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Join John Rush as he navigates through the complexities of the Ways and Means Report. From repealing tax deductions to reducing government intervention, this episode is packed with financial insights and potential savings. With a spotlight on controversial ideas like eliminating SALT deductions and mortgage interest rebates, John lays out a detailed analysis that seeks to enlighten taxpayers on legislative reforms aiming at significant economic impacts. Do we need radical changes or incremental adjustments? Tune in for a spirited exploration.
SPEAKER 16 :
This is Rush to Reason. You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 15 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 16 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
SPEAKER 03 :
Get a job, sir. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 10 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 16 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Luke is doing his best to get Phil Kirpin with us, but sometimes Phil has things that come up. We’ve had Phil on in the past many times. Before he does that or before we get him on, let’s do the question of the day. Yesterday, which novel published in 1818 is considered the first true science fiction novel? And who authored it? It would be Frankenstein or the modern… Prometheus by Mary Shelley is regarded as the first true science fiction novel. Today’s question of the day, what is the largest volcano in the solar system, and on which planet is it located? So again, question of the day today, what is the largest volcano in the solar system? And on which planet is it located? And you can always find our question of the day. Typically, they’re on our Facebook page. You can go there and find them on pretty much a daily basis. You can answer questions there and interact with others that do the same. So with that, Phil Kirpin joining us now. Phil, welcome. How are you? I’m doing great. How are you? I’m doing great. President of American Commitment. So how do you feel this week has gone so far with President Trump?
SPEAKER 06 :
you know, I’ve been really, really happy with the number of early executive actions and with the quality of them. I think they’re, you know, it’s night and day difference to his first term in terms of how prepared he was and how many things he had ready to go. I mean, we just got yesterday the total gutting of racial preferences dating back to the Lyndon Johnson administration. We got all of the Energy executive orders we were expecting. We got all the border executive orders we were expecting. And, you know, some other things that were a little, you know, that we weren’t necessarily expecting, like pulling out of the OECD tax cartel, reversing the Paris Climate Treaty again. It’s a very impressive list. And I’ve got a lot of optimism. Really, I think we’ve got all the ingredients. for a really robust return to prosperity. Everything that can be done in the executive branch, I think, is being done. The key question is just, you know, can they get the tax bill through Congress? Because that’s the one thing he really can’t do on his own. And so that’s the big unknown, but I’ve been very happy with the early action.
SPEAKER 14 :
Anything that you haven’t seen happen that you would have liked to have seen?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, you know, yeah, probably. I mean, I could come up with some… With some granular specifics in terms of regulations I’d like to see reversed and things I’d like done on doing some of the student loan giveaways. Agency by agency, I could find some things. But in terms of top priorities, it’s on a good track.
SPEAKER 14 :
You know, and I agree. I mean, I, like you, could probably run through and, you know, find some small things here and there. I shouldn’t say small, large things here and there that you could actually attack. I do think also in the last hour we talked about this a little bit. I think some things he still has planned. But in my opinion, Phil, he’s waiting for some, you know, head department heads to be confirmed so that he and they can make, you know, really hit the ground running, make some of those announcements together, if you would. And I think there’s some things that he’s just waiting for that on. That’s my opinion.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, probably. I mean, I think, you know, the racial preferences executive order was a day two instead of a day one. I’m sure he’s got, you know, he’s got probably one big thing planned every day for the next couple of weeks, you know, the way he thinks. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some more big ones still in, you know, kind of the on-ramp. And I agree with you also, you know, all he can really do so far is issue executive orders directing agencies to do things. He’s not going to really be able to you know, have things implemented and big things done and Biden things reversed and so forth until he has his team in place. And he’s got almost nobody in so far. I mean, he’s got Rubio, but that’s about it so far. It’s incredible how the Democrats are going to extraordinary lengths to delay him having a defense secretary, and they’re being very petty about him getting his team in place.
