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Definitely can. We got so much to talk about Tonight, Joe Biden gets into a fight with Papua New Guinea. TikTok might be banned forever, and we find out why people are yelling at your car.
But first, Donald Trump is being gag and tortured. So let's watching, you puverts and I'll ongo coverage of America's most tremendously wanted.
The whole thing is a scammed.
Today it was the second day of Trump's hush money trial, and the first witness was the editor of the National Inquirer. He testified that to help Trump win the twenty sixteen election, he would buy scandalous stories about Trump and then bury them.
And what a great job he did. I can't think of a single Trump scammer, or they could even get into that they had to hold a separate hearing to find out if Trump violated a gag order when he threatened jurors and witnesses, and that hearing did not go well for Trump.
It was a pretty wild and intense hearing on Donald Trump's gag order. It all turned into a very heated exchange between the judge and Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, who argued that Trump is being very careful well a clearly frustrating judge. Mrshawn responded mister Blanche, using all credibility with this court.
Minutes after the hearing ended, Trump attacked the judge on social media, calling him a kangaroo court.
Wow, this guy is incapable of keeping his mouth shut for two minutes. Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?
But think about it.
But this is a complicated issue about balancing rights. Basically, the prosecution's argument is that a juror has the right to feel safe while serving on Donald Trump's jury, while Donald Trump's argument is that that juror lives at thirty four West fifty second Street, and maybe someone should pay that juror visit and straighten him out. This gag order is serious. Trump might have to pay up to one thousand dollars per violation.
Yeah, one thousand dollars. That's not gonna stop Trump from talking. Okay, you gotta deal with this like any other tantrump. You gotta give Trump an iPad with cocomelon on it and let him zone out.
Okay, that he's gonna back Coco Mello and whenever he's upset.
Okay, Well we'll do that later, all right, We just need him to stop now. It's all noise. I can't even think in this house.
Not what doctor Becky would want anyway. For more on the results of the gag order herring, let's go to Desi Leidich. No, now that the gag order Harry is over, they can get back to focusing on the actual trial.
Right.
Unfortunately, no, because during the gag order hearing, Donald Trump made a jerk off motion, so they needed a gag order hearing to see if that violated the gag order before they could get back to the first gag order.
Oh oh, but then after that it's all set.
Uh No, because during that gag order hearing, the judge heard Trump saying I'm judge peepeehead. And when the judge asked, did you just call me Judge Peepehead. Trump said he was just rehearsing for a community theater production where he plays a judge named pepe Head. So then they had to have a hearing about that.
But once that's done, the actual case.
Yes, but no, because during that hearing, Trump made another jerk off motion. But then he said it wasn't a jerk off motion. So they need a quick hearing to determine how he jerks off, then a hearing about whether he made the jerk off motion, then Judge peep Head, then the first jerk off hearing, then.
The gag order, and then the actual case.
What case, the.
Hush the hush money case.
Oh nobody remembers that.
Keep up with a news.
Cycle, Jordan, you're at the desk, for god's sake.
Thank you, Desi. We'll check back in with you later.
Clearly Trump thinks he's being treated unfairly in.
This trial, and he's not the only one. Something.
The gag order is just the start of the oppression Trump is facing.
Okay, Jesse, let me start with you.
The prosecute says this is election fraud, and they say, pure and simple is it?
I call it pure evil.
So they've taken away his freedom of speech, and now they've taken away his.
Freedom of movement.
I mean they had more allowances for college sake.
Muhammadad Oh.
Okay, that sounds wild, But I think Jesse Waters is a reasonable man because I was kicked in the head by a horse last week. So let's hear him out. How is Trump being treated worse than the mastermind of nine to eleven?
The guy needs exercise. He's usually golfing, and so you're gonna put a man who's almost steady sitting in a room like this on his butt for all that time.
It's not healthy. He needs sunlight, and he needs activity. He needs to be walking.
Around, he needs action. It's really cruel and unusual punishment to make a man do that.
Are we talking about Donald Trump or an old English sheep dog. You can't give him grouped up all day. He needs time outside or'll pee on the couch.
Look, we all.
Know how Donald Trump loves exercise. Because of this trial, he's been mobile obese for the last forty years.
Yeah, I mean, though, would Trump even want fresh air and exercise? These actually sound like the punishments the judge would give Trump if he's convicted.
Yeah, no, he's a fresh air and exercises. Give me the death penalty. But listen, I'll give.
Jesse Waters the benefit of the doubt because I was also kicking the head by the same horse, So let's let him continue.
This isn't law fair.
It's torture. They're making a seventy seven year old man sit inside a dingy room for eight hours straight, four days a week.
