Speaker 1: And Hi, how are you welcome, one and all to
the Big Podcast on this Monday, the twenty second day
of December, Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five. My
name is Tom Sullivan, and no, no, it's a. It's a.
It's a chopped up week this week, and wishing you
all the best of holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwansa. We've
got them all coming.
Speaker 2: Through this week.
Speaker 1: A lot to talk about today, and we've got some
ideas about maybe helping the housing market come long the
Venezuela situation. They're chasing a third ship out there at sea,
and oh, I don't know. Let's let's go ahead and
get the politics out of the way, because the politics
are kind of interesting. But here we said it's it's still.
Let me check my canary. Yep, it's still twenty twenty five.
And I guess it's because the news barrel during the
week of Christmas and New Years a little bit low.
So they start looking around for the next the next election,
which is going to be the midterms, but they're looking
past that. They had Turning Point, USA had their big
big brew ha that they have every year. This is
the first year. Obviously it was always Charlie.
Speaker 2: Kirk was there.
Speaker 1: His wife was running it this year, but they had
a lot. It's all about politics, and they're looking at
the candidates and trying to decide who in twenty twenty eight.
I mean they're not they're skipping already over over the
mid terms. So let's start with some of that. Kevin
Walling is a Democrat strategist. He's a good guy. This
is what he had to say about about an article
from Axios that was talking about how all the people
who are thinking about wanting to run for president, they're
getting in shape, they're losing weight, they're wearing nicer clothes,
they're doing all the all. Yeah. Well here's Kevin talking
about how it's a sign of who is running.
Speaker 3: Thinks are everything in politics, And as you point out,
we see this before every election cycle, you know, from
Jed Bush to Chris Christy on the Republican side, JB.
Pritzker looking a little bit more healthy out there before
the trail. This is a time honor tradition, I think
in our politics, because again, people want to like people
that look fit, trim, healthy to be their commander in chief.
Because again, as I said, optics or everything, I will
say I was sporting this scruff way before Pete booda
judge was you know. So you know Axios is reporting
about that makeover too, so I had it first.
Speaker 2: I just want to.
Speaker 1: Point out, Yeah, he has a like I've talked about
before with these guys who can't grow beers, they have
really crummy bears. Anyway, Matt Gorman, he always speaks for
the for the Republicans.
Speaker 2: Let's see what he says.
Speaker 4: That's exactly how I find too, authenticity, the coin of
the realm in the Internet age. Right, this is somebody
in Trump who makes fun of his own hair. Jimmy
Fallon tasseled it on sitting on his couch during the
Tonight show. But also he's always in suits, right Why
because he feels comfortable?
Speaker 2: Right, So no more than anything else. Right, I've been candidates.
Speaker 4: You can lose weight, they've debated whether or not to
wear glasses, not wear glasses, but more importantly, be comfortable
in what you're wearing, in the skin, your inity that
shows through no matter what medium.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of candidates don't understand that be authentic.
They're trying to be somebody they're not. I think that
the classic case of that was Al Gore was like
a wooden soldier. Nobody knew who he really was. He
came close, but he did not win. So the Democrats
have decided to scrap their twenty twenty four autopsy, big, big,
big report there was, spend a lot of money on it,
look into exactly what it was on how they lost
the election to Donald Trump in twenty twenty four. Jamie Raskin,
who is a very partisan Democrat, kind of blew that
whole thing up.
Speaker 5: Why did somebody win an election? Why did somebody lose
an election? And there's certain obvious things, you know, obviously
the whole you know, dance between Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris like.
Speaker 2: And help us.
Speaker 5: Everybody knows that. That's no secret to anybody. And maybe
there are other factors, and I don't see why we
wouldn't just share them and talk about them. But you
can never say in history definitively, I mean, what caused
the French Revolution.
Speaker 2: They're still fighting about that today.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure if I've ever agreed with Jamie
Raskin on anything, but I think he's right. You don't
want to publish your dirty laundry and tell everybody about
what I'm a terrible job you did. You got to
move on, man, you got to move on to the
next election. Back to Matt Gorman's reaction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I think it's short sighted and it reminds
me of twenty twenty two when Democrats did better than
expected in the midterms and they got high on their
own supply and Joe Biden used that as a justification
to run in twenty twenty four and all of that
turned out. Let's be real, it's not just about Joe Biden.
