Trump’s Epstein Shutdown Leaves Kids Hungry

0:00News Talk and Opinion with a both sides suck on an agenda. It's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards with just a little bit of satire thrown in for good measure. And today I want to talk a little bit about perception versus reality. Because the perception that a lot of us have right now is that Trump shut down the government to keep the Epstein list buried. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? And now families across America are going to be going hungry on Monday when they don't get that SNAP payment because of Trump's government shutdown. Now this is how I personally perceive the situation we're in.

0:32Whether that is or is not, in fact, the reality of the situation doesn't even concern me because the currency I trade in is truth, not facts. Let me make that absolutely clear. You could take facts and shove it because you can get facts literally everywhere else. And they're worth very little to people who already understand them. And I cannot stand news articles when you're forced to sift through three paragraphs of exposition just to get to the punchline. I'm here just for the artwork, not the frame that it sits in. And I think that's the fundamental difference between news and opinion. Raw, unfiltered opinion being much more a stream of consciousness, which is what you kind of get here.

1:09It allows the reader or the listener or the viewer to filter the nuance between truth and fact at their own level, because they don't always need to have their hand held to consume the news from an openly biased source. Most of you are smart enough to weed out the hyperbole. I would have to assume that if you're listening to this program, right? This is why I think the left has such a hard time getting through to people, because it's such a procedure for them. When people are craving a thriller, they deliver a documentary and wonder why they can't cut through the noise. And that's kind of the same difference between truth and facts.

1:39Bill Maher understands this better than anybody else on the left, because he clearly doesn't need to consult with the high priests and priestesses of fact-checking before he speaks his mind. Is it a fact that Trump intentionally shut down the U.S. government because Congress had the votes to release the Epstein files? No, I really don't care if that's a fact, because that's how it looks to a lot of halfway intelligent people, and it's a valid perception either way. Is it directly tied to Americans not getting SNAP payments on Monday? Yeah, it seems pretty clear to me. And I'm relatively confident in my own instincts when it comes across as something that's happening in plain sight.

2:13I mean, just look at Russiagate. Trump was sort of right in the sense that it wasn't a closed door conspiracy when he was openly asking Russia to interfere in the 2018 election while looking straight into the camera. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30 ,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Then he had the nerve to call that a witch hunt when people got upset. Trump would prefer if you would simply not automatically connect these dots. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Because he wants it to go away more than anyone else.

2:48So bad that he's apparently willing to let millions of Americans go without food leading up to the holidays of all things. Yeah, this is Scrooge territory. This is Grinch territory. This is Mr. Potter's territory from It's a Wonderful Life. And I cannot imagine for the life of me that this is going to play well for Republicans in 26 or 28, because the perception is that this is Trump's fault. You mean to tell us that this giant asshole who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, while also having the DOJ and the FBI in his pockets, and both the House and the Senate under GOP control, somehow, despite all of Trump's power, might, knowledge, and stable genius foresight, couldn't stop the lame-ass, ineffective, and incompetent Democrats from doing this to our country?

3:32If Trump is so great, then why did he allow Chuck Schumer to shut down the government? It doesn't make any sense. I guess it really doesn't matter because his base is never going to see that truth if they haven't seen it by now, but the moderates will. And that's why the midterm elections are going to be a bloodbath for the GOP. I mean, again, not that it matters if they're just going to refuse to sign anybody into Congress once Trump declares martial law after starting a fake war with Venezuela so he can postpone the elections indefinitely and remain in power for the rest of his miserable life.

4:02I think that Trump saw Biden getting away with using the auto pen, and now they're just going to keep him alive in the White House for as long as they can. Trump could go into a diabetic coma tomorrow, and the GOP would insist that he's still good to run the country. Don't think that could happen? The left did it with Biden just last year. See, you know I'm exaggerating, right? Because we all know that Biden wasn't actually in a coma last year. But I said all that just to paint a picture more than to prove a point. It's pure gonzo. Hunter S. Thompson just happens to be the only author that does not bore me to tears.

4:32Now people are talking about raiding Walmarts across the country on Monday just to steal food and presumably ransack everything else they can get their hands on. Tell me that wouldn't play directly into Trump's narrative. Tell me he didn't plan for this to happen months ago. Yeah, and tell me that Trump isn't going to keep this shutdown going for as long as he possibly can. It's going to give him more of an excuse to send in even more National Guard into our cities to arrest people. Where are they going to put all these folks? The city jail? The county jail? I'd say keep an eye out for increased activity at your local FEMA camps, because this could get ugly really quick.

5:06And I hate to be that guy, but I will remind you that there's nothing we can technically do about it other than to get out and vote in 2026. And sure, go ahead and take to the streets and protest. I hope you have a great time doing it. Just don't expect anything to change because of it. I hate to be the guy to say it, but it's too late. This isn't Hollywood, and sometimes in real life, the bad guys win, and you've got no choice but to sit around and hold onto the seat of your pants for dear life and hope for the best. Look, I hear a lot of my conservative friends puffing up their chests like aggressive pigeons, saying that these people need to get jobs and quit depending on government handouts.

