Ben Shapiro’s “Truth” Speech, Stefanik Drops Out, Romney Says Tax the Rich, “Trump Kennedy Center”

Foreign. This week, Turning Point USA held a conference in the United States where the leading luminaries of the conservative right, the Republican right, the MAGA community, got together, had speeches and exchanged ideas. If you are going to truly understand American politics today, I believe you have to seek out the the leading lights of the right, the center, the left truly understand because so often their ideals filter down into every other aspect of news coverage, political discussion, your local talk radio shows. So I want to dive into one speech in particular by Ben Shapiro. He is one of the top, if not the top, conservative podcasters. He is an extraordinarily respected media mogul in his own right. His daily wire puts out movies and news services and numerous podcasts. He's wildly influential and he had some things to say that were beyond what you would normally expect at a conservative rally. Now, I'm here today not as a conservative, not as an MSNBC spokesperson or as a Democrat, but as a sane, sensible centrist. As someone who's trying to discern what's really going on in the world, I try to truly understand who are the leading voices? What are they saying? Does it make sense to you? What can you learn from them? And where are the flaws in their reasoning? So let's take a look at some of the more interesting elements in Ben Shapiro's presentation to the Turning Point USA conference.

But today I want to talk about something even more important. How to discern those attempting to speak truth from frauds and grifters.

He is a very forceful speaker, extraordinarily young man. I mean, he graduated from Harvard Law School when he was basically a teenager. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. He is by all accounts someone who has true intellectual firepower to his arguments, does a daily podcast, but does so much more, has had a dozen or so best selling books. So regardless of whether you like him or not, he is extraordinarily influential within the conservative movement. Let's listen to his sense of what's going on with truth in America.

Because something is new. An informational environment rife with both opportunity and chaos. Opportunity because the legacy media gatekeepers are no longer in charge of what we see and what we hear. And chaos because an anarchic informational environment means we actually have to be smart in how we assess the information and arguments that we.

By the way, from a pure presentation skills perspective, he's obviously a very good speaker. He's doing something that's quite difficult. He is reading his speech. He does not appear to be using a teleprompter. He's using paper. But as someone who has been in this game now for half of his Life, more than 15 years, he is extraordinarily comfortable and skilled in front of a crowd, in this case a very large crowd, and working from notes, he doesn't fall into the normal pitfalls that many people do by becoming wooden, stiff, frozen, head down. He really uses his notes in a smart way that we hear.

Why does that matter? Well, because today the conservative movement is in serious danger. It is.

Okay, here's where it gets interesting. Normally, if you look at a CPAC convention or Republican convention, major conventions, you already know everything that's going to be said. You have one side and same is true of the Democratic Party. You have one side saying every problem in the world is because of guys on the other side of the who are so awful they are destroying humanity. That's not what Ben Shapiro talked about this week at the conference. He instead focused his fire on fellow conservatives.

It is in danger not just from a left that all too frequently excuses everything up to and including murder. The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty, who offer.

So this is interesting. He he's calling out fellow conservatives for being charlatans and being dishonest, who offer.

Nothing but bile and despair, who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing enervation and grievance.

These people are for all so championing grievance. Now, we've long heard from conservatives that the Democratic Party is just about helping people feel sorry for themselves and be filled with grievance. He's turning the tables. He is in fact saying what a lot of liberal commentators, left of center commentators have said, which is the modern Republican Party is nothing but a grievance convention.

Who are frauds. They are grifters and they do not deserve your time.

They are frauds. They are grifters. Then this is harsh rhetoric. We're used to hearing people on MSNBC talk about how Steve Bannon, others on the writer grifters. Here's someone who is not only a member in good standing of the conservative political establishment, he's really the kingpin of the media establishment. As I mentioned, he has a top rated podcast which I find myself listening to daily, believe it or not. And I would rec if you're going to try to get one sense of what conservatives are thinking in America today, I would recommend his podcast.

Let's listen more and they are something worse than that. A danger to the only movement capable of stopping the left from. From wrecking the country wholesale. So today I want to discuss five obligations that people who speak to you on matters of importance have to you. I want to speak to you about our duties. Our first duty is truth. We owe you the truth. That means we should not mislead you. It means we shouldn't hide the ball. We shouldn't be deliberately obscure about what we're telling you.

So so far he's being somewhat generic and abstract abstractions like truth, fraud. But he starts naming names and it's about to get interesting.

