Speaker 1: And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
Speaker 1: on this Monday. Today's the twenty fourth day of November.
Speaker 1: Year of our Ward twenty and twenty five. My name
Speaker 1: is Tom Sullivan. And so off we go. Yep, everybody,
Speaker 1: Well I don't know if everybody's going, but yeah, we
Speaker 1: kick off that well kickoff probably Friday night. But Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: travel week one of the busiest of the year. And
Speaker 1: we look here, I've got the eighty eighty one million
Speaker 1: people are supposed to be traveling or Thanksgiving. I it's
Speaker 1: not John Berman earlier today talking about this, and he
Speaker 1: said said, why do you what's wrong with staying home?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with not having to put up with cousin Eddie?
Speaker 1: But eighty one million people are going to mostly get
Speaker 1: in the car. Eighty nine percent of the people traveling
Speaker 1: will be traveling by car, So obviously you don't have
Speaker 1: that far to go. I think most people stay where
Speaker 1: they grew up and where their family, their siblings, their parents,
Speaker 1: their cousins, their nephew, what their children live. But my
Speaker 1: family were scattered all over the country. So eighty one
Speaker 1: million traveling eighty nine percent by car, only seven percent
Speaker 1: by air. But you would think it was the end
Speaker 1: of the world. They go to the airport. Reporters go
Speaker 1: there and they find a whole bunch of people that
Speaker 1: are miserable for some reason, and they interview them. So
Speaker 1: there's a handful of a smaller percentage that go by
Speaker 1: I don't know by what else they go by train,
Speaker 1: I guess. So it's going to be busy, but it's
Speaker 1: spread out this week. I mean, like I said, some
Speaker 1: people probably pushed off on Friday, some over the weekend,
Speaker 1: some today. There are lines at the airports already being reported,
Speaker 1: and the busiest travel days will be next Sunday. That's
Speaker 1: the busiest travel day. So I go back to what's
Speaker 1: want with just stay where you live. So in any case,
Speaker 1: look at people get it's wonderful to get together. But
Speaker 1: the stories, I just find that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: comedy involved in some of the dysfunctional family stories out there.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why I find it so funny.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can relate. I don't know. By the way, yesterday,
Speaker 1: so we weren't doing a podcast yesterday, but yesterday was
Speaker 1: a big historical date. This is who I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country
Speaker 2: can do for you? Ask what you can do for
Speaker 2: your country?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was JFK taking his inauguration January twentieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one. I did the math sixty two years ago,
Speaker 1: and so it's not one of the big you know,
Speaker 1: the fiftieth, they're the hundredth or whatever the way we
Speaker 1: do our odometer readings. But it's it's a big deal
Speaker 1: because there he was, you know, signing up for the
Speaker 1: job that was going to wind up causing his death
Speaker 1: a couple of years later. But I thought about what
Speaker 1: he has said so many times. It was nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: different time, different culture, but it's a really simple statement.
Speaker 1: I don't know who wrote that for him, but ask
Speaker 1: not what your country can do for you? Well, that's
Speaker 1: what That's the basic. That's the way people live today.
Speaker 1: We have millions and millions of millions and millions of
Speaker 1: Americans that are asking, Hey, what can the country do
Speaker 1: for me? What you want me to do something for
Speaker 1: the country? What what are you talking about? So it
Speaker 1: is flipped completely and I would imagine that President Kennedy
Speaker 1: has probably flipped a couple of times in his grave
Speaker 1: just thinking about it's such a simple statement that was
Speaker 1: basically at the end of a fairly long inaugural dress.
Speaker 1: So that's where we are. So our current president. It's
Speaker 1: interesting to watch the ratings on him. You find ratings
Speaker 1: that say he's got lousy ratings, he's got lousy support.
Speaker 1: The question comes down to do the Republicans still support him.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into Marjorie Taylor Green too, who
Speaker 1: said she's going to resign in January. But Harry Anton
Speaker 1: did a quick check to find out are Republicans still
Speaker 1: supporting President Trump?
Speaker 3: Look, this is still Donald Trump's Republican party, and we
Speaker 3: can see it here.
Speaker 1: They it's like a rock.
