Here we are every weekday at five o'clock. Lemon Live at 5. Welcome everyone. Oh, yay. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you guys. I see you in the chat. Let me know where you are. Like and thumbs up. Okay, first order of business. So, thank you for joining us today. We have a lot, a lot, a lot to get to. DL Hughley is here. You guys know he's got to come every week because that's my dude. And by popular demand, Reese Waters is here as well. So, there is a treat and there are treats in store for you. But first, as I said, we got a lot of big breaking news. I want to get now to our Washington, D.C. correspondent. Daniel Grimes joins us now. Daniel, thank you. There is a negotiation with Iran. Is there a deal? Is the Strait open?
Okay. All right, Daniel, thank you very much for that breaking news. We'll see you in a little bit. I mean, seriously, before you go though, there is a sort of fight brewing between the governor of California. Gavin Newsom announced yesterday that he's going to tax 100% on anybody receiving that slush fund money, that 1776 slush fund money. He's saying 100% tax. The guy who's in charge of the money, the Treasury Department, he has a few things to say about that.
Yeah. You talked about this this morning, Don, about how Democrats need to fight back. Gavin Newsom in California is doing that. He announced that 100% tax on anybody that takes that money. Well, here's what the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said about that today in the Oval Office.
Thank you, sir. Governor Gavin Newsom has floated this idea of a 100% state tax on Californians who receive money from President Trump's anti-weaponization fund. Your response to the governor's call for 100%?
There's no cure for stupid.
Okay. Is he talking about Trump?
So, he was in the press briefing room, not the Oval Office. But no, he's talking about Gavin Newsom, saying there's no cure for stupid.
I don't know. I guess he's supporting that slush fund for January 6 defendants. Don, I... yeah, you would think he was talking about Trump, but... Yeah, I know. He better get ready because other governors around the country are proposing that. Enough states... I don't know, red states may not do it, you know. Do you know?
Well, the other news that he didn't make, he said he was going to follow the law on that $250 bill, that he wasn't going to just go ahead and print it until Congress approves it, because, as you know, the law says nobody living can be on our money. So, he said he's going to follow the law on that.
We'll see. Thank you for the update on our breaking news, which was no breaking news because the war is still going. The Strait isn't open. A deal, a deal, a deal. I can't tell you how many times we've heard it. Thank you, Daniel Grimes. We appreciate it. And our Washington correspondent, Daniel's doing such a great job for us. Also, look, this was a crazy week. And it's not like there was any crazy major breaking news, but there was just a lot of [__] that was thrown out there, like the 1776 thing. That was last week, but still, this is the fallout from it. Including the stuff that's happening with the UFC. Yeah, we got E. Jean Carroll. We got all of it. And here to talk about every bit of it, my friend DL... DL Hughley joins us in the middle of being a grandfather, right?
You weren't even nice to your own kids like that. I'm listening to you in the green room.
So what? So what? Who... I mean, you know...
I think I like my grandkids way more than I like my... It's not even that. I just think I'm... Look at them. I just think I'm less responsible. Like, there's no responsibility. I know that if I... like, I go, they come see me, and I came to see them in Atlanta. I go to my favorite bar, my 5-year-old goes with me. Now, that would look irresponsible if I were a father, but I'm not. So...
When my mom got grandkids, I was like, 'Wait a minute.' I would go visit my mom and her grandbaby, my nephew, would be up like at midnight. I was like, 'We could never stay up this late.'
Right, right, right, right. And why did you get him all these toys and decide it was his birthday or Christmas? What is going on here? It's different. But you know what? You know what's different now? It's different the Department of Justice and our justice system in this country. I don't know, D, if you saw my update yesterday on what happened, what my lawyers filed and what is happening around the country, right, with these grand juries. I think that they are a testament to his... I think Trump is concerned about retribution and enriching itself. That's just clear. But I don't know how arresting journalists or, you know, attorney generals or, you know, having UFC fights at the White House or putting itself on a $250 bill or any of those things have any impact on what is affecting Americans' lives every day. And I think more and more it has become abundantly clear that he is only concerned about itself and that America is suffering. Like, I read something today, it talked about how travel is down 20% in America because no one wants to come in. I mean, the White House... this dude done turned the White House into a trailer park.
That's... I wanted to talk to you. We'll get to that real quick. Before we get to that, I just want to talk to you about something that really bothered me, DL, and I think it would bother you too because you have a show on YouTube. You have a show that you do, right? Apparently the Department of Justice, or the prosecutors in this case, wanted a list of my subscribers' names, addresses, and emails and phone numbers. What are they going to do with that? It's outrageous.
