Dr Michael Busler, The public policy analyst, economics expert and a professor of finance takes a closer look at DOGE's numbers and let's us know how realistic is a DOGE Dividend? Then, Leslie Corbly, author of Silent Suffering: Poems of Pain and Purpose, is an author, anti-feminist attorney, and columnist. And she's asking if we are in a constitutional crisis, as some of the left would suggest? Plus, the battle between emotions and facts.
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Bill Martinez Live is broadcast live Mondays at 3PM ET on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Bill Martinez is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Bill Martinez Live Podcast is also available on https://www.billmartinezshow.com, Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, hello and welcome. Good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'm Bill Martinez, and we are live and we've got
a great show planned for you today. Get doctor Michael Butler,
the econ expert and professor, is going to be joining
us to talk about all things DOZE. Right, are the
numbers adding up?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Do we have expectations that are realistic? I mean, there's
just been so much much excitement about DOZE, and I
think that you know, a lot that we expected in
terms of the waste and fraud in that in our
government is coming.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
To be true.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
But can we really get down to the bottom number,
can we really be able to penetrate the bureaucracy in
such a way that we can, you know, really understand
how much actual waste that we're talking about. I mean,
more and more as I look at these numbers, the
projected true trillion. I mean, at one point I thought, gosh,
there's the way this thing is going. We could probably
(01:34):
find three trillion dollars or more, you know, in terms
of you know, fraud and waste. But I think we're
going to be lucky to find uh, you know, a trillion.
Maybe I don't know. I mean, it's just it's hard
to tell because some numbers come out and then they're corrected,
and you know, it's very dynamic and very fluid as
(01:55):
to what's going on. And of course you know the
government has planned it that way. It's it's rather been,
you know, rather purposeful. I mean, you think about all
the shenanigans, for example, that we experienced with the Biden
family fraud situation, that they had ten different sources of
revenue how they were coming in, and it's not sources
(02:15):
of revenue, but just where the banking the way it
was kind of convoluted in such a way. I mean
bo' donald's had said that, you know, with his experience
in dealing with money laundering. This is very typical. This
is what they do, and so a lot of slight
of hand, a lot of confusion, you know. And in
the cases of what we've heard from Doze and from
(02:35):
Elon Musk, you know, accounting principles they're just out the door.
I mean, clearly the institutions have been very happy to
you know, kind of hide the peece so to speak,
you know, and the shells moving.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's a bit of a shell game.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So will we ever get down, you know, to the
bottom and find out exact exactly I don't. I don't know,
But more and more I become increasingly skeptical because the
bureaucracy is so well established, it's so big. I mean,
we still can't figure out certain obvious things, you know,
even the most recent assassination attempt on President Trump, so
(03:16):
many details still out there. So you know, the government
has a way of hiding the piece, so to speak,
and it's going to make it difficult. And you know,
the hope that maybe we would all get a five
thousand dollars dividend because of this found money. Hey, don't
go go spending the check yet, Okay, it's what i'd recommend,
(03:36):
So let's slow it down. We'll talk with Michael Butler
about that, and then also we're going to be talking
with Leslie Corby. Leslie is a she's a self proclaimed
anti feminist attorney. She's an author and columnist, and she asked,
are we in a constitutional crisis? I mean, this is
(03:57):
kind of the language of the left every time, you know,
something doesn't go their way, and of course right now
it hasn't gone their way for a while, and you know,
that's all they can talk about is the sky is falling.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, the sky is falling.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's like Pinky lear, No, it's not falling, but everything
is a constitutional crisis. And the constitutional crisis that they're
noting seems to be coming from their end, you know,
the interruption and disruption of what they're doing in terms
of a smooth transition of wanted misstration to another. You know,
the left, the Democrats don't like the policies of the
(04:29):
Republicans anymore of the Republicans like the policies of the Democrats. Well,
the American people didn't like the policy of the Democrats either,
and they voted quite clearly right said hey, get that
out of here.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Donald Trump's our guy.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
We want him to come in and straighten this mess up,
and they gave him the mandate.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Said go, you know, go correct it.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
We believe that you're the guy who's going to be
able to take care of the border crisis that we've
been experiencing, take care of inflation, take care of the
energy crisis, get us back a foothold of energy to
where we could become you know, beyond energy independent, become
energy dominant, and then also, uh, you know, improve our
(05:09):
standing on the world stage. Now, there were some things
that Donald Trump could do pretty quick, and he's been
able to do that quite effectively. And hear, what about
six weeks so this administration roughly. I mean, it's amazing
what he's been able to accomplish. But some of these
other things like uh, you know, like dealing with you know,
dealing with you know, with inflation, these are Biden's numbers still.
(05:34):
In fact, you know, our guest, doctor Michael Bustler is
with us right now. Let's bring Michael on and he
can break that down a little bit more, doctor Michael Butler,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Good to have you with us, sir, Well.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Hi Bill, Thanks for having me, as you know, it's
always my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Well, Michael, we talk about where Trump is right now,
moving at the speed of Trump on Trump time, and
you know, the thing is is that people are getting
you know, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You know how I guess how impatient we are as
a nation.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know, we think Trump's going to come in and
fix inflation right away, But what he's dealing with is
still cleaning up the mess that Biden left behind, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
And in order to clean up this mess, it's going
to take him a little bit of time. Every thing
else he can do quickly, he's done quickly, and he's
moving as fast as he can. But let's look at it.
Why is it that we have such high inflation and
it is so stubborn and hard to get down to
where we'd like it? Three main reasons for it. One,
(06:40):
when the Biden administration, literally the first day was sworn
into office, he took action to significantly decrease the supply
of energy, and when you decrease the supply of any energy,
the price goes up. He canceled the Keystone pipeline. He
made permitting process more difficult. You can't drill on federal lands.
(07:03):
All that decreased production of oil and gasoline, and the
decrease in spy led the higher prices. Now people are
going to argue, back, wait a minute, at the end
of Biden's term, he was producing more than when he started,
and that's true, but we had a big drop in production,
and gradually over the four years they were able to
(07:24):
increase somewhat. But had he not taken that action, we
would have probably be producing between a million and a
million and a half barrels per day more than we
are currently producing. And that's what Trump is trying to do.
So it takes a little time to do that, but
I would estimate by the middle of the third quarter
(07:45):
of this year you're going to start to see energy
prices drop significantly. So that's the first reason we had.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well thether thing too, Michael.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Can we say anything about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that
Biden emptied?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Remember Trump filled that up with extremely cheap oil. As
a matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Didn't they pay us for it.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I was just going to say that much of that
during COVID and nobody was taking any oil, and the
oil producing nations need to have the tankers loaded and
get back to put more oil on. Nobody would take oil.
The price of oil plummeted so low that the oil producers,
(08:26):
the foreign oil producers, said we'll pay you to take
the oil. They paid US thirty seven dollars a barrel
to unload their ships. And Trump said, well, I would
have filled up the oil reserve. So Biden in order
to keep the price of energy down as low as
he could, and his actions drove it way up. But
(08:48):
to soften that a little bit, he started emptying the
strategic reserve. It's now less than half full. That could
create some problems further down the road.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
And wasn't that against the law, though, Michael, Because the
only time you can go into the strategic reserve is
with an emergency. I guess the Democratic Party perceived the
midterm elections as an emergency, right.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
He declared a national emergency when energy prices were going
up that high. He tried to get oil from Venezuela two,
which is a little strange, but so he took some
out of the reserve and he declared an emergency so
he could do that. So the first reason we had
inflation was energy. Second reason massive increases in government spending
(09:34):
in twenty nineteen. Between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four,
there was a fifty percent increase in government spending from
four point five trillion up to nearly seven trillion. Since
we didn't have that money, that became borrowed money, so
it created a huge deficits every year, a massive public debt.
(09:56):
But all that excess demand in the economy pulled prices up,
so it is the second reason we had inflation. Third
reason was the Federal Reserve just fell asleep when energy started.
When prices inflation started going up in January of twenty
twenty one, and that's when it started. For a year
and a half, the Federal Reserve did absolutely nothing. They said,
(10:19):
don't worry, it'll go away by itself. It's transitory, transitory. Well,
obviously that didn't work, and finally in June of twenty
twenty two, they said that didn't work. We're going to
have to drastically increase interest rates, which they did. It
brought inflation down, and then for some reason it wasn't
down to the two percent target, although it was close
(10:41):
down to two point four percent, and then for some
reason they started cutting interest rates in September, November, and
December of last year, as I said it would do,
it did now. The inflation went from two point four
up to three percent. So Trump will eventually replace the
chair of the Federal Reserve, but he can't do that
until next February. In the meantime, he's going to dramatically
(11:06):
increase the supply of energy. That will bring the price down,
not going to You won't see it until towards the
end of this year because it takes time, but he'll
do that. And secondly, he's going to drastically cut government spending.
And with Elon Musk and through DOGE, he's finding billions,
tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars we're
(11:28):
spending on literally stupid things. So we're going to cut
all that. And by reducing the government spending, by increasing
the supply of energy and bringing energy prices down. Can't
deal with the FED until you get somebody else in there.
But just those two things will bring inflation down. I
wrote in Newsmax this morning, No worries. The long term
(11:52):
economic outlook looks very rosy. So in the next few
months we're going to see some not so good numbers,
inflation may and chuck a little bit. The economy is
starting to slow down. Third fourth quarter last year, GDP,
which had been growing at a three percent rate, dropped
two point three percent. Last year, we had the largest
(12:15):
number of bankruptcies ever in by business ever in the US,
So things are starting to slow down. But Trump will
get rid of these regulations that stop business from expanding
and stop new businesses from starting. He'll reduce the cost
of energy, which makes it much easier for business and consumers.
