tax
cuts extended. Right? Tax cuts and jobs act
(09:22):
from 2017 extended instead of expiring at the
end of this year and all the other
stuff in this big beautiful bill that Trump
wants and whether or not you can jam
it all in one bill is another thing.
We'll see what happens. But ultimately, the tax
cuts, the regulation cuts, the, you know, more,
border security,
they've already restarted some of these contracts in
(09:42):
building the wall. All those kinds of things.
And the fact that my summary in this
is the political calculation that Schumer made was
that the worst would be,
unpalpable if the Democrats shut down the government
because as we know the government doesn't really
shut down. Employees are furloughed. They don't do
any work or productivity. And then once the
government comes back in, they get paid for
(10:04):
back pay for literally doing nothing. So there's
no productivity. And that again buys into Elon
Musk. Why do we have this many people
working the federal government? Is there an actual
need for them? So Schumer's now in a
situation where the the Democrats are breaking their
cracking which is very rare
and they're calling is he the right leader.
The fact that there's media and there's individuals,
(10:25):
you know, squad, AOC, all these other left
wing for lack of terms lunatics,
calling for Schumer to step aside
is very compelling because we haven't seen this
in a very long time where the Democrats
fracture. And that again ties back to the
analogy. They don't know what to do. They're
in a situation.
They're in the wilderness as or or a
(10:46):
fog, like you said, that they haven't been
exposed to in a very long time.
Yeah. That's that's true.
That that is true, you know, because they're
used to being in power pretty much.
And,
you know, even when a Republican's in the
White House, sometimes
it's, you know, the Democrats
control the House or the Senate or whatever.
(11:07):
They they usually get one of them, but
now they don't have anything.
So and they don't have a strategy to
get out of this.
You know? So they're they're they're really in
trouble. The reliance the reliance on the media,
obviously, with new media, podcast, and everything in
between has shrunk the sphere of influence
of the legacy media,
(11:27):
and that's new for them as well because
they can't just lie.
And, again, I don't say that word lightly,
but they do. They say it so brazenly.
I mean, again, use the local example of
the alleged protesters
who were paid $250.
To be outside congressman Van Drew's office, a
lot of them were senior citizens claiming
that Donald Trump was gonna cut
(11:49):
Social Security
and Medicare. Never said that. Never said that.
Never said that. And even even to the
detriment. Look. I'm I'm a conservative. I'm a
realist, and I think something has to be
done with regard to Social Security, you know,
and and we can go down that rabbit
hole. But the fact is that that was
a lie
that is perpetuated
that now you can call that into question
(12:10):
because Donald Trump has never said that. He
said he would never touch it. The only
thing that's been said is that Elon Musk
has said that he will cut the fraud,
waste, and abuse, which is now becoming apparent
in Social Security. Even if half the information
is accurate with how many people over the
age of one twenty are not only in
the database, but taking
(12:30):
direct deposit or check from the Social Security
Administration.
Again, the Biden administration in August of twenty
four, not even six months ago, said that
there's nearly $800,000,000,000
in fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal
government. That was a Biden administration report.
So all these things that have been lied
about
with regard to what Donald Trump is gonna
(12:53):
do, where these cuts are. And again, the
Democrats keep floundering. They're trying to find that
issue that they can ignite. It was they
were trying to say that Elon Musk was
the real president, then they were trying to
say that all these workers in the federal
government,
needed to need to keep their jobs. And
again, they started
in the middle of the story
(13:14):
instead of what's actually happening.
They consistently say that this all started with
Donald Trump. No. We're in the middle of
the story. How do we know that we
needed that many federal workers to be productive
and efficient? We we never knew. They it
just kept growing.
So I think the fact that the Democrats
can't say that, oh, this the story starts
with Donald Trump. No. We're in the middle
(13:35):
of the story, and we're trying to fix
what's transpired
previously.
And all these things, like, I'll circle back
to Social Security. Right? Donald Trump, like you
said, I said most listeners know. Donald Trump
said definitively he would not cut benefits or
anything else to be paid into it. People
paid and they should get what has been
(13:55):
guaranteed to them by the federal government.
