Speaker 1: And look at that.
Speaker 2: Here we are yet it around the old podcaster. How
you doing? Welcome, Welcome to the podcast. My name is
Tom Sullivan. Today is Monday. It is the fourteenth day
of July, year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five. And well,
where do you want to start today? The Epstein story
is not going away. Some people think it's a waste
of time. I do not. I think the thing that
makes me stop in my tracks about Epstein is people
are saying, Okay, so he's dead, So what difference does
it make anymore? There are reports that there were a
thousand victims, one thousand young ladies that were victims of
Epstein and his pals, and everybody just says, never mind,
Epstein may be dead. Well, there's even a question about that.
We played a call for you on Friday, a caller
who said, I'm not even sure he's dead. Where's the proof?
I think he's dead. But the thing that sticks in
my mind was we had doctor Michael Bodden, the former
chief medical Examiner for the City of New York, said
that he was at the autopsy, and the current chief
medical Examiner for the City of New York did the autopsy.
So here are two really experienced medical doctors that specialize
in autopsies, and they both while the first doctor said
at the end of the autopsy that was there needed
to be more work they had they had to send
out for toxicology and things like that. When all that
came back, the doctor said, this is a homicide. And
doctor Bowden said, this is clearly a homicide. So somebody
killed him and they're covering it up. And the reason
they're covering it up is because of and by that,
we'll play for you Mike Lawler, who's a Republican from
from New York talking about you know, the who has
anything to say about this anymore. But this isn't Democrats,
this isn't Republicans. This is bipartisan because it's powerful people
from both parties that were involved in Epstein's shenanigans. Well,
let me let me read to you though. This is
Donald Trump put out a tweet today on truth Social
and he let me read it too. It's it's a
little bit long, for usually he doesn't go this long,
but he writes, what's going on with my boys and
in some cases gals. They're all going after Attorney General
Pam Bondi who is doing a fantastic job. We are
on Team Mega one, Team Mega, and I don't like
what's happening. We have a perfect administration, the talk of
the world, all in caps, and selfish people are trying
to hurt it all over a guy who never dies,
Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it's Epstein over and over again.
Why are we giving publicity to files written by Obama
and Crooked Hillary and Komi and Brennan and the losers
and criminals of the Biden administration who conned the world
with the Russia Russia Russia hoax, fifty one intelligence Agents,
Laptop from Hell and more. They created the Epstein files
just like they created the fake Hillary Clinton Christopher Steele
dossier they used on me, And now my so called
friends are playing right into their hands. Why didn't these
radical left lunatics release the Epstein files? If there was
any thing in there they could have hurt the MAGA movement,
why didn't they use it. They haven't even up on
the gift they even gave. They haven't even given up
on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Junior files.
No matter how much success we have had securing the border,
deporting criminals, fixing the economy, energy dominance, a safer world
where Iran will not have nuclear weapons. It's never enough
for some people. We are about to achieve more in
six months than any other administration has achieved in over
one hundred years, and we have so much more to do.
We are saving our country and making America great again,
which will continue to be our complete priority. The left
is imploding cash, patil and the FBI. It must be
focused on investigating voter fraud, political Corruption Act Blue, the
rigged and stolen election of twenty twenty, and arresting thugs
and criminals instead of spending month after month looking at
nothing but the same old radical left inspired documents on
Jeffrey Epstein. Let Pam Bondy do her job. She's great.
The twenty twenty election was rigged and stolen, and they
tried to do the same thing in twenty four That's
what she is looking into as ag and much more.
One year ago, our country was dead. Now it's the
hottest country anywhere in the world. Let's keep it up
that way and not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein,
somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you, for your attention
to this matter. Well, mister president, this isn't about the
twenty twenty election and Obama or Biden or any Democrat,
same problem that every politician has. These are powerful, wealthy
people who they would be ruined if it turned out
that they were sexually fooling around with underage girls. That's
what this is about. These are otophiles that somehow it
sounds like you're defending. I know you're not, but it's
this is not about you and your problems with investigators.