Speaker 3: To quote Bob Seeger, I mean, take a look here
Speaker 3: Republicans who approve of Trump. Six months ago, it was
Speaker 3: eighty seven percent. Now, well, hello, it's the same number.
Speaker 3: It's eighty seven number. He has not lost any support
Speaker 3: among Republicans compared to six months ago. As I said
Speaker 3: at the beginning, he's like a rock. He's like a rock.
Speaker 3: The Republican base is sticking by Donald Trump at this point.
Speaker 1: So what about all this talk of him losing support?
Speaker 1: Who does that come from?
Speaker 3: It is among independents, It is not among Republicans. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I think this gives the game away, right, which is
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. If you look at twenty first century president's
Speaker 3: own party approval at this point in term two, who
Speaker 3: leads the pack, It's Donald John Trump. Eighty seven percent
Speaker 3: of Republicans approved Donald John Trump. You go back to
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, seventy eight percent of Democrats supported Barack Obama,
Speaker 3: and it was seventy eight percent of Republicans who supported
Speaker 3: George W. Bush back in two thousand and five. At
Speaker 3: this point, so Donald Trump has the biggest own party
Speaker 3: highest own party approval of any president who served their
Speaker 3: entire second term in the twenty first sent You know,
Speaker 3: when you go up against Donald Trump, you're going up
Speaker 3: against a buzzsaw because Donald Trump's endorsement record is it's
Speaker 3: hard to find anyone else who beats it. Times Trump
Speaker 3: endorsees one GOP primaries. In twenty twenty it was ninety
Speaker 3: eight percent, twenty twenty two is ninety five percent, in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four it was ninety six percent. And I
Speaker 3: will note the majority of times that Donald Trump backed
Speaker 3: a challenger to an incumbent like Marjorie Taylor Green, that
Speaker 3: challenger won a majority of the time. The bottom line
Speaker 3: is this, there was a real reason why Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 3: Green decided, you know what, it's not worth the fight,
Speaker 3: because more times than not, when you go up against
Speaker 3: Donald Trump in a Republican primary, you lose. All right,
Speaker 3: So we go to the prediction markets here and the
Speaker 3: chance to leave the Republican Party by January first of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven. You can see it thirty one percent.
Speaker 3: I think this is a pretty good baseline, which is
Speaker 3: more likely than not Marjorie Taylorgrean will stay within the
Speaker 3: Republican ranks. But there's actually a pretty decent chance that
Speaker 3: she doesn't. And then that becomes really interesting to see
Speaker 3: what she has to say about Republicans and Donald Trump
Speaker 3: in particular, if she decides to waigh Audios Amiga.
Speaker 1: So, Marjorie Taylor Green is not just your average ordinary
Speaker 1: member of Congress. She said over the weekend she's going
Speaker 1: to resign from her position in Congress on January sixth.
Speaker 1: Interesting date. She's had a split with President Trump on
Speaker 1: the Epstein files in a big way. She also split
Speaker 1: with him on the H one B visus. She doesn't
Speaker 1: like them. President does like them. Split with him on
Speaker 1: AI regulations by state. She wants to have states be
Speaker 1: able to regulate AI. President doesn't. I don't want them
Speaker 1: to either. You're going to get a patchwork of AI
Speaker 1: regulations that will not work. And also just foreign and tagma.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want anything to do with foreign wars, and
Speaker 1: the president's been involved in skirmishes. So we'll see what
Speaker 1: she does. She says she's not running for president, but
Speaker 1: we'll also see just exactly how the magacrowd what they do,
Speaker 1: because she was kind of the mama of the mega
Speaker 1: operation out there. One other, a big personality that popped
Speaker 1: up actually late on Friday. We were done with recording
Speaker 1: the podcast on Friday when they came out of the
Speaker 1: White House, And wasn't that something between the President and
Speaker 1: Zaron Mam Donnie. I mean, it was a LoveFest. There
Speaker 1: were a couple of political bros just hanging out. I
Speaker 1: I don't know what you thought about that, but everybody
Speaker 1: was on their very best behavior. Mark Seeson, this is
Speaker 1: his observation.
