Speaker 1: And Hi, Welcome to the Big Podcast. Happy Thursday to you.
Today's the twenty ninth day of Take me a second,
twenty ninth day of January, Year of Our Lord, twenty
twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan. And while we
have a lot to go over, I was hoping to
wind down on Minnesota. It looks like I hope we're
going to be able to. Tom Holman had a news
conference earlier this morning, and I have some news about
the economy. We have some updates about whether or not
the government's going to shut down tomorrow night or not.
But I do want to start and then I've got
a personal sad moment that about Tesla, and we'll unveil
all of that.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk has an announcement that we'll play for you. Meantime.
Speaker 1: Let's start with with Alex Pretty, who is the man
who was shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis
last Saturday. By now, everybody knows about the story. But
last yesterday evening, a new videotape was released and it
went back eleven days before mister Pretty was shot and killed.
And one of the things that we did see in
the first video was that he was out in the
middle of the state and he was waving at cars
through to get through, but he was staying far back
from where the agents were apparently operating to do some
sort of pickup of some illegal so he wasn't close by.
Speaker 2: But he ran up.
Speaker 1: After he waved a couple of cars through, he ran
up the middle of the street to where the agents
were and they were going after two women. One of
the women they knocked down, and that's when mister Preddy
got involved and tried to help the woman, and then
they got on him, and then he fought them, and
the rest of the story has said, but we know
what happened. He was killed eleven days before. There's a
video of him. By the way, let me stop there,
because what we have learned about about Alex Pretty is
that he was an ICU nurse, worked for at the
VA hospital. He worked with veterans, He did all these
nursed all these wonderful things, and so he was portrayed
us and everybody that knew him came out and said,
what a wonderful man. It was very calm, he was quiet,
he wasn't violent, he wasn't any of that. And then
all of a sudden last night, we get this tape
of him from eleven days before. It was at a
location a couple of miles away from where he eventually
was killed this last Saturday, so a couple of miles away,
different situation, and he is having some confrontation with federal
agents Ice Border patrol I don't know, but they were
federal agents and he's They're getting in their car and
he spits at them. They closed the door, they start
to pull away, and he's ticking the side of their
car and running again, kicking it again, kicking the tail
light off of the automobile, doing physical damage. I mean
with the way the cost of getting car body repair
where probably one hundred dollars worth of damage, maybe more.
And so that did it. They stopped, they got out,
they went and they grabbed him, and that's where the
tape ended. But what I've got a couple of reactions
to that. First of all, he obviously is a man
that is not necessarily nonviolent. That was a very violent
thing to do. Have you ever gone up and started
kicking at cars somebody's car while they're in the car
and then doing damage to it, I would expect they
would stop and get out and you would have a confrontation.
But I mean, this was a guy who obviously has
another side to him other than the calm, cool, wonderful,
icy unurse. He had a violent streak to him. I mean,
it's I've seen people well, I mean, I know this
is ridiculous, but it's true. I spent most of a
day with OJ Simpson number of years ago. He was
very nice, he was polite, He's a nice man. He
also happened to murder his ex wife and a waiter.
So I mean, you can have somebody that's perfectly nice
and calm, maybe ninety percent of the time. But boy,
something got this guy going and he was active about
this whole thing about ice. He wasn't sitting around in
his home. He was out trying to violently protest against
these guys. So that changes the story somewhat. Now, there's
a lot of people that view today came out and
said no relationship to the fact that they murdered him
eleven days later. Yes, it does. It says that the guy.
When I was in law enforcement, there were always not always,
but there was a lot of people who wanted to
be involved. They wanted to they didn't like cops or
they wanted to support the police, but they were in
your way. They got in your way. They were playing cop.
This guy was playing I don't know, do Gooder or whatever.
Obviously there was another side to Alex pretty that showed
up in this second second videotape, and so did it
relate because it was two miles away and eleven days later.
A lot of people are going, no, it had no relationship.
Yes it did. It showed that the guy had a
violent streak in him. I think it makes a big difference.
So that's changing the tone of Alex PRATDIY. The fact
he was spitting at these agents and then kick the
tail light off certainly showed violence, and I will criticize
him for that. I will also criticize the agents. This
is where I go. They didn't seem like they were
well trained. If you're gonna stop, get out and go
grab the person who is damaging your vehicle, these are
law enforcement officers. They knocked him down, they wrestled with him.
