88. The Great Joe Biden Cover-Up

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Welcome to The Rest is Politics US.

For those of you who are listening to this, Anthony's wearing a tie and it is, it's like, I don't know, it's unsettling.

I'm on this show, Caddy.

I'm over here in London.

They put you in a beautiful studio.

They got me in a hot box here.

I'm doing hot yoga.

In a tie.

In a tie.

Okay.

What do you want to talk about?

Look, so much going on this week, politically explosive on both sides of the aisle.

We're going to dig into all of the stories around former President Joe Biden, obviously, who has the diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer.

We wish him and his family well and a speedy recovery

or good treatment for that.

But it comes as a new book alleges that his health struggles while he was president, cancer aside, were hidden from the public for years.

So we're going to dig into that in the first half.

After the break, we are going to talk about that meeting in the Oval Office with the South African President Cyril Ramaposa, which became a kind of ambush showdown of the type that President Zelensky had to sit through and we'll look at Donald Trump's false claims about the racially motivated murder of white farmers in South Africa, allegations that that could be genocide.

And just before we hit record, this has been a crazy busy week, on this very rainy Thursday morning, the House passed Donald Trump's sweeping tax bill.

We will break down what's in it and more importantly what it means for America and the rest of the world.

And we will explain the new term going around financial circles, which is abuser, but we'll get into that after the break.

First of all, I read the book Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnas, which looks at much of this same stuff of how much Joe Biden had deteriorated in a way that we didn't even see in the public and how carefully managed Joe Biden's public appearances were to keep that reality from the American public and American voters in the run-up to the election.

You have read the book Original Sin, which is the book that is just landing and has been in the headlines all this week.

Tell me what you took away from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book.

I mean, I think it's irrefutable.

They have people on the record.

I think it's irrefutable that there was a cover-up.

I think it's irrefutable that they were staging the president's life so that he could get,

and I'll use their quotes, they were trying to show quote-unquote signs of life, and then they were bringing him back into the shadows.

And, you know, one thing, Caddy, after reading the book, somebody said to me, one observation, which I want to share with everybody is we all should have known that Joe Biden was not running the administration.

I said, why is that?

There was no turnover, Caddy.

Everybody had their fiefdoms or fiefdoms.

They were all doing their thing.

If you read the book, there was no access.

The cabinet members had no access to the president because they didn't want to display the president's lack of clarity.

So that lack of access quickly, because that would account for why Pete Buttajudge was out at town halls in Iowa just last week saying, look, when he saw the president, he seemed fine.

And cabinet members that I spoke to about a year ago were telling me, look, when I have been with Joe Biden, he has seemed fine.

And now I'm thinking, were they just kind of lying, those cabinet members?

Or was it that he was so carefully managed that actually it's possible that he had limited interactions with people in very carefully managed time frames of the day.

Right.

So I'm going to make a special speculation here.

It's unsourced, but it's just me looking at the situation and knowing the players in the situation.

The president was diagnosed with cancer at some point, likely last year, if not earlier.

And they were dealing with it and they were probably using the hormonal treatment that they use for this cancer to suppress hormones to slow down the growth of the cancer.

The Biden team team are specifically saying that's not the case, right?

They're specifically denying that.

Okay.

But I mean, we do know that they lie.

So, I mean, you know, when are they lying when their mouths are moving?

So I'm going to give you what I think happened, and then I'm going to tell everybody that the Biden team is denying it.

But this is what I think happened.

They got the news that he had cancer.

Remember, he put out the tweet on July 1st, I'm sick.

They then said that that was a mistake and he didn't mean it.

That was July 1st, 2024.

He's in this situation now.

They give him the hormone therapy.

One of the things that the hormone therapy does is it makes you a little cloudy.

It's not great for brain fog.

In fact, if anything, it exacerbates it.

They amp him up for the state of the union.

They're managing his disease.

They're managing his availability.

The Tapper book says he had four to six good hours a day, and it was trending towards four.

towards the end of the term.

And so they were managing those four to six good hours.

So they picked the good hour.

State of the Union goes reasonably well.

And they're going to roll him out, but they mismanage him and they mismanage his medicine going into the debate and he has a really bad night.

And so now everything's starting to unravel.

