Trump’s DC Grand Prix Event Turns Into a Disaster

0:00Ben Meiselas:The Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington, D.C. has been an utter disaster. This is the IndyCar street race as part of Freedom 250 that the Trump regime has been talking about. While the American people are struggling to afford groceries and gas and diesel and anything and everything, the Trump regime is focused on things like this, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. I'll show you some photos of what it looked like outside in Washington, D.C., where they effectively shut down the city to build a 1.7-mile-long track around Washington, D.C. to race these Indy cars. You can see it was not all that crowded.

0:42Ben Meiselas:The Trump regime claimed they were going to have hundreds of thousands of people there. They did not really have all that many people there. But also, it's proven to be, as everybody expected, it would be a very dangerous track for the racers. These cars really aren't meant to do street racing like this. I mean, there is some street racing that they do, but that's not really what they're supposed to, what these cars were built for in areas like this. And so we knew that the Trump regime was spending a lot of time welding down 200 manhole covers ahead of this race. There were a lot of bumps on the street as well.

1:20Ben Meiselas:And I was watching this, so you don't have to watch it, but it was IndyCar after IndyCar was crashing into the wall one after the other. These very expensive cars were just like getting destroyed. And if you looked at what was happening as they're riding on the road, that's not meant for this type of racing. There was like a kicker bump before one of the intersections by like a crosswalk area, which kind of kicks the back end of the car and the back unloads. And what you see is the kind of rear tire brake pressure locks, and then the car loses control and then smashes into the wall. And it was like one car after one car smashing into the wall as I was watching this thing.

2:09Ben Meiselas:So Saturday was the qualifying round and some of the practice sessions. Sunday is the actual race itself. And I just think it's going to, I think we're going to, I'm worried about what's going to happen on Sunday based on what I've seen on Saturday. Doug Burgum, the interior secretary responsible for fabricating evidence against a two-time Olympic canoeist in the reflecting pool, David Hearn, in order to frame David Hearn. This is the type of stuff that Doug Burgum is doing right now. And so he's behind the IndyCar street race, Freedom 250 Grand Prix. This is what the Trump regime has been talking about this whole week.

2:50Ben Meiselas:Again, while we're in a catastrophic war, while the American economy is in a catastrophic state, I mean, Donald Trump hasn't even addressed the fact that we're in a full-fledged trade war with Canada now as a result of his horrific conduct and behavior and bad faith negotiation. But this is what they're talking about. I mean, it's like an insane psychotic regime we have here in the United States. Doug Burgum earlier today was bragging that the manhole covers were being welded down. Play this clip. Mr. Secretary, you know, certainly hoping for a big crowd at this, 250 ,000. I've seen the course.

3:25Ben Meiselas:Some of those turns are pretty tight. How do you keep spectators safe during such an unprecedented event? Well, the Penske team and the IndyCar series team that helped build this thing have taken every precaution. You'll see these concrete barriers everywhere, the high fences. They've even gone so far as making sure they're welding. The manhole covers down so they don't get sucked up like a vacuum when these cars fly over the top of them. And, of course, fans will be kept in a safe area. But there's huge areas on the National Mall with large, large video screens where fans are going to be able to watch.

4:04Ben Meiselas:We expect over a race weekend yesterday, today, and tomorrow, there could be a million people that are here in person. But, you know, shout out to the National Park Service, which manages the National Mall, our U.S. Park Police, and others. Because it should have been nonstop events. the great american state fair the ufc fights uh the record setting world record setting fireworks when we had we there'll be 40 million people that uh transverse the national wall this year it's never looked better uh 153 homeless encampments all resolved thousand sites of graffiti gone 22 fountains that haven't worked for decades flowing again 50 plus monuments restored and statues.

4:45Ben Meiselas:The place looks beautiful. And of course, the crime statistics of D.C. are the envy of almost every other city because they're the lowest they've been here since 1900. And then you had Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and he was bragging about the races and the American people like, dude, what the hell are you even talking about? And we can't afford things. We can't afford groceries. We can't afford gas. We can't afford rent. What the hell? You've ripped away our health care. No one wants this. What do you do? What are you doing? Play this clip. We're actually standing on Pennsylvania Avenue right now, which is insane to me.

5:21Ben Meiselas:I mean, we're going to see literally people going, you said 170 miles per hour. Talk to me about how you got this ready. Well, if you walk down the track, we'll see there's different scrape marks. We've got to scrape the track and take out some of the bumps, especially around manhole cover. So you don't see one here where there's a significant What happens when a race car goes over that? So these cars are so low to the ground, they'll start to bottom out. Right. And so they have a number. They'll take some height off either side of the manhole cover. A lot of work has gone into this. It's going to be epic, all in celebration of America, the greatest country on Earth on our birthday.

