Feb. 3, 2025

Trump Wants Norway's Piggy Bank, Canada Dumps Our Bourbon, and MTG Becomes Language Police!

Show Notes
Transcript

Today's Political Circus: Trump dreams up a trillion-dollar investment fund (with money we don't have), Canadians are hate-drinking local wine, Marco Rubio's running an agency through his mystery friend, Mexico found ten thousand troops behind their couch, and MTG's auditioning to be America's Accent Coach! Host Patrick Gutfield explains why this is basically an episode of reality TV, but with nuclear weapons. Warning: May contain traces of international diplomacy and hurt feelings.

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Calaruga shark media from Washington, d C. Where it's USA one,

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Mexico zero. This is ballot. That's right.

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Mexico miraculously found ten thousand troops they had in the

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back of the closet.

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Let's hit this.

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Wow, President Shinbaum and Trump just played the world's highest

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stakes game of Let's make a deal. Trump threatened twenty

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five percent tariffs, and suddenly Mexico found ten thousand troops

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they had just lying around.

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What a coincidence.

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Now, these troops are supposedly going to stop migrants and

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drugs from crossing the border. In exchange, Mexico gets a

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one month tariff timeout and helps stopping guns from flowing south.

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That's like when your neighbor agrees to stop blasting music

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at three am if you help catch the raccoons in

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their yard. Trump's been on quite the tariffs free lately.

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He hit Canada with twenty five percent, China with ten percent,

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and tried to smack Mexico with twenty all in one weekend.

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The stock market's reacting.

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Like someone just told it his favorite show is getting canceled.

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You've got to appreciate the timing here. Trump announces these

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massive tariffs on Saturday, and by Monday, Mexico's already found

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a solution that's faster than most people respond to a

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dinner invitation, though, I guess when someone threatens to make

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everything twenty five percent more expensive, it really motivates you

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to check your calendar. The real question is what happens

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in a month when this temporary deal expires. Will we

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be back here doing this dance again? Because nothing says

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stable international relations like monthly cliffhangers. Stay tuned for the

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next exciting episode of Trade Wars, the Tariffs strike back. Meanwhile, well,

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looks like Canada's finally had enough of being America's polite neighbor.

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They're not just mad, They're Canadian mad. That's like regular mad,

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but with more apologies. In Maple Syrup Premiere, Doug Ford's

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pulling American booze off on Terry Yo Shelves faster than

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a hockey player clearing the puck. He's basically saying no

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bourbon for you to the entire province. That's twenty five

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percent tariffs. Here's zero percent American whiskey. And check out

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Calgary's Lima Coelo family. They're going full Canadian resistance the sun,

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sowing a maple leaf on his backpack for Europe while

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his sister's doing a freedom inventory of their pantry. They're

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probably measuring their patriotism in metric. Meanwhile, in Windsor, Mayor

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Drew Dilkins is watching two hundred and seventy two million

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dollars in daily trade cross the Ambassador Bridge, wondering if

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Trump just unfriended Canada on Facebook. He's encouraging people to

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drink local wine instead of California stuff. Though, to be fair,

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if you're dealing with twenty five percent tariffs, drinking might

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not be the worst idea. Prime Minister Trudeau hit back

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with retaliatory tariffs faster than you can say sorry. He's

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putting fees on one hundred and fifty five billion Canadian

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dollars worth of a Marria and goods. That's like when

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your roommate eats your leftovers, so you eat their entire

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grocery haul. The best part, Canadians are now booing at

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sporting events.

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That's how you know they're serious.

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Canadians booing is like New Yorkers giving up complaining about

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the subway. It just doesn't happen without a really good reason,

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and Trump exempted energy products. They only get a ten

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percent tariff because nothing says I'm tough on trade like

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making sure you can still get that sweet, sweet Canadian

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oil at a discount. Marco Rubio just declared himself the

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new head of USAID, which I'm pretty sure stands for

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you seriously, aren't in charge, dude. He announced he's delegated

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the authority to someone a very specific That's like saying

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your homework is being done by my friend.

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You wouldn't know him. He goes to another school.

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Meanwhile, they've got the day off because some folks from

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the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE were demanding access

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to classify files and when they couldn't get in, they

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threatened to call the cops. That's right, the Efficiency Department

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couldn't efficiently get into the building, so they went with

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the classic I'm telling mom approach. Rubio's complaining that USAID

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is completely unresponsive coming from Congress. That's like a sloth

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criticizing a cheetah's running form. He's touring around El Salvador

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saying USAID runs counter to our national strategy. Though when

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pressed about USAID's importance to national security, he backpedaled faster

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than a clown on a unicycle, saying there are things

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we should continue to do, and speaking of things Americans

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don't want, new polls show most of us aren't exactly

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thrilled about Trump's tariff plans for Mexico and Canada. A

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Reuter's IPSOS poll found sixty percent of posed Canadian tariffs

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and fifty five percent opposed Mexican ones, though according to CNN,

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eighty percent of Americans expected Trump to do it anyway.

