ExclusiveRuling by Executive Order; The Pardon Olympics; Trump-Coin to the Moon ... or the Floor? | NTD Primetime

Good evening and welcome to the first episode of primetime under the Trump administration. A lot has changed in seemingly what five days, like a dizzying amount of stuff. Trump has pumped out well over 200 orders, executive actions, proclamations, memos. We're going to go through a lot of them. For instance, there have been many pardons. Actually, there've been many pardons not only by Trump, but also by Biden on his way out. Quite a lot to discuss there. Meaning we might have an actual kinetic war in our southern border. Although we might have already had a kinetic war down there for a while, depending on who you ask. And I know for a fact there are a lot of Russian women in Miami sweating bullets about that right now. Or has it? And then lastly, Let's go talk to the gang. Up front we have someone who literally already has her bags packed, ready to flee to Canada once the show is done. Cindy Drew Care. This gentleman here is excited to get back in the Silk Road. Christopher Bob. This guy right here was once described by The Atlantic as a melancholic 30-something with a thick patch of black hair. Joshua Phillips. And she'd rather be at home reading The Lord of the Rings in hardcover. Tiffany Meyer. And I'm, of course, Roman Dalmykov, your host. And this is PRIMETIME. All right. Indeed. It's the first show of the Trump administration. Meaning that before we dive into all of Trump's literally crazy amount of actions that he's taken in the first week, let's go around and each one of us will tell you our favorite thing about the Biden administration. Cindy, what's your favorite thing about Joe Biden? About Joe Biden or the administration? Joe Biden in his first four years in office. His first. You never know. Well, you know, I travel a lot, obviously. You outed me earlier. And Joe Biden made it easier to get your refund when your flight is cancelled or excessively delayed. And I think that was a pretty good move. OK. So it's like become automatic. They're supposed to give it to you. So I think that was good. OK. Do you want to look at your camera and just say thank you, Joe Biden? Yeah. Thanks. Great. Chris, your turn. I thought you were going to steal mine for a second. I travel a lot, too. I calculated about 30 days out of the year I'm on an Amtrak train. So I have something in common with Amtrak Joe besides being Irish Catholic. He did a lot of work for Amtrak. He gave them billions of dollars during his term. And a lot of publicity. A lot of publicity. In Maryland, there is the tunnel with Wes Moore. He did some stuff on the Hudson line. So yeah, I guess trains making commuting easier. Josh? I think that if Biden had not won in 2020, the Trump administration would not be nearly as significant as it is right now. I think he actually superpowered Trump. And Trump's coming in with extreme force right now that we would have never seen before. So that's your favorite thing about Biden? Inflation was, I think, inevitable. So basically, he took the hit for inflation. And that's your favorite thing about him? He took all the post-COVID type stuff. Took that. And then Trump came after. All right, we'll take it. Tiffany? Well, mine's not that. But he did a lot in terms of China. He forced Chinese companies to open their audit books to US regulators if they wanted to publicly list on the US Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In the past, Chinese and Hong Kong companies were like, oh, no, that's a national security concern. They wouldn't. So that was actually first started by then-President Trump in 2020. And then President Biden actually expanded that and turned it into something. So yay for transparency. Let me ask you. Because of so many of these investigations into the Biden family's economic ties to China, there was that big narrative. But I also heard other commentators say that Biden's stance, like actual real policy stance on China, was pretty much equal to Trump in terms of harshness. Is that true? I did speak to an analyst who was saying that anyone after the first Trump administration, whoever runs, even like a second Trump, will be more hawkish on China. You have to be just given the geopolitical climate. So you saw that with President Biden. He expanded on, say, the Trump tariffs, upping it to like 100%, right? That's like one of the few things he didn't reverse, right? He reversed everything Trump did except China. And then added to it. So and then now you see Trump coming in and being like, 100%. Unless, you know, we get TikToks, stuff like that. But Biden actually was pretty tough on China. Secretary Blinken was actually pretty strong on it, too. OK. And my turn. My favorite thing about the Biden administration was that in 2021, they, for the first time, recognized the Armenian genocide. I thought that was a strong move. In 2019, Trump had the opportunity to do it when the Senate passed the resolution or a proclamation. But Trump refused to change his administration's policy. But Biden did. He actually, for the first time, had America recognize the Armenian genocide. And I thought that was a good move because it wasn't politically advantageous, especially like kind of pissed off Turkey at a time when it was like really geopolitically unstable. Like it was like just several months before Russia invaded Ukraine. And obviously you want Turkey on your side. But but he did it. So, I mean, I thought that was an excellent, excellent move. He also helped vets get, you know, medical treatment for the burn pits. Like they don't have to prove that their ailment, you know, when they went to Iraq and Afghanistan and they were around these like toxic burn pits. And for years they were trying to like get it recognized as real ailments. So he did that. That was good. It's great. So