The video stopped. I don't know whatever happened, but they
did not arrest him. And I'm telling you, if you're
a police officer and you're gonna put your hands on somebody,
it's only to arrest them. You don't put your hands
on citizens unless you are going to take them into custody.
And so they did not. And if they had taken
him into custody, maybe he would have not been standing
out there in the middle of the road this past Saturday.
So he was wrong. The agents, I think were wrong.
They should have arrested him. Both of them handled the
situation I think poorly. But the big news today is
really from Tom Holman. Holman's in town in Minneapolis. He
let me play just a couple. I edited it down
for time, but let me just play a couple of
the clips from Tom Holman's news conference earlier this morning.
Speaker 3: President in the United States call me Monday morning and
asked me to deploy here. Got here on Monday evening
and I'm staying. So the problem's gone. But we've made
a lot of progress, a lot of progress last week.
The bottom line is, you can't fix problems if you
don't have discussions. I didn't come to Minnesota for photo
ops or headlines. You haven't seen me. I came here
to seek solutions, and that's what we're going to do.
One thing we did agree on. Though everybody had talked
to agreed on, it's a community safety's paramount. One thing
we all agreed on was US Immigration customers force them
as a legitimate law enforce agency that has a duty
to enforce the laws and act in my Congress, I
keep this community safe. To be clear, we did not
agree with Minnesota state and local officials that they would
be involved in immigration enforcement. I didn't ask them to
beam of grace officers. I'm asking them the cops. Working
with the cops, I hope to stake criminal aliens up
the street. What we did agree upon is not to
release public stafety rest back in the community and they
could be lawfully transferred ized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting point because Mayor Fry keeps repeating over
and over again he wants ICE out of Minneapolis because
he wants to keep the people in Minneapolis safe. Well,
what about these criminals that are wanted, that have committed
crimes that are in Minneapolis. I guess he's okay with
keeping them there. So it looks like Holman made some progress.
Let me continue.
Speaker 3: I had a very good meeting with Attorney General Attorney
General Helison, and he has clarify for me at county
jails may notify ICE other release dates of criminal public
safety ristks so ICE can take cussion upon the release
in the jail.
Speaker 2: That is a big breakthrough.
Speaker 1: They are now going to notify ICE about people that
are in their jails that are here illegally and are
about to be released. That is a huge change on
the part of Minnesota officials.
Speaker 3: Homan continues, rhetoric and dangerous threats and hate must stop,
and we all agreed to that. All everybody met to
tay we can't. We got to stop the record. I
begged for the last two months on TV for the
rhetoric to stop. I said in March that the rhetoric
doesn't stop, but it's going to be bloodshed, and there has.
I wish I wasn't right. I don't want see anybody die.
Gun officers, not members of the community, and not the
targets of our operations.
Speaker 1: So it was good for Tom Holman to change up people, UH,
to send Greg Bovino back to the border. That's where
he does his best work. I think he he was
the reason why the border is sealed. So he's very
good at that. He just not very good at what
was happening in Minneapolis, and so Holman even said they're
going to do their operations by the book, and he's
the kind of kind of leader that will require that
the officers under him will do their operations by the book.
They will wind down the number of immigration officers, ICE officers,
Border patrol officers in Minneapolis as they get proof of
the fact that the jails are going to notify ICE
to come to the jails and in the calm and
quiet of a jail transfer the prisoners over to federal custody.
There won't be any ruckus, no riots, no protesters. It
will just be done by the book. It's the way
it's been done for a long time up until in
recent times. So Steve Moore, former FBI supervisor, was asked
what he thought about Homan's comments today.
Speaker 4: Well, I was kind of led to believe that we
were doing targeted operations exclusively, so apparently they had gotten
away from that. I think that was one of my
big takeaways.
Speaker 2: The other one was the.
Speaker 4: Was the decision they say to avoid ICE agents becoming
involved with agitators, and again I don't think that was
ever their intent, but it was allowed to happen, and
I think that's a large part of why we are
where we are now.
Speaker 1: He was referring to what Holman was talking about the
fact that the targeted operations. I forget the exact word,
but he basically indicated we got away from that. In
other words, they were not doing just targeted operations, and
they're going to go back to that.