Speaker 4: Well, because he doesn't want to be the scapegoat for
Speaker 4: Donnie's failure. Socialism is going to fail because it fails
Speaker 4: everywhere where. It's tried, and so Mom Donnie's excuse if
Speaker 4: socialism fails in New York is to say, well, Trump,
Speaker 4: Trump waged war on New York and punished New York
Speaker 4: for my election, and that's why it didn't work. So
Speaker 4: you know that Trump doesn't want to bail out socialism,
Speaker 4: but he also doesn't want to be his his fall guy.
Speaker 4: But the problem that zer Mandanni has is that socialism
Speaker 4: only works if it has an external revenue source to
Speaker 4: subsidize it. Right, So during the Cold War, Cuba was
Speaker 4: bailed out by massive subsidies from the Soviet Union. It
Speaker 4: looked like it was working fine because they were getting
Speaker 4: hundreds of billions of dollars from Moscow. But then Soviet
Speaker 4: Union collapsed because socialism didn't work there and all the
Speaker 4: subsidies drive it up and it became an economic basket case.
Speaker 4: It's going to be the same problem with Mom Dominie
Speaker 4: in New York. Who is going to be his Moscow
Speaker 4: to subsidize the government grocery stores and the free buses.
Speaker 4: It's not gonna be Trump Trump. The federal government isn't
Speaker 4: going to subsidize socialism, so he wants it to be
Speaker 4: Kathy Hochel he wants her to raise taxes on all
Speaker 4: of New Yorkers, so across the state, income taxes, corporate
Speaker 4: tax everything to subsidize free buses and free and government
Speaker 4: grocery stores in New York City. That's going to be
Speaker 4: a huge, huge problem because at least to Phonic is
Speaker 4: going to wrap that around her axle if she does it.
Speaker 1: And if you're not sure of what that reference was about, Alistaphonic,
Speaker 1: she is the Republican uptate New York that is running
Speaker 1: for or governor against Kathy Hochel. So that was what
Speaker 1: Mark Fisson was referring to. As far as Mam Donnie,
Speaker 1: we'll seize them. Something has to give there. Either he's
Speaker 1: going to change, Mam Donnie's going to change, or it's
Speaker 1: going to be nothing but problems. We'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see. While we're on the subject of socialists, Venezuela
Speaker 1: is blessed with lots of resources, mainly oil and gas,
Speaker 1: and they had so much that Hugo Chavez basically took
Speaker 1: over all the private oil companies and promised the people
Speaker 1: of Venezuela that he would take all the profits from
Speaker 1: those evil oil companies and distribute them to the people
Speaker 1: they would be getting rich all the people. And you
Speaker 1: know what happened is that did not happen, and as
Speaker 1: a result, the people rebelled. Chavez died Ugo. I mean,
Speaker 1: Maduro just had They had an election there to re
Speaker 1: elect him, and he lost by huge amounts according to
Speaker 1: all the outside observers, but he proclaimed that he was
Speaker 1: the winner, and so he stays in office. But things
Speaker 1: are getting tense. Victoria Coats, former national security officer, says, yeah,
Speaker 1: with all the build up of the military, something's got
Speaker 1: to go there now.
Speaker 5: There's nothing covert going on that I can see. We
Speaker 5: have our most modern, our most capable aircraft carrier, the
Speaker 5: Gerald R. Ford, off the coast of Puerto Rico. We
Speaker 5: have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as
Speaker 5: Lucas was just saying, General Dan Caine, also in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 5: and the biggest military build up we've had since a
Speaker 5: rock going on in the Caribbean. And so, you know,
Speaker 5: this isn't subtle at all. I think President Trump has
Speaker 5: tried with diplomacy to get a change out of the
Speaker 5: Maduro regime. All we've seen, though, are more drugs pouring
Speaker 5: across our southern border. Pouring into our country, killing our citizens.
Speaker 5: That's what he's not going to stand for. So I'm
Speaker 5: sure he would offer Maduro an off ramp, perhaps to
Speaker 5: go to Russia. But I don't think he's staying in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: But we have, like like she said, the largest built
Speaker 1: up dens of rock. We got all kinds of military
Speaker 1: surrounding Venezuela. Is it just about Venezuela or are we
Speaker 1: talking about the entire drug industry coming out of South America?
