Trump Approval Crashes as Prices Surge

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1:00Ty Cobb:Welcome to The Beat, everyone. We're about to be joined by a Trump White House veteran, lawyer Ty Cobb, who has spoken out against this Trump second term. And we're going to get into that ABC News bombshell about what some argue could be funding another insurrection. The report is that the Trump DOJ, under control of Donald Trump, may move to settle Trump's lawsuit basically against his own administration, the IRS, and that Trump would use, many critics say, abuse this process to try to take over a billion dollars from taxpayers and use it to give to his MAGA allies, including people who faced conviction for crimes against the United States.

1:43That corruption is not an occasional weekend excursion for them. Corruption is all they do. First, it's probably illegal. Secondly, it's outrageous. And finally, it's corrupt. It's like watching The Sopranos and waking up and what is the scam of the day?

2:03Ty Cobb:Democrats wasting no time there, being very aggressive, you'll notice, different than what we'd see sometimes in the first term, where they say, well, this is a report or it hasn't happened yet or yada yada here. They've seen the movie enough times. And while it might have seemed once unthinkable that a sitting president would want to hand out your taxpayer money, if you're watching this in the U.S., and give it to convicts convicted of crimes against the U.S., I mean, giving it to any convicts would seem odd by itself. But specifically those who attacked the United States Congress and attacked police and put January 6th forever in infamy in American history that you would want to fund and pay them, which raises questions of why.

2:42Ty Cobb:I'll show you what Rathkin says because it is chilling. Another watchdog group says it's like walking into Fort Knox and stealing the gold, taking the gold. The potential beneficiaries here include the people charged and many convicted for the Jan 6 attack. That includes people like this.

3:05Nothing but a traitor, and he deserves to burn with the rest of them.

3:15If Pence came, we're going to drag motherfuckers through the streets. You politicians are going to get f***ing drugged through the streets. We hold my line. We hold my line.

3:33Ty Cobb:Yes, the people convicted of violence against the United States, against police, targeting lawmakers, calls to assassinate officials. those are the people that under this reported plan would get your taxpayer money there are many different ways this could run afoul of the law but the problem of course is that the doj is the first line of the law this would have to then be challenged in court potentially held back and the deeper question is why donald trump who has no more elections yet to run is so interested so fixated on using or abusing a legal process to fund these people he already freed them from prison, which remains one of his greatest scandals of this term.

4:15Ty Cobb:Some of these people were convicted of sedition against the United States. They were supposed to serve for over a decade. Now they might, under this plan, profit. And at a time of economic hardship, the Trump plan is to take money from honest Americans, from people who aren't convicted of anything, take your taxpayer money and give it to these convicts. Trump's slush fund could go beyond those so-called foot soldiers or militia members, ABC says it could also be routed to anyone else who says the Biden administration weaponized the legal system against them. And that could just be other people, rich people, connected MAGA elites and insiders in Washington or elsewhere who are tied to Trump.

4:53Ty Cobb:Because remember, if he's in control of this slush fund and it takes your money and hands it out, he could give it to Bannon, could give it to others who were convicted of crimes back in that period of the law where the courts worked and there was accountability. If you ducked a subpoena or violated your obligations, you might end up in federal prison. So those people at the top could also try to get some of this money that Trump clearly wants to hand out. Giuliani, Eastman, Powell were talking about people who were supposed to learn their lesson and some of whom faced various types of accountability.

5:31Ty Cobb:There was a case in Georgia. There were disbarment proceedings. There were other types of accountability. Now he wants to take your money to pay them back. Lindsey Graham is another lawmaker among Republicans who's at time floated the idea that, again, by the way, this was knocked down under protest. So these things matter. Sunlight matters. But at one point, you had Republicans saying they should also get paid with, again, your taxpayer money because their phone records were caught up or reviewed in a prior DOJ probe. That fell apart, but this looks like another end run around that controversy to try to get some of that money.

