TGIF 2/5/21

What's on tap in today's good week - bad week recap? It's kind of a mixed bag, I'd say. 

Last night, or maybe it was early this morning, the plan to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 that had been included in the Biden administration COVID relief plan was scrapped by the Senate. It happened via voice vote after Iowa's Sen. Joni Ernst (of the 'make them squeal' campaign commercial) put forward a proposal to hold off any increases during the pandemic. That Guy from Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders, was OK with the vote, saying he had never sought to raise it during the pandemic anyway. This will undoubtedly make progressives unhappy, which is a hit for the Biden team, but to me it makes sense. 

We got some jobs numbers this week. First, we learned that there were 779,000 new unemployment claims  filed  last week, below projections and more than 30K fewer than the week before, and the lowest week since November. There are now 17.8M people collecting benefits. We also learned that the economy added 49,000 jobs in January, and that the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, a four-tenths-of-a-percent decrease. These numbers are always tough, and a decoder ring is often necessary to figure out whether it's good news or bad news. I'm choosing to think it's better than bad, and better than December, but less than stellar. 

In the 'who's suing who?' category this week, we've got voting machine technology company Smartmatic dropping a $2.7B lawsuit on Fox News, squawkers Lou Dobbs, Maria "I used to be a respected reporter" Bartiromo, and Judge Jeanine Pirro, as well as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Like the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit (but twice as big), it's all about defamation and lies and unbridled support and promotion of twice impeached former president Donald Trump's claims about the 'stolen' 2020 election. Good week for Smartmatic, maybe, but surely not for the rest of them.

Let's see, what else... Oh, this was eye-opening, and worth giving some attention. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips took to the floor of the House to apologize to people of color - his colleagues, and everyone else - for never really having understood white privilege until the attack on the Capitol last month. I know, that sounds kind of odd, but I encourage you to spend fewer than two minutes listening to what he said, and as much time as needed to contemplate what he said, and to check your own understanding of white privilege.

Moving on to some indisputably good news, how about the ten-year-old Rhode Island boy who, with help from a friend, cleared snow off some 70 cars in the parking lot of the local hospital - because the folks who work there are helping people, so why not help them? Why not, indeed?

Or, how about the 92-year-old Vassar alum who has written her first novella? Sue (Fruchtbaum) Buyer entered college during the polio epidemic, spent her first year in quarantine, and later, after attending journalism school, spent 25 years at the Buffalo News. She started writing after giving up skiing - at age 85!

And, since it's Super Bowl Weekend, I want to leave you with a funny commercial, courtesy of T-Mobile and former-now-current teammates Rob Gronkowski and the GOAT, Tom Brady, 'explaining' how Brady (and Gronk) came to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Now, before you get all snarky with me, I'm a Joe Montana fan from way, way back and the Niners are still 'my' team. Last year, they lost to that Mahomes kid and the KC Chiefs, after being outscored 21-0 in the 4th quarter. There's no way I'm going to root for them, no matter who they were playing! 

I d0 have a soft spot for Brady - long story - and I've got to say, I'm incredibly impressed that he's going to be playing in his 10th Super Bowl, and with a whole new team. Sunday, we've got two great quarterbacks, one old enough to be the other one's dad. I'm rooting for the old guy, I am - and for a game as good as this one looks like it could be. We can talk on Monday and see if I'm smiling or not.

TGIF, everyone - hope your week was a good one!

The Irony Board: The 'Silenced' on FNC

I can't help laughing at all of the folks on the right who are up in arms about social media companies restricting their 'free speech' and complaining that they are being 'silenced' by Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and others. 

Why laugh, you ask? I only know they're complaining about being silenced because they're going on Fox News and telling everyone about it. 

For example, here's California farmer and Medal of Freedom recipient Rep. Devin Nunes, speaking on Sunday Morning Futures, hosted by Maria Bartiromo on Fox News (emphasis added).

But it's more than the just the financial aspect of that. Republicans have no way to communicate. It doesn't even matter if you're Republican or conservative, if you don't want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you get shadow-banned and nobody gets to see you and they get to decide what's violent or not violent, it's preposterous.

Yep - this is Devin 'frivolous lawsuit-filer' Nunes, the guy who sued Twitter because a parody account said mean things about him. But censorship is bad... and he gets to decide what's mean or not... Got it. 