Speaker 5: Well, this for sure. I mean Venezuela is the head
Speaker 5: of the snake, and so I think the logic would
Speaker 5: be that given some interesting recent political changes in countries
Speaker 5: like Bolivia and Chile, both of which are trending toward
Speaker 5: a more conservative government, more friendly to Washington, you have
Speaker 5: elections also coming up in neighboring Colombia coming up in March,
Speaker 5: which also look like they're going to go conservative. If
Speaker 5: you flip Venezuela right now, then I think all of
Speaker 5: that change sort of falls into place. So I think
Speaker 5: that should be the key target here.
Speaker 1: Well, you can see the vision that Donald Trump has.
Speaker 1: He wants to change Latin Americameric in South America into
Speaker 1: friends in our hemisphere instead of battling against the drug
Speaker 1: cartels in at least South American countries. And I haven't
Speaker 1: even talked about what they're going to do in Mexico.
Speaker 1: But with all of this, something's going to happen. According
Speaker 1: to Victoria Coachs, within the next couple of weeks at
Speaker 1: the very least, President said he wants to have a
Speaker 1: conversation a phone call with Maduro.
Speaker 5: Well, the President has said he's very willing to talk.
Speaker 5: You know, he's always going to choose diplomacy if that
Speaker 5: is possible. And as I said, there could be an
Speaker 5: off ramp for Maduro. We have putin hosting, for example,
Speaker 5: Beshier Alasade, who was ousted this time last year US
Speaker 5: from Syria. So maybe Maduro joins him in Sochi and
Speaker 5: you know, is able to keep some of his billions
Speaker 5: and have a retirement of sorts. If you will, bet
Speaker 5: that we could then have a much more democratic, free
Speaker 5: Venezuela that would be a friend in the United States.
Speaker 1: That's the plan. Try and take some of these South
Speaker 1: American countries and make them into our friends. While we're
Speaker 1: speaking about problems overseas. Ukraine, they've been working over time
Speaker 1: over the weekend, Marco Rubio heading up the crew that
Speaker 1: had been in Geneva talking to Ukraine about a peace agreement.
Speaker 1: What's strange about this is it's the US and Ukraine talking,
Speaker 1: but no, Russia is not there. But somehow Russia is
Speaker 1: responding to what they're hearing from the talks between the
Speaker 1: US and Ukraine. Here's Marco Rubio talking about where they are.
Speaker 6: We arrived here today with one goal, and the goal
Speaker 6: was to take what knows twenty eight points to twenty
Speaker 6: six points depending on which version as it continue to evolve,
Speaker 6: and try to narrow the ones that were open items.
Speaker 6: And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way.
Speaker 6: I think the report today is that I think today
Speaker 6: was worthwhile. It was very very It is probably the
Speaker 6: most productive day we have had on this issue, maybe
Speaker 6: in the entirety of our engagement, but certainly in a
Speaker 6: very long time. Work remains, and because this continues to
Speaker 6: be a working process, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 6: declare victory or finality here. There's still some work to
Speaker 6: be done, but we are much further ahead today at
Speaker 6: this time than we were when we began this morning
Speaker 6: and where we were a week ago.
Speaker 1: For so now, there was a news item over the
Speaker 1: weekend that the President had given Zelensky until Thursday till
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day to either fish or cut bait. If you
Speaker 1: don't accept this peace agreement that we came up with,
Speaker 1: then we're leaving you and you're on your own. Well
Speaker 1: that's changed since the weekend. The deal right now that
Speaker 1: is on the table for Russia and Ukraine is as
Speaker 1: far as territory, Ukraine would see the don Esque, lou Hansk, Zapporzia,
Speaker 1: Kierson and Crimea, so they would get rid. They would
Speaker 1: say goodbye to the area that Russia currently occupies. As
Speaker 1: far as security, no NATO in Ukraine, the army, the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian army would be capped at six hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: and there would be no foreign bases from any other
Speaker 1: country anywhere in Ukraine. As far as withdrawals, Russia would
Speaker 1: retreat from parts of Kharkiv. Kharkiv one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: in frozen Russian money would be used to rebuild Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Sanctions would be eased against Russia, and as far as
Speaker 1: Ukraine would drop their war crime cases and Russia would
Speaker 1: rejoin the global economic world. So that's the deal that's
Speaker 1: on the table. As we go through this Monday, we'll
Speaker 1: find out if it's a work in process. General Jack
Speaker 1: Keene was asked his thoughts about what's happening with this agreement.
