Words Matter: America at a Crossroads for Our 250th Birthday

subbasement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, DC and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world.

“Hello and welcome to Words Matter, I am David Rothkoff and I am joined this week by the”

guy you hope I would be joined by this week, who I joined by every week, Norm, or in St. Happy July 4th, Norm, it's hope it's happy, yes. Well, let me paint your picture, Norm, because here's the week as I see it on having unfolded, started with some decisions by the Supreme Court in which they increased Trump's power so that he can fire the heads of independent agencies, compounding the way they've increased the power of the presidency

over the past ten or fifteen years to the point that Donald Trump, as we approached the

250th anniversary of the founding of this country, is the most powerful president we've

“ever had. They also made a decision which said anybody with a lot of money can give”

as much as they want to political parties because that's free speech. Of course, what it means is that if you're really rich, you are going to be able to pick candidates, send a message, pick a wins. That doesn't really feel super democratic to me, but hey, not, because there are other developments this week. There were developments like, and I'm not going to just stick with the court, but for example, they made a decision on birthright

citizenship in which they were split five four on whether the Constitution is constitutional. I mean, that says something about where the court is. Meanwhile, the president of the United States decided to commemorate the week by flying around in the largest flying

bride, we have ever seen a four hundred million dollar plane gifted by cutter after they

couldn't sell it for five years on their own, upgraded by the taxpayers to the tune of allegedly four hundred million dollars, got to be more, which is going to be handed over to Trump when he leaves office, so he can use it himself. So kind of a big door prize for being president, your president, you get to get a plane. That's pretty cool. He went out to a permit west, and he attended the opening of a Teddy Roosevelt presidential library in

North Dakota where he saw a hologram of Roosevelt, but seemed to think like he was actually talking to Teddy Roosevelt, which you might find a little bit disturbing, and then is coming back here to Washington, D.C., to usher in festivities, which will include the continuing of the American State Fair on the Mall to which no one is going, and fewer people will go the next three days with temperatures over a hundred degrees, which has been organized as it turns out not by

Congressually set up committee, but actually by another Trump-Crony operation, which looks a little corrupt, and maybe has Trump profiting from this whole thing. The fireworks, which you have undoubtedly attended many times, it's one of the great Washington experiences, will not actually take place

at nine o'clock on Saturday as they always do. I'm July 4th. They're being postponed till 1030s

“of the Donald Trump can get the prime time slot for a speech by, are you seated, Donald Trump?”

And then when the fireworks do take place, according to science, it's going to be so big that it will make the air over Washington toxic. The biggest fireworks display in history, according to Trump, but certainly potentially the most toxic fireworks display in Washington history, which seems appropriate considering if you take the Trump administration metaphorically, they are also the most toxic fireworks display in our history.

So that's July 4th week, and you seem done defense about it, and I just want to know,

and it turns out this fireworks display is toxic, you will be able to buy a Trump

“mask for only $700, that will protect you from the toxicity.”

And that's probably a picture. Congress some time ago had appropriated money for the celebration of the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence. Trump hijacked it, took the money, turned it into a Trump 250 celebration, is selling stuff off of it, and drained away taxpayer money for his own use, so he can use it to hawk himself and his goods.

So that's one part of what is not an unusual week. That's the problem that we have.

But I want to add a couple of other elements to your litany. One is that Cash Patel, who testified

“under oath at his confirmation hearing, saying, if I am confirmed, I can pledge to you.”

We will not look back. There will be no investigations of previous elections. Now has turned an army of FBI agents away from organized crime, terrorist attacks, and other ventures to work night and day, literally night and day, investigating the 2020 election in Georgia. And I am hoping, before we're done with this podcast, that somebody in Congress will refer Cash Patel to the justice department, knowing, of course, that it's not going to work,

but nevertheless, doing so for criminal prosecution, for perjury. That's after we learned that

“Cash Patel had purchased a shitload of stock in a company doing business with the FBI,”

and did not report it. Every day, there are stories that would in a previous era, results in immediate resignations that instead get nothing done, other than, oh, from the administration, good for you, you're behaving just like us. So that's one element to this. We can certainly talk about the court, but we should also know that having gotten financial disclosures from Trump, and let us note that the possibility that they are accurate is slim

indeed. Nonetheless, showing that in his first year back in the presidency, he netted a cool

