Heiress to the Walmart fortune at about 19 point some odd billion, is saying that we, the American people reject kings. And I say, okay, good for you, I reject Walmart. First of all, y'all suck. [00:00:15] Y'all are evil. I don't like you in the first place. I almost never go to Walmart. I try to avoid it whenever possible. That wasn't some socialist leftist. That was Tim Pool talking about how he hates Walmart. [00:00:30] Didn't see that coming until I realized MAGA is, in fact considering a boycott against Walmart, which will be a lot more complicated and difficult to carry out compared to the Bud Light boycott. But nonetheless, before we get to MAGA, here's what we know so far, [00:00:49] and the question that we should all be asking ourselves why exactly is a multi-billionaire who's worth a fortune? Absolute fortune? Because she's a Walmart heiress shelling out big bucks to support protests against Donald Trump. [00:01:06] We really should be asking that question. So Christy Walton is her name and she is a Walmart heiress. She was married, to, you know, one of the men in the Walton family. So that's how she inherited her wealth after her husband passed away [00:01:23] from a, you know, tragic plane accident. But she's worth nearly $20 billion billion with a B, and she just paid for a full page ad in the New York Times promoting the No. King's Day protests against Donald Trump, which will be taking place this Saturday. [00:01:41] So you're looking at the full page ad as we speak. It features an image of the Statue of Liberty with a series of declarations like, we honor our commitments and stand by our allies. We defend against aggression by dictators, and we respect our neighbors [00:01:58] and trading partners. Okay. Fascinating. I mean, If I'd want to get into, like the granular details, but so far those declarations seem all right. But what's what's going on? Why is this billionaire, you know, so vociferous against the Trump administration? [00:02:14] And she doesn't ever really specifically name Trump in her attacks, but she does bankroll protest efforts against him, ads against him. And it's pretty fascinating. So the Saturday no King's Day demonstrations happened to coincide [00:02:31] with Donald Trump's birthday, which will also feature a military parade parade in the National Mall. The Trump administration claims they want to do this to commemorate the Army's 250th anniversary. But I'm old enough to remember Trump wanting a military parade [00:02:46] for himself in his first term. So I don't believe for a second that he's like, oh, I'm so concerned about the Army. Like, I want to do an anniversary celebration by having a military parade, but whatever, I'm not going to get into that, because what's more important is the people behind, like funding this protest. [00:03:04] Right? And I don't have a problem with protesting Trump. I don't have a problem with you being part of these No Kings Day events. Apparently they're going to be thousands of them all across the country. The protests are being organized by a small group of billionaires, and [00:03:19] that's what I'm actually concerned about. Not because I just inherently despise billionaires and think they're all evil. I know some people do. For me, it's what what are you doing in society? What kind of contribution do you have to society? And I'll judge you based on that. [00:03:35] Organizers of the counter-protest told Axios they are expecting this to be the largest single day rally since the start of the administration. No Kings spokesperson Andrew Cook told Forbes there will be more than 1400 events across the country. [00:03:51] So though they say that they're, you know, organizing this event, they're staying away from D.C. In particular, probably because they don't want to be blamed for any potential riots that might take place in D.C. DC as this like Trump birthday slash military parade is happening. [00:04:08] They say that instead of allowing this birthday parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else. The story of America that day, people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption. [00:04:24] The collective states on its website. So look, so far, so good there. They're protesting Trump. They want to support those who want to protest Trump. They're organizing this. But I want to focus a little bit on Christy Walton because Christy Walton is not our friend. [00:04:42] I just want you guys to be aware of that. And I don't want you to make the mistake that I think the Democratic Party overall has made in that thinking. Enemies of Trump's, regardless of who they are, have to be our friends. No, sometimes there are enemies of Trump's that are not our friends. [00:05:00] And based on Christy Walton's campaign donation history. Not our friend, Not our friend. So, she has co-hosted a fundraiser for Kamala Harris in Jackson Hole. So she really didn't want Trump to win. She hates Trump. [00:05:15] The question is why? Why does she hate Trump? We'll get to that. She contributed $100,000 to the welcome PAC, which is a political action committee that helps Democrats. She also gave the Lincoln Project, which is run by Nevertrump Republicans from the Bush era, $200,000 in donations. [00:05:32] In fact, her donations lately are very different from what you'll see from her history. In fact, she donated almost exclusively to Republicans in the 90s and throughout the Bush administration. Seems like a bit of a never, never Trump Republican. [00:05:50] Right. Her political donations did switch a little bit to Democrats in the summer of 2008, likely because Obama appeared poised to win the presidential election and Congress was going to be taken over by Democrats. So she was probably hedging her bets. You know, that's what donors do. [00:06:09] They want to have influence over both parties. And look, what's