This is a crime. And if there were one thousand
young ladies that were victims, who were the perpetrators, where
are they? Why aren't they being charged? So In response
to the President's posting in true social the first response
to him was from a lady says, this statement breaks
my heart, mister President. I have four daughters and live
in Texas where families lost little children. I can't even
begin to comprehend the flipped narrative that it was so
long ago. Why are we still talking about this and
nobody should care. These victims were someone's daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters,
someone's child. Please reconsider, sir, I voted for everything you
are doing accountability was not something negotiable. I, my family
and those we convinced to give you a chance are
all counting on you to bring sick perversion to account.
Otherwise it will continue to happen if we are not
the voice of the victims. Then who, respectfully, and with
much gratitude for all the promises you keep, please lets
this one be one as well. Much love to you
and yours. So it's getting pushed back from a lot
of people that are mega and I think he's trying
to make things change. He came out with an announcement
this morning that there was going to be a huge
announcement about Russia today and I think it was basically,
look over here, get off of this Epstein thing, Get
off of it. So Laura Lumer, who is I don't
know what to make of her, but she's got the
ear of the president, and even she has come out
and said that she wants a special counsel. She wants
a special counsel to look into the whole Epstein thing
because doctor Boden and the chief medical examiner both said
it was a homicide. He did not die by suicide.
I there's just too many people that had to be
involved in this that just all of a sudden, they're
trying to cover it up. In my humble opinion, so
Laura Lumer wants a special counsel. Ellie Honig, who was
a former SDNY prosecutor, responded to her request.
Speaker 3: Well, John, if there were a special council appointed, it
would be unlike any other special council in our history,
really for two reasons. First of all, if you look
back into history, going back to Water Cave when it
was called independent Council, and through the ensuing fifty years,
the law tells us that there's not supposed to be
special council just because there's a messy situation or just
because the Attorney General has done.
Speaker 4: A bad job.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be reserved for where there's a conflict
of interest or other extraordinary circumstances. And historically those conflicts
of interests have always touched on the president himself or
other powerful people around the president. Now, whether there is
such a conflict of interest, presumably Pam Bondi might know,
we wouldn't know at this moment. The other thing is
special council, historically and under the law, is not supposed
to be appointed just to tell a story, just to
get to the bottom of something. It's supposed to be
reserved for actual prosecutorial scenarios where there's some reason to
think there should be criminal charges. The FBI last week,
in its memo looking at the situation, said there's no
basis to think anyone else should be charged. So, look,
this is Pam Bondi's decision, and it's going to be
a tough one. It's important that we separate what people
are super interested in, myself included, I think a lot
of us in the media included, but where there's some
actual legal work to be done, and the only real
legal work that could be done here by DOJ would
be a criminal investigation and charges. But again, if you
look at that memo that the FBI put out last week,
they said they went through three terabytes of information. That's
a massive amount of information, and the memo says, basically,
there's no reason to continue down this road. There's no
reason to think that anyone should be criminally charged. Now
do people credit that? Do people credit Pam Bondy. That
gets into a more complex question.
Speaker 2: If the rest of the complex question is what happened
last week, Dan Bongino, who before he was the deputy
director of the FBI talk show host and very loudly
proclaimed all the conspiracy questions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. So now
that he's the number two guy at the FBI, he
and Pam Bondy, according to the reports, got into it
big time last Wednesday and Thursday. In Bondi did not
show up at work on Friday. Where we checked today
and we're getting nothing. FBI says no comment about whether
Bongino has quit or whether he's still there, but he
is apparently very unhappy about the fact that they came
out with this mademoise and there's nothing to see. So
Dan Bongino has more to say, I think, but we
haven't heard yet from him, and I'm sure he's being
very careful about what he does. But this is about
pedophiles and a guy who they said committed suicide when
the doctor said no, it was homicide, and the cover up.
It's a classic cover up, and that's where the special
council comes in. It was exactly the same with Richard Nixon.