We have an obligation to clarity and to honesty. This means that we actually have to be clear in the language that we use. We should not traffic in generality. We should not say things like they shot Charlie without specifying whom we mean by that.

Okay, so now he's getting to the meat of a conspiracy theory that has really created turmoil among the right. Because Charlie Kirk was famously on live stream, murdered, assassinated. There are some on the right who say that's not really what happened. It was somehow some vast conspiracy. Believe it or not, if you hadn't heard that, it means you're not living in the fever swamps of right wing media. But it has been a big thing and Ben Shapiro addresses it now.

The person who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk and whom all the evidence points at, all of it is a gay, trans, loving, furry. If we are going to target ideological movements, we should talk about the fact that the radical trans movement treats all those who oppose it as existential threats. Or if we're going to talk about the Democratic Party making room for the radical trans movement and echoing its inflammatory.

So here he's doing some of the obligatory. He has to prove his bona fides in front of this audience and seem legitimate. So he does do some sort of standard boilerplate attacks on the so called left. But bear with me, it gets interesting rhetoric.

Well, we should talk about that. Those are specific problems and they require specific responses. When people say they shot Charlie, however, they are instead trafficking in vagary that results in increased hatred without proposing any effective response. They are fostering despair and rage and that makes things worse. We must also be honest about what people say and do, regardless of what that means. Coalitionally, it is the job of politicians to build coalitions. It's the job of those of us who try to shape public opinion, to hold politicians to account and to hold them.

And I think you could see whether you agree with him or not, he's extraordinarily articulate, comes across as forceful, confident and knowledgeable.

Hold them accountable to our values. We must not let fear of audience deter us from telling the truth. We must not let fear of other hosts deter us from telling the truth.

Okay, here's where he gets interesting. He starts attacking other hosts, which is usually not done on any side of the political spectrum.

So for example, if Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk.

So this is pretty fearless. Candace Owens is very popular among a lot of people in the Turning Point community and he's now attacking her.

So if Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions at TP USA and the people who work here who worked with Charlie every single day, his best friends to cast aspersions at Mikey McCoy and Andrew Colvin and Blake Neff and Tyler Boyer and yes, at Erica Kirk and to imply or outright claim complicity in a cover up over Charlie's murder, to spew absolutely baseless trash implicating everyone from French intelligence to Mossad to members of TPUSA in Charlie's murder or a cover up in that murder, then we as people with a microphone have a moral obligation to call that out by name.

So that's very forceful and that's rare among the conservative commentariat. They tend to to band together and focus all of their attacks on the left, so to speak. Here he is attacking Candace. And by the way, yes, what he's saying is accurate. Every single day since the murder of Charlie Kirk, she has implied there's all sorts of conspiracies among her own, his own followers to have him murdered. Absolute nonsense. And yet she has, according to some ranking services, the number two most listened podcast in America.

Erica Kirk and tpusa never, never should have put in, never should have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against such specious and evil attacks, particularly in a time of mourning.

So calling a fell out a fellow conservative podcaster as specious and evil, very forceful language.

And the people who refuse to condemn Candace's truly vicious attacks, and some of them are speaking here, are guilty of cowardice.

Yes, calling his fellow conservatives cowards and he starts to name more names. One thing you can say about Ben Shapiro, most of the time there is one big exception, one big orange exception where I believe he is cowardly, but he is among his tribe of conservative commentators, utterly fearless compared to the rest, cowardice.

The fact that they have said nothing while Candace has been vomiting all sorts of hideous and conspiratorial nonsense into the.

Public vomiting hideous and conspiratorial nonsense. He does have a great gift of language and has just a prolific vocabulary. Again, regardless of whether you agree with him, it is sort of music to the ears and to English lovers. To hear him speak to the public.

Square for years is just as cowardly. Second, because we owe you the truth. We owe you the duty to speak out of principle, not personal feeling. It should not matter whether we despise someone or whether we love someone. The question is what they say and what they do and whether those things are morally decent or not. On a political level, do they foster freedom, justice and prosperity? On a personal level, do they treat others as they would wish to be treated? Personal feeling is not a substitute for moral judgment. To take again, the Candace Owens situation as an example, friendship with public figures who say or do evil things is not an excuse for silence on the matter. Politics is not the sisterhood of the traveling pants. Politics is about principle. And if you are willing to sacrifice basic truth and simple principle in favor of emotional solidarity, you have betrayed your fundamental duty to the American people.