It's not the only reason they lost in twenty twenty four.
They can take some lessons from this. And here's a
news flash. Trump is not on the ballot in twenty
eight and the only thing that really unites all the
Democrat party is the fact that anti Trump apers over
a lot of schisms. I think it's incredibly short sighted moves,
and it can help them learn the future. And you
know what, short church system is great, but we've seen
this movie before in just the last couple of years
in their own party. It led to disastrous results.
Speaker 1: Okay, so math the Republicans says, Yeah. Published Jamie Raskins says, no,
it's not a good idea.
Speaker 3: Because I usually I think at this point it's it's counterproductive.
You know, I support kem the chairman of my party. This.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, because look at.
Speaker 2: The scoreboard right now. We're winning.
Speaker 3: We won the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey
by double digits. Those folks that went to President Trump
back in twenty twenty four, that drift away from the
Democratic Party are back right. Key constituencies we've won. You know,
we've flipped twenty five state legislative seats from Republican to Democrat.
Republicans have flipped zero, right, So you know, it's to
Jamie Raskins point, all of this played out in the
media in the public square, and Democrats are looking forward
and we're winning based on all this engagement that we're doing.
I think it's counterproductive at this point to look back.
Republicans didn't do it in twenty twenty when the President
Trump lost. Let's keep moving forward as the Democrats are doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sorry, that was Kevin Walling, but so well, we're
not going to see the autopsy of the twenty twenty
four election. And I'm with Kevin Walling. It's counterproductive. Everybody
needs to move on. But his point about the Democrats
are really patting themselves on the back about wanting the
governor's race in Virginia and New Jersey, Really, what did
you expect? They're both pretty blue state. They're purple but blue,
and so there's some bigger tests they're going to have
to win to convince me that something's changed. So Karl
Rove was asked about the big turning point USA convention.
Nicki Minaje showed up and was promoting JD Van to
be the presidential candidate in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: There's Carl's reaction.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, first of all, nikomdas nice to have one
celebrity supporting a Republican and conservative group or a great
get by the turning point action. The interesting thing out
of the poll is that over seventy percent some have
no choice for president in twenty twenty eight on the
Republican side and even larger number among the Democrats. There
are several geological ages that are going to come and
go before twenty twenty eight. But it's advantageous to be
the city and vice president, and he asked to be
considered the front runner. The question is as we go
through the years ahead, is he going to be their
prohibitive favorite. Even Republican vice presidents who will ultimately get
the nomination, whether it's Nixon in nineteen sixty or George H. W.
Bush in nineteen eighty eight, have contested primaries and contested conventions,
So that doesn't seem while that surprising to me that
Carl thinks there should be a primary. That's where the
Democrats really messed up, was not having some sort of
many primary or any primary to decide who their candidate
was going to be. So Patrick Murphy, former congressman from Pennsylvania,
he's in that camp as well.
Speaker 8: I mean, I do think that even though they had
a mini primary when Joe Biden got out last time,
it would have helped helped the Democrat Party, and I
would agree that it is so early. Though the Carl's point, yes,
Jady Vance, also a veteran, is you know, twenty two percent.
But in history he has to go against that because
only fifteen of forty nine vice presidents have been elevated
to become president, only two in the last thirty years.
Carl roaventioned, obviously, George H. W. Bush and then Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So if the Republicans do have a primary, one guy
that's already starting to make noise again. Yeah, he learned
not to go up against Donald Trump twice. Is Ted
Cruz from Texas.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 7: Absolutely, Ted Cruz has got himself a very popular podcast.
And look, there are big differences, but both parties are
going to have competitive primaries in twenty twenty eight. Nobody,
even the front runners, are going to find themselves seriously pressed.
But let's step back and take something into consideration. How
successful are vice presidents in succeeding the president that they served.
In the history of the United States, there have been
two instances where a sitting vice president has succeeded the
person that he in whose administration he served. One was
eighteen twenty eighteen thirty six, Andrew Jackson was the outgoing president.