But I really believe this, Caddy.

And please say when I'm done saying everything that they deny it, and it may not be true.

I think they said, okay, he's sick.

Dr.

Jill Biden doesn't want to leave the White House.

He wants to go for it again.

He thinks he can beat Donald Trump.

He's the quote unquote only person that's beaten Donald Trump.

He's the sitting president.

Sitting presidents have Air Force One when they campaign.

He's raised all this money for the reelection campaign.

Let's do a weekend at Bernie's.

We'll do a weekend at Joe Biden's for the next six months.

Let's see if we can get him through the presidency.

If his illness turns badly, he can say he's resigning as a result of his illness turning badly.

And Vice President Harris takes the realm.

And so that's what I think happened.

Now, if you say, no, that didn't happen, I live in Washington and these guys are denying that.

And these are truth-telling guys.

And they always tell the truth when they talk to journalists, then I say, okay.

Of course.

I mean, there's a difference between saying they're all truth-telling guys and saying, that's what happened.

I mean, as my dad used to say, between a conspiracy and a cock-up, mostly it's the cock-up that tends to be the case, not the conspiracy.

It's clear from Jake Tapper's book that there were people around President Biden who understood the degree of his infirmity and kept that deliberately from the American people because he, for whatever reasons, was so determined to stay in office.

Now, whether that was because he genuinely believed he was the only person that could beat Donald Trump, whether it was because the team convinced themselves that Donald Trump was such an existential threat to America and they were the only ones that could do it and they had a massive lack of confidence in Kamala Harris, his chosen vice president, whether it was because he wanted to stick it to the Obamas.

Barack Obama had urged him not to run in 2016, and he still harbored a grudge against Obamas.

I mean, that is, you know, the petty side of things.

Whether it was as Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson say, because they just loved the trappings of the office, and that also comes up in fight.

I mean, it's remarkable, this quote from Mike Donnellan, the senior advisor to another Democrat, saying, no one walks away from this.

No one walks away from the plane and the house and the helicopter.

And that Jill Biden, his wife, also subscribed to that and wanted to stay in the White House.

For a mix of all of those reasons, he decided to run again, even though his team and the people who did see him regularly clearly saw the infirmity and went to massive lengths.

I mean, the show that I'm on regularly in the mornings, Morning Joe, Jake Tapper is saying they treated Joe Scarborough like a constituent and made sure that Joe Scarborough saw President Biden in moments when he was on form so that Joe would go on air and say, no, he can still do this.

They kind of specifically targeted Joe Scarborough and John Meacham.

I don't know.

I mean, I interviewed doctors this week.

I interviewed Dr.

Zeke Emmanuel, who said, look, he's probably had this in him for years.

If he had been tested regularly, particularly if he'd been given a physical test, it most likely would have shown up.

I still find it a stretch if they are specifically denying that he didn't know and that he had not been tested since he was 70, which is also, you know, the advice that is given here in medical circles.

I mean, it seems odd that a president wouldn't be, but if he didn't know until this diagnosis, wow, I mean, if it was to come out, Anthony, that they had the diagnosis and specifically lied about that, I feel that is quantifiably different.

And I think we will know.

I don't think we do know.

I mean, I would say they are denying that specifically.

It could be the case.

I'm not saying to you that they don't lie.

And there are people in the White House, any White House don't lie to journalists, but that is a pretty bold-faced lie to put out there because there will be evidence somewhere of that test.

Okay, but Trump is the machine gun liar.

He told 30,000 lies in the first term.

He's on track to tell 40,000 lies this term.

I mean, he's just incredible.

It's almost like a record breaker.

It's almost like being an athlete, like he's a sports athlete of lying.

It's like, you know, you owe the bank a million, the bank has a problem.

You owe the bank $10.

You have a problem.

Yeah, so he's just lying every time he opens his mouth.

No problem.

We've accepted that.

We're moving on.

But this is a very big lie, if that's the case.

Yeah, it's a very big lie.

So I just want to push back for a second because I don't see what I'm saying as a conspiracy as much as I see it as a plausibility.

And let me give some historical context.

Woodrow Rulsa has a very bad stroke.

Yes.

He's relatively immobile, different media era at that time.

Edith Wilson running the White House.