They were denied. The judge denied it. Of course, this judge... but I know that they're... listen, he's a pantheon of judges. I know someone will do it.
But I think what's interesting is that at the same time they're asking for your list, they're asking to remove the J6ers from those lists. At the same time they're asking who subscribed to you, they're trying to remove the people who attacked the Capitol. So I just think it is authoritarianism 101, and it's just kind of where we are right now. And it's everything we said would happen is happening. And I think, like I said before, I think he knows his time is running out, and like any wounded animal, it fights that much harder to stay alive. And I think that's what he's doing right now. He's stripping his country for parts. He's going after his enemies and he's enriching himself.
Yeah, DL, you're right about that. But what are they going to do with that? Because you remember, you know, Joseph McCarthy, they had the list, right, back in the day about, oh, this person's a communist. What are they going to do? Were they going to use it for something like that? Were they going to use it to intimidate those people? Are they going to use it to try to kill my business?
Everything they've done is a level of intimidation, right? Everything they've done is at core origin. So I think, you know who's not surprised? Old black people are the only ones who are not surprised by this. But I'm kind of grateful because I think that we got a little complacent. I think we got a little soft. It was sweet out here and all the things that people were saying, you know, about all the things that would happen. I just... I think people could not imagine them actually happening. And I thank them for being who they are. Because now that they've shown us who they are, we can remember who we are.
Yeah. Can we remember who we are in Washington, D.C. right now with this tacky [__] UFC thing going up this arch and then the ballroom? What is it? What, a UFC rink on the lawn of the White House? Now you talk about ghetto. That's not even ghetto. Fabulous, right?
I would think you would want to win one fight before you started another one. Like, you can't have an Ultimate Fighting Championship when a middle power fought you to a standstill. And I just think all of these are distractions. And they don't do anything about, like I said, the concerns of everyday black people, excuse me, everyday Americans, which is, you know, affordability, which is food, which is gas, which is, you know, fertilizer, which is healthcare. So none of this helps. But it's like the Romans used to have games at the Colosseum as a distractive mechanism. That's exactly what happened. Remember, they used to have... that was what they would do before whenever the mood of the country, DL, was really sour and, you know, was like what's going on with his approval rating. What do you do? You have games and you fight. You fight. And you know what the interesting thing was back in the day? You know, they used to have, like, gatherings for lynchings, right?
That's why they're trying to kill history. Like, I said earlier, I think the only people who are not shocked are old black people. And old black people knew exactly what was going to happen. They're the only ones who are not shocked. They're the only ones who, you know, have a point of reference for this. I think that, and again, I'm grateful because, you know, that old adage: without a death, there can't be a resurrection. I think our idea of what this country is and our place in it needed to have an awakening and a reckoning, and I think it is now.
Well, my saying is old people be knowing. So, I think you're right about old people. They're not shocked. But can you imagine though, DL, any other president, especially a black president, putting up some [__] like this in front of the White House? They would have run Barack Obama out of town.
Yeah, but I think Donald Trump's more like how presidents were traditionally. Donald Trump is not acting new. For Donald Trump, this is retro. There are more presidents who've assaulted women, who've been accused of, who had sex with underage... there are more presidents like that than haven't been. If you look at our money, it's littered with people who would be criminals, man. Like some of the stuff they done. So, I don't think... I think Donald Trump's behavior is not new. It's retro. You get to be as hateful. And a lot of the things that the president tried to do in terms of stripping powers away from the president were because they wanted to avoid where they obviously saw the country was going. And I think he is an example of where we have been.
Well, every time I think, DL, the bar can't get lower, it does. And it's probably going to get a lot lower.
We're going to all be limboing by the time this is over.
You're going to have to have a strong back for how low... but every time I think it's going to get lower. I mean, it can't get any lower and it does. Donald Trump was found liable in a civil court for sex.
Well, but the judge made it clear that it was rape by any other name. So it's sexual battery.
In a Washington Post story, he did say that it was akin to rape, and then she won a defamation suit twice, and it passed the appeals process. What's his name? Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's lawyer in the appeals portion of it. He's now the Attorney General of the United States. He had to recuse himself. What kind of [__] is this now that they want to criminally investigate her?