Wow, eight hours a day, four days a week. It's literally a torture, or, as the rest of the world calls it, a job, a part time job.
To be fair, I mean, this is the same guy who's asking to be president of the United States.
I mean that's gotta be at least a forty hour week gig. I mean yes again, over time.
Also, I thought Trump was supposed to be the young, vigorous candidate in the race. Now what he needs sympathy. Suddenly he's a poor, elderly man, crippled by the weight of his own body, pulverizing his bones into dust against the chair. You know what, get that horseback out here, because I want to give Jesse one more chance.
They're telling the entire world all the whack goes this is where the former president's going to be at this date, at this time, surrounded by high rise buildings.
Yes, it's very dangerous for people to know Trump's exact location, which is why he lives in a nondescript building with his name on the front.
The Trump campaign also tells us where he's going to be and exactly when. They're called Trump rallies, and it's how I know where to go to get yelled at.
And you know the worst part about him being on trial is that they're just treating him by something. He's some kind of criminal defendant.
Today, the former president of the United States. If he leaves court to go to the rest room, jail, if he calls the prosecutor, corrupt jail. If Trump moves or says anything, they scream jail.
If he makes us recycling jail, if he scratches as crotch, jail.
Yeah, he gets a high score on the SAT jail.
His favorite batman, Christian Bail.
Yeah, his favorite vegetable, Fred Froz.
Yeah, definitely not kailled. But he is going to jail. He's gonna He's gonna go Joe. Meanwhile, we've done Trump trapped in the courthouse. It was a perfect opportunity for Joe Biden to seize the initiative and uh, hey man, you got the campaign all to yourself, mister president, time to press your advantage.
The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea has angrily denied a false claim by President Biden that his uncle was eaten by cannibals during World War Two.
Those single engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones. He got shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be there a lot of cannibals for real. In that part of the GUIDEA.
You're gonna lose the election.
Yeah, Look, at some point we all get to an age where we confuse our own life story with the plot of Indiana Jones. It happened, it happens.
No, it's true. I mean the man's eighty. Okay.
We all have grandparents who tell crazy stories like my grandfather told me that you once wrestled a mountain lion with his bare hands.
Yeah, And my grandfather told me that she did on my grandmother through their entire marriage and had a second family.
Her grandma. You goof full.
And can I just say, even if this story was true Americans, I no position to criticize how anyone else eats. Okay, these cannibals eat people? Yeah, well you know what we eat some ways angry just to lose weight.
Right would a cannibal even eat people out of a wreckage? I mean that's their version of eating roadkill.
Yeah, I know you want you want to eat. I passed your raise grass fed humans. And by the way, I know the Prime Minister was upset understandably, but hey, if someone accused my country of being cannibals, I.
Just run with it. Like, don't with us. We'll put your dick on a Kaiser room down.
That's fair, that's fair. Anyway. Biden apologized to the papuno getting Prime Minister by inviting him to a dinner with Pete BOODA judge will be served over rights for the balsamic reduction.
So yeah, before we go, let's shut back in with you at the courthouse.
DESI okay, So any update from the gag order hearing?
Actually, yes, the Democrats are now asking for a new gag order.
Oh what what did Trump do this time?
No, they're asking the judge to issue a gag order on Joe Biden. It's really the only way to stop him telling Uncle Cannibal's story.
Wait, the true Democrats are asking Biden. Biden has a gag or the one that affect his ability to a campaign.
Yes, At this point, the DNC feels strongly that that's his best shot at winning. Otherwise his strongest supporters will be Cannibals and that's a dwindling voting block for obvious reasons.
All right, does he lie like everybody?
When we come.
Back, we'll find out the best way to yell in your post go away.
Welcome back to the Dana Show.
Is a little bill making its.
Way through Congress this week that could ban TikTok in the US.
And that would be a big loss for a lot of people. TikTok isn't just the dancing app anymore. It's also one of the main places people go to share opinions about the news and culture, opinions like this.
So little did I know that Taylor Swift was literally going to prove the point that I was making in the videos that made a few weeks ago.
So let's talk about the eighteen thirties line in her latest song.
And I also want to do well talking about the abortion law in Arizona from eighteen sixty four.
Yeah, she really just jumped from Taylor Swift to abortion law, which means the first two seconds of that video has more tonal variety than Taylor's entire new album.
Am I right, Jordan?
Don't get me involved in this two times up Taylor Swift way to go. By the way, if you watch a lot of videos like that, you've probably noticed how many of them are filmed inside of cars. It gives them that extra I'm on the move and my disapproving spouse is at home energy. And if you're wondering, do I need a car to sound off on TikTok, well not anymore. In today's worlds, you need a card that can do more than just get you to your destination.