And, the part about having no way to communicate? Saying that on a Fox News Channel (FNC) show, on not just the most-watched conservative network, but on the network that "crushed records and delivered the largest total day and primetime audience among total viewers in cable news history" in 2020, according to the Nielsen folks? Some irony there, right? 

And now, we've got this guy, Rep. Tom Kading, a state legislator from North Dakota, who is following in Nunes' footsteps. Speaking on Fox and Friends earlier today, Kading said he had drafted a bill back in December stating that

social media sites would be liable in a civil lawsuit for damages to a North Dakota resident "whose speech is restricted, censored, or suppressed," as long as it is not "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable."

And, since he introduced the bill, "things have only gotten worse," he said.

I'm frankly shocked at what's happening to our country and censoring does not create unity, it does not help the situation of division in our country, and it does not de-escalate the situation. All it really does is make those who have been silenced dig in deeper and be more suspicious of what's going on.

He's right: censoring doesn't create unity, or de-escalate the situation. Neither does tweeting relentlessly and untruthfully about a stolen election, or that the media are the enemy of the people and everything they report that is not to your liking is fake news, or that everything is beautiful and perfect when the entire universe knows it's not, or that the pandemic is under control, or that those who disagree with you is not a real American, or that people who don't do your bidding deserve to be driven out of office, and so on.  

I'd suggest that suing social media companies also doesn't create unity, or de-escalate things -and, Kading notably doesn't offer anything that does do those things. Not only that, but are social media companies or traditional media companies, including FNC in the unity-creating business anyway

Kading also talked about some other risks.

If a website comes out and selectively publishes information or manipulates true information in order to create a certain desired narrative, this restrictive action can essentially amount to defamation.

And, there's the real irony - the selective publishing, the manipulation of the truth, the defamation he mentions. 

Kading, remember, was talking on Sunday Morning Futures, just one of the FNC shows that had to run a tasty disclaimer - excuse me, a 'fact checking story,' correcting each show's lies.

In a three-minute segment aired on three shows that previously played host to some of the more zany election fraud claims coming from Trump’s advocates—Fox Business’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” and Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures” and Jeanine Pirro’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine”—Fox News appeared to retract allegations made against Smartmatic.

Dominion Voting Systems is not done yet, either; the company also warned Fox and others back in December that legal action is coming. 

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the targets of President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the election that he lost, has warned Fox News, major Fox personalities, other conservative media outlets, radio host Rush Limbaugh and conservative lawyers that defamation litigation against them is “imminent.”

The voting machine company this week has sent 21 letters to the White House, Fox News, its hosts Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, the news outlets Newsmax, One America News Network, Epoch Times and others demanding they stop making defamatory claims about Dominion and that they preserve any documents they have relating to the firm.

Want even more irony? How about a settlement with the family of someone who was disparaged on the network ?

The Fox News Channel has reached a private settlement with the parents of the slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. The network had baselessly reported in May 2017 that Rich leaked thousands of Democratic party emails to Wikileaks during the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. 

The story, reported by Fox News' Malia Zimmerman and retracted seven days later, also suggested without any evidence that Democrats might have been linked to the killing of the 27-year-old Rich, a crime that has not been solved to this day. In response to NPR's questions, a Fox News spokesperson tells NPR that Zimmerman is no longer with the network. 

"The settlement with Fox News closes another chapter in our efforts to mourn the murder of our beloved Seth, whom we miss every single day," Joel and Mary Rich wrote in their statement. "We are pleased with the settlement of this and sincerely hope that the media will take genuine caution in the future."

I don't know about you, but if I was worried about censorship and divisiveness and a lack of unity, I'd probably find a different network to help share my story than the original - and still the best - home of division and loose facts.  

Trump in Transition (v47)

If you had said to me, at any point since I started this blog in 2009, that one day I'd be talking about the president and massive dumps, I would likely have thought it was a challenge to create a steaming pile of crap, a bargeful of garbage, as it were, out of the news of the day. You know, like the MOBRO 4000, or something. 

Remember that? Back in 1987, folks out on Long Island wanted to ship a bargeful of garbage to North Carolina for disposal, thinking it a cheaper option. North Carolina didn't want it; neither did Louisiana, Texas, or Florida. Or Belize. Mexico and Cuba even threatened to shoot at the poor barge if it tried to dock. 

Finally, two months and some 6,000 miles later, the garbage came home and ended up, post-incineration, in an Islip landfill. The whole thing prompted this comment from R. Lawrence Swanson, director of the Waste Reduction and Management Institute at Stony Brook University.

