Speaker 1: And Hello, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
on this Monday. Today is the eleventh day of May,
Year of Our Lord twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 1: And as we gather around, this is going to be
a busy, a busy week. President's going to China the
latter half of this week, so we've got a little
bit to talk about that. We'll update you on the
Iran war. AOC has big plans now she does. She's
got big, big ideas. But I want to start today
with the antavirus. And the only time that I can
remember thinking about or knowing about the Haunta virus was
a little over a year ago when we got the
news that Gene Hackman had died at his home and
that his wife, who was quite a bit younger than him,
he was ninety five, I think, but she had died
from a haunt of virus and he had severe dementia.
So he died of heart disease and dementia, and he
couldn't take care of himself. In any case, the wife
died of Haunta virus and it's in their home in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. So it's not something that is common.
It's something that's pretty rare, but it's been fascinating to
watch the media just go out of I don't know,
over the top, which is not unusual, but I think
they're still trying to treat this like it's COVID and
it's not COVID, And yeah, an animal transmit a mouse
could transmit the disease to a human, and human to
human can happen, but it's.
Speaker 2: Really really rare.
Speaker 1: Doctor Michael Osterholm, who's an infectious disease expert University of Minnesota,
we remember him from COVID days.
Speaker 2: This is what his reaction is.
Speaker 3: In fact, the good news is is that in a
sense it is haunted virus and not another coronavirus or
influenza virus. This is one that has very limited ability
to be transmitted person to person. In fact, it's a
rare exception, and so we have no question about the
fact that this really is on the end of its
run right now, and they're very possibive maybe not no
additional cases from here on out. In the United States,
there are about thirty cases a year on average, and
they mostly occur west of Mississippi about ninety six percent,
or West of the Mississippi, and it has to do
with the kind of mouse that lives west of the Mississippia,
a deer mouse, and they're the ones that really contain
the virus. In terms of what happens around the rest
of the world, that's different with different strains of haunt
to virus. And the one that really raised our concerns
with this boat related to transmission is the one from
South America, which is called the Andes strain, and that
one actually on occasion has resulted in person to person transmission.
Speaker 1: So that's one infectious disease experts view of the whole thing.
Doctor Amesha Dhalia remember him. I kind of like Old
Home Week with some of these doctors that we would
talk to about COVID and he also had the exact
same response.
Speaker 4: It's understandable this COVID was a very traumatic event for
many people. This is the first time that they'd been
through a pandemic. It disrupted their entire way of life.
So now everything is looked through a pandemic lens. Anytime
there's an infectious disease emergency, whether it's empos, whether it's
bird flu, whether it's whether it's haunted virus. They're looking
at it through that lens of COVID. That's coloring everything
they think about, and that's what they're worried about. But
you have to remember that not all viruses are interchangeable,
that each has distinct biology, stinct transmission, and that's going
to reflect the risk that it poses. So not everything
can spread like COVID or influenza. Not everything can spread
like ebola. Even so, it's really important to keep that
in mind, that everything is going to be tailored to
the actual pathogens biology, and I think sometimes that's lost
on people. You know, after nineteen eighteen, they called that
the forgotten pandemic. COVID nineteen is a little bit opposite
of that because it's really triggering people understandably, So.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the forgotten pandemic. It was still fresh in
everybody's mind. So any case, the media has been overblowing
the whole thing, and all the doctors are saying, this
is not a pandemic, it's not an epidemic, it's none
of that.
Speaker 2: So basically cool it.
Speaker 1: China, Like I said, President's going to China late this week,
President's going to meet with President She. I think it's Thursday, Friday,
Thursday and Friday, and Eunice Yun is in Beijing.
Speaker 2: She has it.
Speaker 1: Report from what they're expecting over there when the President
gets there.
Speaker 5: We have learned the details of President Trump's visit after
he arrives on Wednesday. A White House official had described
his trip as a visit of tremendous symbolic significance. On Thursday,
a President Trump and presidentcy are going to take part
in a welcome ceremony as well as a bilateral meeting.
