Speaker 1: And welcome to the Big Podcast. How are you happy Friday?
Turned the band down here in a little bit. Yeah,
Today's Friday, the eighth day of August, year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan, and we
start off today with some breaking news that came out
this afternoon about Jim Lovell. And Jim Lovell, the Apollo
thirteen commander, has passed away at the age of ninety
seven years old. I mean, this is this guy, even
among astronauts, was considered to be like the amazing hero
because of Apollo thirteen, and they made the movie about it.
Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell in the movie. But this
was about the near disaster of the nineteen seventy Apollo
thirteen effort to get to the Moon, and Jim Lovell
went on to go to space four different times. And
it's nice to see, if you will, that mister Lovell
lived to ninety He had a full, good life, ninety
seven years of age. So you know, history passes on
and Jim Lovell passed on today at ninety seven. So
we've got that. We just let me get into it.
We have a lot about the economy. We've got inflation.
We've got tariffs, we've got the FED, We've allow that
to worry about. Let's start with Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary.
He was on with Brett Bear last night and I
thought his comments. I know he's a smart guy. I
admire Scott Besson. I think he's probably the best one
of all the people in the Trump administration. And he
talks about the fact that inflation hasn't really done anything yet. Well,
it has. It just depends upon which products you're talking about.
And it's also the way that started was the Liberation
Day was April second, and since then there have been
delays and deferrals and changing rates, and finally yesterday they're
supposedly kicked in. But even with that, they're still talking
about changes. But we've had reports from Walmart that they
have to raise prices. They're going to eat some of
the increase by paying the tariffs and then having to
eat some of that costs, but they're going to have
to pass it on. The biggest retailer in the country
is going to have to pass on higher prices. You've
got the automakers, my gosh, the auto industry is getting
clobbered because of steel and aluminum. A lot of that
goes into automobiles. So the obvious response, according to the
Wall Street Journal, is to raise prices and move production
to the US. But that neither of those options are
all that easy or can happen all that quickly. But
you talk about some of the they'll make more investments here,
but it's going to cost you more to buy a car.
It just is. There's no other way around it. So
at this point the auto industry is facing some massive
increase in cost. Wall Street Journal had a great graph
which I could hold it up to the microphone for you,
but it says auto industry takes twelve billion dollar hit
from the trade war so far, twelve billion. The one
that is getting walloped the most is Toyota. They make
most of their automobiles that they sell here, they make
them in Japan. Their hit is about three a little
more than three billion dollars. Number two on the list
from Germany, Volkswagen. They're taking a hit of one and
a half billion dollars, so you can expect the price
of a Volkswagen to be higher. General Motors they said
they're taking a one point one billion dollar hit, and
they also announced that they're going to eat those those
tariff costs themselves. But for how long? I mean, okay,
thank you General Motors, but for how long for it
is right behind General Motors, they're saying that they're going
to take a one billion dollar hit. Honda is next,
eight hundred and fifty million dollar hit, BMW six hundred
and eighty million dollar hit, Hyundai six hundred million dollar hit,
Kiya five hundred seventy million, Mazda four hundred seventy million,
Nissan four hundred and seventy million, Mercedes four hundred and
twenty million, and the list goes on. I mean, it's
one of those that is the least of all of
them is Tesla. They're taking a three hundred million dollar hit.
Their cars are assembled one hundred percent here in the US,
but they do get some parts from overseas, so they're
even having to pay some of these tariffs. So add Walmart,
the biggest retailer, add in the big car companies, and
they're crying the blues about the tariffs, and they tariffs
have basically barely begun. The reason the automakers are getting
hit so quickly is because they make a lot of
their parts and their cars out of steel and aluminum,
and those have high tariffs, and they've been assessed for
some time. Scott Besson, though, gives his best spin on
all of this. Here's the Treasury Secretary.
Speaker 2: I am saying that thus far we had not seen
a transmission into prices, and if we do, it could
be a one time price adjustment. But what we are
seeing thus far is the manufacturers are eating it. So
the overseas companies has taken advantage of the US for
so long that the US companies are shouldering a lot
of the tariffs, and perhaps we'll see some price on
the consumers. But overall, inflation has been very been very nascent,
and as a matter of fact, two months ago we
saw inflation dropped for the first time in four years.