6:07Ty Cobb:We're talking about a combination of alleged corruption and very likely greed. Now, Trump could also divert funds to other entities because while the ABC report says it wouldn't go directly to him, you have entities like Mar-a-Lago, which of course was subject to a lawful search. You have the Trump Organization that has faced legal review. And you have a wider question tonight, and I'm going to put it to you this way before I bring in Ty Cobb.

6:37Think about what we've lived through.

6:41Ty Cobb:This insurrection was the greatest violent crime against the United States in modern history. The DOJ investigated it, and it was the largest, most sprawling federal probe in our history. And there was at one point accountability. Then Donald Trump started this term freeing those people, including those who attacked police, which very literally put Donald Trump against police, against blue lives and on the side of the people who do violence against police, as long as apparently he thinks it's in his or the MAGA interest. That was already beyond anything we've ever seen. An anti-police, anti-law and order presidency, putting partisanship and an attack on democracy above America itself.

7:26Ty Cobb:Sounds stark, but that's what he did. This push to go further raises the question of why he doesn't just want these people out free roaming the streets, many of them, of course, former convicts, but why he wants them incentivized on his team with his money to potentially do what they did last time or do it again with more success. I want to bring in Ty Cobb, who, as mentioned, was a White House attorney in the first Trump administration. And Ty, this is serious. Jamie Raskin says this. It's an effort to refund what he calls a January 6th militia. And he says, presumably, to get them ready for the next round of battle.

8:08Ty Cobb:That's a serious allegation or concern against a sitting president, but do you think it's a fair concern? Oh, I think it's a very fair concern. I think Jamie Raskin is really a voice that, you know, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when people look back at this time in history, people will point to his courage and the accuracy of his observations. But yes, this is intended to basically give Trump, you know,$1.7 billion on top of either the$9 billion that Ted Lieu has a chart that he uses in Congress frequently to demonstrate how much Trump has looted America over the last 18 months, or the$4 billion that the New York Times and the New Yorker use as a figure of Trump's looting to basically facilitate the illegal aims and the rewards that he intends for his people.

9:06Seriously, the potential uses of this slush fund are intended to be, as currently fashioned, totally opaque, not reviewable, not something that the American people are going to see or understand. It's completely illegal and absurd. Keep in mind, this is a case. The case against the IRS is a completely fabricated vehicle for Trump to try to loot the Treasury. It's barred by the two-year statute of limitation. The statute involved only allows$1 ,000 per disclosure, per illegal disclosure. There's an argument that there may have been somewhere between one and 10 disclosures. There's no argument that supports the 10 ,000 or more disclosures that would be necessary to get him to$10 billion, which is what he's demanded.

10:10So it's really absurd. You've got a judge who, when assessing the case, had very serious concerns about whether there's any adversity here. This is Trump negotiating with himself. That they're not. Yeah, that it's not a real case. It's not a real case. I mean, he himself has admitted that he's negotiating with himself. That's true. That's not a case of controversy. And, you know, there's no basis for an award here. The Justice Department has vigorous defenses. Last night, the amici curiae, the lawyers that the court had reached out to for guidance on whether this was really a case in controversy, filed their brief, making it plain that there was substantial reason to doubt that this case could be fairly adjudicated between the two parties because there really is no case or controversy.

11:05and the court should ask some piercing questions. Clearly, in the case, they point to the fact that Pam Bondi directed her Justice Department to be loyal to Trump, not to the Constitution. Trump issued an executive order directing all government lawyers, all government personnel government-wide, you know, preventing them from taking positions that were contrary to his opinion about the law. And his opinion about the law is he's entitled to anything he wants, and the Justice Department is falling into line. Todd Blanche, who was cautioned early on in the administration about the necessity of recusing himself from most things related to Trump because of his personal appearance on Trump's behalf previously in many of the criminal cases that Trump had, including the 34 felonies that he was convicted of while Blanche was his lawyer, was urged to recuse himself in connection with those matters.

