5/18/26: Thomas Massie Rips Israel Lobby, US Preps Cuba War, Trump Pumps Stocks

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Republican Congressman Thomas Massey facing a fierce and extremely well-funded, like literally this is now the most expensive congressional race in history, opponent in his primary tomorrow. He went on the Sunday shows yesterday to talk about the dynamics and the importance of his race, let's take a listen. We're facing a primary on Tuesday and the wake of Senator Bill Cassidy's loss in the primaries yesterday in Louisiana, the president has been up posting on true social throughout the night and into the morning about you. Just a few minutes ago, he posted this, I wanna show our viewers right now. Bad Congressman Tom Massey voted against tax cuts, the border wall, our military enforcement. Actually he voted against almost everything that is good. The worst Congressman in history, Kentucky, vote the bum out on Tuesday, we can't live with this troublemaker for another two years. He's a true negative force. Do you have a response? Well, I think that's gonna help my fundraising at thomasmassey.com every time he tweets about me, it's good for some money coming in because people don't like that. And how did this race become the most expensive race in the history of Congress for a primary? It's because three billionaires from outside of Kentucky have funneled millions of dollars in here, they're trying to buy a seat. And so it's not just the president's tweets, I could sustain those without a problem. It's because Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer have dumped money in here. In fact, Miriam Adelson has given so much money to my opponent, then instead of paying for the ballroom, they're gonna need taxpayer money for the ballroom now. That was a good line. Well, I mean, he's completely correct. Let's put C2B up on the screen because I think this lays on a very important dynamic. So if you look at the three most expensive congressional races in history, with Thomas Massey is now being the most expensive congressional race in history or house race, I should say, in history, all three of them have something in common. All three of them, the incumbent, ran afoul of the Israel lobby, and you had millions spent against them successfully in the case of Jamal Bowman and Corey Bush in order to defeat them. So this person lays it out in case people are not fully grasping the absurdity of this. The typical house primary spends 100K to 500K total, candidates and outside groups for the entire race. Many safe districts can come and spend almost nothing in the primary, which would normally be the case for Thomas Massey. This one, $35 million plus in total spending by far the most expensive US house primary in history. Prior record was 25.4 million. That was Jamal Bowman versus, I think, George Latimer in a Democratic primary. Before that, 17.9 to 19.4 million roughly for Missouri's first congressional district. That was Corey Bush versus Bell. There's a rematch of that going on right now. Look into these three races and see where that money came from and why this coordinated effort, it was successful twice already. We will see if it's successful for a third time. So it is not an accident who these candidates were. These were all people who didn't fully, fully 100% toe the line on Israel. And so millions were spent against them to defeat them. Now, in the case of Thomas Massey, it's not just Israel. It's also him working with Rokana to help release the Epstein files that really drew the ire of Trump. So Trump gets involved, starts attacking him relentlessly online. They recruit this opponent for Thomas Massey and then all of this money flows in to support this guy. Now, Thomas Massey, this is pretty interesting reporting from Ken Clippenstein. We can put C7 up on the screen. His opponent is this guy, Ed Galreen. And his whole thing is that he was in SEAL Team 6. But when he talks about his background, basically what he'll tell voters is like, oh, it's all classified, but the president knows what I did and the president's behind me. So you should just trust him that I have the experience and that I would be a good representative for you. It says, I went through all of Ed Galreen's interviews and this guy's laughably deep state. He literally says his background is classified, CITES, anonymous endorsements from unnamed national security officials and more. The headline on his piece is Iran War versus Epstein Files. Politician who's background is secret challenge is one who released Epstein files. So those are the dynamics of the race. Sagar, the polling is very close. I saw one poll that had it literally 50-50. Huge generational divide. It is a battle of the generations. Which honestly, I'm not that opt, I want Thomas Massey to win. I would, it would be something that I think would be, I think it would finally show some level of independence within the MAGA base, within some beloved nature of these shitsters and these independence. But there's just not a lot of data to back any of that up. It would take the first time ever for a MAGA base. Like, and remember when we talk about Trump's diminishing approval, MAGA is still behind him 100%. It's just that MAGA makes up a smaller slice of the country than ever before. People who are called MAGA, and especially, you gotta think, who are the type of people who show up to go vote in a Republican primary? These are the die-hards that always have been. Those people, I mean, they're mainline in Fox News all day long, and this is part of the problem is in that generational divide, Massey leads with every group below age, what is it, 45. It's like a blowout. I think it's even older than that. So then it starts to get mixed around that 50-50 nature when you get like 45 to 65. But then when it's 65 and above, it's a blowout for Ed Galrin. So, I mean, it would have to be a Zoran Mamdani-like primary. Like, we can just change the electorate. And here's the problem too, is first of all, most young people are not Republicans. Even in Kentucky, second of all, it's a closed primary in Kentucky. I just looked it up to double check, which means you have to, you know, you have to choose to vote on the Republican line. You have to be part of the Republican party. And so, you know, that cuts off. You could imagine, even in a district, this is an overwhelmingly Republican district, I looked it up, Trump won by like 30 points or something like that. Even in that district though, you're going to have some chunk of Democrats. You could imagine them voting for Thomas Massey in the primary and crossing over and certainly independent same deal. But in a closed primary system, that really limits the ability of that. So I think he would win if it was an open primary system. As it is, it's gonna be very tough. The thing that he has to hope for is that his supporters are more motivated than Gall-Rain supporters. And that's possible. That's certainly possible. Again, the polling shows it very close, but like you, it seems like in the waning days, the momentum has shifted towards Gall-Rain. And then you also had this Cassidy race in Louisiana. Before that, you had where, you know, Cassidy had voted for Trump's impeachment back in the first after over January 6th, back in the first Trump administration. And even though he's told the line since then, he's been on Trump's shit list ever since, he didn't even get in the top two. He placed third place in this race. You had these Indiana local legislators who bucked Trump on redrawing gerrymandering their state. They, every single one of them that voted against the gerrymander was defeated. So the man just still, look, it's still Trump's party when it comes down to it. The median Republican primary voter is 55 years old. All right, and then the largest block outside of 45 to 64 is the 65 plus crowd. 