Welcome to the first Ever Meet Kevin Political Report: This is where we separate out finance and just segment politics. For those folks who are just interested in finance, we've got the Morning Meet Kevin Report Those folks interested in politics, We've got the Political Meet Kevin Report I Haven't quite decided exactly when to do these, so given my crazy schedule, we'll kind of just see what we all like and we'll see what works. So without further Ado Let's get started. so the first thing we're going to do, we'll do a little intro, kind of like we do in the other meet Kevin Report: Then we'll get into individual segments.

So some quick notes: Derek Chauvin's appeal to essentially have his case overthrown after he was convicted of murdering George Floyd was rejected by an appeals court in his State You've also got the Trump rape trial from 1996 that will not be delayed despite Donald Trump's request that his 1996 rape trial being delayed which is an allegation that a rape occurred in 1996 and this magazine editor is now alleging this in a lawsuit against Donald Trump and Donald Trump is saying hey, you know I got other things going on. Can we delay this? There's too much media attention around this and the indictment and the judge says nope, we're going to keep going so that'll be another burden on Donald Trump's plate. But then again, I Feel like once you have staff attorneys, it's kind of like, well, uh, if you're gonna sue me once, you may as well sue me a bunch. That's what it seems like Delaware's uh Superior Court Judge uh Eric Davis has also said he is planning on proceeding with the defamation case between Dominion voting machines and Fox News Corporation for airing potential election fraud claims without fact checking them or publicly airing that the election fraud claims could be false and that a case, despite potential settlement talks occurring over the weekend and today is scheduled to start its trial tomorrow.

Keep in mind this case has been going on for a while. I mean the election if you think about it was over Uh, I mean we're we're in 2023 now, right? So we go back in 22 to 21. we got to go back about two and a half years to when we had claims of election fraud and potentially rigged Dominion voting machines and Fox news coverage about it. And yet we're just now potentially a day away from The Trial beginning.

So buckle up. that trial promises as Elon Musk says one thing. entertainment. uh Apple by the way, has also this morning announced a 4.15 savings account with Goldman Sachs generally I keep that in the finance segment, but I wanted to quickly mention it I've been looking at my Apple wallet I don't see it yet so maybe it's slowly rolling out, but it's in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

So now uh We've gotta hit Kevin McCarthy So let's do a segment on Kevin McCarthy and what's going on with the debt ceiling with the latest regarding the debt ceiling and then we'll move on to some other segments as well. So Gut Ceiling talk comments: Well out of 78 times we are now on time number 79, where it is seated moment at hand where we have to either raise the debt ceiling or default. The prior 78 times, we've always raised the debt ceiling. So what's going to happen this time around? Well, Kevin McCarthy Gave a presentation in the boardroom at the New York Stock Exchange today, outlining some of his priorities but still being somewhat sparse on details.

It's actually the same boardroom I was in and gave a small presentation when I launched my ETF You can learn more about my products and services at Meet Kevin.com but what's interesting is you've got a lot of argument from the Democrats and the Republicans in the house about the debt ceiling, because of course, nobody wants to see the United States default. A United States default would likely increase credit card rates, gas prices, oil prices. It would be devastating for our stock market. Jerome Powell is deathly afraid of us defaulting on our debt since we're able to essentially fund our government through our debt.

Now, nobody argues that the debt is too low. It's clear the debt is way too high, and the level of spending at the rate we're spending money now is way too excessive to where in the future we would essentially be running up our interest costs so heavily that we're potentially going to collapse under the weight of our own debt. And so rather than borrowing from future Generations maybe it's time to put our budget in line and start cutting spending. And that's what Kevin McCarthy is suggesting.

Kevin McCarthy in front of the New York Stock Exchange and in the boardroom talked about exactly this that is too high and that he plans to introduce a plan to save taxpayers trillions of dollars, make us less dependent on China and curb High inflation, which he blames Joe Biden on. He claims Joe Biden for high inflation and potentially suggests that if we were to default on our currency or our obligations which would devastate the United States dollar more than it's already been devastated, then that would be a Joe Biden fault in the making, that Kevin McCarthy is simply asking for reasonable restrictions. uh, to spending. now.

The plan, which he still has not revealed the full text of it was rumored to come out today, but as is normal with Congress, we're not going to see any of the actual pieces of the plan with the exception a few little bits that we've already gotten I'll go through one in just a moment. Uh, we're We're not probably going to see all the details of his plan for maybe until Friday or maybe that'll roll into next week. Who knows? it's always delay delay delay with Congress, but we already know that. What's more important is that right now you've got both sides setting up their negotiating posture and that's what's really important to know about this entire debt ceiling crisis is until we actually have all of our tax revenues calculated in which tax day is essentially exact's deadline is today, right? it? So we've got tax revenues that are going to flow into the treasury Department over the next couple weeks here, and that's going to those numbers are going to help us determine something known as the X date or the day in which we would actually default on our obligations.

We think that date will be sometime between July and September, but it's all going to depend on how much revenue the government actually is able to collect from taxes, so we still have some time to go. But in the meantime, here we are in April and what are both political sides doing? well? they are posturing. They're posturing to negotiate. One of the things where Kevin McCarthy is already trying to really piss off Democrats But it's something that Republicans have been trying to do for a while is announce cuts to discretionary spending for the Snap program that is a colloquially referred to as the Food Stamp Program.

it's the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program and basically Republicans are looking to close loopholes. Now keep in mind this is a form of discretionary spending. Discretionary spending means it's not something that's a required spend like Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. Instead, it's something that's deemed to be hey, what do we do with this extra money? Oh, let's give it to mental health care or food stamps or schools or Parks or law enforcement or the IRS or otherwise, right? And so one of the places McCarthy and Republicans are looking for limits to is on Snap spending.

And really what they're looking for are more restrictions on work requirements and who is eligible for these programs. One of the biggest issues that come up when we talked about food stamps is what do you do with people who have a child at home and that's under 18 years old and the person is on is low income. so they qualify for food stamps. but perhaps they're not working And so several members, as we see here have raised internal concerns, especially from proposals that would add work requirements to some low-income parents who have children under 18 living at home.

