Speaker 1: And here we go. Welcome to the Big Podcast. It's
Wednesday of the seventeenth day of December, year of our
lower twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan, and
we got a lot, a lot of updates, more updates
today than seems like that's what we're doing lately. We've
got the got a lottery going what is it, I
don't know, Powerball or the Mega millions, one of the
one and a quarter billion dollars tonight. I know, all
of a sudden you can become one of those evil billions,
well actually one, because that's if you take the payout
over twenty years or whatever it might be. But the
cash is five hundred seventy two million. I've always always
stopped and thought, why does the government, Well they promised
one and a quarter billion, but they only give you
five hundred Only five hundred seventy two million. I think
most people would be happy with. That's the thing nobody complains.
The reason is is they they buy annuities or they
buy treasuries for the future, and they pay it out
over that time. So it's not like they have the
right to check today. But that I would take the cash.
I think most people wind up doing that. We've got
to take a look at the economy. The President tonight
is going to speak to the nation at nine pm
Eastern time. I I'm a little surprised. I've always thought
that the president is going to speak to the nation
meant that there was some major, major news that had
to be well, they had to be told to the
rest of the country everybody at once, and it's usually
some point of distress. But apparently this is basically the president.
He's going to do a review of his first year
in a Trump two point zero and a lot of
that obviously will be about the economy, and I'm sure
he's going to give himself a good grade. I one
of the things about the economy that it's going to
take a while. I understand that, but all of this business,
and you know, I'm not a fan of tariffs, but
all of this business about trying to get companies to
come here and build factories and employ people, it takes years.
And I'm looking the I got the manufacturing numbers out
of the jobs report we got yesterday. Manufacturing jobs have
dropped to a three year low. Yes, they're really not
doing well. They've been losing jobs in the manufacturing sector
for eleven months in a row. I'm sorry, seven months
in a row, but seven months jobs have been for
manufacturing have gone downhill. Will will this all this business
about getting tariffs to get people to build their factories here,
will it actually come to fruition and will it come
to fruition before? I would say another six or seven
months that I know, the elections not till November, the midterms,
but people start making their minds up sometime this next summer,
so we'll see what he asked to say. Frank Luntz,
the Polster, talking about what the president needs to do
tonight in his address.
Speaker 2: To the nation, has to now. No one's making a
decision about twenty twenty six or what happens now over
Christmas in twenty twenty five. But I watched Joe Biden
in twenty one and twenty two in the holiday season
completely dismiss inflation concerns, and we know that it damaged
him for the rest of his administration. Trump understand President
Trump understands that and understands that he has to change
the perception. But it's hard to do when food prices
are as high as they are. Healthcare prices are as
high as they are, and they're having this fight right
now in Congress over whether or not to continue the subsidies.
Nobody cares about the details. They care about the overall cost.
And if Americans believe that affordability is a crisis, then
it is a crisis. In the end, it's do you
have more money at the end of the day. And
the truth is, it's not about wages, it's about costs.
Even if your wages go up, if you can't afford
that car, if you can't afford that health insurance, you
say that inflation's a real problem. First, I'm impressed that
they're finally calling it affordability, because that's what it is.
It's not inflation. Second is that he does recognize it,
which is why he's doing the speech. And third he
says he does have the ability to communicate, to change
and communicate a message that says I hear you, I
get it, and in a specific response to your question.
That's the key, the empathy, the understanding. Don't tell someone
that it's happy days are here again and it's nineteen
twenty nine. Nobody will believe it. In the end, you
have to acknowledge what they're seeing what they're feeling and
then lean into it.
Speaker 1: I think Frank A. Louts put it pretty well. You
can't deny it, you can't call it a hoax, You've
got to acknowledge it. I think the person in the
White House that does the very best and explain this
in a realistic way is Kevin Hassett, who is the
National Council Economic Advisor to the President, and he talks
about the fact that during the Biden administration, you and
I lost three thousand dollars worth of purchasing power and
that they have gained back about twelve hundred dollars and
they have great hopes for twenty twenty six. But hope's
not a strategy. It's nice. But we'll see how this
all works out. But the president's very good at selling
people on his ideas, and we'll see how well he
does on the speech tonight, and hopefully he embraces the
fact that, yeah, there's a lot of people want to
hear what it is that the White House is doing
to make things more affordable. I guess there's also going
to be he's going to talk about the what do
they call him the Trump accounts. These are the accounts
that people have been talking about, but nobody's really focused
in on. Apparently the President's going to do it tonight.