(12:38):
And he'll drastically cut government spending and try as best
as he can to try to balance the budget as
soon as as possible. Now we're running at two trillion
dollar deficits, so that's going to take some time.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
To exactly without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
He's a public policy analyst, economics expert, and professor of
finance at Stockton University in New Jersey. Doctor Michael Bust
is our guest. Michael, with all these pressures you know
on our economy, I mean, you know, I like your
temperate approach on this that it's going to take some
time in order to get there because we're still getting
(13:16):
through what Joe Biden did not to mention the fact
that he exacerbated the problem on his way out, according
to you know, according to the government, is that he
spent close to a trillion dollars out of nowhere that
was just kind of wasted. I mean, it's almost like
he was pitching a fit and was just throwing gold
(13:38):
bars over the you know, over the rails here as
he was leaving Dodge.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Unfortunately, Elon Musk is finding a lot of this and
before it gets spent, he's stopping this. So that's part
of what he's going to do to reduce this of
the government spending. The other thing Biden did was, I
guess he did this through executive He said he can't
drill on lands in the water around the US and
(14:09):
the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I think Trump's going to regions of America.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Now, I was just going to say Trump's trying to
get around as he renamed it, the Gulf of America.
Won't apply there, I suppose. But Trump will do everything
he can to reverse and it's going to take time.
You know, there's laws involved here, and you know the
court system takes time to operate. But he's going to
do everything he can to turn American energy companies loose,
(14:36):
and to turn American enterprise loose and let the American
spirit drive this big increase in American production, which will
bring energy prices down, will bring inflation down, will create
job opportunities for all well prepared Americans. As I wrote
in my column today, the economic golden years are right around.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
The corner, and the Democrats and those on the left
are doing everything they can, Michael, to impede that. In fact,
to your point here, I was reading where there are
one hundred I think over one hundred federal lawsuits against
Trump's policies. There's been twenty one rulings already. I mean,
if we don't get the Supreme Court to come in
(15:19):
and put a stop to this nonsense, I mean, because
we're burning time here. Trump only has four years. He
has less than four years in which to do the
people's bidding, and the American people need to take note
as to who's for us and who's against us.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Right, I'm wondering.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Whose side the Democrats are on. They just everything is
not Trump. They just want to get back in power.
Even if what Trump is doing it benefits greatly the
American people, and that's what they're supposed to be for
actions that benefit greatly the American people. So I'm not
quite sure what their logic is except they just want
to get Trump out and get some of their people
(15:57):
in there.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
But well, it's not about logic. It's about emotion, you know.
It's like one of our guests said, I'm sorry, your
emotion cannot trump my facts. And the facts, common sense
fact are quite clear. But and all the Democrats can
do right now because that's what they got away with
(16:18):
for so long. The mainstream media, social media, the cabal
that was going on. At every turn, they supported, you know,
this narrative, and it was all based on emotion. Well,
you know, at some point, you've got to pay the bills,
and the Democrats came up and they came up empty.
They didn't have the money to pay the bills.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And the Democrats will continue to play on emotions even
tomorrow during Trump's speech. Look, the federal government employs over
two million people. We don't need all of those people
to get all the job the job done. Remember when
Elon Musk bought Twitter, he reduced the workforce by seventy.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Five, almost eighty percent.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
And I think you and I talked about this that's
the old Parido principle, right, that twenty percent will give
you eighty percent of the yield. And so he cuts
down his labor force there at X was then Twitter,
and he cuts it down twenty percent, and it was
like he didn't miss a step.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
It's still operating very efficiently. And Trump, I mean Musk
has his band of techno nerds and they go in
there and they say, look, we can modernize all this.
We can modernize the federal government. We can use all
the technology that we have today. We don't need two
million people. So what are the Democrats going to do.
They're going to take some of these people that have
(17:39):
been laid off by the government already. They're going to
bring them into the into Congress tomorrow night and say, look,
this is what the Trump has done. These people have
all lost their jobs. What are they going to do.
Here's a pregnant mom who is going to lose her
health insurance. So they're going to try to appeal on emotions.
(18:00):
But the fact is we can't afford all of these people.
Our taxes are already too high. The public debt is
thirty six trillion dollars. Now people say, well, what does
that mean, well thirty six trillion. The interest alone is
over nine hundred billion dollars. Now soon they hit a
trillion dollars. We can't afford to spend that much money,
(18:24):
number one, and number two, If the government is pulling
all this money out of capital markets, we're going to
end up with a capital shortage, so companies won't be
able to grow. We can't kick the can down the
road anymore. Every president since Ronald Reagan has kicked the
can down the road in terms of the deficit and
(18:45):
the debt. We're at the end of the road. We
need to do something now, not just with a scalpel.
We need to go in with a chainsaw and start
putting this before it really turns into a serious problem
that we can't handle. And what don't we tell our
kids and our grandkids You have to somehow figure this
out out there.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, Michael, you know you make a great point here,
and this is where leadership is so required. And when
you think of the leadership that's out there, who but
Trump can communicate with the American people to say, look it,
there's going to be some pain here in River City.
But I want you to know it's truly going to
be transitory, it's not going to be long term. I
think that had Biden had a plan, for example, with
(19:27):
the whole climate agenda, and they've been going on for
decades on this, if they said, look it, it's going
to be worth the investment, you know, even if you
said trust me, you know, you might even be you
might even believe that there could be that possibility. They
didn't even give us that that kind of consideration. They
(19:48):
just shoved it down our throats and they mandated what
kind of car we're going to drive, what kind of
light bulb we're going to screw into our into our lamps,
and what kind of stove we're going to have in
the kitchen. I mean, it was absurd for what gain?
What after all that they imposed upon us, are we
Is America better off today or worse off?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I think they're worse off. The problem is with them,
they don't consider the long term right, and they put
things in say let's fix this, let's fix that, and
they don't consider the long term. Well, now, the long
term's coming and all of their policies are causing more
harm than benefit to us. And it's a good thing
Trump got in when he did another four years or
(20:33):
so of these policies would have put America into such
a deep hole. I don't know how we'd be able
to get out of it. And you know what I
admire most about Trump. You know, you have to love
the policies. Now, a lot of people say, well, you know,
it has a lot of personality flaws. He's always criticizing
people and saying things we all I was going to say,
if that's the worst problem, I think we're in good shape.
(20:56):
But Trump's coming in and he's saying, you know, prior administration,
they say, well, we have a spending problem. Well, let's
form a bipartisan committee. We'll take a look at this
in Congress. We'll present a plan, the Congress will let
both parties debate it, and then we'll come up and
maybe by the end of the year we'll be able
to come up with something. And what they've done in
(21:17):
the past, they said, look, you know, we spent so
much last year, we're going to increase spending by five
percent this year. You're right, we'll cut it down to
three percent. So we've cut the budget, is what they say.
Trump said, I don't want any of this. I'm going
in today and I'm cutting everything some agencies. It looks
like we don't need any of it. So what Musk
(21:37):
is saying, let's cut everything out and the things that
are important, let's add back rather than keeping this big
monstrosity and trying to cut down. We need Donald Trump
right now and it's a good thing for America that
we have them.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Well, you know, I think that America got a little
glimpse as to what's going on, you know, based on
what you and I were talking about in terms of
emotion versus fact. You know, I remember reading a book
on Harold Jannine, the former president of ITT. I mean,
this guy was unbelievable. Talk about the CEO of CEOs.
I think he ran over one hundred and forty companies,
Michael and I mean, it was amazing. And what he
(22:13):
would always say whenever he came into a roup is
just give me the facts. I want to know the facts, right.
He didn't have time for all the fluff, the emotion.
Just give me the facts. And that's how you're able
to run one hundred and forty I think over one
hundred and forty companies that he ran. And Donald Trump,
what we saw in the Oval office with one Zelensky
(22:37):
was that Zelensky came with emotion. Trump had facts and
the party's over.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And that's what Musk is digging up. Yes, give me
the facts on exactly how much we're spending, not how
much you think we spend and we're hiding some here
and stuff. Give me the facts. And when you look
at the facts, we don't need to spend all this money,
and we're not going to spend it. We're not going
through Congress, we're not going to have committees. We're just
(23:03):
going to say, he's the executive branch. Congress authorizes the spending,
the executive branch spends it. We're not spending any any
of this money anymore. We'll cut it out and where
the need truly is will add that back in. That's
going to have very positive results going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And that's what I'm hearing. I'm not hearing that everything
is just going to go away, absolutely, but cerrely. But really,
some of this stuff is so silly that it's bipartisan disapproval.
You know, spending you know, millions of dollars for condoms
and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Twenty million dollars for twenty million to build sesame Street
in Iraq. I mean, American taxpayers can't afford that.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Musk.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
On his website, he'll list all the ridiculous things that
we're spending money on, and you just have to scratch
your head and say, how long has this been going on?
And how many billions of dollars and hundreds of billions
of dollars have we spent? That's coming out of our pocket.
It's not somebody else's money. It's coming out of our pocket.
They've been in my pocket long enough, they've gone into deeply.
(24:08):
And we all feel the same way. I think, at
least most of us do that we want this ridiculous Yeah,
you look at.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
The Michael, A majority of the American said they've had
it because the thing is what they're seeing and they
don't know quite the whole truth is, yes, it's out
of your pocket and it's going to these NGOs and
these other interests. But then it comes back to these
government officials to re elect democrats. I mean, it is
(24:35):
a mess. And if we know the whole truth, I mean,
people are really going to be upset even more than
they are right now. Doctor Michael Butler has been our guests.
We always appreciate Michael on the show to give us clarity.
He's the public policy analyst, economics expert, and professor of
finance at Stockton University. Michael, thank you so much for
being with us. Take care god speed, my friend.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Thanks, take care of Bill, see you soon.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You got it well.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Coming up next on Bill mart Tina's Live. As I
mentioned to you, we've got Leslie Korbly.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Who's going to be with us.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
She's an attorney, author and columnist. And she asked the
question because, uh, you know it's being thrown out there
all the time by the Democrats. Oh, it's a constitution.
Everything is a constitutional crisis. The good guy is falling.