18 to 29 makes up the smallest demographic of the people who vote in a primary. And there's a modest share of people who vote 30 to 44. Now, listen, with the vast amount of money, this could change. But again, it would have to be a Zoran style situation. I don't know a ton about the district you were telling me it's suburban. That's not a bad thing, because that's the demographic of the type of Republican who would have voted for Trump, but who is now disaffected. And they may vote Thomas Massie as a FU to Donald Trump. Little unlikely generally in terms of how those demos vote. But, you know, a lot of local communities very rarely want to feel as if they're a tool of Washington. So if you have tens of millions of dollars pour into your race, usually that can have a piss-off effect of the locals who are like, hey, hold on a second, we get to decide. So I don't wanna count them out whatsoever, but I do wanna accept expectations. I listened to him on Tucker, even he is not certain he's gonna win. He goes, he literally says, I may lose. Like he's being very realistic about how this goes. Some of that's a fundraising possibility. There is a level of inspiration in the fundraising is all these billionaires came in against him. The average donor to him is a small dollar donor from either inside the district or out the rest of the country. People who are not connected into the system in any way, they're not being bundled. They're like viewers of our shows or others who've got 25, 30 bucks and they're like, hey, you know what, we can't allow some pro-Israel billionaire from, you know, God knows what to control our election. So at the very least there is a level of inspiration if he does lose for creating this ecosystem, showing what these referendums can be. But, you know, we have to be very realistic about, within the Republican party, I just don't think that there's an appetite for this. I just don't. Look, if you poll Republicans, there has been some movement, especially among young Republicans on Israel, but overall still Republicans are with Israel or with the pro-Israel consensus. Just, you know, based on the polling and they are very much still in the MAGA pro-Trump camp. So it's a lot to go up against. Frankly, the fact he even has a shot is kind of a miracle and a real testament to, you know, how much people just like personally respect him and his independence. We talked to Brokana on Friday, who obviously has partnered with Thomas Massey on things like board powers resolution and obviously Epstein. And Thomas Massey has also been pretty courageous in voting against some of these like speech codes when it comes to Israel as well. But in any case, we asked him, what do you think is at stake here? And he said, you know, it's not just about him. It's about, is there an ability to have any independence in Congress? You know, we used to have more of these characters. You call them like gadflies. And I think that name is meant to be sort of decisive. No, it's great. I think it's a good thing. I support having gadflies because, you know, I love having that person who's willing to be the one in the 434 to one. Bernie Sanders was that guy from the vast majority of his career. And he also though, know how to work with like-minded legislators on both sides of the aisle to get his amendments through and get some legislation through as well. But it really, you know, it creates a much more dynamic body when you have at least some ability for people to be independent. And the level of control that Trump expects and exercises over these people is truly, truly extraordinary and very, very disturbing. You know, on the, I mentioned Cassidy down in Louisiana. So Bill Cassidy, he's a doctor. He had a lot of concerns. He clearly didn't want to vote for RFK Jr. for HHS secretary. But he knew it was gonna be a problem for him politically if he voted against him. So he sucked it up and he voted for RFK Jr. And he has been, you know, he hasn't said a word against Trump. He's been totally, you know, on board with the program, voting for whatever Trump wants him to vote for, blah, blah, blah. But because he had taken this one vote for Trump's impeachment over January 6th, he was permanently put on the shit list. And so it didn't matter what he did. It didn't matter that he voted for everything. It didn't matter that he swallowed his concerns about RFK Jr. and voted for him, et cetera. He ended up losing. He not only did he like not get the top spot, he didn't even make it into the runoff. He was the third place participant in this Louisiana Republican Senate primary. In his concession speech, he took some veiled shots at Trump, which I sort of feel like, dude, at this point your political career's over and you're still holding back, you still won't even say his name. I don't know, it's kind of lame. But I don't think he wants to be a lobbyist. He probably still wants to get paid, you know? He can't fully break. I mean, you can still get paid if you call out Trump. Plenty of people out there getting paid who's called out Trump for sure. But in any case, let's take a listen to C3, Bill Cass, that he'd taken some sort of veiled, passive aggressive jobs at President Trump. I've been able to participate in democracy. And when you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you wanted to. But you don't palp, you don't whine, you don't claim that election was stolen, you don't find a reason why. You don't manufacture some excuse. You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege. And that's what I'm doing right now. So there you go, obviously referring to Trump there, but not saying his name. Trump has now found a new target in the House, Lauren Bober, who has gone to Kentucky to campaign for Thomas Masses. She also famously was one of four Republicans to join the Democrats in voting for that Epstein