They're going to visit the Temple of Heaven and then
take part in a state banquet. On Friday, the two
are going to have discussions over a bilateral t and
also have a working lunch.
Speaker 4: And now.
Speaker 5: The White House official had said that President Trump is
expected to raise the issue of China support for Iran.
That's in terms of revenue for that China provides, as
well as a potential of weapon exports.
Speaker 4: The US Treasury had on.
Speaker 5: Friday announced sanctions on several companies, including those from China
as well as Hong Kong I'm alleged to have aided
Iran with securing some weapons. The Chinese Foreign Ministry today
reacted to that saying that the the US sanctions over
Iran are illegal and unilateral. A Secretary Vessant is in
the region. He's meeting with the Japanese Prime minister, and
he's expected tomorrow to meet with the Chinese Vice Premier,
who has been his counterpart in the discussions ahead of
President Trump's trip here. Now, in terms of the business implications,
a lot of there's obviously a lot of tension of Iran,
but it looks as though the primary focus is business
deals as well as trade issues. So far, CNBC has
been able to secure with sources that Boeing CEO is
going to arrive. The City Group CEO told CNBC that
she is going to be here, and the Visa CEO
also is expected to be here. According to sources, a
lot of this is around purchases, Chinese purchases and for visas.
In terms of visa, the expectation is that they would
be able to secure a license to be able to
expand in the country.
Speaker 1: Guys, there's nothing unusual about business executives going on some
of these government trips to other countries. They tag along.
They're there to you know, do their part and try
and get some orders and the New York Times is
reporting today that sixteen chief executive officers are going to
be in China with the President. Elon Musk is going,
so is Tim Cook. Let me look down the list here, So, yeah,
Elon Musk, Tim Cook of Apple, Larry Fink of Blackrock,
Steve Schwartzman over at Blackstone, Kelly Ortberg, who is the
new CEO at Boeen, Brian Sykes from Cargill, Jane Fraser
from City Bank, Jim Anderson of Coherent, Larry Culp of
ge Aerospace, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, Michael Meebach of MasterCard,
Diane Powell, McCormick of Meta, Sanjay Merata of Micron, Cristiano
Amon of Qualcomm, and Ryan mcne ornee of Visa. So
that's the crowd that's going with the president. All about
the business side of it, but units goes on with
what else is going on in China.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: The expectation is that the that on the Chinese side
they would be looking for either a softening of language
when it comes to Taiwan, so instead getting the Americans
to be able to agree that that independence, that the
US is outright opposed to independence. That's not necessarily something
that the Americans would want to see. And also the
expectation is that President she is going to push against
any arm sales. There's a belief that there's going to
be a very large package in the like around fourteen
billion dollars or so to Taiwan, and so from the
Chinese side, that's something that they don't want to see.
Speaker 1: So I think I've had a clip here of one
of the strategies talking about global affairs and talking about
how they're too lead. There's Trump and She will pretend
to like each other and there will be some agreement signed.
But all of the details about this have already basically
been worked out by their staff behind the scenes. So
I guess President arrives, she said on Wednesday in China,
and then Thursday and Friday, and then we'll see what happens.
In the meantime, the China trip is kind of holding
back the possibility of more military action in Iran. Let's
start with first of all, how the president received the Well,
it took a few days.
Speaker 2: Remember we were going to.
Speaker 1: Get the response from Iran on Thursday, then Friday, then Saturday.
Bombly came in yesterday and the President did not like it.
Speaker 7: Right now, after reading a piece of garbage. I didn't
even finish reading it. They said, I'm not going to
waste my time reading it. I would say it's one
of the weakest right now. So on life support, they
understand these are all men people. Doctor Oh's life support
is not a good thing. Do you agree, dipognotic, I
would say.
Speaker 8: The ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor
walks in and says, sir, you loved one as approximately
a one percent chance of len.
Speaker 1: He's referring to the medical people. There was a group
of medical people in the Oval office when he was
taking questions from the media. But so he said, he
didn't even it was garbage. He didn't even read the
whole thing, but he rejected it out of hand. Brett Murgirk,
the guy who's worked on Middle East affairs for four
different presidents, had this reaction, Brion, we.