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely. The other thing, too, that we knew was going to happen, I think it was part of Trump’s overall plan, was the birthright citizenship. He wants that to go to the Supreme Court. That’s where it needs to end up to get a final call on that particular end of things. And frankly, and maybe I’m wrong in this, Phil, but… I think any constitutionalist could look back at what our founding fathers wanted, and I don’t think any of them, and I’m pretty confident in this, I don’t think any of them wanted somebody to just be born here and then be a U.S. citizen. I think they knew full well what they wanted to have happen there, and we, of course, have conscrued that and really messed it up, if you would. And maybe I’m wrong and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think we’ve got enough Supreme Court justices that would look at it the way I am.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, don’t get your hopes up too high on that one, because I think that Roberts and Kavanaugh are going to be looking for something to break with Trump on. And, you know, he Roberts is all about the court’s perception and all this kind of stuff. And I don’t know. I just have a hunch that that’s the one that’s the one they’re going to go against him on. But I think you’re right in terms of the history of the 14th Amendment. I don’t think subject to the jurisdiction thereof only meant like the children of diplomats. I think it was brought in that. But that said, I don’t. You know, Roberts and Kavanaugh don’t have my full confidence on that one.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, you know, I can’t disagree with you on those two, Roberts especially. You know, Kavanaugh, I’m not sure. Roberts, yeah, he sort of flies with the wind in whatever that direction happens to be going at that particular time, if you ask me, is kind of what he is. Basically, what works best for him at that time is how he looks at it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I mean, he likes to balance. You know, he likes to throw a couple in this direction and then a couple in the other direction. Yeah. I feel like he’s going to be, on that one, he’s going to be trying to convince, you know, Kavanaugh or Coney Barrett. He’s going to try to put together a majority against Trump on that one. I just have a feeling. But I could be wrong.
SPEAKER 14 :
You know what? We’ll see. How do folks find you, Phil?
SPEAKER 06 :
AmericanCommitment.org is the website, and I’m also a little bit of an ex-addict. It’s my last name, Kirpin, K-E-R-P-E-N.
SPEAKER 14 :
Awesome. As always, Phil, appreciate you joining us. All right, have a good one. You bet. Have a great night. Phil Kirpin again, American Commitment. Always enjoy having him on. Smart guy and literally just lays it out there. I like that about Phil and doesn’t mince any words, and I appreciate that greatly. All right, I’m going to talk when we come back about the Ways and Means Report on a lot of things that – if some of these things even make it through, would save us as taxpayers a boatload of money. We’ll talk about that here in just a minute. High-five plumbing and electrical is coming up next. Any plumbing problems at all, and that includes electrical because they do that as well, 877-WE-HIGH-5.
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SPEAKER 12 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. So this is something that came out this afternoon. There’s been a few commentaries on this, mostly, of course, from folks on the left. And there’s no way I’ll be able to go through all… 50 pages of this, and there’s a lot on each page, but I’m going to do my best to try to hit some of the highlights. And we were talking to Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House in the first hour about some of the things regarding, you know, Medicare, Medicaid, some things along those lines. And so I’m not going to go through much of that because there’s an entire section just dealing with and drug policies and Obamacare and et cetera. So that’s one of those things where I would highly suggest you go out and download this for yourself and read through some of those. But there’s lots of things in here. And I’ll hit a few highlights. So, for example, repeal Title I of IRA, excluding 45Q carbon sequestrian, 45U nuclear power, 45Z clean fuels, and the EV tax credit. And this saves us as taxpayers $404 billion in 10 years. So it streamlines and reduces government intervention in the energy industry that props up green energy and distorts market competition. So that, by the way, is something I do think you’ll see Donald Trump and this particular House and maybe the Senate. The Senate’s always going to be the toughest one. Remember that. Even if you get something through the House, the Senate’s going to be the next tough one when it comes to some of these things. But again, $404 billion over. Ten years closing the EV credit leasing loophole. That’s a 50 billion savings in 10 years repealing the green energy tax credits. That’s a seven hundred and ninety six billion dollar savings over 10 years. So almost a trillion dollars in seven years, a three quarter of a billion or three quarter of a trillion dollars