SIO88: Trump's Participation Trophies, Part 3

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 88. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, I'm excited to get back into the regular swing of things, do some good research, some good work. I am bringing you the, what I guess for now is the last part of the Trump accomplishments, aka Trump's participation trophies. I divided, there were 28, so I divided them roughly in three and this is the final third. Now, I would imagine they do more if he quote unquote accomplishes more things, but maybe not because as you're going to see and as you already have seen in the past two episodes, whoever wrote this and indeed Trump is taking credit for things that haven't happened yet. So once those things happen, I don't know, will they make a new item or will they just say, oh yeah, this happened and kind of edit back into the list? We'll see. But at any rate, let's get to part three of Trump's participation trophies.

0:01:37 Thomas: Yeah, so in this iteration, you'll have to decide. I think currently the best participation trophy was when Trump talked to somebody about what he might want to do about NAFTA, I think it was. One of the trade deals. That was listed among his accomplishments. He talked to a leader about what he thought would be a good idea for NAFTA. It's like, let's maybe put the cart before the horse a little bit. Maybe wait for him to actually do something would be good. So there's one in here that may be as good as that. But for now, let's start with number 20, and that is to enact a hiring freeze on government employees to help stop corruption. All right. Well, here's one that at least we can say he technically did. So he promised a hiring freeze and he did a hiring freeze. It's a stroke of a pen for him, but, you know, give him at least that much credit.

0:02:25 Thomas: Now, here's the thing, when you look at the details, though, it's a stupid idea. So in 1982, there was a report on hiring freezes that both Reagan and Jimmy Carter had done. So bipartisan thing, not just picking on Republicans here, but both Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter had attempted hiring freezes. And the Government Accountability Office found that they had little effect on employment levels because it just it just doesn't work. It's like this draconian way to try to cut hiring. But what happens is workload just backs up and then it actually ends up costing the government more money. In fact, that's what this report found that actually increased the cost of government because it makes things less efficient. They have this view that there's all these just extra people loafing around that they can cut.

0:03:12 Thomas: And you know what? I will say that I do agree that there are likely ways we can cut government employees and cut government waste. But you can't just be draconian to this level. You have to do it in a smart, systematic way. You can't just say no hiring at all. Because what if someone just left a position that is a really important position, but someone just happened to leave? And I'm sure this happened a lot. Well, now you can't hire to fill them in, even though it's in all likelihood, it has a decent chance of being a very worthwhile and necessary government position. And now critical work isn't being done. And you have to have someone who's not qualified fill in and then the work quality suffers. I mean, that's what tends to happen when you do a hiring freeze.

0:04:00 Thomas: You need a smarter way of going about it. Here's another backwards component of this. Now, I want to throw a bone to potentially fiscal conservatives. Now I wouldn't call myself a fiscal conservative, but I would put myself on the side of there's plenty of waste in government and I don't have a problem with smart attempts to reduce that waste. And then, you know, we could use the money to, you know, get people health insurance or do things that are worthwhile. So I definitely, and I've worked in state government, and I've seen a lot of waste in state government. So I mean, I am one who thinks there's plenty of waste there. But fundamentally, there are good jobs being done. There are good people in there. But there's waste. I'm all for trying to get rid of it. Now, here's the thing. This executive order doesn't include the military.

0:04:46 Thomas: Because, you know, Republicans would shit a brick if you ever put a freeze on military spending. And the military accounts for 44% of all full-time federal hires. So, you're saying like, oh, we got to stop corruption. We got to just rampant hiring. The government is bloated and out of control. Now, this one thing that's 44% of all federal hires, let's not touch that. Let's leave that alone. And indeed, this really does ignore maybe potentially one of the the biggest, if not the biggest, sources of government waste, which is the military. Republicans are all about cutting waste and cutting the deficit until you talk about the military. And in fact, you know what? They're not even really for cutting the deficit, as we'll see. They're for saying they'll cut the deficit. And then in actuality, what they do is cut taxes so that that increases the deficit, and then they increase spending on the military, and that also increases the deficit.

0:05:40 Thomas: So they don't actually want to do that. They want to propose draconian, extreme, impractical cuts to very necessary, but also very small programs like, you know, cutting PBS or something that just doesn't really add to the bottom line at all. But anyway, the government, you may not have heard of this. You might have, though. Recently, I think about a year ago. Yeah, we're coming on a year. There was a report. It leaked that the Pentagon buried a report that showed the Defense Department could save $125 billion over five years. $125 Billion. This is at a time when Trump wants to increase, and indeed they have. Trump and the Republicans are going to increase the military budget by like $100 billion.

0:06:27 Thomas: And there's this report, the Washington Post uncovered it, and this is just as bad as it it gets, really, from the details I'm seeing. I'll link it in the show notes. The Defense Department is just completely overbloated, paying way too much in salaries to people, paying way too Much to contractors, all this stuff. And the $125 billion that this commission found, like, here's what you can do. The $125 billion, by the way, was a middle option. So there was like, okay, here is the minimum you do, you save $75 billion, I think it was. And then the $125 billion was the middle option, it didn't tell me what the what the maximum option was, but you can only guess, who knows, $175, $200 billion. So this was the middle option. This was what the commission recommended. Here's what you should do to save just an astronomical amount of money.