Is he's going to talk about the Trump Accounts for children.
This is the one thousand dollars that will be put
into an account for every baby born between in twenty
twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven and twenty eight, four
years during the Trump administration. And they're going to put
one thousand dollars in an account for every single child born.
The idea is to give them some ownership in finances,
in a financial asset that they may actually be more
interested in managing their money someday. But this is one
thousand dollars and it's got to be invested in. They're
going to have some very conservative stock funds. And if well,
I did a little math, if you put one thousand
dollars in an account and you don't do anything with it,
and let's say it gets I don't know, five percent
in eighteen years, the child gets the money, well, the
thousand dollars in eighteen years will be two thousand, four
hundred and six dollars. That's if you don't do anything.
But if you put one thousand dollars in. If the
government puts one thousand dollars in, you and me as taxpayers,
we're going to put a thousand dollars in every child's hands,
and if they parents are or grandparents or somebody. I
saw Michael Dell from Dell Computer put in six billion.
That's going to be somehow distributed as well into kids' pockets.
And Ray Dallio, the billionaire hedge fund guy, he's going
to put in a huge amount of money as well.
So these may be bigger than what their first glance
at these things. Right anyway, if you put one thousand
dollars one thousand dollars in in eighteen years, it'll be
worth two thousand, four hundred and six. If you put
a thousand the government puts one thousand dollars in now,
and the parents, grandparents, Ray Daly, Michael Dell, somebody puts
in more money. If you put in one thousand dollars
a year for eighteen years at five percent, you'll have
thirty thousand dollars. Well, you wouldn't leave thirty thousand dollars
on a park bench, so it's it's it's better than nothing.
I think the real key to this though, is that
it will get not all of them, but a number
of them that will all of a sudden be interested in, Hey,
wait a minute, this is my money, how's it doing,
what's it invested in, what's the how's the stock market doing?
So there's there's more to this than just a transactions.
So only way that's going to be talked about tonight
as well. So the people with the lottery, if you win,
you don't have to worry about the Trump accounts. You
can fund your own children's accounts and all of that.
So that's tonight primetime address, nine o'clock Eastern time. He's
expected to talk about the things that he gets good
reaction on immigration, all of that, but his approval ratings
for the immigration and the economy are not what they were,
So we'll see how he does this evening. As far
as another item that affects your pocketbook is healthcare, and no,
Congress is not going to get anything done before the
end of the year. That's when the Obamacare subsidies that
the Democrats put in back in five years ago. It's
supposed to expire December thirty first of this year. That
means you're everybody's healthcare premiums, especially those on Obamacare policies,
are going to go up significantly starting January first. I
was looking at my health insurance, my family's sealth insurance.
Ours are all going way up. We're not on Obamacare policies,
but insurance is going to go way up, and somebody's
got to get a hold of this insurance thing. Obamacare
was a bad product from the beginning, and it's just
showing how it is falling apart. So today four Republicans
joined in with the Democrats to do a petition to
force the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to hold
a vote on extending theies for some period of time.
Mike Johnson said, no, I'm not going to do that.
So four Republicans joined, one of them Mike Lawler, who
is a Republican representing a district north of New York
City in the New York State. And what he's in
a district that Kamala Harris won is New York. So
he's trying to figure out how to do something, and
this is his explanation about why he and three other
Republicans joined in with the Democrats to at least force
a vote in the House about Obamacare subsidy.