I think the garbage barge is an excellent reminder of what can happen when we put the environment sort of off to the side and say, "we don't have to worry about it."

But here I am, 33 years later, remembering the MOBRO 4000, and writing about massive dumps. And I didn't even have to make these up - because yesterday the president called in to the Sunday Morning Futures show on Fox to talk with Maria Bartiromo, once a respected reporter. I'll let you decide whether this interview helps or hurts Bartiromo's reputation. Here's the first question, and the president's response. 

Mr. President, you have said many times that this election was rigged, that there was much fraud, and the facts are on your side. Let's start there. Please go through the facts. Characterize what took place.

Well, first of all, I have to start by saying the whole world is watching, and nobody can believe what they're seeing. And you have leaders of countries that call me, say, that's the most messed-up election we have ever seen. You start with these machines that have been suspect, not allowed to be used in Texas, the Dominion machines, where tremendous reports have been put out.

We have affidavits on -- from many people talking about what went on with machines. They had glitches. You know what a glitch is. That's -- a glitch is supposed to be when a machine breaks down. Well, no, we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden's account. And these are glitches. So, they're not glitches. They're theft. They're fraud, absolute fraud. And there were many of them, but, obviously, most of them tremendous amounts, got by without us catching. We got lucky to catch them. I think we caught four or five glitches of about 5,000 votes each, and different states. And, again, they're not glitches.

That was fraud. And they got caught. But, for the most part, they got away with it. And what happened, if you watched the election, I was called by the biggest people, saying, congratulations, political people. Congratulations, sir. You just won the election. It was 10:00. And you looked at the numbers. And I'm sure you felt that way. This election was over. And then they did dumps. They call them dumps, big, massive dumps, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and all over. If you take a look at -- you just take a look at just about every state that we're talking about, every swing state that we're talking about.

And they did these massive dumps of votes. And, all of a sudden, I went from winning by a lot to losing by a little. And, in some cases, it took a period of time to do it. North Carolina, they couldn't do it. I won North Carolina. They couldn't -- somehow, they had a better system. But they couldn't do anything. I believe they tried. We have affidavits. But they couldn't do anything with the -- really a great place, North Carolina. We appreciate the incredible work they put in. And we won. But they did tens of thousands of -- tens of thousands of Biden votes. And, all of a sudden, I went from -- and I could tell you, the people that were calling me congratulating me are people that you know very well, friends of your show.

They said, it's over. I said, well, I hear bad things about the machines. I hear bad things about corruption. One of your great pollsters, who actually got it right -- you know the gentleman I'm talking about -- he said, well, Trump is going to win Pennsylvania, but you have to allow at least 5 percent for cheating, because they cheat. Right. And that's in Philadelphia and various areas around Philadelphia. They cheat, and they cheat like crazy. So, we have him winning Pennsylvania, but you have to allow five points for cheating. This is a terrible thing that's happened. The mail-in ballots were -- are a disaster. They sent millions and millions and millions of mail-in ballots.

I'm sure you know people that got two, three, or four, because I do, where they said, you know, we got four ballots. They got one at a country home. Dead people were seeing ballots. But, even worse, dead people were applying to get a ballot. They were making application to get ballots, many. And, you know, we're not talking about 10 people. We're talking - there are a lot of dead people that so-called voted in this election. But dead people were, in some cases, in many, many cases, thousands of cases, voted, but also dead people made application to vote. They were dead 10 years, 15 years, and they actually made application. This is total fraud.

 And how the FBI and Department of Justice -- I don't know. Maybe they are involved. But how people are allowed to get away from this stuff -- with this stuff is unbelievable. This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud. And it continues to be, as they hide. And the problem we have, we go to judges, and people don't want to get involved.

The media doesn't even want to cover it. I mean, you're doing something. You're actually very brave, because you're doing something. The media doesn't want to talk about it. They know how fraudulent this is. It's no different than Hunter. It's no different than Hunter. They don't want to talk about Hunter, so they totally closed it off, big tech and the media, other than The New York Post, as you remember, which took a lot of heat. Yes.  It was terminated. It was terminated from – Yes. -- I guess, Twitter, maybe Facebook. But it's a situation, the likes of which -- we don't have freedom of the press in this country. We have suppression by the press. They suppress. You can't have a scandal if nobody reports about it. This is the greatest fraud in the history of our country, from an electoral standpoint.