over 10 years. And the employee retention tax credit, that’s something that a lot of employers have taken. And the reality is if they ended that as of January 31st, it would save about $75 billion over the next 10 years. This is something that I already thought was required. And I didn’t know that it wasn’t. But if you’re taking a child tax credit – I always thought you had to have a Social Security number for that child to be able to take the credit. Evidently not. Because I guess there’s a lot of folks that take a child tax credit without putting in the child’s Social Security number because this one, if we did, this would save us $27 billion in 10 years. So evidently there’s a lot of people that claim kids that might not be kids May not be legit. People still claim them. Nobody goes back and checks, I guess, because right now we don’t require a Social Security number for the child tax credit. And some of these, by the way, I’m sure you guys listening are probably thinking the same thing I am. Well, I thought that was already there. Again, evidently not. Or this wouldn’t be in this particular finding by the Ways and Means Committee. There’s all sorts of things on here about endowments and universities and keeping them accountable and so on. And there’s also a repeal. This is a big one. And this would affect all of us. And this is one where, you know, in some cases… you know, we all have to suck it up, I guess you could say. This is a repeal of the SALT deduction. In other words, all of us have the ability on our taxes to deduct individual business, state, and local taxes. So if you pay your property taxes, that’s a deduction. If you paid income taxes, that’s a deduction off your federal. And so if they repealed that, That’s a $1 trillion savings over the next 10 years. $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And by the way, as a taxpayer myself, if that were to happen and that takes a trillion dollars off of our debt, knowing what that does for my kids and grandkids on down the road, yeah, I’m in. I would have no problem doing that at all. Bill and Lakewood, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, remember I told you I was going to have veterans do the window, right?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
They just got done today. Five cars. Oh, nice. You know, I can’t complain. They did a good job. You know, a little hard connecting, but, you know, with the weather and stuff kind of screwed everything up.
SPEAKER 14 :
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I feel for you. That’s like the worst time of the year you could ever do windows and doors. So, you know, good job on getting it done.
SPEAKER 07 :
It is. I don’t know why I would do it, but the window happened to break. We had no choice. The one that was in there. And that was a guaranteed forever window. And you know what the company told me? They told me if anybody calls up and says they’re going to sue them, hang up on them. That’s what they told the secretary. Not veterans.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. No, the other guys. Got it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Down in Littleton. And it just… That whole story was a disaster.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I’m glad Dave got you taken care of.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, everything went good, though.
SPEAKER 14 :
Very good. Very good. Bill, I appreciate the update. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Again, Veteran Windows and Doors, I talked about them in the last hour. I’ll talk about them again here coming up. And, yeah, they do a great job, and there’s a great deal right now on Windows and Doors. Okay, when it comes to the Ways and Means Report, this one is a big one. And this is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, especially those that own homes. Now, it won’t ruffle everybody’s feather because not everybody does this. With the Trump tax cuts that happened during his first term, a lot of people don’t deduct their interest on their home any longer. They get a straight deduction. Most people do an easy form, do a straight deduction, off they go. They don’t even fill out the mortgage deduction. So you have to be an itemized deductor, quote-unquote, to be able to even take that in the first place, and not everybody does. But this is a proposal. Again, these are all just conversation pieces. None of these are set in stone. A lot of these will never take place, unfortunately. But they say that if you eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction over 10 years, it’s another trillion dollars. So just like the last one, it’s another trillion. Two trillion in 10 years. So my thought is… They – this is me talking, not them, not anybody else. The interest deduction, I believe, still encourages people to own homes. It’s not the only reason people own homes. They still want to gain equity. They don’t want to put money in the landlord’s pocket. They want to put it in their own, so on and so forth. But there is some incentive with the interest side. If you itemize – and I understand not everybody does – But what I feel needs to happen is they need to revamp that end of things. I don’t think people should be