who knows? I mean, that was just his first four years, eight years from now. I mean, four years from now, you never know. Maybe we'll have a Joe Biden 2.0. Moving on, though, we have a Trump 2.0. And in his first day, I mean, his first day in office was like signing, signing, signing. So, Cindy, prior to the show, you had some opinions you were telling me about this sort of like what did you call it? Ruling by executive order or like dictate presidency. But wait, I just want to make a comment. First, we could have a Biden 2.0 just to one up Trump because Trump was the oldest president to be inaugurated twice because Biden broke his record in between. So maybe Biden will want to come back and break the record again. Well, I was going to say, you know, the joke this time around was that when Biden stepped down, Jimmy Carter could have actually ran again. But I guess, you know, the next year will be Biden. But OK, tell us about this executive order. What are we trending towards? Well, I mean, everyone's like, you know, aghast at this, you know, record number of executive orders on the first day. You know, there's a lot of executive orders. Biden had a lot of executive orders, too. It didn't really become a thing to like Teddy Roosevelt about 120 years ago. And it peaked with FDR in the, you know, the New Deal stuff. And then it's been, you know, kind of after that, they've all been relatively similar, somewhere like 30 to 60 per year. But here's the thing. So people are alarmed and they're like, hey, this is like ruling by fiat. It's like, you know, trending to dictatorship. It's not supposed to be this way. It's supposed to be Congress. Or a monarchy. They like to use the dictatorship kind of analogy more, it seems. I haven't heard so much of that one. But if you think, but there's also already a whole pile of lawsuits, you know, coming as some of these. So people are like, oh, it's more lawfare again, this and that. And the way I kind of see it is if you're going to do a run around Congress with executive orders, then we have three co-equal branches of government, then I think it's appropriate for there to be court challenges. So there's got to be some checks and balances. Like a bunch of Bidens were, you know, he, what was it? The student loan forgiveness and the vaccine mandates. Both of those were executive orders that were challenged in the courts and he lost. And then he kept doing it. So the thing about executive orders is they're meant to be, they're actually meant, they have to stay within the bounds of the law and the Constitution. They're supposed to be about executing laws, right? It's an executive thing. But so there has been, you know, kind of mission creep over the years, for sure, in terms of pushing the limits to what you can do. But I think just, and here's another thing about it, actually, I was thinking about this too, that a lot of, the characterization of it being kind of, okay, you know, whatever, monarchistic or, you know, dictator, dictatorial, thank you. But a lot of Trumps are about, you know, clawing things back, right? Giving more freedom, clawing things back, like, because, you know, the government can't censor, you know, and a whole bunch of things like that. So, and you also have to look at the character of the executive orders, not just how many, because actually, you know, appointing people is also, you know, in that category, right? So a lot, it's not just about the number, it's about, you know, how big it is. Like, for example, the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order by Lincoln. And that obviously affected millions and millions of people, right? So anyway, so there's a lot there. The Constitution is, you know, the power is there kind of vaguely. Washington, you know, issued one kind of thing, and so. Well, you made a good point. So, like, from Washington, who sort of said the, he said the president for a lot of things, that the president. Being the first. Yeah, well, yeah, being first, but like, you know, taking two terms, you know, things like that. Up until now, up until, like, let's say, you mentioned FDR, but I think Obama was the one in most recent memory who kind of restarted the, using a lot of executive orders. Let me read you a quote. I'm not going to tell you who said this quote, but it's regarding Obama. And this is the quote. Quote, he, meaning Obama, he doesn't work the system. That is why he signs executive orders all the time. He doesn't get anything done. You've got to close the door and get things done without signing your executive orders all the time. That's the easy way out. Trump. That was Trump on the campaign trail. Another part of, like, you know, because Trump really made this a whole spectacle, if you will. He went down into the Capital One arena where 20,000 of his supporters have been lining up since 2 a.m. Chris knows he was there interviewing them. And he had a tiny desk, and that's where he started signing those executive orders on live television with those giant Sharpies, you know, a lot of display. A lot of people were like, you know, you have Sharpies in the White House. Now, I think he did that in his first administration, too. But with him, you know, with Trump in the first administration, it was all about promises made and promises kept. So with a lot of these executive orders, even if they do eventually get overturned by the courts, he can immediately go out there and be like, look, you voted for me. I did what I told you I was going to do on the campaign trail, like ending birthright citizenship. Most courts are going to say that's probably not going to hold. You have to relook at the constitutional amendments. The 14th Amendment's probably not going to hold. But he can go out there today and be like, I did that on day one, as I promised. Right. And then all these other ones, the border, the economy, making