Speaker 2: Have a stalemate.
Speaker 9: So the stalemate of her moves or the great straight stalemate,
whatever we might call this period, once we're through it
both sides. I think time is on their side. And
how does a stalemate end? You can either have a
blinking contest and this doesn't go on for some time.
I think the economic pain will compound inside Iran, but
they can withstand that because they don't really care the
guy's making the decisions. The macroeconomic shocks in the global
economy really start to compound as well. You can act militarily,
which the President seems to be previewing there to try
to seize the straight militarily the Project Freedom that he
tried last week, which didn't really work. You could try that,
I don't think it's a great option, or can continue
to try diplomacy. Right now, the diplomacy clearly stuck. But
the President is going to China, and so Shijinping understands power,
He understands he has some leverage here, and I would
not be surprised if in Beijing the Chinese try to
work out something that at least opens up the strait
for a period.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What McGirk has talked about is China is going to
play the role of the global peacemaker. They view themselves
in that role, and you watch that's exactly how it's
going to turn out. Back to what he sees next.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean what has been tried to be negotiated
over the last week is basically an MoU where the
US lifts it's blockade of Iranian ports and Iran then
allows the status quoante to allow shipping to go through
the Strait without resolving up front any of the nuclear
issues anything else. So you could work out something like
that that would release the economic pressure, but the Iranians
are not prepared to do that, and you just put
their demands up there. They are demanding basically, the Strait
is now ours. That's what they're saying. And it's not
surprising because the Revolutionary Guard, which is in control now,
and Ahmed Vahidi, who's the leader of the Guard, he
knows we have this in our hands and he's not
going to give it up. I've negotiated with the Iranians
with guys like Hamas, and when they have an asset,
whether it's a hostage something else, they will not give
it up. And so it's kind of like a hostage situation.
I hate to put it that way. It's a very
very difficult predicament.
Speaker 1: So what the Iranians are asking for in their agreement,
or the purpose that they may to the United States,
is they want recognition of sovereignty for the straight up
our moves that they're say't it's ours, so it's our
sovereign land and it's international waterway.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: They also want compensation for war damages. They want money,
They want an end to what they're calling maritime piracy
of Iranian ships, and they want release of Iranian assets,
more money.
Speaker 2: Back to Brett McGirt.
Speaker 9: What's happening here. This is the risk of using mediators
because mediators is kind of a game of telephone, and
the mediator sometimes tries to put some spin on the ball.
They're trying to get the two sides closer, so there
might have been a misunderstanding there. You also have the
factional disagreements inside Tehran. Bottom line, I've been saying this
for weeks, at risk of repeating myself, there's not going
to be a deal of the sort the US wants.
It's just not in the cards right now, and so
you have to think about other options. And that could
mean the military move in the Strait to try to
open it up again. I think that's very risky. And
even if you do that, the problem here is it's
confidence for commercial shippers again. Another in the Red Sea,
back in twenty twenty four, we a very similar problem.
The who things were launching Irani and drones and missiles
into the Red Sea. We built an international coalition to
basically try to control it, but to get the confidence
of international shippers and insurance companies to allow the ships
to go through extremely difficult and hard to measure. So
I think this is going to go on for some time.
Speaker 2: All right. McGirk has done a number of these things
in the past.
Speaker 1: When he says there isn't going to be a deal,
and well, if you're not going to be able to
do negotiations and diplomacy, what else is on the cards?
Here's bb net and Yahoo. He was simply asked, is
the war over? Here's his answer?
Speaker 10: Is the war with Iran over? And if it isn't,
who will decide when it is.
Speaker 11: I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not
over because there's still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has
to be taken out of Iran. There is still enrichment
sites that have to be dismantled, there are still proxies
that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still
want to produce. Now we've degraded a lot of it,
but all of that is still there and there's work
to be done.
Speaker 10: How do you envision the highly enriched uranium will be
removed from Iran?
Speaker 11: You go in and you take it out with.