able to get that straight across the board deduction. People should go back to itemizing if they really want to have those deductions. I understand the whole idea was to give everybody a deduction, save money on taxes. It actually, despite what the left tells you, Saved the lower income folks way more money than it did the upper income. That is the exact opposite narrative of what the left will tell you. Their talking point is only the rich benefited from that. Frankly, that is a complete flat-out lie because that is not true at all. The numbers and the data show otherwise. A lot of people saved money and or became net tax receivers, not taxpayers. And some of that is because of the things I’m talking about right now. So I’m one that says that part needs revamped. They should do away with the straight deduction. If you’ve got interest on your mortgage and so on, OK, fine. We’ll let you deduct that and you won’t itemize some other things. So be it. But the straight line deduction, in my opinion, should go away. Again, that’s going to ruffle feathers because that’s going to mean some people pay more in taxes than they have been. Because when Trump enacted his tax cuts, they literally had a tax cut. while others ended up paying more in taxes, typically those that are wealthier and are itemizing and doing some of the things that I’m talking about right now. This is a really deep discussion. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it. Everybody’s going to have their own feeling on that. There was also talk of just lowering the whole cap on mortgage interest and what you actually can deduct. They want to eliminate – this is a suggestion, again, from the Ways and Means Committee – That’s a $260 billion savings in 10 years. All sorts of other things when it comes to the financial end of things. This is another one that’s going to ruffle feathers. Probably won’t ever happen. If you eliminate head of household filing status, meaning you’re not married, you are head of household, maybe you’re a single dad, single mom, and you file as head of household, if they eliminate that and go back to either you’re married or not, And they just do away with the head of household section, $192 billion in savings in 10 years. Now, again, that’s going to be a tough one to get past, although I’m guessing that one’s a lot like the tax credit for kids that I mentioned earlier, where I always thought you had to have a Social Security number, but evidently you don’t. My gut feeling is this elimination of head of household is probably more of a cleanup of people that are double-dipping. Because I’m guessing what’s happening in a lot of cases, two people get divorced, they’ve got kids, both claim head of household. Even though that’s not really the way it’s supposed to work, they are, and they’re getting bigger deductions for being head of household rather than just being single. So my feeling on this is this is probably a way to eliminate some of the quote-unquote double-dipping that’s going on. Again, I don’t know anybody. I’m not pointing the finger at anybody. I don’t know for sure that that’s the case, but that’s my guess. There’s lots of things regarding the income end of things in this particular Ways and Means Report. For example, they want to end treatment of meals and lodging outside of the military. A lot of businesses, by the way, deduct those things. That’s $87 billion in a 10-year savings. They want to eliminate charitable contributions to health organizations. It’s $83 billion in 10 years. They want to eliminate credit for child and dependent care. This is another one that probably won’t get passed. Highly doubtful. Fifty five billion in 10 years. And they go into some other things about transportation and et cetera. And, you know, on site gyms for employers and so on. There’s all sorts of things in the tax code that benefits certain individuals or people groups, if you would. Right. One of these, though, for example, and there’s unknown savings here that’s attributed to it because we don’t know because it hasn’t been done yet. One suggestion is, and we’ve talked about this on this program many, many times, increase electric vehicle fees. In other words, they don’t pay anything into the highway trust fund because they’re not buying fuel. So how do you get electric vehicles, EVs, to pay their own way? Well, there’s a suggestion that they do. How much would that bring in and save taxpayers money when it’s all said and done? They don’t know. Now, I don’t know why they don’t know. It looks to me like you could calculate how many EVs are out there registered and figure that out pretty quickly, but evidently nobody’s done that calculation yet. So that’s that entire section. I may read a few more of these off when we come back. Let’s take a quick break. Golden Eagle Financial. Speaking of finances, Golden Eagle wants to help you with your retirement, getting there, staying there. Give them a call today, by the way. Give Al a call today. Golden Eagle Financial. Find him at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 04 :
Back to Rush to Reason, presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 14 :
And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dan and Blackhawk, what’s going on, sir?