6:00Ben Meiselas:Well, I'll answer the question. Boeing, SpaceX, Amazon, many other companies that do these quid pro quo deals with Donald Trump. They're sponsoring this event. By the way, they get a lot of money from the taxpayers as well. So the corporate sponsors, they seem to be the ones getting the good seats. I think a lot of the people there in DC, I mean, you know, I guess it's IndyCar. It's cool to watch. There's not really that many great seats, you know, but I'm not anti-IndyCar. I like IndyCar. I like NASCAR. I like Formula One, you know, I mean, it's not like the number one thing that I like to do.

6:36Ben Meiselas:I like football and soccer, college football and soccer, or international we call football better. But it's cool. It's cool. But why is this in Washington, D.C.? This is dangerous. This is lame to do this in D.C. I mean, I want my government to help with healthcare and not get us involved in catastrophic wars with Netanyahu and not do all these quid pro quo deals with these corporations that are behind this event. And the whole thing is just bizarre and strange. change. I'll show you over here. You can see from one angle what it looked like from some of the buildings nearby. Why don't I bring it?

7:11Ben Meiselas:I did this interview yesterday with Ben Weiss before the event took place. He's a reporter from Courthouse News in Washington, D.C. Here's what he said was going on. Let's bring in my interview with Ben Weiss. Now I want to bring in Ben Weiss of Courthouse news to talk about this Freedom 250 Grand Prix event. You're in Washington, D.C., Ben. You've been able to see on Friday what the setup looked like. I'm hearing from people who know IndyCar, number one, looks very dangerous in terms of the way the turns are structured, that these types of roads are not meant for IndyCar. Separately, I'm hearing from a lot of sources inside Washington, D.C., how this has disrupted day-to-day life within the city itself.

8:01Ben Meiselas:It's shut down a metro for photo ops. And it's basically the same thing if anyone's been to D.C. where there's a motorcade and it shuts down like lots of blocks. But this is like kind of all of D.C. I'm hearing or a lot of it right now. And it's hard to kind of get around. And then third, I'm hearing, and again, and you're there. I'm hearing that it's a bizarre event for a lot of reasons, too, because even though they say they expect 100 ,000 fans to be there every day, it doesn't seem like there's great places to watch it unless you're a VIP corporate sponsor like a Boeing or a Starlink, or you've coordinated with an embassy, and you may have done something that looks like quid pro quo-ish with Trump as part of this.

8:50Ben Meiselas:And then we see the photos of Melania by the IndyCar race cars and the helmets and all of these things. And there's a broader story here of the American people are struggling right now. And we're seeing gas prices and diesel prices hit all-time highs. And they're doing this event. So let's break it down piece by piece. First, Ben, what were you able to see on friday what were your observations then let's go from there yeah look from a racing standpoint i think it's important to point out you know there's never been a street motor race in the streets of washington before back in 2002 there was a similar race for a now defunct um motorsport series but that was way out by rfk stadium it was more of a proper circuit.

9:37This is a street circuit. That said, IndyCar is a century-old institution. They've been doing street races for many years. This is not terribly dissimilar in terms of layout from some of the other street races that are on the calendar. That said, none of these drivers have done this before. Most of them have not driven in the simulators. We were talking to some of the drivers today, and some of them were going to be out there for the first time when practice starts tomorrow. But there have been no cars on track yet, so it's hard to say exactly what the racing will look like, how dangerous it will be, what the odds of a crash are, although there are some tight turns, and some folks in the press corps were asking drivers, you know, are you going to take it a little easy going into the first turn considering no one has driven this track in any serious way yet?

10:34And there were some mixed results. I think people, the drivers are thinking about how to approach this because it could be potentially uncharted territory for them.

10:43Ben Meiselas:Let's go to the next part, which is DC proper right now. I've heard the Metro. There were issues there on Friday with photo ops and things like that. And also some of the views that reporters were able to get, I think, were from embassy rooftops. and so I'm curious what the fan experience is going to be on this and is there a lot how are people are there fans or is this more of the Trump people saying you know the same way they said for the event uh American fair that there was hundreds of thousands of people a day and then we ended up seeing it was actually you know a handful of people and then they still went with hundreds of thousands of people.

11:26Ben Meiselas:What's your take from what you saw on Friday? Well, no doubt the road closure situation, especially downtown DC has been frustrating. I think for a lot of people who live in Washington, like I do and other people who I talk to, who, you know, are upset, you know, the national mall has been shut down in some capacity for several months, whether it's for the reflecting pool of renovations or the state fair that happened, you know, a couple of weeks ago and now this indycar race i think that that people are upset um about how difficult it is to traverse the center of the capital right now um metro is you know metro in the summer is always of the they're always track issues it took me an hour and a half to get home um but it was i think unrelated to the uh the grand prix um again it's still sort of early uh the number of spectators i think that we'll potentially see uh has not at all been reached there was no on track activity no spectator activity or fan activity um on the track today tomorrow will be the first full day of uh events so that will be a better indicator i think of what the attendance is going to be like i know you know uh indycar the administration is saying there's going to be 140 000 people there i don't know if that will be the case i do know i've talked to some folks who said you know that they gave out these tickets on a lottery system and they were able to reserve 10 tickets just for themselves or 10 tickets for, you know, between them and their friends.