There was a cover up of Watergate. That's when you
bring in a special counsel that somebody that truly is independent.
So we'll see what happens with that. Well, let's move on.
We've got the immigration battles are continuing to go. And
I mean, this is where a judge said you can't
you can't round these people up anymore in Southern California
Federal judge. And now that's being appealed to the Ninth
Circuit District Court of Appeals. We'll see what they say.
But there's the judge. He got an argument that the
ICE people are just rounding up people indiscriminately because of
their race or the language that they speak, or their occupation.
They're working in the fields, which is weird because just
a couple of weeks ago President Trump came out and
said we're going to exempt don't go looking for people
on the fields because the farmers need the help and
this is the time when we need harvest and everything else.
These are pot farms. But at the same time, the
judge did the rule which put the kebash on everything
that ICE was doing. Back to Elie Honig about the
whole question of where this is going to go legally, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this will go up to the Ninth Circuit this week.
This was a case decided in the Central District of California,
where Los Angeles is located. And the interesting thing is
the parties in this case actually agree on the law.
Ice does have the power to conduct immigration raids and
they have to have reasonable suspicion to take someone into custody.
Now that's a low bar, but it's not nothing. And
here I said, well, we were basing our reasonable suspicion
on the totality of the circumstances. But the challenger said,
and the judge agreed, no, you're using prohibited characteristics race,
someone's skin color, the language they're speaking, where they are,
And the judge said, you cannot form reasonable suspicion on
those constitutionally protected factors. So that's the question that goes
up on appeal this week to the Ninth Circuit Court
of Bials and maybe eventually, maybe on short order, to
the Supreme Court itself.
Speaker 2: So the problem with all this is people were saying,
I'll get to got Harriet. I'm standing by with another
poll showing people are turning it against all this aggressive
behavior against the immigrants. But it's not immigrants, it's illegal immigrants.
And people tend to use immigrants, whether the term immigrants
rather loosely. I don't like everybody's against the immigrants. Most
of us come from families that were immigrants. It's the illegals.
So aggressive police behavior has always been an issue, police brutality,
if you will. It's been around as long as there
been police. We ask these men and women that wear badges,
that have been trained in law enforcement to go out
and do the dirty work, do the hard work, and
when they do, we yell at them for actually doing
it in a way that we don't like. And that's
what's going on. I think in the media, especially in
southern California. Oh my gosh, the LA media is all
about how the poor immigrants and the poor people that
live in Los Angeles, they're afraid they can't go out
of their houses. They can't do this again. Do that
is because of ice is just so mean. So Harry Enton,
I think is he has the numbers, and it's reflecting
the fact that people once again are they once the
people deported, but they don't like what they're seeing. Here's
Harry and a work oof. What are we talking about here?
Take a look at this. Trump's net approval rating on
immigration got five numbers for you. Across the screen.
Speaker 5: Here a lot of focus on Gallup at minus twenty seven.
That's horrible, Prinipiac University minus sixteen, that's awful. Marius is
bad at minus nine, Ipsosis minus eight, Fox at minus
seven bad. So going from your left side bad to
just downright terrible on the right side of your screen.
The American people have turned against President Donald Trump on
what was his best issue, one in which he had
a positive net approval rating for most of us term,
and arguably the issue that got him, of course, the
GOP nomination all the way back in twenty sixteen, and
one of the issues, of course, he used last year
to quite a successful degree. So you see this here,
and then the question is does this actually matter to folks?
Why don't we zone in Hispanic voters right, because obviously
a lot of the immigrants who have been affected by
this have been Hispanic voters in terms of the immigration crackdown.
Take a look here Trump's net approval rating amongst Hispanics. Remember,
Trump put in a historic performance last fall among Hispanic voters,
did better than any Republican nominee dating all oy back
since we have data in nineteen hundred and seventy two.
His net approval ring among Hispanics in February was pretty
gosh darn good for a Republican at minus two points.