discharge petition. Can put C5 up on the screen, Trump going after her, is anyone interested in running against weak-minded Lauren Bober in Colorado's fourth congressional district? You remember Lauren moved to the district when it became obvious she couldn't win in her original congressional district. A carpet bagger indeed. Bober is campaigning for the worst Republican congressman in the history of our country, Thomas Masses of the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky. Anybody who can be that dumb deserves a good primary fight, even though I long ago endorsed Bober, if the right person came along, it would be my honor to withdraw that endorsement and endorse a good and proper alternative. Just let me know or announce your candidacy and I will be there for you. Let's put Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet in response to this up on the screen, this is C6, because she lays out this dynamic. She says, look, there were only four of us Republicans that signed the discharge petition to force the vote to release the Epstein files, Thomas Masses, Nancy, Mace, Lauren, Bober, and myself, Trump has come after us one by one ever since then. President told Speaker Johnson not to allow the vote to happen, but we courageously went against the president, refused to budge, and overrode the speaker to force the vote on the record. It was only when all members of Congress had to vote on records and Republicans finally find their intestinal fortitude to do the right thing and vote yes to release the files until then, they were absurdly obedient to the president who was doing everything in his reign of terror to hold them back. Even now, while the files are still not released, the Epstein class remains protected, wars are being waged, markets are being manipulated, and the average Americans being driven further into ruin while the Epstein class reigns and has yet to face any accountability that will never regret signing that discharge petition, refusing to back down and resigning as I want nothing to do with the president and a party that bows to the Epstein class. So, you know, she's certainly right about the fact that those four in particular, because of the crime of signing onto the discharge petition, have been directly targeted by Trump for their disobedience in soccer. We remember the pressure campaign, which was at Nancy Mace that he brought into like the situation where it was Bober. No, it's her, it was Bober, I was about to say, Bober was the one. I think Mace just didn't answer the phone. They were trying to call her, but Bober, they dragged her in. Yeah, he dragged her in to the situation room, which literally, I mean, with the full might of the government and the highly classified setting that to try and persuade her not to vote on Epstein, there's been multiple instances. Like, I mean, let's just take a look at the careers of people like Bober and MT. That's honestly what's so disgusting, I think about it. Bober breaks with Trump on Epstein, and she is gonna get primar. Lindsey Graham and these people who literally ran against Trump in the primary, but kissed his ass all day long on Iran and everything else, get total and complete endorsements from Donald Trump, along with, I mean, there are multiples of people who are in Congress right now, who not only personally despise Trump, but just kiss his ass on various different things to get done, and that's all it takes for them. But if you buck him on one issue, like Israel or Epstein or any of that, he's willing to come out. And this is just a prime example of what they're willing to use, this power and his cult of personality to enforce. If there were an effective, FDR was like this, if you broke with FDR on a few certain select things, which he thought were good, he would actually try to primary you, and he wasn't always successful, but he would try his, throw his might and his personal popularity and worship of himself to actually get better Democrats elected, like in the people who aligned with his policy. Trump is like, only you are personally loyal to me. That's it, period. And if you don't do that, if you don't glaze me constantly, then nope, I'm gonna make sure that you're out. And so that shows you, like he could get Lindsey Graham out of office, he could get Lindsey Graham out of office in a second, if he wanted to. He could get Tom Cotton or any of these guys in any of these hard, MAGA red states. If he wanted to primary them, he absolutely could. But it's only Epstein and all of that, that he's willing to come out and be like, nope, you shouldn't vote for that person, we're gonna get you out of office. Yeah, and with FDR is more like you're a traitor to the New Deal, with Trump, it's like you're a traitor to me personally. And you're so right, but pay attention to the places where people are allowed to break. Trump is pushing this like, okay, let's block private equity and other permanent capital. They break him every day on that. And people, I mean, Republicans are bucking him left and right on that, and he doesn't care. Are there any primaries to fight against those people? No, not at all. So it shows you what his priorities ultimately are. And one last thing I'll say on this is, now you've got Tom Tellis who's retiring, who can kind of operate freely. You've got Cassidy, who is losing his seat. So he no longer is going to be, you don't have that political leverage against him. We'll see what happens with Thomas Massey, but even if he maintains his seat, once he gets past his primary and has a lock on another two years in Congress, he'll have a little bit of a freer hand as well. Who knows how Lauren Boebert is gonna respond to this threat of a primary challenge, et cetera. I think she was already redistricted. And remember, she had a problem. She only came like two points. Her last election was very close. Right, and I think it could be wrong that she was either redistricted or the map had changed for her. So she was already, I think, skating on problems. She's also become much less of a gadfly ever since the whole Beale's Juice incident. So I don't know. I mean, maybe she was giving up on Congress. She just doesn't even wanna be there anymore. And it's kind of just doing whatever, she's kind of just doing whatever she wants, which would explain it. Yeah, but I mean, you may have more of these people who operate more independently because they've got nothing to lose anymore. So that could be an interesting dynamic here, heading into the midterms. But for most of these people, you could look at this from the top level and be like, Trump is so unpopular and the Republicans are gonna get destroyed. Like, wouldn't any of them wanna signal their distance from him? But remember, the overwhelming majority of these seats are not swing seats. The overwhelming majority of them are like locked in, ruby