Dwight Eisenhower has at least one, possibly two, heart attacks they don't let the American public know about.

Franklin Roosevelt, until he comes back from Yalta and he says, I'm sorry, I can't stand at the podium.

I'm carrying around, you know, lots of tonnage here on my legs with these leg braces.

Most Americans don't know that he's stricken with polio and in a wheelchair.

Ronald Reagan, we do believe that he was sunsetting now.

I think it's historical to say that he was having some moments at the end of his presidency that Nancy Reagan and others were trying to cover up.

And so I'm not saying what they're doing is even outside of the bandwidth of what has happened with four or five American presidents.

What I am saying, it's a botch-up.

What I am saying, if you're telling me that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the United States, and you're running things like this, this is the organized dissent for Donald Trump, then I'm going to say the best thing that Donald Trump has going for him are the Democrats because they're supposed to be for the democracy, Caddy.

But, you know, Joe, you can't run against Hillary in 2016.

Oh, by the way, we're canceling the New Hampshire primary.

We're just going to cancel it.

Bobby, Bobby Kennedy Jr., you can't run against Joe in the primary, but we're the democracy fans.

Who they treated appallingly.

He was the congressman from Minnesota who was the only one who ran against Joe Biden in 2024.

Exactly.

And he's being forced out by the elites.

And now they anoint Vice President Harris.

And by the way,

no, Anthony, I agree with all that.

I agree with all of that.

All I'm saying is that if he had a diagnosis of cancer before the election and is now denying that he had that diagnosis, I think there will be a paper trail.

And obviously that would be.

Of course that's happened in history, but I'm just saying that would be a big lie.

Let's wait.

We'll see.

You know, if that paper trail comes out, I think we will find out.

The journalists are doing a pretty good job on this.

I think, look, the bigger question for me is what this means, not just for Joe Biden and his legacy, and it's a very sad way to end a man who has spent decades in public service and who obviously he and his family have been through untold number of tragedies.

And this is very sad to have this at the end of your life.

I am interested in what this means.

for Democrats.

I had this week I spoke to a donor, a strategist, a member of Congress, a former member of Congress on the Democratic side, somebody who had worked in the White House with Joe Biden, and they all, except one of them, who is still kind of, you know, pushing the, well, Donald Trump lies all the time, Donald Trump is a danger, Joe Biden actually did a lot of good legislative stuff, which I think is sort of denying reality and denying gravity.

All of the others realize that this is a huge blow to Democrats' credibility.

And it puts those who would like to run in 2028 into a very tricky position because most of them, especially those who were in the cabinet, but even those who weren't in the cabinet who came out in support of Joe Biden, it puts them in the position of having supported somebody who we now know was clearly not in a position to run for the presidency.

And it makes them look, here's the thing that I think is interesting is one former member of Congress said to me, look, it makes them look like they have no backbone.

The American people are craving people at the moment who can fight for them, who have a backbone, who can call it as it is, who have this authenticity, who aren't seen.

You know, yes, you're right, Donald Trump tells a gazillion lies, but for some reason Americans think he is authentic and that he is clearly a fighter and he gives this appearance of strength.

And that's if that's what the American voters want.

at the moment, all these Democrats who couldn't even stand up to the White House machine to call out Joe Biden or to defend Dean Phillips, who was the only person who ran against him because they were afraid of their own political futures, it makes them look like they don't have the backbone to run against whoever is the heir to Donald Trump or Donald Trump himself, maybe.

I want to say something.

I want to get your reaction and then I want you to play strategist for a moment.

So this is a direct quote.

Democrats deceived the country about Biden's abilities, Clooney said.

This would be George Clooney.

That's how Trump won.

And now George also said, George Clooney also said that

Biden didn't recognize him when they did that big fundraiser.

yeah and you saw him doddering on the stage in fairness to Joe Biden in 81 they they flew him to Europe a couple times then they flew him out to California by the way if he's on chemotherapy or hormonal treatment are we saying that he's never been treated he just found out about the prostate cancer and there's been no treatment of the prostate cancer up until now is that what we're really saying and this is the my i'm saying we don't know that okay i'm 6161 guy do you have any prostate tests i've had no my husband too he's kind of constantly cost.

Yeah.

I'm not the president of the United States.