Look at how far it's fallen now in June according
to CBS News Jugov at minus twenty six points. And
I should note CBS News Jugav is not alone on this.
This is what we see in the averages as well.
Donald Trump was doing historically well for Republican amongst Hispanics
in terms of his net approval rating, and now he's
basically back where he was during his first term, which
is quite a low approval rating, one in which has
brought his overall approval rating down amongst the higher electorate. Yeah,
what are the numbers on ICE? It's not just affecting
Donald Trump, it's affecting Ice as well. ICE is not
approval rating, and Trump's first term the average was zero points, right,
so right there on the bottom as many approved its disapproved.
Look at where we are now in June of twenty
twenty five, minus seventeen points, all the way down. So
the bottom line is this immigration crackdown not being threw
popularly by the American public, bringing Donald Trump down and
bringing immigration and custom enforcements down with him.
Speaker 2: So those are the numbers. And it doesn't surprise me
because when you watch the media is it is all
ICE's fault for all of the protests and all of
the tear gas and the rock throwing and everything else,
as if Ice did something wrong. Ice is going out
there trying to find the people that are not supposed
to be in this country and deport them. So everything
they do in the eyes of the media is negative people.
Of course, not surprising they will get a negative view.
Steve Hilton was a commentator. Well, he goes back to
he was David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
He was Cameron's right hand guy, and then he came
to the United States, I don't know, fifteen years ago
maybe and started working at Fox doing commentary. And he's
now gone full banana all the way into politics. He's
running for governor in the state of California as a Republican.
Good luck Steve. But this is what Steve Hilton's reaction
was to what's going on in California and the leadership
or lack thereof by Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 6: So, first of all, on the Legal Point Bill, these
people in charge in California now, Gavin Newsoon, Karen Bass
in Los Angeles, they are failing to enforce the law,
not just federal law. The point that people forget is
that even California law, even the sanctuary state law that
they hide behind, has a section in it which I've
read and I would enforce, which says that when you're
dealing with criminals who in the last fifteen years have
been convicted of a crime, a long list of crimes,
not just violent crimes all the ones we've seen with
these guys from the pop farm, but even things like
drug possession, illegal firearms, long list of crimes, you have
discretion to work with ice in order to get them
out of the country. And so all of this could
be avoided if we had people in charge who would
just enforce the law their own law, never mind federal law.
On top of that, where's the morality for these people,
never mind the pot you have child labor going on there.
So now you have gaven you some so twisted by
his hatred of Trump and his desire to pander to
his base, that he's defending child trafficking. Some of these
people child molesters. I mean, what is wrong with these people.
So Gavin Newsom is basically given up trying to do
his actual job as a result. I mean, it's probably
best that he doesn't because when he's doing his job,
it's a disaster with the worst run state in America.
Speaker 3: But this is what he does now, this trolling.
Speaker 6: In fact, last week, last a week ago today, Monday,
it was the six month anniversary of the La wildflaws,
I did an event in Los Angeles pointing out that
nothing's been done.
Speaker 1: It's still a disaster.
Speaker 6: Kennedy and I've talked about this. What's Gavin Newson doing
that same day he puts out from his press office
they're bragging about because his trolling President Trump, his social
media followers are going up. That's what Gavin Newsom now
thinks of as success for him not running the state properly,
but boosting his.
Speaker 2: Plays for you on Friday, but I'll play it for
you again. Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, ellen
news conference and talked about the fact that everybody is
so afraid of ice that they can't go to work,
they can't go to the store, they can't do anything.
So she's going to give them money here's what she
had to say.
Speaker 7: But we also are going to have a reinstitution of
the Angelino Card, something that Mayor Garcetti started during COVID
that will actually of cash assistance to people, because you know,
you have people who don't want to leave their homes,
who are not going to work, and they are in
need of cash. It's a couple hundred dollars. I don't
know the exact amount, and they should This should be
available in.
Speaker 4: About a week.
