Speaker 1: And hello, how are you welcome? Welcome to the Big
Podcast on this Tuesday. Today is the twentieth day of January,
Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. So yep, this is every four years on
this day we do inauguration Day. So that means it's
been one year to the day that Donald Trump is
into his second term. I know it goes by fast,
but if you stop and you think about it a lot,
there's a lot of people today talking about what happened
in the last year. The Democrats are grumbling, the Republicans
are all thrilled. But it's it's and so we've got that.
Plus go back to April to the Liberation Day. Remember
this stock market took a big dive. Well did it again?
Because the President has come out on this whole business
about Greenland and he has said, you know, I'm going
to put tariffs on eight European countries if you don't
go along with the United States, basically getting Greenland and
Europe's man. And the President is well, when we sort
through all this today, I think what you'll learn is
that the President is it's his style. I've told you before.
I agree with about eighty percent. I don't know, some
number like that. A decent majority of the things that
President Trump has done or is trying to do, I'm
with him, but I'm against about eighty percent of the
way he does it. But that's him. I'm not him,
you're not him. He's a unique cat. He really goes
out and in order to negotiate something, he goes right
to the top hilt of whatever it is out there
that he wants to negotiate. So we'll get into that.
We've got Greenland, we've got the economy, we've got the
markets taking a big dive today because of all the tariffs,
the ten percent tariffs which go into effect on the
European nations on February first, and twenty five percent tariffs
which going to effect if we don't have Greenland by
June first. So we've got all that little bit of
update out of Minnesota. The game, the football game last
night for the college football Championship. Congratulations Indiana. It was
it was the toughest They've been rolling over everybody, but
they did not roll over Miami. Miami put up a very, very,
very tough game. But let's start with looking back a
year and on the economy, and it's well, there's I mean,
you can go through a lot of it. Basically, inflation
is about where it was a year ago. The unemployment
rate is actually higher than where it was a year ago.
Interest rates on today's news about the terrorists on Europe,
the stock market took a dive, and guess what bonds did.
They went down to, which meant interest rates went up.
Mortgage rates were starting for the first time to get
there was a five, a very high five, but a
five in front of the average mortgage rate last week.
And now they're based off of the ten year treasury bond,
and now the tenuere went up today. Interest rates went up,
so that means that the mortgage market is probably going
to look at this and go, well, there goes interest
rates again going the wrong direction. So there's a lot
to talk about. Robert Wolf, who used to run ubs
here in America, and Steve Moore, economists out of Washington,
had commits earlier today about where and how the economy's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, first of all, Liberation Day was chaotic and crazy
and the execution was poorly and everyone said that the
Republicans and the Democrats. So what I would say is yes,
the market has gone up, but the glass could be
half full of half empty, depending who speak to manufacturing
jobs and down almost one hundred thousand for the last
twelve months. You look at today's announcement on tariffs. Yes,
the stock market didn't like. Okay, right now, our biggest
trading partners are France and Germany and the European Union
and they're not happy today. And this approach with tarifs
over Greenland. I don't think it is a smart approach.
The market doesn't think it is a smart approach. Besson
can gaslight everyone he wants and say everyone stand by.
But today affordability is getting hit. Mortgage prices have backed up. Okay,
I guarantee. With rates backing up, that's not a good sign.
And people are selling America. So to Marth's point, yes,
he's acting like a bull in a China shop and
I'm hopefully that long run it works. But day to day,
this undue volatility is not good for business. And that
thinks a trading war with the European Union is a
good right now. Look, you're right, today is a down
day on the market, but you know, the market's up a.
Speaker 1: Lot in the last year.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking a very market economy, Steve, I'm not
talking about the stock market. Just like the Wall Street
Journal said, ninety six percent of tariffs have been paid
by American companies and American consumers. Let's quick gaslighting the
Americans that even you say, Steve, it's a tax on
the consumer. You've said it a thousand times. So how
is tarish today a good thing? No more tarish today
a good thing? Just to answer that question, is it
a good thing or not?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not a big fan. I'm not a big
fan of Terrist, but look at the You got to
look at it in total, and it's looking really good.
Speaker 3: When was the last time we saw five percent growth?
Speaker 2: Robert, I think that's a fair point to make.
Speaker 1: Well, that comment about from Steve Moore about five or
ten growth, we haven't seen it yet. The Atlanta Fed,
which has very noisy numbers, even Scott Besson the troysure sector.
Let me pull that clip out here because even he
started off talking about the fact that the Atlanta Fed
has noisy numbers. Listen to what Listen to what Scott
Besson has to say.
