Episode 123: Does Truth In Politics Matter Anymore?

Can we have like immediate fact checks as people are speaking ?

I , you know , loved them . So why is this an issue now and why am I watching this kind of depressed ? And so we'll go through why that is on our deep dive here in a second . But I want to go with a couple of other things first to talk about here , and , you know , trying to touch base on where .

What we're dealing with is some of the issues here , and I think one of them , to start , is , is a few things on the economy , because it is an issue , and I don't know if you saw , a couple of different things have happened here , the first one being we've started to learn a little bit more about what Kamala Harris wants to do as far as her economic plans

go , and so we found out that yes , you know there are going to be some issues here she wants to raise the corporate tax rate .

. In 2017 , with the Trump tax cuts , they went down from around 28 percent down to 21 percent , and I remember at the time at KRQE , we actually all got a bonus because of it .

Believe it or not , it wasn't a huge bonus and it wasn't some life-changing thing , but we did get a bonus and it ended up being important because down the road , through COVID , I will give Nexstar credit , who owns KRQE there were never any cuts or anything like that , and one of the reasons why some of that credit was given to the fact that the corporate tax

rate came down a bit , and that was definitely beneficial to everybody who works for these companies , no question . So those things are an issue .

There's no doubt , and I think part of that issue that we have right now is the fact that if you start raising those rates up , you're likely to see some layoffs , you're likely to see more issues , because you're pulling money right out of the company and that does not go to somebody else . That's not what happens here .

What ends up happening is that ends up taking a toll on employees no doubt .

It said here that the Business Roundtable estimates because , remember , with Trump taking taking this cut , taking these cuts down it said , the Business Roundtable estimates that some two point five trillion in income earned abroad returned back to the US as a result of Mr Trump's 2017 reform . Yep , yep .

So you know , when you see that it says now she's going to pitch this 28% hike , what does that do ? Like you know , I think that that's going to be a really interesting dynamic and I'm not sure people really are paying attention . They just keep thinking , oh , it's a big corporation . It's a big corporation attack .

I think you know that with when you funnel prices back down on the consumer , whether you know you have to raise your prices or you have to let people go from jobs Right One or the other .

Basically , they're saying , oops , our bad .

It wasn't anywhere near where they expected it to be . And I think now the twist of that is , hey , we're going to put out here now that maybe the job growth we're off a little bit and so maybe they're trying to push for some tax cuts , I mean some interest cuts .

And then families are saying , yeah , you can say that , but it doesn't feel that way to families that are dealing with it , especially working families dealing with all these issues , and so now that becomes a bit of a problem , right ? And so you see , all the job numbers now are going to be an issue . They're going to try to cut interest rates .

The problem you're going to run into , though , if you end up cutting interest rates , is the risk can be and it won't necessarily go down this way , but there's a real risk that you start to supercharge inflation again . So if you cut down those borrowing costs , you flood more money into the economy . Wait and see what happens , but that's an issue .

So a couple of quick economic issues . Also , one other little thing we can talk about here . That's a bit of an issue , and that is the fact that there's a proposal now , apparently from Vice President Harris , which would advocate for moving up the capital gains rate to 44 percent .

So if you don't know what the capital gains rate is , for example , if you have stocks and you buy a thousand dollars in stocks , okay , and those stocks , uh , let's say , let's say it goes great and they double in price . Right , they double in price , and then you now have $2,000 . Well , you'll have to give half of that gain .

Basically 44% of it , or $440 of that $1,000 you made would go directly to the government . Right , it's an unbelievably high capital gains rate , it's super high . But get the trend here More and more taxes , bigger and bigger government , less and less control in your hands , more and more control in the government's hands .

That's what this is going to be and that's the choice we're going to have .

And I I mean , I'm the first one to admit that I'm not some economic person that understands everything either . But when it's actually broken down and explained to you a little bit , you're like wait a minute , why , why would they need more taxes on people who are actually the workers ? Why ?

And they keep saying over and over and over , we're going to lower tax on middle class and the lower income . And I'm saying , well , you're taxing , you are sometimes , in fact , you're proposing double taxing businesses , and that's dangerous . That doesn't build business , it doesn't build growth in anything . It makes people step way back from that .

So I just think there's a lot of misconception out there that hey , under Kamala's wing we're going to lower taxes . I don't see how that's even remotely true based on the fact if she's going to support Biden's budget policy that was proposed . That's exactly what she's saying today .