Do you know how many PSA scores I've had?

So are we saying that he's never had that?

Is that what we're saying?

No, they're saying he had that up until he was 70.

Right?

No, they're not saying he never had that.

So 10 years ago.

They're saying that he's done.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, Caddy.

It doesn't pass the smell test, Caddy.

I'm just saying.

Given how many tests the president have, I mean, either they're lying.

What did you say again with that British accent, the conspiracy versus the millar?

A conspiracy or a cock-up?

Yeah, cock-up.

Okay, okay.

Generally, it's the cock-up.

I think this is a cockpiric, maybe.

Okay, this is really bad, Cat.

Even if he never had the tests, it's, you know, why didn't he have the tests?

You know, the about of political malpractice that that would be in and of itself.

And if he did have the tests and he's lying right now to the American public, I mean, this is a family that, remember, when his son Bo got cancer, they also didn't want to reveal that to the American public.

It's a family that has not been open about its health problems in the past.

I'm just saying it will be, we will find this out.

There will be a paper trail on this.

I think it's important for us to tell Trip U.S.

something that they don't know.

Are we ready?

U.S.

politicians lie.

I just thought I would point that out.

Yeah, I just thought I would tell people that.

Okay.

So now let me ask you this.

Let me ask you this.

Is George Clooney correct?

Now I'll read it again.

Democrats deceived the country about Biden's abilities, and that's how Trump won.

Is he correct?

I think it's two things.

I think it was inflation,

and they were fed up with the price of everything.

The border, inflation, and Joe Biden's age.

And every single poll back actually since 2021 was telling us that Joe Biden's age was a problem.

Okay.

And they ignored it.

Okay.

So now the second question is, please play strategist.

What would you do?

Let's say, yeah, let's say you're the great orchestrator.

You're the Leonard Bernstein.

You're the conductor of the Democratic Syphony.

How are you going to get this group of nuts to play off the same sheet music?

Go ahead.

Okay, so the one thing I wouldn't do, which is something that Democratic grandees are apparently trying to do at the moment, which is get a whole load of money and create a Democratic Joe Rogan without having realized that's just not the way.

the kind of podcast media business works and Joe Rogan was not created and anyone they try to create by definition lack all the qualities that they are trying to get.

So I wouldn't do that.

I think it means that anyone that was in the cabinet can't run.

And you would have to put your efforts behind looking for people

who have shown that they can be independent from the democratic machinery.

I mean, it points, Anthony, in the direction of somebody like AOC.

The Democratic Party's problems point in that direction right now.

Okay, so guys, I'm just going to give you a news flash.

Searching for a more perfect form of communism or a more perfect

form of socialism.

I'm just letting you know that's playing right into Trump's hands.

He's laughing at you guys.

Okay, first of all, AOC is not communist.

Let's get real.

No, she's not.

I'm being an executive, but she has socialist tendencies.

Social democratic, I would say probably Swedish.

I don't know what country you're living in, but I live in a center-right country.

Okay, and I'm just letting you know.

AOC, keep going to the left.

You and Bernie go out to the left and hang out out there, and Trump is laughing at you.

Okay.

Let me ask you then.

Let me flip the table.

You tell me who else there is on the Democratic side who has shown mastery of the current media environment, enough independence from the old guard of the Democratic establishment, and who is not tainted with having said Joe Biden is healthy and fit and should run again.

I don't know.

I don't see anybody.

I don't know yet.

I mean, it's so early.

We'll have to see what happens.

Which is what we focus on if I were them is the midterms.

We feel like they're going going to lose the midterms at this point.

I believe, look, there's a tweet for everything.

And so I sent out a bad tweet over the summer based on my observation of fundraising executives working for Joe Biden telling me he was fit as a fiddle and some of these slip-ups were contrived.

And so I sent out a tweet that I now have to own, and it gets thrown in my face every day on X.

But I will say this, Caddy.

When I went to the July fundraiser, you and I did a podcast after I went to the fan.

I paid 30 grand, went to somebody's beautiful house on the water in East Hampton.

Biden was there four or five days after the debate.

He looked absolutely terrible.

They had him behind a rope line and they had a prompter up like this.

And he was reading from the prompter, reading from the prompter.