Grand Canyon okay, so a lot of fascinating stuff here. He, in a moment is going to specifically go after Tucker Carlson, who is currently, depending on what rating service you look at, the kingpin, the number one conservative voice in America, even to the point where some are anticipating he could be the next GOP nominee for president.

Our best friends, our very best friends. That does not relieve us of our duty to speak out of principle and and not to cover up evil or shy away from addressing it out of friendship.

Okay? That's the abstract principle. Most people would say, okay, that makes sense. But now he gets specific.

So no, Tucker Carlson, it is not an excuse to go silent on Candace's targeting of TP usa.

So this is bold and brave. Very few conservatives, virtually no Republican politicians are willing to criticize Tucker Carlson by name. Here's Ben Shapiro doing it.

Or to mirror her bull lines of questioning because you love Candace personally. The same holds true of Megyn Kelly, a person I consider a friend. Characterizing Candace as a young mother and thus shying away from condemning her actions or filming me about them. That is a non starter. Meghan Markle is a young mother. Ilhan Omar is a young mother. That doesn't matter. And when Megan said this again, he.

Is applying a level of intellectual honesty here that's rare in public life. He's not letting his friends, his ideological allies, get away with refusing to criticize someone by using sort of BS Things like comments. Oh well, they're just a mother. His point is absolutely right. There's all sorts of people who are mothers and, and you criticize them for their policies and their votes and their politics on a daily basis.

So be consistent this week, quote, my goal and my job here is to try to understand. Yes. Where Candace is coming from on this and says she sees no purpose in inserting herself quote into this. On one side that is a moral and logical absurdity. There is only one moral side here. Erica Kirk's side. You know, the side of the widow with two children whose husband was shot live on camera in front of all of us. Friendship with the person accusing TP USA of a cover up of Charlie's murder is no excuse for cowardice. Third, and relatedly, we have a duty to take responsibility for what we say and do. If we hire awful people, we're responsible for that. I have some experience there, as you might suspect. That means that if we.

What he's alluding to there is all of these people at some point have worked for each other. They've all cross pollinated, they've all done shows with each other.

If we offer a guest for your viewing, we owe it to you to ask the kinds of questions that actually get at the truth. If we agree with the guest, that's fine, but we should own it. So for example, if you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi loving anti American piece of refuge like Nick Fuentes.

Very, very powerful. Nick Fuentes we've talked about on this show before is a rising voice among Republicans. Reputedly is a favorite among Capitol Hill Republican staffers. Also a well known anti Semite but has received favorable treatment from conservative podcasters like Tucker Carlson. Ben Shapiro is having none of it. Listen to what he says.

You know the Nick Fuentes who said that the Vice President of the United States is a quote, fat gay race trader married to a jeet. The person who said that Charlie Kirk was a quote retarded idiot. The person who said, and pardon my language here, it's his quote that he quote took Turning Point USA and it. And that's why it's filled with gripers. If you have that person on your show and you proceed to glaze him, you ought to own it.

You can tell he's quite angry and quite passionate here and very sincere. And if you're not familiar with him, if you're trying to look at the screen, in fact, yes, he is wearing an a yarmulke. He is an orthodox Jew.

There is a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes and indeed even chided Dinesh d' Souza for debating him. He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up.

Is an act of so calling Nick Fuentes an evil troll. Again, that's commonplace among centrists, among liberals, among progressives, among the Ms. Now crowd. It's not so common among conservative podcasters. That's what makes it interesting.

Act of moral imbecility. And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson.

And I cut it off there. But he said this is moral imbecility. Again, his command of the English language is a beautiful thing, regardless of whether you agree with his principles or not.

Did he built Nick Fuentes up and he ought to take responsibility for that, just as he ought to take responsibility for glazing pornographer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate or for mainstreaming fake historian and pseudo Nazi apologist Daryl Cooper as America's best and most honest as popular historian, hosts are indeed responsible for the guests they choose and the questions they ask.

So he's covering a lot of ground here. He's covering a lot of people by name. And it is a scorched earth path.

Those guests. Fourth, because we have a duty to truly truth, we also have a duty to provide you with evidence of the claims that we make. Emotive accusations, conspiracy theories, and just asking questions. That's lazy and stupid and misleading.

