Trump Gets Cornered and Admits $8 Billion Funding Scheme

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1:13Ben Meiselas:every company is investing in ai but most only have a small group actually using it and a large group who tried and didn't see the value superhuman fixes that from the makers of Grammarly, Superhuman brings AI into every tool your team already uses for instant help with drafts, finding information, and more. So habits and proficiency form naturally. When every person on your team works at their best, that's when your AI investments start to compound. See what Superhuman can do at superhuman.com. Every company is investing in AI, but most only have a small group actually using it, and a large group who tried and didn't see the value.

1:52Ben Meiselas:Superhuman fixes that. From the makers of Grammarly, Superhuman brings AI into every tool your team already uses for instant help with drafts, finding information, and more. So habits and proficiency form naturally. When every person on your team works at their best, that's when your AI investments start to compound. See what Superhuman can do at superhuman.com. A stunning admission by the Trump regime in little notice court documents where federal officials said that they intentionally halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states based solely on a single criteria. Was it a state that voted for Donald Trump?

2:35Ben Meiselas:They were able to keep the funding for energy projects, even though Donald Trump railed against those projects. Was it a state that voted against Donald Trump? Then all of the funding would be stripped away. That was the criteria that was used. Now, this was a lawsuit brought against the Department of Energy. Erwin Chimerinsky is one of the lawyers on this case, the well-known constitutional lawyer and law dean. Here's how it's reported in the Times. Hat tip to Tony Rome and Brad Plummer. when Trump regime canceled more than$7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects. In October, it framed the move as urgent and corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste because Donald Trump said that we just need big, beautiful coal.

3:29Ben Meiselas:We don't need any of this other energy stuff out there. Meanwhile, those were boosts for jobs and for cheaper energy. But what we now see is in little notice court documents that were recently filed and unearthed, federal officials acknowledge that they had terminated the funding based solely on political criteria. Were you a Trump voter or a Harris Biden voter or a Harris voter in 2024? It shows how Donald Trump weaponized the provisions of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid on a second term like we know he did. And when you look through these documents, you'll see basically a spreadsheet and a chart that goes into this.

4:15Ben Meiselas:In October, the White House Budget Office, led by Russell Vogt, terminated only 284 of these grants in a social media post announcing the news. Vogt pointed out the motivations were, this was$8 billion in Green News scam funding to fuel the left's climate agenda. We're canceling it. Months later in court filings, federal officials indicated there was little else that had informed the final decision, just a broad termination in general and overturning of the policy. With one exception, a lawyer for the Energy Department conceded the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 elections and has two Democratic caucusing senators.

5:04Ben Meiselas:The lawyer acknowledged that none of the grants were included in the October terminations based on any programmatic statutory cost reduction or performance based factor. In contrast, the administration left untouched hundreds of additional energy grants in states that were represented by Republicans that had backed Trump in the last election, even though the Energy Department recommended canceling them, the government confirmed in the July court filing. The article goes on to talk about how it's a broader effort to try to pressure people not to vote for Democrats. You know, it reminds me of as well, you know, the way Donald Trump wields the tariffs.

5:48Ben Meiselas:It's destructive and it destroys, you know, people here in the United States. It also, you know, because we pay the taxes, it's a tariff is a tax, gets passed on the consumer, but it also creates a major barrier for the country that you're putting the tariff against, even though it's paid by the importer in the United States. So Donald Trump tries to wield that because he doesn't care about people in the United States. Trump just wants to use tariffs as a way to alter the Western Hemisphere or the rest of the world's behavior. So he's willing to just have mutual pain for everybody. So Donald Trump will put tariffs on Brazil and he'll say, because the people of Brazil didn't vote for Jair Bolsonaro, the insurrectionist former president.

6:37Ben Meiselas:Until you vote for the Bolsonaro's kid, I'm going to hurt you and I'm going to reward places like Ecuador or El Salvador where they have Trump dictators in these countries. This is his whole MO with everything right here. And ultimately, everybody loses, though. I mean, we live in a globalized world, whether we like it or not. A lot of all of this stuff is interconnected. and you know you think you're like let's just even take donald trump at his you know he executes the plan he hurts the blue state guess what i mean these the energy grids energy in general the economy it's interconnected though too you know you screw these states you're gonna ultimately trickle down and screw those states and ultimately you screw everybody no matter what there's that point but i want to bring in harry litman from the talking feds youtube channel sub stack and podcast, because the more broader point is that this is why Trump hates courts, because finally, in a court of law where these lawyers who had to show up, they still have a bar card.

7:47Ben Meiselas:They ostensibly want to practice law when Donald Trump's no longer in office. They don't want to be referred to the bar after being grilled by the judge and after good lawyers on the other side, like Chimerinsky and his team are out there getting these documents. It's uncovered. Got it. You're a liar. You guys lied. And all of this thing that you said that you think all of this energy is bad. No, no, no, no, no. You are good for the projects in the red states, by the way, which former president Biden authorized. I interviewed Biden December 2024, and he told me how proud he was that a lot of these energy projects benefited red states also.