Speaker 4: You know, it's hard to say by what he means
by that, but you know, in the targeted enforcement and
with Sarah or I believe one of your other people
on the last segment said they used to do this
at like three in the morning.
Speaker 2: Get up. Yeah, and as you saw, you didn't see
the sun out when you did that.
Speaker 4: In all of my years on FBI SWAT, I don't
think of a planned operation that started while the sun
was out. And the reason is, you want to get
your job done, you want to have minimum interference, and
you want to go home. You don't want to stay
out there and continue to just be a target. And
I was a little bit confused as to why they
were doing targeted operations all day. And you know the
other thing, it's it's sometimes hard to get warrants for
nighttime operations.
Speaker 1: So Holman did mention that they were definitely going to
continue their operations, are going to be hold on, let
me reach pat myself on the back. They're going to
wind it down, but they're not going to stop their
operations of looking for illegal criminals that are in this country.
And the other part about it was that the people
that are funding a lot of the professional protesters that
are making life difficult for law enforcement to operate in Minneapolis.
He says that they will bring justice to those funding
the violence. He repeated that a couple of times, so
they're finding out who it is it's writing the checks
to get the protesters out there to interfere with with
the federal operations. Although going back again to mister pretty
the fact that I think he was just one of
those overly I excited about everything and wanted to get
in the middle of stopping Ice on his own. I
don't think anybody was funding him. But the big takeaway
for me was that the Attorney General has agreed to
detainer notices. That should change things rapidly. That should give
Tom Homan the reason to pull back a lot of
their federal officers that are in Minneapolis. I think it'll
quiet it down overnight. I hope and pray. So with that,
we've got the shutdown that's supposed to take place tomorrow night,
Friday night at eleven to fifty nine pm, and the
Democrats are saying that they're not going to In the Senate,
the House has already passed the budget bills. The appropriations
bills are broken down by various government entities. They've done
all but six. There's six more to go. So the
one of the deals being talked about behind the scenes
is passing five of the six, and the one that
involves Department of Homeland Security, they'll do some sort of
continuing resolution. That's kind of the buzz coming out of
out of the Republican Democrat and negotiations in the Senate.
The point that's worth repeating though, is that ICE has
already been funded through twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security has a lot of different things
like FEMA, and right now with the big storm that
came through the South and the East and another one
coming up this next weekend, FEMA would probably like to
be funded and not be shut down. TSA. Those blue
shirts at the airport, they always have to go without pay,
so they may go without pay. Maybe some of them
will call in sick, and you're going to have more
trouble at the airport. But I already been funded. So
the Democrats are trying to make a point, and it's
just they're trying to just get more something out of
the Republicans in order for them to sign off on this.
I wish they would just sign off and we move
on with the government operated. But we may get a
partial shutdown. I don't remember having any impact, and I
know number of you probably did. The last time we
had the shutdown. It did not impact me one iota,
and I'm sure I'm not alone. So if they do
a partial shutdown, I doubt that many people are actually
going to feel the impact of a government shutdown. But
there are some Democrats that are on their high horse
about Ice and the funding bill. And the thing about
it is is the House has already passed all of
the appropriation's bills. This is totally in the Senate. But
Seth Magazine or he's a Democrat from Rhode Island, he's
on his high horse about Ice.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to vote for another dime of Homeland
Security funding until there are real reforms included in the bill.
Look Republicans have control of the House. They can pass
it whatever they want with Republican votes, and they already have.
That's my feeling again, speaking for myself. I'm not speaking
for our leadership or anyone else. The other funding bills, fine,
already voted for those. We should pass the others. But
we cannot take the administration at its word and take them.
You know, when they say that they're promising to make reforms.
We need it in writing in law, and I'm not
going to vote for any other funding until I see
that language in the bill.
Speaker 1: So he's not being reasonable, Like he said. The House
has already passed it, So what's he talking about. He's
in the House, They've already passed the appropriations bills, so
he somehow wants to make sure that they don't they
do something about reforming a government agency in twenty four hours.