2.2 billion dollars. And that is, without the plane, which I am sure cost a whole lot more than

$400 million in taxpayer money to fit it up for him to meet his level of gold luxury on the plane. So we're dealing with outrage after outrage and with all of this, with the overt corruption, with the fact that he said he talked to Teddy Roosevelt, and is clearly deteriorating, mentally by the hour. We have a John Roberts Samelito court that said, let's give you more power. And I want to add that the second element of what I was going to say, Trump is now

reportedly demanding a loyalty pledge from every government employee, federal government employee, not to the Constitution, not to faithfully carrying out and executing the laws, but to Donald Trump. And so the implications of the Supreme Court saying, in the slaughter case, yeah, Trump, you can fire anybody. This was a case involving the federal trade commission where he went without cause to fire a democratic commissioner. You can fire anybody you want in 1883

following decades of horrific scandals known as the spoil system. Congress passed something called the Pendleton Act 1883 more than 150 years ago that created the merit-based civil service that has been a foundation of American democracy and administration. And this Supreme Court

people who say, who are forced to say, I will disobey the Constitution and disobey the law

“because I have signed a pledge not to either of those, but to a malignant, narcissistic,”

psychopathic, corrupt leader, head of a crime family who has demanded that I violate the laws in the Constitution for his own gain and for his own vindictive approach to punish his enemies. So happy July 4th to you, too. Hey, it's David and I hate to interrupt the podcast, but I want to tell you some exciting news. We are now on Substack. Through Substack,

we are going to be able to provide you with even more benefits, including live-streamed episodes,

access to new content, ways to save money, and getting content from us, better quality content from us, it's a revolution, it's terrific, but it's even better than that because to celebrate, we are going to offer a special offer to new subscribers. So now through July 15th, new members to the DSR network, or to my need to know Substack, which gives you a lot of written content as well as some exclusive video content, we'll receive one-year membership to the other

for freight, in other words, they cost the same. So you will essentially get two for one. That's one

year of DSR, or need to know absolutely freight, just to take advantage of this deal. And support us, which we appreciate, go to DSRnetwork.substack.com, or David Rothkuff, that's me, .substack.com, and sign on for membership, and you'll get two for one. Anyway, thank you for your support.

“We are 100% sure you're going to think this is terrific development, and that's why we're going”

to get as many people as possible to subscribe to it, and while you're at it, don't subscribe to us on YouTube. So you get great videos on YouTube. The more subscribers we've got, the more support, we've got, the more good, independent journalism we can do. So we rely on you, we are grateful, join us on Substack. Thanks. That's not a very celebratory spirit going. I apologize. I apologize. I mean, this is our 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,

which I'm sure that we both mentioned to be self-evident. Yeah, well, you should. I mean, I went through it, and the Declaration of Independence, I wasn't there contrary to what you're probably going to say, but the Declaration of Independence contains 27 grievances that the founders had with the cake. And I went through it, because I read some place that all of the grievances could easily be applied to Trump who thinks of himself as a cake. And I don't think that's fair,

because some of them are not sort of apples and apples comparisons. But I would say 15, 16, 17 of them do. The vast majority of the grievances that led the founders to say, it's time to start our own country, because we have this bad guy ruling us would apply to Trump. And then I wrote a column, yesterday for the Daily Beast, in which I compared Trump to George Washington, apologies to George

“Washington. But it's because every thing I think about with Washington, he refused the title of”

King. He left the office voluntarily. He didn't take pay when he ran the continental army. He really focused on probity and he dressed down in the office. And he deferred to the separation of powers and the Constitution as an important precept in every respect. Trump is the anti Washington, right? He's the opposite of it. But there was something else underneath all of this. And you're a professor and historian in addition to everything else. George Washington and his fair well address

warned where we could hit the rocks. And he said, if somebody comes in and flatters the public and is a demagogue and concentrates power and becomes a desperate and then a tyrant, this could undo it. And then I looked in Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention. He said the same thing. He

Hamilton warned of this. James Madison warned of this. John Adams warned of this. They all were

“deeply concerned with the character of the people chosen to be president and how important it”

was that the power of the president was counterbalanced by the power of other parts of this government, which this Supreme Court seems dead set on eliminating. And it just struck me that here we are at the 250th anniversary and we're not selling it, celebrating it by observing the principles of the founders, we're marking it by ignoring the advice of the founders. And I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that. Here of course, completely accurate. Last podcast, I did a long

screen against the court. I have now written a piece that will be at some point in the next day or two in the contrary. That gives a much more robust look at this particular court. And I mentioned