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That's like knowing your roommate is going to eat your leftovers.

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You're not surprised, just disappointed. The CBSU gov poll showed

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fifty nine percent of people think tariffs will make prices higher,

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only eighteen percent think they'll bring prices down. Those eighteen

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percent probably also think chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

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But hey, at least we've got Elon Musk, the world's

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richest man, helping overhaul the federal government. Because if there's

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one thing that screams efficiency, it's putting a guy who

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posts memes all day in charge of streamlining international aid.

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Trump just announced he wants in America to join the

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Sovereign Wealth Fund club, because apparently running the country like

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a business wasn't enough. Now he wants to run it

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like a hedge fund manager who just discovered their trust fund.

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Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump declared, it's about time

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this country had a sovereign wealth fund. Treasury Secretary Scott

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Besson chimed in, saying they'll get this baby up and

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running in twelve months, though he was pretty vague on

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the whole where's the money coming from?

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Part?

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Minor detail, I guess Now, for those wondering what a

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sovereign wealth fund is, imagine if your country was that

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friend who always has extra cash to invest. That's basically Norway, China,

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Abu Dhabi and Singapore. They've got these massive government run

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investment funds from all their surplus money. The US, on

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the other hand, we've only had a surplus four times

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in fifty years. The last time was two thousand and one,

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back when Blockbuster was still telling us to be kind

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and rewind. But Trump's got big plans. He mentioned maybe

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doing something with TikTok, perhaps not real specific. There nothing

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inspires confidence in a trillion dollar investment fund like the

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phrase perhaps not. And here's the kicker. This whole thing

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would need Congress to sign off on it. Yes, the

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same Congress that treats passing a basic budget like it's

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solving a Rubik's cube underwater. Trump's basically asking them to

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create a fund that would potentially cut them out of

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controlling the money. That's like asking a turkey to vote

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for Thanksgiving. So to recap, We've got a plan to

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create a massive investment fund with money we don't have

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that needs approval from people who definitely won't approve it.

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Ah the classic tale of what happens when you put

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Silicon Valley bros.

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In charge of government email.

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Remember when the worst thing that could happen to your

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inbox was a chain letter from your aunt.

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Those were the days. So get this.

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Elon Musk, fresh from renaming Twitter to a letter and

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sleeping on government floors, decided to put his dream team

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in charge of federal communications.

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These whiz kids.

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Replace the government's boring, old secure email system with their

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own homemade version, because apparently, when you're handling sensitive federal communications,

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what you really want is the digital equivalent.

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Of a treehouse with a no Girl's allowed sign.

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The result, thirteen th Noah employees got spammed harder than

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a Hawaiian restaurant's menu. We're talking scientology, newsletters, gene ads,

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and some particularly creative weather forecasts predicting a one hundred

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percent chance of chaos with scattered profanity. The best part,

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someone named Craig just sent an email that said, yo,

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that's it.

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That's the email.

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Craig didn't elaborate on whether this was about the weather,

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national security, or if he just wanted to say hi

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to thirteen thousand government employees at once. This is what

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happens when you replace your chief information officer with someone

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whose biggest tech achievement was getting all their apps to

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update at the same time. Now the whole system's about

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as secure as a screen door on a submarine. But hey,

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at least now we know where all those government weather

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scientists can get the perfect pair of genes.

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So there's that.

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So Marjorie Taylor Green's now doing accent critique like she's.

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Simon Cowell at the World's Worst Talent Show.

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She watched a French journalist ask a question at the

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White House briefing and decided the real problem.

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With American media is French accents.

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The reporter Sonya Dredy asked about Trump's response to that

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deadly plane crash in DC, and Green's takeaway was basically, sorry,

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this press room isn't big enough for multiple languages. She

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actually posted and I can't believe this is real. How

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about that accent from that reporter. I think we need

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to throw out all the foreign press American media first,

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This is coming from someone who represents Georgia in Congress.

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You know, part of that country founded by immigrants, with

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that big statue in New York Harbor that says, give

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me you're tired, you're poor. Not give me your journalist,

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but only if they sound like they're from Kansas. When

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Driddi saw Green's post, she responded with the kind of

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calm that makes you think she's dealt with this before.

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Marjorie Taylor Green thinks I should be thrown out of

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the press room because of my accent, which is a

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very polite way of sar. Did this member of Congress

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just try to kick me out for being French? You've

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got to wonder, and in Green's ideal press room, would

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we also kick out Arnold Schwarzenegger Because I'd pay good

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money to see someone try to tell the terminator, his

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accents not welcome.

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Portions of today's program were made with

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The help of AI tariffs and an email from Craig

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that said Yo