It's what... he has a secret police. He deliberately replaced all of the people in important positions with loyalists. So I don't think we could be shocked by this. I do think that it is one of the reasons we're in the situation we're in with the economy. I think with the war, I think that the predicate was never on expertise or even... it was just loyalty, fealty to him. If you look at what's happening in Iran, it is exceptional brown men who are fighting mediocre white men. You can't tell me that whoever is leading the Iranian army is more adept at warfare than Pete Hegseth. That's just true. How didn't you know that they would close down the Strait on the first move? How didn't you know that? How didn't you know? Like, I just think we are seeing what powerful men who surround themselves with mediocrity will get you into. Because when you are mediocre, it's petty. Everything's petty. He has... even when somebody dies, I've never seen him rise above a moment. I've never seen him not be petty. I've never seen him stoop. Every time you think he can't go lower, he does. And so I think that is the telltale sign of somebody of mediocrity. I just think that, and he surrounded himself with people like that. And now the predicate isn't expertise. It's loyalty. Go after my enemies. Grab money. Let's grip. Let's openly grip. Let's do what we want. And at the end of the day, I'll pardon everybody and we'll all get away with it.
I think that we're basically saying the same thing. I was going to say I can tell you how they, you know, underestimated Iran is because you have someone who has no experience as the Secretary of Defense.
Right. You have someone who has no foreign policy experience as the Vice President of the United States.
You have people in those positions who, in their definition, are DEI hires. And also on the other side, you have JD Vance negotiating. You have Jared Kushner going as negotiator. That's why we're in the mess that we're in.
Now, let me tell you something. You don't ever want a dude named JD or Mark Wayne... Mark Wayne to ever negotiate anything.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Mark Wayne, anything. You don't want them having to do anything. If you see a JD Vance and a Mark Wayne negotiating anything, it is about the price of Big Red or Yoo-hoo. That's it. They shouldn't be doing anything else. But we're here. Like, you got to remember this is a society that... Cyrus the Great is in the Bible. Cyrus the Great fought the Babylonian Empire. Ezra won for Cyrus the Great. They fought the Roman Empire. They fought the Byzantine Empire. They fought Genghis. They fought Alexander the Great. If you ain't scared of Alexander the Great, you ain't going to be scared of Donald the Dome. You ain't.
We're laughing, but I mean, we're really in a bad situation. People are really suffering right now. And look, he has elevated Iran to the stature of... to the level of a United States military operation and negotiations.
But this war can't... because the team that is winning needs to pretend like they lost, and the team that is losing needs to pretend like they won.
The team that is winning needs to pretend like they're losing, and the team that's losing needs to pretend like it's winning. In order for this to work...
In order for it to work, they need to give him something they don't want to.
They need to give him victory. They need to give him an off-ramp. And they keep making more and more demands. Like, it is the most ridiculous thing I hear repeated all the time: 'We had to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb.' Every president for the last 50 years has stopped them from doing that. And they didn't have to tell them what you did. Every president has done it without... If the goal is to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, everyone has done it, and not in such a disruptive way. And I think... I think it's just... he looks before he leaps, and we all are the worst off for it. And I think that this is just the kind of... like last time, people gave him another chance. I think to a great degree because I thought the virus was something that he couldn't control, and they blamed a lot of what they liked... or they believed that the country was on a good trajectory till the virus happened. Turns out Trump is the virus. Turns out he's the thing that's wrong.
Yeah. You know why we're still here and there isn't a deal, according to sources and foreign policy experts, is that the deal that's on the table, folks around him are telling him this is the same as Barack Obama. Yeah. And he cannot sign a deal which was already in place and the Strait was open and they weren't getting nuclear weapons. And so what did we win in all of this if we come away with it, you know, just opening up the Strait of Hormuz? That's the way it was before. You spent billions of dollars of our money and caused our gas prices to go up.
Yeah. I think the biggest winners in this, and I think it's not a big secret, are Russia and China. I think that they're the big winners. And I think America's cachet around the world is eroded. I think that anybody who pretends like that's... a middle power fought the most advanced, the most powerful military on the face of the earth to a standstill. If I'm fighting Mike Tyson and he hits me first, and at the end of the fight I'm still standing, I won.
Yeah, it's true. Because Mike... yeah, and we're Mike Tyson in this. Yep.
We're the heavyweight champions, we're supposed to be, and we let, you know, some not even middle... Israel. And they have not... they fought Israel and us. And I just think... and even when he left, Xi Jinping talked about America declining. And the great thing about something like that is, like I said before, without death there can't be a resurrection. And who we were and who we are. Imagine a nation that spends all its money on defense. We spend all of our money on defense, and it would be okay if we were defending ourselves. We've been at war. We're a 250-year-old nation. We've been at war 95% of the time we've been in existence. We found a way in America. A nation will get more angry with you for stopping a war than starting one.
