Trump’s New Defense Of The Arch Is INCREDIBLY Stupid

All right, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein again, with my man, my partner and Sunday afternoon, YouTube crime, Will Salison. Well, how you doing? Oh, Sam, I'm doing all right, buddy. How you? Holding up. I'm holding up. I just did a recording with Mark Paul Marappas where we talked about all the horrifically awful things happening across the globe, like the deeply foreboding warning signs happening in like Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Europe, et cetera. I needed a little bit of light fair, and so we're going to switch to Donald Trump and the R. I mean, what is going on here? Did you see the tweet this morning? I did. I did. It's cut. Don't you think Sam that he's going for the light fair? I mean, here he is sitting in this complete S show that he's created all over the world. And so he needed something light. And so he tweeted about the arch. All right, let's talk to people about this is Trump on the arch this morning on true social. He says this at the strong request of the United States military and for national security purposes. I have agreed to convert the magnificent triumphant arch plan since the Civil War era many years ago at the receptive circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge into a top grade military complex slash triumphant arch to house store and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas and additionally have the have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition and storage. There'll be no facility like this anywhere in the world, no kidding. The 59 top cities and capitals Washington DC is the only one in the world that does not have a triumphant arch, but it will now and by far the greatest of them all. Thank you for this tension. So I have a lot of I can foresee a lot of problems with this. So many questions Sam, so many questions and problems. Yes, do you want to go you go with your top question? Can I just start with what's in the in the social media and the truth post here? Yeah, the sniper. We're going to have drones and snipers. We're not going to put him in some hidden place where we can which is where you would normally put drones and snipers. We're going to build a giant structure right across the river. We're going to put it 250 feet in the air. We're going to put some snipers up there to shoot at what Sam? Are they guarding Arlington National Cemetery? What is it like there? There's we're going to put drones. Oh, by the way, what's this business about the plaza? We're going to put snipers in the plaza. So we're going to put a giant arch across the river next to Arlington Cemetery and the Potomac in a bridge. Nothing else. And we're going to put some snipers down there who they've got nobody to shoot at Sam. They're just we're going to put them on the ground. We're going to put them in the plaza. So like, who does this? It's completely insane. He says this was the strong request of the military. I mean, that's like on its face, completely absurd. No, the military is what I was going to say. I disagree. I disagree. Seriously? That part I disagree. Everything else I agree with. Well, first of all, okay, so I'm just trying to think about this in my head. The storage for the ammunition, I assume is going to be on the columns of the arch and then or is it in the top of the arch and they're going to be like the clips. There's like the clips, the columns. Well, like, well, like guns come out of the top of the arch, like a transformer type thing and the drones. Are they kind of rested on the top? Are they tucked underneath and they kind of have a hatch and they come out? But the big question I have or the big issue I have of this beyond the absurdity is do you know how close this thing is to Reagan? We just got launched drones. It's like literally planes are flying over this thing all day every day. We're going to just launch a bunch of drones. This is like for like for people who don't know the geography of Washington DC, this is you couldn't do worse in terms of like this is literally where the planes fly over they're coming down over the river. Yeah. You're going to fire you're going to start a 250 feet. That's where you're starting and then you're going to fire the drones up from there where we just had like a helicopter plane crash and like how many crashes have we had recently over coming into Reagan? I can't even keep track. It's bad. And I guess you know, I didn't pick up on the plaza, the plaza snipers, but the plaza snipers is really an interesting thing. So you have a circle an arch and then obviously everything else is the plaza, right? Like you can go under the arch and through it and you can kind of walk around it. But like where are they going to be just hanging out like on lawn chairs? Like what do they get their own building? What is how does that work? It's it's like in addition to the crazy location the size of this thing. He wants this to be 250 feet tall. And he would if you go look at the map of the circle that he's trying to put this in. It's like, you know, if you've ever seen someone put up a muck mansion in a yard where it obviously shouldn't be and has to get right up against the neighbor. Like this thing, this thing totally will not fit there. I don't know what plaza he's talking about. But like where are you going to squeeze in these, these snipers and in addition to whatever the hell it is there going to be? Who are they? You raise about them. Who are they possibly firing on? Right. If we're depending on this little, on this on this arch outpost to save Washington DC, we are in some serious trouble. Like we're in some serious trouble. No one's marching down Roslyn to get into DC and it's like that's not that's not a military need at all. And this is this is an addition. So we have the Reagan airport problem. We have the absurdity of the it's right next to Arlington cemetery, which by the way, it's completely overshadowing. This those are supposed to be I have heard politicians talk about how the real monuments, the important monuments are Arlington because that's where the fallen are. And instead Trump's going to try to build this this triumphal thing overshadowing all of those the people who gave their lives. That's that's totally gross in itself. But