12:07But he's now the primary dealmaker for the Justice Department doing all things that Trump wants. So with Blanche as a co-conspirator, it's pretty clear there is no case or controversy here and that it really is Trump just looting the government. Right.

12:27Ty Cobb:Looting the government, self-dealing, taking money from the taxpayers, which is bad enough and could be investigated. Indeed, if it's attached to other allegations, it's the type of thing that a Congress could impeach and hold a trial on and review the evidence. And if they refuse to participate, well, you can hold that against them because a Senate trial, which would be an option if the Democrats went back to midterms, that trial then deals with the government you have. And if you have a government that is basically unlawful and resisting, then you take the evidence as it is and you make that choice.

12:58Ty Cobb:And then you add to that this looming threat of them trying to fund and incentivize future potential violence to overthrow the elections. I mean, a lot of this is out in the open. Ty, I want to turn to another piece. So Ty stays with us. I'm going to give folks the facts. There's new ethics filings that show, because some of the system does still work, they are required to release this, and they did, that Trump has been trading heavily in the stock market, disclosing hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions, including in major companies. That includes securities and stocks in the tech space that obviously are involved with AI and other big-ticket items that Trump oversees.

13:35Ty Cobb:Microsoft, which has a big stake in ChatGPT and OpenAI. They're in court this week as well on another issue. Facebook Meta, Oracle, big purchases of Apple and NVIDIA. These companies have CEOs who also are very close with Trump. They've accompanied him to China, and you can see others there. And to be fair, there are other administrations that have tried to build business alliances, advocate for U.S. commerce abroad. thought the financial forms though show the timing of what trump is doing that he or his people on his behalf but under his name and money seem to be pretty actively trading you can see here nvidia that's the kind of the big chip that's powering all this ai you can see that purchase you can see of course tim cook and others are very much involved with trump this year the financial forms show that he purchased that on february 10th that was actually eight days before the company announced a big deal with Meta.

14:31Ty Cobb:Now, we don't know from the documents whether that's one of those many coincidences or whether all of these meetings and discussions give a clue. No one's alleging insider trading here, but a clue in terms of access, of mood, of information that, hey, this is a good time to buy or not. Trump also touted AI software maker Palantir on Truth Social, meaning he's using his public platform, which is mixed with the fact that he's the president, to promote a stock that he purchased. On top of all that, Trump continues to operate through himself and his family, crypto and other business ventures to a degree we have never seen from a modern president.

15:10Ty Cobb:Ty Cobb, do you view this as aggressive, poor judgment, but ultimately legal, so it's okay? Or do you view what we know, combined with the other corruption allegations against the administration, is something that should concern Americans about whether this actually goes farther and undermines our administration, our trust in it. Well, I think it does go farther, and I do view it as intensely criminal. It's not legal at all. It's never been done by another president. There's never been a president who has had the wholesale absence of frontal lobe control and impulse control to avoid the kind of corruption that Trump does on a daily basis, highlighted most recently by the$1.7 billion effort.

15:58But yeah, and these stock purchases, highly irregular, you know, rarely in history as a president, you know, done anything remotely similar.

16:09Ty Cobb:Can I slow you down on that point, Todd? Because you're an expert. You've been a White House lawyer. Most people haven't done that. You're reminding everyone that we don't usually have presidents actively trading in individual stocks just because they wouldn't even want to go near the conflict that when they're meeting with CEOs, which of course they may do, that there could be a conflict where their personal interest is against the public interest. No, that's exactly right. And let's go back to the$1.7 trillion case or billion dollar case that we were talking about the tax thing, which we don't have cases like that either, because historically every president has disclosed their tax returns voluntarily.

16:49You know, Trump is upset because he tried to hide everything, largely because it's full of the false valuations, you know, the fabricated losses that got him convicted of 34 felonies in New York. So he tried to hide all that. It came out in portions and, you know, from a subcontractor to the IRS, Not from the IRS directly, but from a subcontractor to the IRS, which is a defense that is available in that case. And the same thing is true in the stock things. Usually you have blind trust. Usually you have, you know, total distance between a president's purchase and sale decisions, you know, that he typically does not make it.