So work requirements would suggest a minimum number of hours worked to provide income for the family rather than solely potentially relying on Snap and other benefits. Of course, Snap would not be the only benefit. that's the federal benefit than their estate benefits and their Charities and other organizations to help individuals who need help with food insecurity. Food insecurity is at one of the highest levels that we've seen in recent history, especially after the coveted pandemic.

Food insecurity was a big part of a lot of plans that Democrats were putting forth in stimulus plans, and some of which actually ended up passing. But now, since we're so heavily worried about inflation, if Republicans going through looking to close as many loopholes as possible or potentially just requirements for certain programs, spending programs to minimize spending on those, Of course, Some people say why are we robbing from poor people to solve the debt crisis When the reality is, we should be focused on Innovation and then maybe taxing those with money more That is obviously the age-old debate between the two. In fact, some go as far as saying, look, the national debt doesn't really matter. In fact, what we're paying in interest is rough roughly half of what we paid in interest as a percentage of GDP compared to the 90s.

And if we could support another doubling of interest payments, let's just focus on Innovation. Let's get through getting rid of inflation, let's drive the economy rather than trying to punish individuals within the economy. and let's focus on making sure we have a government that is conducive towards growth for businesses. and maybe all of our debt won't really matter in the future because if we can triple our GDP and our economic output while maintaining a level of spending that we have today, that is, without tripling the spending that we're doing today.

Maybe the debt becomes a lot less relevant over time and that's possible. Remember, there are three ways to get rid of the debt. Number one: Balanced budget. Which is what Republicans are trying to push for.

Having more of a balanced budget. We're not going to get to a balanced budget anytime soon. grow the GDP a lot I Just grow our economic output a lot or inflate it away. We just had quite a bit of inflation.

We know that's pretty punishing, especially to poor folks. So now we want to move away from inflation and and hopefully lead to economic growth and then maybe some more of a balanced budget. And that's what Kevin McCarthy is essentially trying to request from. Democrats Of course Democrats say hey, we don't want any kind of cuts to anything, just unconditionally extend the debt ceiling.

But I think that both sides are setting up for posturing here that is. Joe Biden Saying no, we're not going to give any concessions full well knowing he's going to give concessions Kevin McCarthy is going to probably start by hating Democrats where it hurts. We're going to take benefits away from poor people and that is a democratic voting base. and so let's start there.

and then of course, both sides will probably move to somewhat of a middle and we'll see the debt ceiling extended. So otherwise, Kevin McCarthy's speech this morning. other than saying things that I think are, really, um, really, just sort of, uh, populist like we're going to balance the budget, we're going to save taxpayers trillions of dollars, and we're at a curb. High inflation without any kind of limits to Social Security or Medicare and I think we actually got anything a really meaningful out of Kevin McCarthy this morning.

with the exception of this initial goal reported by Political about cutting some of the Snap Food program benefits so long and short of it, more wait and see. But uh, in terms of the debt ceiling, Personally, it's not something that keeps me up at night, but controlling our spending is probably a very good idea, especially since and this is a big concern. If our economy does continue to grow and then we just continue to grow our spending, then we'll never escape the debts we have in. that is an issue so we'll see how both sides end up negotiating this.

but so far more wait and see for the debt ceiling. All right. Next, let's see here. That is all right.

let's see here. Oh my gosh, why is there spam in the chat? You got blocked? There we go. All right. Next up Now we've gone to look at.

oh this was a good piece. Uh, so let's jump into. Well we've got yeah here we go. Two good pieces here.

So we're gonna jump into this segment by e. Um, okie Dokie here. All right here we go. Tucker Carlson Just revealed a two Bombshells for that Elon Musk interview that he's releasing later today and he gave us a preview of two pretty large segments of uh, his interview with Elon Musk and two things that make him highly concerned, one of which we already knew about.

Let's start with that, but see it highlighted in the way that talker does and it gives us potentially a little cause for pause listening to this segment here from Tucker Carlson on Fox News this morning. here we go: Tucker Carlson Tonight and this is about what he discovered once he bought Twitter the degree to which various government agencies had effectively had full access to everything that was going on on. Twitter Uh, blew my mind I was not aware of that. Would that include people's DMS Uh, yes Tucker I Don't want you to give it away? Uh, because we'll all be watching at eight o'clock tonight.

But what was your biggest jaw dropper moment of this interview? Well, Twitter is the smallest of the social media apps, but it's the one that's used by the People with power. I Mean it's everyone sitting on the set right now. It's every government official. it's you know it's every head of state and all of their private messages were being read not just by the U.S Intel agencies, but by a bunch of different governments.

I Mean that's that's like an unbelievable fact. the whole thing. Now this is something that we've actually learned about in the Twitter files before that in the Twitter file releases, we've seen that essentially a government had almost the full purview to review what everybody was talking about in their DMS and also specifically sensor Republicans or people deemed to be spreading misinformation. The Twitter files spread on Twitter obviously were pretty enlightening to show just how deep Department of Justice and the FBI had been involved with Twitter And it makes you wonder.

ah, no surprise that the Biden camp, for example, knew about certain ads Republicans were going to drop before they were going to drop them during the election cycle. In addition to knowing, uh, interesting, we know that a hunter Biden laptop story is about to drop and so what is potentially able to be done well? Social media organizations potentially got the heads up from the government that hey, there's going to be a fake Story coming out soon and you need to censor it. And then sure enough, when the hunter Biden laptop story drops, which ended up being a true story. Like it or not, it was a true story.