Is this guy on smoking something? I mean, it doesn't
make any sense to me. There's another story floating around
today that doesn't make a lot of sense. It comes
down to the state of Georgia, and it comes down
to the twenty twenty election. And remember that's the state
where Donald Trump called up Brad Rasenberger the Secretary of
State and was looking for I forget the number, but
a few thousand votes that he needed in order to
make it so that he would win Georgia. So Georgia
has been in the crosshairs of the president ever since
because they said, sorry, we have We've looked, and they
went and they did another audit, they did another, they
did three audits. And the state has a Republican governor,
has a Republican secretary of State, and they still could
not find a way to give Georgia to Donald Trump
in twenty twenty. So obviously the President has dispatched. Maybe
Cash Betel did it on his own, maybe he's just saying,
I know the Boss will like this. But the FBI
showed up at the department that does voter records in
Georgia and they took out seven hundred boxes of twenty
twenty ballots. Today, the FBI is doing the search. The
strange part about this story is the D and I
that a Director of National Intelligence, Tulsei Gabbard, was on
the scene kind of supervising this whole thing. What's she
doing there? It's got everybody scratching their head, going, do
they have I mean, if it's d and I then
do they have a foreign entity that somehow is involved
in fixing the election? In twenty twenty, Elliott William's former
federal prosecutor weighs in.
Speaker 6: It is not part of her job unless there's some
evidence or knowlexpidus, because I don't really quite know what
they're looking for because these issues have been so well
trod over the last six years at this point. Now
is there some national security and access to what they
think they're finding in this election office in Georgia? I
don't know, but certainly this is the kind of thing
that the FBI, if anybody in the federal government wild investigating,
the FBI would have it under control. So why the
Director of National Intelligence is there is a little bit odd.
Speaker 2: So it's a mystery. Why was she there?
Speaker 1: And with all of the investigations that have done about
Georgia in the past, and the court cases and the
civil lawsuits and everything else, Elliott Williams is kind of
scratching his head, going he doesn't know what this is
all about. It's a mystery.
Speaker 6: I have no idea what's going on. And you know,
forgive me for just giving such an inconclusive answers on
But think about the number of times that various people,
both inside and outside of the executive branch the White House,
have looked at this issue. Multiple lawsuits have been filed
by the President and people around him alleging some sort
of fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, and they were all
or overwhelmingly dismissed as not having grounds to succeed. The
president's former Attorney General, William Barr, also looked into this issue,
and he himself found that there was not evidence or
to support allegations of widespread fraud in Fulton County, Georgia.
It's just simply not there. Based on all of the
entities that have looked at this, now, it seems that
there's a little bit of a grievance mission here happening
from President who has been outspoken about his concerns about
the leadership in Fulton County, Georgia, and how that was
one of the entities that prosecuted him. That may be
what's going on here, just a vendetta against these folks
in Georgia. But as of right now on January what
is it, twenty ninth, twenty twenty six, there simply has
not been evidence of widespread voter irregularities or fraud in
Fulton County, Georgia in the twenty twenty election. It just
isn't or hasn't been demonstrated to be there yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what are they looking for? Are they going
to demonstrate it now?
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't matter which side of the aisle
you're on regarding you think the twenty twenty election was
stolen or not. This is just stirs up the whole
mystery part of it one more time, all right. The economy,
we have a couple of things. Came out for a
Thursday morning initial job as claims two hundred and nine thousand.
It's about word where it's been lately, a little bit
more than what was estimated. Third quarter productivity exactly what
was expected four point nine percent. Productivity is way up,
which is helping a lot of companies turn in some
pretty nice profits. Our trade deficit, even though we've got
all these tariffs going worldwide, trade deficit went way up
to fifty six billion, up from forty two billion. So
trade deficit is not changing because of the tariffs. Roger Ferguson,
former Vice Chair of the FED, was asked if he
was surprised by the fact that the Fed did not
cut interest rates at their meeting, that they announced the
unchanged interest rates yesterday.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's absolutely right. It was no surprise to me,
to be fair, is no surprise to the market. What
I did find interesting was a general upgrade in the
tone of how they see the economy, and then the
ward stabilization at Steve just mentioned being applied to the
labor market after several meetings where that was an area
of great concern, and so probably the market I think
took all this astride. I think initially they're just going
to stamp pat That's the first thing I was trying
to signal. He when I asked the question, he did
suggest that, you know, a great increase was not the
base case, and he also laid out at least his
own personal judgment that if things don't play out and
the labor market continues to weaken, they'd be open to
another cut. So I don't think there's a strong bias
one way or the other. But I don't think they're
ready yet to talk about a pivot to raising rage.