Speaker 3: Look, we had a government shutdown for forty three days,
and Democrats said this was an existential crisis. And so
when the government reopened, I sat down in a good faith,
bipartisan way with my Democratic colleagues and my Republican colleagues
to broker a compromised piece of legislation that would extend
the subsidies but put serious in place. We worked to
get that through our House Republican leadership, to have them
put it on the floor for an up or down
vote and let the process work and allow the House
to do its business. Ultimately, we could not reach agreement
with House Republican leadership about putting those bills up for
a vote. We introduced them as discharge petitions. Eleven Republicans
signed on to two of those bipartisan compromise bills. We
do not have enough Democrats on them. The clock is ticking,
and so ultimately I and three others Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob
Resnahan and Ryan McKenzie, were left with no choice but
to sign the three year discharge and force an actual
vote on the House floor. Ultimately, if it passes the House,
it'll have to go to the Senate. We saw this
three year bill fail in the Senate last week when
Chuck Schumer put it up for a boat. So the
final product will have to be a compromise. And that's
been my point from the start. Do the work, do
the bipartisan compromise. And frankly, this is important both leaders.
Both leaders have failed here because we don't have a
bill on the floor, and Hakeem Jeffries is sticking with
his three years or bust with no reforms. Creates a
real challenge to get something done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so are they going to hold a boat in
the House. Probably then it will pass, but it will
go to the Senate. It will die there. But Mike Lawler,
like I said, as a Republican from New York State,
the other three Republicans are all from Pennsylvania. So they're
putting it up for a boat. It'll go over to
the Senate. It will die there. Even if it somehow
got through the Senate, it would have to go to
the President. He would probably veto this whole thing. But so,
in other words, stand by for health insurance to go
much higher for you, for me, for everybody, Obamacare or
not Obamacare. And that is one of the biggest problems
facing the Republicans in the as we zero in on
the midterms is affordability, which is the cost of things,
which is groceries and gas. Has gotten a lot better,
but it's not back to where it was, but it's
still a lot better. So groceries and health insurance, and
these are the things that you can bet the Democrats
are going to beat the advertising of the fact that
Republicans are the reason why affordability is so bad. That
would be my if I was advising the Democrats, that's
I would focus on those two things. And so the
President tonight is going to try and sell you on
the fact that there's a lot going in the right direction.
See if we can turn that around or not. Some
additional news out today about it got very little publicity.
I think it was overwhelmed by the shooting at Brown
University and also the Rob Reiner and his wife murder.
But there were four people today. A fifth person has
been arrested in a plot to bomb Los Angeles on
New Year's Eve. And the whole idea about this was
that at midnight when the ball drops in LA they
were going to have bombs in four different locations going off.
That would be obviously people would confuse it with firecrackers
or whatever, but would be destructive and deadly. And you
wonder if that was the case in Los Angeles, what
about us elsewhere? Every time New Year's comes around, you
kind of hold your breath, hoping that maybe the terrorists
out there are going to give it a pass. But
that's what's that's what's going on. Fifth person arrested today.
And speaking of crime, So some movement today at Brown
University on their efforts to find the person of interest. No,
they haven't. However, they came out with a video late
this afternoon of another person and they say, this other
person is and they have a bunch of video of
this guy and his there's a bunch of of they've
stopped the video where you can clearly see the camera
whatever they got to this guy. Cameras were very clear
and was face on and you if you know the guy,
it's clear who he is. Anyway, the Providence, Rhode Island
police want to talk to this guy because apparently he
came into some proximity with the person of interest. You're
John Miller kind of explaining what they're looking for.
Speaker 4: Well, they're talking about an encounter where they were within
a close proximity of each other, and what the chief
said summed it up, which is, you know, I wish
the videos had sound, but we don't. So what they're
trying to determine is, let's do some important framing here.
Number One, they're crystal clear that this is not a
person of interest as in a suspect. This is someone
who they believe may have nothing to do with us
at all, but may have spoken to encountered, gotten a
closer look, may have even talked to the person who
they believe is a suspect. So they want to know
things like do you know this person? Did you speak
to this person? Did he have a high pitch voice
or a low pitch voice, was there an accent?
Speaker 1: All that?