Well, a lot of the content was preemptively censored and so Tucker Carlson is taking it a step further here and suggesting when the government potentially is able to look at all of your direct messages on Twitter and you're a reporter, then the government knows what kind of reports are going to drop next, what kind of videos are going to drop next, what kind of exposes you're going to drop next, It's almost somewhat like this: If you're investigating a fraud like I won't mention any names boxable, and uh, you're communicating with certain individuals on a platform to gain access to documentation, and you're using or leveraging something known as journalistic privilege which essentially allows an anonymous entity to share information with you and then they can be legally protected from their identity being revealed because essentially that information is in the Public's best interest. Well, if potentially that interest could then read your messages and not only see these sources or potentially preempt some of the news or expose that you're uh, planning on on presenting. Well, what you're really doing is you're stifling free speech in the worst way possible. You basically break or the the process of investigative journalism and look, this isn't as a defense of mainstream media, it's a defense of free speech, right? It's a defensive suggesting: hey, if if people who potentially are going to have incriminating information about them revealed are able to step in and stop that information from being disseminated, then really, what you're doing is you're turning America into like a Sudan where you have two different militant groups now fighting over who can who has control over the state-run media.

Why? Because if you control the state-run media, you control the narrative. You control what and how elections should be shaped. It's really scary and artificial intelligence could potentially take that fear to the next level now. I've used Chat GPT as an example many times and I found that Chat GPT could convincingly lie to you and this is something that I've experienced by taking articles and pasting articles into chat GPT to see what Chatgpt's opinion is on that article and I've asked it before.

hey, here's the article and then I'd ask chat GPT hey, was there any mention of XYZ Chat GPT will provide to me and say nope, no mention that all of Chat shape here of XYZ and then I say hey, but there's a paragraph here that literally mentions XYZ and then once it's caught red-handed it'll reply oh, you're right I'm sorry, uh, it did. The article did actually talk about XYZ And here's what it said, and it just makes me wonder my goodness, how much could artificial intelligence potentially be used in shaping public discourse in the future? Especially since we're probably going to move from an environment in society where we actually have to do research to just getting results. But those results are given to us by artificial intelligence and that could potentially be scary see in school today. To some extent, we're still taught again to a limited extent.

a very low bar. Critical thinking which is what is the source of the information? What biases does an author potentially have in a topic that's being reviewed? What sources are they using? What are the primary sources say? Are there potential flaws in that research? Well, that sort of investigation and study is something that generally we have to deal with. We're using a Google search or Google Scholar or Publications whatever it might be that goes away. When we start using artificial intelligence, we become separated from those primary sources.

and all of a sudden we have a robot that's telling us answers and that becomes scary if those answers could be wrong. And that's something that Tucker Carlson talks about in his interview with Elon Musk as well. And that makes me very concerned because already today, our ability to critically think with access to many primary sources is very low. Artificial Intelligence could lower that even further by essentially making us more reliant on automation, robots, autonomy, and less focused on actually being able to think for ourselves.

That's scary because then he who controls the robots controls what we think. It's the same reason why the Federal Aviation Administration suggests that Pilots need to be careful about becoming too reliant on automation, because when that automation is wrong, Pilots might crash planes. Same is true for cars on autopilots. The more you become reliant on autopilot, the more you potentially become blindly reliant on autopilot in situations you should.

The same could be true with our education and that is scary. and I've seen it already happen myself. I Think it's why Google has delayed the release of their artificial intelligence so much, but now they're realizing they have to catch up because other companies are preempting them, potentially risking the dominance of Google where we know sixty percent of their revenues come from search or search related products. Google's got a big problem ahead of them.

but listen to Tucker Carlson here the just this morning and play okay, this is on server Farms that you know presumably could be could be blown up if need be. Uh, but the deeper problem is not simply that it will become autonomous and turn us all into slaves, but that it will control our understanding of reality and do it in a really dishonest way. It could be programmed to lie to us. um, for political effect.

And by the way, if you go on it, I mean just play around with it. type in crime stats like where are these crimes, who's committing these crimes and where it will lie to you about government data on crime and probably a lot of other things. That's terrifying because you can imagine a future a year or two from now where all of our understanding of the world around us is determined by Ai and it's lying to us. So that has huge implications for say, the presidential election in 2024 and everything.

Yeah, and Tucker Carlson is is right here. I mean he's right with what he says there, you know I'm not here to suggest that you should like Tucker Carlson I would suspect that 50 of you absolutely despise Tucker Carlson maybe you even hate Elon Musk You know, maybe 30 percent of you don't like Elon Musk But the the argument is true that AI is going to be something we have to really closely regulate and monitor. And in this interview between Dr Carlson and Elon Musk we're going to see some of Elon Musk's concerns about how artificial intelligence could essentially control uh, our future society and could be more dangerous than anything we've seen before. Here's a little bit of a clip from Elon Musk Quote-unquote Sounding the alarm on artificial intelligence.

There we go. It's bad. It's a lie that's exactly right and with old information. July And and yes, you know, comment on some things, not comments and other things.

but but not to say what it what? What? The data, uh, actually, uh, demands that I'd say, how did it get this way You funded it at the beginning. What happened? Yeah, well, that'll be ironic. but Faith the most ironic outcome is, most likely it seems. Hey, yeah.

so, but the point there, what Elon makes is the data doesn't necessarily have to be with the artificial intelligence uses. And that was exemplified to me when I gave that pasted article to Chachi PT and I said, tell me about this article hey, did it mention this? No, it definitely doesn't. Really, It says so right here. Oh, you're right, my mistake.

It's all. It's already broken. the way it is. Now we know it's new.

Which is fine. We don't expect something new to be perfect, but the question is how convincingly wrong artificial intelligence can be is something that should make us nervous Now personally, from a real estate point of view, running a real estate startup: I Use artificial intelligence. but I know damn well not to put my money on it. That's because artificial intelligence can help me prioritize certain properties to look at with my real estate startup, but I would never rely on it to actually pull the trigger or make an offer.

at least not anytime soon because I know it's just not perfect yet. Even if it's 95 percent good, that five percent could be convincingly damaging. So I'm excited to see what happens in the full Elon Musk interview with Tucker Carlson But I will say the fact that entities, whether they're government controlled or not in the future, could be controlled by artificial intelligence and vice versa. That entities could control artificial intelligence makes me pretty nervous.