I think it's a stamp pad for a few meetings
for sure, and now will see what happens.
Speaker 1: So speaking of the economy, we are also awaiting a
lot of earnings rewards coming out of the techs world today.
Apple they just announced moments ago that their sales jumped,
powered by what they called staggering iPhone Man. Their iPhone
that they're out with right now seems to be a
hot number, So good for Apple. Tesla came out with
their earnings last night and Elon Musk I started the
podcast by saying, there's a very I'm unhappy. Let me
put it that way. I have told this audience that
I am on I believe my fourth Tesla. I leased
them for three years, so four times three. I'm not
quite twelve years, but maybe eleven years into owning Teslas
or leasing Teslas. And the reason I started leasing them,
I wasn't sure if the company was going to be around.
Well they're still around, but on the earnings call last night,
Elon Musk made an announcement that I kind of thought
was going to happen, but it's still I'm very disappointed.
Here's Elon's call from last night, basically saying they are
going to stop making the S model and the X model.
I've had the S ever since day one. Is it's
the top of the line Tesla, it's their luxury model.
Speaker 2: I love that car. That's why I'm on my fourth one.
And they're going to stop making them AH.
Speaker 4: And the X.
Speaker 1: They're going to do both of them and instead listen
to what he wants to do with the factory where
they currently make the Model S and the Model ACT.
Speaker 8: And then I guess I have like one. I guess
it's not exactly it's it's not exactly bad news, but
it's it's a it's it's it's what. It's time to
basically bring the Model S n X programs to an
end with an honorable discharge because we're really moving into
a future that is based on autonomy and and so
if if you're interested in buying a Model SNX, now
would be the time to order it, because we expect
to wind down SNX production in the next quarter and
uh and and basically self production of Model SNX next quarter.
We will obviously continue to support the Model sn X
programs for as long as people have the vehicles, but
we're going to take the Model SNX production space in
our Freemont factory and convert that into an Optimist factory,
which will with the long term goal of having a
million units a year of Optimists robots in the current
SX space in Fremont.
Speaker 3: So that is.
Speaker 8: Slightly sad, but it's but it is it is. It
is time to bring the SX programs to an end
and shift shift. Really, it's part of our overall shift
to an autonomous future.
Speaker 1: I feel like you pulled the rugout from underneath me.
I have never had a better automobile, and they're going
to stop making them. So where am I? Where am
I going to go? Where else can I get a
car that's as good as the Tesla Model S. I
haven't bought some of the smaller models. I know some
of you are you love your smaller Teslas. I prefer
the Model S. And the factory is he kept talking
about Freemont. Fremont is a little small city in the
San Francisco Bay areas. That's the first factory for Tesla.
And so they are going to make these these robots there.
Hold on, let me get the announcement out here phasing
out Model S and X and they were introduced twenty
twelve in twenty fifteen, respectively. And what they're going to
do is focus their efforts on robo taxis and humanoid robots.
They're called the Optimist line of robots, and these are humanoid.
So we're not talking about the kind of robots you
see in the factory. These are the kinds of humanoids
that act and look kind of like we do. And
he wants to make in this factory one million humanoid
robots a year.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know Elon is out there, and I know he
thinks differently than most of us do, but I'm going
do we really are you? Are you in the in
the market for a humanoid robot?
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I what are you going to do with a humanoid robot?
I mean, so, I'm all upset about what's going on
with Tesla, but people are going to bet on Elon
and his and his vision and his genius.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: The stock was up on the announcement. Meantime, talking about
the stock market, the Dow did not go far, but
it was positive. It finished up fifty five. The Dow
at forty nine thousand and seventy one, SMP five hundred down,
nine NASDAK down one hundred and seventy two. Gold is
unbelievable up another one hundred and twenty dollars, new record
high at setting records in leaps and bounds five thousand
and four to twenty five for one ounce of gold,
and the price of oil also climbing up two and
a quarter up to sixty five dollars and some change
for one barrel of oil. So that's it for today.
Thank you for coming by. We will be back again tomorrow,
and I'll be by myself. I won't have my humanoid
robot with me. I hope, however, to see you. We'll
try it again tomorrow. We'll see you.
Speaker 3: The h