And Leslie Korbili is with us right now. Leslie, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Good to have you with.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well here it is.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
We're in a constitutional crisis. You know, it's like, oh
my goodness, you know, where's my pearls? I got to
I'm clutching them so tightly. You know, it's just just
a man. I mean, Donald Trump gets reelected. You know,
I'm moving to what was it one this? Correct me up,
it was a producer of a show. I'm moving to
New Zealand. They go, well, who do you think takes
(25:45):
care of New Zealand? It's America, ding dong. I don't know,
you know, you have you have to laugh at the
silliness of it all, leslie.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yes, yes, for sure.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
And that's you know, the.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
New phrase I suppose, I mean, you heard it a
lot during his first term in office as well, that
Donald Trump was going to instigate a constitutional crisis. But
I think the real constitutional crisis, frankly, has been ongoing
for some time, and it's been this decades long march
in decades long approach that Congress has taken to essentially
neutering themselves. Right, So Congress doesn't have the role. Congress
(26:25):
is supposed to take on a role in the constitutional
system of enacting the will of people. Right, it's supposed
to represent the consent of the government, and that's unfortunately
simply not a role that Congress is currently embodying.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Well, they've subordinated it to the bau the bureaucratic class, yes,
all for the sake of not having accountability, so they
could go to their constituency and claim plausible deniability.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
It wasn't me, you know. But you know, the thing.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Is it's so disingenuous they can't even admit it's the
bureaucratic class. They just say it's not me.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yes. And this is something that I think the public
is becoming aware of as far as how consent operates
over time. So obviously Americans did vote for prior congressmen
and women who unfortunately, like I've said, have abdicated the
responsibility of legislating to the executive branch. But the problem
is as you move forward in time, that consent wears down. Right,
(27:21):
So take for example, something like the very draconian measures
that came with FDR back in the nineteen forties, where
he greatly expanded government. Well, you can't really blame people
in nineteen eighty for having inefficient sets system that were
set up in nineteen forty, Right, So someone voted for that, right,
the public voted for it at one point. The problem
(27:41):
is that it's very difficult for future generations to outvote,
to exercise their consent, to say we no longer want
to be governed in this way because you have entire
apparatuss government agencies bureaucratic systems set up that make it
extremely difficult to undo. Frankly, the damage that was done
prior generations, and so I think that's one of the
(28:02):
real crisis we're in is that we don't we have
a constitutional system. We have systems of checks and battles
of separations of powers, for example, is of course incredibly important,
but our government no longer really operates from a practical
standpoint on the principles that was founded on, because again,
that's very difficult to do when you have an entire
branch of government that has functionally abdicated its authority to
(28:24):
the executive So, Frankly, if to the extent the leftists
are very concerned that Donald Trump can act like a dictator,
it's because he's been given in that authority, because the
executive branch has been emboldened and given so much power
that frank we should have.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
The thing that's amazing that people are missing out and
the way this stuff has been institutionalized, leslie, is.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
That the fix is in. I mean, the left.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
They've set up a system in such that look at
we're going to give people a lot of stuff and
we're going to buy their votes. They're going to buy
their votes with taxpayers moneyblic look and independent Democrats, doesn't
matter you know, it's bipartisan money going to buy their votes.
And so once they buy their votes and they get
them in the system and they say, hey, you get
(29:09):
to vote again, what are you going to vote for?
We're going to vote for more of that stuff. Right,
And so that's how the wheels on the bus have
been going round and round and how crazy this is
and why you know, when you want to have a
reasonable conversation about, hey, we've got to back off on government.
We've got to make sure that these programs, there's goodies
that you like, that they're going to be there for
(29:32):
generations to come for all the right reasons, and but
we need to be responsible stewards of that. You know,
then you got the outcry because it messes up the
institutional you know wherewithal and the infrastructure that's been established
for one reason only, and that is to get the
Democrats re elected.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Yes, it's very fascinating because I think you bring us
some really good points. But I think it's I think
it's really interesting, for example, that we're talking about integrat
institutional crisis when Donald Trump's main goal, it seems, is
to reduce government authority and power generally speaking, right, he's
not exactly trying to expand government.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Becoming more constitutionalize.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
So he's trying to constrict government, which again is difficult
even from a constitutional standpoint, because once Congress has acted
to empower the executive, you know, it makes it difficult
for the executive to call that back. So where there's
that statutory authority that comes directly from Congress, things get
quite a bit more dicey. That being said, the overall
thrust of what he's trying to accomplish his agenda, so
(30:34):
as being, is not exactly to create new bureaucracies or
to create more government interference. It's quite frankly, to do
the opposite. So it's a rather bizarre notion. You know,
he's a rather bizarre dictator. If his goal is to
reduce the power of action, he's a bad dictator. He
wheels like it's like the January sixth. Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
You know, insurgents, they are terrible insurgents. You know, nobody rites.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Right, So there's something about that doesn't make it doesn't
dive right. And this is kind of regardless of where
you fall on his policies, Right, maybe you think there's
better ways to do this, Maybe you're someone who thinks
that certain things he's doing shouldn't be done, and just
I find that bizarre, just as an initial matter. As
a second point that I think you do bring up,
and it's very important for the public to understand, is
that it is undoubtedly and indisputably true that the Democratic
(31:22):
Party has a overwhelming advantage in the federal bureaucracy. So
if you were to just look at who is staffed
in these agencies, it has a massive left wing bent
and that has for a very long time. That's very entrenched.
It's entrenched culturally in Washington, DC, and it's entrench within
the bureaucratic system itself. And so this idea that you know,
(31:42):
the Democratic Party doesn't it only cares about what Trump
is doing to the extent they care about the people
and the public I think is quite disingenuous. In reality,
they have entrenched interests within the bureaucratic system and disrupting
those interests obviously is not something that goes well, you know,
it is not their best interest, right. So again that
(32:05):
that for the public, though, is not great, because the
public's interests and the Democratic Party's entwerts.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Aren't necessarily aligned.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
And I think that's where the Democratic Party is really
losing its focus because for so long they were able
to really use messaging regarding compassion, kindness, tolerant, so on
and so forth to try to align the Democratic Party's
interests with the interests of the public. And now I
think we're moving it to a political landscape that frankly
recognizes that those interests are not aligned. And so the
(32:33):
public is moving away from the Democratic Party and it's
becoming hard for them to hold onto power. So obviously,
if Donald Trump comes in and disrupts or the bureaucratic
strongholds they have, that doesn't bode well for them in
the future.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Well, you know, with the help of the mainstream media
and the bureaucratic class and everything, like you said, the
infrastructure is well established, the emotional message could sell. And
it was frustrating, you know for people they're going, wait
a minute, this doesn't make sense. But it took somebody
like Donald Trump, you know, to break through that barrier,
that emotional barrier, to be able to connect with the
(33:09):
people and finally for them to understand, oh, that's right,
that's common sense, that that doesn't make sense. I mean,
step away from my emotion for a minute and realize
that thirty six trillion dollars in debt, no bueno, open
borders where you got gang members coming in and killing
your relatives, spent and al running rapid, one hundred thousand
(33:31):
people dying every year. You know, people able to you know,
men able to go into women's restrooms, compete against women
in the sports, you know, strip them of their scholarship
availability and awards and things like that. I mean that
that is device common sense. And so then what happened
(33:51):
is the it became a choice, a very clear binary choice.
Either you want common sense or you want this emotional,
hollow stuff that you've been putting up with for you know,
for all ten purposes for twelve years. Maybe got a
little bit of break with Donald Trump in the middle,
but you had eight years of Obama and four years
of Joe Biden. And how did that work at the
(34:12):
end of the day, how did that work for you?
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Well? Did it work?
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Great?
Speaker 5 (34:16):
But I think this, frankly, goes far beyond just the past.
You know, several presidents. I think this has been percolating
for some time, and you're absolutely correct regarding the stranglehold
on communication some of this, I think also is driven
by social media and specifically the fact that Elon Musk
bought Twitter or now.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
X, what did God send huh if he had bought X.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I mean, these streams of communication now are open in
a way they simply weren't before. So the Democrats and
those on the left could control the overturn window. They
really could control was in the realm of acceptable discourse
for the past. I mean, really, this has been.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Gone and going.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
If that's a story frankly, I think at the twentieth
to early twenty first century is that, you know, progressives
and those on the left were their power rose in
the twentieth century, it was pretty much I think they
had strong reason to believe moving into the twenty first
injury that they were going to be able to continue
to control the narrative. And as with all, you know,
large sources of power, power corrupts, right, So it shouldn't
(35:14):
come as any shock that as Washington's DC got bigger
and accumulated more power that was more centralized, that that
actually became detached from the public's interests. I mean, this
is what the founders contemplated, and it's one reason they
have separated, the separations of powers mattered.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
It's also one of.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
The reasons that the founders were very intentional about having
the public's interests represented both at a democratic level right
where you democratically elect your like congress people, congressmen, and
was but also why there were was contemplated the Senate
should actually be slightly more detached from the public, because
that gives you know, a better perspective, you know, because
(35:51):
obviously when populism is too is on the rise, there
can be problems with mob rule and problems with democratic
sources of governance. And so the founders were very intentional
about trying to represent the interests of the public both
very close to home and also a little further away.
And I think we've really moved away from that model.
And frankly, again, the Democratic Party had a stranglehold on
(36:14):
the ability to control discourse and that is going away,
and that is I think you were absolutely right. For
whether one likes it or not, Donald Trump was the
one who was able to break through that communicative stronghold
and speak to people where they were at and bring
entire constituencies into the Republican Party that prior to that
had no interest in engaging in politics at all.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
We're talking with Leslie Corbi, the author and speaker and attorney,
and Leslie, you know, going back to the media in
what you were saying earlier, Mark Zuckerberg before the election
comes out and he starts confessing his sins. I guess
in the sentence, but especially after the election in saying.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Hey was the FBI. They made me do it?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And you know, which I thought was quite fascinating because
that was quite telling when he came out from underneath
that thumb, that the oppression that he must have felt
over the years with Joe Biden, the FBI, you know,
crawling and yelling at them, yelling at their people. He
would say, you know kind of thing. And I mean,
(37:18):
and this is what happens with power. It always goes
one step too far. It kind of reminds me a
little bit is before your time of the Richard Nixon administration,
because President Nixon just went a little too far. It
didn't have to, which amazes me. I mean, here he is,
you talk about a popular vote in how many states
that he won in that definitive election, and yet he
(37:42):
ends up shooting himself in the foot. His people do
because of their arrogance.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Yes, as you're absolutely right, And I think I think
another thing to know that's really important related to the
communication stronghold Democrats had was it seems that it was
largely AstroTurf in the sense of I don't know if
you've watched Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Joe Rogan after the election,
where it doesn't seem like Mark Zuckerberg is really a
true believer in the sense of being like a Democrat zealot.