in addition to that, this is about what two thirds of a mile from the Pentagon. Why if you're going to put drones and snipers somewhere, put them at the building that was attacked on 9/11. You know, like I mean, I'm sure they're there, right? That's like they're like, man, there's no way they're not this idiotic arch two thirds of a mile away over the sandwich. I mean, I don't know where to be. I'm telling you, the pants are gone at this point. I have I'm going to put a lot of money on it. They have their own defense. They're going to be fine. I don't think you need this right near the river. And I don't think, you know, maybe the reason I disagree with you said the only thing I disagree is this idea that I do think it came at the strong behestor recommendation of the military because it's very transparent happening here because he just did this with the ballroom, which is he gets stimulated in the courts from building these grandiose sculptures to himself. And then he attaches some national security interest to it so that he can say it's a presidential progative and you can't courts can't intervene within the, you know, my powers and fence. And that's, I mean, it's like clear as day what's happening here, right? He's just trying to create a legal fee, a fig leaf to go forward with this arch. But it's done so transparently that I have to imagine it fails, right? There's no one in the right, no judge is going to be like, oh, well, that's a valid point. You definitely did this legitimately. No. Yeah. Well, wait a minute. What makes you think this the the military actually? Well, I mean, for all the reasons you just, you don't think anyone like this, hey, Pete Hegseth, it's Donald Trump. I need you to make a recommendation that we outfit the arch with snipers. Okay. I'll do it. Boom. Yes. That's exactly what happened. That's exactly what that's exactly. So that's why I'm making fun of him saying, oh, it's at the strong request of the military. That's the strong request of Pete. It was a strong request. Say, I mean, it was exactly what you said. It was a strong request to the military, not from the military. It wasn't even a request. It was a boomerang request. This is a boomerang request. Okay. Well, you know, people don't know this actually. There is, then I was intrigued by the post, the post had a story in this. They've been covering really well, Dan's Ivan in particular. You know, there is like a sort of a political basis for building there. I believe it was after World War II. I forget the year, but they proposed a double pillar monument in that circle significantly smaller. And they just shelved it because it didn't work. And obviously, you know, you have the Arlington cemetery there. And then, of course, the Lincoln Memorial on the other side. And they had, they wanted to keep the view out of instructed. And the people who are fighting this have come up with sort of this kind of interesting legal retard to Trump pushing forward with the arch. Just build the columns. Just build those two columns. We'll be fine with that. I don't think it's going to go for that because you can't put drone launchers. No. Yeah, you know, okay. So there was some pregust. I read that it was like from the 1920s. So it's totally true. I think that's right. And Trump himself says, oh, from the Civil War, like this guy's going back 100 to 150 years to invent congressional approval for what he wants to do anyway, which is total BS. But you know what this reminds me of Sam spinal tap. So spinal tap, they remember when they built the stone hinge. Right. And like the idea was we're going to build it this size that it turns out to be like this, except this is the reverse, right? These columns. I don't know how big the columns were supposed to be. But we got to remind people about Stonehenge. They want to recreate Stonehenge on the stage and create a midget sized Stonehenge. And a dwarf literally tramples it during the show. And they're like, it's supposed to be much bigger. Totally, totally. So this arch that he's doing is the reverse of the Stonehenge. Because the, I don't know, having the columns were supposed to be. But the guy who originally got Trump going on the arch idea, the idea was it was going to be 60 feet tall. And Trump comes in first. He's led up to 100. So this is now 250. It's four times the size that it was supposed to be and the guy, even the guy who had this original idea is like, dude, this is not what I had in mind. This is insane. What you're doing. A little ghost. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe it's going to be. It's going to, the Lincoln Memorial for people that are not familiar. Lincoln Memorial is like a little less than a hundred feet, okay? This arch is 250 right across. It's absurd. Yeah. It's absurd. But you know what? You know, it's useful when you get to 250 feet, you can launch some serious drones. You can get right up there where the planes are. Take them out. All right. I want to talk one more thing about with you. This one, not as funny, although I will maybe have some fun with it, is the press bands that's happening today over the weekend at the White House. MS now, CNN, I just for full transparency, I'm under contract with MS now, MS now CNN and political, former employee of mine, all lost their credentials this week, this weekend because Trump wants to change the subject from whatever's happening in Iran and also doesn't like negative coverages in a big baby. They showed up at the White House, couldn't get in, had their branches taken. And I put out a video on Friday when it first happened, I was pretty hot on it and I remain very hot. I know people don't necessarily think of this as the biggest deal in the world and I'm not going to pretend it's like, you know, measles spreading in Lancaster, but it's a big deal to me. And it should be a big deal to a lot of people because it is not the slippery slope. We are firmly on the slope of authoritarianism. This is it. And when you don't like coverage and you respond by kicking them out of the press pool, you are attacking a better constitutional principle and you are also not just stifling coverage, you are going to affect future coverage because people are going to be worried about being the next outlet to be kicked out of the pool or the White House should