5:40And to some degree, I would agree with that, but only about 50%. Because we all know that there are people out there who frequently fall through the cracks of that argument. The first group being children who can't help if their parents can't find a job for whatever reason. They don't deserve to go hungry, regardless of if this is Trump or Schumer's fault. Because this is all of our fault. Because we've been acting like spoiled children ever since we got our hands on smartphones and social media. I blame every single one of us who can't talk with our conservative or liberal friends without taking a difference of opinion personally.

6:11That is why millions of children are about to go hungry just before the holidays. Because we forgot how to communicate with each other. This technology that was promised to bring us together has amplified our problems with each other to an unsustainable level. And we cannot keep going down this path if we plan to survive the next 20 years together. And I do. I feel terrible for all the parents out there who are already stressed out to the max at dead-end jobs and working 12-hour days just to make ends meet. That's who's going to be hurt the most over this. I think about all those old folks out there who need food stamps just to get by.

6:42These aren't lazy people. They've worked their entire lives and paid into a system that has ultimately failed them. So there's no excuse for this. It's absolutely unforgivable. Never mind that this system that's screwing over the most vulnerable people among us is the same system that cuts the value of the dollar in half roughly every 27 years. People aren't lazy. They've been milked for every last dime and have lost faith in the system. I mean, once COVID hit, and the great realization that life is more than working dead-end jobs caused the great resignation, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to get back to the way things were ever again.

7:17I keep thinking in the back of my mind that we're somehow going to turn the corner in a post-Trump world that makes everything clean and shiny again, and that people will simply get tired of the constant bickering back and forth between the political divide. But if I'm being honest with myself, I'm afraid that we've passed the point of no return. And we've done it in ways that are even bigger than Trump's ever-looming presence on our country. Because I'm afraid that he was just the last in a very long line of liquidators sent to divide and conquer and sell off any of the remaining collective assets of the American taxpayer to the highest bidder.

7:48And it always astounds me that conservatives who believe in shadow governments and the deep state never stop to ask themselves why the deep state would allow somebody like Trump to sit in the driver's seat more than once. I know a lot of them actually believe that Trump got in there to take down the deep state. but they never really stopped to consider the fact that he was the deep state. The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing people that he didn't exist, and the same should be said about Trump. Have you looked at the price of groceries, rent, or gasoline lately? How about those jobs reports?

8:17Trump didn't like those numbers, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely blame Trump more than the Democrats here, but their hands aren't exactly clean either because they could have compromised, and they didn't, which is why I blame everyone, myself included. And maybe that's the mindset we should all take when we allow insane man-children like Trump destroy our country. We're all a little bit to blame for letting this happen because we spend more time on social media than we do with socializing with people in real life. Maybe we're partially to blame because we spend more time with sports and video games than we do educating ourselves about the issues.

8:51And we're definitely all to blame for this eye-for-an-eye mentality cancel culture that shuts out contradiction of thought or emotion. We're all to blame for being intellectually lazy to think that the powers that be aren't playing the people like a fiddle over this shutdown. The right points to the left, the left points to the right, base voters on both sides take the bait, and now half of the country thinks it's Trump's shutdown over the Epstein files, while the other half thinks it's because Chuck Schumer wants healthcare for illegal aliens. This is absolutely an oversimplified and reductionist look at the situation, but that's also what we call zooming out, which tends to lead to the bigger picture of truth as opposed to focusing on the minute fact.

9:29Yes, it's nothing but tribalist culture warfare as far as the eye can see, unless, you know, we get on top of it. It's a tall order. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I'm a little bit hopeful. One way you can do that is by checking your identity politics at the door and adapting a human-first approach to interacting with your fellow Americans like a grown-up. Another good starting point is kicking the extremists to the curb where they belong, Because our system was built on compromise, not a winner-takes-all mentality. And fair warning, it's people like Trump who get people like Zohran Mamdani elected to office when the pendulum inevitably swings the other direction.

10:03The counter-reaction that is coming in the wake of Donald Trump has the potential to be far more stacked against conservatives than it does for liberals when it comes to states' rights. I know I wouldn't want to be a conservative in a blue state after Trump is no longer around because the left has a tendency to equally and oppositely be as bad and sometimes worse than the right, depending on the situation. Even the meatheads are starting to understand that Trump wasn't the conservative that they thought he was. Power corrupts an absolute power corrupts absolutely. The kind of radical centrism I'm calling for demands blind coexistence with the opposition, regardless of who is president at any given moment, because we are simply bigger than the executive branch.

10:44And this is our government, not the other way around. Or would you rather have the national divorce instead? The divided states still living together at opposite ends of the same house while trying to avoid each other at all costs. I mean, why not? We're already like a separated couple that's still living together. They could have their own president, you could have yours. At least it would be interesting. And it's already an us versus them situation, isn't it? Why don't we just, I don't know, act accordingly. That's it for today, and until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards.

11:12Catch you next time. Bye. And we say bye-bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of The Trust Project. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube. It's at NewsweekRadio on YouTube.com. Later.