(38:08):
And I think that's true of a lot of people
who felt as though they needed to curry favor with
those on the left, because that's how you can either
get your message out there. That's how you could avoid
bad press and terrible pr slip ups. That's how you
could avoid journalists maybe asking gotcha questions.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
You know, because some law fare.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
And I think Donald Trump was effective, frankly at changing
that dynamic by simply not caring. Now there's there's a
concern that I think is valid that maybe we're going
to move into an era where the word compassion is
almost a dirty word. And I think that that's that
we might likely go too far in that way for
a while. But it's again understandable, because when you weaponize
(38:48):
you know, love, compassion, tolerance, all these words that actually
have good meaning, then eventually the public becomes cynical towards them. Right,
they don't, they don't they hear those words and lital care.
You're right, So if you cry wolf too many times,
people simply don't care about that perspective anymore. They don't
they don't care about seeing someone's tears on screen anymore.
And again there's a cost to that. I'm not saying
we should become cantless as a people, but I do
(39:10):
think we need to recognize the dynamic we're in and
why why people are possibly turning away from being as
easily emotionally manipulated. And frankly, it is because emotional manipulation
was a very well played ployee and a great tactic
of the Democratic Party for decades, and I think they're
losing their ability to do that, and it's I think
causing panic on that side of the aisle because that's
(39:31):
again they're one of their go to tools and their
you know, right, and their public relations toolkit was to
go to emotionalism, and it's going to be difficult for
them to continue doing that moving.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Forward, Well, it heads up tomorrow night. They're going to
bring it out, right, I mean, that's that's the suggestion
is they're going to have people, you know, federal employees
who have been affected by by Doge and Elon Musk
and and and you're right, I think we need to
be sensitive about the compassion issue because people are going
to lose jobs. I mean, we've all been there for ourselves.
(40:06):
We've lost jobs. I mean I haven't had a government
job like they have where they're you know, so highly
compensated and could work out of their own home and
even have another job and double dip, so to speak.
And I mean the kind of shenanigans that have taken place.
I'm not saying all federal employees did that, but we
know a number of them did. They took advantage of
(40:27):
the taxpayer and shame on them for doing it. And
so that unfortunately for people who have you know, I
guess some legitimacy and have earned some compassion that's going
to get lost in translation because of those that abused us.
Speaker 5 (40:42):
Right, Well, yes, absolutely, And I think it's actually really
important to highlight the media's role in these issues because
the reality is human interest stories, you know, journals and
feature stories and whatnot have been are very important for
the public, and it's actually very important that multiple viewpoints
that human events are. There's humanization across all viewpoints, right,
(41:05):
And so the reality is there was no corresponding concern
about individuals who didn't take the COVID vaccine and lost
their jobs, despite the fact that that was very cod
you know, trying to force people to take the CODE
vaccine was you know, that was something you were supposed
to applawed. You were supposed to care when someone lost
their job for saying I really don't think I want
a new vaccine that hit the market last month to
(41:27):
be something I really feel as if I need to take,
I don't think the risks are worth it, right, I
think I don't think the benefits are worth the risks.
So I think that the fact that some human subjects,
there's only certain human subjects that the media has classically
deemed worthy of our compassion and our sympathy and receiving
any kind of human care, is a very important element
(41:49):
to this. I actually think most reasonable Americans have a
base level of empathy for each other, regardless of which
side of the eysle they're on. But for again, decades
and decades, only certain subjects were able to be covered
as if they're pain mattered. Right, So everyone else's you know,
to the extent that policy impact that you know, liberal
(42:09):
policy impacted individuals negatively that just sort of was not
not covered or it tended to be uh, you know,
swept under the rug. And that's where Donald Trump is
very effective, you know, I mean, the same can be
true of a lot of issues. Right, So if there's
a COVID vaccine as it relates to unemployment, that's treated
very differently than the DOGE cuts. You have the same
thing with the transgender issues, where you know, those on
(42:30):
the left will really shine a spotlight on individuals struggling
with gender identity or those who maybe what identifies transgender,
but they have really zero empathy for some of the
girls who are complaining of you know, lack of privacy
and their spaces, whether that's bathroom with sports or you know,
other other issues, locker rooms. I mean, so there's all
these all these again, all these issues, and there's only
(42:52):
one angle for human empathy, right, and that's I think
a major major problem that the Democratic Party is running
into because it's quite selective and frankly, quite discriminatory, and
I think increasingly the public is not particularly buying into
the narratives that they're selling them about compassion and love.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
But yet the public, we the people have to look
at this as an opportunity of how how do we
demonstrate empathy and love in the midst of something that
we don't agree with.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
How do you find that ground?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And especially when it seems at the left, especially you know,
like the trans movement and stuff like that, you look
at what's going on, it's very aggressive. I mean, I
mean extremely aggressive to death even, I mean, it gets
that radical. So it really has everybody you know, on guard,
(43:43):
you know, walking pins and eels. You know, we don't
want to offend anybody, but by the same token, we
don't want to be offended either, And so this is
going to be a process. I'm glad you brought this up,
because this is going to be a processing and it
takes some time for us to you know, kind of
you know, grow through this.
Speaker 5 (44:01):
Right absolutely, I think that my hope is that we're
moving from a politics that focuses heavily on values to
one that focuses on interests. So let me say what
that means. So everyone has values, right, So if I'm religious,
I have certain religious values. If I'm a secular humanist,
I have different values. And I think for a long
time politics was spoken of through the lens of values, right, like,
(44:22):
we have certain values and we should govern accordingly. Now
that's true, But what is also true is that different
policies and different different policies will have different trade offs,
and those trade offs will involve different individuals or entities,
sets of interests. And I think we need to pair
understanding our values with an understanding of who has an
(44:43):
interest in you know, what is the public's interest in
certain types of legislation, What is the public's interest in
cutting government? Who wins and who loses if certain policies
are enacted or not?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Right?
Speaker 5 (44:54):
And I think that that having that understanding of whose
interests are at play, hopefully can lead into visuals to
begin to step in each other's shoes a bit easier, right,
Because if you and I have mutual exclusive values, there's
there's only so far you can go. But if I
understand you have a different interest than I do, I
can imagine what it would be like to have that
interest right, right, And so I think that there's a
(45:15):
there's a practicality to looking at interest that it doesn't
exist in the romal values again, because if you don't
buy into a worldview, you simply don't hold the values.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
But it takes a certain amount of intellect and fairness
in order to get there. I mean, if you're you know,
like Jordan Peterson said, if you're so ideologically fixed, you've
rendered yourself stupid.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
We can't have a conversation, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
So we've got to get out of those silos to
be able to say, Okay, at.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
The end of the day, what do you what do
you want? What do you want? What do I want?
You know?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
And can we We may come at it from a
different direction, but are we heading.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
To a a you know, a destination that's somewhat in
the zip code? You know?
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Yeah, I think we're going to have to become a
lot more comfortable with talking across divide. And I think
that's frankly going to require people to be very more
comfortable than we are currently in our culture with offense. Right.
So if I can't understand where you're coming from because
everything you say offends me, then it's you know, we
can't really have a productive conversation and there's really nowhere
you can go. So you have to be willing to
hear things you find offensive and grapple with ideas that
(46:22):
you don't agree with. Now, those again on the left,
I think, are weaker at that, not innately. I'm not
saying those on the left are innately work.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So they don't have a lot of practice with it.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
Yeah, that's that's exactly what I'm getting at. They've controlled
the levers of communicative power for so long that they
simply didn't really generally have to contend with ideas they
found to be that distasteful. Right, So when you hold
the when you hold the power and journalism, media education,
and you know, you just there are not very many avenues,
elite avenues that you could go down where right we
(46:52):
use are favors. So I think that that will require
those on the left, frankly, to be willing to come
to the table in good faith and willing to listen
to ideas they find repugnant. And you know, I mean,
some ideas are repugnant. You should be thrown aside fair enough,
But you know, you have to be willing to listen
to them and contend with with different ideas rather than
just you know, using pejoratives to an attempt to tarnish
(47:16):
the reputation of your opponents. And that's been their classic
approach to these issues, at least for the past you know,
twenty thirty years at least, if not longer.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah, because if I can emotionalize it, then I can
invalidate you, and you're out of the.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Debate, right, Yes, Yeah, so that's it.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
You know, I win, you lose, instead of us both
winning because we want the same thing. But this is
where the country is, and this is the clear divide
is I don't believe that the country in total wants
the same thing.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
I think most I think you're actually right that most
individuals who are not highly ideological could come to reasonable
agreement on a lot of issues. I think you're right
about that, that there's far more common ground than we realize.
But I think that the unfortunately a lot of the systems,
and the systems like education for example, or particularly higher education,
(48:07):
really incentivized ideological thinking. There's not a lot of cross
pollination of ideas, and individuals are really pushed through the
schooling system in a way that leads them to think
certain ideas are innately good and moral and others are
innately bad. Now, again, that's obviously true on sub level,
but I think it's highly ideologically driven and politically motivated
(48:29):
right now, rather than something simple. I think we can
all agree that lying is wrong, or that slavery was
a horrific institution that's been around in human history for
far too long. It shouldn't exist, right, I mean, these
are things I think we can all agree on. But
education goes, I think, much further than that and into
a realm of ideological like it polarizes the public frankly
(48:53):
because it again creates a lot of unnecessary division.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Well, Leslie, we got to leave it, Derek, and thank
you enough for coming on the show. She's the author
of Silent Suffering, Poems of pain and purpose, self declared
anti feminist attorney and columnists, and again, how can people
be in touch with you?
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Sure so, lesliecorbly dot com is the easiest way to
find a copy of the book. I also will be
releasing another book this year. I signed a contract and
so the mainscript is into the publisher. That will be
coming forthcoming, and some more information to be found on
lesliecorbly dot com.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Best way to find.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
Me Leslie Horbly, the one and only. Hey, thank you
so much for being with us. Take care, Thanks so
much for having me right you have a great day.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
We're so blessed to have guests like Leslie and of
course doctor Michael Butler to be able to bring you
know a broader sense of communication, understanding and news information
for you to digest and choose wisely so that the
consent of the government, which is what this is all about,
(49:57):
that you've got the truth. You've got the facts that
you need in order to make an intelligent decision. Thank
you for sharing a part of your day with us.