This is kind of our deep dive try to do this every show and we want to take a deep dive on something that we want to get a little more detail on , and I want to go through a little bit of some of the dmc stuff that , to me , is crossing , I think , a threshold . Maybe I'm wrong .

I I could be fully wrong on this , in the respect that maybe it's always been this way , but I don't think so . I don't think so .

I think what we're seeing now , and especially in some of these speeches that I've watched over the past couple of days , that there's just a blatant lying going on , where it's one thing and , believe me , we've been in the middle of these races where where there's stuff that said you're like oh , come on Right .

But rarely , honestly , is there stuff that said that so beyond the pale , that you're just like what are you talking about ? And so it happened once . I remember in our race with Michelle , she put out an ad , very briefly , that said I was going to cut police funding , like she said all right . And then channel four destroyed her .

And that ad disappeared very , very quickly and I think the person who approved that ad ended up disappearing somewhat quickly as well . But then , you know , then you went back and forth on . Yeah , she misrepresented what I , what , what could be done and what I wanted to do , and , and , and . I bet you she could say that I did the same thing .

But it was all within the realm of truth . Right , it was all within the realm . I said she didn't address crime because she didn't right . And she says I'll ban abortion because I'm pro-life right . Those have some thread of truth in them . Right Now , they're not all completely accurate . I get all that . I'm not going to get into all that .

I'm not relitigating any of that , I'm just saying that you go back and forth , saying that , that you go back and forth . It's not great . There are people who lie . We read that doctor in the Senate race who completely lied about me , stuff like that , like things happen .

But but usually there's somewhere within the realm of truth and I think what happened was , as I watched the DNC , I saw more and more rhetoric from major characters on the left who outwardly just lied and it's just not true at all .

It'd be like Trump standing up there and giving you advice on marriage and being like , listen , you got to listen to me on marriage . I'm great to my wives . All right ? Yeah , we all agree , trump's had a checkered past on that and he doesn't try to stand up and tell you how to do it , right , yeah , and as you watch this , I just think so much of this .

I'm just amazed by the gall .

It's using your words effectively to carry a message , to be persuasive in a message , and part of the study that I'm teaching is is all rhetoric ethical ? And then what is our job in being more ethical in our approach ? Right ? So they bring in Aristotle and Socrates and everybody's argument from way back in the day , right , and how it plays into today .

And so what I'm having the students do is actually look at advertisements and movie clips and maybe some political clips of where do you see ? What do you think the speaker's goal is ? What's the message ? Is it ethical , Is it truthful ? And nine times out of 10 , I want them to be able to spot , just so they have critical thinking skills , right ?

That's kind of the job . So when I see a clip like this , my blood boils because I'm thinking you have a big task at hand as the president of the United States to be honest with your citizens . You're bowing out anyway . So at this point , tell the truth , like I just don't get it Well , even yeah .

They never do that to Joe Biden , they certainly don't do it to Barack Obama and there's no question they're not ever going to do it to Michelle Obama . But they are all three offenders in this , and there are some others as well . So I want to start with Biden . Okay , we'll start with Biden here in his speech on Monday night .

We've condensed it down to a few little whoppers here . They're all put together for you , so I'll let you listen to this and then we'll talk about it .

Who in the hell does he think he is ? Who does he think he is ? Who does he think he is ? The president was asked what he thought had happened . Donald Trump said , and I quote there are very fine people on both sides . My God , that's what he said .

So he's going to keep that going . You know we've talked about the border I don't know how many times at nauseam . That's just not true , right . What he's saying , right ? And the fact of the matter that I think people are still confused on border crossings . I don't know how they're , I don't , I don't know .

You have 12 million people who've crossed in the last three and a half years . I don't know how anybody's confused .

If you go watch it and I've watched the whole video he clearly says he's not referring to neo-Nazis and white supremacists . He never said it . Ok , it didn't happen . He didn't say it Right , and so I've watched it . So I don't you know . This is very clear . Snopes had the check on it . Everybody's had the check on it .

Ok , so that took me five seconds to find . Then the Trump episode also talked about the bloodbath . Ok , that was written in the Hill Watch . That too , ok , he was talking about the auto industry . He was not talking about the election being a bloodbath if he didn't win . That is not true . Everyone knows it . It's very clear there .

It says on March 16th , trump told a crowd in Dayton Ohio that President Biden's reelection result in a bloodb . That's what he said . Okay .