17:29It's handled by either a trustee or, you know, family members or people that, you know, are not directed by him to make purchases. And the timing of these things, as you point out, is there are no coincidences when it comes to Trump. There are no coincidences. So when Trump buys a stock and then promotes it. Yeah, when Trump buys a stock and promotes it.

17:52Ty Cobb:I'm only jumping in to say. And I'm only jumping in to say we value your expertise. So you're free to say that. That's your view. You know, the government can respond in the news. We do more than coincidence. Right. So I'm careful to say that. Go ahead. Yes. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm not putting words in your mouth, but I'm just saying there really are no coincidences. When Trump says I'm negotiating with myself, what he means is I'm going to take what I want. When Trump goes to China to get a deal for Boeing to purchase 800 to 1 ,000 planes, leaves without a commitment and says it was a great deal, and they're going to have a bunch of disclosures about wonderful trade deals.

18:33And the farmers are going to be happy, notwithstanding the fact that under the last year in the Biden administration, they sold$27 billion worth of soybeans to China. Last year, they sold 14. This year, they're going to be lucky to sell seven. You know, he's ruined the markets because of his crazy tariffs and the fact that we're shedding allies at a rate never before seen in American history. But he continues to fabricate the status of those.

19:01Ty Cobb:Yeah. I'm going to keep you. You mentioned fitness. I want to ask you about his mental fitness when we're back with Ty in just 90 seconds. Exterior Remodels, Inner Monologues, brought to you by Power. The house looks good. Like, really good. That siding? Stunning. The roof? Elevated. Windows? I mean, wow. The process? Smooth. The neighbors? Jealous. Choose Power Home Remodeling and remodel how you think about remodeling. Schedule your free quote on windows, siding, roofing, and doors at powerhomeremodeling.com. Power. Our work shows. There's a special magic to Illinois, and it all starts with the people.

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20:46Ty Cobb:Donald Trump's conduct has renewed scrutiny on his fitness, on how awake he is, and on what many see as late-night erratic behavior. He does off, apparently, during this meeting. You can judge for yourself since you see what's there, but that's gotten a lot of response. His late-night rants are drawing scrutiny, and the gaffes where he does seem to be rambling. Are you concerned about the president's mental well-being? Oh, 100%. I don't know how anyone can see what he posts or watch him in any meeting and think that he's fit for office. We have strategic ambiguity. His is just all over the place.

21:28It's confrontational. It's inconsistent. It's erratic. I don't trust that man to be able to cognitively make a complete sentence, let alone negotiate with China. I think he's seriously ill. I think Trump needs medical attention and there needs to be an intervention.

21:49Ty Cobb:That's some of the response in Congress where we see this is a mainstream issue, as it was raised at times for the last president. Ty, your view. So it's not just my view. In 2017, Bandy Lee, a well-respected psychological professional trained at Harvard and Yale and highly regarded at the National Institute of Mental Health, and 26 of her colleagues and other respected psychiatrists around the world posted a lengthy journal article commenting on Trump's malignant narcissism and the appearance of early frontal lobe dementia. The symptoms have only gotten worse. They are remarkable at this stage of the game.

22:35And the wake-sleep reversal is a very common symptom highlighted by mental health professionals when discussing Trump's cognitive decline. The fact that he is up late texting about excrement, putting memes out of Democrats in the reflecting pool, which I see behind you when it was still a reflecting pool in your graphic there. before he has changed it. The reality is what he does late at night causes him to sleep during the day. And that is a very well-known symptom of cognitive decline, frontal lobe dementia, Alzheimer's. And because he has no impulse control left, he is guided solely by his malignant narcissism, which everybody has recognized for years.

23:28And he practices only vengeance and greed now. Everything he does is about revenge and looting the government for his benefit.