Trump Held in Contempt of Court, Must Pay $10K a Day - YouTube

Donald Trump is held in contempt of court.

The UN Secretary General meets with Putin.

And Elon Musk buys Twitter.

That and more on this week’s headlines.

Welcome to America Uncovered.

I’m Chris Chappell.

This episode is sponsored by Trade.

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Donald Trump was held in contempt of court this week for not presenting documents in

a civil case investigating his company’s financial dealings before taking office.

Trump was ordered to pay $10,000 a day until he turns over the documents.

That sounds bad…

until you realize that Donald Trump’s net worth is estimated at $3 billion.

Which means he can afford to pay this fine every day for the next 821 years.

$10,000 is nothing to Trump.

He probably spends more than that every day on hairspray and tan in a can.

The Biden administration announced it would be closing part of the National Petroleum

Reserve in Alaska to oil and gas drilling.

Under President Trump, 18 million acres of the reserve were open for drilling.

With this announcement, now it’s only 12 million.

This is being done in a conservation effort.

Because more expensive gasoline and dependence on foreign oil are prices worth paying to

preserve the natural beauty of Alaska.

Ah, just look at it.

This is an actual photo of most of Alaska.

Breathtaking, isn’t it?

A federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the Biden administration from lifting Title

42, which was set to end on May 23.

Title 42 is a Trump-era immigration policy started during the Covid pandemic.

It allows the government to quickly expel illegal immigrants, including asylum seekers,

at the border.

This law is historic.

Mostly because it’s the only Covid restriction Republicans are actually in favor of.

The decision to lift Title 42 came from the CDC.

Essentially, the CDC is saying that migrants can once again enter the US, because Covid

isn’t much of a concern.

Of course, this is the same CDC that was upset last week when a different federal judge repealed

the federal mask mandate for traveling, because they said Covid is still a concern.

But it’s not really fair to compare those two stories.

After all, one involves large groups of people traveling together in the US, while the other…

involves large groups of people traveling together in the US.

You see?

It’s completely different.

Covid is still a concern…

except when it isn’t.

More after the break.

Welcome back.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that the US government’s goal in the Ukraine-Russia

conflict is to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, democratic country.

Austin also said, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree

that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

The Defense Secretary wants to see one of America’s biggest rivals weakened?

What a brilliant strategy!

That’s like saying

I want the guy I’m facing in a fencing match to be unarmed.

And I don’t mean I want him to be empty-handed.

I literally don’t want him to have any arms.

I think I’m ready to

become Secretary of Defense.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and

his comically long table on Tuesday to discuss what can be done to bring peace to the region.

And on Thursday, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the same reason.

Guterres himself had said there wasn’t much hope for a peaceful resolution even before

meeting with Putin.

So if he didn’t have much hope, then why did he go meet with these leaders?

Obviously, it’s because he wanted to exhaust every avenue for peace.

And more importantly,

he wanted a free lunch.

Especially in Moscow.

I hear their tea is to die for.

Russia warned the US to stop sending weapons to Ukraine.

Russia’s ambassador to the US said, "What the Americans are doing is pouring oil on

the flames.

I see only an attempt to raise the stakes, to aggravate the situation, to see more losses."

Yeah…

Russian losses.

That’s kind of the point of sending weapons.

Although I do agree with him that we should stop pouring oil on fires.

Mostly because it’s a complete waste, what with recent oil prices.

It seems like Russia is throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Their latest gamble

is accusing Ukraine and the CIA of plotting to kill Russian journalists connected to state-run

media.

I can understand why Putin would be upset about that.

Because killing Russian journalists is *his* job.

Speaking of dead Russians,

two Russian oligarchs and their families were found dead within 48 hours of each other.

These were both deemed murder-suicides.

And if you’re thinking that sounds a little fishy,

this makes 6 Russian oligarchs who have died by what investigators are calling either suicides

or murder-suicides since the start of the Ukraine invasion.