Speaker 7: Well, I think what we're already seeing here is the
Speaker 7: president's determination to end this war. I mean, we saw
Speaker 7: what happened as a result of the Alaska summit. You know,
Speaker 7: Putin made promises that he didn't keep, and then all
Speaker 7: the European leaders came to Washington with Zelenski and they
Speaker 7: all pretty much were unified in their support for Ukraine
Speaker 7: and also for a peace process going forward. And where
Speaker 7: are we today. The reality is the presidents still trying
Speaker 7: to get that wars stop, and we're putting together a
Speaker 7: process to do that. I think what happened here the
Speaker 7: initials document gets out, gets leaked out, and it appears,
Speaker 7: and you know, so I read it just like everybody else,
Speaker 7: to favor Russia at the expense of Ukraine. But what
Speaker 7: was miss is it was an open process here. You know,
Speaker 7: that was the initial document, and the administration welcomed comments
Speaker 7: from friends and partners, Ukraine itself, European allies, and even
Speaker 7: I put together a group of thought leaders in Washington
Speaker 7: yesterday and provided some comments to the administration as well.
Speaker 7: So this process is moving on, and likely that document's
Speaker 7: going to improve and improved rather significantly because it is
Speaker 7: an open process, and I think many people missed that
Speaker 7: in terms of the initial thing that was out there.
Speaker 7: So yeah, it remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: This is tough stuff.
Speaker 7: I mean, we've got Putin on the other side of it,
Speaker 7: and the reality is he has not taken one single
Speaker 7: step towards a temporary ceasefire or a piece deal whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Where he is.
Speaker 7: He still believes that eventually he's going to break the
Speaker 7: will and resolve of the United States and the Europeans
Speaker 7: and the Zelenski government and he will eventually have his
Speaker 7: way here. And that is the determined process that we're
Speaker 7: on here, putting this peace plant together yeather, hopefully with
Speaker 7: good security guarantees that certainly favor Ukraine as a result
Speaker 7: of the process, and some other things that we can
Speaker 7: do to help Ukraine will convince Putin that negotiation is
Speaker 7: the best answer as opposed to continue is wartime objectives
Speaker 7: to achieve his strategic objectives, which haven't changed. Is top
Speaker 7: of the government of Ukraine and expand into Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: One guy that's on the opposite side of this is
Speaker 1: Senator Mark Warner. He's the head of the Senator or
Speaker 1: the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He doesn't
Speaker 1: like this deal at all.
Speaker 8: This initial plan would be a total capitulation by Ukraine.
Speaker 8: I think it would go down, Frankly as a historically
Speaker 8: bad deal. And my fear is the person who's watching
Speaker 8: this as close as Latimer Putin is President She and China,
Speaker 8: because if we throw in the towel on Ukraine, I
Speaker 8: think that gives Frankly more fuel to the fire in
Speaker 8: terms of She taking on Taiwan. I think there's a
Speaker 8: banzial all the way around.
Speaker 1: So we may get some definitive answers, not today, but
Speaker 1: within a week to ten days. Venezuela, something's going to
Speaker 1: happen there. Elliott Abrams, who was the ambassador to Venezuela,
Speaker 1: he thinks Trump's going to do something very quickly.
Speaker 9: We're at the point now where the game is on.
Speaker 9: Either Nicholas Vnduro is going to win or Donald Trump
Speaker 9: is going to win. And if you think that Donald
Speaker 9: Trump doesn't like losing, then I think he's going to
Speaker 9: use those forces in some way.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we got this huge build up of military.