Martin Van Buren got elected. In nineteen eighty eight, Ronald
Reagan was leaving office and his vice president, George H. W. Bush,
won fifty one percent approval rating in October of nineteen
eighty eight. For Ronald Reagan, think though about the negatives.
In nineteen sixty Dwight Eisener, out of fifty eight percent
approval is vice president Richard Nixon lost to JFK. LBJ
had a forty two percent approval in nineteen sixty eight.
Hubert Humphreys, vice president, lost to Richard Nixon. Clinton had
a fifty seven percent approval rating. In October of two
thousand and Al Gore, his vice president, lost to George W.
Speaker 2: Bush.
Speaker 7: I know a little something about that one. And then
Joe Biden was vice had a forty percent approval rating
in October of last year and his vice president lost.
Maybe the number that we ought to worry about, or
that JD. Evans ought to worry about, is today Donald
Trump's approval rating in gallups thirty six percent. He needs
to have a much higher approval rating for a city
vice president have a good shot at winning the general election. Yeah,
there's something about the way that we operate here in
this country. We like to change management.
Speaker 1: And if the vice president is considered to be part
of the previous eight years management in the case of
most of the presidents, that that's why it's hard for
them to get elected because people say, no, you were
part of the previous administration. Let's find somebody new to
run the boat. Kevin o'larry, mister Wonderful also was asked
about all of this.
Speaker 9: Well, I think we're starting the midterm election cycle in
Q one. It's even started now if you think about
the president's recent trips, he was stumping for the midterms.
In my view, there's two big issues that have emerged.
Number One, affordability. Defined by affordability, I think the Democrats
did a good job in making that an issue, although
pinning down exactly what that means is complex.
Speaker 2: Number Two healthcare.
Speaker 9: But if you think about it, healthcare is a subset
of affordability because it's about the double in costs to
the average person if it isn't resolved. And so those
are the two big issues. So I expect the White House,
as any administration would going into the midterms, to focus
on what matters. The classic line, it's about the economy stupid,
and that's exactly what this is about.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 9: The fine tuning aspects I'm worried about. I don't like
free helicopter money, whether it's seventeen hundred dollars or two thousand,
that's inflationary. We still have inflation at three percent. That's
a problem. That's why people are whining about affordability, particularly
particularly if it affects them about protein and food and
things they buy every day. Huge problem right now.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with Kevin Olarry on that, and they're
starting to back off, I believe it. With Jeddie Vance
that said over the weekend about the President wanting to
offer two thousand dollars tariff dividends, giving you a check
for two thousand dollars, and over the weekend he said, well,
Congress would have to approve that. In other words, they're
running away from that. It would be super inflationary. It's
exactly what Joe Biden did was flood the economy with
free money, and prices went up and supply story just
took over. And so it's a bad idea, and I
doubt you will see that two thousand dollars tariff dividend
that the President has mentioned a couple of different times.
Speaking of prices, though, one of the things that the
President's been working on is lowering drug prices. Now, I
know Joe Biden got what was it, insulin down to
thirty five dollars of pop or something. I don't know,
there's not Yeah, there's a lot of people that need insulin,
but not the majority of the country, so it was
a little bit of a help for some limited number
of people. Now the President is in talking about getting
prices lower, and he had a bunch of pharmaceutical people
in the Oval Office on Friday about dropping drug prices.
Doctor Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, was asked about that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so look there's under the ray they capped. They did,
but there's a lot of different elements to what thedent.
President Trump has been doing with respect to drug pricing.
The latest announcement that came out on Friday was that
they are putting in place mandatory rebates for certain Medicare
drugs Part B and party drugs based on the prices
price differentials between what the drugs are sold for in
the US and in Europe. So if the price differential
is significant, if it's sold a lot less expensively in
Europe versus, the US companies will be obligated to pay
a rebate back to those programs. But it looks like
this the impact of this is going to be relatively muted.
It's only going to affect anywhere from five to ten
percent of overall Medicare spending on drugs. It was a
good note out from ratemand James this morning. Chris Meekins,
who worked with me in the first Trump administration he
was working at HHS at the time, did an analysis
on this.
Speaker 2: It's probably going to have a limited impact.
