Transcription
Let's talk about remaps. Let's talk about redistricting, town halls, immigration raids, ice caps. And I'm not talking about in the polar north. I'm talking about ICE is now recruiting at a older level. So you don't have to meet an age requirement anymore and so much more in there, including is Trump about to taco on Ukraine again.
I'm Adam Kinzinger. I was a congressman for 12 years. I was a Air Force pilot for 22. And this is your weekend review.
So, let's talk about what's been going on in Texas where I'm at right now. So, Republicans have made the decision to do a very rare and I don't know if ever done midcycle redistricting. So, what that means is every 10 years new maps for congressional representation are drawn because we do a census and so people move and so you have to change the district lines. That's where gerrymandering comes in. It's when a uh certain party basically draws a map to their advantage. Well, Texas has decided to do that because Donald Trump requested it mid decade right now. And so they have put out a map that would be now in would be implemented next election cycle that actually gives Democrats uh five less seats and Republicans five more seats uh than they currently have.
So what's been done and result? Well, uh, Gavin Newsome of California, uh, the governor of New York, potentially the governor of Illinois, has not much left in Illinois, have said that they're going to open up their maps and do the same thing now in response to what Texas has done, and they're going to actually draw Republicans out. This is going to be a big story. I believe Texas will pass their map. I do believe then Democrats will come in and pass the equivalent map and it may end up working against the Republicans in the long run if places like California, New York are actually able to squeeze out more seats on behalf of Democrats and Republicans. I hate gerrymandering. I'm a victim of it when I was in Congress. Uh but you have to fight fire with fire if the Republicans are going to do that.
Let's talk about immigration. Look, these immigration raids continue. ICE is growing. uh the Immigration and Customs Enforcement is growing. They need new people. They need new recruits. They're not recruiting enough. So, what are they doing? They're raising the cap of how old you can be to join ICE. Now, you just have to follow a certain level of um physical fitness and you can join if you're a lot older than you than you needed to be. And so, that means they're pretty desperate to hire people. Uh this is, by the way, what the Confederacy did right before they almost capit right before they capitulated to the North. They raised the age of recruitment, lowered the age of recruitment because they were desperate for people. This is going to continue to be a big issue obviously as we watch ICE roll into our neighborhoods, pick people up without due process and in many cases detain them in some cases even Americans and particularly in places called like alligator Alcatraz. This is a stain on America. We can be all for strong borders. We can even be for deportations, but you have to do it humanely.
So Mike Flood in Nebraska had a town hall and that was not pretty. There were a lot of people yelling at Mike Flood. Uh they were upset. They were upset about the quote big beautiful bill. They were upset about his feelalty to Donald Trump and uh it was uh not a pretty day for him. This is why things like pushing for town halls are so important out there because we need to make sure our representatives stand before us and answer questions because that's their job first off and that's your right to demand it. But it also sends a message to them that like they're accountable not just to Donald Trump or not just to their party leaders, they're accountable to you because you're the one that's sitting there in front of them and asking them the questions. So that was uh we we could see this now over August. we could see more and more of this stuff happening where there's these town halls and it doesn't end well for Republicans that actually reflects what happened in 2010 with the Tea Party.
Now, MAGA's been pushing uh a lot lately to arrest the enemies of Donald Trump. That includes people like me, by the way. Uh look, we still live in a country with a rule of law, and this isn't going to happen. But it's starting to frustrate some of MAGA supporters who were promised that, you know, all their enemies, everybody they don't like would be thrown into jail. Well, it's not going to happen. But you know what? They are being denied. They and us are being denied the truth about the Epstein files. Now, they're doing everything they can to try to obscure or change the message. Donald Trump is trying to create so much noise and chaos out there that uh you'll forget that they have the Epstein files. They promised to release them and they're not releasing them. This is going to continue to grow, but we can't let them forget or distract from this. Uh, this is a thing that tears MAGA apart. Uh, this idea of child sex trafficking has become a religion to them. The idea that Epstein was somehow this Democrat, this Democrat guy who had only Democrats on the list and and they're having a hard time accepting that Donald Trump may be there. So that's going to continue to be an issue and we need to continue to push that because we deserve those answers. So that's why I keep tweeting things like Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
So Federal Reserve Board, Trump made a nomination. How does this matter? Well, your interest rates are set by the Federal Reserve Board. The person that he nominated who will likely be confirmed to go on the Federal Reserve Board will likely be the chairman of the Federal Reserve next year. And so that means that will be have a determination what happens with inflation, what happens with interest rates. So you can continue to watch that. The guy's name is Steven Moran. He's a chair of the economics advisory council. And what you'll see from him could potentially be what you'll see as chairman in terms of monetary policy in the United States.