red, where your bigger threat is from the primary. So that's why for the vast majority of these people, it doesn't make political sense. It makes moral and like, you know, personal integrity sense to actually stand up on some principle. But in terms of just cynical political calculation for most of these people, the path of least resistance is just to go along with whatever it is that Trump wants them to do. And so by and large, that's what he is. Even if Massey wins, I mean, taking $35 million to have to try and win your seat by 0.1%, just to have to do it all again in two years. Yeah, which should be, he just, it doesn't even have to really think about reelection. Exactly, most of the time, what he said he spent like a million dollars most of the time, maybe less. You know, and he's like, I don't even have to think about races, but this is gonna be his life. Yeah, and it's vicious what they're doing to him too, like a nasty attack. It gets more loomers out there doing all kinds of disgusting things. So. It's disgusting. All right, let's go ahead and get to what is going to happen with Cuba. So for a while now, the Trump administration has been making noises about doing some Venezuela-esque operation in Cuba. Obviously, this is Marco Rubio's fondest wish. Trump was asked about this in the last couple of days. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. This done has been a virtual miracle. It's the hottest country anywhere in the world, and it is. It's true, having a different subject on Cuba. There's reporting that Raul Castro could be indicted by the DOJ, I believe. What does that mean for him? Well, I don't want to comment on that, I'll let DOJ comment on it, but they need help, as you know. And you talk about it in a planning country, they are really a nation, we're a country in decline. So we're going to see. We have a lot to talk about on Cuba, but not maybe for today's. So he's asked there about Raul Castro, who is 94 years old, I think. Let's put D3 up on the screen. This again looks like potential pretents to, or pretext to be able to do something akin to the Venezuela playbook. New York Times wrote this up with possible Raul Castro and Dytman, US eyes, Venezuela playbook amid stepped up surveillance flights of the visit of the CIA director and an energy embargo. White House is trying to increase pressure on Cuba. They are threatening to indict him over a plain downing from like decades ago. And again, he's 94 years old. So that's what's going on with that, but then we've got another piece to add to the manufacturing of consent and creating a pretext for some sort of invasion or other illegal action, offensive action against Cuba. So we can put D2 up on the screen. This is from Marco Pudo over at Axios exclusive US eyes attack drone threat from Cuba. Cuba, they write, has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the US base at Guantanamo Bay, US military vessels and possibly Key West, sure. Florida, 90 miles north of Havana, according to classified intelligence shared with Axios, the intelligence, which could become a pretext for US military action. Love how they just write that right into the piece. Appreciate that. Shows the degree to which the Trump administration sees Cuba as a threat. No, they don't because of developments in drone warfare and the presence of Iranian military advisors in Havana, a senior US official said, when we think about those types of technologies being that close and a range of bad actors from terrorist or drug cartels to Iranians to the Russians, it's concerning, the official said, it's a growing threat. And they also mentioned the fact that CIA director John Ratcliffe openly traveled to Cuba on Thursday, warned officials there against engaging in hostilities urged them to scrap their totalitarian government to end crippling US sanctions. Another quote from the officials, director Ratcliffe made clear Cuba can no longer serve as a platform for adversaries to advance hostile agendas in our hemisphere, the Western hemisphere cannot be our adversaries playground. So there you go. Yeah, the drone thing. Look, I like Mark actually, he lives in Florida, I'll say this, he works with Barack Ravid over at Axios. And I do really appreciate him saying, this could be pretext for US invasion. Because he's telling you why they decided to come to him, they're like, look, this is our pretext. And he's like, this is the pretext for invasion. Let's actually break it down though, 300 military drones. By the way, this is the reality of what we created with the Iran war is we showed the world how vulnerable we are, our vast armada to drones. Now imagine actually Cuba with only 300, what they would be able to do, even if the US were to launch some sort of war against them. And that's actually the problem. Now it's, I am in no way saying that we should, you know, have some sort of preemptive war. Welcome to the world of what defense now looks like in an asymmetric conflict. And you can look all around from Mexico to Cuba, to any of the US bases that were all damaged and destroyed that are now all over the world. That we've spent billions and billions of dollars. And with 300 times 25,000, you can significantly disrupt and cause terror. So yeah, I mean, it would be smart actually for Cuba to get not just 300 drones, they should have hundreds of thousands of drones. That should be the only thing that their entire economy is focused on because it would be the only thing probably that we would ever stop the United States actually from a lot of these sanctions. But I think it also demonstrates there, this is what I've said earlier about Trump. Trump has given up, genuinely given up on changing the country. So by not being able to change the country, he wants to change the world. He wants to leave his imprint on the world. Look at all the shit that he is doing. The reflecting pool, the ballroom. What did I just see that the more recent project that they're doing? The golf course. The golf course, these are the new golf course here. And Washington. The statue of the garden of heroes or whatever. Which previously was like a volleyball court or something. Like what he cares about is his imprint. Oh, his face on the $100 bill. His face on the passport. Like the Kennedy, the Trump Kennedy Center. Like this ultimately is what drives him and what drives more than anything. What is his more recent obsession? Venezuela should become the 51st state. He wants to become the first president to expand the maps of the United States. And if not expand the maps, then do fundamentally change the globe in his image. More recently, what was that image that we had in the A block? Is it A2? This is that map, right? That he posts of Iran with the full flag that's on top of it. And then all of the converging arrows on top of Iran. Like he wants to change the map entirely in his