Appreciate you being here with us. May God bless you
and keep you. May make His face shine upon you,
and may he be gracious unto you, and may you
experience his peace. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
God bless
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, hello and welcome. Good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'm Bill Martinez, and we are live and we've got
a great show planned for you today. Get doctor Michael Butler,
the econ expert and professor, is going to be joining
us to talk about all things DOZE. Right, are the
numbers adding up?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Do we have expectations that are realistic? I mean, there's
just been so much much excitement about DOZE, and I
think that you know, a lot that we expected in
terms of the waste and fraud in that in our
government is coming.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
To be true.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
But can we really get down to the bottom number,
can we really be able to penetrate the bureaucracy in
such a way that we can, you know, really understand
how much actual waste that we're talking about. I mean,
more and more as I look at these numbers, the
projected true trillion. I mean, at one point I thought, gosh,
there's the way this thing is going. We could probably
(01:34):
find three trillion dollars or more, you know, in terms
of you know, fraud and waste. But I think we're
going to be lucky to find uh, you know, a trillion.
Maybe I don't know. I mean, it's just it's hard
to tell because some numbers come out and then they're corrected,
and you know, it's very dynamic and very fluid as
(01:55):
to what's going on. And of course you know the
government has planned it that way. It's it's rather been,
you know, rather purposeful. I mean, you think about all
the shenanigans, for example, that we experienced with the Biden
family fraud situation, that they had ten different sources of
revenue how they were coming in, and it's not sources
(02:15):
of revenue, but just where the banking the way it
was kind of convoluted in such a way. I mean
bo' donald's had said that, you know, with his experience
in dealing with money laundering. This is very typical. This
is what they do, and so a lot of slight
of hand, a lot of confusion, you know. And in
the cases of what we've heard from Doze and from
(02:35):
Elon Musk, you know, accounting principles they're just out the door.
I mean, clearly the institutions have been very happy to
you know, kind of hide the peece so to speak,
you know, and the shells moving.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's a bit of a shell game.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So will we ever get down, you know, to the
bottom and find out exact exactly I don't. I don't know,
But more and more I become increasingly skeptical because the
bureaucracy is so well established, it's so big. I mean,
we still can't figure out certain obvious things, you know,
even the most recent assassination attempt on President Trump, so
(03:16):
many details still out there. So you know, the government
has a way of hiding the piece, so to speak,
and it's going to make it difficult. And you know,
the hope that maybe we would all get a five
thousand dollars dividend because of this found money. Hey, don't
go go spending the check yet, Okay, it's what i'd recommend,
(03:36):
So let's slow it down. We'll talk with Michael Butler
about that, and then also we're going to be talking
with Leslie Corby. Leslie is a she's a self proclaimed
anti feminist attorney. She's an author and columnist, and she asked,
are we in a constitutional crisis? I mean, this is
(03:57):
kind of the language of the left every time, you know,
something doesn't go their way, and of course right now
it hasn't gone their way for a while, and you know,
that's all they can talk about is the sky is falling.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, the sky is falling.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's like Pinky lear, No, it's not falling, but everything
is a constitutional crisis. And the constitutional crisis that they're
noting seems to be coming from their end, you know,
the interruption and disruption of what they're doing in terms
of a smooth transition of wanted misstration to another. You know,
the left, the Democrats don't like the policies of the
(04:29):
Republicans anymore of the Republicans like the policies of the Democrats. Well,
the American people didn't like the policy of the Democrats either,
and they voted quite clearly right said hey, get that
out of here.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Donald Trump's our guy.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
We want him to come in and straighten this mess up,
and they gave him the mandate.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Said go, you know, go correct it.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
We believe that you're the guy who's going to be
able to take care of the border crisis that we've
been experiencing, take care of inflation, take care of the
energy crisis, get us back a foothold of energy to
where we could become you know, beyond energy independent, become
energy dominant, and then also, uh, you know, improve our
(05:09):
standing on the world stage. Now, there were some things
that Donald Trump could do pretty quick, and he's been
able to do that quite effectively. And hear, what about
six weeks so this administration roughly. I mean, it's amazing
what he's been able to accomplish. But some of these
other things like uh, you know, like dealing with you know,
dealing with you know, with inflation, these are Biden's numbers still.
(05:34):
In fact, you know, our guest, doctor Michael Bustler is
with us right now. Let's bring Michael on and he
can break that down a little bit more, doctor Michael Butler,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Good to have you with us, sir, Well.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Hi Bill, Thanks for having me, as you know, it's
always my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Well, Michael, we talk about where Trump is right now,
moving at the speed of Trump on Trump time, and
you know, the thing is is that people are getting
you know, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
You know how I guess how impatient we are as
a nation.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know, we think Trump's going to come in and
fix inflation right away, But what he's dealing with is
still cleaning up the mess that Biden left behind, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
And in order to clean up this mess, it's going
to take him a little bit of time. Every thing
else he can do quickly, he's done quickly, and he's
moving as fast as he can. But let's look at it.
Why is it that we have such high inflation and
it is so stubborn and hard to get down to
where we'd like it? Three main reasons for it. One,
(06:40):
when the Biden administration, literally the first day was sworn
into office, he took action to significantly decrease the supply
of energy, and when you decrease the supply of any energy,
the price goes up. He canceled the Keystone pipeline. He
made permitting process more difficult. You can't drill on federal lands.
(07:03):
All that decreased production of oil and gasoline, and the
decrease in spy led the higher prices. Now people are
going to argue, back, wait a minute, at the end
of Biden's term, he was producing more than when he started,
and that's true, but we had a big drop in production,
and gradually over the four years they were able to
(07:24):
increase somewhat. But had he not taken that action, we
would have probably be producing between a million and a
million and a half barrels per day more than we
are currently producing. And that's what Trump is trying to do.
So it takes a little time to do that, but
I would estimate by the middle of the third quarter
(07:45):
of this year you're going to start to see energy
prices drop significantly. So that's the first reason we had.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well thether thing too, Michael.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Can we say anything about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that
Biden emptied?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Remember Trump filled that up with extremely cheap oil. As
a matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Didn't they pay us for it.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I was just going to say that much of that
during COVID and nobody was taking any oil, and the
oil producing nations need to have the tankers loaded and
get back to put more oil on. Nobody would take oil.
The price of oil plummeted so low that the oil producers,
(08:26):
the foreign oil producers, said we'll pay you to take
the oil. They paid US thirty seven dollars a barrel
to unload their ships. And Trump said, well, I would
have filled up the oil reserve. So Biden in order
to keep the price of energy down as low as
he could, and his actions drove it way up. But
(08:48):
to soften that a little bit, he started emptying the
strategic reserve. It's now less than half full. That could
create some problems further down the road.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
And wasn't that against the law, though, Michael, Because the
only time you can go into the strategic reserve is
with an emergency. I guess the Democratic Party perceived the
midterm elections as an emergency, right.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
He declared a national emergency when energy prices were going
up that high. He tried to get oil from Venezuela two,
which is a little strange, but so he took some
out of the reserve and he declared an emergency so
he could do that. So the first reason we had
inflation was energy. Second reason massive increases in government spending
(09:34):
in twenty nineteen. Between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four,
there was a fifty percent increase in government spending from
four point five trillion up to nearly seven trillion. Since
we didn't have that money, that became borrowed money, so
it created a huge deficits every year, a massive public debt.
(09:56):
But all that excess demand in the economy pulled prices up,
so it is the second reason we had inflation. Third
reason was the Federal Reserve just fell asleep when energy started.
When prices inflation started going up in January of twenty
twenty one, and that's when it started. For a year
and a half, the Federal Reserve did absolutely nothing. They said,
(10:19):
don't worry, it'll go away by itself. It's transitory, transitory. Well,
obviously that didn't work, and finally in June of twenty
twenty two, they said that didn't work. We're going to
have to drastically increase interest rates, which they did. It
brought inflation down, and then for some reason it wasn't
down to the two percent target, although it was close
(10:41):
down to two point four percent, and then for some
reason they started cutting interest rates in September, November, and
December of last year, as I said it would do,
it did now. The inflation went from two point four
up to three percent. So Trump will eventually replace the
chair of the Federal Reserve, but he can't do that
until next February. In the meantime, he's going to dramatically
(11:06):
increase the supply of energy. That will bring the price down,
not going to You won't see it until towards the
end of this year because it takes time, but he'll
do that. And secondly, he's going to drastically cut government spending.
And with Elon Musk and through DOGE, he's finding billions,
tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars we're
(11:28):
spending on literally stupid things. So we're going to cut
all that. And by reducing the government spending, by increasing
the supply of energy and bringing energy prices down. Can't
deal with the FED until you get somebody else in there.
But just those two things will bring inflation down. I
wrote in Newsmax this morning, No worries. The long term
(11:52):
economic outlook looks very rosy. So in the next few
months we're going to see some not so good numbers,
inflation may and chuck a little bit. The economy is
starting to slow down. Third fourth quarter last year, GDP,
which had been growing at a three percent rate, dropped
two point three percent. Last year, we had the largest
(12:15):
number of bankruptcies ever in by business ever in the US,
So things are starting to slow down. But Trump will
get rid of these regulations that stop business from expanding
and stop new businesses from starting. He'll reduce the cost
of energy, which makes it much easier for business and consumers.
(12:38):
And he'll drastically cut government spending and try as best
as he can to try to balance the budget as
soon as as possible. Now we're running at two trillion
dollar deficits, so that's going to take some time.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
To exactly without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
He's a public policy analyst, economics expert, and professor of
finance at Stockton University in New Jersey. Doctor Michael Bust
is our guest. Michael, with all these pressures you know
on our economy, I mean, you know, I like your
temperate approach on this that it's going to take some
time in order to get there because we're still getting
(13:16):
through what Joe Biden did not to mention the fact
that he exacerbated the problem on his way out, according
to you know, according to the government, is that he
spent close to a trillion dollars out of nowhere that
was just kind of wasted. I mean, it's almost like
he was pitching a fit and was just throwing gold
(13:38):
bars over the you know, over the rails here as
he was leaving Dodge.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Unfortunately, Elon Musk is finding a lot of this and
before it gets spent, he's stopping this. So that's part
of what he's going to do to reduce this of
the government spending. The other thing Biden did was, I
guess he did this through executive He said he can't
drill on lands in the water around the US and
(14:09):
the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I think Trump's going to regions of America.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Now, I was just going to say Trump's trying to
get around as he renamed it, the Gulf of America.