SPEAKER 08 :
Not much. So a lot of these proposals, if they would incorporate AI and stuff, they could probably not eliminate them but increase the tax revenue because there’s a lot of people that are dishonest, for example, head of household. There are certain rules that have to be followed in order to claim that status. And it’s to help the single moms that have two kids, three kids, one kid or whatever. It gives them more of a tax break so that they can Feed the kids.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right, right. And really quick, Dan, in some cases it’s no fault of their own. Dad, whatever, either left, could have died, anything along those lines. And again, as I said earlier, these are suggestions coming out of Ways and Means and I’d have to go through each one of these and really look at them to determine am I even for that or against that. And as you know, Dan, there’s a lot of these that would have so much pushback that good luck on getting them passed.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, the mortgage interest thing, that encourages people. I mean, I’m not rich by any means. Unfortunately, for the events that have occurred to me last year, I’m now going to be able to deduct mortgage interest because I had to refinance my house.
SPEAKER 14 :
Got it.
SPEAKER 08 :
And so I had to buy somebody out. So I’ll be able to itemize deductions. And that’s because my mortgage interest is going up significantly.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
So that’s going to help me because of my current financial situation, and I’m not rich by any means.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and typically in the past, Dan, as you know, and you’re an accountant, you understand this as well as anyone, that was an encouragement to a lot of individuals that were thinking about, you know, I’m renting now. I’d like to buy a house. Where’s my pros and cons? Well, one of the pros was you could deduct money. Now, I understand, as I said earlier, with Trump’s tax cuts and some of the things that he did, a lot of people don’t itemize anymore. They just do the straight deductions, and you know as much about that as I do, because I don’t know what the percentage is of people actually itemizing now versus just doing the straight deductions. You might know that figure better than I. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, no, I’d have to go on the website, IRS website, get that number. But what it did is it simplified the tax return for a lot of people. you know and um the thing is is that there’s people that abuse that too so it’s it’s one million on home acquisition debt that you’re able to deduct the mortgage interest on so the the the left that says that the rich don’t pay much taxes uh for example the people out in california that lost their two three million dollar homes right they’re only able to deduct the interest on a million of that and that’s home acquisition debt or debt to improve your home, and what they did is a lot of people were going out buying cars or personal vacations or whatever and deducting and doing second lines of credit, home equity lines of credit, and deducting that system. So they got smart and eliminated that. Like you said, it’s to encourage people to purchase homes.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. Now, really quick, I did look it up while you were talking, and I thought it would be higher than this. I’m actually kind of shocked. In 2020, could be a little different today, Dan, although you probably see the trends. In 2020, only 10% itemized. Yep. That’s it.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I’m going to be part of that 10% this year.
SPEAKER 14 :
Good for you. It’s all right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, to a certain degree. And then the child tax credit thing with the Social Security. That’s news to me because the reason why is my tax program that I use will not let me get a tax credit. It requires it, right? Right. It requires me to have a Social Security. But I didn’t know that that was in there. I didn’t know otherwise.
SPEAKER 14 :
I guess in a way, I don’t know in your software if you can override that, but evidently it can be or that wouldn’t be a recommendation.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I wouldn’t do it because I’m not going to put my neck out there to have somebody lie on a tax return.
SPEAKER 14 :
Agree.
SPEAKER 08 :
And if I only know that somebody is violating tax law, I can lose my license, and I’m not going to do that.
SPEAKER 14 :
So evidently, Dan, this has to be coming from people that are doing their own, you know, I don’t know, TurboTax or whatever that are essentially lying because that’s essentially – I mean, I shouldn’t say that. Maybe they get – maybe they’ve legitimately had a kid. They didn’t get a Social Security number. It comes a little late or something along those lines, although the way this proposal is would make it sound like that’s not the case.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I don’t know. That was just news to me when you said that, so – So anyway, there’s a lot more. Let me ask you real quick. I didn’t follow it real quick, but didn’t New York take Trump to court because of something to do with taxes?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, they took him to court over the evaluation of his real estate holdings when he was going to apply for loans at banks and so on. They accused him of fraud by overvaluing his properties. Even though the banks did their own appraisals and agreed to the terms, the terms were all met, he paid the loans off, nobody got hurt, yet they still came after him criminally.