Speaker 10: There's also a question of whether or not the companies
assigned these MFN deals to basically cut a deal to
offer mandatory rebates in the medicaid program, whether they'll be
subject to this new demonstration project that was announced on Friday.
Many people think they won't. Genetech put out or press
release suggesting that they think they won't be subject to
this new announcement that's put out Friday. I will say, though,
the most significant part of what the President announced, which
I think hasn't been talked about, is that in these
zemfen deals he's cutting with the companies, they're agreeing to
launch their new drugs at a world price. So they're
agreeing that any new drug that they launch that launching
a basically the same price in Europe that they sell
it for in the US, and so going forward, you're
going to see prices in the US on new launch
has probably come down. Prices x us go up. I
think that's the most significant piece of all of these deals.
It's the one piece that hasn't been talked about. And
final point here, they're holding on to four more deals
with four additional companies. That's the speculation in Washington right
now for later this week when they make an announcement
about the rollout of trump ar Rex. This is going
to be a website where people can go online buy
drugs directly at a discount, drugs that companies offer to
sell there. And so they're going to announce that, and
they're going to announce four additional MFN deals with additional companies.
The President, I think hinted that one of them was
Jay and Jay. That's the speculation right now among folks
in Washington.
Speaker 1: So doctor gottlieves stealing the thunder from the President. His
announcements are going to be coming out about lower drug prices,
probably over the next week or two. But as you
heard the doctor say, it's very muted. In other words,
it's not going to make a big impact for current
drugs current drug prices. But what he talked about was
new drugs that will be introduced will be introduced at
the same price. Here as they're introduced at the same
price in Europe, so it should lower the prices over
time of drugs that will be on the market. And
speaking of drugs, this is not a good segue, but
did you see where in the Rob Reiner murder the
Nick Reiner? Oh my I saw they played over the
weekend a playback of when Rob Reiner was interviewed by
Larry King, the late great Larry King. So it goes
back roughly thirty years and well, let me get to
the drug part. Then I'll tell you the story about
what happened thirty years ago with Rob Reinder. But one
of the things about Nick Reiner was apparently they recently
changed the psychotropic drug that he was on because they
apparently diagnosed him with schizophrenia. And one of the things
that we've talked about on this podcast and on the
radio show for years is people that get their psychotropic
drugs changed or added to or whatever it might be,
have many, many, many stories of people that just went
wild and killed people that otherwise they were just fine,
but they want to switch them to some new psychotropic
drug and a lot of tragedies have come out of that.
Lauren Colin with la magazine has a little bit of
the update about what happened on that diagnosis for Nick Reiner.
Speaker 6: Right, well, I.
Speaker 11: Think what Alan Jackson is getting at here is that,
you know, they need this continuance for the arraignment that's
going to happen on January seventh, because number one, they're
either going to have a medical expert come in and
evaluate him and then enter an NGI plea, which would
be not guilty by insanity, or you know, they could
sit here and raise doubt as to his mental competence.
Does he understand these proceedings, Does he understand what's going on?
Did he understand what he did? And as far as
the schizophrenia diagnosis goes, yes, it has been reported that
he was recently diagnosed. His doctors are trying to stabilize
his medication. And while normally I'm not a doctor, but
schizophrenia doesn't cause you to commit violence.
Speaker 6: You are mixing non.
Speaker 11: Prescription drugs, which reportedly Nick was to quote self medicate
because nothing was working. This absolutely can exacerbate violence. And
what we are hearing here is that the scene the
master bedroom, and you know, I hate to say this,
but it was a gruesome scene.
Speaker 6: They were horrendously butchered.
Speaker 11: So I think that people want answers here, but also
you know, they want the truth, and the truth is
not going to be black and white.
Speaker 6: It's not going to be simple.
Speaker 11: I also think from the Reiner family statement his siblings
Romy and Jake, the way they worded this, the way
they asked for quote speculation to be tempered with compassion
and humanity, that tells me they love their brother. They
are devastated over the loss of their parents, but they
hired Alan Jackson to ensure that Nick is treated fairly.
I mean, as of right now, I don't necessarily see
this going to trial, but I think that if it did.