Now when you think back to the original
intent of Social Security's to prevent old age
poverty, it was a new deal policy of
FDR
and the idea at that time when the
life expectancy was 58 years old and people
were taking out at 62
was a financial calculation that not everyone's gonna
(14:16):
live to be able to take it out
because in the thirties, obviously, life expects me
what it was what it was. So they
were counting on the fact that people would
pay into the system and not necessarily take
it out or there would be a generation
of more workers than there are of those
taking it out. And now unfortunately that's changed.
Life expectancy is now 78 years old which
by that same government logic almost a hundred
(14:38):
years ago, then Social Security recipients shouldn't be
taking out until
82.
But again, you paid in. There's other there's
other things that come with that, so you
can't really use that as justification.
What I'm saying or what I wish conservatives
or Republicans would say is, here, we're in
2025.
Why can't we say that starting in 2026
(14:59):
and on, those who haven't been born yet
have an adjustment
in terms of the target dates and ages,
but they don't even start that at all.
They say, no. We we can't talk to
you. It's a third rail. It's this. It's
that. But and that was my mindset. But
now with all of what Elon Musk has
been able to identify in a few simple
things, the efficiency that these are these retirements
(15:22):
from a government standpoint are processed in a
in a limestone mine in Pennsylvania by hand
instead of automated systems,
as well as we have a database
where there's 20,000,000 people over the age of
20.
And then you have to figure out out
of those 20,000,000 people how many are actually
taking
direct deposit or what are other social security
(15:42):
numbers that have been stolen
to illegal immigrants that are that are processing
all kinds of benefits, that needs to be
investigated. And if any of the if even
25% of that remotely true, that's how you
make Social Security solvent for decades to come.
You know, it's it's so interesting. You know,
an aside to this, how many times have
you heard or have you read
(16:04):
Elon Musk is an unelected official?
Yeah.
I mean,
is any of the cabinet members elected?
You know? Right. I mean, that's He's a
government
adviser. Right. Right. He's not taking a hundred
and $78,000,
salary. He's an adviser
just like anybody else,
(16:26):
and all the Doge workers are actually federal
employees that literally go from department to department
week by week. And that's another thing that
the Democrats are masking
with regard to these employees that Elon Musk
and his Doge whatever tech whatever derogatory term
they wanna use, but they're actually government employees
that get access
to each of these systems and databases to
(16:48):
be able to see things. And Elon Musk
is doing what Donald Trump has asked him
to do. And the thing about Elon Musk,
if anyone's ever read Walter Isaacson's book on
it, it's like 800 pages. It's great.
And, unfortunately, Isaacson's probably got to write a
sequel because this was all before,
you know, Musk did the turn.
And Musk is the wealthiest,
(17:08):
richest guy on the planet and in history,
and he reports to Donald Trump and has
no problem doing it. Yeah. That alone is
fascinating. Yes. And the attacks on Elon Musk
of not being
elected,
Donald Trump was elected
with his decision making as chief executive.
So,
essentially, Elon Musk was supported by those 77,000,000
(17:31):
people who elected Donald Trump as is to
your point, all the cabinet members, all the
other advisers, all the other appointments
that Donald Trump makes throughout his term. Yes.
Yeah. That's right. That that is exactly right.
Brian,
good stuff, and, I'll tell Seth you did
a good job.
Oh, I appreciate that. One last thing for
your listeners.
Next week on the twenty second, Saturday morning,
(17:53):
we're gonna have,
assemblyman Paul Knitra as our guest speaker with
us at Liberty and Prosperity. He's,
been a big advocate in Ocean County against
the wind turbines. He's been a big advocate
for showing, shining a light on the illegal
immigration problem in New Jersey. So if you
have a chance, come out to Sal's Coal
Fired Pizza at 09:30. Come listen to assemblyman
Paul Kanentra speak with us. Sounds good. Thanks
(18:15):
for, thanks for filling in for Seth.
Thanks for having me. Okay. Brian Fitzherbert,
Liberty and Prosperity,
the website libertyandprosperity.com,
filling in for Seth Grossman today. Of course,
Seth will be back next week right here
on WPG Talk Radio ninety five point five.
I'm John DiMasi. It is Talk with a
Purpose
every Saturday, nine till noon, WPG Talk Radio
(18:38):
ninety five point five.
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