Speaker 4: The Atlanta Sted GDP now number, which is very noisy
number is now reading five point three because remember the
fourth quarter gdpluded included the Schumer shutdown, so some of
that will be pushed into the first quarter. So I'm
expecting that we could be well over well north to three,
and we'll have inflation coming down. As you said, productivity
is very high, and we have measured inflation and observed inflation,
and with the observed inflation, I think we can see
that prices already down and that will trickle into the
CPI and the PCE, which the Fed looks at.
Speaker 1: He started off by the noisy numbers from the Atlanta Fed.
They really are because they include gold and other things
in their numbers. But bottom line is, most economists say
twenty twenty six is going to be a very good
year for the economy to grow. How they handle the
pre ices, and they're still high, they should be lower,
But trying to lower prices isn't really the goal. The
goal is to get people's wages higher. Yet there seems
to be a little tiny crack in the labor numbers
that show that there is maybe a softening, and if so,
then you're not going to get big pay raises. If
companies aren't all that interested in hiring anyway. The bottom
line is back to Robert Wolf and Steve Moore, is
that mortgage prices were coming down now on this announcement
about the tariffs. And we were also waiting today to
see if the Supreme Court was going to report their
ruling on the tariffs, on whether the president has the
power to enact tariffs or is that something that can
only be done by Congress. And the other day mister
Wonderful was talking about and I agree with him one
hundred percent. I think what we're the Supreme Court is
going to come down to pure speculation on my part,
is that they will say for reciprocal tariffs, the power
the president has the power to do that. In other words,
if Japan charges us five percent for their products, we
can charge them five percent for our products. But the
President Trump uses it, just like this business about Greenland,
to enact behavior from another country. Not based on he's
going to He's going to punish the European countries, our
biggest trading partners. By the way, the EU is a
bigger trading partner than Canada or Mexico or anybody even China.
So the EU is really critical when it comes to trade.
So the President is going to punish them unless they
get on board with the United States somehow owning trolling.
I don't know Greenland, so you know the whole debate there.
Let's top Greenland for a minute. It's also starting to
make more sense to me that Greenland is not just
a little a lot strategic, I mean very, very important,
and what President Trump is trying to do is keep
it from falling into the hands of Russia or China,
not today, but twenty years, thirty years down the road.
Plus they've got a bunch of rare earth minerals and
who knows what else. Mike Lawler, who is a Republican
Congressman from New York, this is his idea about Greenland.
Speaker 5: Look, I think there is broad bipartisan opposition in Congress
to any use of force. But I think the President
has made an important point about the importance of Greenland
strategically and from the standpoint of national and global defense,
and especially in relation to NATO. The oil tanker that
was seized off the coast of Iceland. That oil tanker
came from Iran, went to Venezuela and was headed to Russia.
This unholy alliance that has been brought over the last
few years by China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea and
others has sought to destabilize the US, Europe and the
free world. And what the President is focused on extensively
is pushing back against that malign influence in our region.
We already have military presence on Greenland. I think if
the end result is a greater cooperation with NATO and
increased in the long run, that is a good deal.
If there was an opportunity to negotiate a sale, as
in the past with Alaska or the Louisiana purchase, this
is not a new concept, great but the use of
military force, in my opinion, should be off the table.
I do not think that is in our interest and
certainly not that of our allies.
Speaker 1: I could play clips of twenty five other people basically
the same thing, going, no, we're not going to do
the military thing, but we really do want to have
some sort of control more than control, and make them,
like I said yesterday, maybe like Guam a territory. In fact,
the President posted on Truth's Social an AI version of
him standing with JD. Vance and Marco Rubio as the
President putting a sign into the earth and it says
Greenland Territory of the United States two thousand, twenty six.
So maybe that's what it will be, will be a territory.
And again the President's point is Denmark isn't doing anything
to help the people of Greenland to support them financially.
Greenland cannot financially stand on their own. They need somebody,
They need a sugar daddy somewhere to basically support that country.
There's fifty seven thousand people that live in Greenland, most
of it is ice, but they need somebody. And so
we would rather it be US than Denmark because Denmark
isn't really helping them along. Here's the President last night
on the airport apron talking about Denmark or about Greenland.
I don't think they're going to push back too much.
Speaker 6: Sick.
Speaker 3: We have to have it.
Speaker 7: They have to have this done.
Speaker 1: They can't protected Jed Clark.