So it's something that I think we should all be paying attention to, not just from the angle of free speech and media, but also from the example of our business and how we operate Now most importantly, want to make the argument here that if you want to protect yourself from artificial intelligence, you've got to do everything in your power to think even more critically than artificial intelligence does today. And so I think as an action step for you I Think it's really important to see how can artificial intelligence be used in your business. Whatever you do for work, maybe sign up for chat EPT and ask it. hey, tell me about XYZ and it's about your profession.

See what it already knows about your profession? then get into the nuance and see where you could drive it wrong and where you still have a competitive advantage over artificial intelligence finding that you don't. You might want to start um, studying a little bit or or getting into a profession where you're going to be more insulated from artificial intelligence in the future. that might for the near term, at least be construction real estate. Who knows.

But we know that uh, we're going to start seeing a lot more artificial intelligence start invading and walking into Uh Financial advising uh, certainly, uh, to some extent, the diagnosis help for doctors, coding, software, and media. It's going to be a big deal as well as creativity, so we'll see what happens with uh, ultimately with artificial intelligence. But I Have to say I've got some concerns. I'm a big fan of making sure we have as much free speech and fact-based speech as possible.

That's my goal is always to provide as many facts and opinions as possible, but opinions that are based on facts and then that are neutral I Don't really care if you're left or right I Consider myself pretty much squarely in the middle I'm a big fan of doing what's best for America So so on honored to be part of the country so hopefully you feel the same way so we'll see what happens. Cheers to AI I Guess all right next segment is going to be about Good Old this sanctimonious DeSantis whatever you want to call them I guess it depends on what side of the aisle you're on. Uh, so let's get into the santis. There's a lot to talk about with DeSantis and then we have time we might do a little bit on.

uh Sudan Somebody here is asking when I'm gonna talk about the Dominion lawsuit, you know I Like how people so convincingly ask a question as if I haven't already talked about it because I already did. Uh uh. let's see here. All right.

Next dissentis oops. I screwed that up. All right. Well now we've got to talk about Ron DeSantis Not only what Donald Trump has to say about Ron DeSantis but some of the latest ads going back and forth regarding Ron DeSantis Uh, we're gonna make it very clear that uh, there's a lot of drama going on and I'll tell you there's one group that is absolutely loving the drama that's going on and it's Democrats Democrats are loving that Republicans who seem to be tearing each other apart for the Republican nomination.

That is one thing that Democrats tend to have is that they tend to unite around a single candidate and everybody else gets shut out. I don't personally think that's the best for the country. In fact, when I ran for governor in California, the Democrats made it extremely clear there could only be one Democratic candidate that anybody else was solely a distraction. which I actually think is disgusting because it limits the choice amongst people in a particular election when a party essentially coalesces around one candidate before a nominee is chosen America loses.

Or if State loses and this is how you continue to get hard-line politicians who stay in office is when essentially the Uh Union of politicians. If you will coalesce around one candidate before you actually have a nominee chosen by the electorate, well then what you're getting is not the candidate that the electorate wants the people want. You're getting the candidate that essentially the existing leaders want either the wealthy people, the ones who control the media, or the existing politicians. So I think that's problematic.

So while the Democrats are doing that well, uh, for their own sake I think it's bad for Americans. What's bad for Republicans though is all the infighting. But it's actually better for Americans because the more infighting you get, the more people are actually forced to look at the actual issues and see where candidates truly stand apart. And that's what we're going to do here is we're going to take a little bit of a zoom in on or on DeSantis We're going to do a little bit of comparing to Donald Trump And so let's look at what's going on between these two.

Obviously these, even though DeSantis hasn't actually declared that he's running for president yet, let's compare the two in certain areas and see where does Santis is going with this campaign. I'd Like to start by saying I personally believe that Ron DeSantis has somebody in his cabinet or is is office or whatever who's basically saying that Ron DeSantis has to become more and more. Dare I say and use the word extreme. Maybe some would just say loud and proud and others would say extreme on a daily basis to continue to stay relevant in the media.

That's specifically because I align a rise of Donald Trump with a that is through indictment or otherwise with more and more measures coming out from Donald or Ron DeSantis that seemed to be more edgy if you will. Now they're regularly deemed to be common and and core Republican beliefs, but even within those, you're starting to get some divisiveness. Let's break down some of these. for example, a political group aligned with Ron DeSantis known as Never Back Down.

that's the name of the group. They just launched a bunch of attack ads on Donald Trump and in one of them they call Donald Trump a gun grabber and this was a little bit of a weird title to call someone a gun Grabber But really, what they're trying to suggest is that Donald Trump doesn't support your gun rights. So let's look at the ads and actually break down what's really happening in this Uh gun Grabber ad. And let's understand a little bit what Ron DeSantis is doing.

So first, here's the gun. Grabber ad. Let's take a listen into this one and break down what where these quotes are actually coming from. Trump Promised NRA members he'd have their back but when Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump abandoned us and stood with liberal.

Democrats You guys half of you are so afraid of the NRA We have to fight him every once in a while. That's okay, some of you people are petrified of the NRA. You can't be petrified. They have great power over you people.

they have less power over me I don't need it I don't What do I need? That is why I have called for red flag laws. The four might take the Firearms first and then go to court. I Like taking, keep in mind here, they're purposely showing Trump with Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Michael Bloomberg and otherwise, uh, trying to distance Trump from gun rights. Now we'll compare this to what Donald Trump has said recently at the NRA Uh.

Also, uh, keep in mind that here Donald Trump this is being quoted all of this. Obviously these are clips of Donald Trump But here Donald Trump is saying hey, I prefer taking guns first and then going through due process later. Let's let's actually rewind just about four seconds there so you can hear that part and then uh, oops, there we go. Uh, then we'll uh, then we'll keep going with this piece here and uh, then we'll respond to what's actually going on Firearms first and then go to court I Like taking the guns early.

take the guns first, go through due process. He and I introduced another assault weapons know Diane you have some very good ideas Diane if you could add what you have also and I think you can into the bill yeah, shower, you're ready. See like what I hate about political ads is they are so out of context, right? And what's frustrating about them is, well, you actually have here is somebody doing their job in my opinion, like you're supposed to try to bring both sides together. So just take those out of context from when you're actually operating as a president, no matter what side you're on and you're trying to take that Unity out of context and and suggest, oh, Trump isn't Hardline enough? What you're really trying to do is you're trying to set up Ron Desantis's Mr Hardline and that's exactly what he's doing with some of his recent policies and we're going to go through some of those in just a moment.