Speaker 10: What special forces from Israel, special forces in the United States.
Speaker 11: Well, I'm not going to talk about military means, but
the present. What President Trump is said to me, I
want to go in there, and I think it can
be done physically. That's not the problem. If you have
an agreement and you go in and you take it out,
why not that's the best way.
Speaker 10: What if there isn't an agreement, can it be taken
out by force?
Speaker 11: Well, you're going to ask me these questions. I'm going
to dodge them because I'm not going to talk about
our military possibilities, plans, or anything of the kind.
Speaker 10: And I'm just trying to get at how long is
it going to take to achieve that aim.
Speaker 11: I'm not going to give a timetable to it, but
I'm going to say that's a terrifically important mission.
Speaker 1: That was the interview CBS did on sixty Minutes last night,
and so he says there's still more work to do.
President Trump keeps talking about it's over Operation Fury is over.
But then right out of the other side of his mouth.
He was interviewed by a reporter yesterday as well, and
this is what he said.
Speaker 5: So accurate to say, you think the combat operations are
over and done, but they're sad.
Speaker 12: I said they are. They are defeated, but that doesn't
mean they're done. We could go in for two more
weeks and do every single target. We've done probably seventy
percent of them, but we have other targets that we
could conceivably hit.
Speaker 1: Actually, he did say it was over more than once,
but now he's saying it's not over and there's still
more targets. Okay, so he and BB are on the
same page. What about General Keen?
Speaker 13: Yeah, well, certainly we've been looking at this. Now we're
in our fifth week of negotiations and there's not much
progress here whatsoever. You know, the chart that was put
up there is really quite revealing. What was not on
the chart was no movement on removing their entire nuclear
enterprise or dismantling it. And obviously they want to have
sovereignty over the strace of a moves indefinitely and three
of those things interesting enough in terms of what they
what they want is they want us to finance the
recovery of the regime, and by reparations money, remove the
unfrozen assets, more money that's in the billions of dollars,
and also remove sanctions that some of that would obviously
be conditioned based on their behavior, but nonetheless it would
help the regime to recover. Listen, President Trump is the
ultimate backstop here. He's not going to take a deal
like this under any circumstances because he knows that this
deal clearly favors Roan and what a setback that would
be for the Iranian people themselves and also for our
national interest in the region. I mean, they would take
that money and do well with it, recover their nuclear program,
their ballistic missile program, and support for the proxies, the
very thing we went into this water stop.
Speaker 10: So where are we Listen?
Speaker 13: President Trump likely get together with his team before he
takes over to China, his national security team, and he'll
look at the options. I think the most favorable option
in front of us is really, after all of this
time we have spent trying to negotiate a deal, recognize
that a deal is not to be had that would
meet our objectives. Number one, return to full combat operations
and finish what we started. We got somewhere between a
week to two weeks. The President knows better than I.
He just mentioned two weeks. That's Israeli full throttle, the
United States full throttle. Then open up the strains of
a moose. Going full throat will help us reduce Iran's
capability to retaliate against the straits of moves. And then
we have an ace in the hole here that we
should play, and that is car Gawen. We're blocking all
the oil distribution coming out of car Gallen now, but
we can tell the Iranians because what they will want
to do if we return to combat operations is retaliate
against our allies and partners oil and gas infrastructure. Tell them,
if you begin to do that, then we will begin
to dismantle or destroy parts of car Gower, which could
lead to the ultimate destruction of eighty percent of their
revenue source. Right now, it's being blocked, but blockading it
is one thing. Destroying is quite something else. And the
last thing that clearly has to be done here is
make certain that we do open the straits of a
moose and we have the full capability to do that.
And I also think that the CIA and a massade,
if they have a already, should brief the President in
detail about two major points. I think that they can handle.
This is in their lane as their business undermine the
Iranian regime going forward and all the subtext to what
that would mean, and also what assistance can we provide
to the Iranian people in terms of their resistance against
that regime. There is no internal pressure on around right now,
but as we weaken Iran both militarily and economically, yes,
that regime will begin to fracture, not necessarily collapse immediately,
but in time, and the CIA can help accelerate that
time frame leading to the eventual collapse of the regime.