the U.S. leave the WHO, all these big promises that he made on the campaign trail, he can just go out there now and be like, I did what I promised to do, even if it does take one or two years to go through the legal system. He also knows it's going to be tough governing through Congress, right? He's got slim, slim majorities. He's got, you know, there's the two-year ticking clock to the midterms, right? So, yeah, I think he just wants to act fast. I mean, he's been preparing for this for four years. Those things were not drawn up since November 5th. I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not necessarily like a mark that to say like, oh, Trump said this in 2015 and now he's doing something else. It's more of a question of like, well, what about the guy after Trump? Right, right. Like, because I mean, one of Trump's executive orders was to nullify like what, 78 of Biden's executive orders. But Biden did the same thing, right? So now we're going to get this whole thing in the Paris court, out of the Paris court, in the Paris court. All right. So on that very, I don't know, somber note, a positive note, it's kind of really threading the line there. Come back after the break and I will show you what this is. I'll give you a hint. We've been discussing executive orders, which is how the president is able to essentially usurp a little bit of power from Congress. However, there's a way that the president can also usurp a little bit of power from the court. Stay tuned for me to tell you what I'm referring to here. All right. Welcome back to the show. Before we get into the topic of pardons, Trump pardons, Biden pardons, both of them. I want to play a quick clip. This clip is from primetime, this show from last week. I asked the question of everyone on the panel about who they thought was going to get pardoned on the 11th hour of the Biden administration. Take a look. One question for all of you. So are there going to be midnight pardons? And if so, who do you think will be pardoned on January 19th, last day in office for Joe Biden? Cindy? The entire Biden family. Chris? Dr. Fauci. Okay. I think Biden's not going to pardon any of them. He's going to let them rot. He's not going to go for any of them, I think. Okay. Tiffany? I feel like it's too early to tell. Okay. I think the January 6th committee might get pardoned. Liz Cheney? Liz Cheney, everyone on that committee. All right. So listen, can we tell the future? Because every single actual prediction came true. Well, Josh's had, okay, Josh did not come true. Wrong. Tiffany didn't make a prediction. We'll have to see. That's not a real answer. But everyone on this side was correct. And you know what? Which, by the way, this speaks of how wild this is. Can you come here for a sec, York? As just a gift for getting it so right, I frame the Fauci pardon. This is a 10-year, no, it's since 2014. Yeah, 2014. 11 years. 11-year pardon. Here you go. Thank you so much. Look at that. Incredible. I mean, listen. I never thought this day would come. And my question to you, Roman, is, and my question to everyone out there watching, what was he pardoned for? Pardoned for, yeah. For a crime he didn't get accused of? Starting for the crime that did not start in the year 2014? Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, a lot of things apparently did not start in 2014, huh? Did not start in Ukraine, I assume, either. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, listen, if we want to get really conspiratorial, a.k.a. if we want to start connecting the dots, why don't you tell us, how does Ukraine tie in? Why did you bring up that country? Oh, just hypothetically speaking. Well, why? There's a lot of countries. Why did you bring up that one? Biolabs and so on, you know. Why, why, why? Well, I don't know. I'm just saying, why would he make... What happened in 2014? Okay, well, yeah, so there were some U.S. programs to establish some biolabs in various parts of the world around the time. Some may argue... Wuhan, for example? Could be hypothetically involved with this, yes. We don't really know. That's the interesting thing. But at the same time, though, I don't think the pardon's going to stop the investigations. And actually, even with a lot of the stuff, I think even with, for example, the J6 committee getting pardoned, if there are investigations, and by the way, Republicans and Congress are saying they're going to launch investigations, it will not protect them from civil lawsuits. And I believe there will be a lot of civil lawsuits. You also just want radical transparency, right? Like, just put it... Open all the books, put it all out there. Let everyone just know. That'll be fun. And it's also not forward-looking. So if they do something wrong tomorrow, it gets sued. Like, do another January 6th? But Fauci, for example, he's not on anymore. So it doesn't really matter what he... I mean, what could he do? He could jaywalk, I guess. I guess so. But no, but my question is real, you know? What exactly is that going to do except turn all eyes on him for the next four years? Trump brought that up when he was asking... When he was, you know, answering questions of the press. He said that his belief is it actually makes these individuals look more guilty. And that was actually one of the arguments against pardons, which was why I didn't think Biden would do it. Because, you know, if you... Let's put it this way. Now that he has pardoned them, if there are investigations now, it will make everybody look like they knew about it. Otherwise, they would not have needed to pardon them. It'll make it look like they knew it happened, and they pardoned them because they knew it happened. Whereas they'd be like, oh, I didn't realize you did that. You don't think it's because Elon Musk made his, you know, handle at one point his pronouns, prosecute