Let's keep listening. this. you do that. Joe Can you do that? Can you add if you help? Well, no I'll help.

But can you add what Amy and what Diane have? Can we add them in? We're talking about Uh, rules and regulations for purchasing, talking about changing an age from 18 to 21. I mean I Say that it should all be a 21. you do strong background checks. We're getting rid of the bump stocks Trump Cut and run like a coward Trump The Gun Grabber doesn't deserve a second chance.

All right. So there's a Trump The Gun Grabber So so what is really being attempted or what's really happening here? So a lot of these clips are actually from 2019. After we've had some mass shootings in the summer of 2019, which obviously since then we've also had other mass shootings Trump was actually a proponent of gun curbs. These were real discussions.

Now they were edited and caught in such a way to make it seem like this is how Donald Trump stands today. but that's not true. Uh Donald Trump Today actually is a big fan of ensuring gun rights for Americans and he's made that clear at recent events and press conferences and the National Rifle Association. But what's interesting is in 2019 Donald Trump Made these claims that there was going to be a bipartisan gun control measure and what happened was from the summer to about November of 2019 right before the election, the Republican Party quietly moved to drop any reconciliation or any bipartisanship on gun control and any kind of gun control measures in Congress were lost.

This is why we regularly have this frustration. When there's a mass shooting and people are like, ah, you know, do something other than thoughts and prayers Congress This is what happens Congress A shooting happens Congress gets together with the president. we're going to do this this this this this then all of a sudden you know three four months go by and then you have the president look and go. Hmm oh yeah.

I got the 2020 election coming up. Let's uh, let's take that and table it for later and basically nothing ended up happening. So while Donald Trump was able to do the popular thing then in 2019 which was talk about gun control, nothing actually ended up coming about them. not just two days ago.

Donald Trump did say that mass shootings were not a gun problem. Instead, Donald Trump called them a mental health problem with societal problem. a cultural problem with a spiritual problem. To some extent, he's not wrong.

The problem with calling gun control or gun issues a mental health problem is that the solution is going to take a very long time. I Actually ran a campaign for governor in California under the idea that we need to heavily invest in mental health and that is we need no six-month weights for homeless people to get mental health care. but we need annual instead of physicals. Annual mental health checkups.

Well, maybe in addition to physicals, right? We don't want to say one or the other there. We need mental health education in schools. If we have PE why don't we have Emmy right? Big fan of this, but it would take decades for that mental health to actually start flowing through and solving some of those societal problems. and really the depression that you're seeing amongst.

Uh, basically Killers right? Mass Shooters These are these are depressive individuals who have some form of a problem. They could seem otherwise normal. but then all of a sudden snap. and unfortunately, uh, mental health education and and Care is going to take a long time to solve in America And it's likely that nothing's going to happen for quite a while.

So in the meantime, you've got Donald Trump suggesting no, we're not going to touch your guns, but then what does Ron Desantis's approach? Well, Rhonda Sanchez Just signed into law on April 3rd. Basically, constitutional Carry in Florida. Now it basically you pretty much already had constitutional carry in Florida. In practice, not really.

but you had to apply for a gun permit, a concealed carry license which you could get as easily as you could get a fishing license in Florida. It really wasn't hard, but essentially now you have constitutional carry where anyone can legally carry Gone without a permit if they're legally eligible for carrying that firearm. Now this is where people are somewhat split. see: Ron DeSantis says you should have no training and no background check requirements for concealed carry and starting July 1st that's exactly what you're going to get in Florida A Lot of people including Republicans are saying this is a little too extreme that there should be training and background track requirements for concealed carry.

Now, some argue that is an infringement to the Second Amendment which says the Second Amendment shall not be infringed. but when we actually look at Supreme Court case law about shall not be infringed, we've already broken down. That shall not be infringed has limitations. You have the right to bear arms subject to limitations, you can't walk around with a bazooka or drive a tank down streets because there are limitations on the types of arms you can carry, where you can carry them, and what you can do.

And so some extent those Supreme Court limitations and say hey, well, look, if you're a felon, you shouldn't have a gun. And and just like in Florida, if you're a felon and you're not legally able to carry a gun, you're right to. The Second Amendment has actually been infringed so there is a gray area there. The Second Amendment isn't black and white the way it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court Today, Now people say well, it should be and other people say, no, it shouldn't be.

That's fine. That's where the debate is now. What? I've seen a lot of people say who lean towards the middle and this is where I see a lot of Democrats and Republicans agree Actually is. Hey, why don't we? If people can't afford training or mental health evaluations or whatever, why doesn't the government subsidize that sort of training? And if you can afford it, then submit to training and basically show that you get trained.

You know, once a month or once every six months or once a year. Kind of like you renew your license. If you're a financial advisor or a lender or a realtor, anybody's eligible to get a license. As long as you're not a fraud, you know you haven't been convicted a felony fraud or whatever.

you're eligible to get a license. get your license, right? So that's sort of what. I'm finding more in the middle the more in the middle argument seems to be that there should be some form of training. And through that training, there can be mental health evaluations.

And for those who can't afford it, there should be some kind of subsidies. Others say hey, I shouldn't have to submit to anything. But then again, this is where where we just go through the political Spectrum. The point is, Ron DeSantis has chosen constitutional Carry is the direction and that is more on the further right of the spectrum.