0:07:14 Thomas: And what the Pentagon, what the Defense Department did was say, "Wait a minute, if it gets out that we're wasting this much money, Congress is going to cut our budget." So what they did was, they not only did they disband the commission, they hid the report, they actually even hid the data. They imposed a secrecy restriction on the data itself so that no one could ever replicate the findings. This is this is a real, this is not, uh, this is in the Washington Post, so if you are someone who trusts the mainstream media as I do, this is well sourced. This is not Alex Jones. This happened. No one seems to really give too much of a care about it. But if, if your goal, and the stated goal of this accomplishment, of this campaign promise, is to eliminate waste, corruption, you've just left out the main source.

0:08:05 Thomas: This would be something to campaign on. Talk about running it like a business. You know, oh, let's get this running like a business. Let's cut a bunch of waste. Well, you got it and you're not touching it. I would put this as, sure, he enacted a hiring freeze, which, by the way, they rescinded it. So the hiring freeze is over. But to be fair, he enacted it. So on paper, he lived up to that promise, but his promise was to fight corruption and waste, and I would contend that he completely missed the bulk of where it is and instead is cutting things like the State Department, which seems to me to be a horrible idea at a time when we desperately need them. So I would put this at ineptitude, but technically a kept promise, so we'll give him that. Here's another one that I was actually prepared to give Trump credit for, and it's something that Andrew gave him credit for, but upon researching it more, I wonder how much should really go to him.

0:09:00 Thomas: The listed accomplishment is, the listed campaign promise is, Trump could be the president that takes us to Mars. Wow, that's a cool promise. It is something that I value. I value NASA. I value space exploration. It's something I would want. That sounds cool, But when you look into it, here's what actually happened. So the bill itself was the 2017 NASA Authorization Act. This is the first authorization act since 2010. So the good news and what we can kind of give him credit for is at least this bill doesn't cut NASA. Exactly. There's certain things it cuts, but doesn't cut NASA at a time when Trump is cutting all of these other agencies, these science, these health agencies, These very important agencies. He's at least not cutting NASA, but it also isn't like this is some revamped increased budget for NASA.

0:09:51 Thomas: The budget stays the same. And what does change is actually really important. But to start, here's another, another bit of perspective on this. So giving Trump credit for this, he did sign it. So that's, I mean, he didn't veto it. That's good, but he didn't drive this. The first version of the bill, the Senate passed in 2016, at the end of 2016, before Trump was in office. So the bill already existed. And then the House merely passed the same version with just a vocal vote. And, uh, then Trump signed it. So he had no part in driving it, writing it, lobbying for it, anything like that, but he did sign it. The bill was pretty much bipartisan, and it shows, shows, because we can leave the discussion of how bipartisan negotiations should work for a later show.

0:10:41 Thomas: But while it's good that NASA is getting sustained funding, I like that. That's good. It's not getting cut like all these other programs. What did happen, and the reason Republicans like Cruz supported this, you know, Zodiac Killer, supported this is that it cuts, it guts the parts of NASA, and it gets rid of the parts of NASA that keep an eye on climate change. So this could be potentially pretty devastating. Now, I'm seeing that there could be a way that they can keep doing it, depending on how the money's dispersed. That might be a little too in-depth for now, and it's speculative, so we can keep an eyes on that. But at least in the wording of the bill, it tries to gut the Earth Sciences section of NASA. The Earth Sciences mission of NASA which is where a lot of this climate change research is.

0:11:31 Thomas: And that's not good. That's very bad. And as far as Trump being the president that takes us to Mars, I don't know. We can't tell. It's too early to tell, but the bill doesn't add any money. So it only sustains the current program. So if NASA is going to take us to Mars, it's because in 2010, their authorization under Obama gave them the authorization to try to go to Mars, and this merely continued that. And furthermore, Elon Musk, who I would think is something of an expert on this question, said, quote, this bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place and there's no added funding for Mars. Perhaps there will be some future bill that makes a difference for Mars, but this is not it, end quote.

0:12:19 Thomas: So that is his opinion on it. Looks like it would be a far cry to say this is somehow getting us to Mars. It sounds like the most you could say is he didn't stop us. He didn't drop us. He didn't stop any progress, which is something. That's not nothing. He didn't cut it. That's not nothing, but it's a far cry from what is listed as the accomplishment that he's going to take us to Mars. And furthermore, it's harmful bill if it's successful in diverting NASA's attention away from these earth sciences questions. I really hope that they can find a way around that. But that could be devastating. Number 22, campaign promise is to undo many of Obama's unconstitutional executive orders. So, first off, even in that premise, I already find it funny, A, because it's undoing many of them.

0:13:08 Thomas: So you would think if that's the campaign promise, what you would have listed here is like a bunch of examples. Oh, he undid this one, one. He undid this one. But no, it's actually just one item. And the only item listed is not even an executive order.