Fauci? Maybe, I don't know. Well, hold on. Okay, but, you know, we are going along this train of thought of like, oh, they definitely committed crimes, and therefore they needed this pardon. I mean, what do you make of the idea that like, hey, let's say, let's, you know, Fauci is one example. How about this? James B. Biden. Sarah Biden. Francis Biden. Also, going back to 2014. What if Biden just wants to protect his family from the government? Because if the government comes down on you, the Trump administration comes down on you, even if, let's say, you didn't commit a crime in 2014, since 2014, you know, just the headache, the pressure, the legal fees associated with defending yourself against the government, you know, that could take a toll on you. So, I mean, like. No one's experienced that in recent years, right? Well, I mean. Can you frame mine, by the way? Why don't I get a frame? You know, honestly, I just wanted the effect of the frame, and I thought Fauci was like, I mean, Fauci is the ultimate, the ultimate, you know, post. I mean, I actually, honestly, the Biden family is also pretty good. Maybe I'll frame this, too. But I mean, think about those dogs, those puppies, those little puppies. I mean, whatever. I don't want to, I don't want to like. The beagles. Speaking of dogs, he did not, he did not pardon Major, who actually did commit crimes. Biting people, right? Major's bit a lot of people. Yeah. Mark Milley got a crime. But then on the flip side, you have the January 6th pardon. So it's almost like, I wonder if, this is just my thinking, because, you know, in politics, politicians, especially the ones who get super advanced, you know, the level of the presidency is obviously the highest in America. It's like, you know, the all-star politics, you know, the MLB of politics. They're thinking in five dimensions. So it's like, I imagine that Biden and his advisors knew that Trump was definitely going to pardon the J6 prisoners. Because he said it. But sure, but he also obviously was going to do it. He was going to, you know, go through with it. And because they knew that, they did this. He pardoned his own family, knowing that like, sure, Republicans can kind of throw some dirt on this. But that'll be, that'll be sort of, you know, shielded by the fact that Trump also pardoned all the J6 people. It was like quite a bit of forethought. They would have had the moral high ground had Biden not done that, and then Trump went ahead and did J6. Because a lot of people are saying, you know, well, Trump's got free reign now to do all the J6 pardons, you know, based on, you know, what just happened. And in some ways, it actually helps Trump's narrative when Trump comes out. You know, he did an executive order or executive action about investigating the weaponization of government. If Trump's saying the government had been weaponized, you know, you could actually argue that Biden is legitimate protecting his family from the weaponization of government also, if he believes it is an actual problem. And maybe Trump could use that as his narrative, too. Even Biden thought there'd be a problem. That's what he started saying with Hunter. Yeah, yeah. All right, one final thought. Mark Milley. Mark A. Milley. General, general question mark, Mark Milley. So, okay, I have a researcher for Facts Matter for my program, and he was in the army. So I asked him about it. Can Trump strip Mark Milley of his general status? Because Trump put out this truth social post where he was like, general, and in quotation marks, there's a question mark, Mark Milley. So I'm like, is he about to strip this guy of the general status? And he basically said that that's not possible because he's retired general. So what Trump would have to do is, like, get him back in active duty and then court-martial him to strip his status. But then my researcher suggested that the reason he got this pardon is to prevent that from happening. It's like, you know, a bit of forethought into protecting Mark Milley. Which Mark Milley, by the way, wild, wild pardon here. Remember he had that phone call with, he had two phone calls with his counterpart. So for those watching, what happened was Mark Milley, the, what was he, the chairman of the chief joint of staff under Trump. 2020 happens, the election happens. All that tumult, you know, the Stop the Steal campaign is happening, the riot at the Capitol. Mark Milley has two phone calls with his Chinese counterpart. And on those phone calls, he goes, you know, General Jiang, don't worry, we will, America will not attack China. And if we do attack China, I will call you ahead of time to tell you that we're attacking you. And so Trump floated the idea of charging him for treason, but that will not happen. Tiffany, China's reaction? To Mark Milley or in general? In general, if you don't know more, if you don't know the specifics. Well, I think it was fascinating that this time, for the first time we were talking last week, right, that Trump, as president for his inauguration, invited foreign heads of state, including Chinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping, who did not come, but he sent his second in command. And so he was in the audience. And then TikTok CEO was also in the audience. And because it was so cold, the whole event was forced indoors. So it was a very select few that could go in. So they were there. So that's like, you know, so right now, there's been a lot of talks following Trump becoming president again, where on the campaign trail, he was threatening 60% tariffs on Chinese goods and the 25% on Mexican and Canadian goods, because they're not stopping the flow of fentanyl coming from China across the borders illegally, but also because a lot of Chinese goods are going across the borders. And so he was like, I'm going to attack all of them. But, you know, once he's in office, a