Speaker 4: But to get there, they first have to find that
person and say was there this encounter other than you
briefly passed by each other and seem to linger for
a minute. And that can have three potential outcomes that
we've experienced in other cases. Number One, that person sees
their own picture on TV and says, hey, that's me
and calls in. Number Two, a friend of that person
sees his own picture and calls him and says, hey,
that's you. You should reach out to them, or a
third somebody who knows him reaches out and says, I
think I know who that is. They would really like
to eliminate that as an angle, which is if they
just passed by each other and had to step around
each other, that's one thing. But if there was contact
or conversation, or if that person actually recognized the other guy,
that could mean a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're looking for this other guy to basically
come talk to them. Ed Davis, former Boston Police Commissioner,
was asked about how he thinks this is going.
Speaker 5: There are a few things that happened in the last
twenty four hours that I think are important. I would
point to a statement made by Attorney General Pete and
Narona about the nature of leads that they're chasing down,
and he even went so far as to say that
he expected an apprehension in the near future. You don't
as a public official, you don't make a statement like
that unless you're onto something. So to me, that telegraphed
some strong leads that they're working on right now. The
other thing I think is really important is the clothing
that the suspect is wearing on two fronts. One is
that that's a rather unique jacket that he's got on.
It's a large size and it's a unique kind of design.
And I think they can check with manufacturers. I'm sure
they already know who the manufacturer of that jacket is,
and then they can look for distribution outlets in the
area and start to comb through those lists of people
who have purchased that jacket over the last year or two.
That may give them the lead that they need. It
was a clue like that was really helpful in the
boss in the Washington bombing case. So there's a lot
going on right now, and I'm satisfied that because it
takes a while to get this video compiled and run
down leads like I just mentioned that they're in a
good place right now in the investigation. Well, I've been
through this exact same set of circumstances where we put
the photos out expecting to get a phone call in hours,
and it didn't happen. It wasn't until the suspects became
active in the Boston Marathon case that we get onto them.
But people recognize them and some of their friends not
only didn't tell the police, but they took active measures
to destroy evidence and try to protect the suspects, despite
the heinousness of the crime that could be happening right now.
That video of the suspect, if you're related to him
or you're familiar with him, the clothing that he wears,
the way he wants, the way that man's carrying himself
even though he runs, those are clues that if you're
very familiar with the suspect, are going to point to him.
And tragically, no one's called yet. So hopefully they're struggling
with that right now and will eventually make the right
decision because they are in legal carol if they don't
call so.
Speaker 1: Ed Davis was asked about the safety of the citizens,
the safety of people that are bringing their children to school.
The Brown's been let out, but there's still people working there.
What about the messaging from the mayor about how they
don't know where this guy is. Here's Mayor Smiley.
Speaker 6: The leads that were running down are giving us more
information regularly, but the location of the individual right now
is not known. My message to the community is that
we are doing everything possible to help them take the
first tentative steps forward because one way or another. Right now, residents,
my neighbors, you know, they still need to go to work,
kids still need to go to school, and so we're
providing enhanced police protection and visible coverage.
Speaker 1: So you're on your own, take your chances. They can't
hide in their basements. Paul Morrow, former NYPD, was up
in Providence taking a look at the scene.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's very hard to say. Just let's remember
that they sent everybody home. The school has told everybody
that finals a canceled school is over for the semester,
and that's a parent. Here on the streets, they're relatively deserted,
to be clear, the building that we're at, which is
where the shooting occurred, is right on the edge. It's
realistically the first aspect of Brown University that you hit
when you walk out of the adjacent residential neighborhood. There's
a neighborhood right here. It's very affluent, a lot of
houses that are behind walls, well set back, which I
think explains the paucity of private videos that they've been
able to get from ring cameras and like. So whether
or not they're safe, the police very clearly they're trying
to walk that fine line between creating an element of
panic but reassuring people that they're doing everything that they
can and that people should go about their lives. Hot Lee, right,
and we saw this. I know I've name checked it before,
but the public knows it, so I use it the
coburger case that happened University of Idaho at Moscow and
same situation there. They canceled the rest of classes. The
kids that were going to the school, they all dispersed,
and as a result, when it came time to do
some interviews, they had to actually rely on police all
around the country to go knock on doors and ask
you there and what did you see. I suspect there's
going to be some of that here as well. And
there's also the fact that, as I said, because this
is adjacent to a residential neighborhood, during the weekend and
the immediate aftermath of the event, because it happened on
a Saturday, a lot of these people were not home.