really interesting to me is that she was still giving campaign donations to union busters like Scott Walker. Okay. In fact, she gave him a massive contribution of $50,000 [00:06:27] on May 10th of 2022 alone. She also gave the Libertarian National Committee $33,400 in August of 2016. Now, this is going to shed some light on my theory here, because there are [00:06:45] two camps in the libertarian movement. There's the we love corporations. We're so pro-business that we want undocumented immigrants to come in because we want these corporations to have access to cheap labor, that they can exploit [00:07:02] individuals who will have no recourse. So they like the type of open borders type policy. Right? And then there's the camp that people like Dave Smith fall under. He's very much a libertarian, but he is not in favor of bringing in [00:07:17] undocumented immigrants so corporations can exploit them, to the detriment of American workers. Right. So that's the argument that I've heard him make. So I don't want to say that all libertarians have the same view on immigration, but there is a long history of libertarians wanting to have [00:07:32] undocumented immigrants easily accessible to corporate interests. So why does she hate Trump so much? Especially given his affinity for tax cuts, deregulation, you know, the very things that would benefit Walmart. Well, it's because there's a catch. [00:07:50] We know what the catch is, right? And if you don't, it's okay. Because one of my favorite reporters, James Lee, gives us some insight. Take a look. What do you think her endgame here is? Like, is she really worried about authoritarianism or human rights abuses? Or is she just after cheap labor? [00:08:06] Okay, over 70% of Snap recipients and Medicaid users were full time workers, and many of them are from Walmart. The irony is certainly not lost on me that the biggest organized protest against a so-called king is being organized by an oligarch. I mean, I don't think it's by accident that the bottom 50% of China [00:08:25] holds twice as much wealth as the bottom 50% of America. China is the blue line. America is the red line. This should wake a lot of people up. Like, think about it. Why is China where we get all our cheap goods from? Why are they able to pay their workers but not us? [00:08:40] It's almost like they're trying to distract us from everything other than paying people a living wage. Aside from that, Walmart has gotten into a bit of a spat with President Donald Trump over his tariffs policy. In fact, the executives over at Walmart have gotten into a public fight [00:08:58] with him over that. And so it's worth knowing that 40% of the products. I'm sure it's more than that, but 40% of the products that Walmart sells is imported. And they do love cheap labor. And if you're thinking, well, she inherited her husband's wealth. [00:09:15] I mean, is she, like, some sort of executive or something over it? Well, no, she owns a part of the company. Okay. She owns, I think it's like 1.9%, if I'm not mistaken. That's a lot. And so, the profit maximization of Walmart is obviously something that she knows [00:09:34] is going to benefit her. And so if Walmart's business will be undercut through the lack of access to cheap labor, whether it's abroad or on our own soil due to undocumented immigrants, well, then she's going to hate Trump because he wants to do something [00:09:50] about those two things, right? He wants to implement these tariffs. He wants to stop undocumented immigration. Those two things are going to hurt the bottom line for Walmart. So finally I'm going to pivot over to the MAGA boycotts because, news that Christy Walton is paying for ads that promote anti-Trump protests has really upset MAGA. [00:10:11] Okay. They are very upset. They're talking about it. You heard Tim Pool a little earlier. So they're calling for a Walmart boycott, which again, I'm going to repeat is not going to be as easy as a Bud Light boycott. You know, you're just boycotting one item, one product. [00:10:27] There are parts of this country where literally all there is is a Walmart. So I don't know if it's going to be as effective this time around. But here's Tim Pool raging out and honestly accidentally making a progressive argument against Walmart's practices. I still don't like Walmart, and I'll take the excuse to boycott them. [00:10:44] There were accusations that Walmart locations were telling people who worked there to go on food benefits because they didn't get paid enough money. They said, if you can't afford to work here, consider going on benefits, which are kind of weird because in order to qualify for benefits, you have [00:11:00] to make below a certain amount of money. That's right, Walmart uses our tax dollars to subsidize their employees. At least that was the big accusation, the argument being that if we did not offer that welfare benefit, Walmart wouldn't be able to hire these people because [00:11:17] they'd simply say, you don't pay enough. Well, as the story went, Walmart told everybody, sure we do. You just got to get supplemental income for food from the government. My biggest takeaway from this story is that we need to find a way to get [00:11:32] corporate executives to attack Trump more. That's it. That's all we need to do. And then we can sit back and wait for right wingers to do our messaging for us, because that's what you just heard from Tim Pool. That was amazing. Congratulations, Tim Pool, welcome to 2025. [00:11:49] Yes, this has been an issue with Walmart for many, many years. So if we want to boycott Walmart for that reason, I jump in it. I hope I hope it does work out because those labor practices absolutely disgust me, and they should disgust everyone across the board, [00:12:05] regardless of your political affiliation. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.