lot of reporters are like, where are these China tariffs? That wasn't part of the executive orders. And so the reporters don't care about China tariffs. They just care about, oh, you said something and you didn't do it. Even though, you know, he's saying within a week, maybe. Yes, but it could go up to 100%, because he's trying to, as a lot of people were guessing, use this as a leveraging tactic, because he also, after the 14 hours that TikTok was banned briefly, it's a bit more complicated. But anyways, he put out this, like, executive action to extend it by 75 days. But he didn't put the legal parameters, because it is a law, right? You have to either divest from TikTok, has to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or, you know, be banned. And so he didn't really lay out the legal means of how that would happen. So if you notice right now, on the app stores, TikTok still isn't there on either the Apple or Google ones, because, you know, if Trump reverses this course and starts enforcing the ban, these would be facing $850 billion in fines. So right now they're still not on the stores, but if you have it downloaded, it's not working again. So the interesting part about that is that I think it was an executive proclamation, it wasn't an order regarding TikTok, maybe it was an order. But he said, like, we won't prosecute any companies that help TikTok. Because I think the law makes it such, like Apple, for instance, they can't do business with TikTok, right? But Trump was like, oh, don't worry, we won't prosecute them for working with TikTok during this buffer period. But I think those companies are finding themselves in this weird, like, legal limbo situation where it's like, yeah, Trump says he won't prosecute us, but he doesn't have the authority to say that. Like, yeah, he can say it, but we'll probably actually, if we actually put TikTok back in the app store, we might still face very serious repercussions. That's what the legal teams for these big companies are saying behind the scenes. They're like, we're not gonna risk it. And so then there's the suggestion where, as Josh was just mentioning, right, Trump is now saying, oh, maybe I'll start slapping on 10% tariffs on Chinese goods starting as early as February 1st, so like in a week or not that far away. Or 100% on Chinese goods unless China, Beijing hands over 50% ownership of TikTok, basically letting the US police it and control it. Depends on like how that goes, but a lot of people are saying like, oh, this is a negotiating tactic in terms of- So let me ask you, so it seems like, I mean, just as me as an outsider looking in on this whole, like, you're obviously like knee deep in the whole China angle. Like, I'm just looking at it from the outside perspective. It seems like Trump's tone has definitely, again, definitely, but from my perspective, softened on China. Before, during his first term, he was super hawkish. He had the trade war raging. Like, you know, it was very like serious, rough talk. Now it's like, you know, he's inviting Xi over for the inauguration. You know, in the first term, it was like, we need to ban TikTok. And now in the second term, it's like, oh, we'll give you a grace period. Maybe we'll take an ownership stake in it. Like, has his tone actually shifted, or is that just my perception? And has his policy, I guess nothing's been implemented yet, but has his policy proposals also shifted back? That's like the biggest question. All of the people I'm talking to, like, you know, the China experts and everything, the ones who know Trump, they're like, he's never led us wrong. So when it comes to the reversal on TikTok, they're like, he has a plan, right? So a lot are seeing this as a negotiating tactic. And then others are saying, well, you know, he does have a business background, art of the deal. It's like, is this a way of getting that deal? For instance, Elon Musk is very close to him. But Elon Musk's own company, Tesla, inside China, doesn't have a joint venture, whereas almost every company that goes into China has to have that joint venture. And then it's kind of funny, because with the TikTok argument, right, it's like, oh, Beijing has the data of Americans and has access to all that information. On the flip side, Tesla cars aren't allowed into Chinese government compounds because they're afraid that Tesla's collecting all the information on the Chinese government officials. Here's my big question. Do you think Trump sees China just as an adversary, a competitor in the business realm? Or do you think he understands the evilness, the existential evilness of the CCP? I don't think you can treat them in realpolitik terms, which maybe you can even with Putin. But do you think he sees them that way? Well, if he doesn't, the ones he picked in his cabinet do. But they're also, like, you know, I think what Trump learned, many are saying from his first term, was that he wasn't surrounded by the best team. Obviously, there were really good players in it, people in his cabinet, but there were also others who were working against him. Whereas he's learned his lesson, he had four years to think about who he wants to put in his cabinet. There was, you know, different think tanks and groups that were trying to help him with that. And so this time, most people, including, you know, critics are saying he's hitting the ground running. For example, with all those executive orders and the people he's picked. And then you also have, you know, a consensus, if you will, from the previous Biden administration, like outgoing FBI head Christopher Wray, saying that China is the biggest existential threat to the U.S. So you have all these different voices saying that. So it'd be really weird if, after the whole trend of Trump being hawkish on China, Biden being very hawkish, and now Trump coming in and not being hawkish. So