“this basically to follow on what you've said. We have a Supreme Court that has”

irrigated onto itself a power that the framers never imagined has completely ignored

what the framers clearly had in mind. I'll say something that I've said before, but it's always worth repeating, especially now because we're going to get a whole lot of people coming to Washington for this celebration who will go to the National Archives. And they will see our founding documents, including that declaration of independence, under bulletproof class, they'll also see the constitution in multiple cases. And I used to take my students there because I wanted to show them

visually the representation. Article one, very robust and detailed on the powers of Congress,

“how you select members of Congress, all of that, twice as long as Article two on the executive,”

which in turn twice as long as Article three on the judiciary. framers never anticipated

each of this year, doing more than very narrow kinds of decisions. But what's also clear as you read this document and you see where the powers are, is that Congress is indisputably first among equals. Congress has the basic powers that government provides, the power to tax and spam, the power of the person, power to declare war. President can veto bills, Congress can override the vetoes, he can't override the overrides. Congress can declare war, President can't.

The Senate confirms nominees or rejects them from the executive or judges and executive positions. The Senate has to ratify any treaties made by the president. The Congress can remove a president through impeachment. President can't remove members of Congress. The Congress can remove Supreme Court justices through impeachment and boy, there are a few ripe for that. The court can't remove members of Congress. So all that's clear, we have a court that's

thrust all that aside with a lunatic theory of the unitary executive, which makes no sense whatsoever. And they have unleashed this malignant narcissist as far from George Washington, much less Abraham Lincoln as you can imagine. And they continue to give him more free reign, including over the abject corruption that he is commerce secretary, Howard Lutnik. His children is other cabinet members that head of the FBI. The other members in his administration are all

engaging in on a daily basis. Born countries know how you get to Donald Trump. You give him money. There's one other part of all of this celebration that we should also note, David. 250 is the number. The Trump administration has said that they're going to do 250 parts to mark this anniversary. And we know from a report from a lawyer lobbyist that the

going rate for a part from Donald Trump is $2 million. No matter how heinous your crimes,

people out of billions, you don't have to worry about paying it back. That's a cool half a billion

“dollars that we may well see coming through here. Not all of it will go to Trump. A lot of it”

will come to these greedy lobbyists and lawyers. But we are dealing with something unlike we have ever seen. We have had previous presidents who wanted to be dictators like Andrew Jackson.

We've never seen anything like this. The level of corruption is greater than all previous

presidency's combined. And this guy is unleashed. And what we ought to learn out of this celebration. It's not just to celebrate the Declaration of Independence. It's not just to celebrate the courage of our framers willing to take on a juggernaut that was the British Army to get

“distance from that King George. It is basically to look at how we can get out of what is”

the worst possible experience in our government at this time that ought to be a full-fledged celebration of our democracy and the genius of our constitutional system. Yeah, so like, no, like what am I supposed to do? And at home, not celebrate no little American flags, no hot dogs, no eggs with red white and blue sprinkles on them. When people get back from their July-Fourth celebrations, it will be less than four months till the election.

Trump is flipping out. You mentioned cash, Patel. Trump is pushing the Congress to do the same act, which we've talked about at Nazium here. You know, there are other people, Mark Wayne Mullen and the folks at DHS, the folks at ICE, the, you know, folks across the administration who are sort of mobilizing billpulti. I know he's one of your favorites, the acting director of National Intelligence. It has been given the power by Trump to declassify documents and it's

worried that he will do so in a way that is selective to make it look like certain conspiracy theories about past elections being fraudulent are more credible than they are. As bad as everything you've