SPEAKER 08 :
And then if that was a falsification of records on the New York tax return… the IRS would look into that too.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, as you know, those are two different things. So when a person buys a property… And that’s your basis for what you’re going to now do with depreciation and so on. As you know, Dan, that is one side of the equation. But what you do on a loan app and what you now claim your property is worth, because by the way, that property could have been bought 10 years ago at X price. There’s been X amount of appreciation over the past 10 years. You’re definitely going to have a higher evaluation today. on what you do and apply for a mortgage and so on than what it was on your original tax return and what the basis for your depreciation is figured off of. So, as you know, not one and the same.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so that occurred with me personally, even though I can’t deduct depreciation. I built the home. So when I built the home back in 2001, we built it for $100,000. And when I had to refinance it last year, it went up to six, I don’t know, six something. Good job. 570 to six something.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
And so my basis in the house now is higher because I had to refinance. That changed my position on the house on my basis.
SPEAKER 14 :
No, it didn’t.
SPEAKER 08 :
My basis was $100,000. No, it did.
SPEAKER 14 :
Not on the tax. If you look at it, and again, this is your world more than mine, but the way I understand it, if your original investment was $100, you can take additional upgrades and things that you’ve done, certain remodels and so on, can add to your original basis so that down the road… If you sell that as a single taxpayer, so the way it works is if you’re single filing single, you get a $250,000 capital gain sort of washout, or $500,000 if you’re married. The basis can be added to, so that $100,000, let’s say you put another $100,000 in the house to do upgrades and so on, your basis is now $200,000. That has nothing to do with how much you owe.
SPEAKER 08 :
What I’m saying is the valuation of the house changed. You see what I’m saying?
SPEAKER 14 :
That part I’m understanding. Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, yeah. So it was valued at $100,000. Now it’s valued at $600,000.
SPEAKER 14 :
Meaning you’re at that $500,000 cap if you’re married filing jointly.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
If you sold it for that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. If I sold it for it, but my valuation and then my basis would have went up. There you go. See, I had to refinance. So it’s basically I sold it. I had to sell it, and then I repurchased it.
SPEAKER 14 :
Oh, yeah, that one. Yes, yes, yes. In that case, your basis changes absolutely because there’s a sale involved. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Right, exactly. And that’s probably what happened with Trump, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, no, I think in Trump’s case, it’s more of what I explained to begin with, where you buy a piece of property, and it’s X amount of money. And by the way, that’s what you’re going to put on your tax return. That’s what your basis for your depreciation starts with, which, as you know, you can’t depreciate land. All you can depreciate is the building, and that’s all… done by you guys on the accounting side to figure out what’s what. Anyways, that’s where that all starts. But when you go out down the road and either try to refinance that or he’s wanting to pull money out to maybe go buy another building or whatever the case may be, and let’s say for round numbers he paid $10 million for the piece of property, but 10 years later it’s worth $15 million, which, by the way, I’m probably not exaggerating with some of the properties that he owns. So there’s that $5 million upside now that he can go borrow against. And where New York came in and said, you know, you’re a big fat liar is, you know, Trump says it’s worth 15. Maybe New York says, no, really, it was only worth 14. Keep in mind, the bank always goes and does its own appraisals. In fact, that big of a building, they’re probably getting two appraisals and comparing the two. The bank’s only going to loan money off of what they feel a good solid appraisal from their appraisers are. It doesn’t matter what Trump even says at the end of the day. They’re doing their own evaluation. They’re loaning money based upon that evaluation. And in the case of Trump, he paid all of that off, and no one got hurt, and yet somehow Alvin Bragg felt like he should still go after him for fraud.
SPEAKER 08 :
And conviction of a felony, right? Bunch of crap, by the way.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, fraud that turned into felony, and it’s a load of crap. Totally.
SPEAKER 08 :
I agree with you, because the banks are going to, I mean, what, did they throw out the bank’s valuation during this case?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, here’s the thing, Dan, and this is where a lot of folks like myself are really upset. The reality is because the judge was so tainted, they didn’t even allow a lot of the straight factual evidence into the case. So I can’t even answer that question, Dan, because who knows what they did. It was a kangaroo court.
