Speaker 1: And hello, here we go. Welcome to the Big Podcast.
It is Friday.
Speaker 2: Yep, today's the fifteenth day of May, year of our
lower twenty twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan, and yep,
we're zooming through May. Got half of it over, and
the big meeting in Beijing is over. And well, I
would love to tell you what the big headline is.
I would love to tell you about the big announcement,
about the big accomplishment about the Oh, there isn't any
I mean everything they I The President's on his way
back to DC, and there's nothing that you can say,
oh wow, look at that there was There wasn't any
big announcement of any kind. And and and when asked
any kind of question about well, well, well is he
going to help out with a run? Well I didn't
ask him. And then he but but he might. And
what about what about Taiwan? What about Taiwan? That was
the big deal for for President She and the president
has like a fourteen billion dollar bill to sign. The
Congress has already approved giving Taiwan fourteen billion dollars worth
of military aid and the President has had it on
his desk now for quite a few weeks and well
you're going to sign it. You're going to sign it. Well,
no comment, no response whatsoever. And you know that President,
she said, please don't do that. And so Trump is
now kind of well, yeah, out of the whole thing.
It's being the headline is coming out about the fact
that the talks were about stability. What's that mean? I mean,
I know what stability means. He is stable. But who's stable?
China's stable? Worse, table Iron is stable? Who's who is
Who's the stable one here? So let's go through some
of the experts. We've got that, We've got some observations
about what's going on with Iran, because now once the
president gets back in DC, right there the front top
of his desk is what are you going to do
about Iran?
Speaker 1: Oh? And Cuba?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Cuba is still something oil and gas? How's that
going for you? And Kamala Harris has some ideas for
new ideas that are not so new. So we'll go
through all that with you today. Let's start with Seth Jones.
He is from the Center for Strategic Studies. Now, he's
a guy that's deeply He's been a big advisor for
some of the top generals in the Pentagon. He's a
think tank guy that he was asked about, well, what
did you make of the big meeting? Oh, and also
would you think of the opening statement by President She
about Taiwan. Basically, no, you better not mess with Taiwan.
You're Seth Jones.
Speaker 3: I think that's a direct threat to the United States.
President she has repeatedly said that Taiwan is an internal
issue and that anybody that were to get involved, if
the Chinese were to take Taiwan, either through an amphibious
assault or through some sort of blockade or gray zone activity,
that they will consider it a threat to the Chinese state.
So I mean for me, and you know, just being
in that region recently, you can see the People's Liberation Army,
aircraft and naval vessels doing exercises on a regular basis
for exactly that purpose.
Speaker 2: All right, So President she said Taiwan's a big deal
to him, and Seth Jones says that they're using all
kinds of military equipment airplanes, boats, and so forth around Taiwan.
So what about the fourteen billion dollar defense budget that
we've allocated to give to Taiwan to defend themselves.
Speaker 3: Ideally, it's to deter one in the first place. You
don't want China detect that action. I mean, the problem
is that the PLA rocket force has the ability to
strike pretty much any target in the first island chain,
so that area around Japan and south including Taiwan further
out to Guam we'll call the second island chain. And
so it forces the US to fire long range missiles.
US has depleted its JAZZM, has depleted some of its
It's fired over one thousand laws, and then it's also
depleted its stockpile of defensive munitions like Patriot and that
so really tough to fight a protracted war with China today.
And that that's and you know, for many of these
weapons systems, it's a three to four year timeline to
prodive it.
Speaker 2: So is Defense Secretary Pete Haigseth on the hot seat.
Speaker 1: I mean, who was keeping track of.
Speaker 2: The inventory that A we had and B we were
spending on Iran? How many missiles, how many defense systems,
how many Patriots, how many all of that stuff. Somebody
in the Pentagon's supposed to keep track of that, aren't they?
And and the buck stops at the top. So haig
Seth I would imagine it's going to be asked about
this by probably the President saying, where where did who
was watching the inventory? How did we get so low?