“described is, I have to say when I think about what's likely to happen in the next four months”

norm, I can say something I've never said to you in this podcast. That is, you're sounding a little

polyanish. Well, I, you know, one thing I will say in response to what you've said, which is the dilemma that we all have. And by the way, the dilemma that the Israelis have. How do you balance love of your country with hate, grid, or contempt for the leaders you have? And it's a difficult task. But that's something we all should be doing this weekend ahead and not by the way getting heatstroke by going to the National Mall this time. We need to celebrate what the framers gave us,

what the history of this country represents. I just saw a kind of map of all the different ethnic enclaves scattered across the country that have been built up over 200 plus years in places you

never would expect. There were, you know, enclaves of Vietnamese and enclaves of librarians and the

light. The greatest strength of this country compared to all other reasonably sophisticated, especially democracies has been the fact that we have let people in to create this remarkable fabric of a country where they built the economy, they built the society, they built the role that America has played in the world. Even as we know this week, Steven Miller, American Nazi has demanded of the ice that they doubled the number of arrests each day. 2000 arrests a day

and that means that they're pulling people off the street because of how they look even more

ripped off her cross and, you know, basically imprisoned her until there was such an outcry

broadly that she'd be released. We need to celebrate what we had and double down on our

“determination to make sure it doesn't disappear during this thudgery. How do you do that?”

I mean, like, you know, the average person sitting at home and they're like, okay, I'll try to be aspirational for the weekend, think of what's good about the country and what's worth saving. But, you know, when I like look at the polling, the data suggests that there are

Republicans have a structural advantage, disregard the way districts are set up at the jury

mandering and so forth. That's kind of 4% of the vote. With the Democrats having an edge at the moment in Poland, of about 6%. That means that net net, the edge that the Democrats have right now in the midst of all the corruption you're talking about is razor thin. It's 2%. You know, it could disappear with one, social media storm four days before the election and it's very likely to be eaten into because the Supreme Court has now said if you're rich in your billionaire and you don't want to pay

“your taxes and you don't want to be regulated, all you have to do is give billions of dollars to”

the Republican Party. They can give it to anybody they want. They already have 150 million dollars

more than the Democrats. It's just to me, I'm feeling a little queasy as I look ahead. As you should, you know, on this podcast and elsewhere, I have predicted for quite a while that Todd Lange would cut a sweetheart deal with Maduro. And that deal would involve sending Maduro to a cushy prison, maybe for a very short period of time. And in return, Maduro would sign an affidavit saying that Venezuela tilted the 2020 elections to Joe Biden.

So that they could use this as cash pretellers now doing violating his sworn statement in trying to re-litigate 2020 in Georgia and use it to flood polling places with the FBI and try and tilt the elections. I'm still a little more optimistic than I am pessimistic

“because I think the numbers are going to grow because I do not see much possibility”

that we're going to be in a better state in two months or three months than we are now. The jobs report showed 50 plus thousand jobs created in a month, which is pathetic. It showed the unemployment rate at 4.2%, stable. That's not because the employment market is robust. That number of his state where it is because substantially more people have stopped looking for work. And some of them probably because they're in detention facilities right now or concentration

camps. I don't see the economy getting much better. I see a disaster ahead with Iran. We have reports today after Iran and Oman floated this idea that they will jointly run the state of Hormuz and take in tolls that the response to the Trump administration is "Don't be patsies." This is a small, it's Trump change compared to what we will give you if you sign a deal and stop doing this. In other words, Trump to get out of the messy created is ready to give

Iran probably hundreds of billions of dollars. Much of which will go back to Hezbollah Hamas and the Hudies and create even more instability in the Middle East. None of that strikes me as keeping the Democrats margin at 6%. But again, a theme we've pursued many times and we saw some of the results of this in Colorado. The danger for Democrats is that far too many people, independence, self-identified Democrats have contempt for the Democratic Party because they don't think

voters saying, you know what? This is just so bad that I will go to any lengths to make sure I can vote to get rid of these horrible people. We'll be fine. If on the other hand, there's still deep disillusionment with the Democratic Party. I worry that people who otherwise might have to stay in line at the polls for six hours will leave after two saying it's not worth it. And that's the challenge we face as well. When you talk about people sitting down not knowing what to do,

you've got to give to candidates who have a shot at winning. You've got to flood the zone with support for people who are going to be outspend by the Elon Musk's of the world and the Mark and Dresons of the world and the Peter Teals of the world unleashed by this vile Supreme Court. But we've got to do our part to make sure that we elect a different group of people or otherwise. The next two years are going to be sheer help for all of us and it may at that point

be close to irreversible. So let me ask you a leading question. I want to ask you a question, but you are a little bit careful. Listen carefully to what I'm saying because I'm directing you towards an answer. I don't want any independent thinking here. I'm reading a lot about Democrats who are supposedly, according to the media at war with other Democrats, saying, "Oh my God, there are democratic socialists and there are left wingers out there." And those people are going

to ruin the Democratic Party because Mom Donnie would never win an Iowa. But it strikes me

that if you're a national party, you have different people for different locations. And that this is possibly part of an evolution of the party that is tied to generational change within the party, that may make it lean somewhat more progressive than it has in the past. But we'll still allow it