Won't apply there, I suppose. But Trump will do everything
he can to reverse and it's going to take time.
You know, there's laws involved here, and you know the
court system takes time to operate. But he's going to
do everything he can to turn American energy companies loose,
(14:36):
and to turn American enterprise loose and let the American
spirit drive this big increase in American production, which will
bring energy prices down, will bring inflation down, will create
job opportunities for all well prepared Americans. As I wrote
in my column today, the economic golden years are right around.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
The corner, and the Democrats and those on the left
are doing everything they can, Michael, to impede that. In fact,
to your point here, I was reading where there are
one hundred I think over one hundred federal lawsuits against
Trump's policies. There's been twenty one rulings already. I mean,
if we don't get the Supreme Court to come in
(15:19):
and put a stop to this nonsense, I mean, because
we're burning time here. Trump only has four years. He
has less than four years in which to do the
people's bidding, and the American people need to take note
as to who's for us and who's against us.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Right, I'm wondering.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Whose side the Democrats are on. They just everything is
not Trump. They just want to get back in power.
Even if what Trump is doing it benefits greatly the
American people, and that's what they're supposed to be for
actions that benefit greatly the American people. So I'm not
quite sure what their logic is except they just want
to get Trump out and get some of their people
(15:57):
in there.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
But well, it's not about logic. It's about emotion, you know.
It's like one of our guests said, I'm sorry, your
emotion cannot trump my facts. And the facts, common sense
fact are quite clear. But and all the Democrats can
do right now because that's what they got away with
(16:18):
for so long. The mainstream media, social media, the cabal
that was going on. At every turn, they supported, you know,
this narrative, and it was all based on emotion. Well,
you know, at some point, you've got to pay the bills,
and the Democrats came up and they came up empty.
They didn't have the money to pay the bills.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And the Democrats will continue to play on emotions even
tomorrow during Trump's speech. Look, the federal government employs over
two million people. We don't need all of those people
to get all the job the job done. Remember when
Elon Musk bought Twitter, he reduced the workforce by seventy.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Five, almost eighty percent.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
And I think you and I talked about this that's
the old Parido principle, right, that twenty percent will give
you eighty percent of the yield. And so he cuts
down his labor force there at X was then Twitter,
and he cuts it down twenty percent, and it was
like he didn't miss a step.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
It's still operating very efficiently. And Trump, I mean Musk
has his band of techno nerds and they go in
there and they say, look, we can modernize all this.
We can modernize the federal government. We can use all
the technology that we have today. We don't need two
million people. So what are the Democrats going to do.
They're going to take some of these people that have
(17:39):
been laid off by the government already. They're going to
bring them into the into Congress tomorrow night and say, look,
this is what the Trump has done. These people have
all lost their jobs. What are they going to do.
Here's a pregnant mom who is going to lose her
health insurance. So they're going to try to appeal on emotions.
(18:00):
But the fact is we can't afford all of these people.
Our taxes are already too high. The public debt is
thirty six trillion dollars. Now people say, well, what does
that mean, well thirty six trillion. The interest alone is
over nine hundred billion dollars. Now soon they hit a
trillion dollars. We can't afford to spend that much money,
(18:24):
number one, and number two, If the government is pulling
all this money out of capital markets, we're going to
end up with a capital shortage, so companies won't be
able to grow. We can't kick the can down the
road anymore. Every president since Ronald Reagan has kicked the
can down the road in terms of the deficit and
(18:45):
the debt. We're at the end of the road. We
need to do something now, not just with a scalpel.
We need to go in with a chainsaw and start
putting this before it really turns into a serious problem
that we can't handle. And what don't we tell our
kids and our grandkids You have to somehow figure this
out out there.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, Michael, you know you make a great point here,
and this is where leadership is so required. And when
you think of the leadership that's out there, who but
Trump can communicate with the American people to say, look it,
there's going to be some pain here in River City.
But I want you to know it's truly going to
be transitory, it's not going to be long term. I
think that had Biden had a plan, for example, with
(19:27):
the whole climate agenda, and they've been going on for
decades on this, if they said, look it, it's going
to be worth the investment, you know, even if you
said trust me, you know, you might even be you
might even believe that there could be that possibility. They
didn't even give us that that kind of consideration. They
(19:48):
just shoved it down our throats and they mandated what
kind of car we're going to drive, what kind of
light bulb we're going to screw into our into our lamps,
and what kind of stove we're going to have in
the kitchen. I mean, it was absurd for what gain?
What after all that they imposed upon us, are we
Is America better off today or worse off?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I think they're worse off. The problem is with them,
they don't consider the long term right, and they put
things in say let's fix this, let's fix that, and
they don't consider the long term. Well, now, the long
term's coming and all of their policies are causing more
harm than benefit to us. And it's a good thing
Trump got in when he did another four years or
(20:33):
so of these policies would have put America into such
a deep hole. I don't know how we'd be able
to get out of it. And you know what I
admire most about Trump. You know, you have to love
the policies. Now, a lot of people say, well, you know,
it has a lot of personality flaws. He's always criticizing
people and saying things we all I was going to say,
if that's the worst problem, I think we're in good shape.
(20:56):
But Trump's coming in and he's saying, you know, prior administration,
they say, well, we have a spending problem. Well, let's
form a bipartisan committee. We'll take a look at this
in Congress. We'll present a plan, the Congress will let
both parties debate it, and then we'll come up and
maybe by the end of the year we'll be able
to come up with something. And what they've done in
(21:17):
the past, they said, look, you know, we spent so
much last year, we're going to increase spending by five
percent this year. You're right, we'll cut it down to
three percent. So we've cut the budget, is what they say.
Trump said, I don't want any of this. I'm going
in today and I'm cutting everything some agencies. It looks
like we don't need any of it. So what Musk
(21:37):
is saying, let's cut everything out and the things that
are important, let's add back rather than keeping this big
monstrosity and trying to cut down. We need Donald Trump
right now and it's a good thing for America that
we have them.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Well, you know, I think that America got a little
glimpse as to what's going on, you know, based on
what you and I were talking about in terms of
emotion versus fact. You know, I remember reading a book
on Harold Jannine, the former president of ITT. I mean,
this guy was unbelievable. Talk about the CEO of CEOs.
I think he ran over one hundred and forty companies,
Michael and I mean, it was amazing. And what he
(22:13):
would always say whenever he came into a roup is
just give me the facts. I want to know the facts, right.
He didn't have time for all the fluff, the emotion.
Just give me the facts. And that's how you're able
to run one hundred and forty I think over one
hundred and forty companies that he ran. And Donald Trump,
what we saw in the Oval office with one Zelensky
(22:37):
was that Zelensky came with emotion. Trump had facts and
the party's over.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And that's what Musk is digging up. Yes, give me
the facts on exactly how much we're spending, not how
much you think we spend and we're hiding some here
and stuff. Give me the facts. And when you look
at the facts, we don't need to spend all this money,
and we're not going to spend it. We're not going
through Congress, we're not going to have committees. We're just
(23:03):
going to say, he's the executive branch. Congress authorizes the spending,
the executive branch spends it. We're not spending any any
of this money anymore. We'll cut it out and where
the need truly is will add that back in. That's
going to have very positive results going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And that's what I'm hearing. I'm not hearing that everything
is just going to go away, absolutely, but cerrely. But really,
some of this stuff is so silly that it's bipartisan disapproval.
You know, spending you know, millions of dollars for condoms
and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Twenty million dollars for twenty million to build sesame Street
in Iraq. I mean, American taxpayers can't afford that.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Musk.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
On his website, he'll list all the ridiculous things that
we're spending money on, and you just have to scratch
your head and say, how long has this been going on?
And how many billions of dollars and hundreds of billions
of dollars have we spent? That's coming out of our pocket.
It's not somebody else's money. It's coming out of our pocket.
They've been in my pocket long enough, they've gone into deeply.
(24:08):
And we all feel the same way. I think, at
least most of us do that we want this ridiculous Yeah,
you look at.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
The Michael, A majority of the American said they've had
it because the thing is what they're seeing and they
don't know quite the whole truth is, yes, it's out
of your pocket and it's going to these NGOs and
these other interests. But then it comes back to these
government officials to re elect democrats. I mean, it is
(24:35):
a mess. And if we know the whole truth, I mean,
people are really going to be upset even more than
they are right now. Doctor Michael Butler has been our guests.
We always appreciate Michael on the show to give us clarity.
He's the public policy analyst, economics expert, and professor of
finance at Stockton University. Michael, thank you so much for
being with us. Take care god speed, my friend.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Thanks, take care of Bill, see you soon.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
You got it well.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Coming up next on Bill mart Tina's Live. As I
mentioned to you, we've got Leslie Korbly.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Who's going to be with us.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
She's an attorney, author and columnist. And she asked the
question because, uh, you know it's being thrown out there
all the time by the Democrats. Oh, it's a constitution.
Everything is a constitutional crisis. The good guy is falling.