And I guess you could build it up bigger than an electoral stand -- what's bigger from an electoral standpoint? What is bigger than this? This is the essence of our country. This is the whole ball game. And they cheated. Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes. Now, we were -- we were planning -- we -- I got 63 million votes four years ago and won quite handily in the Electoral College, won quite handily. We did very well. I got 63. We were hoping to get 68 or so. And we felt that was a path to an easy victory. I got 74 million votes – Yes. -- the largest in the history of a sitting president, so much more, many millions more than anyone thought -- you know, than we were even trying to get. And everybody said, this is over. I'm telling you, at 10:00, everybody thought it was over. Right. And then the phony -- then the phony mail-ins started coming in, Maria. But, just so you understand, I got 74 million votes. It was over. And then mail-in started happening. Yes. Glitches started happening. This election was rigged. This election is a total fraud.

Here's another exchange, late in the interview, in which Bartiromo actually tried to question the president, instead of just encouraging him. I'm guessing she was running out of time. 

Mr. President, confirm that your cases will reach the Supreme Court in the next two weeks. Confirm that for us. And, also, what do you want to say to people like -- businesspeople like, for example, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P. Morgan, who said, it's time to move on and unify and accept the results, or Stephen Schwarzman, who is a supporter of you, who said, soon, we will have to move on? And what about the ramifications of the Supreme Court agreeing with you? Are you worried that we could see riots and -- when you have people who don't agree with you, they think it's just fine to throw bricks through your window and force small businesses to board up. Are you worried about unrest and rioting should the Supreme Court agree with you?

So, the people that we have and the people that are so committed to this like I have never seen, I think almost they have more spirit now than they do even before the election. All of the people, these are not rioting types. But they are stronger. They are smarter. They are more successful. Antifa is bad news. Nobody wants to do anything with Antifa except me. If I wasn't here, Antifa would be running this country right now. They'd be running the country. They always like to blame the radical right. It's not the radical right. It's the radical left. And it's largely Antifa and groups like this. And nobody even wants to talk about them.

Nobody wants to talk about what they're doing in Portland and what they're doing in Chicago and what they're doing in New York. And they club people over the heads when nobody is looking, and then nobody talks about it. It's a disgrace. It's absolutely a disgrace. And if I'm not here -- I'm sort of your wall.

You know, we're completing the wall, like I said I would. Everyone said, you would never be able to do it. I got -- that's another one I got built. And it's had a huge impact. We have the best numbers we have ever had on the Southern border. People come in, but they come in legally. But the wall is almost complete. And, to be honest, we look, and we see all of the different problems, MS-13. We take care of it. We bring thousands of MS-13 back to where they came from. We don't want them here. We bring them back. But Antifa is a real problem in this country. And nobody wants to take them on. It's disgraceful. It's disgraceful.

Which cases specifically will reach the Supreme Court, and when? Well, the problem is, it's hard to get into the Supreme Court. I have got the best Supreme Court advocates, lawyers, that want to argue the case, if it gets there. But they said it's very hard to get a case up there. Can you imagine? Donald Trump, president of the United States, files a case, and I probably can't get a case, even with -- and we have tremendous proof.

We have hundreds and hundreds of affidavits, sworn affidavits. And it's very hard to get a case to the Supreme Court. That's what everybody is fighting for. I thought that Mike Kelly, congressman, I thought they had a great case, and it got thrown out the other day. Now, they will appeal it, I hope, to the Supreme Court. They have a great case, because the legislature didn't make the decision on this stuff. And they have a great case. But you have to appeal it. The big thing is, can you get it? We could have a great case. We do have a great case. We have the greatest case ever. We have many different forms of fraud. It's not just one form.

It's ballot fraud. It's -- it's many -- we have it all documented. And we have tremendous evidence. So, we will say, we want to show you the evidence. And then the judge will say, they didn't show us the evidence. That's what we want to do. We want to have hearings to show the evidence. The time people started seeing evidence was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, when people started showing it. You probably saw that. Great people came forward with affidavits, signed affidavits. We have hundreds of people like that, hundreds and hundreds. They make it like we don't have evidence. So -- We have evidence all over the place. But -- And, by the way, you asked about the machines, Dominion. Is there a path to victory? Yes, I hope so, for the good of the country. It will take a brave judge or a brave legislature. You know, we're -- Rudy Giuliani, he takes a lot of heat. Let me tell you, that guy is -- he has guts, because we have had lawyers that were afraid to go forward because they were threatened, viciously threatened.