You know, I'm hearing rumors that this could be bigger
than OJI. And also, you know, it wouldn't be the
worst thing if if it did go to trial and
it was televised here, because look, I mean, I think
that we need to understand the depths of mental illness
and the struggles and what exactly happened here, because I
know that the internet can't help itself, but the amount
of finger pointing I am seeing at literally the Rhiner
family saying oh, they should have done this, they should
have done that. I mean, it is shocking. Look, he's
a nickas a thirty two year old man. You cannot
hold someone in a facility, you know, unless you prove
that they are a danger to themselves or to others.
Speaker 6: And clearly that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: A couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, every lawyer I've ever talked to on
this topic says that insanity plea is a very low
bar to try. It rarely worked, rarely rarely works. But
in this case, I've heard a number of lawyers that
are commenting about maybe this will be an insanity play.
And it really does come down to does he did
he know what he was doing? Does he know what
he's doing today? Can he participate in a trial? But
let me go back to this interview that I saw
play over the weekend, Larry King interviewing Rob Reiner thirty
years ago. And the reason I know it was thirty
years ago is Rob Reiner was talking about that he's
got two little boys at home, a five year old
named Jake and a three year old named Nick. And
I thought, well, okay, that was thirty years ago, because
he's thirty. What is he thirty something now?
Speaker 2: And what my.
Speaker 1: Biggest political disagreement with Rob Reiner was it had to
have been more than twenty years ago. I was living
in California and Rob Reiner came up with an idea
to fund early childhood education. And in this interview with
Larry King, he was promoting the fact that the first
three years and he says he had a five year old,
a three year old, and he says, the first three
years of a child's life determines the future, their future,
about keeping them from getting into drugs and crime. And
he was going on and on and on about the
first three years of a child's life is so critical,
and so he wanted to put money into early childhood education.
And the way he did it was he put something
on the California vote for the voters called Proposition ten.
And I looked it up recently. It's still in effect
to this day, but it was if it wasn't twenty,
it was thirty years ago when he came up with
this idea. And I said, it's dumb, because what the
way he was going to do it was he wanted
Californians to pass it tax on tobacco, all tobacco, cigarettes, pipes,
you name it, and the money from that tobacco tax
would fund the early childhood education that he felt was
so critical. And I don't mean to be flipping about it,
but obviously if that's true, and he was very particular
in caring about his little three year old. But something
happened between then and now where Nick obviously went off
the rails when he was the report when he was
in his teens. But the whole idea behind this proposition
ten what why scratch my head and opposed it was
because I said, so, what you're doing, Rob Ryder is
you're saying keep smoking all you smokers out there. In fact,
why don't you increase your smoking so that there'll be
more money for early childhood education. I said, that doesn't
make any sense, nonsensical, And then I said, well, what
happens if smoking dies off or is reduced by fifty percent,
then the money will be reduced, but you can bet
the programs won't be done away with no so the
taxpayers of California will have to pick up the cost.
And sure enough, smoking in the last thirty forty years
has reduced dramatically, and I'm sure these early childhood programs,
they're not closing those doors. So congratulations, it's another tax
that Californians are paying for. So I look at Rob Reiner.
His heart was in the right place, but he didn't
think about they're really promoting smokers to keep smoking, even
though you were against smoking, so that you could have
the money for the early childhood education.
Speaker 2: Struck me as crazy.
Speaker 1: Staying on the topic of getting cost down one of
the biggest problems with the economy right now. The economy
is doing well in so many areas, but housing cost
is it's out of control, and people can't afford to
buy homes. And the average age of the first time
home buyer is now forty years of age. So there
was a couple of ideas thrown around. Earlier this afternoon,
Steve Moore and Robert wolf Will, used to be the
CEO of UBS, the big Wall Street firm, talked about
how to get housing costs down. Here's Steve.
Speaker 12: Look, housing is up.
Speaker 2: But I want to make an important point.
Speaker 12: There are a lot of things that actually fell in
price in twenty twenty six. I was just looking at
the numbers. You know, things like motels and hotels. Airline
prices are down, this cell phone is and price televisions
are down, so a lot of things are down. Everybody's
focusing on the few things that are up in price,
like housing. Now, look, I have two sons rich that
are in the early thirties and they're having a hard
time being able to afford a new house. I was
able to buy my first house at thirty one, so
I feel their pain and a young people especially.