Speaker 1: So a couple of things. One is he said that though, oh,
there may be some upward pressure on consumers, upper price pressure,
I think you can count on it. Secondly, and listen,
I just don't like tariffs. I understand we need to
have fair trade practices between ourselves and other countries. I'm
all for that, but these are not reciprocal trades. Tariffs,
they are not reciprocal if they were, I would be
all for it, and to correct the Treasury secretary, I mean,
he's putting a much spin on this that you can
imagine this is not going to be a one time
price adjustment. Keeps going back to that, trying to sell that.
But if that would be true, if there was a
one time tariff, but the tariffs are going to be
assessed to every single product comes into this country. It's
not going to be one time. So back to Bestent,
and the question is about his view of what's going
on at the FED.
Speaker 2: Look, I think that they a couple of reasons, but
I think a big part of it was somewhat a
lack of logic because on one side they were saying, Okay,
we need to wait risk management, we need to see
if we are going to see inflation from the tariff,
and again, it would not have been inflation at one time.
Price adjustment is just like does your driver's license costs
more this year. Then on the other side, they lowered
their economic projections for the year. So traditionally, when economic
projections go down, interest rates go down. So now the
market is pricing in a substantial probability of rate cuts
over the coming months and I would expect that the
FED will be following the market.
Speaker 1: Then Besont was asked about the reporting that a number
of brick countries are getting together other countries, Brazil, China
talking to each other about why don't we trade with
each other and leave the United States out of the
global trade world. And here's Besson's response. I think it's
mostly performative.
Speaker 2: They can call each other, they can meet, but everyone
wants access to the US market. And what we've seen
thus far was other than a brief retaliation by China,
There's been absolutely no retaliation. We have eighteen important trading
partners and we have substantial deals with about two thirds
of them, and with India. President Trump has added a
third facet to tariffs. Alexander Hamilton, who was the original
tariff man, I used terrafts for two reasons, one for
to fund the government, two to protect you as industry.
And now President Trump is using terraffs as an instrument
of foreign policy and he is putting secondary tariffs on
India for buying Russian oil.
Speaker 1: Okay, so another point that I don't like, and I'll
find you one again. I'm all for reciprocal tariffs you
charge US five percent, we'll charge you five You charge
us fifty percent, We'll charge you fifty percent. That's fair trade.
It's not free trade, but it's fair trade. But I
don't like the fact that the president is in love
with tariffs and he's using them for non economic reasons. Well,
you mentioned Alexander Hamilton with the first tariff gud. That's
because we didn't have an income tax. That's how the
country supported itself with tariff income. No, no, it could
not replace the income tax that we have now. The
income tax is way too lucrative for them to get
rid of that and charge sheriffs. It just wouldn't pencil out.
But why are we using tariffs to punish somebody for
their political behavior? I e. India buying Russian oil. Go
after them with all the other tools you've got in
your basket. But tariffs should be reserved for economic reasons,
not for some political or military reason.
Speaker 2: From this tariff policy, we expect to take in hundreds
of millions of dollars and to help pay down the
debt and bring down this mess that we were left with.
On the other side, we're succeeding substantial restoring and I
would expect that by the fourth quarter of this year
first second quarters that construction is going to begin a
substantial job creation and expansion.
Speaker 1: I hope he's right. I hope he's right. He misspoke.
He said bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. It's
actually the President says hundreds of billions. I don't know
of anybody is able to add it that big, but
it's in the billions, tens of billions for sure. And
my question always comes back to if the government is
getting tens of billions of dollars into the treasury, who
who's sending him the money? Whose check is it that
arrives at the Treasury for the Treasury to cash? And
I suggest to you it is American businesses that are
writing the check when they pick up the products at
the ports and they're writing customs of Border Protection collects
the money and sends it to the Treasury. So again
I am rooting that all of this will work out
to be fabulous, but I have some basic questions about it.
And historically tariffs are a lose lose for both sides
of the trading aisle. One thing that we don't have
a calculator for, and that is AI and how much
is artificial intelligence going to boost our economy? And again,
if our economy can grow stronger than it has been,
then that helps with all of the financial problems that
we have. Marcus Lamone, he's used to do a show
called The Property. He's got a new show coming out
this fall. He owns a bunch of businesses. Camping World,
I believe is his primary business, and he was talking
about AI and the impact that it will have on
business and on the economy.