And Leslie Korbili is with us right now. Leslie, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Good to have you with.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well here it is.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
We're in a constitutional crisis. You know, it's like, oh
my goodness, you know, where's my pearls? I got to
I'm clutching them so tightly. You know, it's just just
a man. I mean, Donald Trump gets reelected. You know,
I'm moving to what was it one this? Correct me up,
it was a producer of a show. I'm moving to
New Zealand. They go, well, who do you think takes
(25:45):
care of New Zealand? It's America, ding dong. I don't know,
you know, you have you have to laugh at the
silliness of it all, leslie.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yes, yes, for sure.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
And that's you know, the.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
New phrase I suppose, I mean, you heard it a
lot during his first term in office as well, that
Donald Trump was going to instigate a constitutional crisis. But
I think the real constitutional crisis, frankly, has been ongoing
for some time, and it's been this decades long march
in decades long approach that Congress has taken to essentially
neutering themselves. Right, So Congress doesn't have the role. Congress
(26:25):
is supposed to take on a role in the constitutional
system of enacting the will of people. Right, it's supposed
to represent the consent of the government, and that's unfortunately
simply not a role that Congress is currently embodying.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Well, they've subordinated it to the bau the bureaucratic class, yes,
all for the sake of not having accountability, so they
could go to their constituency and claim plausible deniability.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
It wasn't me, you know. But you know, the thing.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Is it's so disingenuous they can't even admit it's the
bureaucratic class. They just say it's not me.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yes. And this is something that I think the public
is becoming aware of as far as how consent operates
over time. So obviously Americans did vote for prior congressmen
and women who unfortunately, like I've said, have abdicated the
responsibility of legislating to the executive branch. But the problem
is as you move forward in time, that consent wears down. Right,
(27:21):
So take for example, something like the very draconian measures
that came with FDR back in the nineteen forties, where
he greatly expanded government. Well, you can't really blame people
in nineteen eighty for having inefficient sets system that were
set up in nineteen forty, Right, So someone voted for that, right,
the public voted for it at one point. The problem
(27:41):
is that it's very difficult for future generations to outvote,
to exercise their consent, to say we no longer want
to be governed in this way because you have entire
apparatuss government agencies bureaucratic systems set up that make it
extremely difficult to undo. Frankly, the damage that was done
prior generations, and so I think that's one of the
(28:02):
real crisis we're in is that we don't we have
a constitutional system. We have systems of checks and battles
of separations of powers, for example, is of course incredibly important,
but our government no longer really operates from a practical
standpoint on the principles that was founded on, because again,
that's very difficult to do when you have an entire
branch of government that has functionally abdicated its authority to
(28:24):
the executive So, Frankly, if to the extent the leftists
are very concerned that Donald Trump can act like a dictator,
it's because he's been given in that authority, because the
executive branch has been emboldened and given so much power
that frank we should have.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
The thing that's amazing that people are missing out and
the way this stuff has been institutionalized, leslie, is.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
That the fix is in. I mean, the left.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
They've set up a system in such that look at
we're going to give people a lot of stuff and
we're going to buy their votes. They're going to buy
their votes with taxpayers moneyblic look and independent Democrats, doesn't
matter you know, it's bipartisan money going to buy their votes.
And so once they buy their votes and they get
them in the system and they say, hey, you get
(29:09):
to vote again, what are you going to vote for?
We're going to vote for more of that stuff. Right,
And so that's how the wheels on the bus have
been going round and round and how crazy this is
and why you know, when you want to have a
reasonable conversation about, hey, we've got to back off on government.
We've got to make sure that these programs, there's goodies
that you like, that they're going to be there for
(29:32):
generations to come for all the right reasons, and but
we need to be responsible stewards of that. You know,
then you got the outcry because it messes up the
institutional you know wherewithal and the infrastructure that's been established
for one reason only, and that is to get the
Democrats re elected.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Yes, it's very fascinating because I think you bring us
some really good points. But I think it's I think
it's really interesting, for example, that we're talking about integrat
institutional crisis when Donald Trump's main goal, it seems, is
to reduce government authority and power generally speaking, right, he's
not exactly trying to expand government.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Becoming more constitutionalize.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
So he's trying to constrict government, which again is difficult
even from a constitutional standpoint, because once Congress has acted
to empower the executive, you know, it makes it difficult
for the executive to call that back. So where there's
that statutory authority that comes directly from Congress, things get
quite a bit more dicey. That being said, the overall
thrust of what he's trying to accomplish his agenda, so
(30:34):
as being, is not exactly to create new bureaucracies or
to create more government interference. It's quite frankly, to do
the opposite. So it's a rather bizarre notion. You know,
he's a rather bizarre dictator. If his goal is to
reduce the power of action, he's a bad dictator. He
wheels like it's like the January sixth. Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
You know, insurgents, they are terrible insurgents. You know, nobody rites.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Right, So there's something about that doesn't make it doesn't
dive right. And this is kind of regardless of where
you fall on his policies, Right, maybe you think there's
better ways to do this, Maybe you're someone who thinks
that certain things he's doing shouldn't be done, and just
I find that bizarre, just as an initial matter. As
a second point that I think you do bring up,
and it's very important for the public to understand, is
that it is undoubtedly and indisputably true that the Democratic
(31:22):
Party has a overwhelming advantage in the federal bureaucracy. So
if you were to just look at who is staffed
in these agencies, it has a massive left wing bent
and that has for a very long time. That's very entrenched.
It's entrenched culturally in Washington, DC, and it's entrench within
the bureaucratic system itself. And so this idea that you know,
(31:42):
the Democratic Party doesn't it only cares about what Trump
is doing to the extent they care about the people
and the public I think is quite disingenuous. In reality,
they have entrenched interests within the bureaucratic system and disrupting
those interests obviously is not something that goes well, you know,
it is not their best interest, right. So again that
(32:05):
that for the public, though, is not great, because the
public's interests and the Democratic Party's entwerts.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Aren't necessarily aligned.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
And I think that's where the Democratic Party is really
losing its focus because for so long they were able
to really use messaging regarding compassion, kindness, tolerant, so on
and so forth to try to align the Democratic Party's
interests with the interests of the public. And now I
think we're moving it to a political landscape that frankly
recognizes that those interests are not aligned. And so the
(32:33):
public is moving away from the Democratic Party and it's
becoming hard for them to hold onto power. So obviously,
if Donald Trump comes in and disrupts or the bureaucratic
strongholds they have, that doesn't bode well for them in
the future.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Well, you know, with the help of the mainstream media
and the bureaucratic class and everything, like you said, the
infrastructure is well established, the emotional message could sell. And
it was frustrating, you know for people they're going, wait
a minute, this doesn't make sense. But it took somebody
like Donald Trump, you know, to break through that barrier,
that emotional barrier, to be able to connect with the
(33:09):
people and finally for them to understand, oh, that's right,
that's common sense, that that doesn't make sense. I mean,
step away from my emotion for a minute and realize
that thirty six trillion dollars in debt, no bueno, open
borders where you got gang members coming in and killing
your relatives, spent and al running rapid, one hundred thousand
(33:31):
people dying every year. You know, people able to you know,
men able to go into women's restrooms, compete against women
in the sports, you know, strip them of their scholarship
availability and awards and things like that. I mean that
that is device common sense. And so then what happened
(33:51):
is the it became a choice, a very clear binary choice.
Either you want common sense or you want this emotional,
hollow stuff that you've been putting up with for you know,
for all ten purposes for twelve years. Maybe got a
little bit of break with Donald Trump in the middle,
but you had eight years of Obama and four years
of Joe Biden. And how did that work at the
(34:12):
end of the day, how did that work for you?
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Well? Did it work?
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Great?
Speaker 5 (34:16):
But I think this, frankly, goes far beyond just the past.
You know, several presidents. I think this has been percolating
for some time, and you're absolutely correct regarding the stranglehold
on communication some of this, I think also is driven
by social media and specifically the fact that Elon Musk
bought Twitter or now.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
X, what did God send huh if he had bought X.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I mean, these streams of communication now are open in
a way they simply weren't before. So the Democrats and
those on the left could control the overturn window. They
really could control was in the realm of acceptable discourse
for the past. I mean, really, this has been.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Gone and going.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
If that's a story frankly, I think at the twentieth
to early twenty first century is that, you know, progressives
and those on the left were their power rose in
the twentieth century, it was pretty much I think they
had strong reason to believe moving into the twenty first
injury that they were going to be able to continue
to control the narrative. And as with all, you know,
large sources of power, power corrupts, right, So it shouldn't
(35:14):
come as any shock that as Washington's DC got bigger
and accumulated more power that was more centralized, that that
actually became detached from the public's interests. I mean, this
is what the founders contemplated, and it's one reason they
have separated, the separations of powers mattered.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
It's also one of.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
The reasons that the founders were very intentional about having
the public's interests represented both at a democratic level right
where you democratically elect your like congress people, congressmen, and
was but also why there were was contemplated the Senate
should actually be slightly more detached from the public, because
that gives you know, a better perspective, you know, because
(35:51):
obviously when populism is too is on the rise, there
can be problems with mob rule and problems with democratic
sources of governance. And so the founders were very intentional
about trying to represent the interests of the public both
very close to home and also a little further away.
And I think we've really moved away from that model.
And frankly, again, the Democratic Party had a stranglehold on
(36:14):
the ability to control discourse and that is going away,
and that is I think you were absolutely right. For
whether one likes it or not, Donald Trump was the
one who was able to break through that communicative stronghold
and speak to people where they were at and bring
entire constituencies into the Republican Party that prior to that
had no interest in engaging in politics at all.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
We're talking with Leslie Corbi, the author and speaker and attorney,
and Leslie, you know, going back to the media in
what you were saying earlier, Mark Zuckerberg before the election
comes out and he starts confessing his sins. I guess
in the sentence, but especially after the election in saying.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Hey was the FBI. They made me do it?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And you know, which I thought was quite fascinating because
that was quite telling when he came out from underneath
that thumb, that the oppression that he must have felt
over the years with Joe Biden, the FBI, you know,
crawling and yelling at them, yelling at their people. He
would say, you know kind of thing. And I mean,
(37:18):
and this is what happens with power. It always goes
one step too far. It kind of reminds me a
little bit is before your time of the Richard Nixon administration,
because President Nixon just went a little too far. It
didn't have to, which amazes me. I mean, here he is,
you talk about a popular vote in how many states
that he won in that definitive election, and yet he
(37:42):
ends up shooting himself in the foot. His people do
because of their arrogance.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Yes, as you're absolutely right, And I think I think
another thing to know that's really important related to the
communication stronghold Democrats had was it seems that it was
largely AstroTurf in the sense of I don't know if
you've watched Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Joe Rogan after the election,
where it doesn't seem like Mark Zuckerberg is really a
true believer in the sense of being like a Democrat zealot.