Speaker 2: So if you don't feel like going to work, you
want to stay in your home, move to Los Angeles,
you can get a couple hundred dollars a week. I
don't think that's going to last very long. And I
don't know. I mean, I take a couple hundred dollars
if you gave it to me, but in Los Angeles,
I don't know what you can buy doesn't go very far.
Let me put it that way. Back to Steve Hilton
for his reaction to all of this.
Speaker 6: She's saying that it's philanthropy, But what that means is
all these nonprofits, which just as we've seen before, that
ends up being funneled through it's actually tax payer money
going to the nonprofits. Then she said, oh, it's philanthropy.
Speaker 4: No, it's tax payer.
Speaker 1: We're going to oversee it.
Speaker 6: By the way, at a time when she has a
billion dollar deficit, Sanchez billion dollar deficit, and this is
where and the final point she says, oh, this is
for people too frightened to go to work. Why are
they frightened to go to work because of her fear munkery.
The whole thing is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Okay, from Los Angeles to New York City, this zoron
Mondamini is not going away. This guy is getting more
free media, including here, and people are chiming in on it,
trying to figure out what's going to happen. Because today
Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Amandami in the primaries, today
made it official say no, I'm running, I'm running. I'm
in as an independent. He was on the Democrat ticket.
Now he's running as an independent for mayor. And Byron
York from The Washington Examiner kind of observed all of this.
Speaker 8: Well, certainly young Democrats, the ones who haven't can and
become Republicans, are expressing a lot more interest in democratic
socialism than they did in the past. But I do
think that this race UH in New York City for
the for the mayor's office has a lot more downsides
potentially for the socialist movement than upsides. If Mamdani wins
the mayoralty in New York, which I think he will,
if nobody else drops out of the race. If he
wins it, people will say, well, it's New York. But
if he loses, look at somebody like AOC. She is
elected to Congress from a district that includes parts of
the Bronx and Queens. She can get elected there. But
if Mondami, who shares her views, cannot even get elected
city wide in New York, much less statewide in New
York State or nationwide in the United States. I think
that's going to show the weaknesses and the and the
the the small size of the democratic socian Well, you know,
I just don't know. I mean, right now you have
Adams and and Uh Andrew Cuoma just staring at each
other and each demanding that the other one drop out
of the race, and they're not going to do it.
Adams is the sitting mayor of New York City. He's
running as an independent. Curtis Leewah is the nominee of
the Republican Party in New York. And by the way,
Republicans have gotten three hundred thousand or so votes in
the last several New York City Mayor's a race. That's
not nothing, So they have a reason to be in
the race. I think you can make. It's harder to
make a case for Andrew Cuomo staying in the race.
You just reported that's what he's going to do. But
it makes it difficult. The latest polls I've seen have
mom Domi at about thirty five percent, They have everybody
else together at about fifty two percent, and then thirteen
percent undecided. That's a really weird electoral result. But if
it happens, it means mom Domini win.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Well, leave it to Ramaswami to find a way to
get into this. So I'm not surprised that he's saying that.
Speaker 4: But he is.
Speaker 1: It is a real contract.
Speaker 8: You have two rising young politicians, one in the Republican Party,
one in the Democratic Party, both of whom probably want
to be president. You have to remember the mayor of
New York City kind of thinks of himself as a
national leader. You had Bill Deblasio, you had Michael Bloomberg,
you had Rudy Giuliani, they all ran for president. So
once you're elected mayor of New York City, you kind
of think of yourself as a national leader.
Speaker 2: So what did Mark ben say, the Democrat polster, about
this race.
Speaker 4: Well, Mandami is a long way from fifty percent. I think,
as Andrew Cromo says in his video, he got thirteen
percent of New York in that Democratic primary in the
heat of summer that had about eight nine hundred thousand votes.
So I think there are a lot of voters out there,
and people don't realize New York is not all Democrat.
It's not like DC, which is ninety five to five.
It's actually sixty forty sixty five thirty five. The Republican
candidate got twenty eight percent. Lapstime. If the Republicans go
into a mode of where they're going to stop mom Ghani,
the votes are there for a Democrat like Pomo to win.