Speaker 3: Well, AI is actually across multiple businesses, between ben Beth
and Beyond and Camping World. It really is starting to
integrate not only the sales process, supply chain process, the
ordering process. But there's this misnomer that people are getting
off because of AI, and I want to make sure
that we're really clear. President Trump has been clear, this
is not a human replacement. This is a human accelerator.
And so that's how we really look at it. How
do we make more efficiency and how do we make
more money because of it?
Speaker 1: So this could be the big balancing act. If we've
got tariffs, which I believe can add put a drag
on the economy, and you've got AI that is growing
leaps and bounds and can really grow the economy. Hopefully
maybe that will offset or even exceed what the drag
is from tariffs on the economy. Speaking of Marcus Lemone,
he also was asked about the jobs numbers and the
problem as a business owner of dealing with inaccurate and
unreliable information about the unemployment or the employment, the jobs
numbers coming from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Speaker 3: Here's what he said, before we address that co we's
not calling it statistics and just call it facts. The
jobs either exist or they don't, right, and I either
want to know oh that they exist, and as a
leader of a couple of businesses, I want to know
what the general labor marketplace looks like. Should I be
hiring people, should I be thinking about laying people off?
And if I'm making decisions based on bad information, particularly
in the AI world where we can scrape data from
payroll services and a variety of other people, then I,
as a business owner, I'm probably more upset than President
Trump is because I'm making decisions on investing on capital,
I'm trending them, looking at how I'm going to build
my capital structure all off of labor data. Because everybody
always told us labor data is the number one thing
that matters. Well, I think we need to have faith
thanks are making decisions. Corporations are making capex decisions. From
my perspective, and we tie the two AI and labor together,
we can have good information on answering simple questions. We
should be able to get that data real time, not
once a quarter, but once a day.
Speaker 1: That seems crazy to hear that, but that makes sense.
Why can't we get why can't we close the books
every single day at the labor Department on how many
people have filed for unemployment and how many people have
found jobs. It should be something like every business, you
close your book of business every day, but the government
reports once a month every quarter. So I like Marcus
Lamoney's smart guy. So if we're talking about government, let's
go and take a look at Washington, d C, our
nation's capital. I don't know if you're familiar with Washington.
I'm just I have enough information to be dangerous. But
the president wants to get involved in cracking down on crime.
There was one of the dos DOGE staffers was attacked
and beaten. There have been some murderers Washington, D C.
Has always been high crime city, but the President wants
to make it so that the crime is minimal and
that will make the mayor happy. But I found out
what they're talking about is a twenty square block area.
Then what that is around where the government buildings are.
There's if you take a look at Washington, you see
it's kind of tilted, but it's basically a square. And
the northeast and the southeast are always considered by people
in d C to be the dangerous, high crime, low
income neighborhoods. You go to the northwest and the southwest,
that's where the government buildings are, and that's where Georgetown is.
It's all very lovely. Are they going to protect twenty
square blocks? Well, if they do, I'm sure the crime
rate in Washington will go down at least slightly. But
speaking of Washington, Shannonboreem, who lives there, where she works,
she covers the Supreme Court. But she is also making
the same observation I told you about yesterday. They've had
all these Biden former Biden officials that are coming before
the Oversight Committee. The committee is gone, the staffers are there.
They're bringing these people in. Anita Done She's Anita Done
is just an old pro for the Democrats in Washington,
d C. She has been a very high official in
the Obama administration, in the Biden administration, she goes way
back as a top level Democrat and so they had
her in for a couple three hours yesterday and what
she said was essentially, yeah, Joe Biden has aged during
his time in the presidency, but he was very competent
and able to make the decisions. He made the calls,
so they stopped taking the Fifth Amendment. And now they're
all saying, no, he was great, and it's simply their opinion,
so you can't charge them with the crime. That's what
they say. Their opinion is. He's Shannon Breemti talking about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And as you guys know, these voluntary interviews when they
come in like Anita Done did, they're not sworn test away,
they're not depositions. And you're getting a lot more out
of folks when you have that kind of conversation. But
you know, whether you go in and take the fifth
because it is a sworn deposition, or you have these
voluntary interviews absent somebody on the inside saying from that
inner circle, Yeah, some of us did make decisions and
use the auto pen without telling him. We overrode the president.