0:13:26 Thomas: It's the Department of Education rule having to do with transgender bathroom rights at schools. So again, I just want to put into perspective how little whoever wrote this understands about things. They said the accomplishment is undue many of Obama's unconstitutional executive orders. There's only one thing listed, not many, there's one, and it's not an executive order. So just, again, just put that in perspective. So this is interesting because, again it was a Department of Education rule, you probably remember, it was pretty recent, but it was saying that, okay, under Title IX we have decided, the Department of Education under Obama has decided that trans people are protected under Title 9 and they They ought to be able to use the bathroom that corresponds, or the facilities, whatever it is, that corresponds with their gender identity.

0:14:17 Thomas: I think that largely the LGBTQ community viewed this as a positive. It was Obama trying to do something. And they said that if they don't, if the school doesn't, because on their view, it would be going against Title IX, they would be ableto withdraw federal funds. So that was the position. And a judge stayed it, much like, and it's similar, we've talked a lot on Opening Arguments about how judges keep staying Trump's immigration ban. It was sort of like that because states sued and they said, no, this is a state's rights issue. This is a state's rights issue. Now, about this being a state rights issue, this is funny because at the time this happened in February.

0:15:04 Thomas: So it's It's been a while. You may remember a certain Sean Spicer was in a position of power. It was the press secretary back then. And Sean Spicer said, the president has made it clear throughout the campaign that he's a firm believer in states' rights. And then all of a sudden, when it comes to sanctuary cities, their position was, sorry, nope, no states' right. We will take away federal funding if you don't do what the federal government wants as regards sanctuary cities. Now, here's where, in all fairness, I want to say that I do think both sides tend to do this. This is one of those both sides cases that I actually think is legitimate. Both sides utilize the states' rights issue to their advantage.

0:15:49 Thomas: But the thing is, Republicans allegedly are supposed to care far more about states' rights, for one. But, you know, fair. Both sides do do this, and we see an example of it right now. But with the Obama thing, it was that the theory, the legal theory is that they would have to under Title IX. And that is a legitimate reason to take away federal funds. I don't think anyone would argue that if there was some clear violation of Title IX, like let's say a school that was just doing some unbelievable discrimination against women or something, like you just wouldn't give any funding to women for anything, but it would fund men. And it's receiving federal funds, I don't think that conservatives would argue that we wouldn't be allowed to take away those federal funds.

0:16:35 Thomas: I think it's pretty, who knows, but I'm pretty sure it's unanimous that schools that receive federal funds do need to abide by Title IX. And therefore, I think the states' rights issue makes less sense there. It's not about states' rights if they're receiving federal fund. So I find that case to be compelling. Whereas, if you'll recall in the sanctuary cities question, the federal government wanted states and cities to do something that's actually not even constitutional. So they wanted them to hold prisoners for longer than is constitutional in order for the federal agencies to process them, the Federal Police to deport and process them. Them. So, they were trying to get them to do something illegal, and they refused to do it. So, taking away unrelated federal funds in that case doesn't seem to be right to me.

0:17:23 Thomas: So while on the surface it appears to be a similar thing, it actually isn't. Now, here's what I'll say about this. This makes no difference right now because, as I said, a judge stayed the rule. So in terms of what actually this did, it didn't do anything because Obama's rule of state anyway, so it wasn't in effect. And there's actually a pending Supreme Court case involving this very question. And in my opinion, there actually needs to be. Now, I don't know what way the case is going to go. I think at one point, Andrew on Opening Arguments probably made a prediction, but who knows? I don't Know how it's going to Go. I certainly know how I hope it goes. I hope I hope It turns out that Title IX protects trans people. I certainly hope that that happens.

0:18:09 Thomas: But I will say that in fairness, if I'm trying to be objective, I do think this is something that needs to be solved in the courts. I don't think writing an executive order, or it wasn't, by the way, I don't think a department rule is a good solution to this because of what we're seeing here. We're seeing that the next president can just undo it, and it only applies to schools They get federal funding anyway, so it doesn't have a whole lot of bite. So I think that in fairness, the Supreme Court should decide this, and they should decide, in my opinion, that Title IX does protect trans people. So that's my opinion. And that's why I'm not terribly broken up about this one, because I really think the courts just need to solve it.

0:18:56 Thomas: But I also think it was a good gesture and a good thing for Obama to have done and for his Department of Education to have done. It was a, it was a good thing for them to say, you know what, we think the law works this way. We actually think Title IX should be this way, we're going to make it happen insofar as we can. And then that's, that spawned some Supreme Court cases. Or the case might have been independent of that. Either way, it wasn't a bad thing to have have done, but I do think the case is important and I think the Supreme Court should decide it. So we'll wait to see on that. But in fairness, when the campaign promise is to undo many of Obama's unconstitutional executive orders, and as I mentioned, this isn't even an executive order and it's only one, I would say this is a failure.

0:19:41 Thomas: This is not a fulfilled campaign promise, even though that's actually the easiest campaign promise to fulfill because executive orders are strokes of pen. So he probably has undone several orders. This person just hasn't written them down yet or something. So list incompetence, I would say. So on to promise number 23. Oh my gosh. Talk about a participation trophy. So here's what is listed as campaign promise 23. And I love it because we get some editorializing on this one. So the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. Now you would think that would be it because that was the promise, but that's clearly not happened. That hasn't happened. No one who is sane would agree that something that hasn't happened has happened unless you're the most diehard Trump supporter who just believes what you read on these lists.

