OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A Fox News show went haywire when hosts clashed over the judgments and cases against former President Donald Trump.
It happened during a segment of the top rated show “The Five” when liberal host Jessica Tarlov clashed with conservative hosts Greg Gutfeld and Jeanine Pirro.
“We’ll see how it plays out in the appeals court, and that’s what everyone is waiting to see because the state will have to prove exactly who was the victim in all of this, and I assume they thought of this and have a good answer for that,” Tarlov said.
“But basically, everyone who is defending Donald Trump in this, from Kevin O’Leary to some folks here, are saying it is okay to falsify your business records, to issue false financial statements, to commit conspiracy for insurance fraud. When he goes out there …,” she said before Pirro interrupted.
“Where’s the fraud?” she said before Tarlov continued.
“He says you cannot have three sets of books. You can’t have books for the bankers – one for Deutsche Bank — and then you have your IRS books, and we know you’re supposed to tell the IRS the truth. And then you have a set of books with the real numbers, I guess, which is what Allen Weiselberg had, I guess,” the liberal host said.
“Three sets of books? Where do you get that from? Where do you get that from?” Pirro snapped.
JESSICA TARLOV: That is part of what Engoron had said –
JEANINE PIRRO: He’s a lunatic!
JESSICA TARLOV: Oh, because he’s a lunatic, it means –
JEANINE PIRRO: It’s based on emotion.
JESSICA TARLOV: I think emotion is hot at the table, and it is not emanating from me.
So, since Donald Trump ran the first time, he has been making this argument, “If they can do it to me, they can do it to you.” The average person is not inflating their wealth by $800 million to $2 billion, they are not sexually assaulting women, or storing classified documents in the toilet. They are not fermenting an insurrection.
The hosts were talking about what “Shark Tank” star and investor Kevin O’Leary said about not wanting to invest in New York after the Trump decision.
“This award — just leaving the whole Trump thing out of it and seeing what occurred here, I’m no different than any other investor. I’m shocked at this. I cannot understand or fathom the decision at all. There is no rationale for it,” he said to Foix News host Neil Cavuto.
“Let me give you a real-time experience I am having regarding this, and I’m not the only one. It does not matter what the governor says. New York was already a loser state, like California is a loser state. There are many loser states because of policy — high taxes, uncompetitive regulation — it was already on the top of the list to be a loser state. I would never invest in New York now and I’m not the only person saying that,” he said.
“Here’s a real-time situation. In development real estate right now, the hottest asset class is very high-end data centers, they cost anywhere from $2.5-3.5 billion each, they’re very expensive and require a lot of power, you need permits. But most of the major institutions of the world need more data centers and that’s why developers like me are doing this. You need power, so New York has Niagara Falls, normally you would consider that to put in one of the facilities and create 400 jobs, five more jobs for each of one of those for auxiliary services,” the investor said.
“I cannot go to New York, so I’m going to Oklahoma, North Dakota, West Virginia. [Oklahoma] Gov. Kevin Stitt, my staff has met with him, Governor Burgum, Governor Justice, those are winner states. They don’t do things like this. I have to syndicate that debt and equity, we’re talking to billions of dollars here. Do you think any foreign institution or private equity firm or pension fund would touch New York? No,” he said.
“That is why New Yorkers should be concerned, the fine people of New York should ask themselves: ‘Why are we such a loser state, how are we going to attract business?’
“It is not just the existing businesses that are fleeing out to Texas and Florida, what about new money that I’m talking about, like a $4 billion data center? Not a chance I would put that in New York, zero probability, never,” he said.
“So they have a lot of work to do to find themselves getting out of this situation and this has occurred post-pandemic. Winner state versus loser states. Look at Tennessee right now, the fastest growing city in America is Nashville. Winner state, good policy, competitive taxes. You gotta start thinking about this in the context of winners and losers, New York mega loser state,” he said.