“to be as diverse as it needs to be to win as often as it needs to win. Now remember, I said”

as a leading question. So I'm going to end with, "Do I have this right or am I wrong?" I will never say you are wrong, misguided at times. Okay. So one of the things that's used me today is that Mayor Mom Donnie sent a message around to New Yorkers. We got a heat wave here. It's going to challenge energy. Please keep your air conditioning at 78 degrees. And immediately

got attacked by Nikki Haley saying this is socialism by Ted Cruz saying in a third world country,

a first world country, we have air conditioning. Others saying go to France where they don't even have it. And then people began to pull up what Nikki Haley wrote to South Carolinians when she was governor. We have a cold wave coming. Please regulate your heat. Keep it at 68 so that we can get through this with Ted Cruz. Multiple messages from the Texas government saying, "It's going to be so hot, please turn your air conditioning out, please preserve energy." So these attacks on democratic

“socialist for doing what pragmatic leaders do is laughable. And while I think Democrats are going”

to have a bigger problem because the big tent is gotten and is getting bigger. While there are incumbents who are losing mostly not entirely in safe democratic districts, I will say one of those who lost last night, lost Tuesday night, I should say. In Colorado, Diane DeGett, who had been there for 30 years, I opened a work with Diane DeGett on what became the 21st century's Cures Act,

the first federal attempt to do something serious about mental illness. She is a first rate legislator

there for 30 years, but now will not be there next year. Because there is a strong sense among an activist space, a base by the way that is more young and white in these cities, especially than it is black and poor, who think that the people who are a part of the establishment

“have fucked everything up and it's time for a new generation. And while I believe that a lot of these”

voters agree with the worldview of democratic socialist as most Americans agree that healthcare

make obscenely large sums of money while the average person is struggling and who can afford a

small cut that can help raise the level of living for large numbers of others who believe in free community college and subsidize daycare and the other things that are pretty much the good share of the platform of democratic socialist. I also believe David that that's not the main motivator for a lot of these voters. It's not that they're looking at a checklist of issue positions

“and say, I agree with all of these and therefore that's how I'm going to vote. It is we've got”

somebody who's willing to think boldly and take on the establishment and take on Trump and his minions.

And with all of that, I doubt very much that if somehow we're able to pull through and get democratic majorities in the House and Senate that we're going to have some kind of gridlock comparable to what Republicans fad with their freedom caucus. We're not going to see some group labeled extremists who are going to block things from happening so that they can get everything that they want. Most of these new members were going to be coming in winning in primaries and districts where they're

going to make it. One exception, a very swing district in Colorado where many root now

“who is a part of this group, democratic socialist of America is going to face the tough challenge.”

They're going to be like Momsdami, namely pragmatic. Their goal is going to be to get something done. Their goal is going to be to fight back with all the tools available to the Congress against a looming corrupt dictatorship. So I'm not worried very much that these people who are coming in are being nominated, beating, older and more established of members of the democratic party. I just don't think that there is a strong parallel with what is a much larger extremist move on the

Republican side. I would also draw a distinction because a lot of the Tea Party movement were people who were seeking to turn back the clock and were truly reactionaries whereas a lot of this movement is trying to respond to a generational change younger people that is more consistent with where the country is going. I do think there is a misconception floating around out there and the misconception is this is just a New York phenomenon. It's just

not the case. You see it in New York. You see it in Maine. There's going to be a Michigan primary in which a progressive who is associated with these people. It's happened in Seattle, the mayoral race, Los Angeles, the mayoral race, Washington, DC, in the mayoral race in Colorado just the other day in several of the races. But I thought Colorado was kind of a lestered,

you know, in some races, that works. Another race is it doesn't work. And the party has always

had a coalition of coalitions. You've had people of color, urban people, people from the rural south with very different views. And you know, I see the pushback on all this as being an effort to sort of maintain the influence of certain kinds of democratic groups that I associate with past administrations, Clinton administration, Obama administration, third way Democrats. And you know, it's sort of boomers clinging to their position or APAC clinging to their position because the

views of the majority on Israel have changed or were so on. And so it is possible that this ferment is healthy. That's all, that's really all I'm. Yeah, certainly it's opening up a different kind of dialogue within the democratic party and it's shaking people out of their complacency.