0:20:33 Thomas: That hasn't happened. Obamacare has not been repealed and replaced. So already listing this as an accomplishment as a campaign promise filled is pretty stupid, but there's more. It goes on. It says the repeal and replacement of Obamicare. The recent GOP fallout of the AHCA plan was no fault of Trump's. So there's like some active deflecting already. The blame solely belongs to Speaker Ryan. He created a shit bill and couldn't even capitalize to get enough votes. Obamacare will crash in 2017 when individual mandates kick in and Democrats will be to blame. That is when Trump will truly work to repeal and replace it with a plan he promised us. Yes.

0:21:15 Thomas: So I like that there's proactive explaining like, oh, I know this isn't done yet, but let me let me explain. So I'll state once more for the record, this campaign promise has not been fulfilled like most of these. Most of these have not been fulfilled. They just list some item like, hey, talk to somebody about doing this. But now let's talk about this one, because it's particularly hilarious how big of a failure this was, because this was an absolute failure. And I actually, I will agree that it is somewhat Paul Ryan's fault, and largely it's just congressional Republicans' fault. But it's also, it might be more Trump's fault because he promised something impossible. So he promised candy canes and rainbows for everybody, and just nuts, just totally nuts promises.

0:22:05 Thomas: He promised there would be more coverage for less money, and you would be able to keep keep your doctor, like he promised everything that there would possibly be. And you cannot deliver on that promise. Nobody can deliver on their promise. Oh, by the way, Andy said it would cost less like overall. So it'd be cheaper. I was going to say, because you could deliver on that promise if you just decided, well, let's just throw unlimited money at it. We'll throw so much money at the problem that everybody will have insurance and it'll be great. You won't have have to pay much. But once you then also promise as Trump did, oh, and it'll cost the United States less. It'll cost government less. Oh, okay. Nevermind. Impossible. He has made it. So Trump has made something that is by definition impossible. He is promised the country a square circle and speaker Ryan, as they call him here, tried to give like a rectangle and like a, like like a battered, more like a parallelogram.

0:23:04 Thomas: It wasn't even really a rectangle. So Trump's promised a square circle. Ryan delivers like just a crappy parallelogram, maybe like a rhombus. Actually, it's not, it's just kind of a rhombus that nobody likes. Nobody likes rhombuses. It's one of the most despised shapes. And everybody's like this, this rhombuse is not the square circle that Trump promised. But there's like, I don't know. I'm just, That's kind of what we wanted, though, like Speaker Ryan loves the rhombus because the rhombus is just taking health care away from people. That's really it. All it is. All their plan was. And I covered this in depth. You can go back and look. All the Republican plan was was cutting taxes on rich people and taking away health insurance. It was not a health insurance plan. So that was a disaster, a comical disaster entirely of the Republicans and Trump's making.

0:23:53 Thomas: And meanwhile, Obamacare is becoming more and more popular, but it needs sustenance, it needs little fixes here and there, and Trump is actively undermining it now. So he has switched to, well, I'm just gonna blow this thing up, I'm gonna sabotage it, even though that's going to be harmful, it's going to take away, it's going cost lives, what he's doing, but he's like, no, I hate Obama so much, I'm going to sabotage Obamacare, and then once it's really bad, then we can shove something else that's terrible down the American people's throats, and that'll be that. But I just have to say, to even the staunchest Trump supporter, can't you recognize that if there were a better plan, if Trump had some plan that was magical and fairies and candy canes and rainbows and was essentially a square circle that he promised, why wouldn't they have just done it?

0:24:43 Thomas: I mean, if there's clearly some amazing plan that he has in mind that only Trump knows, nobody else knows what it is, and it's a solution that's so obvious that the idiot Democrats and even the idiot Republicans can do it, why didn't they just do it? It would be popular. It would, like, it makes no sense. This is the most cognitive dissonance thing ever. The idea that Trump has some secret genius plan that just hasn't shared with anyone yet. He's waiting for the current plan to blow up. Why? Just do it now. If it's so great, everyone will be like, wow, that's an amazing plan. It's cost less and it gives me more. Why wouldn't everybody support that? Now, here's the thing that's so particularly evil about what Trump is doing right now. He took away the subsidies for insurers. We talked about this on opening arguments. Nobody wanted him to take this away.

0:25:29 Thomas: This was essentially something that was like a clerical error in Obamacare, made it so that Obama had to dish out some payments in this way, even though the bill mandated it. But there was some weird, complicated, bureaucratic error that happened. So that's how these payments were happening. And Obama was like, oh, well, I'm going to pay it out using executive actions. And a court said, well, that's wrong, but we recognize that the bill said this. Like, this should be happening. These payments should be happening. So what we're going to do is we're not even going to stay those payments. We're going just allow them to happen, even though they're wrong, technically speaking. They're unconstitutional, technically speaking, a judge said. Let's allow them, but let's also fix it congressionally.

0:26:16 Thomas: Let's just fix the error. Everyone will be happy. Well, that's not good enough. Trump actually stopped them, even though nobody wants him to. Not even Republicans want him to. Republicans are on the record saying, well, this is going to screw over my district, or whoever it is. This is going to take healthcare away from the people I represent. So that's, that's not good. Here's what it will do.