SPEAKER 08 :
So they just… Yeah, so they basically got their own evaluators that were probably hated Trump, too.
SPEAKER 14 :
Probably.
SPEAKER 08 :
And said, oh, no, this is what it should have been. Correct. And, of course, they won’t release the court documents, because then that would probably be shredded in a normal… court of law that’s saying your evidence is not valid.
SPEAKER 14 :
And by the way, and I’ve said this numerous times, Dan, Donald Trump didn’t do anything different than any other commercial property owner out there that goes and leverages that property to either buy another property, to fix it up, to do whatever they’re trying to do. The reality is when they go borrow money on that, the property owner is always going to evaluate that one higher than what probably the bank or the appraiser does, because that’s how it works. That’s what you do.
SPEAKER 08 :
And So this is so where is it? Is it did it go to the Supreme Court or not or what?
SPEAKER 14 :
I don’t think I think they were you know, that was all in the process of appeals and so on. And then, of course, he got elected and most of those are now going to, you know, go away. I think Donald Trump wanted to that wanted that to appeal and go higher up because it was such a kangaroo court. The way they determine that stuff on the front side, to your point a moment ago that, yeah, I think he really wanted that to go to appeal so he could prove it. But I don’t think that’s going to happen now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, because most people don’t understand what we just talked about.
SPEAKER 14 :
They do not understand what we just talked about. What we just talked about involves, you know, on the same token, Dan, they should understand. Because here’s another comparison. A lot of people want to go out and get a HELOC. So we’re going to use you as an example. You now have a home. You paid $100,000. You had to go through and do a swap and a sale and so on. You rebased it. But bottom line is the house is worth $500,000 today. So you go out and try to get a HELOC. And let’s say your mortgage is $200, and you’re trying to get a HELOC. But by the way, you want to get as much HELOC as you possibly can. So you know what? You’re thinking, man, you know, on a good day, it might actually be worth $550. Let’s add 10% to it. It might be worth $550, not $500. Now, in most cases, depending upon the dollar amount, in this case it’s high enough, where the bank’s going to send out its own appraiser to look at what your property is actually worth, and that appraiser is going to come back and go to the bank, and they’re going to base the HELOC off of what the appraisal is, not what you put on your form that you filled out to give to the bank. And, by the way, that’s exactly what Donald Trump did. It is no different.
SPEAKER 08 :
And people don’t understand that. And all they’re going off of, oh, he’s a convicted felon.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. They do not look at the story I just told.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. And what I’m saying is most people don’t understand how that works.
SPEAKER 14 :
They do not.
SPEAKER 08 :
They do not. And that’s kind of – and I don’t know where this is coming from, but that’s – we talk about illiteracy – In America, we also got a financial illiteracy problem in America, too. Big time.
SPEAKER 14 :
Big time. Big time. Absolutely. Dan, I got another call coming in. Appreciate you always. I appreciate your input, and especially on the accounting side. Appreciate that very much. John and Cheyenne, you’re next.
SPEAKER 05 :
Just wanted to chime in on what you and Dan were talking about with the New York case, the civil case with the half a billion dollar fine. That went to the New York State Court of Appeals, and they did the hearing on it, and the judges pretty much destroyed the state’s case. But they didn’t want to grant, and it’s a civil case, but they didn’t want to do anything until the election was over.
SPEAKER 14 :
Correct. You are right on that. Sorry, I forgot about that. You are correct, John. Absolutely. Yes. Thanks for reminding me of that. You’re right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. But what I’m saying is, They’re going to rule whether Trump’s president or not because it’s a civil matter, not a criminal matter.
SPEAKER 14 :
A criminal case, right. John, if they don’t throw that out, I would be absolutely shocked.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah, because the bank that he borrowed the money from actually presented testimony, and they took the testimony that said, We didn’t lose any money. He paid us back with interest like he was supposed to.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we’re not hurt on this at all.