Those kinds of things, you know. Short of that, I
don't know where the House Oversight Committee goes with this
other than they are scoring political points and reminding people
when Democrats very much want to turn the page on
twenty four. They don't love I think Vice President Harris
being out there or talk of President Biden. They want
to look to the future. They want to get ready
for the midterms and not focus on, you know, some
of the folks that were problematic for them in the past.
I mean, it may simply be about getting these people
on the record in any way that they can answering
these difficult questions. You saw our Aisha Hasni chasing Anita
Dune down the hall, trying to get her to talk
about that cognit to test. Doctor Kevin O'Connor, you know,
he took the fifth didn't get questions from him on that,
but there are reports that it needed done. Did talk
about the issue, and that there was some discussion within
the circle that they felt like President Bien could pass
a cognitive test, but they didn't think it would be
politically beneficial. I think the question is how politically detrimental
it may have been. And so all of those decisions
and at least you're getting a little bit more conversation
about what was going on in those inner workings, and
that's absolutely what House Republicans want to do.
Speaker 1: So you heard what she said that at the very most,
they're trying to score political points. But once again, there
is the Oversight Committee holding these hearings and nothing is happening,
nothing is accomplished, and nobody is going to be held accountable.
Bottom line, Let's skip over over the pond, go over
to Israel, and last night the Cabinet held a meeting
until four o'clock in the morning in Israel where they
were debating whether or not they wanted to actually just
take over Gaza. And the thing about this which I
find fascinating from Afar is that Gaza used to belong
to Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the one
who years ago said, well, I think it was in
the early two thousand and two thousand and five, maybe
I'm guessing, but it was around then when Sharon said,
let's just give this to the people that are of
Palestinian descent and will let them set up their own country,
and they did, and they did the same for the
West Bank. They said here you go, and it wasn't
just here you go, it was all of you Israelis
that live in these areas you have to leave. So
there's a lot of Israelis who had to be were
booted out of their homes. I mean, I always think about,
how would you like to have the government come along
and say you got to move out? But that's what
they did, and they moved them out, and then the
people that moved in were given a chance to vote
for their leaders. That it was the PLO Palestinian Liberation
Organization or HAMAS were the choices the two parties that
they had to vote for. They voted for HAMAS well.
You know the rest of the story. But they want
to base it. Everybody's having a big cow because of
the fact that they're saying, well, let's take Gaza back.
And I'm not sure if it's all of Gaza or
just Gaza City. But the problem Israel's had is that
they in fact, they did it again last night. They're
lobbing missiles from Gaza into Israel people or in Israel,
Ho would you like missiles to be lobbed into your
backyard or into your roof. So they're saying, let's just
take it back, and they voted on it last night
and they said, yes, we are going to take it back.
Josh Gotthaimer, who as a Democrat from New Jersey, had
this observation.
Speaker 6: I mean, I clearly understood from our conversation that their
intention was to everything possible to get the hostages out,
the fifty that are remaining, twenty we believe are alive.
Obviously you saw the videos wolf of Hamas starving literally
starving some of the hostages, one digging his own grave.
And so the goal is to where we know the
last stronghold appears to be in Gaza City, where the
Prime Minister plans to go in to crush Hamas and
drive toward a ceasefire. And to me, that's the ultimate
objective here is getting humanitarian aid in and prevent Hamas
from blocking that humanitarian aid, which we know they've been
doing to crush Hamas and to transition, as the Prime
Minister said, to a multi national Arab government. To me,
that's the goal here, to not have any kind of
long term occupation or annexation and I'm totally opposed to
that and to as quickly as possible move to a
new government without Hamas terrorists in charge. Well, I don't
believe that's the objective. The objective is to get the
hostages out. Hamas is torturing and starving these hostages, and
as you know, there are fifty left. You know, we
also know welf that the aid is not getting through
because Hamas. You've seen the videos of the UN convoys
consistently getting raided and looted, Hamas taking the food and
preventing it from getting to children who need it. I
saw i once, I was at the Shalom crossing and
went down saw firsthand the trucks moving from Israel into
Gaza and sitting in Gaza because they the UN trucks,
which they put out statistics saying that they have an
eighty five percent fail rate of getting that food to
the people who need it, which is unacceptable. You know,
there is an alternative which I believe is working, and
I met with them, the Global Humanitarian Foundation, the GHF,
which is focused on getting food directly to people and
not letting Hamas get their hands on that food. They're
quadrupling the number of sites. We need to do everything
we can to get that aid out and to crush
HAMAS and get these terrats out. And obviously a long
term occupation is unacceptable, but I'll tell you what is
acceptable is doing everything we can to stop these terrorists.