And this is where folks are saying yeah Rhonda Said this is potentially purposefully trying to go more extreme with each of his latest policies. because he's trying to get national attention, he's trying to get national attention to help boost his campaign announcement, which eventually will come. However, because of this hard lining, Ron DeSantis is also potentially starting to lose some donors. For example, according to the Financial Times, a top Republican donor who is actually the founder of the Um The Brokerage Interactive Brokerage has decided that he and his friends or his associates whatever are going to pull back from further funding of Ron DeSantis and instead they're going to quote hold their powder Dry because they feel that Ron DeSantis has gone a little bit too extreme in some of his latest policies.

Some of his other policies include the passing of a ban of abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Now obviously they're on one hand or a lot of individuals who say life begins at conception. Others say life begins at the heartbeat of a child. Problem is, the heartbeat of a child usually starts as early as five weeks, generally by about the sixth week after conception.

And this is why Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law just on Thursday that bans abortion abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Now, this law is still going to be contingent on how the Florida Supreme Court evaluates challenges to the current 15-week ban on abortions. But uh, this six-week ban on abortions, depending on how that Supreme Court challenge goes, removes Florida's essential Safe Haven status of people wanting abortions people used to go to Florida for abortions. That might change Now with this new six-week rule.

The problem with six weeks, say some on the left, actually many on the left is that first of all, it removes a woman's right to choose. We know that pro-life versus pro-choice That's the obvious one, but a more in the middle approach here is that individuals on the left say, hold on a second. What if a woman doesn't know they're pregnant yet The statistics show that one in five women discover they're pregnant after seven weeks have passed. That means 20 percent of women discover they're pregnant after they would be able to abort if they were in a situation to or or or needed to.

Studies Have also shown that women who are a single and end up pregnant whether it's on accident or however, condo breaks contraceptives don't work. Whatever, Single women who end up having a child in their youth or as a single person when they were denied the right to abortion 20 to 30 years later, were found to have lower Financial standards or in other words, lower net worth in the future and lower credit scores in the future. So there are arguments that are made that suggest hey, a woman who is denied the right to choose early in her pregnancy ends up substantially worse off in their own livelihoods or career. If they're denied an abortion.

and if abortions aren't eligible for individuals past six weeks, but people don't discover that they're pregnant until past six weeks, then you potentially run into the freedom of choice question that is, does somebody have the right to have potentially their future affected by a pregnancy Now of course, if they didn't even know they were pregnant Now, of course, others say, well, fine and don't have sex or be better about your contraceptives, right? So you're really in a blurry area here, but the statistics are really clear. The twenty percent of women don't know they're pregnant until after seven weeks. And here's where it gets worse: Younger women really get screwed here. women under 20 years old.

So between 15 and 19? Listen to this: Two-thirds of them discover that they're pregnant after six weeks, and only one third discover they're pregnant before six weeks. That's a problem, because now it potentially disproportionately affects younger women's ability to choose where it actually even more disproportionately affects their future. Now, some argue, hey, this is why we need more sex education in schools, But then again, sexual education in schools is even more divisive right now because of what's happening around the trans Community uh and potential the the potential argument that, well, any kind of sex education is potentially grooming children into the options that they may have to choose from once they're 18 or older. Some states now are even authorizing potential gender affirming treatments for children under 18 without their parents' knowledge.

So, as usual, politics is a giant poop show and nobody he's ever going to be able to get the right answer on any of this. But the point is, once again, if there's the middle and there's the left, Ron DeSantis is leaning more towards the right here as a way to elevate his National candidacy right, leaning more towards the right on guns and leaning more towards the right on traditional conservative values such as essentially Banning abortions at Uh in past six weeks. So that's the second. Now there's a third thing.

Ron DeSantis has now challenged the Florida Supreme Court to allow the death penalty and substantially more cases to hold people accountable for their crimes. Now, many more people seem to agree with this because of frustration that came out of the Parkland shooting where the jury ended up deciding that the perpetrator Mr Cruz ended up getting a life sentence instead of being put to death. This is something that is angered all a lot of Americans and has led Ron DeSantis to call for the Uh reimposition essentially of more death penalty Uh results for crimes including raping a child. That is, State legislators will soon allow the death penalty to be eligible for those convicted of raping a child.

This is, despite the United States Supreme Court in 2008 finding that it would be cruel and unusual to Institute the death penalty for rape cases. Then we get to Disney with Ron DeSantis. Of course we know at this point that Disney outplayed Ron DeSantis which Ron DeSantis is very upset about. but rather than and this is what frustrates a lot of people.

What it? Well, I shouldn't say a lot of people. This frustrates some people when it comes to Ron DeSantis rather than clarifying Ron Desantis's stance on economics, education, immigration, jobs or Ukraine Ron DeSantis is potentially going to double down on his fight with Disney Disney outplayed Ron DeSantis Disney said hey, we shouldn't pass the don't Say Gay bill which basically bans references and discussions around gay before the third grade, which quite frankly I've got children in first in first grade and about to go into kindergarten and we don't need to have those discussions at those ages. So I agree personally that there's definitely an age where certain discussions shouldn't occur. but there is an age where we have to start talking to children like basically maturity children and teach.

you know, put our pants on and actually teach them how to live in the society that we're in today. But anyway, Disney took the stance that hey, we should not have it. don't say a gay Bill We should instead honor the Lgbtq community which was very anti. They don't say gay Bill Disney is now potentially some are saying trying to rub in the face of Ron DeSantis their victory over Ron DeSantis because Ron DeSantis replaced the board of Reedy Creek that controls the Uh Orlando District in which Disney operates.