8:27Ben Meiselas:That's what he that's the kind of person he was and blue states. But he goes, a lot of it benefited red states. So what'd Trump do? Screwed the blue states, keep the red states, but then pretended he hated all of these projects. Harry, what do you make of it all? That's the kind of person every president is, Ben. It's a cliche that a president is the president for all people, those who voted for her or him and those that didn't. And it's always been true, even with people who are kind of a little bit shady at the edges, until this guy. And it's the deepest irony because you have his lawyers going into court again and again and asserting an unprecedentedly broad notion of executive power.

9:16And what do they say? What does Todd Blanch say for why Trump can bring a reprisal prosecution? Article two, article two, article two. What does article two say? His constitutional core responsibility is take care that the laws be faithfully executed. It's not take care that the laws be faithfully executed in the red states only. Every time he does this, it's a government discrimination on the basis of viewpoint about as serious a dereliction and a no-no third rail as you can find in government. But it's just the combination of he gets all the power to what? To literally govern for 32 % of the state or whatever MAGA is these days is very revealing.

10:12Let me put it that way. And then how foul, right? The actual way of going about things like illegal. I think it's illegal. We don't ask if it's criminal anymore because you can't be investigated for a crime. But I'm here to tell you, when you're talking about what government can't do, discriminating on the basis of viewpoint is top of the charts. There's almost never an instance in which government can take action based on the viewpoint. What is the viewpoint? Well, for starters, Republican versus not Republican is based on the viewpoint. But, you know, even beyond that, this kind of parceling out of winners and losers, you know, with these programs of tremendous power and influence over people's lives, it just, you know, makes you want to gag.

11:12It's, you know, a spoil system run amok. And of course, that's been his approach like root and branch everywhere from whom he hires to what kinds of programs he's for, to whom he nominates and the like. So, you know, the whole thing, I want to underscore this viewpoint discrimination and why it's flat out as taboo as anything government does. And just like anything else, he gets away with it because who is going to challenge him in the courts, et cetera, et cetera. One final point, you know, people ask, why do people stay at DOJ and what can they do? this kind of going in to a court, tail between your legs and saying, oops, here's the real reason I didn't tell you that before.

12:09That's what comes with the territory of these sort of illegally charged Trump cases. And if they're at least legit, you just almost have to feel for these lawyers. And the last day, the lawyers who first asked for subpoenas from the New York Times had to go back in to Judge Subromanian and say, oops, we forgot even to mention that the subpoena recipients were reporters. And the judge went berserk, as he should have, and dismissed the case. Or in Minnesota, these guys had to tiptoe back and say, oops, I know the AG came to town and said this was a very dangerous person and published her photograph, which they never should have done, and accused them of impeding law enforcement.

13:02And then it came time. The defendant six months later asked for a bill of particulars. And here's some lawyer who had to go in and say, oops, the government has looked a little bit more closely at it. And it turns out that maybe our probable cause analysis was wrong at the time. And the screaming point that any judge would make, some shit like that would never happen. I mean, literally never, as in no time whatsoever in the old Department of Justice. But in each of these cases, you wonder, you're the lawyer here. How can it be that you go in in the first instance, in time one, to a court and don't mention this thing that's going to come on you like a ton of bricks?

13:47Oh, we're only doing it for red states. Oh, we're charging this person, but they haven't even looked at the probable cause to know that they're going to have to say, never mind. No supervisor looked at the subpoena applications for the New York Times, pretty damn high profile motion and subpoena to think, you didn't mention that they were reporters and the law says this. Those are the sorts of rookie mistakes a law clerk wouldn't make, or if a law clerk did make it, she'd have to find another career. And this is the lot of the DOJ lawyers, many of whom, by the way, are the new crowd. They've been brought in to serve Trump and they have to go back, just humiliate themselves in front of the court by fessing up to something that, yes, it's terrible, but at a minimum, they could have known before instead of having to come back and make it look like on top of everything else, we kind of pulled the wool over the judge's eyes.

14:53Just incredible stuff. And it seems to be happening weekly.

14:58Ben Meiselas:Everybody subscribe to Harry Lipman's YouTube channel. It's called Talking Feds. When you see one of Harry's videos, go into those comments and say, WTF, Harry. Ben says WTF. That's the title of the new book I have. My first book with my brothers, it's called WTF America. Pre-order it right now. We'll put a link in the description below. It comes out October, but it helps if you pre-order. And first and foremost, though, go to Harry Lippman's YouTube, say WTF, Harry. Ben says WTF. It's called Talking Feds. Let's get Harry 1 million subscribers. Thanks, Harry. Thank you, Ben. And by the way, let's get Ben Macellis down here to San Diego for a one-on-one discussion like we just had with Adam Schiff on that new book.

15:43And I think it'll be a fun time. Let's do it.

15:47Ben Meiselas:Thanks, everybody. Breaking news right now. My brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America. And well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.

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