And I think what's interesting about this whole thing right now is , for the first time and you've said this before on the show , mark is that we have a direct apples to apples comparison here . We have Trump , who was in office , you know , four plus years ago , right from 2016 on that .

Now you have Kamala , who is a whether they want to admit to it or not , she is in office , so she is tied to the Biden administration and his policies . So we have apples to apples comparison on what it would be . We have an out of control border . We have inflation that's skyrocketing .

We have grocery prices I mean , you're seeing gas prices go all over the place too . You see what you're going to get with Kamala . Like there's no mystery there . That's not a mystery . And then , under Trump , you can see , especially on the economic side . You can compare the economics , you can compare the border issue .

I guess I just don't understand how anybody sits back and goes . It's going to be so much better staying the course that we're staying when we've seen the last several years we just keep . You know , things are going out of control .

But so you just see him line up all those lies and you say , okay , and I get some of the political rhetoric and stuff I understand all I'm willing to account for all that , but what I can't account for and I blame the media more than anything else I don't think people should have to sift through bold face lies Like I just don't think they should .

Now again , there are times when you can make the case and there are plenty on the left to make the case that Trump , you know , exaggerates and everything else .

I'm not saying that isn't true , but I'm saying that on one side of the aisle here , what you've seen is very little fact checking and very little holding political leaders to account , because they haven't been held to account . What you have now is one party that just unloads and that's not good for the system , it's not good for any of us , right ?

And so when JB Pritzker stood up , he's the governor of Illinois , okay , then he stands up with his deal and I want you to listen to what he says .

He's got a $53 billion budget plan out for the state of Illinois . What is he doing ? Pritzker's budget includes a plan to tackle the state's pension debt . It also calls for $800 million in new taxes $800 million in new taxes from JB Pritzker .

Then we get to Michelle Obama , who , look , you're not going to hear any argument from me on her ability to deliver a message . She's very effective .

If I'm being honest , I thought she looked better than I'd ever seen her look personally , um , but what was interesting was nobody was paying attention to her in the audience , which you and I have talked about , that I've emceed an event where everybody was eating dinner and I was like , oh my gosh , remind me to never emcee a dinner ever again .

Like you can come up and give a welcome . Hey , welcome to the event . Blah , blah , blah . Enjoy your salad . I'll be back in a little bit , right , but this was a three-hour event and I had to emcee through dinner and I remember nobody's listening to you . It's the worst . It is the worst feeling when you're an emcee .

So up there you can hear everybody talking and just talking over her last night and I was like , oh , that has to be frustrating for her . I'm sure that nobody's paying attention to her Absolutely .

Okay , she has been politics adjacent and so she's been more involved than , say , laura Bush right , who never got in the middle of this , but she's been less involved than Hillary Clinton .

So she has that middle sweet spot where she's not constantly involved in every fight , but , you know , she has very strong political opinions , but she's far enough away from it that she is still beloved by at least half the country . Okay , they look at her and think , man , really impressive in a lot of ways , and she's a great speaker .

So that's why she is where she is , and so she's an effective communicator , on top of the fact that she has been in that perfect position to be able to be the golden deliverer of a message here . Now , the message she delivers I don't agree with , and a lot of it , I think , was really , really adversarial to bringing the country together the other night .

I really do . I don't think this was a positive message in any way , shape or form Her whole . You know they go low , we go high , gone yeah . In any way shape or form her whole . Uh , you know , they go low , we go high , gone , gone . It's this thing was , this thing was down there and she was fighting it out .

Okay so , but I want to talk again back to this deep dive theme of just no regard for truth , in no regard and no self-reflection in any way , shape or form , like it's all shameless . It's all shameless . So as I watch the whole DNC , I'm thinking that's the word . It's shameless .

People go and say things that they should be embarrassed to say and when their speechwriter writes it in for them , they should say I can't say that . That's crazy , I look like a hypocrite . There's no such thing anymore . There's no shame , and it starts with Michelle Obama she and my father didn't aspire to be wealthy

.

Where your share , it looks like you're coming back for seconds , thirds and fourths right Cause here's the second house .

He worked for some activist kind of group before he became a senator and then he became the president and I'm pretty sure since they've been , he's been president . I don't think they've , probably . I don't know , but my guess is they're not out there like working a nine to five job , right ?

I think it's fair to say that they made the bulk of their income because he was president and they've lived off of that ever since that that fame and fortune , right . So it's just interesting for to hear either one of them talking about , you know , the rich and the super rich and how that's not fair to the lower middle class , and I'm sitting here going .