SPEAKER 05 :
Nobody got hurt. That was the thing that the just, if you remember from some of that Court of Appeals, the justices were asking the questions, wait a minute, who was hurt by this?
SPEAKER 14 :
Right, no one.
SPEAKER 05 :
And then they said, this statue has never been used in this way. It was just at Enron.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
She’s going to lose that one. And then the other one, his conviction appeal. Because they’re going to call him a convicted felon.
SPEAKER 14 :
Forever.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think they’re going to hear his appeal. And wouldn’t that be nice if a year from now the appeals court turned around and said, this was bogus, and throw it out?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
The other thing, did you see that the Democrats didn’t veer from their playbook today?
SPEAKER 14 :
You know what, I didn’t follow. I was so busy with other stuff today, John, outside of that report that was sent to me, I didn’t spend much time looking at the news today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so they already got a TRO on the birthright citizenship.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, that I did know. They are a Seattle judge, I believe, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so they go to a liberal federal Seattle judge who grants it immediately, which means it’s going to go through the court in Seattle. And guess who’s this United States Court of Appeals for the state of Washington?
SPEAKER 14 :
I don’t know.
SPEAKER 05 :
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Well, yeah, the ninth.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yes, yes, the ninth. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
The most liberal appeals court, but also the most overturned appeals court by the Supreme Court. Because it’s the most liberal. Yeah, and then it gets to the Supreme Court and they overturn their decisions. So I got a feeling that one is him again. You know how, and I think we talked about it, he’s playing 3D chess and they’re playing checkers.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 05 :
While they’re all focused on this birthright thing and their hair’s on fire, he’s meanwhile got a hundred other things going on under the table that they don’t even know about.
SPEAKER 14 :
You can’t argue that. And I also and I said this earlier, John, I do feel like his end goal is he wants this in front of the Supreme Court. Now, I talked about that with Phil Kirpin at the at the top of the hour at four o’clock. Phil’s not as confident as I am that that thing will get overturned. I just don’t know, John. And I get it. I’m not a Supreme Court justice. But the liberals, of course, I know what they’re going to do. But I don’t know how you could be on the conservative side. and say that, yeah, the founding fathers’ idea was if you’re an illegal alien and you have a kid here, that kid’s now a citizen. I guarantee you that wasn’t their intent.
SPEAKER 05 :
And the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 over Civil War things because a lot of the southern black former slaves, the southerners, were trying to have them deported, saying they’re not American citizens. And that was the main reason. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER 14 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
So they were using any end run they could. And I read this up. There was one case that did go to the Supreme Court in 18, I think it was 98 or 99. Sorry, I can’t remember the date. But the difference was the parents of that child were legal immigrants. In other words, they came here legally.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. Big difference.
SPEAKER 05 :
Big difference. And that’s going to be the question. Are legal immigrants allowed? That’s the question. Can they do it? So I’m not sure how it’s going to go either. Either way, it would be nice to have finally a ruling that says one way or the other. I think that’s what Trump is trying to get. But we don’t know. It’s going to take a while. In the meantime, I just saw this great, they did a raid in Boston. And they picked up this guy who was arrested 17 times. Wow. And he’s here illegally.
SPEAKER 14 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Amazing. And I stopped him. Good. And he lost his, he’s going back to Haiti.
SPEAKER 14 :
Good.
SPEAKER 05 :
And he lost his mind in an interval. He used the F word, Trump.
SPEAKER 14 :
I saw some of that, actually. Yes, I did see some of that, John.
SPEAKER 05 :
You saw that one?
SPEAKER 14 :
Unbelievable.
SPEAKER 05 :
I can’t wait until they drop him off.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 14 :
And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Charlie Grimes. Charlie’s with us now. Luke and he switched places here earlier in the hour, so appreciate that and appreciate Luke as well helping us out earlier. Daniel Turner from Power of the Future will be joining us here in just a few minutes, so stay tuned. Hour number three is next. Again, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. I’m a rich guy.