And the New York Post said to me, you were there.

Yes, I was.

How did he do?

I said, if he's going to read from the prompter for the next two and a half months, he's not going to do well.

I mean, the American people are not going to go with the prompter.

It's just not going to happen.

And so, so, so to me,

to me,

this was a travesty.

And this is Watergate for them.

This is like a political end run.

And because it's going to depress their polling.

Now, no one's going to jail.

They're not going to have hearings about it like Watergate.

But what did Watergate do to the Republicans?

It knocked their polling down eight to 10 points.

Carter got elected, and it took him eight years before Ronald Reagan returned them to glory.

And

I hope I'm wrong, because I do want to end this MAGA nonsense in the country, and I'd like to see a reconstituted center-right coalition that isn't MAGA.

But these guys are blowing up left and right.

If they blow up, Caddy, the Republicans don't have to do anything.

They can just stay on course.

51% of the people holding.

I spoke at an event at Claridge's this morning, and there were Trumpers there, who were American expats, Trumpers, non-Trumpers, et cetera.

Many of the people that voted for Trump, you know what they said to me?

I don't like the guy.

Well, what choices did you guys give me?

And so I voted for the guy.

Okay, are we going to do that again when J.D.

Vance or Marco Rubio is running?

What are you guys doing?

Is the question.

And the answer is, they don't know the answer.

You and I really don't know the answer.

But

I think

they got to get it together.

Caddy, did Winston Churchill team up with Joe Stalin?

What does getting it together mean in this context?

Getting it together.

Because they're all saying things like, well, we have to support the working class.

We have to have a good message.

We can't run as the old guard.

We have to be more authentic.

We have to kind of, you know, reach out to, I don't even know.

I don't even know that they're not.

There's a group of them that hate Gabbitt.

The other group hates AOC.

The other group hates Bernie.

They're all shooting at each other in a circling firing.

You know, like that Spider-Man meme where they're all fighting with each other.

Okay.

What are you guys doing?

Did Churchill team up with Stalin?

Last time I i checked he did did roosevelt team up with stalin last time i checked he did did churchill say hey if uh lucifer says something bad about hitler he'll get an honorable mention here in the parliament i think he said that i mean what are we doing guys yeah just focus on the purpose get off the picky youn policy stuff and trying to cancel each other with your righteous sanctimony that was pretty dramatic we should probably break there doing that i think so from the guy who's just said that you know aoc is a communist but anyway i didn't say she was a communist.

I said they're in search of perfecting communism.

Okay, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about what happened in the Oval Office this week and the big beautiful bill that has just passed through Congress.

We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to The Restis Politics US with me, Katie Kaye.

And me, Anthony Scaramucci.

Welcome back, Katty.

So another fun week in the Oval Office.

This is becoming like the kind of theater.

In the old days, you wanted, if you were a foreign leader, you wanted a meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Now, I suspect if you are a foreign leader, you are going to do everything you can to avoid a meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office because it's turning into a kind of test of something.

and your ability to perform.

Okay, quick bit of backdrop.

This week, Donald Trump welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaposa into the Oval Office and gave him a tongue-lashing complete with video and photographs about the plight of white farmers in South Africa, suggesting that it is possible that there is a genocide going on of white farmers.

This comes after something we mentioned on the podcast last week, which was a group of a few dozen Afrikaners being welcomed to the United States and met by a senior State Department official as refugees into South Africa.

These are the only group of people that have been welcomed as refugees into America since Donald Trump came into office in January,

because he has also suggested that they might be facing a genocide and therefore they need to be given sanctuary in America.

And it leads to this extraordinary scene of Cyril Ramaposa, who came trying to reset the relationship with Donald Trump, while Elon Musk, of course, of South African origin, quick side note, if you have not heard it, we are running at the moment an extraordinary series on Elon Musk, his background in South Africa, how he was abused as a child there, how he escaped Canada and then America, and then redefined the EV industry and redefined American politics and helped get us Donald Trump for the second term.

That's a little side note.

You can join up at the restispoliticsusus.com if you would like to hear that.

It's a great series.

Anyway, Elon Musk was back today in the Oval Office.