Speaker 1: Less.
Speaker 6: They're angrier about the situation that I've ever been because
you know, in the past Hamas had shown had not
intended to show videos or pictures of starving hostages and
torturing them, and now they're blatantly doing that, you know,
showing the one digging his own grave. What I heard
from these loved ones is that time is not on
their side. They know that we've got to do anything
we can to get these hostages out immediately. I know
that in my meetings the intention is to do everything
as careful and cautiously as possible to get these hostages out.
But long term Hamas has no intention, in my opinion,
of doing anything except starving, killing these hostages. They've shown
no interest in agreeing to any deals. They keep walking
away from the table. They don't want AID getting in.
We know that they're literally killing AID workers if they
work with the GHF. They are feeding BBC put out
a report yesterday, and BBC is no fan of Israel.
They put a put out yesterday showing they're feeding some
If you're a Hamas household, Hamas is giving you food
if you're supportive, and money if the next door, next
door neighbor, which is not is getting nothing. And to me, Hamas,
who was supposed to be the governing body, has shown
zero interest in taking care of Palestinians. This whole thing
is awful. We've got to get to peace. We've got
to get past this. But I'll tell you and get
to a ceasefire. But I'll tell you right now, you
can't allow Hamas to be in power and continue to
kill the way they're doing. We've got to find a
way forward here. We need a new government, We need
Hamas to be out of the way and to get
these hostages out in humanitarian aid in.
Speaker 1: War is just ugly no matter how you cut it,
but this one seems to be particularly ugly. And the
fascinating part, sadly about all of this is is that
Hamas has a highly effective propaganda war around the world.
Basically from October seventh of twenty three, when they attacked
the people innocent people in their homes, and they turned
it around to very quickly. The world was upset with
Israel for defending themselves because they fired back with lots
of gusto and they said, oh, you're being mean. And
here it is time after time the people that have
been on the ground say that the AID trucks get
there and they can't get the aid distributed. And if
Hamas is killing the drivers of the trucks to keep
the aid from getting in. And then you heard what
he was talking about, Josh Gothheimer talking about the fact
that if you are a supporter of Hamas, they will
give you food. They control the distribution, and if you're
not a supporter of a mosque, they make you starve.
So I mean, for all of you that are in
the public relations business, the pr business out there, man,
you ought to take some notes from what it is
that they're doing, because they are very effective in their
propaganda war making Israel look out like they are the
bad guys. And I quite honestly don't understand what Israel wants.
Were that it's a beautiful piece of property was but
now it's just totally destroyed. Why would you want to
take that over because it's going to be upon you
and your pocketbook to rebuild all of that. I'm not
sure why Israel wants to take it back. It'll be
an enormous cost for them to rebuild that property. It
will take a decade to do it. But again, I repeat,
that was Israel until Ariel Sharon said, why don't we
give this to the people and let them live there,
uh and create their own government. I don't understand it.
So let's let's get some into the week. Let's get
some phone calls in because we've had some great calls
from various people who listen to the podcast. Well let's
start with our friend Salty. He's he's a little confused
about the FED and he needs some help without Here's Salty.
Speaker 4: Hey Tom, it's Salty. Oh my gosh, so much happening.
Two weeks. I couldn't call last week. I just I
took on this extra project and this by warm me out.
But I've been listening and you know, Vin staying up
with the news somewhat. Can you can you help me
with something I just need to know? Uh, the Fed
in the interest rates and everything, and this guy that's
ahead of the Fed. I'm a little confused because and
you say the FEDS, you know, but it's not in
the government, it's not tied to It's a separate thing.