Those I think things that likely will be discussed, plus
some other alternatives to that, but I think in my
mind that's the main option going forward. The President has
exercise enormous patients here and trying to work or deal
with these guys, and it looks like they're not interested
in it. And we hold all the cars. These people
out there saying the Iranian hold the cards, they flat
do not.
Speaker 1: We hold the cards here. As I've just enumerated, well
general Keen. I'm in one thousand percent support of what
he says. It's after five weeks of negotiating back and
forth and there hasn't been a micro inch of movement.
It's time to finish off the military task.
Speaker 2: He stopped.
Speaker 1: The President stopped the military endeavor at seventy percent. There
are still a couple of weeks left of things and targets,
and let's finish that and see where we are.
Speaker 2: I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: Another military guy, very thoughtful man, Admiral stab Rita's former
NATO commander.
Speaker 14: Aron invented the game at chess, and you can see
them playing pretty cleverly. They don't actually have a great
hand of cards here, but one of their true life
skills in Tehran is negotiating, and so they're going to
string it out as long as they can.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 14: I think President Trump has three options very quickly. He
can kind of walk away from this, throw up his hands.
I think that's tempting, but not the right move since
it would leave the straight in the hands of the
Iranians and all the nuclear material still probably at the
bottom of a cheft in Ispahan, so not a good option.
A second option, he can resume massive bombing campaigns, and
you know, I think that is increasingly a possibility here
if his frustration level rises. And then number three, where
I think this probably lands better than even chance. You
continue that blockade, you put more economic pressure on the Uranians,
maybe you do some targeted strikes to eliminate the shall
we say, in transigent elements in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
that appear to be driving the train from Tehran, some
combination of all of that. But it's as unsettled as
it's been since we started dropping bombs a couple of
months ago.
Speaker 1: So he's a little more, I don't know, hesitant in
some ways. But he also said the same thing that
General Keen said, is that use the military and target
the IRGC and take out those leaders because they're the
ones that are stopping any progress on diplomacy. You take
them out, then you go back, and then you have
more diplomacy with whoever's left.
Speaker 2: I'm right there with him.
Speaker 1: And finally, Dan Hoffman, former CIA guy's got his view.
Speaker 15: I mean, either way, it's those are possible solutions. I
can tell you that the last thing any of us
could have expected was for Iran to indicate that there
might be some optimism for a deal in the near term.
With President Trump heading to Beijing for a summit, Iran
would never have wanted to put any wind in President
Trump's sales to give the president leverage and upcoming meetings
with Shishin Ping. With the war in Iran unresolved and
canntinued disruption to the global economy that helps Iran's ally China,
and so I think that's one of the reasons why
we're not going to see any movement, any positive movement
until after the Beijing summit.
Speaker 1: I think he's right, So kiss this week off. There's
not going to be anything about Iran. It's all going
to be focused on China, especially as we get to
the end of the week. The guy who's the shooter
accused of shooting at the White House correspondence dinner. I
was going to say shooting what we don't know, But
he was in court today for his arraignment, and there's
a very interesting twist to this because of the fact
that he's been accused of trying to assassinate the president.
The President was in the ballroom, and so was Todd
Blanche and so was Janine Piro. So the question that
will be brought up by his defense lawyers will be
you can't Todd Blanche or Janine Piro, you can't prosecute
him your witnesses. Here's an attorney Brendan below to kind
of explain it.
Speaker 16: I think it's a really interesting argument. So the idea
here is that Todd Blanche, the Deputy Acting Attorney General,
in Janeine Piro the DCUs Attorney's office, cannot effectively prosecute
this case because they are victims. They were in the
White House correspondence dinner when mister Allen was apparently there. Ordinarily,
I'd say that this is a bit of a stretch
of argument. You need to show that them prosecuting the
case would either show bias or the appearance of bias.