This isn't the first time this idea that our military
inventory is low. So, now what happens if we have
to go to war against China tomorrow? How long would
it take for US to run out.
Speaker 3: Some of the munitions like the long range anti ship
missiles maybe a week, a week, some of them maybe
three weeks. I would force the US to go to
other missiles shorter range, but put those aircraft that are
flying them in much greater danger.
Speaker 2: I mean, so that doesn't sound good. We got a
week to three weeks worth of missiles if we had
to go to war against China. But is there really
any imminent worry about going to war with China at
this time?
Speaker 3: I mean it's possible. I mean, the Chinese are not
entirely ten feet tall. US has a much more sophisticated
submarine capability under sea. The Chinese can't see very well.
I was on an anti submarine mission recently with the Navy.
We found our Chinese submarine pretty quickly. They can't find ours.
But what it would do. But what it has done,
what the Iran war has done, is almost certainly give
China some hope that it can deter threaten the United
States right now.
Speaker 2: All right, a very knowledgeable guy. He knows the military
stuff inside and out. So it is a little spooky
to hear him say we don't have much left. And
yet at the same time, I was heartened by the
fact that the Chinese navy is now bigger than the
US Navy. But the quality of their ships and the
inability of their submarines to find our submarines is helpful
to know. But out of this meetium, it's clear that
Taiwan is the big, big deal for China. And will
the president do the fourteen billion or not? We are waiting.
I'm sure there'll have to be some announcement. Nicholas Burns
was former ambassador to China. He knows that country backwards
and forwards. Let's see what he says.
Speaker 4: Well, it's hard to say. I think in some it's
like this. My experience with the Chinese is sometimes you
get a lot of promises, but you've got to look
for the follow up and the commitments. Do they actually
undertake what they said they would do. I do think
it was important that they met. This is the most challenging,
most dangerous relationship we have with any country in the world.
If we want to stabilize that relationship, then our president
has to be meeting with Lushijinping. I thought it was
positive that they had the meeting. As you know, President
Trump has invited President She to return for a return
visit in September. But there are a lot of outstanding questions.
Maybe they'll be answered today in the meetings on Friday
in Beijing. Maybe they won't, but Taiwan is first and foremost.
President She fired a shot across the bow of the
United States with a very aggressive statement. It's not the
first time he's done that, and that statement was meant
to intimidate the United States. He essentially said, if the
United States crosses China's red lines, there's a possibility conflict
between the US and China. We can't be intimidated by that.
And I think what I'm looking for following this summit,
will President Trump go forward with this big arms package
for Taiwan that we've been promising and that President Trump
put to the side in order to have this meeting
in Beijing. No American president for fifty years has allowed
a leader in Beijing to tell us what we can
and cannot do in helping Taiwan to defend itself. So
I think that's one big issue to look for today.
And secondly, on Iran, it's not surprising that the Chinese
would say that they don't want Iran to become a
nuclear weapons power. That's been their position for twenty years.
It's also not surprising that Iran that China said, apparently
in the meeting, that it wanted the strait to be
open without Iran as a tollkeeper. That's been China's position
since the start of the war on February twenty eighth.
But I find it difficult to believe that the se
are going to do a lot to help us out
of the mess that we're in and to really lean
on the Iranians to agree to a short a cease
fire with the United States. So those are two big questions.
There are many others that remain to be answered.
Speaker 2: So our president keeps talking about the fact that President
she said this, and see she said that, and yet
China is mum on all of these They're not saying
that President she made any promises of any kind on
any topic. So, like I said, the meeting turned out
to be not really anything. Randall Phillips he is the
former CIA station chief in Beijing for US, though he
was our top spy there.
Speaker 1: Well, he makes this gathering.
Speaker 5: They I mean, I agree with what the Master Burunes said.
I think you know a lot of good pleasantries and all,
but the details are obviously still lacking. We have the
US side putting out what the Chinese have supposedly said,
but the Chinese haven't put out what the Chinese supposedly said.