The CBO estimates that, but by the way, CBO, the leader of the CBO, the head of the CBO right now is a Republican nominee, so just, just FYI, in case we all forgot, that they estimate that this action that Trump is doing will cause premiums to rise by 20 percent more than they were already going to. It will also, get this, increase the deficit. So, not spending this money will increase the deficit because the money is badly needed, and the CBO has calculated that it will actually cost us money in the long run because through other ways, like the system will be crunched and it will cause us more money. And again, don't take my word for it. That's what the CBO said. So this is a stupid idea. It's an evil idea. It's going to put people into subpar health plans that aren't regulated.

So what will have to happen is, in order to afford plans, what they'll do, what insurers will do, is they'll make some cheaper, crappy plans and sell them to people, and they won't actually protect them in the ways that they need. So that's awful. And here's some polling numbers. 78% of voters, of all voters, think Trump should try to make the current law work.

0:27:50 Thomas: Only 17% support him actively undermining Obamacare. And as I said, even congressional Republicans don't want him to do that because it's going to destabilize insurance markets, increase costs, kick people out of their insurance. And again, this is so pathetic because Republicans control every branch of government, every branch. There is no way any voters are going to be stupid enough to look at the situation, see that Trump actively undermined Obamacare, and then when Obamacare inevitably explodes, because it probably will with someone actively trying to sabotage it, there's no way they're going to blame Obama. They're not going to blame Democrats. Republicans control everything. This is such a stupid move.

0:28:36 Thomas: And to list this as an accomplishment is flat out ridiculous. Just unbelievable. All right, let's move on to 24. And this one, this is going to be short. This campaign promise was to, and I quote, to bomb the shit out of ISIS. And you know what? Trump has bombed the shit out of ISIS. So I, there's nothing to really even say. He promised he'd bomb the shit Out of ISIS, he has bombed the shit out of ISIS he's increased the bombing tremendously. He's killed a lot of civilians. So that's not good. But I mean, unless we want to do a whole podcast exploring ISIS and the downfall, and it was something that that started under Obama. So Trump inevitably will claim credit for it. And he should get some credit for it because he did increase the strikes on them and he did increase military action.

0:29:26 Thomas: So I suppose if that worked, he should get some credit for it. But Obama loosened it, definitely. But you know what? I'll give him credit. He said he bombed the shit out of ISIS. He put a bunch of generals in control of everything and he doesn't really dirty his hands with it. He just tells the military to do whatever they want and they are. So if that's something you wanted, Trump delivered. Here's one one that I find incredibly stupid, and that is 25 to not take a salary as president.

0:29:56 Thomas: Wow, what an accomplishment for a billionaire to not make a salary.

0:30:02 Thomas: I mean, okay, again, we can give him credit as a promise kept, but it is such a minor nonsense promise. You know what promise would I would have loved for him to keep is releasing his tax returns. So we could actually see some of the details of this. And what's particularly insulting about this one is he donated his quarterly salary to the National Park Service. How awesome guys, $78,000 roughly he donated to the national park service, specifically the part, the program that keeps up a civil war war battlefields, I think it was. And at the same time as he was doing that, his proposed budget would cut the Department of the Interior by $1.5 billion.

0:30:51 Thomas: Billion. The specific program he donated to is $229 million behind in deferred costs because it doesn't have enough funding. So, So, hooray for a $78,000 donation. I mean, okay, credit for that. Meanwhile, you're cutting the Department of the Interior by $1.5 billion. I mean it's insulting, frankly, for them to even accept that donation. Like, oh, cool, dude, a rounding error of a donation while you're trying to cut the crap out of our department. I also want to point out that Obama donated over $1 million to charity as president. President, you know, he could have done better. But that, I mean, one million, that's significant. And he doesn't make nearly as much money as Trump. So as a fraction of his income, I'm sure it was much, much, mucho, much higher.

0:31:39 Thomas: He also donated his entire Nobel Peace Prize receipts to charity. So that was donated in its entirety. And I'd just like to take a moment to point out that Trump's charitable giving throughout the years has been mostly lying. The Washington Post did a story where they tried to verify all his philanthropy that he claimed to do and couldn't verify like any of it. To be fair, they found since the 80s, they did find like something like eight million dollars that he donated in, you know, what, 30, 40 years. And that's not nothing, you know, certainly. But his charitable organization is nonsense. It's mostly money from other people. He donated $5.5 million to it and then it turned around and just served his purposes.

0:32:30 Thomas: So that was a nonsense organization. It had the whole thing where the charity bought a giant picture of him for millions of dollars and stuff like that. So that's a joke. And by the way, the AP reported recently, somewhere recently, that Trump's inaugural fund, which he raised raised $109 million for his inaugural parties. That's double what Obama did. That is like a zillion times what Bush did. He raised $119 million, and they promised that any excesses would go to charity. The AP reported in September that they still haven't donated that to charity, still haven't. There are quotes in there. You can read the article, but it's like, this isn't that hard. You pay for the inaugural ceremonies and then you give the rest.