That's what they keep saying. It's separate, but it's called
the FEDS. And so to help me out with that. Also,
what's the deal between Trump and this old boy? Apparently
he's he's got a two billion dollar project going on,
uh to update the FED. Uh? Is this taz mahaw
or something? But anyway, Uh, just I want to know
why why Trump and then this old boy is at
odds with each other? Should the interest rates get lowered?
They say he's got a vandetta out against Trump. I
don't know if that's true. I've heard some of Trump
calling him a loser and all that stuff. But just
to help me out with the FED, uh and what
its role is and and how why it's not tied
directly to the government. Okay, home, my brain, Ert, Tom,
I'm sud You miss you, buddy. We'll say you have
a good weekend. Well, we'll call get you later. Bye.
Speaker 1: Okay. So those those are some great questions. Salty always
is has a has an inquisitive mind the FED. So
he wants to know about the FED. First of all,
the FED is the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Central
Bank of the United States. It is independent from the government,
but there is always a loose string. The FED was
created by Congress. Congress is the one that said, let's
have a central bank, and it will be owned by
the banks in this country. So the central bank, the
FED is there is a string. They have to go
report to the faedest report to Congress twice a year,
every six months, and it's called the Humphrey Hawkins Testimony.
And so they still have They keep one loose string
on the FED, but they try to recognize the fact
that they're independent. The reason they're independent is they're not
owned by shareholders. They're not owned by you and me.
They are owned by the banks member banks. Ninety nine
point nine percent of all banks in the country are
members of the Federal Reserve Bank, and they are the
ones that pay the fees to this to the FED,
which gives the FED the money to operate in the
way that they want to operate, buying treasury, selling treasuries,
doing all of that. That's what they do. So the
FED is independent. There is a loose string that connects
them to Congress. The executive branch has no ties to them,
but the President is the one who nominates the members
of the Federal Reserve Board, and that is where the
President is talking right now about who he wants to
replace j Powell, Jerome Powell, who was the chairman of
the FED. But as far as the taj Mahal and
the two billion dollar building deal, yeah, no, it's it's
it's way crazy. They they part of that was a
building that they did five years ago, but it's still
they have a cost overrun of at least one point
five billion. It's not taxpayer money, it's not your money,
it's not my money. It's the banks are the ones
who owned the Central Bank. So if anybody has some
questions to ask or a gripe, it would be the
member banks to go to the FED say why are
you spending all this money on this building. So it's
an old building and they needed to replace it. But
it does sound pretty darn excessive and it's a it's
a bad look. But your your money in mind, at
taxpayer's money is not involved in any way, shape or
form with that building. So I hope that helps you.
There's Oh, here's another one from Salty. What's going on here?
Speaker 4: Hey, Tom, it's salty. Oh my gosh. Uh, I know
I left a message before, but uh, I'm a little
confused about what's going on down there in Texas? Uh,
who's this guy named Jerry Mander? Oh? To keep returning
to Jerry Mandard? And uh, I'm is he a Democrat
or Republican? Was was he just indpended? Oh my gosh,
so many things I don't understand. I don't understand the
fan and now I got this, uh, this guy named
Jerry Mandar and uh, he's done dunned after works and
in uh uh, well he said tod in Texas and
he's done dunned up the words in uh uh Illinois,
now even the state of Virginia. Oh, Jerry Manders showed
up here, Tan, Can we just can't we just arrest
Jerry and just put him in jail and say, quit
messing with our elections. He's worse put with these things.
I'm messing with our elections anyway. Tom, I'll wait and
I listen for your answer later on today. I love you, buddy.
I hope you have a good weekend.
Speaker 1: By Okay, I'm not sure everybody understands what's going on
down in Texas because both sides have done it. Republicans
have done it, Democrats have done it. There's no question
about it. It's all about them and about their power
and trying to get more power and more seats. But
the jerry Mander story is actually goes back to a
guy named Jerry and his name he was the governor
of Massachusetts back in eighteen twelve. Name was Elbridge Jerry. No,
that's not backwards, Governor Elbridge Jerry, and he was a
governor of Massachusetts. So in the Boston Gazette back in
eighteen twelve, they wrote a story called Jerrymander, and what
it was was a reaction to the redrawing of a
state Senate district that looked like a salamander, and it
was the shape of a salamander. So they the Boston
Gazette in March of eighteen twelve called it a gerrymander.