However, Disney basically stripped that board of all its power publicly just days before that board was going to get its powers for the next up to 30 years and so now DeSantis is frustrated Bob Iger this is in new well recurring CEO Remember Bob Iger left then we got Bob J Pack Bob Jacob pack left Bob Igar came back now Bob Iger says hey, I'm open to talking to DeSantis In the meantime, we're going to have our first Lgbtq celebration at Disney and we're going to have you know, basically a Rainbow Magic Kingdom which is fantastic. I'm all for cheering people and adults choices. I'm a big fan of that. I Have nothing against that.

but what's interesting is while Ba Uh Bob Iger is introducing these celebrations and suggesting he's open to talking to Ron DeSantis there's argument there are arguments being made and reports being made that Ron DeSantis Today and over the next few days and weeks is going to send in investigators and building permit enthusiasts or building permanent inspectors and others to investigate Disney to basically try to tighten the bolts on Disney even more and continue this war against Disney and again, this is leading a lot of people to wonder. hey we thought Ron DeSantis was potentially going to be a moderate Republican candidate When the reality is what we're getting is, we're getting a candidate who's super far on the right when it comes to guns, further on the right when it comes to abortions although not all the way right because otherwise you'd be at no abortions at all which we've seen some states do uh, you have uh, this this uh, death penalty case which is more conservative and then you have this argument or however is also agreed upon with many people on the left and then you have sort of this reactivation of this Disney dispute. So a lot of people are scratching their heads going man the scientists like we know you're gonna run for president but potentially you're starting to alienate more people and instead of talking about real National issues, you're picking fights. Maybe where you shouldn't be picking fights.

especially continuing these fights with Disney now In Fairness to people who say no, no, no Ron DeSantis is doing the right thing I Want to cover that as well? Most Americans don't want corporations involved in, well, our social issues. The fact of the matter is only about one-third of Americans actually want corporations discussing or having an opinion or say in social issues that is two-thirds of Americans say get the hell out of social issues when it comes to corporations. So most people are not a big fan or most Americans at least are not a big fan of Corporations getting involved in social issues. So you have a lot of people on both sides here for when it comes to Ron DeSantis Now look I tried to cover Ron DeSantis here as clearly as possible.

Now I'm going to give you my opinion and I always try to separate what what I'm presenting from my opinions. So I'm going to give my opinions here I Think that Rhonda Initially I've held this belief that Ron DeSantis could potentially be a good option for republicans and I want to see him on the debate stage I want to see him have the opportunity to make his case as to why he should be a leading candidate, potentially for president of the United States I Have to say I'm frustrated by the continued chase after Disney when we have substantially larger issues to worry about. I'm a much bigger fan of focusing on education which I will give Rhonda Santa's credit for. Rhonda Santa says sign a bill into law forcing Financial education in high schools as a edition of graduation.

That's something that I ran on for governor in California three years ago or two years ago. so I'm a big fan of that. Uh, and so I'm grateful for that. but I want to see more of that more on the economy, education jobs.

Ukraine China the dollar oil the Middle East more of that and less of the petty back and forth with. Disney Now some of the items such as uh, Gun Rights I I think I've kind of already included some of my opinions on that I Personally am a big fan of some kind of training requirements. That's what I ran for government on Governor on in California That hey, everybody should be able to legally own and carry a firearm. There should be some kind of regular training programs for those folks.

kind of just like when you have a regular you know, once a year checkup that you're still okay to be a licensed lender or licensed financial advisor or whatever you have a license for. And if you can't afford it, there should be subsidies for that, right? And in those instances, there could be opportunities to value with somebody's mental state as well because you have trainers who are then able to to essentially check in with people, along with of course, investing in mental education mental health education. So I'm a big fan of the Second Amendment Just like I'm a big fan of people becoming White Collar professionals or CPAs or licensed financial advisors like you should be able to do that. Big fan of that California I think is absolutely ludicrous and that California will suggest.

Oh yeah, we'll let you carry a gun everywhere except libraries, schools, post offices, stores, parties, public events, other people. So in other words, you could have a gun. but you can't have a gun It's like California is broken. Okay, I'm not here to defend California's super broken.

but when it comes to my opinion of DeSantis, I'm a big fan of encouraging hey, if he could be more of that moderate Republican even though he's not going to get at the extreme headlines: I think more Americans are likely to associate with DeSantis than be fed up with DeSantis and I Think this walk away from the founder of Interactive Brokers as a donor along with his community as donors of Ron DeSantis is really the result fault of some of the extreme pushing that Ron DeSantis has been up to, some of it going potentially a little too far and away from the real issues facing our nation. Whether it's the debt, the dollar, the Middle East or otherwise. we'll see, but some of the ads that we're seeing we always have to break apart, look at, and say look, the ads are ridiculous I think I don't think you could really compare to Santis and Donald Trump on guns and say they're really that terribly different. Some people argue that well, DeSantis gave us the right to bear arms Yes, but DeSantis is also a governor with control of the state legislature.

Donald Trump was not right. He always had to deal with this bipartisanship uh, with the exception of the first two years of his administration. But even within that, you still had a narrow majority of Republicans And it's a lot harder to have some kind of blanket reform like that on the national level compared to the state level. so it'll be fascinating to see what happens.

But these are some of my thoughts on DeSantis and hopefully catches you up to speed on some of latest of what's going on with the scientists. Hopefully going forward, we get a little bit more refined discussions on Uh National issues rather than this kind of nonsense back and forth. Uh, between Donald Trump and DeSantis and the Republicans I mean here For example, as Donald Trump on Truth social, nobody has been stronger for the Second Amendment than president Donald J Trump And yet Ron Des Sanctus took an advertisement this weekend saying of all things Uh I was in agreement with crazy Nancy and Chuck Schumer not. And then of course Donald Trump defends this which we've of course already broken down that a lot of this was from 2019.

so we'll pay attention to it. Uh, but uh I I am worried that if Ron DeSantis just for the sake of having other candidate options, you know I I I don't To me, it doesn't really matter who runs Uh I just want the best option for America. But I think the more Ron DeSantis potentially goes in one direction of the further extreme, the more he's going to lose that really critical independent voter. And that independent voter might actually end up finding Donald Trump Dare I say more neutral than DeSantis Now that's crazy to think about, but it's actually kind of what happened in California as well when Larry Elder ran for governor in California as a a right or Conservative candidate Democrats painted Larry Elder as to the right of Trump in other words, more extreme than Trump and that was a really easy way to even get independence to vote against Larry Elder.