0:33:20 Thomas: It's not that complicated of a thing. Still haven't. So I imagine it has something to do with the kinds of people that Trump surrounds himself with. As we'll see an example later on, it's usually not the greatest of people. So who knows what's going on there? I suspect we'll find out at a later date the full story of that, but if we keep an eye on it. All right. Campaign promise number 26, I got to say, is one of the most egregiously disgusting things to allege that Trump can take any credit for. Campaign Promise 26 is to reform the VA and make it easier for vets to get more health care opportunities. And listed as the ways that he has done this is he signed a bill allowing veterans to seek health care outside the broken VA system.

0:34:06 Thomas: And you think, OK, on the surface, let's see what this is. Maybe he signed some bill. And again, who knows who will be responsible for it, but maybe he signed a good bill. This is just absurd because to credit this as a Trump achievement is as backward as it gets. You know who's actually responsible for this bill? Bernie Sanders, because he has been the chair of the Veteran Affairs Committee for a while, for a number of years. And in 2014, he sponsored a bill called the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014. And this sought to throw a lot more money at the problem of veteran health care, because veterans were not getting the level of health care that they, in my opinion, they really deserve.

0:34:54 Thomas: And I can't imagine that this would be controversial. I think that, you know, no matter your views on war, and I'm certain that That me and my audience, you know, we're not war hawks, I don't think. But given that our government, our leaders have sent people, our citizens, our young kids oftentimes abroad to fight bullshit wars and conflicts, and some of them not bullshit. I mean, some of the necessary to help people, but for the most part, bullshit conflicts and wars. We've sent people across the sea to die, to be maimed, to suffer psychological damage. Given that we've done that, if someone does that for their country, it is my view that we ought to provide them top-of-the-line health care.

0:35:40 Thomas: We ought to provide them the best possible health care, we owe it to them to provide everything they might need and their families to cope with that. I think that's my view. You. I can't imagine that's controversial. But when you look at the actual data, it turns out that for as much as Republicans talk a big game about veterans, oh, they love veterans, those Republicans. Did you hear, you know, they want no one to kneel during the anthem because they're so in love with veterans. They just love them so much. Well, they're actually terrible when it comes to veteran health care. They shut down seven veteran bills between 2010 and 2012 when they had control. They shut them down. They were things like the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act, the Veteran Retraining Act, Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization, the Veteran Business Center Act, Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act.

0:36:36 Thomas: These things that would benefit veterans, they shut them down because when it comes to spending a dollar to save these people who have given their lives oftentimes and their livelihoods and their well-being to the country. Nope, sorry, we want to cut a few bucks off the budget. We don't want to spend money. And then here's what happened. It gets even worse. So, that act got shut down in 2014, the bill that Bernie sponsored. And later that year, in fact, just after that, a scandal erupted at a veteran affairs hospital in Phoenix. What happened, it turned out that hospital Hospital employees were logging inaccurate scheduling data to cover up the fact that wait times for veteran care had been averaging 115 days.

0:37:26 Thomas: So veterans were waiting far too long to get the care they need. And there was an active cover up. There were a few other scandals as well. There were Republicans who estimated that, you know, a thousand veterans had died from not getting the care in time. I can't verify those numbers, but that was a Republican estimate. So this is a huge thing. This is a big problem. And Bernie Sanders, later that year, negotiated the crap out of a bill to try to fix this. And despite the fact that Republicans had repeatedly failed veterans in the past, had just failed them and not cared, because there were these very visible public controversies, there was enough pressure and Bernie worked his butt off to get this bill through.

0:38:11 Thomas: So he got enough Republicans to make it happen. Obama signed it. And what Trump signed that this list maker, this idiot list maker is giving Trump credit for is merely an extension of this bill. So all the work was done by Bernie Sanders, despite constant Republican opposition. It was signed by Obama, and this is merely An extension of it, and they're giving Trump credit for it. That is disgusting. Now, we could do a whole nother deep dive on the VA because there are still problems with it. And I've read some articles that allege Bernie is a little too loyal to it in some ways, but at least he's trying. At least he has been trying consistently to get it more funding. But there are some very big administrative problems with it.

0:38:57 Thomas: And what the other thing that's listed is what Trump did is he created an accountability office. OK, sounds good so far. But what it really is, this Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, all it is is the ability to fire people from the VA faster. So, look, that might be necessary. We could argue about it. It seemed to have some bipartisan support. And I think it's It's because the VA problems were so public and bad that, you know, they just want to fix it any way they can. And OK, sure, I could be convinced that maybe that needed to happen. But to look at a problem as big as the one that exists with the Veteran Affairs Office and say, all right, here's the solution. We need to fire some people.

0:39:42 Thomas: That is such a Trumpian nonsense thing, like that's going to fix it all. If you wanted to do that and do a bunch of other stuff, you know, and give it way more money, that would be one thing. If you said, okay, it's a comprehensive package, we need to do the following things. But the focus has been on not giving it any more money and then firing people as though that's going to be the big culture change thing. They'll just whip it into shape. I somehow doubt that being able to fire people like 60 days faster or whatever it is, is going to be the difference maker in the VA. So that's what's listed as his accomplishments for this. I think that first one is just an insult. I mean, to give him credit for merely reauthorizing something that Democrats did, that Bernie Sanders, I guess, independent, and Democrats did, that Republicans had resisted for years when there was a huge problem.

