Transcription
The fracturing of the MAGA coalition is bringing me so much joy right now, as Donald Trump is at the throats of his own supporters, his own backers in Congress, his own advisers in his White House. And the latest example of this civil war might be the funniest and most destructive yet.
Because as Donald Trump is desperately trying to fix his plummeting approval rating, the issue that he has decided to go to war with his own staff in his White House over is the dumbest one yet. It's his ballroom, and it is exploding a scandal inside the White House that we are going to get into.
But before we do, if I could quickly ask you to leave a like on this video, and if you haven't already and you enjoy our channel, to hit that subscribe button because it goes a long way in supporting our work.
Now, before we get into that posting tantrum from Trump over this leaked fight over the ballroom, this is just ridiculous. I want to start with someone who's been calling it out for the disgrace it is from the beginning, and that's Pete Buttigieg, right here. Speaking of demolishing, um, the White House right now, literally, uh, the East Wing is being demolished. What do you make of of that?
>> Well, my focus right now isn't about historic preservation. It's about what's going on in people's lives. And what's most wrong about what President Trump is doing to the White House grounds is it shows that his focus is on building a bigger venue for fancy dinners, when because of his actual policies, Americans are opening those letters and finding out this week that they're not going to be able to afford their healthcare next year. How in the world could you be focused on building a new ballroom, literally a a gilded ballroom for fancy parties for your rich friends, at the exact moment when working Americans, actually disproportionately working Americans who voted for you, are getting screwed by your healthcare policy and you don't seem to be interested in helping them?
I mean, he would say this is it's for the American people and it's the people's house and it's good to be able to have this sort of space. >> And most of the people who are getting these letters about their healthcare premiums are never going to be invited to dinner at the White House. He's not there for them.
It isn't just insanity that Donald Trump has decided that the destruction of our country's history, the morals that we have, what it means to be an American, he he's decided to transcend that just out of the abstract, but but actually, you know, put it put it into practice by tearing apart the White House. It is insane. I guess we shouldn't have been shocked by this. It was always going to get to the point where Donald Trump was going to build, you know, some trophy for himself, name it after himself, cover it in gold, make it look awful, upset us all. That should come as no surprise.
But for him to do it right now at at a time in which inflationary pressures have his approval rating dropping more and more and more, where Donald Trump now has a a worse approval rating on inflation than Joe Biden did at the end of his presidency after fighting back inflationary pressures that he had no control of, managing better than any other world leader, a a a return from a pandemic. And Donald Trump has done this all to himself. And not only has he screwed himself with this Gotti project, of course, in the public's eye, but also potentially legally, as Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase said, when he really subtly hinted at the fact that this might just all be illegal.
>> So, um, you're renovating and building this new office space in Detroit. um much smaller scale than what's happening in Washington, right? Where the East Wing has been demolished uh for what's going to be a very, very uh large ballroom of that the president is building now. A lot of CEOs have rushed to donate to this, right? And it matters to him, right? So he looks at the list. On that list, you got Amazon, Coinbase, Google, you got a whole lot of others. Comcast, tons of companies on there. Um, I didn't see JP Morgan Chase on that list. Did you think about it? Is there any chance you're going to do it?
>> You know, you have to look at J. There's a We have an issue. Okay, which is anything we do, since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful how anything's perceived and also how the next DOJ is going to deal with it. So, we're quite conscious of the risk we bear by doing anything that looks like, you know, buying favors or anything like that. So, uh, you know, do we do things like that? And but we also have policies we don't do certain things, right?
>> Because it just makes it easier for us. We have helped the inaugurations. That was a normal thing that a lot of companies did. So, so we'll see.
>> But this the concern of buying favors. I want. So that's not good news for Donald Trump in any way, shape, and form. His his pet project is just another illegal move. Democrats are going to have so much to investigate Donald Trump over after the midterms, and potentially even before the midterms, because of course there's a lot of talk of resignation. There's a lot of talk of Republicans might wanting to get out early. We have a special election tomorrow in Tennessee's 7th congressional district. Afton Bane might win a Trump 22, Trump plus 22 seat. A and it's because of like this. It's because Donald Trump is focused on a ballroom. It is because Donald Trump I is focused on giving himself a trophy.
Well, affordability is the biggest crisis in America right now. And his mind is on the ballroom. And he's furious, not just privately, but now publicly with attacks and a post. Trump reportedly arguing with ballroom architect who warns it will dwarf the White House. Donald Trump is reportedly not seeing eye to eye with the architect he tasked with building the new White House ballroom. Trump demolished the entire East Wing of the White House in October to make room for the new 9,000 square foot structure, telling Fox this month that he could have built the ballroom without destroying the East Wing, but that it looked like hell.
According to the Washington Post, the architect James McCreary II has warned the president that such a massive building would dwarf the White House, which is 55,000 square feet. On Wednesday, the Post reported Trump's desire to go big with the project has put him at odds with architect James McCreary. The people said, who has counseled restraint over concerns that the planned 9,000 90,000t addition could dwarf the 55,000t mansion in violation of a general architectural rule. Don't build an addition that overshadows the main building.