You need a car where you can sit in the front seat and record yourself going on an unhinged rate.
Do you understand what China is going to.
Go up with this shit going on in the border?
The evidence we're gonna drive respect and.
Manners of common courtesy and even common sense and all that shit Golet Stint might.
Just crazy blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Bitch that's why we hear at rant A Car are dedicated to finding the perfect rental car for you to make a video of yourself calling Nancy Pelosi Hitler.
What's next?
People are gonna start identifying as Hamburgers. Well, hold the pickles because this guy's Oh.
Good morning, miss Webb.
Looks like you preserved a Suzan to go ape shitt on Target for pushing the transagenda on children.
They got t shirts with sprainbows on themsel CD my little Nazex who.
Worships the devil.
Great, Great, let's take a look at what we have available.
Thank you so much.
Our cars are the perfect place to voice your opinions no matter what lane you drive in.
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So wake up, America. I'm over it. I'm sick and tired of it.
So come into Ranta car today. You have the rant. Well, love the cars, go drink the photo the target.
They got those five G tracking devices.
All we come back, Jephanie could will be joining us on the show, so don't go away.
Oh, welcome back to the DEBI Show.
Our guest Tonight's a professor of economics and public policy and the author of the best selling book The Deficit Myth. She's featuring a new documentary, Finding the Money. Please welcome Stephanie Calton.
Dephane welcome, Thank you. It's a fascinating documentary. I will say, you are you are setting out correct me if I'm wrong, to fundamentally change how people see money. Yeah, that's a big ask. And we got about seven minutes.
Yeah.
I think a place to start is with right MMT. If you can help us defile what MMT is, and I think what the narrative the narrative you're hoping to get across with MMT. What what is the new economic narrative? It's no longer pull yourself up by your bootstraps. What is MMT telling us?
So in economics is widely known as the dismal science, right, because well, that's what MMT is trying to do better branding, because you know, in the dismal science, it's all about scarcity and we can never have the things that we want because there's always this really intrusive problem, which is how are you going to pay for it? Where is the money going to come from? And the problem is that we treat money like just any other scarce good or service.
In the economy.
And what MMT is doing is saying, hold on a second, we're not on a gold standard anymore. We have this thing called a fiat currency. And it does make people nervous because a fiat currency sort of opens up space and it's kind of like, wait, is money real after all?
And so MMT is an economic framework that tries to have an honest conversation that talks to people like grown ups, not insulting people by telling them that you have to treat the government's budget like a household budget and speaking down to people, we want to be honest about the monetary system we have today, the capacities of the government to spend when you have a fiat currency and you're not tying your currency to gold and promising to convert
into something that you could run out of, like physical gold. So we're opening up a conversation where there are still limits and you still have to make choices, but we can have an adult conversation about how the government can actually operate its budget when it doesn't face the same kinds of constraints that a household or a business face.
By that, I think that the big headline with this as well is the way we look at what the deficit means. Correct.
Yeah, Like I hear deficit.
You're here in the news. You hear every politician talking about a deficit equals bad yep. And the major narrative of MMT monetary modern monetary theory is deficit good. Correct.
Every deficit is good for someone in purely financial terms. And I'll tell you why, because you're right.
We use this.
Word and it sounds inherently like something's gone wrong. If somebody is in deficit, there's a problem.
Right.
You don't want to turn on the sporting game and find the announcer saying that your team is going to have to come back and overcome a seven run deficit.
If they're going to win the game.
It's always a bad thing, right, But actually, if you think about what the government deficit is, it's just the difference between two numbers, that's all it is.
So yeah, RELI, well, I guess we'll find that.
Fine.
Fine, it's fine in the sense that it's just a benign mathematical like, it's the difference between two numbers. It's not even higher order math, right, It's just how many dollars the government spends into the economy each year versus how many they take back out, mostly through taxation. So simple math. If they spend one hundred dollars into the economy and they only take ninety dollars back out, we label it a government deficit, and somebody records it as
a minus ten on the government's ledger. What we forget to do is to recognize if they put one hundred in and only take ninety out, somebody gets ten. So the government's deficit is matched or mirrored by a financial surplus.
In some other part of the economy is.
Wait, hang on, so did you guys meet backstage or something? Because what the hell? What is MMT? What what's MT is? What does MT stand for? You hand it?
So it's modern monetary theory. And so again the currency, we're not under the old standard. We're in the modern fiat age we have.
Yeah, what's well is a good car? Thats you get?