But here the government might not want to argue too
hard in the other direction because they're going to need
to show that Donald Trump was a victim in this case,
you know, and he also was not in the room
with the suspect at the same time. So if they're
going to say that Trump is a victim, they might
also have to say that Blanche and Pure are victims too.
I mean, it makes it, you know, it makes it
marginally harder for the prosecution to prove its case. The
lead charge here is attempted assassination of the president, and
one of the interesting facts that we have so far
is that the suspect has had a manifesto that talks
about various wrongdoings by this administration, but that doesn't name
Donald Trump specifically. Now it's going to be a bit
of a stretch, but I would imagine that the defense
is going to argue this guy might have been trying
to do harm, but he wasn't specifically targeting the President.
Speaker 1: I learned a long time ago that don't try to
use logic when you're trying to explain the law. But
one thing that mister Bloua pointed out is that the
judge in this case is not going to accept any
funny business.
Speaker 16: It's possible you could get a prosecutor from the Eastern
District of Virginia or Maryland or something like that, so
logistically it's possible. But I agree Judge McFadden, who've appeared
in front of a very experienced judge, is a former
Trump administration official and a former police officer, so I
think he might naturally be a little skeptical of an
argument like that.
Speaker 1: Another dis's not going to buy that. So that's what's
going on with the shooter from the White House correspondence
dinner over the weekend. Actually it was Friday knight in Denver.
You've seen the story by now about Frontier Airlines. They
were taking off from Denver on their way to Los
Angeles and somebody walked onto the airport property. If you've
ever been to Denver, it's a massive, massive airport. It
is fifty fifty six square miles thirty six miles of fence,
and they have video of this guy walking. Climbed a
fence somewhere and walked all the way over to the
runway and you can't miss an airplane coming and stood
on the runway as the plane basically ran over him
and killed him. So here's a little bit of the
of the air traffic controllers talking to the ground units
after the plane had hit the guy and Retchie Thrink command,
sorry about the Juey run.
Speaker 2: The one three five right is closed. I do have
limbs on the runway.
Speaker 10: I believe they are pass struck in individual.
Speaker 6: Okay, so we have.
Speaker 11: A I'll plane into.
Speaker 12: An Yeah, I've got what appears to be a deceased
person on them.
Speaker 2: Well, the first one mentioned that they have limbs.
Speaker 1: One of the things about a jet just even when
they're at the gate and they're pushed off everybody on
the ground is double triple explained that you never get
in front of the jet engine just as they're starting
them up. That jet engine can suck a human right
into the engine. It has happened, and that's what happened here,
is that that person that walked onunder the runway was
sucked right through the engine. That's why the engine shot
flames out and there was smoke that went into the
into the cabin, which freaked out all the people on
the plane. Here's a former well he's a pilot, Matthew Buckley,
who knows about this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Bill, You nail that.
Speaker 17: Middle of nowhere. This isn't midway, This isn't airport in
the middle of a city, in downtown Chicago. So this person,
I don't know it was a mental episode or a
death wish you know, suicide by airplane. This was a
concerted effort to get onto an active runway and to
walk in front. You can see an airliner taking off.
You can't miss it. So it's absolute harder. But it's
either a mental episode or it was on purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely. I mean people do this, they
jump in front of trains. It's a lot harder to
jump in front of an airplane. And it was at
I like about eleven fifteen at night, so it was
dark and the tower didn't see this person walking across
the airport area. But the other part about it was
because there was smoke, because the engine caught fire because
the man went through the engine, and the way the
ventilation works, it comes from the engines essentially, and so
there was smoke in the in the passenger section, and
the people started freaking out. But the pilot said, all right,
let's evacuate, open the slides, evacuate everybody right here on
the airport. Run and people we're told, don't take any
of your carry ons. You've got to move fast. I mean,
if the plane is going to be on fire, which
it wasn't, but if it was the engine was on fire,
seconds can save lives. Here's back to Matthew Buckley.
Speaker 17: Let me warn my fellow Americans if I'm on an
airline or theirs smoke or flames and they order an
evacuation and you're in front of me getting your riverhead.
You're not going to be in front of me along, folks.