So tell me what you think happened with Cyril Ramaposa sitting next to Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

I've really been thinking about this all night because I was up watching the Knicks.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, that was a

big loss but here's what i would say to you number one the attack was red meat for donald trump's base the base believes in replacement theory black and brown people are replacing white people in the country trump is our white nationalist savior so even though the videos aren't even from south africa let's run the videos because our base and the ex-people follow everyone's going to love it but here's the problem donald trump is running a reality television show out of the Oval Office.

He wants drama and conflict.

If you're a world leader and you're walking in as an actor, a subordinate actor on his reality show, he's going to smoke you.

However, if you walk in as a co-director and you walk in as a co-producer and you say what Mark Carney said, Hi guys, I'm coming into the Oval Office.

Who's going to be in the Oval Office?

What are we talking about?

I don't want any surprises.

I don't want you running a video about Thailand and telling people that it's from Canada.

What are we going to do in the Oval Office?

What is Trump going to say while I'm in the Oval Office?

Oh, by the way, what is the Post Communique going to look like?

I want everything down on paper in front of me and you, and I want it staged and choreographed.

I am the co-director of the Donald Trump Oval Office Show starring Mark Carney or President whoever, Kier Stormer or whoever.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, do not go into the Oval Office as a B-level actor.

You have to go into the Oval Office as a co-producer.

And if you do that, believe it or not, he will abide by that because he did it with Carney.

He excoriates Trudeau, but he doesn't go after Carney.

And the South African president could say, look, man, if we're going white genocide today, let's take a pattern.

Let's just have our aides work together on this.

Okay, so I actually think Cyril Ramaposa went went in aware that he had to reset this.

He knew that the white genocide stuff was going to come up.

He probably didn't anticipate the video because that is a new one, a new trick that Donald Trump has produced in the Oval Office.

It's the photographs showing white people dead.

That's actually out of Congo, not out of South Africa.

But I think actually he went in with a pretty good demeanor.

He had watched clearly the Zelensky video.

And by the way, in this meeting, neither Vance nor Rubio nor Elon Musk weighed in.

This was all Donald Trump.

And he had a smile.

He made a quip about the plane.

Sorry, we don't have a plane to give you.

He tried to direct it to trade.

And he kind of, I thought he handled himself, actually,

pretty much as well as he could have handled himself.

Now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are kind of pushing debunked conspiracy theories that do the rounds of white nationalist groups online, including a lot of anti-Semitic groups online.

I mean, the irony of this,

as we are talking on Thursday morning, on the day that there have been two horrific anti-Semitic, cold-blooded killings in Washington, D.C., that the president is there pushing theories of white replacement that are pushed by anti-Semitic groups online is just, you know, depressing and appalling.

I don't know that Cyril Ramaposa could have handled that much better because not everybody can be a co-director in that situation.

What do you do?

Do you just say, no, I'm not going to have that meeting because I know what he's going to do?

So I'm not going to have it.

I'm not going to have it in front of the cameras.

And I think actually after this week, that could be, that's why I say, if you're a foreign leader, think twice before you go in and have that meeting.

I would say, if you're a foreign leader, co-script, be the co-producer.

When he says that.

That could be easier said than done.

Yeah, but just say, no, look, I'm not going to have the meeting.

I'm not going to have that.

You did a number on Ramapo Fosa.

You did a number on Zelensky.

You're going to do a number on me.

You're going to hurt me in my home territory.

I'm not having the meeting.

And because Trump likes attention and he likes the camera and the spotlight, he'll compromise and do the meeting.

That's what he'll do.

He's not going to have you come and not do the meeting.

And you would trust him to say, okay, I'm going to compromise and do the meeting

without showing the video.

Yes, I would.

Okay.

I would.

Because if he does that, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to stand up.

My dog is barking.

He doesn't agree with you.

But anyway, that's Charlie's agreement.

It's not only your dog that doesn't agree with me.

Caddy Kay doesn't agree with me.

But I would look right into the camera and say, this guy is lying

about my country.

I'm very sorry.

He's a liar.

I have to get up now.

I'm heading back to my embassy.

He told me that we weren't going to run a genocide movie from some other country.

He's running the genocide movie from another country.

And that was a breach of protocol.

So I'm leaving.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

And that's what I would do.

And by the way, that would crush Trump.

