Who was running the White House last days of Biden.

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, so many things are happening in our city or state, our country. What is today’s one of the brightest guys I know, Michael Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prise a winner, and a star reporter at the New York Post. Michael Goodwin, Where do we start?

0:21 Speaker 2 Well, look, I think we are watching two things simultaneously, John. The first is Donald Trump’s remarkable start and how getting things done, delivering on the promises he made in the campaign, and at break neck speed. I mean the you know, I joke that instead of counting what he gets done in one hundred days, we should count what he got

0:45 done in one hundred hours. The second thing is the opposite. It’s what’s going on in New York and the decline of New York and how the governor is just stuck in going backwards, I mean, forever raising taxes, spending and talking as though he’s going to deliver different results than we have now. I mean, that’s how we got in

1:10 this bottomless pit that we’re in now, and she just keeps digging.

1:15 Speaker 1 And with Trump, it’s amazing. I call it the seven days in January. He got more accomplished in seven days than President Biden, possibly in the whole year last year.

1:29 Speaker 2 Yeah, you know what I think is remarkable about it, John, is that I mean, I’ve spoken to the president. You did too, I’m sure before he took office, after he was elected, before he took office, and I was shocked by how much they had prepared for that first day.

1:47 I mean, I knew they were going to be executive orders and things like that, but this was not one or two. I mean, just for example, the one big executive order he did overturned eighty eight zero executive orders and executive actions taken by Biden. Now, to overturn those, you have to know what’s in them because you’re citing them,

2:11 and you have to you are countering everything in there. So there’s an awful lot of preparation work. And I think that they clearly used the time between the election and the inauguration. They certainly used it to good advantage.

2:30 Speaker 1 Understood, And Governor Hoko, is the MTA tunning her or what tell us about the MTA and what the heck is going on?

2:43 Speaker 2 Well, that’s an excellent question about who’s goning whom here, because I think there’s no question that the public is being gone by this. The whole idea of congestion pricing was that it was necessary to fund the MTA now, and it would it would raise a billion dollars a year. Look, as we’ve discussed, inherently, there’s a contradiction. If people don’t

3:11 come into the city because of this nine dollars a day tax, then it’s not going to raise as much money. If they do come, continue to come, then you’re not going to affect congestion. So the two goals of this legislation are in conflict with each other, and so I think it fundamentally it’s not an honest piece of legislation.

3:37 And then this week we learn because of Carl Campanili at the New York Post that the MTA’s bridges and tunnels, in the last four years, something like five point one billion dollars of tolls have not been collected because people don’t have easy pass and use false license plates or paper license plate or something else. Five point one billion dollars,

4:09 including one point four billion dollars last year alone. And you pile on top of that the eight hundred million dollars that the MPa says it lost through cheaters on the subways and buses in the city. So however you want to characterize this, that’s a total of two point two billion dollars lost in a single year. And then

4:37 congestion pricing is the answer. So this is an agency that can’t manage itself, and Kathy Hoko keeps going along with the scam that all it needs is more money. Is never going to be enough money until you fix this agency which doesn’t know how to manage its finances.

5:00 Speaker 1 Absolutely correct, they got it. Seems like it’s a bottomless black pit and they want the tax paid. They go to the easiest place to collect it from the poor taxpayer that pays, instead of jumping the turnstile or instead of cheating in something else.

5:24 Speaker 2 That’s right, that’s right. If you pay, you’re a sucker here. And look, this is the mentality of the whole government. Hocal’s budget proposed budget is two hundred and fifty two billion with a beat. Right a decade ago it was one hundred and ten billion less, So it’s going up on an average of more than ten billion dollars a year.

5:49 This is not sustainable. And when you see things like the MTA and then you transplant that to the whole state government, you say, where is the money going Why is it never enough? That’s the mismanagement. As I say, the whole budget is riddled with fraud and abuse and waste, and they never do anything about it. They just keep

6:15 saying more and more and more.

6:18 Speaker 3 Michael, sir, it’s Richard Winberg. Let me ask you this question. You also had in your recent column a very compelling point.

6:26 Speaker 1 By the way, breaking news for tonight, Bob Menendez sentenced to eleven years in prison. I guess somebody paid. Nobody in New York ever goes to jail. But.

6:39 Speaker 2 That’s right way. Where are the gold bars?

6:42 Speaker 3 Yeah, well he’s gonna have a different kind of bars, Michael, going back, I’ll tell you and I agree, as as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. I’m very troubled, very troubled, indeed, by the fact that President Trump his rescinded protection for a Secretary of State Pompeo, national security advisor Bolton, and for Hooks. I think it’s

7:08 a very dangerous precedent. It discourages people from doing public service and making tough, aggressive decisions to protect national security, and god forbid, one of these people is attacked and insn’t people killed when they’re killed, this will be a stain on the Trump presidency which could totally undermine it.

7:27 What are your.

7:27 Speaker 2 Thoughts, Oh, I agree Richard’s well said. I think that the particularly because he not only did it remove the federal protection but announced it. Now that you know if the Iranian assassins who have are the reason why the protection was put there in the first place, I mean they also had plots to kill President Trump himself, so

7:52 he should be, I think, be extra sensitive to the fact that these plots are out there. And it’s all because these these three individuals worked for him in the first term and were perceived to be part of the decision to fire the drone and kill Solmani, the head of the Kutz Force, which is the Iranian terrorist organization,

8:17 And so they did a great service to the United States. They to the extent that their protection is expensive, then by all means, let’s find some way of still protecting them or if they are wealthy enough to afford it.

8:33 But to announce it and then remove it, I think does put them in danger. And as you say, it’s a discouragement to others, it may be a discouragement to others to give the President advice.

8:45 Speaker 3 Well, if you want honest advice from your advisors, they have to know that they’re going to be protected absolutely.

8:53 Speaker 2 And as you say too, and as Tom Cotton said, the senator from Arkansas who criticized the President over this, innocent people could be killed in assassination attempts as well. So I think, no matter how you score this, it’s just a bad idea, and I hope the President will rescind that order.

9:14 Speaker 1 Michael Goodwin, thank you for an update this Wednesday night. And God bless you and God bless America.

9:22 Speaker 2 Thank you both, very thank you,