0:40:31 Thomas: I mean, that's disgusting to me. And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, I don't know if this is worse, but 27, to create a much needed tax reform. So, you know, that thing they plan on doing. I don't know how, I mean really, how many of these are things they're planning on doing or they've started doing? You can't list these as accomplishments. The title of this thing is "liberals keep saying Trump hasn't kept any of his promises.

So I made a running list of things he has done so far." That's the title of these things he is done. Promises he's kept. You can list create tax reform. And then he hasn't done that. He's he's set forth ideas on that, but that that's that's a participation trophy, that's nothing. Here's what he has done, here's what Trump has done. He literally has done the equivalent of jotting down a tax plan on a on a napkin. I mean, really, that's what she's done. And that's something, like, okay, he's got a plan. He definitely wants to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20, by the way, and he's saying saying that's non-negotiable? How in the world are we going to pay for that? How in the word are we paying for that without raising taxes on the middle class? I don't know. I don't know. So the current word is that the Republican tax bill will be revealed on November 1st.

It's listed as an accomplishment, but the bill is not even revealed yet, let alone voted on and passed and signed, not not even written. And not only that, the healthcare failure that we already covered was supposed to pay for part of this. So they were supposed to have Obamacare repealed and then a bunch of revenue from cutting Medicaid in order to pay from our tax breaks for the rich.

0:42:22 Thomas: So now we want the tax breaks from the rich part, but we don't really have any way to pay for it. So I think I definitely want to save a more in-depth breakdown of the Republican tax tax plan for when we have a Republican tax plan. It would be a better time to do it. I mean, I could speculate on a bunch of it, but I think it'll be better to just wait until they release the bill and break down. But let's suffice to say that Republicans definitely agree that they want to cut taxes. Like pretty much that's what they agree on. They have no agreement on how to pay for it. So there was even the other day there was, well, let's limit how much people can put in their 401ks. And it's like, really? That's what you want to do? You want to take money that's in the form of tax breaks for the average person who puts money in their 401k?

0:43:11 Thomas: You want to take that away in order to fund a corporate tax cut from 35 to 20 and other top 1% tax cuts? Like, that's what you want to do? It's definitely not what Trump promised. So, and I should should have covered that too. To say that his promise was tax reform is really disingenuous when his promise wasn't. Oh, he's cutting taxes for the common man. He's cutting tax. He even promised to raise taxes on the rich. So it's conveniently left out of the detail there what his promise actually was. So this is nonsense. It's not done yet. There's no way to evaluate that. Many things could happen. They could introduce the tax plan and it could be dead on arrival.

0:43:56 Thomas: Because Republicans might not all agree on it. I mean, they need almost every Republican. They can only lose two. So there's that. I mean, it might just be a disaster. They might not be able to bargain between what Trump wants and what Ryan wants and what McConnell wants. So we'll see. I mean, I think you have to definitely say wait until there's actually even a written bill bill before you can give him credit for passing a bill. That would be what I would say. And finally, number 28, fix our country's broken education system. Well, there's something I'm sure we could kind of agree on. I don't think our education system is perfect. So this is listed as the promise.

0:44:42 Thomas: You know, let's hear this one out, everybody. He's going to fix our company's incredibly broken education system. Well, there's one item listed under what he's accomplished for this. Let's read it here. Trump has signed an executive order giving the power of our country's education back to state and local authorities. All right, so I looked this up, and that's not even really a good description of it. He signed an Executive Order that does virtually nothing. Like, it literally is just paper. It says, let's look for overreach. The Executive Order is, look for for government overreach in K through 12 education. Like when someone says we got to fix our incredibly broken education system and you say, okay, what's wrong with it?

0:45:30 Thomas: What are you going to fix? Well, let's maybe, let's look for where there's overreach from the federal government. You'd be like, I don't, that, that sounds like nothing. That sounds like it's literally nothing. It does. I mean, how's that going to fixed the education system? Look for overreach. You don't even know if it's there. By the way, the other thing is, this article in the LA Times points out that they already can do this, like the Department of Education could already do this without an executive order. They don't even need the executive order, and not only that, the person in charge of the review is somebody named Robert Itell, who was a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that settled for 30 million dollars over deceptive student lending. So this is, once again, Trump following his pattern of hiring foxes to watch the hen houses. Like, hmm, who do we want to revamp education? Well, let's go for a lawyer who was defending a company that was defrauding people over student loans.

0:46:34 Thomas: That's a good idea. He probably knows what's going on with the K-12 education system. So that is an absolute nothing. This is a zero. It's a zero. If you wanted to say, well, just flip it. Imagine if Obama had done the same thing. I know that's the most boring thought experiment because the answer is always so obvious. If Obama had did it, Republicans would shit a brick. Take him out of it. Imagine if anybody had said, "My accomplishment, my promise is completely fix our country's broken education system," and then you say, okay, I've done it, here's what I've done. I've written an executive order that grants the power to do something that they already had the power to do, that might not result in anything because it doesn't really do anything.