Speaker 7: They're wonderful people, and I know the leaders are very
good people, but they don't even go there.
Speaker 1: And you know, because.
Speaker 7: About what they're five hundred years ago and then left.
That doesn't give you title to property. So we'll be
talking about it with the various people.
Speaker 1: Well, he'll be talking about it tomorrow morning. The President
tonight is taking off for Davos, Switzerland, and usually Davos
is a bore of a bunch of business executives around
the world, basically going off to play, but they are
actually the world leaders are there. President Trump is going
to be there and apparently he's going to give a
speech tomorrow morning, but then after that it's going to
I think he's staying for a day or two, and
after that it's meeting after meeting, after meeting with all
the European leaders about what to do. So I expect
we should get an announcement coming out of that. Back
to Scott Besson talking specifically about Greenland.
Speaker 4: I think the President is worried that if there were
an incursion into Greenland, the US would be called upon
to defend Greenland. Greenland's becoming more and more attractive for
the foreign conquest, and he very strongly believes that it
must be part of the United States to prevent a
conflict rather than getting the US engaged in expost into
a hot conflict.
Speaker 1: And if you remember him, Gordon Sunland, he was the
former EU ambassador in Trump one point zero but she
I think made a very good point about why it
would be smart to have more control over Greenland. Here's
Gordon Sland.
Speaker 8: Let's clear up a couple of things. First of all,
the United States is not going to take Greenland by force.
This is an issue that President Trump brought up in
his first term through his ambassador to Greenland, and it
is becoming a more critical piece of real estate given
our future alliance on Golden Dome and our future alliance
on rare earths. What President Trump is trying to do
is to focus the EU on its importance and preemptively
box out Russia and China if we did nothing, if
we just held the status quo. He's absolutely correct. There
is virtually no defense of the island, and very very insidiously,
all of a sudden, you could wake up one day
and someone has built a weather station or a dock
or an outpost, and then you have to engage one
of our adversaries directly to kick them off. What he's
trying to do is foreclose all of that and immediately
folk the Europeans on this issue as we start investing
billions and billions of dollars in a very novel and
effective defense system. He's not doing a great job of
explaining what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not doing the normal let me tell you
what I plan on doing. That's his style, and a
lot of people don't get it that he will create
all kinds of havoc to basically get to the point
where he gets them into negotiations to get what he
eventually wants. Someone goes on about that.
Speaker 8: Well, that's the Trumps style, and I'm not going to
try to explain or apologize. But let me tell you something.
There are going to be numerous meetings in Davos between
Trump and our allies, and I predict something will come
out of Davos or shortly thereafter that will more greatly
solidify our position in Greenland, make it clear that Russia
and China have no place in Greenland of any kind
in the future, not even the teeny tiniest bit of
claim on that island. And that's what Trump is trying
to do. He's looking at ten or twenty or thirty
years from now. He's not looking at tomorrow. And no,
we're not going to fight NATO, we're not going to
fight the EU, and we're not pulling out of NATO either.
The Europeans are always offended by everything. And you know,
if I had to count how many time ambassador.
Speaker 1: So the reporter was saying, don't you think, don't you think?
Don't you think what he said was offensive? And something
goes of course it was.
Speaker 8: Of course it's offensive. That's his playbook and you've been
watching the Sarah for years. That's how he gets these
people focused. They have a long and treasured history of
playing ropodope on every issue and on every subject save
two issues, and two subjects. One is regulation. They can
move rapidly to pass additional regulations, and they can move
rapidly to increase their taxes. Other than that, they move
glacially on every other issue. And what Trump is trying
to do is he's checking his watch, not his calendar.
But yes, you're correct, of course they're offended. But in
that offense comes a meeting and comes an outcome, and
that's what he wants, and he wants the outcome in
days and weeks, not in decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the more I listen to some of these
people about what Donald Trump is doing, and obviously Sutherland
was was an ambassador in Trump one point. Oh, he
knows Trump and he knows how Trump works. And it
may be offensive, it may be brash, it may be bold,
and when you first hear what he has to say
is shocking and many times many cases, but you sit
back and watch a little bit and listen a little bit,
and pretty soon you figure out what he is up to.
Even Christa Nunu, the former governor of New Hampshire, said
that again that is just Donald Trump's style.
Speaker 3: Is Greenland important yes? Is it a strategic asset yes?
Is it at risk with Russia and John yes? So
should we do more there to secure that? Absolutely? But
with the president, a lot of us say, well, what
are the methods here? Are we going to have military action?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: But like everything with the President, we're here, he's going
to start ociating up here. He's going to go to
the kind of the most extreme, try to find some
sort of middle ground.