He's, he's repeatedly talked about this, just asking questions. What he's referencing there is it's very popular among conservative podcasters to ask all sorts of wild conspiracy theory premise questions and plant seeds of demagogic nonsense into the public sphere of conversation. And to just have a cover of oh, I'm just asking questions. He's calling that out in an interesting argument.

Listen, none of them are a substitute for truth. None of them are a substitute for evidence. So when Candace Owens says, I don't know, no, but I know that is retarded, and we are all more retarded for having heard it. When Steve Bannon, for example, accuses his foreign policy opponents of loyalty to a foreign country, he's not actually making an argument based in evidence. He's simply maligning people that he disagrees with. Which is indeed par for the course from a man who has once a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.

Well, now, that is an extraordinarily powerful takedown of Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon, the bane of Saturday Night Live and liberals and Democrats, progressives everywhere, they've been calling Steve Bannon a grifter for a long time. But here's someone deep in the bowels of the conservative movement flat out calling Steve Bannon a grifter, reminding everybody that he was, in fact, a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein, which nobody seems to care about or ever remember. Okay, what are we to make of this? I'd recommend you look at the entire speech and you may say, well, T.J. i've got better things to do than listen to conservative commentators. Okay. But if you were only to listen to one in the next year to get a sense of kind of their disarray and the different divisions, this would be a good one to do it. All right. I do think on the, on the scale of conservative commentators, Ben Shapiro is much, much more intellectually honest than any other conservative commentator. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Here's what I've noticed listening to his show daily for about the last 10 days is he will start off a news segment and play some clip of President Trump or a supporter of President Trump, and he'll say something to the effect of, well, he's not wrong about such and such, however. And then he'll spend the next half hour ripping apart the particular policy that Trump has endorsed, never once mentioning Trump. It. I do find it a bit rich and a bit thick that Ben Shapiro talks so much about honesty, intellectually, honesty, when I do find him in one major area. But it's something that dominates every single show throughout thread of every show. I find him profoundly, intellectually dishonest. And it's the following. I am 100% certain that if you injected Ben Shapiro with sodium pentathol or any other drug that can make someone speak the truth, he would say, of course I can't stand Donald Trump. Of course he's not a conservative. Of course he's an anathema to America. Of course he's anathema to every conservative value I hold dear. Now, why am I saying that? Am I a mind reader? No, I actually listen to what he says on a daily basis on his show on issue after issue after issue. He'll say, you know, it's not wrong when President Trump says other countries have taken advantage of us. And then he'll spend 20 minutes talking about how the tariffs are the worst policy ever. It's big government, it's socialism, it's tax raising, it's destroying alliances. He'll do it again and again and again. He'll say, you know, it's not wrong that when President Trump says some in Hollywood are deranged against him. And then he'll spend 30 minutes talking about how a statement somehow put out by Trump, almost as if he had nothing to do with it, is vile and despicable. Attacking Rob Reiner. Now, he was a little more forceful in attacking Trump, but most of the time, whether it's on taxes, whether it's the government taking over, socializing industries partially by taking stakes in intel, Ben Shapiro makes a principled, intellectually honest case as to why that is incompatible with conservative principles, American principles, free market principles. But he's never intellectually honest enough to connect the dots and say it's Trump pushing it. He makes it sound like Trump is this, you know, this unwitting victim to evil forces. Well, no, it's Trump doing it. He likes to talk about how, you know, there's a loss of traditional values in America, how people have become uncivilized. And yet again and again and again, Trump says wildly obnoxious, racist, sexist, nasty, vile things. And for the most part, he gets a free pass from Ben Shapiro. That's what I find intellectually dishonest. Now, I've made out the point. As a sane, sensible centrist, I'm not coming from the same perspective as Ben Shapiro, but I've certainly made the case that if you oppose socialism, you have to oppose socialism. The Trump administration, he has socialized companies like Intel, US Steel. He is in favor of big government overreach, of putting tariffs all over the world. There's so many things he's done to inject socialistic principles into our economy, and yet he's not called out on it in a way that a Democrat would be. He has consistently trampled the division of powers in our country, the separation of powers. He's, he's, he's continually taking powers of taxation, of tariffs, of spending, and just ignoring 250 years of precedent in this country. Here's what I do think. If President Trump simply had a D next to his name rather than an R, if instead of maga, he was mala make America liberal again and did everything 100% the same as he's been doing, I have no doubt that Ben Shapiro would be denouncing