did he invite Xi to, like, you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Do you think he's trying to lull him into some... He was, like, inviting him to be like, look, I can invite you to come. Because normally we're talking about this last week, right? It's like a foreign leader comes, it's a whole deal. Everything is about that foreign leader coming. But if it's your inauguration, it's like he can be in the audience for my big day. So some are like, is this a power move, right? It's a very different political system from communist China. So it's like, is this a way of being like, look what I can do. I can invite you guys to my big day. This is a free country. This is what this looks like. And you'll just be sitting down there. But it seems Marco Rubio is a big choice because Marco Rubio is Secretary of State. He's sanctioned by China. The CCP sanctioned him. And Trump picked Rubio to be Secretary of State in charge of our relations, basically. It's a big deal. To your point, Tiffany, I mean, it seems like all the people that Trump invited were his friends, though, right? Including him? Well, I mean, part of it. He didn't invite Rocket Man. I don't know if Rocket Man is a true friend. He didn't invite the leaders of countries where there's currently strife or turmoil. So Zelensky, Putin, Netanyahu, all of these major, Kim Jong-un. But he did invite Xi Jinping. So some are like, ooh, like it's- That's really good pronunciation, by the way, on un. Don't throw that. I won't let that slide. That was good. All right. On that note, we're going to go to break. And when we come back, we're going to discuss the real possibility that for, what, the second time in 150 years, we might have an actual war with Mexico on the southern border. Here we go. Teddy Roosevelt, round two. Come back in two minutes, and Josh will calmly discuss this topic. The Rough Riders, right? Rough Riders. Huh? All right. If you're like me, and you're sitting at home on the weekend, you're reading a great book about Teddy Roosevelt, and you're thinking to yourself, man, I wish there was a war with Mexico where I can go and cut my teeth, join the Rough Riders, experience what it's like to fight a war on American soil in America slash Mexico. Well, you're in luck, because that might actually be happening. Josh, if the cartels get designated as terrorist organizations, can we actually have a real kinetic war on the southern border? It is possible that we will not only have a war on the southern border, but even within the United States. So Trump actually did what he said he was going to do. And I wasn't sure if he was going to do it. Because he was talking about this when he's on the campaign trail. Trump, day one, executive order, has declared the Mexican drug cartels, and not only them, but also gangs, including Tren de Aragua and MS-13, as terrorist organizations. And any officials affiliated with them. Yeah, and that too, which is a lot of government officials, especially in Mexico, and a lot of corrupt people in the United States. Let me read you the quote from Trump directly, all right? This is Trump's official executive order, January 20th. It was one of his incoming executive orders. He said, it says, this order creates a process by which certain international cartels and other organizations will be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. He said the cartels and other transnational organizations, such as the TDA, Tren de Aragua, and MS-13, operate both within and outside the United States. They present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency under IEEPA to deal with those threats. OK, so first of all, what powers does that designation actually unlock for the US? Let me show you, all right? Trump actually said this when he was on the campaign trail. He detailed exactly what he was going to do. Let me show you this clip. The drug cartels are waging war in America. And it's now time for America to wage war on the cartels. I will deploy all necessary military assets, including the US Navy, to impose the full naval embargo on the cartels. I did that before, and it worked. What we did was incredible. We will guarantee that the waters of the Western Hemisphere are not used to traffic illicit drugs to our country. Furthermore, I will order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations. So that is wild. I was watching a great show recently called Narcos on Netflix. Highly recommend. They don't sponsor me. But the reason I bring it up is because in that show, the cartels always were working so hard to never get caught on American soil, to never hurt an American in the course of their business, because they knew that the American government would then go after that cartel. So I guess now they're probably sweating bullets. Killing all those people with fentanyl. Yeah, I was going to say that. Fentanyls would set it over the line. Killing about 70,000 Americans every single year. Fentanyl was the one that broke it all for them. And especially now that you have very violent gangs in the United States that work up the drug trade, you know, Tren de Aragua, MS-13. They're so overt with what they do, and they cause such a mess, that they've brought a lot of attention to these types of operations. And so it's interesting because the other side of it, too, is a lot of cartels work with international terrorist organizations. Hezbollah is actually very deeply involved with them. If you go further south, a lot of the cartels are narco-terror organizations. They're actually tied in with terrorism. And so this is not a difficult designation to make. Not only that, but because of the way that terrorism has worked, you know, since 9-11, is that the president actually does have very broad powers on. So actually in that full video, Trump compared his planned actions as basically being exactly what he did