image. And Cuba has been a Republican obsession now for decades. Is Cuba is not a threat to the United States. Like in any way. Proposterous. To the extent that it ever was, it was like 60 years ago. The idea, if you believe that they're really thinking of like drone striking Key West, Florida. Like that is just the dumbest shit you could possibly. I mean, they might if we attack them. But outside of that. But there's no way they're planning on preempting. We're just gonna randomly attack Key West, Florida to draw the ire of the nuclear powered superpower. That makes no sense whatsoever. It's just idiotic to imagine that that is anything serious or real. Right, in reality what they want, I mean, which would be smart to have some sort of credible drone deterrent and be like, hey, can you turn our oil back on? Like can you allow Mexico to ship us some oil? Because we do, you know, look, we may go, we're not gonna go quietly. That should be the strategy now for every nation in the world. Actually for some sort of deterrence. From Taiwan with China to the United States. It's like the porcupine strategy for what they should be pursuing. But it does demonstrate though, that at the same time they're gonna use it as a pretext like what they are with Iran. Why did we have to attack Iran according to the administration? Because Israel was going to. And because they were creating, what did they say, a conventional shield for their nuclear program. So they were gonna create enough ballistic missiles that we could never attack them again in the future, which is why we had to do it now. So I think this is purely about his obsession with remaking the Western hemisphere. This is the original like Donro doctrine stuff that they were all in for. And I mean, from Ryan you tell me, the Cubans, frankly, they seem very willing to play ball. Like they're like, look, maybe one of us will step down, but our regime needs to stay in power. Kind of like Maduro originally had shown. I just don't really know when these people are gonna learn. Like that's just not how it works. Maduro literally said, I will happily step down as long as my guy replaces me in a few years when we went in and we kidnapped him. Like when are people going to learn? Like there's really no good negotiating with this. It's just all force and all strength. There's no other option. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you on that. It's very clear. And I mean, the other piece that I think Trump will be looking towards is he needs to recover from his Iran humiliation. Yes, that's right. So he needs to punch some playground weakling, which Cuba, I mean, their economy was already struggling because of our decades and decades of sanctions. And they're not a military power, anything approaching the level of military power that even like in Iran has. And so he feels like, oh, well, the way I can reclaim my glory, like what I achieved with Venezuela is to go in and just take Cuba and do with them what I wanna do. So I think that's the other part of this. I mean, in a sense, Cuba, I think is being spared right now for the moment because we are so occupied in Iran and so many of our military assets there and our focus is there and all of our top operators and all of that sort of stuff. So I think that has bought them some time, but in the end, it also provides another justification, another reason, another piece of logic for why Trump is determined to go in and do something against them. Also to shore up the one last constituency that he will have who will be with him to his dying day. South Floridian, I'm serious, we need to cut South Florida off and let it sail into the sea between Venezuela and this shit, just go. All right, just leave. Sorry, I think again, who are the Floridians and they go obviously Rubio, Susie Wiles. Susie Wiles, God, it's been a while since I've compiled all the lists. Well, Trump himself is a Mar-a-Laco resident, officially a Florida resident. And that's actually important because you can imagine there's all kinds, I mean, Mar-a-Lago is where he spends those days. Mar-a-Lago, those pay for play. Do you know how many Cubans are down there and just been like, oh, Mr. Trump, you know, like, they're like, oh, you'll be the hero of Havana, I can't sleep at night while thinking about my family's plantation. Oh, and you can imagine Trump having fantasies of opening his like Trump Casino in Havana. Trump Casino, yes. He's old enough to have those sorts of visions of what it could be, you know. America cannot be great again until a rich Palm Beach residents can take a boat to Havana to gamble and to exploit the resources which is of this island. We simply have just never been great ever since we lost that. And rich Spaniards living in Cuba were able to own vast amounts of land and to exploit the population. I'm not some Grafidel Castro fanboy, but I'm just like, let's be honest about what 1950s Cuba really was, right? The same with Venezuela. I mean, who are all these rich Venezuelans? Tucker had that line once where he's like, wow, these Venezuelans, I get it. You know, they had a really hard time. Living pretty nice houses though here in Florida. Come on, like that's the truth. And then especially in the migration context, everyone just like blows past it. The whole reason that Trump, in my opinion, is one of the main reasons he's president is because of uncontrolled migration into the United States from places like Venezuela and Cuba. And so this, like what? It's just one of them a rarity. Why are they migrating? It's because of our sanctions primarily, right? That has made, I mean, the sanctions are designed to punish ordinary people. And right now in Cuba, it's really dire. The fact that we've instituted this complete season embargo, and they're so dependent on little trickles of aid coming in, little amounts of fuel coming in, it really is absolutely devastating. You can look at the reporting, Ryan and others did on the ground while they were there to see the impact of that. But yeah, of course, and you've had many people who have fled Cuba just recently because of those economic conditions. A bunch came under Biden, because I think he continued some of the sanctions. He did, he absolutely did. Really, and so yeah. Did not go back to the Obama policy. This was one of the Obama foreign policy Ws, where he normalized relations and lift sanctions and things got better, and then Trump comes in and completely reverses that, and Biden continues the Trump course. Right, and yeah, we had a huge number of people who came from Cuba, although of course they get a pass. What's that policy called? It's been a while since I've had a wet foot dry foot. Don't get me started. Yeah, but it's, I mean, this is one of the areas where Trump has taken some blows in the Cuban community in Florida, because they have been arresting and