“And that I think is particularly important because if and when and let's hope the if becomes a win,”

we end up with Democrats in charge of the government again. If there is a desire among many to just

discussed in this podcast before, accomplished a hell of a lot before the last year, but in particular

in his first two years with a lot of headwinds, but they didn't get implemented those programs.

And if there's not a different way of looking at how you provide benefits and services to the American voters and to the country at large, their time and office in the majority will be short lived and we could be back to another great national nightmare. And there I want to maybe we end with this, but I want to end on a different note, which is how to Trump yet elected again,

“given what we knew about him. And I think there's a couple of answers to that. One is”

because of the press coverage of his first term. Some of it because of the people he had around him,

some of whom were willing to follow the law and not go along with crazy horrible stuff. But for both those reasons, bad as it was, bad as you and I might have seen it, for the average person, Trump was not some threat to the fundamentals of our political system and democracy. And the corruption, Penny Annie compared to where we are now, was shrunked off by much of the press coverage. But the second and bigger reason is, people were unhappy. The COVID overlay

and hangover, the fact that we had inflation that flowed from all of that, the gridlock caused by Republican obstructionism, whatever it might be. The attitude was just throw them out, bring the other guys in, how bad could it be. Anything's better than this. Don't reward them for what they've done. That is a common experience in democracies. And it is why if we gain power again and even if we make it work again, there will come a time when people are

unhappy because of what's out there in the world, because of the larger challenges that are

never easy to solve for any government, when people will be ready to say again, throw them up,

“bring the other guys in. And that's why saving the semblance of decency in the Republican”

party, understanding that if it does get back to being anything close to a normal party, that wants to solve problems that has some respect for institutions, it'll be a very conservative party. But there we can argue over big issues, but it's not like we're dealing with a group of corrupt animals. I shouldn't say that because I love animals, corrupt monsters who will take away all of our freedoms and who will operate in a sadistic and a moral at best fashion.

One example, there's a guy named Greg Nunziata, who some of our listeners and viewers will recognize. He runs an organization of conservatives of Republicans for the rule of law.

“He was counsel to Chuck Grassley and the Senate Judiciary Committee and actually helped usher”

through a lot of the nominees for the courts, including Supreme Court justices, who you neither you nor I would like very much. My view of the world and especially of the court is radically different from Greg Nunziata's. If we could get back to a point where we argue about those things, that's fine and dandy. But he has moral integrity enough to push back hard against the politicization of the Justice Department, the horrible things that the administration is doing.

And I just hope at some point we can move away from the cult of Trumpism, the corrupt, sadistic, nativist, racist cult. And get back to a party, at least, where our disagreements are over policy and basically fundamental views of how you govern yourself and not over the horrible things that we're dealing with now. And we're far from that. But we need triage now, obviously, we need to get through the next four months and then the next six months. And I'll say,

I know I said I was going to end, but I should add something I've discussed and some other places

that Democrats will pick up on the in the house is similar to what the Republicans have now.

“Three seats, four seats, five seats, even seven seats. I am very worried that Mike Johnson”

will use the technical power available to him and the House majority to refuse to seat

enough of these Democrats that they can claim to power. What would an effect be a bloodless

“crew? And even as we fight back against what they're doing now, we have to be prepared”

to deal with what could be a series of things. And this Supreme Court would just say,

hey, it's not our role here. That's a political question. To be able to make sure that a

thug like Mike Johnson and his cromies can't get away with skewing and election that Democrats win, we got a lot of challenges ahead in the months ahead. No question about it. You know, every year at July 4th time, there are a number of public service announcements that advise people against doing dangerous things. And having listened to you just now, you know, one of them that I've

“seen is don't put fireworks on your head. And honestly, I was not tempted until I just listened to”

you now to put fireworks on my head. Please, folks, don't give into the temptation. Norm believes in a positive outcomes. So do I. And we will be here every week, guiding the whole country in that direction. For now, have a hot dog, have a hamburger, have a cupcake, stay out of the heat if you're in one of the double heat dome places in America, hydrate, and we'll be back with your next week. Until then, thanks very much, happy July 4th everybody.