A White House official acknowledged that the two have disagreed, but would not say why or elaborate on the tensions. The paper noted that the administration officials have said that the president's dedication of the ballroom has at times veered into micromanagement. And last night, with all of this reporting, Trump wrote, "The presidential ballroom, which I am building at the White House, with all private donations in funding, zero cost to the American taxpayer, will be at its completion, the most beautiful and spectacular ballroom anywhere in the world. It is something that has been needed and desired at the White House for over 150 years, but something which no other president was equipped to do. But I am, and as long as we are going to do it, we are going to do it right. It will be a magnificent addition to the White House, the most important since the building of the West Wing."
So, Donald Trump is declaring and an attack on his own advisers, largely all throughout the White House, who are pushing back on him, telling him to stop talking about the ballroom and start talking about affordability. He is declaring, if there is one thing that we are going to do right, it is going to be the ballroom. If there is one thing that needs the utmost focus of the president of the United States, it is the ballroom. That is what Donald Trump has announced to the public. That if he is locked in on one thing, it is the ballroom. That is what he cares about. That's what matters most to Donald Trump. That is what he is focused on. He is attacking and calling out anyone who is not fully on board with the ballroom.
If you thought that Donald Trump was actually managing things at the White House and it wasn't Stephen Miller, it's obviously Stephen Miller. Let's get real. Where is the time going? If Donald Trump is actually running things at the White House, how does he have time to, in the words of White House officials, micromanage the ballroom? He's not in charge. He has his little pet project. He likes to put gold in the Oval Office. He likes to tweet, eat hamburgers, watch Fox News. His events are starting two hours later than usual. His workday, if you can even call it that, is about four and a half hours now. And in those four and a half hours, Donald Trump is spending most of his time micromanaging a ballroom that he is furious with the architect at and he is subtweeting him on Truth Social. Like that that goes to show you everything.
And that Jamie Diamond response, I think, is really important. I think it's really important that we talk about the illegality of this, which is pretty obvious. I think it's also important that we talk about the fact that these CEOs have gotten off so easy during this Trump administration, that the Bezoses of the world, the Tim Cooks, the Larry Ellisons, these guys who have just been able to give Donald Trump little toys and then going to abuse their workers and and not pay them living wages, break our laws, build out their monopolies so that they can corner markets, jack up prices on us, and just destroy America so they can become trillionaires. I didn't even talk about Elon. These guys need to pay. The corruption is obvious. They're all involved. And by pay, I mean pay their workers a fair share. Stop price gouging us.
If Donald Trump can get CEOs to humiliate themselves by giving them gifts and and showing up to dumb dinners and donating to the ballroom, then the next Democratic president can get CEOs to humiliate themselves by cutting down their salaries, paying living wages, and stop price gouging us. and to break up these monopolies. That's what we should be doing. That's how CEOs and business leaders should be bending the knee to Democrats. I'm tired of this corruption, and so is Chris Murphy, who has been calling it out all throughout this administration.
So Donald Trump and the AI companies that are trying to poison our kids and destroy all our jobs are like this, like thick as thieves. The Trump administration and the AI companies, these billionaires that run these big companies, they cooked up this crazy idea a couple months ago. They said, "Let's pass a law that bans the ability for states to regulate AI." The AI industry does not want to be regulated. They don't want to stop poisoning your kids. They don't want to stop destroying your jobs. They want to be a totally unregulated industry. And so they said, "Republicans, why don't you pass a law to ban states from regulating us?" Like, "This doesn't happen in any other industry." But because the AI industry gets whatever they want from Donald Trump, because these billionaires that run the companies are tight with Trump, Trump said yes.
And Republicans tried in the spring to pass a ban on state regulation of AI, but they failed because that's wildly unpopular. Nobody wants that. People want AI, but they want to be protected from abuse. And so when the measure came before the Senate, the Senate voted 99 to 1 against stopping states from regulating AI. Guess what? The AI industry was furious. They came back to Trump. They said, "We want you to sneak it in to some piece of legislation that has to pass." And so right now, as we speak, Trump, the AI industry, and Republicans in Congress are talking about putting that provision in the National Defense Bill. That's a really important must-pass bill. That's the bill that authorizes the Defense of the United States of America. We pass it every single year. And now they're talking about including a provision written by the AI industry that would prevent you from going to your state legislature to lobby, for instance, for a law that says AI chatbots can't cheerlead your kids into suicide, which by the way, is happening all over the internet right now. States would be banned from regulating AI, which would make these AI billionaires like triple quadruple billionaires. And it would hurt tons of workers and tons of kids all across this country.
The rich and the powerful control the Trump White House, in particular. The AI industry controls this White House. And you just need to know what is happening right now. The corruption has been so rampant and is so important to talk about. That is why I'm glad Senator Murphy has been all the time. That is why we will continue to. And if you want to support that, as always, you can hit that subscribe button, leave a like on this video. If you stuck around to the end, drop a blue heart in the comments. Keep on fighting, y'all. Don't let them silence you.