But you didn't build job growth , you didn't build a company and then bring jobs in and money in an economy , in to a country or to a state , and then that's how you made your money Like Trump did , like Trump had the money before he ran .

And I'm sitting here going well , you've benefited from the capitalist society in which that we live in , and so we support that . Usually as conservatives I think most conservatives get behind that part of the economy , and I just think the problem I have with that is , again , I don't care how much money they make .

I could care less how much money people have or don't have . I think that it's a matter of you can't get it and then become a hypocrite and go after an opponent for doing the exact same thing that you've done , which is benefited from a capitalist society . So that's all . That's my problem .

You get less opportunity for lower and middle class families . That's just a fact . So the bigger and bigger that the government gets it's never proven that the government meets more needs the bigger it gets . As a matter of fact , the more you give people a feel and their own destiny in their own hands , that's when they tend to do better .

It's not that you don't need government for some things , but the big , massive government that they're espousing has never proven to do what that's been promised , and so that's , I think , the concern in this whole election . But so we talk about the House thing and everything else . That's fine . It's a little bit of a periphery issue .

The issue I want you to really focus on now that we touch on here is just a blatant lie from Michelle Obama that to me . I listened to it and just went how does become a mother through IVF like I did ?

I mean , when you're somebody who's got all the advantages that she has giving a speech , we all just soon hear the truth , right ? I mean , I mean , and you can , you've got plenty of ammunition . Okay , we all understand that .

All of us who who watch politics , all of us who who don't understand that you can criticize Trump , do all different sorts of things , but the whole , these guys are against IVF . It's just a lie , yeah , and so so what do you ?

Ok , and then it shows how Trump has actually already addressed this issue a long time ago . Ok .

Like the overwhelming majority of Americans Americans including the vast majority of Republicans , conservatives , christians and pro-life Americans I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby okay , yeah , there you go .

Like I just feel like it's weird to hear policy issues that like even you know , I have a lot of friends that are Democrats and they'll tell me stuff and I'm like , yeah , Republican Party doesn't believe in that and that's not what they support at all . So I'm not sure where you're getting your information from , but that's actually not accurate .

Will a single person in the media stand up ? In the legacy media , I should say stand up and say Michelle Obama incorrectly said that Republicans do not support IVF . She lied , she lied in the speech .

This is also from last night .

I mean , can you imagine if they did the same thing with Democrats ? Well , they won't , and so that's why this is so bad . And so when you listen to CNN , one of the most interesting people on CNN we've been talking about him for months now is Scott Jennings . Who's a ?

Who's a is a Republican on CNN who is by far just killing it on CNN , doing an incredible job . And so he looked at this project 2025 madness and then basically went and called out CNN for trying to pin this on Trump . And just watch , jim Acosta is in the middle of this .

Jim Acosta is one of the most disingenuous quote members of the media that there is . These guys are activists , literally . Jennings is sitting up there with three Democratic activists trying to have a conversation . So this is about the Project 2025 situation .

What was amazing to me about the whole night , and particularly Joe Biden's speech , is just what a fabricated reality he lives in and what a fabricated reality they want their base to live in , because the reality is this is not Trump's agenda .

They come out with this massive , cartoonish , oversized prop , but the whole point is to make a whole crowd of people believe something that's not true .

I mean by your logic , every single thing that Kamala Harris said when she ran for president in 2019 , ban fracking , defund the police , the most permissive immigration structure . She cannot be permitted to disown any of that , Do we agree ? No , no , can I just .

No , and Trump never said any of this stuff and they want to hold them to it . That's what makes this so disingenuous

. Again , another layer of this that is just it's complete fantasy land , and I think that it's hard to have an honest discussion of issues , and the American people are hurting and need a real discussion of issues , but how do you have that discussion when you have one group of people that is just openly lying and never having to answer for it ?

Well , because I hate to say it , half the stuff that they're saying and even Kamala off in her pep rally .

It reminds me a little bit of like the Clinton era , when he would go and kind of take popular Republican campaign strategies like his like verbiage and then try to use it in his own way to make himself look good with using words like freedom and we , you know pro-America , we're patriots and all this stuff .

It's like I just I'm watching her and I'm like , but your policies don't support what you're actually trying , you're . It's like a campaign slogan over here and then the policies down here and they don't mesh .