DL, did you pay attention to Texas this week? Ken Paxton, you know, a long-time sort of normal Republican, as normal as you can be in this environment. And this guy has so many scandals.
And by normal, you mean a convicted criminal and fraud and pedophile.
I was talking about Cornyn.
A convicted, impeached, embezzler, fraud, adulterer, and pedophile neighbor. I guess that is norm these days.
No, no, I'm talking about Cornyn. He was the normal one. And then you have Ken Paxton, who is scandal-ridden. And he ends up being the one to win. But DL, it wasn't even close. And I mean, this guy has a rap sheet like... I know rappers ain't got his rap sheet. Literally.
It literally is the Christian versus the crook, and the crook looked like the inside track to win. Like, this dude let a pedophile... gave a pedophile a slap on the wrist. Literally a pedophile slap on the wrist. And the worst thing he can say about Talarico is that he's a vegan. Like, I'd rather a dude eat soy than somebody enable the abuse of boys. It's not hard for me. But the fact that it's a real question, the fact that this... and it is the first time he's done this. Donald Trump endorsed Roy Moore Jr. in Alabama, and he was accused of being a pedophile. Remember that?
Yeah. Like, the only reason... Roy Moore Jr. was running for Senate. Donald Trump endorsed him when he was president his first term. He was so bad he couldn't even go to the mall. And the only reason he lost is because black people saw Roy Moore Jr. ride to the polls on a horse. And they're like, 'You know what? Give me my 97 pieces of ID. I'm getting ready to vote today.'
I hope that happens. I hope that happens. It don't really... I think Texas better never talk about California like that. Our governor may be slick, but he ain't no pedophile name. He ain't that.
And you know the truth of the matter, look at the state with the most number of pedophiles in it. Not even just percentage-wise. Texas has more pedophiles than any other state in the country by a lot. There's so many pedophiles in Texas, it can fill up Arrowhead Stadium every Sunday. And you can see why. Because look at... how do you keep a man in place as the chief law enforcement officer of the state and he lets a dude off who was having sex with a seven-year-old for three years? How do you do it? And how are you calling yourself a viable state?
Wow. I guess I should say allegedly, but this wasn't... he just... No. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to... You mentioned Gavin and you also mentioned Talarico. Real quickly, Stephen Miller called Talarico trans... the first trans... he said that he was transgender.
Okay. And even if he is, he got more balls than Stephen Miller.
Even if he is. Now I see. Now I see why you're successful at comedy. That [__] was good.
Talarico may not have a dick, but Stephen Miller's head looks like one. So what are we talking about? I listen, if I were Stephen Miller, I would stay away from any conversation of a phallic nature of any type. I wouldn't do anything at all.
Gavin Newsom. Gavin said 100% tax on anybody who gets money from this 1776 slush fund. 100%. And governors around the country are considering doing similar.
They should. Listen, the only place you could have a pedophile... just back to this. The only place that you could have a pedophile or abuser or a rapist or sexual assaulter still be in position is the only red states. It's the only red states you can do that. Anywhere else you'd be drummed out. I think you're absolutely right. I think they should. And it's insulting. This country is giving reparations to the Italians in 1890. They gave the king of Italy... they gave 25,000 for, I think, 11 people, which is equivalent of 800,000. The Reagan administration gave Japanese reparations. We've given slaves reparations. Now they want to give J6ers reparations. The only thing America gave black people was syphilis, and we had to wait in line for that.
I hope they'll run out of syphilis before my turn.
Whatever. What do you have to take? Is that penicillin? What is that? What do you take for...
Hey man, I don't know. Why are you asking me?
Right. What's wrong with you?
Hey DL... subscribers. Maybe it's you. Are you a Knicks fan?
You know what? I am a Lakers fan, but I think that the game needs... it's that much better when the Knicks are a traditional, historically great team. Well, they're not historic. I mean, I'm glad the Garden... I don't know why they call it the mecca of sports when they ain't won that many championships, but I'm glad to see them there. I am. But they are an iconic team, I think, simply because they're in New York. They get a lot of attention.
Yeah, they win. But you know, let's... it's... it's more teams that won, you know, NBA championships. But okay, I'll play along. I like the Knicks enough. I do. I like Bronx. New Yorkers are going crazy. I mean, they are out on the streets dancing and boogying. And I talked to Pablo Torre. Pablo Torre said, 'Everybody's all pent up from the winter, and people need to get out, and they need to have sex. They need to get all that energy out, and this is really helping.' Oh my god, her boobs are about to fall out.