Speaker 1: They're not going to sit there forever. We've got the
Speaker 1: deadline on Thursday. But it sounds like it's movable. On Ukraine,
Speaker 1: they got to come up with either agreed to this
Speaker 1: deal or not. And that doesn't even bring Russia completely
Speaker 1: to the table. So you know it's moving. Everything's being
Speaker 1: pushed as hard as they can push it. But I
Speaker 1: don't know whether they're going to get a need answers
Speaker 1: right away, but it seems like there's a decent chance
Speaker 1: that we will get an answer on both of those
Speaker 1: countries within a week to ten days. Breaking news coming
Speaker 1: out today the judge that they remember they consolidated, uh,
Speaker 1: not the cases, but consolidated the question on James Comey
Speaker 1: and Letitia James about whether Lindsay Halligan was properly the
Speaker 1: appointed acting US Attorney, and the judge in that case
Speaker 1: ruled this afternoon she's not. And so the cases have
Speaker 1: not been dismissed as far as the indictments against them,
Speaker 1: but the cases have been thrown out as far as
Speaker 1: Lindsay Halligan having the authority to be able to prosecute.
Speaker 1: This is Jonathan Turley reacting to the judge's decision.
Speaker 10: He can in the sense that novelty is not good
Speaker 10: when it comes to criminal indictments, and there was a
Speaker 10: lot of novelty in the final day to get this
Speaker 10: indictment through. They were right up against the clock, and
Speaker 10: particularly with Komy, they had rejected one of the counts,
Speaker 10: and so Halligan sort of put together the other two
Speaker 10: counts rapidly and then submitted that. Now she and the
Speaker 10: Department of Justice say that they showed that to two
Speaker 10: of the jurors, including the foreman, but that the grand
Speaker 10: jury had approved those two counts. But the biggest problem
Speaker 10: that the judge saw here is Halligan herself. And this
Speaker 10: is something that a number of us raised when the
Speaker 10: indictment first came out. Under federal law, the president has
Speaker 10: one hundred and twenty days to use an interim US
Speaker 10: attorney and acting US attorney. That time was effectively used
Speaker 10: up by her predecessor, and reportedly he was shown the
Speaker 10: door because he had misgivings about some of these charges.
Speaker 10: So the judge here is dismissing without prejudice, so that
Speaker 10: in some ways is a small victory and that this
Speaker 10: is not the end of the prosecution of James Comy
Speaker 10: or Leticia James. The question is whether and how they
Speaker 10: will cure this problem. Well, we're going to wait to see,
Speaker 10: I think, and we're going to have the answer very soon.
Speaker 10: Whether the Department of Justice is going to go back
Speaker 10: to the grand jury and try to sort of clean
Speaker 10: this one up. The key is going to be the
Speaker 10: status of the US Attorney and that's going to be
Speaker 10: an issue which they're going to have to address the
Speaker 10: court here saying you simply didn't have this authority. Now,
Speaker 10: the Justice Department has some good faith arguments that the
Speaker 10: reading of that law is wrong and that it impedes
Speaker 10: upon the president's authority. But I think a lot of
Speaker 10: judges would have raised the same concern. The general view
Speaker 10: has been that you sort of get one bite in
Speaker 10: the apple at one hundred and twenty days.
Speaker 1: Well, teacher James is putting out statements this afternoon talking
Speaker 1: about how she's so thankful for the victory. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a victory. The crimes have not been dismissed, the accusations,
Speaker 1: the indictments have not been dismissed. The only thing that
Speaker 1: was dismissed was that the US attorney was improperly appointed
Speaker 1: and therefore cannot prosecute this case. So will they appeal
Speaker 1: it or will they get another US attorney somewhere to
Speaker 1: be able to prosecute this case. So that's still it's
Speaker 1: not dead, but it sounded like it at first when
Speaker 1: we heard the judge dismissed both of the Komi and
Speaker 1: Leticia James cases. But there's a long way still for
Speaker 1: both of those to go. You want to talk about inflation,
Speaker 1: because people keep arguing about the President says prices are down,
Speaker 1: prices are down, Treasury Secretary says prices are going to
Speaker 1: be down. Next year is going to be great. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of that going on. Let's start with car prices.
Speaker 1: Fill the Bow covers Detroit for CNBC, and he's talking
Speaker 1: about how car prices are way way up.
Speaker 11: Take a look at what's happened with auto prices. Everybody
Speaker 11: knows that they've gone up, but I'm not sure they
Speaker 11: appreciate just how much they have gone up. We've asked
Speaker 11: Cox Automotive to calculate the average transaction price going back
Speaker 11: starting in October of this year, going all the way
Speaker 11: back to twenty and eighteen. Look at the change in October.