(38:08):
And I think that's true of a lot of people
who felt as though they needed to curry favor with
those on the left, because that's how you can either
get your message out there. That's how you could avoid
bad press and terrible pr slip ups. That's how you
could avoid journalists maybe asking gotcha questions.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
You know, because some law fare.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
And I think Donald Trump was effective, frankly at changing
that dynamic by simply not caring. Now there's there's a
concern that I think is valid that maybe we're going
to move into an era where the word compassion is
almost a dirty word. And I think that that's that
we might likely go too far in that way for
a while. But it's again understandable, because when you weaponize
(38:48):
you know, love, compassion, tolerance, all these words that actually
have good meaning, then eventually the public becomes cynical towards them. Right,
they don't, they don't they hear those words and lital care.
You're right, So if you cry wolf too many times,
people simply don't care about that perspective anymore. They don't
they don't care about seeing someone's tears on screen anymore.
And again there's a cost to that. I'm not saying
we should become cantless as a people, but I do
(39:10):
think we need to recognize the dynamic we're in and
why why people are possibly turning away from being as
easily emotionally manipulated. And frankly, it is because emotional manipulation
was a very well played ployee and a great tactic
of the Democratic Party for decades, and I think they're
losing their ability to do that, and it's I think
causing panic on that side of the aisle because that's
(39:31):
again they're one of their go to tools and their
you know, right, and their public relations toolkit was to
go to emotionalism, and it's going to be difficult for
them to continue doing that moving.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Forward, Well, it heads up tomorrow night. They're going to
bring it out, right, I mean, that's that's the suggestion
is they're going to have people, you know, federal employees
who have been affected by by Doge and Elon Musk
and and and you're right, I think we need to
be sensitive about the compassion issue because people are going
to lose jobs. I mean, we've all been there for ourselves.
(40:06):
We've lost jobs. I mean I haven't had a government
job like they have where they're you know, so highly
compensated and could work out of their own home and
even have another job and double dip, so to speak.
And I mean the kind of shenanigans that have taken place.
I'm not saying all federal employees did that, but we
know a number of them did. They took advantage of
(40:27):
the taxpayer and shame on them for doing it. And
so that unfortunately for people who have you know, I
guess some legitimacy and have earned some compassion that's going
to get lost in translation because of those that abused us.
Speaker 5 (40:42):
Right, Well, yes, absolutely, And I think it's actually really
important to highlight the media's role in these issues because
the reality is human interest stories, you know, journals and
feature stories and whatnot have been are very important for
the public, and it's actually very important that multiple viewpoints
that human events are. There's humanization across all viewpoints, right,
(41:05):
And so the reality is there was no corresponding concern
about individuals who didn't take the COVID vaccine and lost
their jobs, despite the fact that that was very cod
you know, trying to force people to take the CODE
vaccine was you know, that was something you were supposed
to applawed. You were supposed to care when someone lost
their job for saying I really don't think I want
a new vaccine that hit the market last month to
(41:27):
be something I really feel as if I need to take,
I don't think the risks are worth it, right, I
think I don't think the benefits are worth the risks.
So I think that the fact that some human subjects,
there's only certain human subjects that the media has classically
deemed worthy of our compassion and our sympathy and receiving
any kind of human care, is a very important element
(41:49):
to this. I actually think most reasonable Americans have a
base level of empathy for each other, regardless of which
side of the eysle they're on. But for again, decades
and decades, only certain subjects were able to be covered
as if they're pain mattered. Right, So everyone else's you know,
to the extent that policy impact that you know, liberal
(42:09):
policy impacted individuals negatively that just sort of was not
not covered or it tended to be uh, you know,
swept under the rug. And that's where Donald Trump is
very effective, you know, I mean, the same can be
true of a lot of issues. Right, So if there's
a COVID vaccine as it relates to unemployment, that's treated
very differently than the DOGE cuts. You have the same
thing with the transgender issues, where you know, those on
(42:30):
the left will really shine a spotlight on individuals struggling
with gender identity or those who maybe what identifies transgender,
but they have really zero empathy for some of the
girls who are complaining of you know, lack of privacy
and their spaces, whether that's bathroom with sports or you know,
other other issues, locker rooms. I mean, so there's all
these all these again, all these issues, and there's only
(42:52):
one angle for human empathy, right, and that's I think
a major major problem that the Democratic Party is running
into because it's quite selective and frankly, quite discriminatory, and
I think increasingly the public is not particularly buying into
the narratives that they're selling them about compassion and love.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
But yet the public, we the people have to look
at this as an opportunity of how how do we
demonstrate empathy and love in the midst of something that
we don't agree with.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
How do you find that ground?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And especially when it seems at the left, especially you know,
like the trans movement and stuff like that, you look
at what's going on, it's very aggressive. I mean, I
mean extremely aggressive to death even, I mean, it gets
that radical. So it really has everybody you know, on guard,
(43:43):
you know, walking pins and eels. You know, we don't
want to offend anybody, but by the same token, we
don't want to be offended either, And so this is
going to be a process. I'm glad you brought this up,
because this is going to be a processing and it
takes some time for us to you know, kind of
you know, grow through this.
Speaker 5 (44:01):
Right absolutely, I think that my hope is that we're
moving from a politics that focuses heavily on values to
one that focuses on interests. So let me say what
that means. So everyone has values, right, So if I'm religious,
I have certain religious values. If I'm a secular humanist,
I have different values. And I think for a long
time politics was spoken of through the lens of values, right, like,
(44:22):
we have certain values and we should govern accordingly. Now
that's true, But what is also true is that different
policies and different different policies will have different trade offs,
and those trade offs will involve different individuals or entities,
sets of interests. And I think we need to pair
understanding our values with an understanding of who has an
(44:43):
interest in you know, what is the public's interest in
certain types of legislation, What is the public's interest in
cutting government? Who wins and who loses if certain policies
are enacted or not?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Right?
Speaker 5 (44:54):
And I think that that having that understanding of whose
interests are at play, hopefully can lead into visuals to
begin to step in each other's shoes a bit easier, right,
Because if you and I have mutual exclusive values, there's
there's only so far you can go. But if I
understand you have a different interest than I do, I
can imagine what it would be like to have that
interest right, right, And so I think that there's a
(45:15):
there's a practicality to looking at interest that it doesn't
exist in the romal values again, because if you don't
buy into a worldview, you simply don't hold the values.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
But it takes a certain amount of intellect and fairness
in order to get there. I mean, if you're you know,
like Jordan Peterson said, if you're so ideologically fixed, you've
rendered yourself stupid.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
We can't have a conversation, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
So we've got to get out of those silos to
be able to say, Okay, at.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
The end of the day, what do you what do
you want? What do you want? What do I want?
You know?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
And can we We may come at it from a
different direction, but are we heading.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
To a a you know, a destination that's somewhat in
the zip code? You know?
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Yeah, I think we're going to have to become a
lot more comfortable with talking across divide. And I think
that's frankly going to require people to be very more
comfortable than we are currently in our culture with offense. Right.
So if I can't understand where you're coming from because
everything you say offends me, then it's you know, we
can't really have a productive conversation and there's really nowhere
you can go. So you have to be willing to
hear things you find offensive and grapple with ideas that
(46:22):
you don't agree with. Now, those again on the left,
I think, are weaker at that, not innately. I'm not
saying those on the left are innately work.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So they don't have a lot of practice with it.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
Yeah, that's that's exactly what I'm getting at. They've controlled
the levers of communicative power for so long that they
simply didn't really generally have to contend with ideas they
found to be that distasteful. Right, So when you hold
the when you hold the power and journalism, media education,
and you know, you just there are not very many avenues,
elite avenues that you could go down where right we
(46:52):
use are favors. So I think that that will require
those on the left, frankly, to be willing to come
to the table in good faith and willing to listen
to ideas they find repugnant. And you know, I mean,
some ideas are repugnant. You should be thrown aside fair enough,
But you know, you have to be willing to listen
to them and contend with with different ideas rather than
just you know, using pejoratives to an attempt to tarnish
(47:16):
the reputation of your opponents. And that's been their classic
approach to these issues, at least for the past you know,
twenty thirty years at least, if not longer.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah, because if I can emotionalize it, then I can
invalidate you, and you're out of the.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Debate, right, Yes, Yeah, so that's it.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
You know, I win, you lose, instead of us both
winning because we want the same thing. But this is
where the country is, and this is the clear divide
is I don't believe that the country in total wants
the same thing.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
I think most I think you're actually right that most
individuals who are not highly ideological could come to reasonable
agreement on a lot of issues. I think you're right
about that, that there's far more common ground than we realize.
But I think that the unfortunately a lot of the systems,
and the systems like education for example, or particularly higher education,
(48:07):
really incentivized ideological thinking. There's not a lot of cross
pollination of ideas, and individuals are really pushed through the
schooling system in a way that leads them to think
certain ideas are innately good and moral and others are
innately bad. Now, again, that's obviously true on sub level,
but I think it's highly ideologically driven and politically motivated
(48:29):
right now, rather than something simple. I think we can
all agree that lying is wrong, or that slavery was
a horrific institution that's been around in human history for
far too long. It shouldn't exist, right, I mean, these
are things I think we can all agree on. But
education goes, I think, much further than that and into
a realm of ideological like it polarizes the public frankly
(48:53):
because it again creates a lot of unnecessary division.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Well, Leslie, we got to leave it, Derek, and thank
you enough for coming on the show. She's the author
of Silent Suffering, Poems of pain and purpose, self declared
anti feminist attorney and columnists, and again, how can people
be in touch with you?
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Sure so, lesliecorbly dot com is the easiest way to
find a copy of the book. I also will be
releasing another book this year. I signed a contract and
so the mainscript is into the publisher. That will be
coming forthcoming, and some more information to be found on
lesliecorbly dot com.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Best way to find.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
Me Leslie Horbly, the one and only. Hey, thank you
so much for being with us. Take care, Thanks so
much for having me right you have a great day.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
We're so blessed to have guests like Leslie and of
course doctor Michael Butler to be able to bring you
know a broader sense of communication, understanding and news information
for you to digest and choose wisely so that the
consent of the government, which is what this is all about,
(49:57):
that you've got the truth. You've got the facts that
you need in order to make an intelligent decision. Thank
you for sharing a part of your day with us.
Appreciate you being here with us. May God bless you
and keep you. May make His face shine upon you,
and may he be gracious unto you, and may you
experience his peace. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
God bless
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