him viciously every single day of his presidency and calling for his impeachment and conviction at absolutely no doubt. But Ben Shapiro does have a principle that's higher than truth, and it's called money. Being successful, being profitable. He knows his audience, he knows his audience loves Trump, and he's therefore afraid to connect two and two, put it together and spell out to people, this guy's not a conservative. He's not a traditional values guy. He's not a free markets guy. He is, in fact, the very enemy you have warned against for the last 50 years in America. And he's destroying what has, in fact, made America great. But he's too cowardly to say that. So, again, fascinating character, wildly successful media entrepreneur, more intellectually honest than any any other conservative commentator out there. But the big picture, he's lying to you because he's somehow suggesting that all of these principles and policies that he doesn't support somehow shouldn't be pinned on Trump. And therefore Trump still deserves your support. He goes out of his way to talk about how he supports Trump. Why? Why would you support someone when you oppose virtually every single policy they are promoting? In political news, New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has announced she's not running for the governor of New York. This is big news. She had announced earlier this year that she would not be running for reelection, that she was running for governor. Many people thought she would be an extraordinarily serious candidate. High name ID was seen as a close ally of President Trump. She stood up for him at a time when a lot of Republican members of Congress really shied away because she was seen as a more traditional, moderate Republican. People like her in the House early on really kept their distance from Trump. She was Harvard educated. She was the youngest woman to be represented in Congress, to represent people in Congress when she was elected more than a decade ago. She's only 41 now. Now, she's been on an interesting journey in the last few years. She was briefly placed in a leadership position in the House under Mike Johnson. Doesn't really work too well for women in leadership positions. Working with Mike Johnson, he is of the conservative Christian belief that women need to be seen and not heard for the most part. So some bristling there. Now. Briefly, she was announced she was going to be the UN Ambassador for President Trump. Now, this is considered a very high profile position. You're in New York, you're in the media constantly. You're defending the interest of the nation against other spokespersons, diplomats in the United Nations. Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan got his start in politics as the UN Ambassador, and that was a springboard to becoming a senator for New York. So it was a high profile position. And at the last second, Trump said, I don't think so because we need your House seat and it seems like we could lose that House seat. So he sort of jerked that away from her. Then, by all accounts, she received a lot of encouragement to run for governor. She's high profile, she is reputable with funders. She could have raised a lot of money and everything. Looked on track to go after the incumbent Democratic Governor Hochul here in New York, and that was looking pretty good. Next thing you know, there's another Republican who's popped up who is going to run for the Republican nomination as well. His name is Bruce Blakeman. He's a Nassau county executive. Those of you not familiar, that's a part of Long Island. It's adjacent to New York City. And I'm sure she was thinking, well, I was. I was for Trump before anyone else was. I've stood by him, I've campaigned for him. I've taken a lot of hits throughout my career for Donald Trump. I gracefully bowed out of the bid for United nations representative without complaining. I know Trump's going to be with me. Surely I'm. I've always been there for him. He's going to be here for me. And wouldn't you know, Trump is all of a sudden say, oh, I like both these candidates. They're both nice, you know, kind of hard to tell. So she sees the writing on the wall. She's saying she cannot. And she's not the first one to realize this. She has figured out she can't count on Trump for anything. Trump is for Trump only when it's for Trump. He's only for himself, not for anyone else. She's learned that, and she came to the conclusion, like, you know, I could spend a fortune, kill myself just to get the nomination, have spent so much money, be bloodied up and not win. Because New York is still a Democratic state. It's very hard for Republicans. Not impossible. We've had Republican governors like George Pataki, but it's pretty hard absent bizarre situations. For Republican to win the governorship, everything would need to be in alignment. She would need to have had the, the path cleared to win the party nomination. She would have needed a lot of strong support from Trump right away. She would have needed his funders right away. And she concluded that's not happening. So she said, you know what? I don't need this. Not only is she not going to be the UN Ambassador, not only is she not going to run for governor, she's not even going to run for reelection. Now, I couldn't have hurt or couldn't have helped her calculations to possibly run. When looking at the most recent polls by Siena University showing that she trailed by 19 points against the current incumbent Democratic governor, it's one thing to be down by 19 points if you're completely unknown. No name ID, but she has high name ID. She's been in the public eye for a long time. Many people have strong views of