Speaker 11: The average transaction price, this is the average paid in
Speaker 11: the dealership, not MSRP, was just under fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 11: That's roughly eleven thousand dollars more than what we saw
Speaker 11: back in twenty eighteen before the pandemic, an increase of
Speaker 11: twenty nine point five percent. And you really see it
Speaker 11: reflected in terms of the autumn own monthly payments. According
Speaker 11: to TransUnion, they now are above seven hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 11: They've been steadily edging higher. The real increase was during
Speaker 11: the pandemic, but they continue to move higher. And again
Speaker 11: this is from TransUnion showing the average monthly new vehicle
Speaker 11: auto loan payment is more than seven hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 11: So a couple of things have been driving auto prices
Speaker 11: and auto payments higher. First of all, automakers are focusing
Speaker 11: on higher trim levels. I know everybody says, well, what
Speaker 11: about the base price. Someone will order a vehicle a
Speaker 11: base model. You know how few people order a base model.
Speaker 11: It just doesn't happen. And the automakers realize that people
Speaker 11: want the technology and the features that they've become used
Speaker 11: to in automobiles. So as a result, higher trim levels
Speaker 11: are what they're focusing on. Those are the vehicles that
Speaker 11: are selling, and they're also facing higher costs. They're not
Speaker 11: just doing this because they're saying, well, let's charge more.
Speaker 11: They have to figure out a way to as much
Speaker 11: as possible will protect their profit margins. And they have
Speaker 11: to do that because costs have gone up, whether it's
Speaker 11: raw materials, whether it's the impact of new labor contracts, tariffs.
Speaker 11: In certain cases, suppliers have been able to push along
Speaker 11: a lot of their increased costs increased cost excuse me.
Speaker 11: So the bottom line is this that you take a
Speaker 11: look at gm Ford and stillants. There will be a
Speaker 11: hearing next month or in January, i should say, Senator
Speaker 11: Ted Cruz wants to take a look at auto affordability.
Speaker 11: It will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Yes,
Speaker 11: people are not happy that auto monthly loan payments are
Speaker 11: more than seven hundred and fifty dollars for a new vehicle,
Speaker 11: but they've also gone up for used vehicles. It's about
Speaker 11: one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy dollars
Speaker 11: less for a used vehicle monthly payment. I think it's
Speaker 11: somewhere in the five seventies five to eighty range. The
Speaker 11: bottom line is this, these prices show no indication that
Speaker 11: they are going to stop and reverse. They have plateawed
Speaker 11: to a certain extent, but there's no indication that they're
Speaker 11: going to be coming back down. And the interesting thing
Speaker 11: is you will hear people say, well, I would buy
Speaker 11: a more modestly priced vehicle if it was thirty five
Speaker 11: or forty thousand dollars. And to be clear, there are
Speaker 11: some vehicles that sell in that price point, at least
Speaker 11: as a starting price. But you start adding on features.
Speaker 11: You say to somebody, you want navigation, do you want
Speaker 11: this particular feature, do you want heads up display? Whatever
Speaker 11: it might be. And we have become as consumers convinced
Speaker 11: that when we have a new vehicle, I want the
Speaker 11: latest features, and so we go up a trim level.
Speaker 11: And that's what the automakers are focusing on. They realize
Speaker 11: that nobody buys a base price vehicle. It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 11: I mean, I shouldn't say it never happens, very very
Speaker 11: small percentage of buyers. So as a result, the prices
Speaker 11: keep moving higher.
Speaker 1: So phil Rush past tariffs pretty quickly, but he also
Speaker 1: talked about raw materials, Well, what are raw materials? What
Speaker 1: do you make cars out? Are you make out of
Speaker 1: steel and aluminum? And those tariffs are in some cases
Speaker 1: fifty percent. And when it comes to the s he
Speaker 1: called it trim. You want a navigation, you want a GPS,
Speaker 1: you want all these various things. The cars are loaded
Speaker 1: with computer chips today, and those computer chips are coming
Speaker 1: in from overseas, and those are cost of the car makers.