detaining Cubans who are used to getting that pass. And so I think they're also, to your point, about his political constituency, this would be a way to unruffle the feathers that have been upset that we're not getting our special treatment anymore. You're just treating us like any of these other migrants. Yeah, wow, what, the horror, right? I don't know, this Florida, our Florida-occupied government, it's too much. We cannot continue to have so many of our politics dictated by the internal politics of this one state, which is not even a swing state anymore. I know. It's ridiculous. I know. Everyone just stop and give up. All right, okay, let's move on. Let's move on to Trump's more Trump corruption here. An absolutely stunning revelation of just how many stock trades Trump has made while serving as president of the United States. Let's put this up on the screen. Trump discloses hundreds of millions of dollars in trades in the first quarter, the first quarter of 2026. Do you see that chart? This is really important because he has gone from, I mean, this was never ideal, the number of stock trades that are being made. But here in 2026, when we have all these concerns and obvious, obvious breadcrumbs pointing towards insider trading, that his portfolio has been insanely, insanely active. Just look at the weekly number of transactions there. So I'll read you a little bit of this article from the Financial Times. They say financial disclosures for US President Donald Trump showed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions involving securities in major American companies. Oh, which companies, you might ask? Including NVIDIA, Palantir, Paramount, Boeing, just in the three months, first three months of 2026. They also show transactions involving Tesla, Apple, Meta, Visa, City, Qualcomm and GE, Aerospace. Top executives of all those companies accompanied the US President on his trip to Beijing this week to meet Chinese leaders, Xi Jinping. Trump wrote on Truth Social, it was an honor to have the business leaders on the trip, including the great Zhen Sen Huang, a reference to the chief executive of semiconductor giant NVIDIA, the filing show 15 transactions relating to that chip maker in the first three months of the year. Quote, I will be asking President Xi, a leader of extraordinary distinction, to open up China so these brilliant people can work their magic. The president wrote on his social media site on Wednesday, referring to the US company executives. The number of transactions disclosed on Thursday far exceeds Trump's training activity during the first year of his second term. It also marks the first major sale of assets since returning to office. Let's put the next element up on the screen here just so you can see, this is from our old friend on Usual Wales over on Twitter. They write, breaking, Trump purchased up to $630,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of the year. In March alone, Trump made at least seven perches with Palantir, totaling as much as $530,000. A month later, Trump literally wrote on true social, quote, Palantir technologies has proven to have great warfighting capabilities and equipment. Gee, who would that benefit? Whose stock portfolio would that benefit? It is just so brazen. It is so in your face that you cannot even, you can't make it up. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, nothing compared to this. And I got plenty of smoke for her and all of the congressional insiders who seem to always do very well in their stock portfolios. This is above and beyond anything, anything we have seen. And then he's out there, you know, he's out there, the government is buying pieces of some of these companies in some instances, certainly out there on true social, boosting these companies, his government giving contracts to these companies, absolute insanity. Yeah, we can't allow this. And the Trump Organization says that their investment holders are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third party financial institutions with sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions. And this is why, you know, your point about Pelosi and all of that is very important. That is the loophole, which we've basically allowed all of these filthy rich government politicians to continue to trade while they're in office. As always with Trump, it's always dialed up to the most ridiculous degree. But this is why we've always advocated on this show for a total ban on trading is because there is no such thing, no period as not being influenced by your own personal financial, especially with Trump, but like really with any president, right? You can't allow them to have even independently managed blind trust and all, because it's fake fundamentally. We've loaned this now for decades, going all the way back to LBJ, used to have a secret phone line where he would manage all of his financial decisions while he was president in the Oval Office. And the Palantir, this is where, you know, you buy Palantir stock, maybe you get a report about it, and then you're also pumping the stock. But at the same time, even beyond that, it's not even just about your personal finance, you also have the support of those very executives, you know, for your administration and you're doing deals, and then there's just general knowledge in the back of your head. But it just, look, what it highlights to me is that, you know, these transactions, as opposed to specifying exact figures, are worth between $200 and $687 million. Hundreds of millions of dollars in these companies, you have their exact executives on the plane who are also pitching to you and setting up government policy, which you have immense interest and ability. Like, if you think Congress has the ability to affect a stock, the president is at times, I don't even know, 200, 500? I mean, you know, like, yeah. Not just in terms of, okay, government contracts, okay, the bully pulpit, okay, he took them on his trip to China. He was pushing on one of the quote unquote deals that came out of the trip to China, was they're gonna purchase 200 Boeing airplanes, right? That was one of the things, the deals that was struck there. But then you also have, and especially because of the way Trump operates the entire federal government as his own plaything, so there's no even illusion of independence, you also have the ability to green light or block different mergers or take different regulatory actions or not take different regulatory actions. So let me give you a couple more examples here. Six trades in the filings relate to Intel, US chip making giant, oh, guess what happened with Intel this year? The US government took a nearly 10% direct ownership stake in that company in the past year. That was also 100% Trump's decision. Seven transactions relating to Boeing, I just mentioned, the deal that was struck in China with regard to Boeing. US special envoy, Palo Zampoli, upstream linked by the way, who accompanied Vice President JD Vance to Hungary last month, also works to promote Boeing sales overseas. So your special envoy is also working to promote Boeing sales and you're buying stock in Boeing, interesting. That guy Zampoli said, whenever people see me, they want something, they want access to the president. I tell them, buy Boeing. If you wanna make the president happy, buy Boeing. It's the simplest thing in the world. Paramount, does anyone, anyone tell me out there whether Paramount's been in the news recently and for what? Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery, the two companies involved in a $110 billion blockbuster takeover that is down the hands of US regulators, both appeared in Trump's disclosed trades. So there you go. I mean, it's just as brazen as it could possibly be. It's hard to keep track of all this stuff. We're gonna cover probably tomorrow that Trump is suing his own government. And instead of going forward with getting some taxpayer funded settlement for himself directly, instead his compromise is he wants to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward his own allies that he feels were unjustly prosecuted under the Biden administration. Then you have the whole crypto scheme, which is probably the biggest in terms of dollar amounts, the biggest source of corrupt dealings in the Trump administration and direct foreign interference, foreign influence on his government and just billionaire, just general whoever wants to have influence over him. The way to do it is just buy a bunch of his crypto, prop up the price of that. So his bulk of his wealth now comes not from his real estate dealings, but from crypto. And then of course you've got all of the Trump hotels and all the golf tournaments that were paid for by live, which is owned by the Saudi government, all of this mess. And so it is truly, truly world historic, the amount of corruption here. And then the cherry on top is this massive amount of insider trading that we can see being done. Yeah, I mean, look, it's beyond madness. I also wanted to, I wanna give some attention to Cash Patel, can we put that one up there? Oh, I just wanna give some attention to Cash. I wanna highlight Mr. Cash, given all of us a bad name. Snorkeling at Pearl Harbor, Cash Patel's travels had to focus on ethical issues. The FBI director continues to come under scrutiny for mixing government business with dates, vacation and leisure time. Last summer, Cash Patel, captained a whirlwind South Pacific trip with a snorkel trip in Hawaii. Navy SEALs used two boats to transport and escort Mr. Patel and nine others on what the DOD called a VIP snorkel next to one of the military's most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the USS Arizona, which holds the remains of more than 900 Navy SEALers and Marines who died at Pearl Harbor. Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes. And out of respect, as I mentioned, for the dead entombed at the wreckage, the rules bar visitors from even wearing swimwear at the memorial, with some exceptions over the years for dignitaries. The only people allowed in the water around the tomb are military and National Park Service divers interring the remains of the last survivors. Officials from the DOD said VIP tours near the Arizona were common, but they declined to say how often they take people snorkeling. And this is the type of stuff which just drives people nuts. Like I can't tell you why this bothers me almost as much as the trades. And it's because this is this clownish official who has bungled all of these investigations using his position to come into office and basically just treat it as a joy ride for all the cool stuff that he never got to do. Cause obviously he grew up as a loser and it's like going to go and chug beers with the hockey team and snorkeling and what, pumping his girlfriend's country music. What did he say? He said she's done more for the country than most people will do in their lifetimes. It's like, okay. Yeah, FBI director as like make-a-wish. No, yeah, it's crazy. Joy Ride, that's what it is. That's what gets under my skin. And oh, I've seen Mike Walton. Oh, I was offered a VIP swim tour of the Arizona. I'm like, well, okay, maybe, maybe that is the case, but then I feel like we should just end that because I don't know, it's the Arizona. If any, have you been there before? I mean, first of all, it's incredibly sombring because you're looking down on this thing. You're like, there are literally 900 bodies that are down there. And if you've ever read it, like it's such a horrific incident. Like you should sit there in silence and just be like, I can't believe that something like this happened. It's not really like a joy ride, going snorkeling type thing, that you're supposed to, you're not supposed to be reveling in some great experience, right? You're supposed to go there and be like, wow, what a horrific event. Like that's how I feel. Same way at Arizona that I did. And if you go to like the 9-11 memorial. Well, I saw somebody in this piece said like, this would be like playing kickball at Arlington National Semitag. Exactly, perfect example. Like when you go to Arlington and they even do that. You ever seen kids who are screaming or something like that at the tomb of the unknown soldier? Those guys will even break and they'll be like, you need to show respect. I agree with that. That's a good thing. Those, there are certain sites like that where you're just supposed to have some somber and level of respect. And that's why like breaking that, like yeah, it drives me nuts. The other thing with Cash, I mean, just such a hypocrite, before he was FBI director, he would always criticize Chris. Oh, the PJ Traveler. Chris, right. He said this quote, I'm just saying Chris Ray doesn't need a government funded GVJet to go to vacation. Maybe we ground that blame. This is one of his big criticisms of the previous FBI director. And now, I mean, it's not even close. Like the things that, and I like whatever I'm not a Chris Ray fan. I'm here to stand Chris Ray, but it's not even close to level of clownish, like self-indulgent behavior here. I still find it so interesting and fascinating and curious that the would be assassin at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and his manifesto was like, any of the administration officials or targets, except for Mr. Patel. What? Why? That was a weird one. I also like appreciate Zajalani always jumps in when one of these cash Patel scandals erupts in his like, he is single handling, destroying the mythology around Indian Americans being like, competent and intelligent and good at their, hard working and good at their job. So he's busting up some racial stereotypes. I've always tried to tell