Speaker 1: I think that was well said. He goes to the
most extreme and then people all are in shock, and
then they find a way to meet some agreement. So
kind of speaking about tariffs, so everybody was kind of
biting their nails this morning because the Supreme Court at
ten o'clock in the morning is when they finally released
whatever they're going to rule on, and everybody was thinking
they're going to do the tariffs ruling today, aren't they
And Nope, they did not. That's going to be important.
Like I said, I think they are going to give
the president the power to go ahead with reciprocal tariffs,
but I don't know about using tariffs for non financial reasons.
Jonathan Turley was kind of weighing in on the fact
that if the president, if the White House loses and
the Supreme Court says that he doesn't have the power
to do tariffs, they've got a lot of plan bs
ready to go.
Speaker 10: Well, you know if it's been against the administration, because
this act called IEPA is essentially silent on this particular power.
But I think people were really taking it back during
the oral argument when the Solicitor General's Office, I thought,
did an extraordinary job and they pointed out to this
court that the predecessor of DIEPA had these very same words.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the IEPA he's talking about, that's the acronym for
the Emergency Act that the President's been issuing the tariffs
based on that there's been a national emergency and when
the case went before. When the Supreme Court heard the case,
there were a lot of the justices that were going,
I don't know about this emergency. So again, it did
not happen today. So I'm reporting to you on something
that did not happen. It will be soon, we hope.
I'm sure the president's hoping. So we want to talk
a little bit about Virginia because there has been a
change in the management in the great State of Virginia.
Glenn Youngkin left office on Saturday, and the new Governor
of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger. She took the oath of office
on Saturday and immediately sat down very trumpy. She issued
ten new executive orders, and like a good Democrat, she
increased taxes on a whole list of things. So for
those of you in Virginia, congratulations, you're going to be
paying more. And I thought they were griping about affordability.
So she raises taxes on all kinds of things. She
also is pushing a new congressional map to try and
make it so that redistricting if you will get more
Democrats to be elected from Virginia. If She also said
that abortion will be decided by the voters she's been
telling while she ran for Virginia governor and won. She
told the people of Virginia that the Democrats were running
the wrong kind of campaign, that they needed to shift
to the middle. But instead she raises taxes. She wrote
one of the executive orders was she was ending cooperation
with Ice, and then that she says is the first
step toward a sanctuary state. So that's yeah, she thinks
that is somehow running in the middle. But I guess
from where she stands. I guess. So Virginia is a
blue state. It's a light blue state, and they haven't
done well. They had poor growth and poor business tax
and regulatory rules until Glenn Youngkin came along, and he
was a business guy, and he turned it around in
his wanted minute. It's a one term deal in Virginia.
He turned the state around for the first time in
ten years. More people moved to Virginia last year than
moved away to the other forty nine stints. And he
said common sense works. So the rank number one as
the list of top states for business. On education, Youngkin
ended COVID era mandates, decreased chronic absenteeism, ended critical race theory,
in schools. He won his election on giving more power
to the parents on the school children. So now the
question is what's Glenn Youngkin going to do? Because he
left office on Saturday and he had an amazingly good
four years, so already people are buzzing about is he
possibly one of the candidates to run for president in
two thousand and twenty eight. So we'll find out together,
But right now he hasn't said. I think he could
win a lot of moderate Democrat voters, so and he's
not a far far righty so he would pick up
a lot of the Republicans and a lot of the
a number of Democrats, which is what you have to
do if you're going to win a statewide national race
like president. Since we're speaking of states, we can't leave
out Minnesota. No, it's nothing changed, not really, but this
was rather surprising. Keith Ellison, he was the attorney general
in Minnesota. He's a lawyer, he was a congressman from Minnesota,
and he's been the attorney general for quite some time.
He should know the law. There's something called the Face Act,
which basically said was back in the nineties that it
was a law that basically said you cannot obstruct abortion
clinics for ladies that want to go in and get
an abortion. You can't do that. It's against the law.
And you also can't obstruct people in the house of worship.
So the Face Act is pretty simple, but Keith Ellison
did not seem to know anything about it.
Speaker 11: Stretching either of these laws to apply to Peapman's reproductive
health centers right, So how they are stretching either of
these laws to apply to people who protested in a
church over the behavior or the proceived behavior of a
religious leader is beyond me.