Speaker 2: I have a couple ideas.
Speaker 12: One is, we really look on a look at, you know,
the land use controls at the local level that are
not allowing outside of cities and within cities the kind
of housing.
Speaker 2: To be built that needs to be built.
Speaker 12: And second of all, an idea that I've floated to
Donald Trump is why not suspend that the capital gains
tax on the sale of a house so older people,
you know, who want to downsize can sell their house
and not get cream with a big tax bill. And
that would free up a lot of housing. And when
you have an increase of supply, something is price goes down.
Speaker 1: Well, I like Steve, but that idea about capital gains
isn't going to make a dent. It'll help a couple
of people, but for married couples filing jointly do you
know The way the taxes work on when you sell
your house is that you get a five hundred thousand
dollars profit before you have to pay any tax above that.
So if you sell your house for five hundred and
one thousand dollars more than what you paid for it,
then you will have to pay a tax on one
thousand dollars. It doesn't apply very many places. In the
higher expensive home markets in the country, you'll probably see
it more often than not. But most people don't have
a five hundred thousand dollars profit, So look at it
better than a poke in the eye. But I don't
think it'll make much of a difference. Robert Wolf again,
big Wall Street guy. This is his idea. So we
have a structural situation with housing that started.
Speaker 13: I mean, I was one of the executives at the
Lehman crisis at the FED two thousand and eight and nine,
when I was running UBS. That was the first shock
to the housing system in the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: The second shock was COVID.
Speaker 13: So one, we have literally a lack of construction that
happened over six years of the last fifteen number two houses,
a twenty five percent more expensive since twenty nineteen, predominantly
because of supply chain issues, COVID tariffs number three. The
average age of a new homeowners forty years old. Why
is that because the average homeowner now has to make
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars where the average earner
in our country makes eighty five thousand, So you have
to make forty percent more than the average earner. For
all those reasons, there's a structural issue. And when we've
tried the deregulation, I actually think ste these ideas interesting
in capital gains, but let me tell you why I
have I don't think that will really work because right
now you have people that locked in refinancing in mortgages
at three and four percent, and now the mortgage rate
is double that, So you're just not going to be
able to have that type of mobility where they going.
The rental income market is actually even more even lacks
more affordability than the homeowner market.
Speaker 2: So we're at this impasse.
Speaker 13: What we need to actually do is, in my opinion,
is we have to figure out a way to start
taking some of this commercial real estate and building more
homes where people can live with townhouses, condominians we just
have to get more supply going.
Speaker 1: I think is points are really well done. The fact
that we had the Great Recession in two thousand and
eight two thousand and nine, the housing market came to
a screeching halt. There was no construction for it least
two three four years in there, and then you had
COVID and everything shut down on the economy. So he's right. Six,
at least six of the last fifteen years home construction
was minimal at best, and so we're still trying to
play catch up with that, and I think that has
more damage. It did more damage to the housing market
and drove up the prices of existing homes because new homes,
new construction weren't coming on board, and so you had
a lack of supply and you had demand growing prices
of homes skyrocketed. So, like Steve said, if you own
a home, congratulations. If you don't own a home, it
will happen. It's going to take a lot more work
on your part to buy your first home. That's all
I can say. Wall Street today, Full market day today
and tomorrow and then Wednesday is Christmas Eve. Markets close
at one o'clock in the afternoon, but today regular market,
and again, like I said, regular market tomorrow. In fact,
it was so regular that the buyers came back and
started doing back into the AI trade as they call it.
Dow Jones Industrials up two hundred and twenty seven, the
Dow at forty eight thousand and three sixty two, the
S and P up forty four, the nat back up
one hundred and twenty one. That keeps rolling higher. A
gold new record high up ninety one dollars. Big game
for gold to four thousand and four seventy eight. We've
never seen it there. And the price of oil also
went up today almost a buck and a half to
just under fifty eight dollars for a barrel of oil.
That's it for today, Thank you for coming by. We
will be here again tomorrow and we hope to see
you then.