What you're walking around with if you've got some of this stuff in your wallet is a tax credit. So those dollar bills that we're walking around with, we think of that as money, right, and we can use it to transact, We can use buy and sell thing. You can use it to make purchases of goods.
And money is good.
It's good to have generally, and it's really good to have when you got to pay your taxes because this is what the government expects us to hand over at the end of the day.
Okay, okay, money is good. I'm with you so far.
But let's do this.
What about that government deficit that you just mentioned, right, And I said every government deficit is good for someone? Why because it's just a financial deposit into some other part of the economy. The question is good for whom and good for what. The government can increase its deficit to do things like feed hungry kids, tackle the climate crisis,
fixed crumbling infrastructure. All of those things are ways to use a government deficit that might have desirable results for people and for the economy.
So money is good, deficit is good. I'm with your sofar. So what's what's the bad? What's the problem?
You have?
A big part of the problem is the way that we've been taught to think about these things, to try to stamp out deficits, to reduce them, to view them as inherently dangerous. They're not inherently dangerous, and as I just said, they can be used to help us accomplish important goals in the economy.
So, for example, if I go to Caesar's Palace and I borrow like twenty dollars in my credit card, I put it on red and I lose everything that's good.
That's bad. Wait, why is that bad?
Then?
But doesn't the casino?
It's good for the casino.
And also, don't go to Caesar's Palace. That's a little ghost person. It's bad. Maybe go to MGM or this is something, But financially that's bad for.
Him, but that's bad for you.
But the point is to try to figure out and to wrap our heads around what it is we're actually capable of doing. Because we're always told that we can't tackle big problems that we face. We can't deal with housing problems, or education, or climate, infrastructure, social security, and medicare always come up, and everybody always says the same thing, we can't afford it. We have this deficit or we have this national debt. Where are you going to find
the money to do these things? And so MMT comes in and says, look, it's not about finding the money. The money is created when the government spends, Congress authorizes the spending, and if the votes are there, the money is there. The thing you have to watch out for is inflation. So it isn't as if it's a free lunch. There are no constraints, there are no limits. There are limits, and the limit is inflation. You can't run out of money, but you can run out of things to buy.
I mean, so this is correct me if I'm wrong, But if I'm going nutshell here, your essential argument is we're not bartering back and forth like this is an avatar for gold in our pocket. The government makes money, exactly, they can decide how much money goes out there. Right, you pay taxes. They don't need our taxes to fix big problems. They can make big money. It's on them to figure out how to spend it and put it into the economy in a way they can get big
things done. And then the private businesses, they're the ones who have the money. The government just has created that situation, and inflation becomes the boundary that they have to act underneath. Correct, well done, well done.
You.
Yeah, she's a published author and created a movie and still assholes won't do the research. But here here, here's the pushback.
Here's the pushback, memorizing the Wikipedia pitch. But here's the argument.
Here's what's so compelling. And Ronnie is a great he's a useful idiot in this, and people are scared. I don't know a lot about money, and I think the narratives are our money. Teach me to be afraid of it. It's something that we shouldn't talk about because I don't understand the underpinnings of it. And I think what it's compelling about your argument is we can and have like World War two, have figured out ways in which to
create money and fix big problems. It's it's we almost need a giant We need a big thing to focus on to get those problems done correct, to get the narrative around it. Like I think it.
Helps in COVID was that big thing for a period of time. We're governments around the world suddenly stopped asking the question how are we going to pay for it?
And what are we going to do about this deficit?
And they just pulled out, I'll use the phrase the money bazooka, right. Countries realized that they were going to have to spend a lot of money to shore up people's lives and livelihoods through the pandemic, and so we spent some five trillion dollars just in the first twelve
months or so of the pandemic. And I wish that climate was going to be that catalyzing event that kind of forces everybody to have that wake up moment and realize that we've been focusing on the wrong sorts of problems, that we really can tackle the problem of climate change.
We can afford it. We got to watch out for inflation.
Sure, okay, sure, So you'll say that MMT can be used to solve issues that we claim that we have no money for by basically the government making money, because that's where money comes from, right, And you're saying, but doesn't that increase inflation inherently if you just keep making money.
Well no, I mean the government has run deficits most of my life, with the exception of four years during the Clinton administration, the government's budget has been in deficit. Look at a country like Japan. They've had large deficits every single year for the last thirty years or so and no inflation to show for it. And we hardly
had any inflation. Inflation didn't really become a problem until COVID came along and started breaking supply chains, and then wars in Ukraine and food and energy prices and so forth. But you can have large and persistent deficits without having an inflation problem. It's when those deficits collide against the backdrop of constraints in the real economy, where the economy can't resource, can't keep up and satisfy that demand. That's what happened in the COVID pandemic and in World War two.