They -- we have lawyers, Maria, good lawyers, that had to leave the case in the middle because they were threatened, absolutely threatened, both psychologically and otherwise. And they left the case, numerous, numerous firms, good firms doing a good job. And, all of a sudden, we end up having to scramble to get a case ready. What's going on has never -- nobody has ever seen anything like this. It will take a brave judge or justice, or both, Supreme Court justice.

Well, it sounds like, if you can't -- if -- it sounds like, if you can't be heard by the Supreme Court, you lose. Do you believe you will win this? We should be heard by the Supreme Court. Something has to be able to get up there. Otherwise, what is the Supreme Court? If election fraud at the highest level anyone has ever seen, with tremendous evidence, in a presidential election, if a man gets 80 million votes, and he's not even close to that number, Maria -- look, again, I don't want to bore you with this. He did not beat President Obama in areas where they said he beat President Obama. In fact, the black community had very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. You know that. You have been reporting on that, very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. The Hispanic community has very little enthusiasm for Joe Biden. He didn't get those numbers. And, by the way, I got the most -- I was the most successful with the Hispanic and the black communities. I was unbelievably successful. You saw that, record, record numbers. Yes. Oh, we have talked about that a lot. So, how did Joe Biden get all these votes? How did he get up to 80 million? How did he get up to 80 million votes? Yes.

In between those two exchanges, there were more dumps, massive dumps, from the president. At one point he claimed that he came up with vaccines, and that the media was going to give Joe Biden the credit. 

Honestly, that's in there, along with additional, lengthy attacks on the voting, on the media, on tech firms, and much more MOBRO 4000 type garbage, massively dumped. In my opinion, R. Lawrence Swanson's statement about the garbage barge up top, with only minor changes, can apply to our current situation.

I think the massive dumps interview is an excellent reminder of what can happen when we put the wrong person in the Oval Office, and leave him sort of out there and say, "we don't have to worry about him."

I sure hope we've learned our lesson, and that we never park a MOBRO 4000 on Pennsylvania Avenue again.

Sunday School 10/22/17

I took a stroll over to the middle school complex today, to check in with Maria Bartiromo, who had an exclusive sit down with president Trump which was broadcast today on Sunday Morning Futures. Here are some highlights.

First, they chatted about the chances of getting tax reform; here's Trump's take on things:

We’re doing very well, we had a fantastic vote as you know and with the budget, is, indirectly passed, it’s going to go through a little bit of an iteration but I think it’s going to end up I think again doing very well and I think we’re going to get our taxes, I think it’s going to be well, hopefully, before the end of the year but maybe much sooner than that.

You know there’s a great spirit for it, people want to see it, and I call it tax cuts it is tax reform also but I call it tax cuts, it’ll be the biggest cuts ever in the history of this country and I think that this tremendous appetite, this tremendous spirit for it not only by the people we’re dealing with in Congress but for the people out there that want to see something $5000, it can be $5000 average per individual, per group, and so I’m really looking forward to it, let’s see what happens.

Bartiromo noted that today is the 31st anniversary of the Reagan tax reforms, which as we've been told was the last time we had anything of this magnitude coming forward. And, she wondered if Trump had the votes.

I think we have the votes, I think that Rand Paul actually is going to vote for the tax cuts. I think that other people – you know, we had tremendous enthusiasm this time, you know health care I was told was tougher, but it was close. I mean so far I would say it’s not even a contest and I will tell you, speaking of health care, I believe we’re going to get that also. It’ll be in the form of block grants to the different states and it’ll be a wonderful healthcare, it’ll be a tremendous health care managed properly in smaller doses where you can really do it much more individually so I think we’re going to get that also in a little bit later probably in three or four months from now but I do believe we’ll have that long before the election in ’18. As far as taxes are concerned you see what’s happening it’s really doing well, great enthusiasm. 

Recognizing that Trump had favored, then opposed, then favored and finally opposed again the Alexander/Murray bipartisan effort on healthcare, Bartiromo asked him about his 'souring' on that.