12:56So I think there is some skepticism on people who are even going that there will be that size of crowd there, but it's hard to say until, you know, there are people in the grandstands. As far as the actual viewing experience goes, there are, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of grandstand opportunity. I think they're definitely the two big ones. One of them is a suite. The president of Penske has alluded that Trump will be in one of those suites if he comes, although they haven't confirmed whether or not he's actually going to watch the race. As for fans, I think they're going to be mostly stuck watching on big TV screens sort of in the mall area.

13:33Ben Meiselas:which is kind of a wild concept i mean they're going to be showing up just it's very hot out there would be an understatement and the idea is that because there's really no viewing around pennsylvania avenue based on the way the track is structured and independence have and how they've constructed this there is a vip area whether or not trump even uses it but that's going to be where the corporate sponsors are. And there's quite a bit of corporate sponsors. I mean, we're, you know, hearing that there's everybody from what Boeing and Starlink and Delta, and there's going to be who Amazon and Gulfstream, you know, it's a, it's a who's who of stocks that Donald Trump owns, and a who's who of people the US does business with, you know, and so So it sounds like there's an area for the VIPs and then there's very little grandstand for fans.

14:31Ben Meiselas:And then there's an area in the sweltering heat, just to find my understanding, where you could watch on screens what is happening around you and you'll just hear the noises. That's, I mean, to the best of my understanding, I think that that's going to be what the situation looks like. That said, if, you know, there are fewer than 140 ,000 people there, it might be easier for folks to get closer to the track. I don't know what that's going to look like yet. The sponsorship, I think, is interesting because, yeah, you know, I'm a follower of IndyCar. I'm aware of sort of the corporate sponsorships that exist around the series.

15:08I walked the track earlier today, and it was unusual to see, you know, there's right along one of the retaining walls on the outside of the track, a series of Starlink branded barricades. That's something I've not seen before. definitely something unique to DC. I know that some sponsors for racing teams are coming back for DC, OpenAI being one. So you're definitely seeing a type of sponsor return to sponsoring this race that seems appropriate for Washington.

15:46Ben Meiselas:Right, and if it comes to a company like a Starlink or some of these other companies here with data centers and some of these other companies here with military contracts. I mean, that money comes from a lot of taxpayers and has government contracts and goes from taxpayers to the government where, you know, we could be getting health care. We could be getting lots of things, but it's going to these government contracts. And now there seems to be kicking back in the form of sponsorships also to further, you know, please a guy who may or may not be there tomorrow in the VIP. Say anything odd or strange or stood out to you that's worth mentioning before we go, Ben?

16:31I think just the political situation surrounding this race is something that's been discussed a lot. I think, you know, there's a lot of discourse about whether or not this is merely, you know, an entertainment event to win the 250th anniversary. I think it's difficult to have that conversation without acknowledging the level of involvement that the administration's had, obviously, in putting this together, but also in promoting their own political agenda in the promotion for this race. Uh, and I think as the day goes on, you know, I'm going to spend some time talking to people on the ground, uh, spectators that, that show up, uh, more, more IndyCar drivers, executives.

17:16I think it's going to be, uh, important and interesting to explore how, um, IndyCar as an organization, uh, sets itself apart from the, the political agenda. Cause I think right now it's, you know, it's sort of inescapable that that conversation is going to be had. Yeah.

17:33Ben Meiselas:And I think, um, you know, you hit on it and, and I think that this is something we talk about a lot, which is IndyCar could be great. You enjoy watching it. People like watching UFC fights. It's great. People like watching a lot of different things. All good. The question becomes what happens when it becomes an arm of government propaganda, seemingly? And also, does it devalue a product that is existing outside of a propaganda arm? And, you know, does it make it a little more uncomfortable to watch a UFC fight or an IndyCar after you have to see your racers, you know, bragging about, you know, whatever the Trump messages of the day?

18:19Ben Meiselas:While a lot of people are struggling out there, a lot of people you see are struggling in, in DC, you know, you look at the department stores, convenience stores, restaurants, lots of layoffs. And, you know, and then, and then you have this and it's, you know, anyway, Ben, you'll be there all day today, tomorrow, the day after covering this. So if you've got, if you've got photos, you can share videos, you can share, you know, we'd love to, you know, whatever, whatever you can do. We'd love it. Certainly. I'll be locked in. All right, everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. It's Ben Weiss from Courthouse News.

18:52Ben Meiselas:Before you go, our book, WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.