say. So well, before I get to the video of John Barrass, I'm defending this in a totally outrageous way. I just, I haven't heard you upon this and I'm just kind of curious what your thoughts are. Oh, absolutely. Will Sumer and I were talking about this yesterday. To me, that's a straightforward violation of the First Amendment. It's not just that he banned certain employee, certain publications and took away their credentials. It's that he said quite openly in the Oval Office that he was doing it based on viewpoint. He doesn't like their particular coverage. They're negative towards him. That's an open and shut First Amendment case, I think. I don't know what other grounds you can have to exclude various news organizations from an event, but to exclude from the White House based on their coverage is negative towards me. I think it's an open and shut case. Let's play John Barrass. So if you're on John Barrass, Senator, I was asked about this. He, John Barrass, so whatever you think of the guy, he will always take the party line that I've never not seen him carry water for the party. You maybe have seen him because you watch more of this stuff anyway, reliably hack this guy. This guy has asked about this on one of these Sunday shows, and this is what he had to say. I do want to ask about President Trump's decision to ban CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House over their reporting, which he disagrees with. Do you agree with the President's ban, Senator? We all respect and value the freedom of the press. It's in the Constitution. The President, remembering his first term, he was banned from Twitter. He was banned from Facebook, and I didn't see people come to his defense, so it goes both ways. The press has an obligation to report fairly, and the President doesn't see it happening that way. The politician wants fair treatment from the press, as do I, as does the President. There's so much bullshit to unpack in there. First of all, not everyone values the repress, obviously not because Trump just threw these people out, okay? Two, there's a fundamental difference between a social media platform saying, hey, these posts are stirring violence and causing unrest, and we need to suspend the account which happens all the time. All the time. It's probably a company that can decide who's on their platform. Versus a government institution, the White House, saying we are going to punish outlets because they have nasty things to say about the President. And three, part of the whole thing is that it's not about fairness. You have to welcome varying different viewpoints, different outlets, into the White House, because that's what freedom of expression and the press is. And so I just found this whole thing outrageous. But then the real thing that really chaps my ass, honestly, and this happens all the time. Is what he's essentially saying there is this horrible thing happened to Donald Trump. It was the worst thing possible. His right to free speech was taken away from him and it was unconstitutional what Twitter and Facebook did. Therefore, it's fine if it happens to you. It's like, what? Well, if you cared that much about it, stand on something, buddy. Yeah. Okay. Life is unfair. People are unfair to you. You know what you do as President when the coverage is unfair? You bitch about it. That's okay. I'm the President. I've got the bully pulpit. I'm going to like all the amount. I'm like, that's your exercising, your speech about their speech. That's totally fine. But I think you've got the fundamental point about the social media platforms versus the government. The first amendment is about the government. The government cannot abridge speech. You can complain about what Twitter did, what Facebook did. You can complain about the power of big tech. It's nothing compared to the power of the United States government. For the President to say, you can't come into the people's house because I don't like your coverage because it's mean to me that that is an absolute abuse of freedom of the press. And he said, Sam, he said out loud, hilariously and awfully in that Oval Office remark about it. He said, oh, the ban on the free press. I'm pretty sure I'm quoting that exactly, literally. So the ban on the free press, like he knows exactly what he's doing. He's not in the ball. All right. We'll leave it there. I just wanted to make sure we touch base because I don't want to start a die. Yeah. And let me say one other thing about this, which is, it wasn't just Barrasso. You said Barrasso is a hack. Let me tell you two other hacks. Steve Scalise, the majority whip in the house, Mike Waltz, the UN ambassador, also on the Sunday shows today, also defending Trump banning those news organizations. I mean, I expect it from Waltz, I suppose, because he works for Trump. But Scalise and Barrasso, Jesus Christ, like, come on. I don't want this started out. I think this is too important because I think it is going to be, it's going to have a chilling effect. And I really, really hope big, big day on Monday, although for me and you, I suppose we won't be paying attention because we got a ton of persons. But on Tuesday, I want to see all the press outlets in the White House collective action are so necessary. Do not attend the briefings if they're not there. Do not go and ask questions if nothing has happened as if everything is normal. It's not normal. I was around in 2009. I was a White House correspondent for Huff Post back then when Obama's White House kicked Fox News out of a treasury briefing on tarp and then take their badge and revoke their access to the premises. They just didn't invite them to a briefing that all the other broadcast networks were allowed to be at. And every other TV network said we're not attending that briefing. And you know what happened, the Obama White House, back then because collective action can work. And I hope that's what happens. This good run. All right. Well, thanks again, buddy. Appreciate your service. And everyone, subscribe to the feed. We get great commentary like this. Also subscribe to our sub stack page where we can read all the stuff that we produce there. It's really a great way to close the election season. Honestly, we have so much good content going on there. 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