So there's gonna be a major difference in that situation.
So we're gonna have to watch and see what comes
out after the end of the meeting today. I think
it's the Taiwan point is certainly very important at the
uppermost here, and I couldn't agree more with Ambassador Burns
that we cannot allow China to dictate what we do
and do not do in terms of arms sales to Taiwan.
I'm sure there have been some sleepless nights in Taipei
with the leadership there. I think we also have to
see what happens on the trade side. I'm sure there's
going to be some announcements on deals made. I believe
the President came out to announce the two hundred Boeings
or so, which I think we're somewhat less than what
people I'd hoped for, but good nonetheless, and I couldn't
agree more with the Master Burns in terms of the
fact the meeting happened.
Speaker 1: Is great.
Speaker 5: Now this meeting, we've got the meeting coming up in September,
plus the G twenty and APEC later in the year
will offer opportunities for the presidents to get together. So
there's plenty of opportunity here to see this dayton to continue.
But the devil's going to be in the details and
we'll see tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Well, so nothing happened on their Friday, So last night
there was nothing new that really was announced as far
as a big trade mission. That would have been nice.
But and you heard what the CIA guy said. The
President did say that the China said that they will
order two hundred Boeing jets. Well they were supposed to.
The rumor before the meeting was that China was going
to buy five hundred Boeing jets. Now the President did
say they'll buy two hundred. A we wait to see
if they really do that, because you've heard a couple
of times now they say that President she lies or
the ambassador was more diplomatic, saying that you have to
wait to see whether or not they come through on
what they promised, which is another way of saying they lie.
But I don't know where that came to. The President
will say, well, the order may go to two hundred
and seventy or seven hundred and fifty jets. In other words,
maybe they took some options, maybe not as very vague.
But the Boeing stock dropped yesterday and because nothing happened
for more orders today this talk is down again better
than seven and a half percent this afternoon. So not
a great trade mission either. It says the focus for
the Chinese was Taiwan. Here's what the president said about that.
Speaker 6: Taiwani just not want to see a fight for independence speakers.
That would be a very strong confrontation. And I heard
him out, are.
Speaker 1: You're gonna seeking to word now? I didn't make I
didn't make a combient.
Speaker 6: I heard him out. I have a lot of respects.
He said on a red It's very interesting. You feel struggling.
They can't have a weapon, said Jeff first strongly, they
cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: Ed he wants them to open up the straight.
Speaker 2: Well, that's nice, except for China has not confirmed what
the president said that she said. So it goes back
to the CIA guy about the fact that you hear
one side of the story from our president, you hear
a different side of the story from their president. So
it's it's a mystery. Say the very last, Mike Pompeo,
former Secretary of State. He's another one that calls President
she a liar.
Speaker 7: Look in the end, Shishingping has lied multiple times to
multiple presidents. The proof will be does he really follow
through the commercial arrangement buying blowing airplanes? That's fantastic, sounds
like he made some commitments on ventanyl precursors. We've seen
that story before where they actually didn't follow through in
a way that was serious or substantial. And so the
proof is in the pudding. He told President Obama he
wouldn't militarize islands. He'd lied to us about the virus
that came from his lab. Shishinping has a mission set.
When he threatened us with respect to Taiwan, he was
serious and we need to make sure where eyes wide open.
I'm glad President Trump is certainly that. And President Trump
has provided more weapons defensive weapons systems to Taiwan, I
think than any previous administration, and I think they're continuing
to do that. They've built out relationships with the Japanese government,
the South Koreans that are ways that are going to
deter Hushingping and China. Whatever Shishiping may have said. I'm
confident President Trump to delivered a message that the United
States understands how important Taiwan he is, not just to
our geopolitical interests, but to our commercial interests as well.
The ai fight largely takes place there, and President Trump
is not going to permit Shushingping to do something that
would jeopardize the American economy in that way.
Speaker 2: So our President also said that she told him that
they would not send weapons to Iran. So Mike Pompeo
thinks they probably already are.
Speaker 7: I think they likely already are. I think what she
said there may well be true. At some level. We're
not going to send weapons. They're not going to send
tanks and airplanes, but massive pieces of the Iranian machine,
the components, the things that go into their long range
missile systems, the things that go into their radar systems,
the tools, the components, those are Chinese components. I doubt
seriously that Sheshiping will stop. That they have a deep
and long relationship with the regime in Iran. It's useful
to them because the Iranian regime makes life difficult for
the United States. And while it is true that I
think she would like to have the street open, I
think that's true. He'd like to have that oil. He
also wants to make sure that he doesn't lose his
foothold in the Middle East, which is this regime in Iran.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the foothold he's talking about is, of course all
the other Arab countries that president she would like to
have a warm relationship with.
Speaker 1: So then to Iran and.
Speaker 2: Their oil and the fact that they there's different stories
from different people with different answers about the fact that
what happens when and they can't unload any more oil
they have to stop producing, do they what happens to
the oil that once they stop producing in Iran?
Speaker 7: And here's Pompeo's answered. You and I spoke about this
when that blockade first began right. Eventually, you can only
store so much oil on so many tanks and so
many ships offshore. I doubt very many are significant amount
of ships were actually loaded or offloaded out of carg Island.
We would see that and know that in an instantaneous timeline.
And so this will be a real problem for the regime.
What is it they're going to do. They're going to
have to shut in their fields. And we talked about
the fact that these blockades are effective, but that they
also take time. And I think what Secretary Besson said
reflects exactly that we've been at this for several weeks now.
Every day that goes on the economic hardship for this regime,
their ability to pay their soldiers and their sailors gets
more difficult. That blockade is effective and it is a
useful tool to achieve America's objectives with respect to Iran.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we'll see everybody keep telling us that knows
anything about Iran that they're have an uncanny ability to
withstand a lot of pain because they don't care about
their people. So far, it hasn't worked, but eventually you
would think it would logically, but we're using logic in
the regime in Tehran is not logical. So about this
oil being shut in, here's our President Trump talking about it.
Speaker 1: If they don't get.
Speaker 6: Their oil moving, their whole oil infrastructure is going to explode.
Speaker 8: When you have lines of vast amounts of oil pouring
through your system. If for any reason that line is
closed because you can't continue to put it into containers
or ships, which has happened to them. They have no
ships because of the blockade, what happens is that line
explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth. You
know they're oil when you turn off the oil underground
and the mechanical too, but underground has a tendency in
like almost one hundred percent of the cases to literally
explode and just destroy everything around it and you can
never get that oil again.
Speaker 2: So one interesting part about all this United Arab Emirates UAE.
They are the point on the opposite side from from
Iran of the po the Strait of Hermos. They have
a whole coastline that they have access to that they
can get oil out there. Opening a new pipeline that
will allow ships to not have to go through the
Strait of Hormuz. So that new pipeline may solve a
lot of these problems. But back to this exploding oil field.
David Goldman, who's a financial guy, looked into this and
he came up with a different answer.
Speaker 9: Truth there, they'll believe it or not.
Speaker 10: So when Iran started getting this blockade from the United States,
they had nowhere to put their oil. So eventually they
actually have to shut their oil wells off, and that's
called shutting in, and it's actually a really complex engineering feed.
There's a lot that can go wrong when this happens.
You have imbalanced pressure, right, that's the whole thing that
gets the oil out. If you don't have the right pressure,
then some parts are higher, some parts are lower.
Speaker 9: You might not be able to get your oil out.
Speaker 10: But the danger here is when you have damage underground,
which can happen and in very very rare examples, you
can have if you have bad seals, you can have explosions.
Speaker 9: But Aroan knows how to deal with this.
Speaker 10: They deal with shut ins all the time, and the
Middle East has been shutting in oil during COVID and
when OPEC says you're producing too much, hang on a second.
Speaker 9: They know how to deal with this.
Speaker 10: Don't don't expect your run's oil infrastructure to just go
boom anytime.
Speaker 2: Well, he's talking about shutting in wells, and it's true.
I mean they have every time the price gets below
a certain number, usually down below fifty dollars. Remember that, Well,
we did back back a long time ago. We had
oil going down so low that a lot of the
US producers, especially in Texas, had to shut in their wells.
And I don't remember any stories about oil exploding, but
it sounds like it is complicated. I'm not an oil
expert or oil drilling expert, but there's different stories about
what will happen. And fine, let them shut them in
whether it explodes or doesn't explode. That means they don't
get any money for the oil in their country. So
since we're talking about Iran now, the question has come
up about the fact that, again the President has talked
about they don't have a navy, they don't have an
air force, they don't have this, they don't have that.
But the problem is they keep striking different places in
an Admiral Cooper, the head of Sentcom, was hauled before
Congress and was asked, is it possible for Iran to
still have some military muscle. Can they strike at our
ships or at any ships going through the Persian Gulf?
Speaker 4: Can they strike oil infrastructure across the Persian Gulf?
Speaker 11: They have a very moderate, if not small, capability to
continue strikes, and we of course have accordingly prepared for
such a contingency.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they do have a moderate ability to continue
to do strikes, and Admiral Cooper says we know how
to handle it all right. Colonel Laighton, who has also
a response about can they still strike?
Speaker 12: I think the adderall was a bit imprecise in his
description of things, because this moderate to minimal capability that
Iran supposedly has is still a significant capability, and I
think it's probably more than what he said and is
said hearing today. I think basically what you're looking at
is the capability that they can strike infrastructure targets within
the Gulf, and they can do so and do great damage.
So that is, you know, what we're looking at. And
when I think of, you know, the way in which
the Iranians have arrayed their forces, I think it's pretty
clear that they still have a capability that I will
potentially cause some more economic damage to the air of
Golf States. So that is an area where the US
has to step up and defend those allies if it
wants to maintain a foothold in them at least.
Speaker 2: All Right, so he says, they still can do a
lot of damage. Let's turn to the CIA guy and
find out what he Here's Dan Hoffman.
Speaker 11: Well, I think, first and foremost, the IRGC cares a
lot about the fact that Iran can't ship their oil
and that they're reaching maximum capacity at their export terminals.
That denies Iran the funds that they need to carry
on their military aggression overseas to pay the IRGC and
their besieged paramilitary force to suppress the population. I think
the key question for our intelligence community, and I can
tell you this from my own experience at CIA, for
Director Ratcliffe at CIA, is how does Iran see this
challenge for them that they can't export their oil? How
does the IRGC leadership General Vahiti, for example, Does this
mean that the United States has the leverage that we
need to force Iran to negotiate in good faith? Those
are some of the questions I think that President Trump
will be asking the intelligence community.
Speaker 2: So, in other words, yeah, they still have of arms,
and I would suspect that they are getting him from
Russia maybe China, but they're not out of arms, and
they can still do damage. And that's why it's still
very precarious for ships to go sailing through the port
of the straight to port moves. Meantime, when a top money,
we've got interest rates going up, and we've got oil
prices going up, and we've got inflation going up. But
Scott Bessant is I think a smart guy, and I
think he is just trying to sell hope. But I
don't think he really thinks that things are going to
get better real quick. But I think he kind of
stretches it out a little bit and says down the
road things will get better. Well, of course eventually. I
also think he's singing from the Republican song sheet. There's
a whole bunch of Republicans and they're all saying the
same thing. Let's start with Scott Bessant.
Speaker 13: I think core implation will continue coming down. We'll get
to the other side of this, and I don't know
whether it's a few days or a few weeks, if
we may get a series one two more hot inflation numbers,
but then I think we're going to see substantial disinflation.
Speaker 3: Look, this is not going to last forever, and gas
prices are going to go back down.
Speaker 9: So I think by you call it labor Day, it's
all in the review mirror.
Speaker 14: So the fact of the matter is everybody relaxed, few
prices will go down.
Speaker 9: Iran is going to end very very soon.
Speaker 2: The problem with that message is that they've been saying
that now for quite some time, since February twenty eighth,
so all through March they were saying it. All through
April they were saying it. Now we're half through May
and they're still saying it. They need a new song sheet.
I mean, yes, eventually this will end, and eventually prices
will come down. And I don't believe they're dropping like
a rock, not now, not anytime soon. They will eventually
gradually come back down. The real awkward spot is the
brand new asse of yesterday, new Chairman of the Federal
Reserve Board, Kevin Warsh, and the President wants him to
drop interest rates, and I don't think there's any way
possible that he's going to be able to drop interest
rates with inflation increasing. Core Inflation headline inflation, interest rates increasing.
In fact, today the thirty year Treasury went up to
the highest level we've seen as far as interest rates
go since two thousand and nine during the Great Recession. So,
I mean interest rates are up, inflation is up, oil
is up, gas is up. I don't see any way
they can cut interest rates well any time soon. And
Scott Pessen kind of hedged it a little bit by
saying maybe one or two more hot inflation reports. Well,
that would be the one that comes out in June
and the one that comes out in July. So he's
not looking for anything real. So but the other side
of this coin, and we got a little bit of
this yesterday about the fact that the cave shaped economy,
the wealthy are doing fine and they're spending fine. But
it's more than that. Triple A is already out talking
about a week from now about Memorial Day traffic, and
they're talking about forty six million people plan on getting
in their cars and driving more than fifty miles in
their automobiles for a Memorial Day weekend. Well, if gas
is so high, then how come all those people are
getting in their cars. You would think that number would
drop like a rock.
Speaker 1: But it's not.
Speaker 2: So we haven't reached what the term in economics world
is demand destruction. It hasn't reached the point where people
have thrown in the talent and said that's it. We're
not going anywhere for Memorial Day weekend, or you're taking
the bus instead of driving to work, or go down
the list of how far are you cutting back? So far,
we haven't seen it. Now, yesterday we had retail sales,
and like I told you, there are things that are down.
Car sales are down, furniture sales down, the number of
things that are down. But gasoline sales were up. But
it's not because people are buying more gasoline. It's because
the price of gasoline is up. So therefore when they
ring up the cash register, it looks like sales are up,
but it's really the price of the product that they
are selling has actually pushed things higher.
Speaker 1: All right, So.
Speaker 2: Besson says, everything's inflation is going to be coming down.
Jim Bianco is the head of a big research firm
on Wall Street, and he was asked about the financial future.
Speaker 14: I think it's getting harder to make that case. I mean,
if he's right and there's a one two punch, and
I assume what means is the strait of our moose
is open, and shipping starts moving. And I've been hearing
this for ten weeks. We're just on the other side.
Just a few days, a couple of weeks from this
straight opening. Then we can start making the case how
fast things will normalize. But right now they're not normal.
And the longer we go without them being normal, the
harder it is going to be to fix the supply problem.
You mentioned, inflation is the highest in three years. Three
years ago, it was another supply problem around COVID and
around the supply chain. We all remember counting the number
of ships waiting to get into Los Angeles Harbor and
then produce nine percent inflation. I don't think we're gonna
get that kind of inflation this go around, at least
not yet. I don't think that. But the fact of
the matter is the supply chain. Things tend to be
a lot more complicated than everybody makes them out to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're back to talking about the supply chain
and whether or not we're going to have interruptions.
Speaker 1: As soon as this war is over, which will not
be long.
Speaker 6: You're gonna see oil prices drop, You're gonna see gasoline
and oil drop like a rock. Guess will fall down
at levels that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1: You'll be down to where you were maybe even.
Speaker 2: Well, Well, the president is, like I've talked about before,
number one, he's waiving the flag. But mister positivity, the
other side is he also kind of lives in the
dream world of what he aspires to. But back to
Jim Bianco on all of this.
Speaker 14: Yeah, you know, when we talk about the price of oil,
everybody says, what's the price of oil? But you have
to be a little bit nuanced. When do you want
it and where do you want it. Well, the chart
we're looking at is when a year from now the
price is eighty two dollars, the price was under sixty
bucks before the war started. The market is pricing in
that the price of oil will stay something like thirty
percent higher than it was the beginning the war one
year from today. So it's not believing that the price
is going to turn around and come back down. Part
of the reason I think is even if the war
was to be resolved in the next couple of days
and things were to start to normalize, there's probably gonna
be an embedded premium in the price of wild There's
going to be a war risk that's going to continue
to stick around for a lot longer. So that is
really what we're trying to fight against, and that's what
the market is telling us. That the price might come
down from one hundred dollars to eighty, but it's not
going back to sixty or fifty five, which is where
it was, say, back in January before all of this began.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember or not. Jared Bernstein.
Jared's been around for a long time. He's an economist,
he's a lefty. He talks for and supports Democrats Democratic candidates.
He was part of the Biden administration's economic team, and
so as a result, they rolled him out in front
of the White House to talk to the media and
he kept telling everybody that don't worry, everything's fine, the
economy's doing great. And listen to him because now he's
listening to the Republicans talking about don't worry, hurry, everything's fine,
the economy is doing great. And he said, you gotta
be careful about what you say, because well he's kind
of eating his own hat.
Speaker 14: You know.
Speaker 15: You set this up correctly when you said I've been there.
I wish I could tell those folks stop trying to
talk past the American people. I've tried, and it doesn't work.
The fact is the reason I liked your best in quote.
It's a little bit of inside baseball. But he really
lost the public when he mentioned core inflation. He said,
core inflation's coming now. Well, first of all, core inflation's
not coming down. It's been high and sticky. Core inflation
leaves out gas and food. Okay, so try telling the
American people, hey, we're fine except for the prices of
gas and food. And by the way, food pressures are
equally in the mix. Right now that grocery prices are
going up again. Same thing with the other clips. You
played the idea that you can tell people, hey, don't
worry affordability. It's a hoax, or it's going away, or
it'll be fine in a couple of weeks. People know
which way is up when it comes to prices. And
if kind of a communications track record of the last
few years has taught us anything, it's don't try to
tell people they're better off than they think they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he admitted that's what he did. Basically, these economic
advisors at the White House, they have to sing off
of the song sheet of their boss, the President. So
when Jared was at the White House, he was singing
what Joe Biden wanted him to say. And now Scott
Besson is saying whatever Donald Trump wants him to say.
So make your own mind up on it. But I
think you can, like Jared said, you know, if prices
are going up, you don't need some economists standing on
the front White House low to tell you where the
prices are up or down. That's we're talking about prices.
Let's check and see what the prices were on Wall
Street today. Because there's a lot of disappointment. Nothing really
came out of the big, big meeting in Beijing. Some
vague comments about stability and don't mess with the Taiwan
and we're not saying a thing about whether we're going
to help regarding Iran or none of that.
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 2: There was nothing. Boeing got a two hundred plain order
they were expecting five hundred. So Wall Street Today took
all that and said, guess what, it's the weekend. We're
going to sell off the dow down five hundred thirty seven,
the Dow at forty nine thousand and five twenty six,
the SMP down ninety two ouch, the Nasdaq down four
hundred ten, the price of gold another ouch, down one
hundred thirty three dollars now at four thousand and five
point fifty one, and oil another ouch, up almost five
dollars today for West Texas Intermediate is just under one
hundred six dollars for a barrel of oil. That's it
for today. Have yourself a wonderful weekend. We'll be back
on Monday, and I hope to see you there