Some of them might not still be home because they're
may be gone to Florida for the season or something
like that. And that's why you're seeing video dribble in
because they're canvassing very hard going further and further out
trying to get a hold of people that have either
just return them, maybe even getting a hold of them
wherever they are and saying can you get somebody to
let us in and access to your ring camera, or
they're going right to the source and saying we need
to consent from you because we're going to pull video
from the video company.
Speaker 1: So the students that were witnesses to the shooting have scattered,
they've been sent home. Now the question is, like I said,
people are still there. There are some students there, There
are certainly faculty and staff that are still working at Brown.
Is there any sort of armed security there to protect them?
Since nobody knows where the bad guy is. Brown is
his own police force.
Speaker 7: There are actual gun carrying police force, the Brown University Police,
and they actually responded ultimately, they were the ones who
would be responsible for activating the sirens, etc. They have
a chief of security as well. And I think, and
you know, not to use an unfortunate metaphor, but you're
right over the target because you got to say to yourself,
how is it that in a building that is not
only at the edge of campus, which says to me,
you got to be very cognizant of people wandering in
and out, not even shooters, just trespassers, people that are homeless,
or people looking to do a burglary. How is it
that the outer salient of your campus, which is where
one of the most busy classes that they have is held.
How is it that the Ingress and Egress doesn't have
a simple camera, The kind of ring cameras that we're
even talking about in a private home costs next to
nothing in the course of a university budget.
Speaker 1: They don't have that.
Speaker 7: On a day that there were a number of things
going on on a Saturday during final season, they apparently
had either cropped open the door or literally deactivated the
card access during the day, and there was no security guard.
So you really do have to question why it is
that the building was so insecure and why we're not
hearing more about that. Let's remember, a place like Brown
drives the economy in this town. And I don't think
it's any accident that there have been so many politicians
at the lectern and yet we're not hearing a whole
lot from Browning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Brown Security, there's nobody that's come to the lecturn.
It's all full of politicians. You got the mayor, you
got the attorney general. Well, you do have the chief
of police, but they don't give him much time, and
he's got a fairly thick accent, so it's kind of
hard to understand him. One more from law enforcement who
has a very analytical like Chris Wecker, former FBI.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a clear indication that they I wouldn't say
they've hit a dead end, but they just don't have
any solid leads on the identification of this subject. So
when that happens, you do go out to the public
and you try to get their help. You put out
the fifty thousand dollars reward, and I'm sure that has
primed the pump, and leads are coming in and there
are analysts. Are probably as many analysts working on this
case as are are agents and investigators because they have
to triage those leads, get them out to it for action.
To investigators who hit, you know, hit the streets and
do whatever needs to be done to follow it up
and run it out. But they're they're stumped, and they're
going to the public and as has happened in a
lot of cases, that that will solve this case. I
think the video is good enough, and I think that
we're gonna we're gonna see more video come out of this.
I think they got a little bit of a late
jump on doing the neighborhood canvas. When you want to
get out there as quickly as you can with two
person teams and knock on every door and talk to
everybody driving by and get that ring video. I think
they're a little bit behind on that, but I think
they're I think they're catching up now. I mean, this
is what happens when you get politicians running investigations. As
you see the mayor and you see the governor out
there doing all the talking that what it may help
with is one if there's a particular group that he
was targeting, or you know, a particular uh, race or
sex or whatever, then that they would be they would
be on warning. You can't issue an all clear signal
when you don't know who the suspect is and you
I don't know where they are so that you know,
whether that's inexperience or just their political leanings, we don't know.