And also Donald Trump has just surged federal law enforcement in Washington DC. There have been there was a hijacking incident including uh from this guy named Big Balls who actually heroically was trying to stop a hijacking and got beat up. But there is a lot of crime in DC. But Donald Trump has taken it a step further and said that he actually is going to put a lot of federal cops in there and potentially wants to get rid of Washington DC's ability to govern itself and have it taken over by the federal government. This could be a huge bomb. Now, this is also could just be Donald Trump being Donald Trump and making big statements, but if the federal government takes back over Washington DC, uh, that could be pretty bad, pretty nasty, pretty disastrous, and take a lot of federal resources quite honestly. So, we'll see what happens there. That's just beginning to be talked about. So, just watch that over the next few months as that grows.
And then two more issues I want to talk about. Tariffs. Donald Trump finally implemented tariffs that make absolutely no sense. All they do is raise your prices because you're the one that's going to have to pay for these products that are imported that tariffs are put on. Let me give you an example. Syria now has a 41% tariff. Now, if you followed history, Syria doesn't export anything to the United States and they just basically got rid of their dictator and they're trying to come together. So, why Syria has a 41% uh tariff on them makes absolutely no sense. But then again, this president's policy makes no sense. At a time when we're struggling against inflation, what does he do? He raises the pressure of inflation. Uh I don't understand it except that this is a guy whose economic policy is stuck in the 80s and he won't listen to anybody that says he's wrong.
Lastly, let's talk about Ukraine. Donald Trump made an announcement that as of lap this Friday uh if Vladimir Putin didn't come to the table with a ceasefire that there would be all these sanctions, secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil. Um guess what? It passed. Nothing happened. In fact, Donald Trump sent his guy Wickoff to meet with Putin and now is very excited that there's a breakthrough. He falls for Vladimir Putin every time. All Putin wants to do is buy more time so he can continue to execute this war in Ukraine. And Donald Trump falls for it every time. Taco. There's a reason he's called taco. Trump always chickens out because Trump always chickens out. So that's what's happening in Ukraine. There are rumors out there that there is a ceasefire proposal being put out that looks on the face of it very bad for Ukraine and Ukraine is heroically defending itself and actually I think winning the war against Russia. Regardless, Ukraine is the one that has to make the decision of what they are and are not willing to accept as a ceasefire deal, not the United States.
The only good thing that's happened really in the last few months is at least we are allowing countries to buy American weapons to give to Ukraine. You've heard that right. We allow countries to buy American weapons to give to Ukraine. We are no longer giving weapons to Ukraine because for whatever reason, and we could get into that. Listen, the money and the weapons that we gave to Ukraine was all of America's old stuff that we were going to have to destroy anyway because it was getting ready to get worn out and we would have had to replace that. Instead, we gave that old stuff to Ukraine because they were going to burn through it and we bought the new stuff that we were going to buy anyway. But we have to put a value on that. We have to put a dollar figure on that so that we can account for it. So it looks like we're giving Ukraine $80 billion when in reality about half of that is just stuff that we were going to destroy anyway that we were given to Ukraine, but we had to put a dollar value on. Keep in mind we spend almost $900 billion a year in defense. $80 billion dollars over three years is nothing compared to the fact that about half our defense budget goes to posturing against Russia and Ukraine is about to defeat Russia.
So anyway, thanks for paying attention. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back at you next week and uh continue to remember to hit like and subscribe to follow all the videos I put out where we discuss various issues and of course weekly the weekend review. Take care. Have a nice weekend.