people, we're just like everybody else. There's just like many whites, blacks, others. There's dumb ones, there's smart ones. All right, and cash is living proof actually of why, yeah, of that. So there you go. Yeah, we got one more corrupt Trump dealing here that we needed to get into the show, which is Katie Miller, wife of Steven Miller has a podcast. She has access to basically any administration official, but I think JD Vance went on there. First guest. First guest was JD Vance. She had Dana White on recently, Nicki Minaj went on her show, et cetera. She had Kasshawn, remember, and his girlfriend. Oh yes, that's right, that's right. In the middle of a manhunt. Yeah, oh, that's right, that's right. I forgot about those details. Yeah, you've got sharp memory there. Anyway, she's getting a deal, it looks like. Courtesy of the MAGA CBS owners, we can put this up on the screen. This is from the Daily Beast. MAGA CBS owners plot, soft landing for Trump aides wife, the wife of a top White House advisors and talks for a podcasting deal with a media giant currently seeking approval from the Trump administration for a $111 billion merger. So there you go, she's gonna get paid for this podcast. Let's check in. How is this podcast doing, soccer? Surely if she's gonna get some significant podcast deals, she must be really excelling. She's actually got so many people. Can we put E5 up on the screen here? So she's got 58,000 subscribers. She's got her latest video from five days ago has 4.9,000 views. Dana White did clock in at 37,000 views. Brendan Carr, FCC chair, 4,700 views. What is it really like being a Trump question mark? I think that was with Lara Trump, 22,000 views. Byron Donalds, 9,000 views. Whoever Chris and Liz Wright are, oh yeah, Chris Wright on Iran, Solar Nuclear and Card County, 4,000 views. So in any case, the Hannity one here did a pretty decent 150. I think her biggest one was this Nicki Minaj 12070, but we're not talking about blockbuster numbers here. In fact, we went and looked, we compared to the Free Press because that's our benchmark for a podcast performance, kind of roughly on par in terms of typical views. But as you guys know, obviously here at Breaking Boats, we get a lot more on our videos than this place. And we don't have nearly access to the officials that she's able to just call in favors from because of who her husband is. So just complete pay to play here, no doubt about it. It is totally nuts. I mean, there's so many, look, I mean, this is the thing. It's just divorced from the market. Like the Free Press acquisition had nothing to do with their actual views and or influence. It was about buying Barry and installing like a pro-Israel ombudsman and her staff over at CBS. Like that's what it was. It's like, okay, it was at Aquahire, I guess that's what they call it, right? In Silicon Valley. Here, it's very obvious they want influence with Maga World and she's literally the wife of Stephen Miller. And this is again, the Ellicens who are offering up this deal, who wanna make sure that their merger goes through with no problem. So not no big deal to throw the wife of influential Trump aide. And Stephen Miller continues to be very influential, Trump aide, throw the wife some cash and see what she can get. I'm always amazed at these celebs or people with, people who, and not to view shame, but a little bit, just cause we are literally in this business. I can watch people sign deals for like 10, 15 million, which I'm like, well, like I know what, you know, what's making over here. And then what those people are getting paid in terms of checks and they're getting one fifth the number. And sure, they read ads, we don't like, I get it. There's a bit of a gulf here, but sometimes these guys get cut checks, which make no market sense whatsoever. And I think it's the execs either want to seem cool by hanging out with celebrities or in this case, they want more influence. Like with people who are in power. And that's really what it's all about. It has literally nothing to do with the actual market-based reality of this business. Cause if it did, it would be very, very, very different. In terms of who gets blessed by these big, by these big companies for cool deals and stuff like that. I'm always like, this is just fascinating to me. Where the money goes and for whom. So that's- I'm also still not over the fact that freaking Sean Duffy, who's the, you know, the transportation secretary and former real world star, took seven months off of his, it's just film a reality show with his wife and kids. I mean, I remember all the smoke that came for Pete Buttigieg for like taking paternity leave. Which was fair by the way. And this guy just took seven months off. Are there any transportation issues in our country? Are we having problems at the airports? I don't know, you people tell me. So insane to me. And because this whole administration is so lawless and insane and starting wars and, you know, creating shit coins and trading, incitement or trading every single day, it's barely a blip. Like we didn't even get a chance to cover it because so many other insane things are going on. Whereas in any other administration, the Biden administration, even if you go back to like the George W. Bush administration, you know, W. Bush administration, this would have been a scandal of, you just wouldn't do it because it would be such a scandal. And here he goes and announces it proudly on Fox News. Oh, that's great that you got to do that thing with your kids. Disgusting. The only thing I will back up Sean Duffy on is his Tritic banned pajamas in the airport. But they also do it in the most cringe worthy way where they're starting to put pull up bars in airports and they'll just crank out a few sets ahead of your flight. You had the right take, which is like if you don't want us to wear comfy clothes then make the experience better. Yeah, that's what I'm about. It's like, look, let's turn it into a nice experience. All right, and then people will dress up according. Well, you know, maybe not, but we'll a little light shoving in that direction. But that's how we create a good environment. But if things are gonna be so shitty, then people are gonna treat it as such. Hence is... You gotta be in survival mode when you go to the airport, man. These days? Oh yes. You gotta be in survival mode. You gotta plan for... Also what you're costing, what is costing right now, it's just so insane, like insane. The fares that I'm seeing for summer travel, like unless you are genuinely rich, you are going nowhere this summer in my opinion. Like and even driving, it's gonna cost you for everything. Okay, all right, that's it. That's right, all right. We were about to do our AMA, so stay tuned for that if you're a premium subscriber. We'll see you all tomorrow. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.