Speaker 1: He kind of showed that he didn't know what he
was talking about. Yeah, it does. It takes care of
abortion clinics and churches carry or Bond even thought that
combination was kind of weird. But she explains the law.
Speaker 9: Yeah, look, if you can read, you can fact check him.
I know that it's not true, and that's I was
really disturbed by the fact that he would what I
feel like, is lie about the law. He's the attorney
general for the state of Minnesota. He is supposed to
be neutrally applying and implementing the law. Instead, he went
on Don Lemon, who in my opinion, also acted disgracefully
and goes on his show and then lies about the law.
There are people who are listening to that who are
going to take his word for it because he's the age.
But yet, as you just put up on the screen,
and if anyone wants to google it, they can look
for themselves, it's just not true. It protects access to
abortion clinics and churches. Does that sound like a strange
marriage of sorts. Yes, it is, and that's because when
the law is passed in the nineties, that was the
compromise with Republicans. Democrats wanted protection for abortion clinics, and
Republicans said, okay, fine, but we're going to throw in
churches too. So that's how this came to be. And
it certainly protects against the kind of behavior that we
saw happen on Sunday. But look, you don't even need
the Face Act. There are other federal statutes as well
that really, in my opinion, very much applied to what
we saw unfold there.
Speaker 1: Well, that was weird that he did not know the
Face Act. He knew about the abortion clinic part, not
about the churches. So we'll leave it with that. What
else do we have. Oh the football game last night.
Congratulations again to the Hoosiers Indiana Hoosiers, they won the
national championship in the college football playoffs. They've been rolling
over everybody, I mean, embarrassing some really good teams. Indiana
has been phenomenal. But they ran against the University of
Miami last night, and man, Miami. They they were never
in the lead, but they were always close on the
heels of Indiana. Indiana won the game twenty seven to
twenty one. But I thought it was interesting because Carson Beck,
the quarterbacks for both teams, were both extremely talented young men.
One of them Carson Becks, he was the talent. He
was the quarterback for Miami, and they interviewed him before
the game about well you listened to it. I was
surprised he hasn't. He graduated from that college two years ago.
Speaker 2: Listen, Carson, I'm curious, did you have class yesterdays?
Speaker 9: What has it been like being you as a student
this week, particularly yesterday?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Class I graduated two years ago, so I've been working
towards other degrees now that I've gotten to Miami. But
these programs take a little longer than just a year
to finish, so obviously I'm not enrolling again next semester.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he graduated two years ago. So college sports. This
is sad because it used to be college kids. This
guy graduated two years ago. He makes between three and
four million dollars a year under the new rules about
paying college athletes. I'm going to the guy's a pro.
He's a paid athlete. Anyway, he's a great quarterback. The
Miami's a great team. Indiana was better and they won
twenty seven twenty one. It just makes you go. I mean,
everybody was surprised me. He said, no, no, I agres he
said the quiet part out loud. He said, yeah, yeah,
I graduated two years ago. She was asked him about
how do you go to school and take classes and
prepare for a game like this Wall Street today back
at work, and like I said, the President shocked everybody
with his threats against Greenland and about using military and
about primarily tariffs. The thing about the tariffs is, yes,
they don't like the amounts, the ten percent now twenty
five percent in June. First, it's the on again, off again.
Now we've got tariffs, now we don't. It makes for it.
It's very difficult for businesses to plan on what their
budget should be. If you don't know what your costs
are going to be, how can you possibly run a
business's financial aspect with any sort of assurance. That's the
part this bugging people is that. And when Trump was
a real estate guy, I didn't bother anybody else. But
he's the president and people have to make plans. And
if he's got tariffs on products that come and go,
it drives the market nuts. But this is very much
Liberation Day A two point zero. After Liberation Day, the
stock market tanked and then it came back and went
on to new record highs. So today it tanked. The
Dow Jones Industrials down eight hundred and seventy to forty
eight thousand and four eighty eight, the SMP down better
than two percent, down one hundred and forty three points,
the Nasdaq down better than two percent, five hundred and
sixty one points. Lower the price of gold. That's what
the problem is. Mortgage prices went up, interest rates went up,
and people are getting out of the dollar and going
to gold. And gold went up one hundred and seventy
three dollars to day to four thousand and seven sixty
nine and oil up a little more than a dollar.
It's got a six in front of it for the
first time in a long time. Six dollars and yeah,
sixty dollars, sixty dollars and fifty cents for one barrel
of oil. So that's it for today. Thank you for
coming by. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
We'll be back again tomorrow. I hope to see you
that