her and I think she's kind of putting her finger in the window, realizing, hey, I've had a great political career. I've been around. I was the youngest woman elected to Congress. I've served in a leadership position. I have been in the spotlight. I think she's figuring out rather than go down in flames, maybe it's time to cash in. Because she's famous enough to probably get a gig on Fox News, start a podcast, book deals, speaking gigs. And she's still a young woman. She's 41. She could spend the next 10 years building up a net worth of $50 million or so and then run for the Senate or governor. So she's clearly someone hardworking, ambitious, and she can read the public, she can read the mood of the times. She's a bit of a shape shifter, but let's face it, that can help you in politics. I don't think we've heard the last of her, but I do think she's ready to sit out for a while. And she's not the only one. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene is flat out resigning from Congress. More and more Republicans they're whispering about, maybe the gig is up, maybe the jig is up, maybe it's time to step back into private life because people are tiring of this current administration and everything associated with it. It may turn into a real bloodbath for Republicans in 2026. Mitt Romney in the news, the former US senator, former governor, former Republican nominee, president, has written an op ed for the New York Times entitled Mitt Romney Tax the Rich Like Me. He does talk about back in 2012, he was not in favor of certain tax proposals because he was a politician back then. He did not want to to raise certain taxes because he thought it wasn't politically prudent. But now, now that he's out of office, he is apparently seen the light. He thinks we need to have higher taxes. He points out Democrats are always talking about higher taxes. Republicans want lower spending, but the national debt is getting bigger and we're at the point where Social Security is going to run out of money. Now he suggests that we need means testing. And the problem with means testing, of course, is once you do that, then you lose political support for something. If everybody gets it, then it's not seen as welfare for those people. And if everyone gets it, then there's support. Even people who don't care that much about Social Security if they're wealthy and it's not a significant part of their income, typically don't go around saying, I want to vote for politicians against Social Security. Same with Medicare, because let's face it, many, many affluent Americans, once they're 65, really come to rely on Medicare. So he points out that he long opposed increasing the income level on FICA employment taxes. Right now you pay about 12% of your income to Social Security taxes, but that stops at $176,000 a year. Now Mitt Romney's changed his mind. He says that because of the fiscal cliff we're about to go out go over, which according to federal statistics from the government, the Social Security Agency is basically going to run out of money in 2034. Mitt Romney is saying, okay, maybe we have to tax higher. I've long been an advocate of that. Why should someone who makes $176,000 a year pay 12% of that, but someone who makes $10 million a year pays almost nothing in terms of percentages to their Social Security tax? Now no politician wants to say, vote for me, I'm going to raise your taxes. I've long thought it was politically stupid of the Democrats and for that matter Republicans too, not to say the following. I'm in favor of lowering having a lower flat tax for Social Security. You could simply lower the tax from 12% to 11% but eliminate the cap. So we would bring in trillions of dollars more over a 10 year period. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if you were to simply keep the Social Security tax at its current level but eliminate the cap, you'd bring in an extra $3 trillion to the United States treasury over the next 10 years. That might not solve all the problems but of Social Security, but it would, it would go a long, long way. Now Mitt Romney, to his credit, also points out that we shouldn't really differentiate between capital gains and regular income. He's also not a fan of the the tax code having the step up basis. And it gives a perfect example of how Elon Musk can buy something for a billion dollars and sell it for or it becomes worth 500 billion and no one pays taxes on the 499 billion in capital gain if it goes to his kids. He says that that really makes absolute no sense. There's all sorts of gimmickry in our tax code that encourages people to shovel money into real estate, not because they really want to build a building or an apartment, and certainly we need more affordable housing. But it's encouraging them to do all sorts of things. 1031 exchanges and others to dodge taxes. And let's face it, if you, if you have friends in the real estate business, give them a cocktail at the next party and ask them what percentage of their income to the bay in taxes, they'll laugh at you. They'll say, taxes? I'm in real estate. Are you crazy? People often go into the real estate business because it's a fantastic way of never paying taxes. So Mitt Romney, I give him credit, but I just wish he had done this when he actually had power. Now he's in retirement. He's at his mansions in New England, he's at his mansions in Utah. He's enjoying time with the grandkids and he deserves that. Good for him. He's enjoying the fruits of his labor, which according to some estimates are half a billion dollars. And now, now he's in favor of closing loopholes for the wealthy, specifically the, the tax rate on carried interest and charity limits on