Triple Crown of Failure: Courts, Budget, and Trump Endorsements | 5/19/25

Republicans passed their most important bill of the decade in middle of the night with shame and subterfuge. We’re joined by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who takes a sledgehammer to the entire message, vision, and objective of the bill. He criticizes his House colleagues for missing the main goal of reducing deficits driving inflation. Johnson shows how everything surrounding this bill is rhetoric vs. reality. He also updates us on his investigation into vaccine injury, and he now has proof that the government knew about young athletes dying of myocarditis and purposely declined to issue a public warning. He provides the vision on health care and spending that Republicans either don’t believe in or are too scared to articulate. Johnson is promising to force a course correction on the bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today’s show with a quick update on budget reconciliation and how it’s being jammed down the throats of conservatives with no vision on how to solve our major problems. While MAGA Inc. con artists like to whine about narrow majorities with purple districts, they are silent about red-state betrayals on policy and primaries, including terrible Trump endorsements. Next, we’re joined by investigative journalist Jay Solomon, who is out with a bombshell expose in the Free Press detailing how Qatar funds and influences our government at every level. In particular, Qatar has recently been influencing so many politicians and media figures on the Right. We delve into each of those levels of subversion and how it seems to be directing our foreign policy. Qatar now also invests in so much of our critical infrastructure. Are we on the cusp of creating China 2.0, with an Islamic twist? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin with a report from Trump’s visit to House Republicans regarding budget reconciliation. Trump continues to lash out at conservatives, as we incur all the liabilities of populism but receive none of the benefits. Relatedly, we’re joined by Kevin Lynn, executive director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, who is sounding the alarm that nothing seems to be changing regarding student and worker visas. Trump has just approved a new batch of 120,000 H-1B visas without even instituting the reforms from his first term. Lynn goes through the data on how the tech labor market is in the trash, yet the forces of collusive nepotism are trying to leave no job for Americans. We cover many aspects of this collusive nepotism and how it has bled into Trump donors and advisers. We need a course correction fast, because Trump has the full legal authority to institute these reforms without Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are only three ways to achieve the election goals: Trump ignoring the courts, fighting for the prerogatives in must-pass bills, and endorsing challengers against RINOs. Instead, Trump is refusing to ignore the courts while also declining to fight to fix the judicial problems in must-pass bills. I provide updates on the budget reconciliation fight and how conservatives are getting rolled thanks to Trump’s pressure. MAGA Inc. members are complaining about Biden’s lie about his cancer diagnosis, yet they are the ones pressuring conservatives to preserve his policy legacy. Finally, on the endorsement front, Trump continues to support every incumbent RINO. All conservative media want is a reality TV show while negating their own stated interests on actual policy outcomes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is it that there are only a handful of conservatives pushing to fulfil the immigration mandate, fight inflation, or even repeal the Green New Deal? Why is it that we have only one good governor? Because we have an industry of people who want to be someone rather than a movement of those who want to do something. Next,  we’re joined by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who explains why he plans to vote against the reconciliation bill as written. He artfully exposes all the gimmicks in the bill to show how there is not a single transformational policy change or meaningful cut. At the same time, there are so many new entitlements created with a strategic expiration date that will continue to perpetuate the cycle of lobbying and governance by fiscal cliff. Also, not only did lawmakers fail to repeal the Green New Deal, they actually make the solar panel industry an even greater monopoly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isn’t it uncanny how there are so many inorganic and foreign views that suddenly percolate on right-leaning media? We’re joined by Park MacDougald, a writer at Tablet magazine who has been connecting some of the dots with Qatari influence, Don Jr.’s ties to the Middle East, dominance of conservative media, and a sudden shift in views from so many people. In a freewheeling discussion, Park and I discuss the concern of Qatar’s shocking influence over our government with a bunch of recent policy changes. At the same time, Park believes that some of Trump’s policies might be motivated by other considerations, although a lot of MAGA media are attempting to steer the White House into their views that have suspiciously become pro-Qatari. This is very concerning because those who decry Israel’s influence somehow have no regard for the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence of every facet of our politics, including their own views. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every bit of political capital should have been spent from day one on securing the authorities and resources for mass removals. Instead, it’s been hijacked by tax policy. I first discuss the tax provisions, which are random, bizarre, and, in some cases, pure socialism. We’re joined by RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, who updates us on his concern that the tax focus has overshadowed deportations. He believes that too much of the budgetary scoring is being used for tax provisions or even wasteful border and defense provisions when the key is ICE funding for detention and removal operations. He is also fighting to keep out bad provisions, such as the “gold cards” and paying illegal aliens a bonus to leave. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin with updates on reconciliation. Not a single transformational provision is in the bill, and there are numerous problematic provisions. It codifies Biden’s levels of Medicaid spending, which negates Trump’s entire strategy of bringing down prescription drug prices. The more we print money to subsidize the scam, the more it bids up prices. Next, we’re joined by former FBI whistleblower Steve Friend, who has a sobering analysis of what has and hasn’t been done at his former agency under the new administration. Friend raises concerns that too many bad actors have not been fired while at the same time the whistleblowers have not been restored. He believes that its new leadership is mistakenly taking a “hearts and minds” approach to the swamp rather than orchestrating a violent takeover. He believes that instead the FBI leadership needs to take the teeth of enforcement out of the FBI or focus its purview on a narrow set of complex international crimes. If we fail to do so, Friend believes that coupled with AI technology and existing FISA 702 authorities, the FBI will be a worse nightmare than we could even imagine under the next Democrat president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The very RINOs who are undermining Trump’s agenda are bizarrely securing his endorsement. We begin by showing once again how the endorsements are killing any effort to pass a MAGA agenda. I also comment on the latest policy jockeying with the reconciliation bill. Next, we’re joined by constitutional law professor Josh Blackman for another discussion about judicial supremacy, recent political court cases, and the trajectory of their outcomes. Professor Blackman is not very optimistic in the long run that the Roberts court will fundamentally clip the wings of radical lower courts on enough cases. He offers some fascinating examples of hypocrisy with Roberts rushing in to overturn conservative lower courts while using the emergency shadow docket to keep terrible lower-court rulings alive, even when those issues are pressing. He also believes we are about to get screwed on birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court. The only solution is for other branches to grab back that power. The Florida attorney general is providing us with the test case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MAGA Inc. claims to support all of our causes — from deportations and cutting spending to medical freedom, diminishing the FBI, and primarying RINOS. So why don’t you actually lead? Instead, in case after case, Trump is subverting those causes, and all we get are excuses and low expectations. If Trump feels stymied by the courts, he either needs to take a page out of the Florida attorney general’s book or demand that his priorities be placed in reconciliation. Next, I delve into the Casey Means nomination for surgeon general and the disturbing trend of random people and policies popping up at HHS and also other areas like foreign policy and how this ties back to Tucker Carlson, Don Jr., and Arab Qatari money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices