Speaker 1: And welcome to the Big Podcast. How are you happy Wednesday?
Today is the tenth day of December, Year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan. And well,
this days turned out to be very busy news day,
no question about it. Let's start with some of the
breaking news for the day today with the Federal Reserve
bet to decide what to do about interest rates. The
bet was very very much already figured out that they
were going to cut interest rates by a quarter of
a percent, which they did, which brings the federal funds
rate down to three and a half to three and
three quarters percent. Okay, that is significant because there is
a school of thought that the Fed always tries to
be around the two year treasury. That's exactly where the
two year treasury is. So there was a lot of
comment by Fed Chief Powell that they feel like they're
well positioned, that they're in the high side of normal.
So this is probably the last time that Jerome J.
Powell is going to be in charge while they cut
interest rates. There is a guess it's not that that
well calculated, but there's a guess that they will only
cut interest rates one time in twenty twenty six. The
next meeting, Well, there are three more meetings for J.
Powell January March, and they're every six weeks, in March
and in April, and that's it. Then he's out. So
at this point, he held the news conference after the
decision by the FED to cut rates by a quarter
of a percent, and he was asked about inflation, and
I thought you should hear from him. He explains pretty
much why we are still fighting high prices. Here's J.
Speaker 2: Powell.
Speaker 3: Well, you just mentioned that the public is expecting you
to get back to two percent, and Americans overwhelmingly are
citing high prices inflation as their number one concern. Can
you explain to them why you're prioritizing the labor market,
which seems relatively stable to most people, instead of their
number one concern inflation.
Speaker 4: So we, as you know, we have a network of
contexts in the US economy which is really unmatched. You
go through the twelve reserve banks, so we hear loud
and clear how people are experiencing.
Speaker 2: Really costs.
Speaker 4: It's really high costs, and a lot of that is
not the current rate of inflation. A lot of that
is just embedded higher cost due to higher inflation in
twenty twenty two and twenty three. So that's what's going on.
And so the best thing we can do is restore
inflation to its two percent goal, and our policy is
intended to do that, but also have a strong economy
where real wages are going up, where people are getting
jobs and earning money, and we're going to need to
have some years where real compensation is higher. It's positive,
significantly positive, so wages, nominal wages are higher than inflation
for people to start feeling good about affordability.
Speaker 1: So that word affordability, and that was a big part
of the president last night in the Pennsylvania bokes. But
back to what Palell said, he said that the ha
whi we have high prices today are because of the
inflation from twenty twenty two twenty twenty three. And that
is basically the line that the Trump administration is saying,
is that this is hangover stuff. The price is shot
up in twenty two and twenty three because of that
out of control inflation, and they just haven't come down
and keep going up, just at a much slower rate,
but we're still we're still being penalized because those high
prices were ratcheted up in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three,
and we're still paying We're still paying for it. If
you will, Kevin Hassett, who is maybe going to be
the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the President is
going to personally interview the last five that are on
the table for him to decide about who the next
sped cheep will be. But hass It, that's the kind
of the message that he keeps repeating over and over again,
is that we lost a lot of buying power in
the Biden administration because of that rampant inflation, and we've
recovered some of it, but not all of it. Here's
hashit right. Well, well, first of all, President Trump got
it exactly right. I thought his speech last night was
fantastic and he really really enjoyed having the charts again.
I can tell you that that's some feedback we got
from yesterday, because the pod of light is that the
Democrats are out there saying things that are false and
like they're not holding up charts telling you what's going on.
But you know, we have a chart that showed that
the typical family buying a new home saw their mortgage
rate go up at an annual rate by fourteen thousand
dollars because of Biden's inflation and the high interest rates
that followed from it. And so you know, people who
have to pay fourteen thousand dollars a year more just
to have their home. Of course, they were harmed a
lot by Biden, but already, because we've been getting closer
to a Bow's budget and leading interest rates down even
before we control the FED more that we've saved a
couple thousand dollars of that fourteen thousand already. So we're
making great progress. We made huge progress in the last term,
and right now all of the indicators are that the
three percent growth that we gave you last time is
a really really low ball estimate of what we're going
to be able to deliver because we've got the AI
boom making productivity go through the roof. We've got eighteen
trillion in new factories being built. We're actually tracking the groundbreakings.
We're up through about thirty of them since September.
Speaker 2: And so the.
Speaker 5: Economy is booming, jobs are growing, but people were absolutely harmed.
And so again and the President went through every single
price of everything in the charts and he did.
Speaker 2: A lot of it last night. You know.
Speaker 5: The bottom line is that if you were just a
typical family, your month's groceries cost four hundred dollars when
President Trump left office, and it costs almost five hundred
and fifty dollars when Joe Biden left office. So that
extra high and fifty dollars a month after paying also
fourteen thousand more a year for your mortgage, it really.
Speaker 1: Adds up to a lot of stuff that has to
be fixed.
Speaker 5: Final thing on this is the real wages are growing again,
and so personing powers is up. It was down about
three thousand dollars on average, not counting the house part
for Biden, and it's already up about twelve hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: So he keeps repeating that, and there's a lot of
data to back that up that you lost about three
thousand average. We lost three thousand dollars in purchasing power
during Biden's administration because of the rampant inflation, and inflation
is actually pretty flat right now, around three percent. It's
been three percent. It was three percent when Bresident Trump
came in in January. It's still three percent inflation as
we sit here in December, so that's where it is.
Jay Powell says it's because of the high cost of things,
was because of the inflation back in twenty two and
twenty three. At the news conference after the announcement by
the Fed, they also asked j Powell about tariffs and
this is his answer about that.
Speaker 4: So with tariff inflation, you know, it takes there's the
announcement of a tariff and then there's you know, they
start to take effect, and then it takes some months.
Goods may have to be shipped from other parts that
you know, it may take you know, quite a while
for an individual tariff to take its full effect. But
once it's had that effect, then the question is isn't
that just a one time price increase. So we've actually
we actually look at it all of the announcements and
and and what you get from all that you see
sort of a for each one of them, there's a
time period and them that's fully in. So if there
are no new tariff announcements, and we don't know that,
but let's assume there are no major new tariff announcements,
inflation from goods should peak in the first quarter or so,
right or roughly, you know, we haven't been able to
predict this with any precision, no one is, but call
it the first quarter or so of next year should
be the peak, and from here it should be It
shouldn't be big, it should be a couple tenths or
even less than that. We don't really have precision on this.
And after that, again, if there are no new tariffs
that are being announced, they will take nine months to
get fully in and nine months is also an estimate,
then you should start to see that coming down in
the back half of next year.
Speaker 1: So I know that Donald Trump doesn't like him. In fact,
Trump I was asked about the quarter point cut today.
He said it should have been double. So he's still
complaining about the FED. But he really points out that
the tariffs that Donald Trump has imposed of everything coming
into our country, that those are one time hikes in prices.
So if there are no new announcements about new tariffs
on anybody or anything, then as your wages continue to climb,
then you should start feeling better later in twenty twenty six,
sometime in twenty twenty six at least, that the political
hope for the Trump administration and for Republicans is that
that happens. The Democrats are thinking it's not going to happen,
and you're going to be very upset and vote vote
the Republicans out because of people vote their pocketbook. So
that's it was. It was an interesting explanation because he
just said, look, it's a one time thing. So if
we don't get any more tariffs, prices should not. In fact,
what did he say, just a tenth third of small
percentage rise in prices as opposed to hopefully your wages
are going up more than there. So this whole thing again,
that may be the last time that there's a cut
from the federal Reserve under the tutelage of J. Powell,
because he's got three more meetings left. Meantime, the President
was in Pennsylvania last night. This is all part of
the effort to go out and get the president to
say that everything is going to be just fine. So
he did talk about affordability, and well, let me play
a couple of clips, because this is a handful of
gipsy keeps talking about the fact that affordability is a hoax.
Speaker 6: The word affordability is a kanjob. They use the word affordability.
It's a Democrat hoax. Look, affordability is a hoax.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not a hoax. And that's where Kevin Hassett
has been running around saying what he means is so
he's trying to cover up clean up Aisle nine a
little bit for that. But the President also was talking
about the fact that everything's going to be much much better.
I'll play a clip for you, but I believe in
this clip he talks about affordability.
Speaker 6: I have no higher priority than making America affordable.
Speaker 2: Again, that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 6: And again, they cause the high prices and we're bringing
them down.
Speaker 2: It's a simple message.
Speaker 6: They gave you high prices, they give you the highest
inflation in history, and we're giving you we're bringing those
prices down rapidly, lower prices, bigger paychecks. You're getting lower prices,
bigger paychecks. We're getting inflation, we're crushing it, and you're
getting much higher wages.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the wages are much higher, there's no question
about that. Wages been going up average HOY earnings better
than four percent. Inflation's at three so therefore you should
be feeling more money in your wallet. But they're not
crushing inflation. Inflation is still the same as it was
when he came in. It's at three percent. So they've
got plenty of work to do. David Urban, who was
on the Trump campaign staff, he weighs, in this world.
Speaker 7: I'm more concerned about Pennsylvania than mayor of Miami. I'm
more concerned that what people are feeling in their pocketbooks
across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, across the Missigan.
Speaker 8: The President is saying, hey, plus plus plus on the
economy was smart.
Speaker 7: Now listen. I think the President would say, listen, I
feel your pain. We've got to make it better. To
Adams point, David's point, you can't tell people what they're
feeling isn't real. When people go to the pump, they
take out a twenty dollars bill, they make a decision,
how much do I put in the tank? How much
do I save for my kids dinner tonight? Right, And
so they're making those decisions every day. People feel that
in their pocketbooks. You can't tell them it's not real
when it is real. And so the numbers may say
one thing, the economy may be trending in the right direction,
but people want results immediately. They're not satisfied to sit
around and wait for another you know, six months, eight months,
ten months. The president needs to be out there, the
president of the cabinet, members of Congress would be out
there telling people what they're going to do to make
things more affordable.
Speaker 2: And you're going to see this.
Speaker 7: This is coming up now in the Congress with healthcare debate, right,
and what are they going to do with these Obamacare subsidies.
Speaker 2: People's healthcare costs are going up.
Speaker 7: What are Republicans going to do to try to help
bend that cost curve and make that more affordable.
Speaker 2: So this narrative isn't going away.
Speaker 7: Republican Democrats are smart to seize upon it, and Republicans
best get on offense quickly.
Speaker 1: Well, they're trying to get on offense, but again it's
they're having to play catch up, and whether or not
they catch up before the midterms or not is to
be seen. We don't know. And there are a lot
of things that are going to be starting next year.
The big tax cuts will kick in in January, so
there's plenty of things that they are trying to do.
And Kevin Hassett basically laid it out, You've lost three
thousand purchasing power. You've gained back twelve hundred, So can
they get back all the way to where you were before?
Make you feel better. Oh, here's a little bit of
a flashback. This is Joe Biden explaining that everything was
fine with the economy when he was in office.
Speaker 9: As our economy has come roaring back to see some
price increases, some folks have raised worries that this could
be a sign of persistent inflation, but that's not our view.
Are experts believe in The data shows that most of
the price increases we've seen were expected and I'm expected
to be.
Speaker 1: Expected to be temporary. Well guess what they weren't. And
the Treasurer secretary at the time said that they're just transitory.
They were just wrong. But they were saying the exact
kind of message about don't worry, everything's going to be okay.
David Axelrod, who was in the Obama White House, had
this decise.
Speaker 10: Well, I'll tell you what, if I were his advisors,
his political advisers, the people who actually go out and
poll and do the things, I would be cringing watching
this whole day unfold. Because this was an exercise in denial.
You know what is plus plus plus plus plus. That's
people looking at their bills. That's how they feel. You
cannot jawbone people into feeling what their life experience is
telling him isn't true. And you know, I was in
the Obama White House during the Great Recession. We got
there at the peak of it, and we thought we
were making progress. And you know, but every time you
try to claim progress, you just people resented it because
they were living the reality of the crisis and they
hadn't felt they didn't feel as if we were coming
out of it.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, he is. He is completely.
Speaker 10: Digging a hole. The other people who should be worried
are Republican members of Congress who have to run next year,
some of your old colleagues, because this is doing them
no good again.
Speaker 1: We'll see they're working on it. They're working as fast
as they can. They know what the problem is. It's
not a hoax. There is, in fact an affordability issue.
I don't want to call it a crisis, but there's
a lot of people that are low and middle income
people in America that are not able to make ends
meet like they were before. So who are you going
to blame when it goes to the voting booth, and
they have less than a year to try to convince
you that the blame is as J. Powell said as
the Chairman of the FEDS, that it was because of
the Bidens hikes. I mean, they hike inflation in twenty
twenty two, at twenty twenty three, and we're still feeling
some of the pain from what happened back then. There's
a little bit more from the President last night in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: I can't go to hoax because they'll misconstrue that. But
they use the word affordability, and that's their only word.
They say affordability, and everyone says, oh, that must mean
Trump has high prices. Now, our prices are coming down
tremendously from the highest prices in the history of our country.
We're also putting thousands of dollars in the pockets of
hard working Pennsylvanians with the largest tax cuts in American history.
That's no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no
tax on social Security for our great seniors, our seniors,
no tax and all of that kicks in on January first.
Speaker 2: You know, has it kicked in?
Speaker 7: You?
Speaker 6: I mean, we're doing great and it hasn't kicked in
yet and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, So he's pointing out that there's a lot that's
going to happen after January. First, I must correct, though
he does it. Everybody seems to be doing this, and
it's just not true. There is a tax on Social Security.
They didn't change anything about taxes on Social Security. They
added a deduction of up to six thousand dollars for
people that make less than seventy five thousand dollars. So
they did not no this business. Yes, there's no tax
on tips, no tax on overtime, there's no tax on
the interest that you pay. You get a deduction for
interest you pay on a car loan if the car
was assembled in the United States. All of that kicks
in next year. But the no tax on Social Security
keeps getting repeated. And I don't want you seniors out
there to think, oh goodie, because now there's still going
to be a tax, but you get a deduction as well,
and it phases out after seventy five thousand dollars of income.
Another big financial hurdle for our country, for the Democrats
and Republicans. Republicans are in charge, so they've got the ball,
and that is about healthcare. And that's what the whole
government's shutdown was about. About the fact that the Obamacare
subsidies that were added by Joe Biden during COVID they
were supposed to go away at the end of this year,
and now they don't want him to go away. But
those subsidies, all they do is go to the insurance companies,
and the insurance companies then raise their premiums, and it's
making health insurance for everybody more expensive. So where do
you want to start? Josh Holmes weighs in on this hurdle.
Speaker 2: That's about that. I mean this.
Speaker 8: It is pretty amazing to hear Chuck Schumer complain about
how Obamacare hasn't worked. But the issue with healthcare costs
is a very real one and it's one that most
Americans are feeling. Republicans came up with a very novel idea,
which is to have the patients get the money, not
the insurance companies. It's certainly something that we have not
tried under democratic leadership. What I find most amazing about
what Chuck Schumer is talking about here is suggesting that
we double down on what hasn't worked for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I am not sure how that works.
Speaker 11: The premiums that you're paying right now that you got
back in October, that's the result of the tax subsidy
that he's saying, you're going to save you all this money.
This is not working, and I think Republicans going into
different directions is a very smart idea, but they need
to stay focused on it because it is a big
concern to a lot of American.
Speaker 1: It is, and the Democrats just want to keep adding
more down this rabbit hole that goes to insurance companies
that raises health insurance. Lisa Blunt Rochester, she's a Democrat
congresswoman from Delaware. Listen to her. That's exactly what she
wants to do. She doesn't know what to do, so
her bottom line as well, let's just throw more money
down the rat hole.
Speaker 12: Well, John, the reality is our Republican colleagues have an
opportunity to do something here to make sure that it passes.
Now think back. We have been going for months encouraging
our Republican colleagues to address this affordability issue that will
really impact people's lives. We literally have an imminent problem
with people's premiums about to spike, and so we need
to take care of that immediate problem. And so what
we as Democrats have put forward is a three year
extension that acknowledges the President cliff the crisis that we're in.
But it also gives us room to really look at
our healthcare system.
Speaker 1: So they've been looking at it for fifteen years, and
it's just become more expensive every time they mess with it.
So and by the way, the last prior four years,
why did they not do something then? I don't know either,
but that's their only solution. Here's President Trump.
Speaker 6: But now you see the numbers because your premiums are
going up on Obamacare and everything is forcing everything home.
But we want the money go too directly to the people.
We want you to go out of buy your own
health insurers. So let's see how many of them have
the guts to vote for this.
Speaker 1: No's good. Everything everybody's dug in on. Nobody wants to
cooperate on anything regarding healthcare. They haven't since day one.
It passed a rumor. Obamacare passed with not a single
Republican vote. They had to use parliamentary tricks to get
it into law. But that's it's been a political fight meantime.
You and I are trying to afford our health insurance.
Bill Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, he is a medical doctor,
and he was on the floor of the Senate yesterday
trying to convince his fellow senators about just give the
money directly to the patient and they will decide what
kind of healthcare to buy. They'll make good, good purchasing decisions.
Here's Bill Cassidy.
Speaker 13: If you give her this money, you've got five thousand
dollars to spend it wisely.
Speaker 2: She's going to say, wait a second.
Speaker 13: The X ray is one hundred and fifty dollars here
and five hundred dollars there. I'm going to wear it
is cheaper, not more expensive. The people who are more
expensive begin to lower their price.
Speaker 1: And nobody ever asks what this will cost, because the
insurance company will cover all or most of whatever you're
getting in medical care. And his idea, it's called a
health sev's account and that I love this idea. We
already have it. They've been in they've been in the
law for quite some time. They give you a card,
and that card you cannot use. It will not allow
you to pay for tobacco, booze, candy bars, nothing other
than medical care, medical supplies, medical equipment, doctors, pharmacy, nurses, whatever.
It's got to be medical, and if so, it'll pay for.
But they put the money in an account for you
to decide how you want to spend and you don't
have to spend all of it. If you don't spend
all of it because you're not sick or injured, then
that rolls over and it grows to a bigger account,
so that maybe down the road when you need more
medical care, the money will be there. It works. It's
a marketplace effort. And I wish the Republicans have like
four or five different plans for which there isn't enough
support for any one of them. They they need to
sit down together as Republicans and come up with a plan,
and I hope they come up with the plan that
Bill Cassidy's talking about. A lot of noise today coming
out of Australia because Australia, as of today, they have
imposed a social media ban on anybody under the age
of sixteen. Yep, nobody under sixteen is allowed to use
social media and it will require the tech companies to
implement age verification, not just idea, but age verification to
block under age users. This Florida has has something not
the same, but they have a fourteen year old age
in Florida, about under fourteen using social media. But this
has picked up quite a response. This is the Prime
Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanize, talking about going into effect today.
Speaker 14: This is the due when Australian families are taking back
power from these big tech companies and they're asserting the
right of kids to be kids and for parents to
have great a peace of mind.
Speaker 1: Well, he brings up parents and the question is should
the government be controlling what your child experiences uses for
their information? I mean social media? Yeah, oh yeah, there's
some real garbage in there, but there's also a lot
of good And do you want the government or do
you want the parents to take care of this. Katie Brett,
who is the Senator from Alabama, she pretty high up
about having government controls over social media.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 15: Look, what we have seen is that tech companies care
about one thing and that's their bottom line. Time and
time again we have exposed what they are doing to children,
what these algorithms do.
Speaker 3: Look, the data speaks for itself.
Speaker 2: Bill.
Speaker 15: I know that you've taken a look at this, but
one and three high school young women last year said
she actually considered death by suicide. Twenty five percent of
those young women actually made a plan. And then thirteen
percent of high school young women in America actually attempted
death by suicide. When you add in young men, that
goes to nine percent. Obviously, this is beyond alarming. How
many parents do we have to have come in front
of the Senate Judiciary Committee and others telling us the
heartbreaking story of losing their children before we act. I
think the time for action, Bill is now, and I
commend Australia for actually doing something and protecting their most
valuable and precious asset.
Speaker 2: And that's the next generation.
Speaker 15: When you look at what's happening right now with our
kids ages thirteen to seventeen, they have said and they
actually feel more negative, feel more depressed. Almost fifty percent
of them admit to that after being on social media. Look,
the Surgeon General has said, the previous Surgeon General said
kids shouldn't be on social media until they're sixteen. Now
is the time to act.
Speaker 2: But the truth is.
Speaker 15: This big tech has a grip on Congress, and Congress
is in action is seckless. I do not have to
ask people what it is like to raise kids right now.
I am living it, and we know the harms, and
it is our job to put up the proper guardrails
so that these kids can flourish. So I think the
time for action is now, and I think Australia taking
this step, I hope leads the US to actually.
Speaker 1: Do it all right. Katie Britt is a young mother.
She has, I believe, a fifteen year old and a
sixteen year old, and she's concerned about social media. What
a lot of this is brought up from people that
they have hauled into Congress to testify about some very
tragic events that they have lost their children. There was
a father who talked about the fact that his daughter
committed suicide from all the pressure on her from social media.
Here's a mom talking about her son who also committed suicide.
Speaker 16: Created what every predator knows, how to build a safe space.
She made him feel comfortable, seem l liked, She groomed him.
Then she asked if he wanted to see her unclothed
and exposed herself. She asked him to do the same,
and like any innocent seventeen year old boy who liked
the girl and saw no danger, he did.
Speaker 2: I would get anything to have my son peck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called sextortion, and the game is somebody gets
a boy or girl to take their clothes off, take
a photo of themselves, and send it to them, and
then they turn around and bribe them for money or
put pressure on We're going to send it out to
all their friends, whatever it might be. And Yeah, the
question that I don't have the answer to, and I'm
no expert in this area, but how many of these
kids if they committed suicide over something like that, They
obviously don't have an outlet for somebody to help them
go through some of the pressures of being a teenager,
and I wonder if they would have been suicidal under
other circumstances. Besides this, Lawrence Jones over at Fox listen
to what he had to say.
Speaker 17: So I look at it in two ways. I think
the mother's comments doing that here and will gut wrenching.
But there were a couple things that stood out to
me even remind me of my parents. She encouraged parents
and the children to get a better relationship and to
talk to one another when things are happened. Nothing is
so serious that you can't talk to your parents. And
it reminds me of my mom and dad. They sent me,
my brother and sister down early and they said, I
don't care whatever happens. If there's something so bad, you
come to us first. We're gonna love you no matter what.
Tell us everything, and we'll help you deal with it.
It may be some tough trials there, but we'll get
you through it. And I think that's the message that
needs to happen. I think what Australia is doing. Although
the sentiment I feel for them, I see it as
it being an issue government being in control of something
like this. I think it is dangerous. And I look
back into the US and we see a problem there
here and we don't remember what happened during COVID with
government in control of things right here. This is a
parent's responsibility putting government as part of this. Anytime there's
sexual material, porn or any that type of stuff, a rape,
are also encouraging people, you know, harassment and all that.
There's a responsibility for the company to do something, but
you're not gonna outregulate your way out of this problem.
And what you're gonna force children to do is to
go into the shadows. And once you have those kids
in the shadows hiding thing from from their parents and
from authorities, you're not going to be able to touch them.
So I think this is a wake up call. Also,
parents can do some leading by example as well. Get
off your phone in front of the kids, get off
the IPAs, start talking to one another and I think
you'll see the kids follow suit. There's some also some
great things that are happening on YouTube, Instagram, educational material
and stuff going on right there as well. So we
can't take the negative and overshadow the good that's going on.
Speaker 1: So this debate I think is going to heat up.
It's one of those topics. I think that there's a
Teddy BRIT's a Republican, she wants the government involved in this,
and Lawrence Jones, I don't know what he is. I
think I know he's a conservative, but he doesn't want
the government anywhere near this. So since Australia is doing it,
you can bet that there's going to be a movement
to try and do it in this country as well,
So start thinking about it because it's coming before we
wrap up for the day. Late in the afternoon, the
President was holding a business roundtable at the White House
and he met with a bunch of business executives. And then,
as he tends to do, the media is invited into
these meetings, and the media started asking him questions. This
is President Trump responding to a question about Ukraine.
Speaker 6: And I want to see this up. We'll find out. Look,
there are a lot of things happening right now. A
lot of people say it's closer than seven been, so
war that would have never started if I were president,
would have never started. It's a war that should never
have started. But well, we'll have it figured out. I
think within are pretty sug.
Speaker 2: You say, very strong term, shorty. Did you explain that. Well,
I think we had some.
Speaker 6: Little disputes about people, and we're going to see how
it turns out. And we said before we go to
a meeting, we want to know some things, you know.
They they would like us to go to a meeting
over the weekend in Europe and we'll make a determination
depending on what they come back with.
Speaker 2: We don't want to be we don't want to be
wasting time.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you have to let people fight it out, and
sometimes you don't. Put the problem with letting people fight
it out is you're losing thousands of people a week.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So make of that what you will. But it doesn't
sound like the President is all that thrilled about Ukraine
and the leadership and Zelenski, but also the other people
around him bringing up the corruption problem that they have
in that country. The other question that came out that
I thought was interesting was about the Warner Brothers bid
by Netflix and also the competing bid from Paramount. Here's
what the President was asked, is he going to get
involved in making the decision on this merger?
Speaker 2: I want to see that, Soud. We'll find out. I'm
not involved in that.
Speaker 6: I will be probably involved, maybe involved in the decision.
Speaker 2: It depends you have some good companies bidding on it.
Speaker 6: I think the people that have run CNN for the
last long period of time or a disgrace. I think
it's imperative that CNN be sold because you certainly wouldn't
want to put people just leave those people with some money,
good money and CNN so that you know, they can
spend even more money spreading poison because it's lies, it's
a disgrace. So I wouldn't want to see the same
company end up with CNN, the same company with money,
because right now they don't have too much money, but
they have value, I guess based on the bids you
saying good value. But I think I think CNN should
be sold because I think the people that are running
CN right now, CNN right now are either corrupt or
incompetent a factory and decision meetings, you know, well in
my in my mind, but you know, I can be
talked out of that by some very talented people that
we have antitrust people. But I just think that the
people that have run CNN into the ground by nobody watches,
very few people watch, I don't think they should be
entrusted with running CNN any longer. So I think any
deal should it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN
is part of it or sold separately.
Speaker 2: But I don't think the people that are running that
company right now and.
Speaker 6: Running CNN, which is a very dishonest group of people,
I don't think that should be allowed to continue.
Speaker 2: I think CNN should be sold along with everything else.
He's talking about affordability earlier.
Speaker 13: Work said yesterday in Pennsylvania, how much more can I
start to see you on the road kind of delivery?
Speaker 2: Then nless you should any worrying all about your Democrats
are waiting only these I don't worry.
Speaker 6: But you know, it's like, statistically, it's amazing when you
win the presidency, even if you win by a landslide
like we did, and even if you do a good job,
and some people say we've done the best opening ten
months in history, and on the history of the president,
I think we have who's done better.
Speaker 2: We end in eight wars.
Speaker 1: So there's no surprise the president has his negative opinions
about CNN and he wants them sold off. The problem
I have with that he can have his opinion. He's
very obviously not never held back about his opinion. I
don't want the government interfering with media companies. A free
media First Amendment is critical. The more critical they are
of the president, the more they should be protected. Because
free speech isn't about nice speech. It's about ugly speech
and about uncomfortable speech. And so he's upset because of
the fact that he thinks that he's doing a pretty
good job and they're not reporting that. Okay, I think
every president has been a set with the media and
the reporting. But so we'll see where this goes, whether
he puts his thumb on the scales or not. Wall
Street today they liked the fact that the market that
the Fed came out and cut interest rates by a
quarter of a percent. The vote on that, by the way,
was there's twelve voting members. Nine voted for cutting interest rates,
two voted not to cut interest rates, and one of them,
and I think I know which one, probably Myron, voted
for half a percent more of an interest rate cut.
So with all of that, Wall Street finished today with
a positive the Dow up four hundred and ninety seven,
above forty eight thousand on the down forty eight fifty
seven s, and p up forty six. If that's not
a record, it's pretty close to a record. Nasdaq up
seventy seven, the price of gold up twenty two dollars
to four thousand and two fifty eight, and the price
of oil was up seventy cents or so, up to
fifty eight dollars, and some change for a barrel of oil.
So that's it for today. Thank you for coming by.
We'll try this again tomorrow. I hope to see you
then