So if it happened in World War two and it happened in a COVID pandemic where inflation got out of control, where we had you had basically a limited spending on one single issue World War two. Well, COVID then helping you. Well, you know what's evidence that MT you will work? Then if we had two real examples, I'm yeah, no, no, because someone just briefed me on that, and I'll just repeat it.
So the evidence that it works is that MMT is a description of how government finance always operates, whether you have a budget deficit, a budget surplus, or a balanced budget. MT is at work providing the explanation. So it isn't about ramping up deficits and running large chronic deficits. You can have a good, healthy economy in some cases, whether a relatively small deficit or maybe even with a balanced budget.
It depends on a lot of other things.
So the evidence that it works is that it's a description, and we think a more honest and accurate description of the monetary system we have and how governments actually pay their bills.
Now, as a I guess in theory how this takes greater effect and affects our lives, and it's big things done, Green New deal that was a big part of the way in which we be funded. We need to start looking at money like through an MMT lens. Correct. That's also presupposes that you do have this paradigm shift that we start to see as a as a country, as a collective, we start to see the usage of money differently.
But getting people to have a cohesive change of mind and the way they see the world seems like impossibility from the experiences I've had out on the road and at Thanksgiving, Well, look like, how much of like, do we live in a culture where we can experience a paradigm shift or is that in and of itself an impossible I hope?
So, I mean, TikTok is there. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We're gonna get better, noe.
But it's stuff like this, right, It's conversations like these that allow people to hear a different perspective. And also I think, you know, look what the last couple of years, what we've done, in some cases on a bipartisan basis and in some cases just with Democrats. But you had the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest climate bill
we've ever had in the history of our country. We have the Chips and Sciences Act, which big investments in actual productive capacity here in the US, and the Bipartisan infrastruct Bill, which is repairing roads and bridges and you know, taking care of our infrastructure. So those are three big packages which I would argue are just an extension in many ways of what the administration started doing with the
COVID spending. And it's just another example of the government being able to mobilize the financial wherewithal to commit to spending money that it doesn't have, because the money comes from the willingness of Congress to say yes. When Congress says yes and writes those bills, the legislation is the set of instructions that goes to the government's bank, the Federal Reserve, and it says we've committed to making these payments.
Your job is our fiscal agent, is to carry out all of the payments we've authorized on behalf of the US Treasury. And that is just how government finance works. It's no more complicated than that. But we complicate it with stories about taxes and borrowing and debt and all the rest of it. But at the end of the day, the spending is really easy to carry out.
Well, you see, you're a very smart person. You're saying things like calmly.
Work here, and everything seems like it's fine. So how do we get to what would you what can people walk away with like if they.
Want to like not be sad when they look at the when they look at the deficit? Is always his question, How do I not be sad?
What's the what's the what's like the practical application? Because you'll you'll, I guess we just the three of us sat down here and we decided that the deficit is fine, and we can well okay, then so okay, so what's the next step? Why would you actually, let's say we believe in MMT or yeah MT? What what what's the next thing? That I mean is belief enough? Do I just have to pray to MT and then it?
What? What has to happen next? Who else?
What has to happen next is that the people that we elect to represent us have to go in there and and take decisions using the incredible power that they have called the power of the purse that they've got to take decisions about whether to fund programs, whether to cut programs, not on the belief that they ought to
be operating their budget like a household. But when these decisions come up about social security and Medicare, or continuing with the Inflation Reduction Act and staying you know, in the game on climate change and going even beyond what that legislation did. What I think gives me hope anyway, is that we've demonstrated what we're capable of and that we can build on it and not revert back to old ways of thinking about austerity and the need to
reduce deficits, because that's when you hammer your economy. That's when people have a lost decade. That's when all of a sudden, you know, the prosperity that is within reach starts to slip through our fingers.
So when the irs comes from my taxes, I just got to tell them, like, y'all, deficit is good, don't.
Worry about that. Don't worry about it. You need to you know what you need to do.
You need to take some THC or some d MT and let the MMT just watch over you, let the paradigm shift come to you.
Ronnie Jack, Yeah, I think I'm in it right now.
I think, well, finding the money will be released in select theaters nationwide and on demand May third. For more information, go to Finding Moneyfilm dot com. Seventy Keelton, We're gonna take a quick break, right.
That's how Oh that's your line.
I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump's character, and so far as I know, you don't pay someone one hundred and thirty thousand dollars not to have sex with you.
Wow, that was Republican Senator Mitt Romney. What a SoundBite.
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