Speaker 1: More so, it's a combination of a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But I don't dismiss the tariffs there at all. Marcus Lamonis,
Speaker 1: guy who did the profit now, I don't know, he's
Speaker 1: got some other show on, but he's a big investor
Speaker 1: in small businesses and he was asked about inflation.
Speaker 12: Affordability is an issue, but what's the bigger issue for
Speaker 12: me is how these exotic new financing tools have been
Speaker 12: made available for consumers. By now, pay next year, buy now,
Speaker 12: don't pay for three years, by now, never pay. And
Speaker 12: when we have this drug that people have, which is
Speaker 12: this access to credit, people are going to buy things
Speaker 12: that they don't need. And while we hear people talk
Speaker 12: about affordability. When you walk up and down New York City,
Speaker 12: you see a lot of people coming in and out
Speaker 12: of stores and a lot of people with bags. So
Speaker 12: is it affordability or is people are people just not
Speaker 12: feeling comfortable with what they're spending their money pull And
Speaker 12: when we think about the digital age where we're on
Speaker 12: our phones and we're not paying attention to people changing
Speaker 12: and exchanging gifts like the one I got you that
Speaker 12: you don't know about. It gives us a sense to
Speaker 12: have camaraderie communication. It doesn't mean that it has to
Speaker 12: be an expensive gift. And I think what we're seeing
Speaker 12: happen this year is the average cart size at retail down,
Speaker 12: the average order size down. That's something that I think
Speaker 12: people need to pay attention to. So what I mean
Speaker 12: is when you go into a big box retailer, Walmart, Target,
Speaker 12: whatever it may be, the number of items that people
Speaker 12: are putting in their cart and the amount of their
Speaker 12: total order is actually not up. I see these trends,
Speaker 12: but I also see other retailers that I have relationships with,
Speaker 12: who you can tell are forecasting based on the amount
Speaker 12: of labor they're going to put on the floor this holiday.
Speaker 12: The amount of jobs that are going to be on
Speaker 12: the floor of this holiday are down about fifteen percent
Speaker 12: from a year ago.
Speaker 1: Why is that.
Speaker 12: Are people expecting more or less traffic?
Speaker 9: Well, they're expecting less traffic.
Speaker 1: The Fox newspoll just out on it came out on Friday.
Speaker 1: I was looking through it over the weekend. Majority of
Speaker 1: Americans say cost of goods are up. Groceries the answer.
Speaker 1: Eighty five percent of the people say groceries are up,
Speaker 1: seventy eight percent of people say their utility bill is up,
Speaker 1: sixty seven percent say their healthcare is up, sixty six
Speaker 1: percent say their housing is up, and fifty four percent
Speaker 1: say their gas prices are up, which is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because tech technically they're right. I was looking at
Speaker 1: Triple A's national average of gasoline, and the national average
Speaker 1: is three oh seven. A year ago it was three
Speaker 1: oh five, So it's bouncing around down there, just a
Speaker 1: little bit above three bucks on the national average for
Speaker 1: the cheap stuff. Well, since we're talking financial numbers, why
Speaker 1: don't we take a look at Wall Street. We started off.
Speaker 1: You know, it's fickle. Everybody's trying to figure out, as
Speaker 1: you know, you buy on the dip or is there
Speaker 1: more of the falling knife to catch in any case.
Speaker 1: Today it started off on the tech stocks, the ones
Speaker 1: that sold off last couple of weeks. They started buying
Speaker 1: them today. The Dow up two hundred and two to
Speaker 1: finish at forty six four forty eight s and p
Speaker 1: up one hundred two. That's a big gain for the
Speaker 1: SMP index. Here's where the tech stocks are. Nasdaq up
Speaker 1: five hundred and ninety nine, five hundred niney nine points
Speaker 1: up to twenty two thousand and eight seventy two. Price
Speaker 1: of gold up fifty dollars to forty one twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and the price of oil was up a little less
Speaker 1: than a dollar. It's up at fifty eight dollars now
Speaker 1: for one barrel of oil. Thank you for coming by.
Speaker 1: I know it's going to be a shortened week, but
Speaker 1: we plan on being here, so I thank you for
Speaker 1: coming by today. We'll certainly be here tomorrow and I
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing you then.