Speaker 2: Mark Cuban chimes in on this. This is this is
his attitude about what's going on with mayor's race.
Speaker 1: It's just Trump sucks.
Speaker 9: That's the underlying, you know, thought of everything the Democrats do.
Speaker 1: Trump sucks. Trump says, you know, this guy is blue
Trump socks. You can't. That's not the way to win, David.
Speaker 4: You's take on all this.
Speaker 1: I agree with Mark Cuban really also.
Speaker 2: And you think David Devello, he's head of the go pack, goop,
if you will pack, and this is his reaction to
not only what's going on New York, but also Mark Cuban.
Speaker 1: I agree with Mark Cuban really also.
Speaker 9: And you think about this New York City mayor's race,
and amongst the three leading candidates, the thought immediately goes
to a Marxist, a sexual harassmer, and a mayor walk
into a bar. And you can add whatever joke you
want to that punchline. But this is a field that
is out of step not only with most of Americans,
but many New Yorkers. And you think about that coalition
that MNDAMI is putting together. It's anti Jewish, it's anti Italian,
they want to get rid of Columbus Day, it's anti Irish,
against the cops. At some point, who's left to vote
for him other than the most extreme socialists. And why
should all of this care to most Americans? Because as
he gets in and he tries to say ice you
can't do your job. It requires ICE to spend more
money in New York City to do their job.
Speaker 1: And then you get other cities.
Speaker 9: And for all these Democrats that are worried about cuts
that may or may not come to Medicare or Medicaid
or these cuts that they see government doing, less than
one percent of all governments spending. As more money has
to go to ICE because these mayors won't do their job.
It's more money away from other vital.
Speaker 2: Program Again, this is a much bigger deal in local
politics in New York City. Here's Mark Penn about the
implications for Democrats in general.
Speaker 4: Well, Democrats have to be aware of the reality. Seventy
five percent think that public officials should cooperate with ICE
and that people who are criminals who are here illegally
should be deported. Now, they also care about human rights
and the right of defense, and you've got to put
that in the mix. But Democrats cannot be for open borders.
That will never be a successful strategy of this country.
Speaker 2: Which brings us right back around to the comments made
about California and the fact that Gavin Newsom and Karen
Bass seem to be sticking up for the illegals that
are in the state, and seventy five mark Penn's very good,
seventy five percent of Democrats say they're against that. They
don't want the criminal aliens in our country. So as
he said, you can't before loosey goosey borders, and that
appears to be what they're proclaiming so far. I imagine
they're going to get feedback on this and start changing
to a different tune, but it's early.
Speaker 1: But you watch.
Speaker 2: They are right now saying that they are all for
the illegals and the criminal illegals in our country and
basically poo pooing the whole idea of a type order.
When it came to the big Russian announcement today that
was supposed to be coming out of the White House,
it was I guess a change, you could call it that.
But the President is telling Russia that they have fifty
days to get their act together or he is going
to lay heavy sanctions on them with tariffs. He loves tariffs,
so he wants to do tariffs on Russia and also
one hundred percent secondary tariffs on anybody that does business
with Russia. So he's going to get the tariff club
out out and use that. And basically he's told Russia
they got fifty days, I guess to come to a
sease agreement or to come to the table or do something.
But he's mad that he finally figured out that Vladimir
Putin has been shining him on, talking nice to him,
and then as he said, killing people at night. So
that's the big Russian announcement today. Mike Lawler, Congressman Republican
from New York had this reaction.
Speaker 10: Vladimir Putin is a vile dictator and thug. He has
engaged in unholy alliance with China, with Iran, with North Korea.
He took drones from Iran, he has taken troops from
North Korea. All in this effort to seize control of Ukraine.
He has wrought death and destruction and the loss of
hundreds of thousands of innocence and and in his case,
members of his own military.
Speaker 2: For what.