0:47:23 Thomas: You fixed done. Our children are in for a brighter future. So it is it is just comical how many of these are complete participation trophies. They're just they're, they're nothing. Thing. They're not even, I mean, there's a few that were like, okay, sure. I would say you could shorten this list. Now I've gone through all 28. Now off from the top of my head, what would you think? Maybe four of them were something, four or five were actually even in the realm of discussion in terms of accomplishing things. And like you could minimize, you could kind of collapse 10 of them into executive orders. I mean because that's not an accomplishment. You can just do that. That's a freebie. And several of these have just been absolutely laughable.

0:48:09 Thomas: Like if someone really tried to defend these as accomplishments, accomplishments, you could just laugh in their face. They're not even close. So that does it for this series. Again, maybe they'll expand the list. I don't know. But for now, that does it for Trump's participation trophies. I really enjoyed that. I think now I don't want to claim for sure what I'll be doing next week, but I do have in the the back of my mind. I want to get to finishing the Red Pill in terms of discussing those ideas and looking at those claims because there's a lot of claims I didn't get to. So I could do that. Give me some feedback if you want. As always, you can leave voicemails. Maybe I could go over some of those for next week. But at any rate, thank you so much for listening. That was really fun. And I definitely need to thank my new patrons this week. And they are Malakid.

0:48:56 Thomas: Malakad? I'm not not sure. Richard Hall, Tyler, Tony Agudo, Aaron, Gwyn Richards, Sargon's smug fucking face, Alexander Thomas, Kristina L Mogel, Cameron Hall, Justin Holcomb, Gennaro the Golden Cod. That's specific. Chad Eberle, Kirstin, She Talks Atheism, Holli Vaine, MaySapien88, Denny Kolb, Pieter Droogendijk, Stefan Woick, and Jim Shaver. Thank you guys so much. Really, you're making the show happen. Your support is critical. It is, and it means a ton. It really does. And I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Jake News with Thomas. That was a lot of fun. Got great feedback on it. Again, it was kind of short to the point, but fun, factual, good knowledge.

0:49:45 Thomas: This week, Jake and I talked about whether or not that picture with the guy sitting on the flag with the Jets sweater that said, I stand for the anthem and sitting on a flag, whether or not that was real. So that was a bit of Jake news. And Jake talked about whether or not climate change is actually help is good for us. It's good for the planet on the whole. So really fun stuff there. Again, they're quick. They're fun. They're factual. And we're looking probably bi-weekly at this point as a bonus content. Just a way to thank my fine patrons because you really do make the show happen. And I also need to thank my all-time greats and they are Matt Garrett, Peter Skelton, Manager of Tentacles, asks, why does Tom even ponder passing the bar? Again, some of that opening arguments, splash damage coming at me.

0:50:32 Thomas: Roger Metcalf and the Hired Goons, Andrew Waddington, Ian Ryan, Matthew Vernon, Ray Loves Jenny, Robin, the Zika baby that lives, supports refugee rights. Marcel the T and the B Nostalgist. Dan Dan the Socialist Man. Abseon. Beth Eich. Sammy. Chass Wallace. Granny Weatherwax will kick your ass. Luke Buescher. A new lefty blog. SinisterMarginalia.net. Hey, I think you need to change that to an old lefty blog. Not old, but like an established lefty block. It's been a while. Jess Blake. Christopher Hammock. Scott M. Marco Rozzano. Embrace the Void. James Hamlet. Oh, by the way, I went on Embrase the The Void. Definitely check that out. The great podcast, great guys. I went on, we talked about toxic masculinity. Admittedly, I'm not an expert on that or anything, but I've had definitely some experiences with it now.

0:51:20 Thomas: And we talked about that from a male perspective and how it affects men. So check that out. James Hamblin, Randy Waddell, Andrew Rowe, Jay, Heather G Peters, Derek Barnett, Frank Ferriello, Nate Sheets. Thomas's podcasts have great murdering advice. Anyone want to see my boat?

0:51:40 Thomas: Uh, opening arguments reference. That's a good one. And finally, thank you, thank you to the Grand Duke Nile, that's the trick, Dan Wheatley, Afroholic, listen to Brand New Science Fiction, Tricycular Manslaughter, Elizabeth Ocon, Karen Sheets, Soul Peter Drojan, Dick, Reasonable Risk podcast.com, um, times three. I'm not going to say that three times. That's a lot of times. Jim Shaver, Dan Griffith, Jonathan Moyet, Manager of All Our Tentacles, Marissa Alexa McCool and Ari Stillman, Megan Marissa, Alexa McCool, and Bethany Futrell. Wow. Brian Brose, Mitchell, May Sapien 88. And by the way, I think it's Bros, but I don't care. I am saying Brose. That is just what I am going to say. And Michael Thomas' chief goon, Rops. Oh, and I also appeared on Doubting Dogma recently.

0:52:28 Thomas: So that's another guest appearance talked about many things. It was, it was an excellent conversation. So if you need more of me, which I, I don't know that you do, but if you have some sort of medical condition and happen to need more, uh, definitely check that out, but it's a good show. So, so check it out anyways. And with that said, uh. That's it. Thank you for listening. Thanks for another great week. And, uh we're moving on. We're moving upward. We're going back to just the real stuff. Not, not trying to move on. So, I enjoyed it. This was a fun episode, and I'll see you guys on Monday.