It is a it should I don't know where Secretary
Jeffrey is or the FAA or even the airline should
be looking at every frame in these videos, and those
people should never be allowed to fly again. You can
buy a new pair of underwear, folks, you cannot buy
another life. Get off the airplane. It's an absolute disgrace,
and it technically it's a federal offense. You have to
follow the instructions of the flight crew and that when
they tell you they leave that stuff behind, they're not
speaking because they like to hear themselves tall.
Speaker 10: Get off the airplane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people were taking videos after they got off. They
of course grab their cameras and stand there at the
bottom of the slide and take videos of people coming
down with their carry on luggage. It's insane. So they'll
figure this thing out. But I'm sure the guy meant
to stand in front of that airplane. He wanted to
commit suicide, sadly. And then AOC say what you want
about her, but she is building a lot of support
on the far left. There's a lot of people out
there who think the world of her. She was being
interviewed by David Axelrod at the Institute for the Study
of Politics, and she has big ideas for herself.
Speaker 6: They assume that my ambition is a title or seat.
My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is
to change this country. Residents come and go, but single
pair of health cares forever.
Speaker 18: Huh, A living wage is forever, workers right for forever,
women's rights, all of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what she said. She wants to change the country.
She doesn't like the way the country is, and she
wants to change the country.
Speaker 4: You look at.
Speaker 18: Thomas Jefferson writing to Madison in Revolt of British Aristocracy.
The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time.
It's actually the most American thing in the world for
us to be fighting for the working class, and it's
actually patently un American to try to aspire to transform
our country into a place of king.
Speaker 1: Well, once again, she got our history a little bit wrong.
It wasn't about a revolution against billionaires. In fact, George Washington,
who led the revolution, was one of the wealthiest people
in our early colonies. So it wasn't against wealthy people.
But that's where her that's her view, and she is
convincing a lot of other people to go along with
her on that. So David Axelrod was doing the interview
at the Institute for Politics in Chicago and he was
asked about that that whole session.
Speaker 19: Both things are true. There also is a third dimension,
which is I added another option, which is might you
run for Senator Schumer's seat in New York in twenty
twenty eight, which is a very live possibility. You had
fourteen hundred young people there. They cheered when I suggested
that some people would like to see you run for president.
They cheered even louder when I said some people would
like to see you run for Senator Schumer's seat in
twenty twenty eight. So this is a high class problem
for AOC right. A lot of options out there for her.
But she, first of all, she did not say no
to anything. That's the first thing to note. But what
she said was interesting and not like what most politicians say,
which is I don't really I'm not really calibrating myself
according to the position I might or could run for
I'm calibrating myself to how I can best promote those
things that I think are important for rank and file,
average working people in this country, like healthcare, like living
wages and so on. And that really landed. That really
landed well. And I believed her. And I don't think
that she got into politics. You know, there are a
lot of people in politics who from birth are thinking
about how do I, how do I get to that
top rung of this political ladder. I don't think that's
who she is. I don't think it ever occurred to
her when she was young. But now she's presented with
these options, and what she's saying is people think they
can use that as leverage and then I'll calibrate my
ambitions according to what job I want to run for.
I'm not going to do that. And so that was
an unusual answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I believe axel Rod when he says he
thinks that she's sincere. She sincerely believes what she says.
She wants to change his country, and she believes that
billionaires and all that are terrible and should be eliminated.
So keep an eye better, keep both eyes on what
AOC is doing, because she's gathering support as she goes
around the country. She was down at Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Atlanta yesterday and same thing, huge response, big cheers.
So she's got a lot of people that are in
support of her future. Wall Street today it was positive
for a mundane for all the news going on around
the world, but the Dow Jones industrials finished up ninety five,
the now at forty nine thousand and seven oh four,
the S and P up fourteen, the NASDAK up twenty seven.
Gold was up fourteen dollars to four thousand and seven
forty four, and the price of oil it went up
as well, up three dollars to ninety eight dollars for
West Texas Intermediate. That's it for today. Thank you for
coming by. We'll be back again tomorrow and I hope
to see you then.