going after ISIS. But the problem with this, honestly, is that I remember during Trump's first term, he also floated this idea. And the then president of Mexico pleaded with him to not do it, at least publicly. I mean, we don't know what the back-end conversations are like. But then the president of Mexico actually took concrete steps to stop the flow of migrants. Because he did not want this designation. Because I think the Mexican federal government is not like the U.S. federal government, where it's very strong, and you can feel the federal government pretty much everywhere. In Mexico, because of, I think, geography, largely, you have pockets of Mexico that are straight up run by the cartel. The cartel is the de facto government in that zone. So get this. In that full video, Trump actually goes into this. Any government official, anybody who tries to block him from going after the cartels, that he will expose their ties to the cartels. He actually says that. Let me ask you this. Initially, when I said, are we going to have a war on the southern border, you said we're going to have a war on U.S. soil. What did you mean by that? There are cartels very active within the United States. And this is especially the case because of the legalization of marijuana. And the lighter on drug kind of process that's put in place, especially California and other parts of the U.S. Because it used to be the cartels, they would ship things into the U.S. and you'd have gangs basically do the distribution. Because they made drugs a slap on the wrist charge in a lot of the country and because they basically legalized marijuana to the extent that actually it is cheaper to run illegal marijuana grows and get fined than it is to have the permits for it. They created the hotbed of these gangs coming into the U.S., doing the drug operations here and then they don't have to worry about border security or dig in tunnels or anything like that. And so I do know police officers who told me about actual cartel like fortresses complete with guys riding motorcycles around, scouts, they have watchtowers, everything on American soil. Let's pause for a quick commercial break. When we come back, we're gonna discuss cryptocurrency. I guess that also kind of ties into drugs in general, right? A lot of people use cryptocurrency for drugs. Not the only thing, of course. I mean, it has a lot of other good uses, but I wanted to have a good segue. So come back and we're gonna discuss Trump coin and Melania coin. Good investment, rug pull. First of all, tell us. Come back two minutes and we'll give you definitely not financial advice. All right. Welcome back to prime time. And before we move on to our next segment, I just have a quick announcement to make. We are launching the prime coin. It's our new meme token. It definitely is not an investment vehicle. This is just a fun. I'm being told by the producer that I do have to tell you that that is a joke. I am legally obligated to tell you that that was just a bit. However, what's not a bit is that our president, the president of the United States of America, launched a meme coin called Trump coin. Chris, is it a good investment opportunity? Don't get me there. I'm not gonna do it. You're gonna carve me out here. He was saying that with Jake Paul. Yeah, okay. I don't want to go there. Here's what we're gonna start. Happy, happy, happy. Okay. Trump coin. Some presidents, they get on a coin when they're dead. Trump, no. He does it while he's in office like a man. And I'll tell you what, Trump coin is Bitcoin for boomers. I mean, who do you know that that's buying a Trump coin? And the same goes for Melania coin, which is another coin that was released. But it's kind of like beanie baby. It's like this thing where it's kind of cute to look at. Maybe some strange people think that they're worth something. But in a few years- They make like 20 billion overnight. Okay, we'll get to that. Beanie babies rose in value, by the way, since my childhood. Are you holding? You're a long holder. You should have bought more of them. Listen, okay. This is a scary place. But okay. January 5th, 2021. Know where you were. I know. This is not the commission. But that was the last day Donald Trump posted on Instagram. He got suspended because of the events of January 6th. He was telling people to go to the rally. He was suspended. He wasn't using social media. We all remember what happened. Then, to my surprise, one day, I open up Instagram and I see this video. Let's play it. Hello again. This is your favorite president, Donald Trump, with some news you are going to really love. A few months ago, we almost broke the internet when I announced my Trump digital trading cards. These beautiful Trump cards made headlines all over the world because of the speed at which they sold. Original cards sold out so fast, everybody is asking me to do another series. Well, I've got some fantastic news for you. My Trump digital trading cards are back with a bang. Series 2, the new collection, features incredible artwork of me as a rock star and also as a monster trucker. People love to collect baseball cards, but why settle for that when you can collect the greatest trading card in history? My Trump digital trading cards. Yeah, so that was the first iteration. I mean, I didn't get a single one, but I can't recommend anything, so I'm not going to say anything. But, you know, I saw that and I said, oh my god, this guy's account was taken over. I mean, this is a deepfake or something. It's real. He sold 47,000 of them like nothing. They were just gone, out of here. Everyone's aunt and conspiratorial grandmother had one. No, but it was a fun little thing that he did. But he did it like he said, baseball cards, stuff like that. It's just something fun. So now he comes out with Trump coin. Now, Trump coin, there's a billion of them. Right