Because he wants the attention.

Yeah, the problem with everything I just said, there's a, you know, it's a weaker country economically.

They need the United States.

They would be the loser in the relationship, but he would win politically and Trump would lose politically.

And sometimes you have to have, with a nut like this, you have to have some level of brinksmanship.

Carney played him.

He said, hey, man, I'm not backing down.

Okay, I'm going to forcheck you right into the boards.

I'm going to drop my gloves.

I'm ready for the fight.

And Trump said, I don't want to do the fight.

Let's have the fight.

I don't know that Ramaposa backed down.

I didn't see.

I mean, I'm just wondering what it was that Ramaposa could have done differently.

Katie, Katie, if I'm staff for you,

President Kay from South America, if I'm your staff and I say, okay, President Kay, you're going to go in.

He's going to ambush you with the video.

I'm bad staff.

I didn't handle that well for you.

I let you down.

Okay, so let's say if he'd said very clearly, okay, Mr.

Trump, just like one data point

26 000 people were killed in south africa last year eight of them were farmers that was it so if he'd come out with one data point would that have debunked it or not it was just oh no it was too late it was too late it's too late because remember what trump knows the moment they'd planned the video the imagery it was the imagery cat you know it's the imagery it's like It's like when I show up with the Superman t-shirt and you show up glossed from Morning Joe.

Who's winning the imagery?

Well, I know.

I mean, you're not directing.

I think we need to.

I'm not co-producing.

I should say to the goalhanger team, I need a Brioni jacket when Caddy shows up coming from Morning Joe.

Okay, if I was a very good television host at this point, I would make an excellent kind of right-hand turn deftly and swiftly and create a link between what happened in the Oval Office with the big, beautiful budget bill that was passed as we are just recording this on Thursday.

But clearly, I'm not deft enough.

So, anyway, the other thing that happened this week on Thursday morning was that

the House of Representatives passed

what is known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,

which is a 1,116-page bill that lays out a series of cuts.

to the American budget and a series of tax cuts to the American budget, which basically counts as spending in a way and leaves America $2 trillion

more in the budget hole, in the deficit, in the debt hole.

So I think this was a win for Donald Trump.

He went down to Congress this week, strong-armed a whole load of fiscal conservatives who didn't like the fact that this budget was adding a lot more money to America's debt.

As one former Republican conference put it to me, if you're a conservative, you just can't vote for this bill.

But they did.

And as the rest of the world is looking at America thinking it's not just the tariffs that are a problem, but it's America's debt that's a problem.

What do you make of this big, beautiful bill?

So again, try to be objective here.

That is the genius of Donald Trump.

He has Caddy K on the rest of Politics U.S.

calling it the big, beautiful bill.

And he's got these

pretty good name, isn't it?

I mean, I got to tell you, you got to give the guy credit for it.

It's a good branding.

It's a good branding.

It's a big, beautiful bill.

Okay.

It's, that's what it is.

No one can resist.

Yeah.

And somehow, when Trump is saying big, you know, the word beautiful is coming after.

You just hope he's not calling you big and beautiful.

You know what I mean?

You don't want him to call you that, right?

But, but I just, I got to give him credit for this shit, right?

I mean, he knows this stuff better than anybody.

But also for going down to the hill and strong-arming a whole load of people who were resistant in his own party, he did that.

He can get people to move.

He's also looking more peculiar, though.

I just want to say this.

He's in the Congress.

I love this.

We're going straight for the looks.

Let's keep it highly.

I become on with the orange war paint everything.

He's talking about the the big, beautiful bull check, beautiful job, but the tie is now down to the calf.

The tie is down to the calf.

You see the tie?

It's flapping.

You're looking at it like it's an elephant's trunk.

You're having a hard time focusing on what he's saying.

Mr.

Trump, President Trump, get the tie closer to your navel.

I mean, what are you doing with the tie?

Wow, that's what you took away from this.

Maybe he's compensating for something with the long tie, but what are you doing with the tie?

Make the tie a little shorter, but he's out of control with his hair now.

he's out of control with the tie actually no wait stop i disagree with that we're having a lot of fights this week but i disagree on the hair okay because i think actually the hair is looking better i think it's better when it's like silvery blondish kind of like mine actually that's weird um than when it's bright orange the bright orange was bad and he's toned look everywhere the hair is it's not as orange you know the word for cockpit the hair is for cocktail up there it's all he's he's not he's not doing enough hairspray the The beehive raccoon nest that's going on up there, he's not doing that.