So in other words, the more extreme you go on the right in my opinion, the more likely you're just signing up for a Democrat again. Now maybe that's not a bad thing. I Don't know that ultimately is up to America to decide. I'm not convinced that another four years of Joe Biden is the best option for America I Wish the Democrats would put forward some other reasonable Alternatives But the odds are now that Joe Biden has announced is going to run and he's going to start campaigning again for his re-election.

it's very unlikely that any other Democrat is going to come out and actually run to compete against Joe Biden because that's just the way the Democratic party is. They stand behind one candidate and that's it. So it's going to end up being Biden verse Trump DeSantis Nikki Haley and potentially some other announcements. We'll see what ends up happening like you've got Vivek uh uh, you know our billionaire friend.

So we'll we'll see what ends up happening. But uh, what's my take? Hopefully that was a relatively, uh, neutral take. These are obviously very divisive topics to be talking about. Abortion guns? don't say gay? Uh.

Lgbtq rights? Trans rights. These are very difficult things to talk about if you want my opinion on trans. since we didn't really talk too much about it on this one. Make sure you type into YouTube meet Kevin Trans and then you'll see some of my opinions on that.

All right. Next up, let's go discuss for the next segment. That was a long one. So let's go into let's see here.

All right next. Uh, we're gonna do a uh, brief summary of what's going on here. Oh wow, hold on one sec. Um, just got some more updates here on this next topic and we'll actually read some of these off here.

Okay, all right next, Topic's going to be on Sudan and the crisis that's unfolding in a Sudan. Uh, so let's give a summary of this. A lot of people have been asking me to talk about in potential implications for the United States. It actually is a big opportunity for the United States so we're going to talk about that and bye true.

Well, we've got another crisis in the Middle East. This time, it's occurring in Sudan and once again, the United States of America has an opportunity to show its Regional hegemonic strength in the Middle East. Rather than continue down the path of doing nothing, the path of doing nothing. has unfortunately led to Deals between Saudi Arabia Iran who used to be horrible enemies now partnering through a broker deal by China.

Because the United States isn't brokering deals in the Middle East anymore, Of the 78 attacks against Americans and American contractors in the Middle East, we've only responded to three of those attacks. We're coming across as very weak in the Middle East. Well, and this is why some say the United States dollar is potentially at risk of losing its Reserve status now. Wells Fargo argues we are far away from losing the reserve currency status of the world, but a lot a lot of folks are concerned about the future of America and American strength given the potential weakening of America in the Middle East And now we need to discuss how America relates to Sudan.

Yes, we now have a deadly crisis and battle occurring in Sudan. What you have are two groups. You have the Sudanese Army and the Rival paramilitary, a group of fighting in Sudan Uh, these groups. Well, the paramilitary group is the Rapid Support Forces militia.

it's just shortened the Rsf and uh, the Rsf is known for its scorched Earth tactics. They've got about 80 000 Fighters per the International Crisis Group reports. And basically, here's what hap what's happening. You're at about the third or fourth day of violence.

Now they're somewhere around. Uh, the last media reports were somewhere around 100 fatalities already. Some are calling this a civil war. Those numbers seem to be rising right now.

Let me take a peek here. This is the latest coming across the wire. Services U.S Officials have been in contact with military leaders in Sudan urging them to end hostilities immediately. a UV and on boy United Nations Envoy on Sudan says the warring parties are not giving the impression that they are open to mediation.

This is where United States needs to potentially do something. Now Many people say no, the United States needs to do nothing, but we already provide foreign aid to all of these countries. Saudi Arabia is already calling up the United States going yo. What should we do over here? Uh, Sudan is like right across the pond from us and uh, we need some help over here and the more the United States actually does nothing, the weaker the dollar becomes right? So as easy it is to say, the U.S shouldn't be the World Police.

We send hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions of dollars to nations in the Middle East and we do that to maintain some semblance of control and be the country that people call when they need help. Well, right now, all we're getting from our Administration is hey guys, stop fighting And the Un's like, uh, we're gonna need more than that because there's no indication any kind of fighting is going to stop. Three individuals from the Usaid have been killed that is uh, the Um Food Aid group in Sudan trying to provide humanitarian Aid and they have been killed. So they've now Frozen Humanitarian Aid In the region, water facilities, electrical grids are being attacked and destroyed in the capital A of of Sudan a major water Uh facility has been damaged, affecting water delivery to millions of individuals in Sudan A U.N Envoy is now reporting as of the last 15 minutes here that at least 185 individuals have been killed, more than 1800 civilians, and Fighters have been wounded.

The Pentagon Uh is Uh is is evaluating but not really doing anything right now and that's frustrating. a lot of folks again regarding the United States to strength in the region, but uh, what's really happening here is you don't have a stable government in Sudan. It's worth knowing a little bit about the history and this has been going back and forth for a while. Think about this, the last major leader who had the longest reign in recent history in Sudan Which by the way, just knowing where Sudan is might help a little bit.

You've got Saudi Arabia to the right, then you've got Sudan just to the left of it. above it you have Egypt and this. so this is kind of in the Middle East which is the No. The upper right corner of Africa is the way to think of it.

And in 1989 you had Omar Al-bashir who took control via a military coup after massive protests and 70 percent inflation. So you've got massive problems. You've got a financial problems in in Sudan, you've got leadership problems and really, his Reign continued until until 2019.. when you had yet another coup and the military took over, ordining, ordering a military imposed state of emergency and arresting Albashir.

Then in September of 2021, there was another field coup. one month later, another coup attempt two months after that. in January of 2022, what do you have? The Prime Minister Quits Darfur is one of the regions within Sudan and it's where you're seeing a lot of fighting. that's happening.

though. fighting is really happening throughout the entire country of of Sudan right now. In fact, I'll throw up a Uh a map in just a moment here to show you where some of this fighting is happening and you can see how widespread the fighting actually is. The Uh, The fighting.

Unfortunately, Uh is also affecting the Port of Sudan, which is problematic because the port of Sudan is important for oil imports and exports. Uh, in the region. That's leading some to worry that oil prices could stay higher for longer. Uh, so far, this violence