now, there's 200 million on the market that have been released. That's 10% for liquidity and 10% for the first group of geniuses who decide to buy them. But people have been asking the question, you know, is this guy just some grifter? I mean, why is he putting out all of these shady products? And he himself says that they're really for entertainment value, that this is not, you know, an investment. But in the vein of that question, I want to play my theory about why he's releasing all of these interesting things. Let's go to that clip. Look, I'm no mathematician. OK, I'm not a mathematician. But if I just do some just quick back of the envelope calculating. $454,000, OK, $454,000 divided by 814. Let's see. 814,600. OK, carry the two. Let's see. That means that Donald Trump and his Magalites will only need to sell. Hold on a second. Carry the three. They'll only need to sell 557 tickets to settle his debts with New York. Unleash the Knacken. Isn't it good that the presumptive nominee of the RNC and the RNC don't have a lot of cash to actually help them win the election? I mean, it's just not sustainable because it's kind of hard to run a campaign without money. So she said it herself. You know, Trump was dealing when he released the cards, he was dealing with tons of legal challenges. Now he just spent, I was reading the New York Times report. Can we trust it? $100 million on legal fees. This was in March 27, 2024. I mean, I heard at one point, if you donated $1 to President Trump, $0.50 were going for his legal fees. I mean, so he was just paying out the resu, all this money, and it was depleting him. So these things, maybe they are for the money. But I can reasonably see why he's doing this. And if he's not pushing it as, you know, the next gold ETF or something like that, it's not some massive savior like Bitcoin will be. I don't think it's too malicious. I mean, but I mean, honestly, like. He doesn't even know what the price is. They asked him at a press conference today. He couldn't even tell you what it was. OK, I don't know if that's any. I mean, look, I think and I'd like to know your opinion. I think this is beneath the office of the president. Is a meme coin beneath the office of the president? This is just a new era. It's a rug pull, though. It's a new era. No, it's not a rug pull. It's not a rug pull. Yeah, because they haven't pulled the rug. They're like, this is the rug. It's not a rug pull. Yeah. But just stand here. That's that's what's currently going. So, you know, the hawk to a girl. Sure. Right. She she kind of has been silent since December because she came out with her own coin called Hawk and Hawk coin. People allege that she released the coin. Everyone who had it in her family and friends and all that were, you know, selling the coins off. They were the insiders. Yeah. And they were selling while it was going down. Eighty percent of this Trump coin is held by insiders. Correct. Have a lockup period. The Melania coin, by the way, over a period of three years. The Melania coin is locked up for 30 days. Yeah. So, again, we haven't seen anything yet. So this is like back in the days. Trump can't he's not going to ask you to donate to his campaign anymore. OK, it's done. But this is something that everyone can have as like a novelty item, like a beanie baby. We've got a strong buy buy signal. Here's the deeper context of this conversation, which is Chris is actually a crypto guy and Roman's a gold guy. Roman holds gold coins like a dragon. Hold me. Call me. Call me old fashioned. But I mean, I think this is pretty normal. I've spoken to thousands of Trump supporters. I've been to tens of rallies for news. I work in news. Can you believe it? And people I talk to them about crypto, I talk to them about business. Most of the people that I talk to or his supporters, you know, they understand investing in a company. I have a farm. You know, if I get investment into my farm, I get some more land. I get some more seeds. It benefits the community. In my mind, I don't see how crypto is a benefit to the community investing into it. The same goes for gold. I think it's just a piece of metal that sits there. All right. I thought you were going somewhere else. On your gold stuff until the end, until you lose your. I mean, look, look, I would just implore anyone seriously watching this. If you're buying Trump meme coins, like buy them for the novelty of it. Like you're you're going to get fleeced on that opinion. It's financial advice. No, it's not financial advice. It's not financial advice. Trump did say, you know, item advice. I just care about the people watching. It is a beanie. You want to have fun? You want to you want to if you want to literally donate money to Trump, go ahead. But like I but I still I think it's below the office of the presidency. I don't think it's below Trump, but it's below the office that he represents. Maybe this is part of this is to get rid of the Fed. The Fed's not going to print money anymore. I can just create money out of nothing. Well, Trump Trump was saying actually that he was offering to bail out the Democratic Party. I don't think you're going to use it. But on that note of the Fed, new SEC chair launched a crypto task force. And the commissioner is going to now look over crypto and actually make judgments because under the Biden administration, which we just discussed, people were going to jail for crypto. They didn't know what the speed limit was, but they were being pulled over for speeding tickets. So now there's going to be some regulation. OK, well, I'm sure the guy Trump assigned to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission will definitely investigate Trump himself for the rug pull he's about to pull off. Until next time, I'm your host, Roman. These are the wonderful guests slash co-hosts. And same place, same time next week. Bye.