I think we were going to have a serious conversation about America's debt problems and what the rest of the world and other investors think of this, but anyway.

It's important because the president's image to himself is important,

and he sees that as part of his projection as a television star.

Yes, he's president, but he's playing president on television.

It's important, Patty.

The budget deficit issue is bad because it's related to the unstoppable trend of the growth of the U.S.

government, not stopped by Doge, not stopped by Elon Musk or Donald Trump.

And they look around and they don't know what to do and they won't tackle the problem with any level of wartime seriousness.

And so that's why crypto is going up.

That's why gold is going up.

That's why the bond market.

Remember James Carville?

When I die, I want to come back.

It's the bond market.

The bond market is scorching these guys

and yields are backing up.

Can I ask you a question?

Okay, go ahead.

I was with foreign investors last week and this term abuser came up.

Anything but the United States of America.

It's kind of fun anyway, I like that.

The way foreign investors look at the United States at the moment.

But why is there a disconnect between the stock market, which is going up and has recouped its losses,

and all of the other indicators, including the bond market, which seemed to be saying to the stock market, okay, have your little sugar high, run away with this, have fun, guys, knock yourselves out.

But actually, the reality is more serious and more dire than you seem to think.

The bond and stock markets usually coincide with each other.

They can separate and diverge over a period of time.

But I think the market's telling you two things.

The market's telling you he's going to blink.

The equities markets are telling you he's going to blink, blink on the tariffs, yeah.

And the bond market is telling you, but he can't stop the spending, yes, and he's weakening our perception around the world.

And I have met here in London many international investors that on the margin are allocating less capital to U.S.

They're worried about the judiciary system, they're worried about Trump's capricious behavior, the lack of checks and balances, lack of checks and balances, and they're like, what do we need this aggravation for?

We'll go for lower growth in a more stable country.

And so he's created instability in the most stable democracy over the last 250 years.

And by the way, by the way, the bond market is also telling you something else.

As the rates are going up, the bond market is telling you that it's going to cost America more.

If they want to go to 300% debt to GDP, which no country has ever done, but this is a currency.

We're going to pay it back with currency denominated by us.

So that's easy.

Stop the presses or print the $34 trillion coin and pay it all off.

But people are worried.

And they're like, wait a minute, you guys are out of control.

If I'm going to lend you my money, I want a higher interest rate for the money.

Basically, they're saying you're not reliable anymore.

The big, beautiful bill is coming with big, ugly interest rates.

Yeah.

So that was the other big story this week.

We got in the orange hair, the silver hair, the long tie, the debt ratio.

That was a lot this week.

Oh, we were wrong.

Quickly before we go.

They've got the plane.

They took the plane.

They took the plane.

Not Mayor Culper, us Culper.

We both thought they wouldn't take the plane.

I think they were going to take the plane.

They accepted it.

It is the one thing that even Laura Luma and Republican senators are saying this is a super bad idea.

It probably won't be ready until after Donald Trump leaves office, in which case this is basically a gift to Donald Trump in his retirement and comes with a whole load of caveats about what this means.

Here's an interesting thing.

One

Republican I spoke to whose dad is a die-hard Democrat, this is again the genius of Donald Trump, said his dad said to him, Steve's dad said to him, look, wow, even my dad is saying he's kind of right.

I'd be a fool not to take the plane.

If somebody offered me a massive gift like that, I'd take it.

You know, that's the kind of genius of Donald Trump.

He strikes a nerve.

There's a lot of people out in the country who are thinking, yeah, that makes sense.

Why should we spend money on a plane?

We'll just take somebody else's plane.

They're going to give it to us.

We'll see when the bill comes due.

I think you should leave it right there.

I guess Barker.

We will see you all next week, of course, on Friday.

Founding members will be back with questions and answers on Sunday.

And of course, enjoy the next episode of our Elon Musk series.

You know where to find us.

The restispoliticsus.com.

Thanks for listening, everyone.

Thanks, guys.

See you next week.