the largest estates. He thinks that's, that's a bit of nonsense. He's absolutely right. The problem, of course, is it's complicated and the people who care about it are really rich and they're willing to fund your opponent. And the people who in general think it's a good idea don't make much money, don't think about it very often. So politically, it's extraordinarily difficult to raise taxes on the wealthy. And for every Mitt Romney you have, and every Warren Buffett who's magnanimous and trying to think about society, you have the Koch brothers, you have Elon Musk, you have others who are thinking about just me, me, me, me. If it doesn't give me more money, then it's awful. Evil socialism. Let's take a look deeper into the tax history in the United States. Many people will be shocked by when I say this, but in 1944, the top income tax rate in America was 94%. It went up, it stayed above 90% to 1963. Then, famously, John F. Kennedy had his tax cut, which Republicans always love to talk about as well. It worked for John F. Kennedy, it can work for us. Yeah, he was cutting it from 90% down to 60% or so. So nobody's really in favor of going back that high. Today's top federal rate is about 37%. Our deficit for 2025 is predicted to be $1.78 trillion. US paid $970 billion in interest in 2025. All these interest cost a pretty significant 3.2% of gross domestic product predicted for 2026. The top 1% in America received 1/5 of all income in 22. We are, in fact becoming a less equal society. Whether that's because of the Internet, from AI globalization, there are a lot of different reasons. Does it mean government policy isn't a part of that, or it couldn't be a part of the solution? So I'm glad to see Mitt Romney talking honestly about some of these issues. Sadly, when it comes to Republicans who control the United States Senate or the United States House, or for that matter, the White House, I can't imagine. I can't even think of a single Republican less influential than Mitt Romney today. Okay, it's happening. There is in fact no longer a Kennedy center in Washington, D.C. no, that's gone. It's now the Trump Kennedy Center. Believe it or not, this happened quickly. On Friday, Trump's name was added right there on the marble. It's now the Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial center for the Performing Arts. Folks, this is really getting out of hand. You know, the John F. Kennedy center for Performing Arts was built as a memorial to the 35th president who was assassinated in 1963. Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought memorials were usually after you were dead. President Trump, and I'm not wishing any ill on him or any other political figure, to my knowledge, is not dead. So the time for memorials is after you've passed away, after time for people to reflect on what you're about, what you stood for. John F. Kennedy was known as someone who had a real passion for the arts, an interest for the arts, cultivated the arts during his tenure as president, not just as someone who brought Kid Rock to the White House or the Incredible Hulk. So on Friday morning, the workers began hauling up large letters spelling out Mr. Trump's full name and adding it to the white marble facade of the building. Now, Trump was able to do this, of course, because he picked handpicked the members of the board of trustees. They got together in Palm beach and voted to rename it. Now, members of the Kennedy family are obviously pretty outraged by this. Beyond that, there's the unmitigated goal where Trump is gaslighting you and me. Here's what he said Thursday. He said he was, quote, surprised and honored that the center's board, where he's the chairman, had thought to do this for him. Almost as if it were Just coming out of the blue. Now, the New York Times has reported this, but it's been reported everywhere. To act surprised when everybody knew it was his idea. Why is this so bad? You could say, well, T.J. he's got his own style. And you know, some people don't like Kennedy. He was seen as a big Democrat. Why does he get it, okay, Kennedy didn't do it for himself. It was done many years later. And the fact that this was done so quickly, the board votes one day, the next day the name has changed. That's a, that seems a little too cute. It sidestepped all the normal legal channels. This typically is something that comes from Congress. Once again, Trump shows he has absolute contempt for Congress, even though he controls the Congress. The board has vast conflicts of interest problems, especially when he names himself the chairman. It blurs the line between a national cultural institution and a personal brand. The Kennedy center is not a private building with naming rights. He's turning everything into a cheesy casino. I mean, I hope the Kennedy center doesn't go bankrupt because Donald Trump's daddy's not around to bail him out anymore. This is a precedent center. So if, if every president can come in and put their name on everything, then what's to stop other presidents from doing this for every library, every museum, every research center? So again, it was supposed to be a memorial, not a co branding opportunity. It's institutionally corrosive what's happening here. Cultural spaces are supposed to be a place of neutrality, artists, donors coming together. Nobody feels neutral about anything when the name Trump is bandied about and he's still alive. And again, I'm not wishing him ill will, but if he truly were some great patron of the arts, people would legitimately believe that and feel that cross parties, and they could have maybe added his name 50 years from now or at some point. This is really inviting a tug of war so