And it's all about the fact that they're trying to
manipulate boundaries of electoral districts for political advantage. So there
is the history of Governor Elbridge Jerry, which turned out
to be jerrymandering. Good question. Salty. Let's see, here's one
from Eric. Yeah, a little bit of a Russian accent,
but he is all concerned about I played the comment
that Tim Geidner, former Treasury Secretary, made at the Aspen
Institute earlier this week, and Eric is concerned about it.
Speaker 7: But the Tim Geidner, I just couldn't delieve my ears
when he said that tars are taxes on US manufacturers.
That is just the twisting, and as opposite, the tigres
are taxes and actually forem manufacturers indirectly that simulates production
in fighting USA because it's a barrier. The times are
not just taxes. There are barriers and the touches and
the minus the secondary and I agree, yeah, will be
hard to get real because they're part of the project
and anything what is part of the budget. Of course,
it will be hard to get the readers or change.
It's always den like this because it's dig.
Speaker 1: Well, let me see, will you straighten this round? Tim
Geidner was right. They essentially are taxes on US consumers
and US businesses because the manufacturer of a product in
another foreign country that we put an order in and
buy from them, they don't pay the tariff. The tariff
is paid by the person the company that picks up
the product here in the US. So take for example,
steel and aluminum that comes in from a foreign country.
The automakers in this country General Motors and Forward, for example,
they have to pay extra to get their steel and
aluminum to make their automobiles. So effectively, it drives up
the cost via attacks on the cost of making automobiles
here in America. So it is attax on US consumers
and on US businesses. I hope that makes sense to you.
Let's see, We've got one one more. This is oh, Laurie,
the comment line lady talking about Leticia James, the Attorney
General for the state of New York.
Speaker 4: Leticia James says that the new subpoenas are simply a
weaponization of the justice system. Hey, how would you know?
Speaker 1: That's so funny, good, delirious always, Laurie. Yeah, how will
Letitia James know anything about weaponization of the justice system?
So the DOJ is looking into Leticia James. I mean,
you don't have to be a lawyer to look and
go she is misused her office for political purposes. But
what has happened She's been given a bunch of subpoenas.
One of the subpoenas is related to the civil fraud
judgment won by the Attorney General against Donald Trump, which
is still under review by the First Department, a Pellet division,
so it's being appealed. James was also subpoened as part
of a grand jury probe into her offices four hundred
and fifty four million dollars civil fraud case against President Trump.
That's the case I believe where no bank complained, all
the banks got their loans paid off completely one full,
nobody was hurt, but she went after Donald Trump for
basically fraud. And that's that is now the voj is
looking in a grand jury is looking into that whole case. Well,
there's another one here seconds being I reportedly sought information
about a Letitia James investigation into the National Rifle Association.
And separately, there's a grand jury in Virginia examining whether
to hand up indictment against Letitia James for allegedly falsifying
records to receive favorable loans on a home that she
purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, back in twenty twenty three. That's
one where it came down to was it a rental?
Did she own it? Did she say it was a
rental on the mortgage? Same thing that what's his name
out in California, Yeah, Adam Schiff, because Adam Shiff apparently
got a bunch of mortgages and they were for rental homes,
and you cannot lie to the bank you get a
mortgage about that, They ask you, is this going to
be your principal home? Yes? Or no? And if it's
not going to be your principal home, it's a whole
different approval process and it's a different interest rate. So
dj grand jury's looking into Latitia James and also into
Adam Schiff. And as we wrap up for the week,
we are getting word that there is going to be
a meeting between President Trump and President Putin next week.
They are still it was still sounding if the earlier today,
but as we wrap up on this Friday, looks like
it's definitely going to happen. We just don't know where yet,
so it is kind of being slapped together. Wall Street
been bouncing around today, the Dow up two hundred and
six to close, the forty four thousand, one seventy five
s and p up forty nine, Nazdac up two hundred
and seven, gold up four dollars to thirty four fifty eight,
and oil fell fifty cents back down to sixty three
dollars now for one barrel of oil. Thank you for
coming by today, have yourself a wonderful weekend, and we
hope to see you on Monday