Perhaps seeing their fortunes and lavish lifestyles crumble around them as a result of all the

sanctions the West has been putting on Russia caused them to snap.

Or perhaps they tried to get Putin to end the Ukraine invasion, and they were dealt

with.

Or as Putin might say,

this was the work of Ukraine and the CIA!

And after the break, Elon Musk buys Twitter.

Welcome back.

Twitter agreed to let Elon Musk buy the company for $44 billion dollars, valuing the social

media giant at $54.20 a share.

Musk doesn’t officially own Twitter yet.

The deal isn’t finalized.

There’s a chance it could fall through.

Especially since one of the provisions of the deal is that Musk is allowed to tweet

about the deal,

“so long as such Tweets do not disparage [Twitter] or any of its Representatives.”

And Musk criticized a Twitter executive, calling their censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop

story “incredibly inappropriate”.

Which, for Musk, is pretty tame.

This buyout would automatically make Twitter a private company, and Musk said he plans

on keeping it that way.

Which is shocking… that Twitter wasn’t already a private company.

Their digital dumpster fire of a platform is what they came up with to make shareholders

happy?

I’m surprised each share of Twitter wasn’t valued at

a body pillow and a Prozac, since that’s what you need to self-medicate and recover

after spending any amount of time on Twitter.

But when Twitter goes private, Musk can do just about whatever he wants with it.

Just to keep with his brand, I say Musk should rename Twitter to

“MySpaceX.”

So what is Musk going to do with Twitter?

In a statement, he said,

“I [want] to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features,

making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating

all humans.

Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the

community of users to unlock it.”

Making Twitter better than ever?

That’s a low bar.

Although his promise to authenticate all humans is a great idea.

Because at the very least, this will prevent

Mark Zuckerberg from ever using it.

Many people were upset to learn Twitter will now be run by a billionaire.

You know, as opposed to when it was run by

a *different* billionaire.

Several Twitter users and many celebrities threatened to leave Twitter.

Thousands of people might quit a social media platform?

Wow.

Elon Musk buying Twitter might turn out to be the greatest aid to mental health of all

time.

So why did Musk buy Twitter?

Musk describes himself as a free speech absolutist.

In his statement, Musk also said,

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town

square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

The best thing about Twitter is that everyone has a voice.

However, the worst thing about Twitter is that *everyone* has a voice.

Especially people with anime avatars.

Many fear that Musk would silence his critics now that he owned the platform.

But Musk tweeted that he hopes even his worst critics remain on Twitter.

Which is redundant, since Twitter is a site exclusively used by the world’s worst critics.

Twitter is basically one giant dissatisfied Yelp review of reality.

“Everyone here sucks.

One star.”

Also, wishing someone would remain on Twitter is actually the meanest thing you can wish

upon another human.

Musk said, “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which

effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

He wants to upset the far left and far right equally?

Then let me be the first to congratulate new Twitter head of content development:

Joe Biden.

Human rights groups expressed concern about hate speech on Twitter after Musk takes charge.

The director of technology and human rights at Amnesty International USA said,

“The last thing we need is a Twitter that willfully turns a blind eye to violent and

abusive speech against users, particularly those most disproportionately impacted, including

women, non-binary persons, and others.”

A Twitter that turns a blind eye to abusive speech?

That would be terrible!

That would be catastrophic!

That would be… exactly how Twitter has been since it started.

That statement could have just ended after “The last thing we need is a Twitter.”

One of the biggest questions coming out of Musk buying Twitter is whether or not Musk

would allow former president Donald Trump to rejoin the platform.

But Trump says he won’t rejoin, and will instead focus on his own platform, Truth Social.

“I am not going on Twitter.

I am going to stay on Truth … I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements

to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”

I can’t blame Trump for not wanting to go back to Twitter.

And I can’t blame him for wanting to stick with his own platform.

He put a lot of money into it.

Almost as much as he spends every year on

hairspray and tan in a can.

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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.

Thanks for watching America Uncovered.