every, every new president of a different party can come in and scrape all the names off of the, of the previous administration. This undermines the philanthropy and trust among donors. A lot of people across the political spectrum have donated to the Kennedy center who are not going to donate anymore. They're going to be. I'm not giving anything that glorifies this goon, this thug, this mob leader. This would be dictator Donald Trump. They're just not going to do it. So it's really going to harm the finances of this center. It's politicizing art. Yeah, I understand John F. Kennedy had politics, but he's been gone a Long time dead. A long time. No one goes to perform at the Kennedy center thinking they are endorsing the Bay of Pigs fiasco or any other policy of the Kennedy administration. This harms the United States reputation internationally because, frankly, it makes us look like a banana republic, like an African dictatorship, like a Third world dictatorship. It really makes us look cheesy and sleazy, and it looks like we're in on this whole cult of personality. It's bad governance practice. Let's look at some other places that do that and just ask ourselves, is this who we want to identify with? Turkmenistan? You probably haven't been there on vacation. I haven't either. But there the. The great leader there who came to power, he renamed months, he renamed January after himself, he renamed the month of April after his mother, and he plastered his name and imagery on civic life. So if you think Turkmenistan is a good role model for the United States, you should by all means endorse the Trump Kennedy Center. Let's look at North Korea, the Kim Dynasty, portraits, monuments everywhere, fusing the concept of the country, the nation, and Dear Leader. We're not that far away from that. Let's head on over to Africa. Another dictator there in Zaire, Mobutu Siko, named the country and cities and built a personality cult around his personal image and authority. Let's head on up to Europe. How about Romania for a role model? Nicolae Ceausescu. He. He cultivated his image everywhere, statues everywhere. This concept of he was the state, he's the leader, he is everything. And let's not. How can we forget Iraq? Our good friend Saddam Hussein, who was great at doing this, had all sorts of gigantic statues of himself everywhere, put his name on everything. He wanted to really solidify his image, the symbol everywhere. This is where we're headed. Not to mention the sheer waste of time and money. It galls me that the idea that people who say, I'm in favor of getting rid of government waste, let's bring in Elon Musk to take a chainsaw to things. Are the first ones who love wasting money on needless things. Needless signs, the workers changing all the signs. It reminds me of the. The millions and millions of dollars that are going to be wasted changing all the signs and stationary for the U.S. defense Department, which is now comically, or not so comically, going to be called the Department of War. Look, folks, I understand you have to have a big ego to run for president. We don't have a lot of shrinking violets becoming president of the United States, but the Idea that every single building, every single policy has to have your name. How far away are we from the US Mint being ordered to scrape George Washington? To scrape Ben Franklin off of our currency and turn all of our money orange with you know whose face on top? How can you have more impact every time you speak? It's time for questions from you. This one comes from Diana, who's a student in my soft skills course called Question. I would like to speak cohesively and in long sentences, which are impactful and add a great impression. Where should I start? Start with being interesting for your audience. And this may surprise you. It's not what you asked for, but I'm going to give you what I think helps you reach your real goal. Having an impact don't try to have long sentences. Long sentences can work for the written word, for text, a book, an article, a story. But when you're speaking, a long sentence means you'll just kind of run out of breath. You don't want long sentences. Great speakers have short sentences, often 10 words or less, one idea at a time. If you're writing a novel or a book or report, you can have commas, you can have semicolons, you can have complex sentences. The eye can comprehend that the ear really can't. It's much better, more effective for people to be able to hear you. Explain one idea at a time. Use repetition. Repeat what you just said. Yeah, really repeat what you just said. Kind of like I did there. It might not read well, but it will have a bigger impact on your audience. So I urge you. In most situations, I don't even recommend people write out their speeches. Instead, come up with an outline of the concepts you're trying to convey. Then think of examples to make that idea come alive. Think of actual stories to make it come alive. And then talk it out in a comfortable, conversational way. I've spent a lot of my time over the years studying the greatest speakers in the world. It doesn't matter if you like Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. They all have one thing in common. They spoke with short sentences, sentence fragments, and lots of repetition. And that's how you will ultimately have a bigger impact on your audience. Remember, it's not about you. The second you're thinking, I want to be seen as having impact, the audience is going to sense that you care more about yourself than you care about them. Focus exclusively on making ideas interesting, understandable, and memorable to your audience. That's how you ultimately have the biggest impact.