But I think that's relevant information that you can put
out to the general public. Right now, there are a
lot of details that can go out there that may
help identify this person. And you know, we're at that
phase now. We're not trying to build a prosecution right now,
we're trying to identify a suspect. So you can put
a little bit more information out there than you normally
would if, say, a prosecution was pending.
Speaker 1: So one more wrinkle to add to the confusion about
what's going on with the mass shooting at Brown University.
There was a professor at MIT who was shot and
killed in his home. This apparently happened last night. He
is in Brookline, which is a suburb of Boston. I
looked on the map, it's forty eight miles from Providence
to Brookline. And so the question that the media covering
the Brown story asking is could this be related? The
Providence police said no. Chris Wecker said maybe yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean, look, they said there's no connection between these
two and they don't know. You know, they're not putting
out any information at all. That doesn't mean they aren't
looking for that connection. And you know, this is ongoing
obviously ongoing investigation. We'll get more later, but I would
say that they haven't ruled out a connection.
Speaker 1: They just said there is.
Speaker 8: They haven't seen a connection yet.
Speaker 1: All right, So just one more thing to add to
the confusion going on up there at the courthouse today
in Los Angeles. Nick Reiner did show up. It was interesting.
They put him in a in kind of a glass
partially glass, partially covered, not a pen, just an area
next to the court for prisoners to come in and
basically be able to see the judge and the judge
can see them. They brought Nick Reiner in and he
sat down so you could not see him, and the
court ruled that they don't want any video or photos
of him, which I thought was kind of interesting. After
the court hearing, this was essentially rules but for the
media not to be able to video Nick Reiner. It
basically turned into essentially the ability for Nick Rener to
waive his right to a speedy trial. The judge ordered
him kept in jail with no bail. Alan Jackson is
his lawyer who spoke briefly out of the whole thing
took just a few minutes. Alan Jackson spoke briefly to
the media out in front of the courthouse.
Speaker 9: During this process, you allow the system to move forward
in the way that it was designed. To move forward,
not with a rush to judgment, not with jumping to conclusions,
but with restraint and with dignity and with the respect
that this system and this process deserves, and the the
family deserves. So with that, we are set for January
seventh for an arraignment.
Speaker 1: That's the next court date. And that's all I have
to say at this point.
Speaker 9: There may be more at some other point, but today
we're going to rest on where we stand stand procedurally,
which is this was a continuance of an arraignment. Nothing
happened today substantively. We'll be back for an arraignment in
the same department on the seventh of January.
Speaker 1: We'll see you then, Prappy. Yeah, so nopolea has been
entered yet. We'll see what they actually come up with.
John Ritter, defense lawyer, is his assessment of what happened
at court today.
Speaker 10: Yeah, And I'm not sure what else he's going to
be able to say at this point. He knows he's
got his work cut out for him. I guess he's
asking the public to just reserve judgment until some of
the facts start to come forward. I will say this
though about Alan, and I haven't known him for a
very long time, both as a prosecutor and defense attorneys,
that he is not the type to sit on his
hand to let the case come to him. He kind
of approaches defense cases much more like a prosecute and
going out and trying to find the evidence himself and
doing a lot of investigation proactively on his own behalf.
We saw that yesterday when him and his team were
actually out at the crime scene. But given what we
already know about this case, even the small amount of
information that's been trickling out, I will say it's starting
to look like a very strong case for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: So that kind of goes into just a process story.
Now at this point, I would think meantime, if you
win that lottery, you might want to know what the
stock market's doing. Well today I wasn't doing much. We
had another sell off day to day. Dow Jones Industrials
fell two hundred and twenty eight down to forty seven
thousand and eight eighty five, The S and P down
seventy eight. The nasdak OUCHC got hit four hundred and
eighteen points lower price a goal up thirty nine dollars
to forty three seventy one, and oil bounced back up
off of that low we saw yesterday lois we've seen
for oil in four years. Oil went up a buck
and a half to day to fifty seven dollars for
a barrel of oil. That's it for today. Thank you
for coming by. We will do this again tomorrow. We
hope to see you then.