I think the race is going to change and I think because and we saw it a little bit last , or was it Tuesday night that look , the Obamas are , are , are effective communicators . Now , I don't think they were . He was an effective president , but he wasn't effective . He is an effective communicator and a one-off speech . If you're buying what he's selling , okay .

The problem is , kamala Harris is not that effective and she is going to have to leak out more and more opinion , more and more policy , and I think , as that happens , the race does collapse on her a bit . It doesn't mean she's out of it . Then I think it just becomes a complete and total coin flip heading into election day .

So I think she's got a bit of an advantage now and I think that's going to collapse here over the next few weeks for her and , as it does , this thing's going to get is going to get very close .

We're not seeing a lot of coverage on this from a lot of the mainstream media , but what we are seeing is we are seeing a protest out in front of the convention center in in Chicago , or the United center , rather , in Chicago and look at all the police and just just one other thing . This is another one of those things .

Look , support the police , please , and not just when they're guarding you and your political friends . Why don't you support them all the time ? What you're talking about here is a candidate who is advocated for pulling funding from the police . It's on tape , it's not hard to find .

But when it comes time for extra police officers to protect the Democratic Party elite , boy , we're going to get them in there . But what do you say to those low-income families in neighborhoods that are wracked by crime ?

Then you say , whoa , whoa , wait a minute , you're not as important as the Democratic elite , so you need to back off a little bit here and just let them get what they need and then if they need to pull funding from police , they're going to do it on the backs of those low-income families . That's the part of this I can't stand .

Why in the world do we have politicians in this day and age who act one way when it affects them and then when it affects you and your family ? It's a whole different set of rules .

We've seen that shortage of police force , we've seen the disrespect that goes into back to law enforcement and we cannot seem to rebuild that . And several cities are run over by crime and I just think you created a ripple effect .

And now suddenly you're saying well , we're going to find more money for the cops and obviously they need them at the DNC because of course there's going to be rioters at the DNC because they're playing both sides of the eye , right .

But then there's other parts of this hypocrisy as well , which we'll get to in a second .

But a little bow on the DNC situation that , despite all the speeches and everything that said , there's still one thing that is that is sticking out like a sore thumb and all of this , and that is that Kamala Harris is the president or the vice president of the United States , but , as worked president Joe Biden , they are in office right now , and all the

speeches in the world can't allow them really to run from that . So our guy Scott Jennings who again , one more thing from him , because he's that good discusses a little bit of how this was shaken out . So this was after Tuesday night when the Obamas went . They had a very good night .

Even Doug Emhoff gave a very good speech for his wife , and so they were riding high .

Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the last 16 years and for all of the talk about division and the problems in the country and people are hurting , democrats have mostly controlled this country .

Trump had it for four , the Obamas and Biden had it for the rest of the time and somehow it's still all Trump's fault and somehow she hasn't been at the center of it . So to me , that's still the glaring hole in this campaign that hasn't yet been solved at the convention .

How do you explain all of the problems that will be solved by the person who is currently in there for the last three and a half years , who is supposed to already be working on solving it ?

Okay , here is his VP candidate , giving a little I don't know a little bit of hint into , maybe , what they're thinking .

And I just think he's met with Trump . I believe he's already met with Trump , is my understanding , and it'll be interesting to see . My bet is is he's going to bow out and he's going to do offer to be in some sort of role with Trump .

Yeah , I have not given him too much weight , I think there's a lot of people , a little bit of the Kennedy mystique working for him .

That's not what this still very frustrated by the COVID vaccine mandates and things of that nature that took place , and they look at him as kind of this guy that would never implement that and that would protect those if we were to ever have something like that again , which you know don't put your , don't say it won't ever happen again , because it could , and

so it's something that's up to that degree where the government has that much say over your health and I think he's somebody that would vow to protect that and I think that's why people see him as a very interesting kind of guy . No , no , I get it .

Like every , every meeting that you go to probably can be , you have , you go to you'll , you'll have a sing the national anthem , say the pledge of allegiance , like it happens all the time . Right , it's a huge deal , and when you have bigger meetings like this at a convention , a lot of times they'll bring somebody in to sing the national anthem .

But when you have enough talent right in the room and you know , look , if we put a mic in front of these , ladies they're going to light it up so bad , and so they did .

Normally , when you're singing a solo or like a quartet or whatever that was supposed to be , you don't have the background track on there , right ? It's just you guys singing , but they couldn't seem to find where they were supposed to be in the song .