Well, I’ve looked at it very very strongly and pretty much we can do almost what they’re getting. I think he’s a tremendous person, I don’t know Senator Murray, I hear very very good things but I know that Lamar Alexander is a fine man and he is really indebted to do good for the people. We can do pretty much what we have to do without, you know, the secretary has tremendous leeway in the, under the Obama plans, that’s one of the things that they did because it was so messed up they had no choice but to give the secretary leeway because they knew it had to be he or she would have to be changing all the time and we can pretty much do whatever we have to do just the way it is so, uh, this was going to be temporary prior to repeal and replace, we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare and I think we actually have the votes.People are criticizing me for saying that I think we actually have the votes for that, you know we were basically one short and I think we’re gonna have the votes for that also Maria.

As to his petty squabbles with everyone, noting that his supporters feel the "bickering and the feuding" get in the way. She asked if she thought that was the case.

Here's what the Arguer-in-Chief had to say about that.

No and sometimes it helps to be honest with you so we’ll see what happens in the end but I think that actually sometimes it helps, sometimes it gets people to do what they’re supposed to be doing and, you know, that’s the way it is. I just want what’s right and for the most part they want what’s right too so we’ll see what happens but I do believe we have the votes for healthcare at the appropriate time and I think that we’re going to have the votes for taxes and I will say the fact that healthcare is so difficult makes the taxes easier and the Republicans want to get it done and it’s a tremendous tax cut I mean especially for the middle class and especially for business. We have, you know we’re losing our companies we have companies leaving and I have to say since I’ve been elected that’s really stopped that’s really slowed down. There’s a tremendous enthusiasm for business in this country so a lot of things have changed.

Bartiromo came dangerously close to declaring a war on Christmas - she nearly did.

She asked Trump whether, if Congress doesn't get the tax thing done, "should they forgo Thanksgiving and Christmas, should they be here if they don't have a bill on your desk by Thanksgiving?"

Well I think they should have and I think they will, I think a lot of things are happening unless you know it’s going to be right after that but I don’t even like them leaving but I will say this, I want to get it by the end of the year but I would be very disappointed if it took that long. It could be substantially less than that depending on what happens when we send the bill back to the House, you know they’ll send it back and people are gonna go and make 200 suggestions as opposed to maybe no suggestions because it’s a great bill, it’s going to be a great bill and we’re adjusting, we’re adjusting so that there’s no way that the middle class doesn’t greatly benefit. Every once in a while there’s a method under which, you know it could be that there are some people in the middle class won’t benefit as much as we want them to benefit and we’re making certain adjustments but I think we’re going to have it sooner rather than later.

After talking about a Paul Ryan interview in which Ryan said Trump was looking for a "fourth bracket" Trump pointed out there are already four brackets, it's just that no one will talk about it.

Well he really said that on the basis that I wanted it or was thinking about it because I wanted to make sure that the middle class gets taken care of so in that way yes, but actually we do have four brackets because we have a zero bracket and people aren’t including that so actually it would make it a fifth bracket as opposed to an eighth bracket on the - on the other side, on the other way I call it our competition which is the competition of the past No I think that, I think that when Paul says that we may not have that but I would rather do that than do anything to hurt the middle class.

The last question in this part of the interview had to do with Trump's fear of cutting taxes for the rich. She asked, "If the top earners pay 80% of the taxes, why are you so afraid to cut taxes on the top earners?" Trump's answer was, well, classic Trump.

I think this, look, you know I’m very happy with the way I’ve done prior to this in my civilian life, other people... look, it’s about me and representing rich people, let’s say, you know, representing, being representative of rich people. It’s very interesting to me, you know Bob Kraft was down, he was very nice, you know, he owns the Patriots, he gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago which was very nice…he left this beautiful ring and I immediately give it to the White House and they put it someplace and that’s the way this, but he said to me, he’s a good man, he said to me, 'you have to do us all a favor, give the tax decrease to the middle class, we don’t need it, we don’t need it, we don’t want it, give it to the middle class'. And I’ve had many people, very wealthy people tell me the same thing. I’ve had very few people say “I want more, I want more” they really want to, see, you know the middle class has really not done very well over the last long period of time and so when Paul mentions maybe one more category which I’d rather not have, it may not happen but the only reason I would have and he does say this he’s very plain nobody said, if for any reason I feel the middle class is not being properly taken care of. 

The interview continued, but I'll be honest, I haven't finished watching it. It was challenging enough to transcribe the part I did. But I promise, I will give it a shot, and will let you know what he said about corporate taxes, if nothing else.

See you around campus.