Speaker 10: The fact is, Vladimir Putin is someone who the world
will be better off when he is no longer in
charge of Russia. I understand, obviously, the attempt by the
President to try and negotiate an end to this war.
The continuation of this war is serving no one and
obviously the death that has been wrought with it. But
the fact is, if Putin is successful in Ukraine, it
would be catastrophic for Europe. It would be catastrophic for
the United States and our allies. And so I support
the effort to give Ukraine more weapons, more support with
air defense, and to continue to push back. And I
believe fundamentally we need to enact secondary sanctions on Vladimir Putin,
on Russia and anyone affiliated with them in this effort.
And I would also know Europe needs to cease all
purchasing of Russian gas, stop funding the very war that
you are trying to prevent.
Speaker 2: So these additional weapons for Ukraine is kind of an
odd semantic. If you will, We're going to sell more
patriot missile batteries and other types of weapons to NATO,
and NATO will get the money from NATO members, primarily
Germany and Norway, and then they will sell them or
give them to Ukraine. But the Donald Trump doesn't want
to do that directly because that would go against some
of the things he said while he was campaigning. And
he also is touting the fact that we'll make a
profit off of this, So that's the news on Russia.
General Jack Keene has this observation big with President.
Speaker 10: I thought he was somebody's that meant what he said
and he'll talk so beautifully and then o'bama people at night, we.
Speaker 1: Don't like that.
Speaker 11: Well, I think we're looking at a major turning point
in the war here. I mean, the president came in
and wanted to established peace, certainly between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine after stumbling and the Oval Office agreed to a
cease fire without any conditions. Putin has put that off
for months. The President exhibited an enormous amount of patients
and largely because you know, when they're talking to each other,
Putin talks nice. You know, he talks about mutual economic benefit.
He says, I'm interested in pieces you are, mister President.
But then Putin plays hard on the battlefield. The truth is,
during that entire time, he escalated the war, particularly against civilians,
as we have all seen, and the last few days
have demonstrated the culmination of the scale and size of
that escalation. Five six hundred things flying in the sky,
largely against civilian targets. The president is frustrated. Putin wanted
him to get frustrated, and he wanted the President to
pull away and stop supporting Ukraine just out of frustration
and leave it alone. But that's not happening. While he
achieved his goal and frustrating the president, the President is
not pulling away. He's actually going to turn the war
around somewhat here because he's going to do two things. One,
he's going to increase military assistance. Let the Europeans buy
our weapons systems. They have the money to do it,
and they're either going to let Ukraine buy them from
them or they're going to give them to Ukraine. So
we're going to upgun the Ukraine's capability, and believe me,
Putin pays serious attention to battlefield effects because that is
where his head is. And we're also going to authorize
the Senate and eventually the House and the Europeans are
going to do the same in terms of some pretty
tough sanctions, particularly on those who are Buyingrussian oil. That's China,
India and Brazil. So both of these put together is
kind of one two punch here to go right at
the problem here with Russia on the battlefield and also
their kind of revenue source that obviously is essential for
them to keep their troops on the battlefield trained and
well equipped. So major turning point in my judgment occurring
as a result of the failed discussions with Putin. I mean,
what Zelensky has been doing is defending and remarkably defending
against Russia's offensive operation, which has made some tactical gains.
But you know, Ukraine has been conducting a remarkable successful
defense against the force that doubles them in size on
the ground. And Putin has increased the targeting of civilian
which in of it self is a war crime. And
he's increased the kidnapping of children and moving them into
Russia somewhere in enahbor of twenty thousand, which is just
horrific when you think of something like that. So, yeah,
what is he doing that and the focus on Sibilians.
He wants to break the will of the Ukrainian people
and undermine their support for the government and for the
war that they throw their hands up and say enough
is enough, and that would force Zelensky to go make
major concessions to the Russians. And that's not happening because
the Ukrainian people are steadfast. They are still supporting Zelensky.
Would they like to see a peace agreement and end
of the war, You bet you, But they're not going
to do it on Russian terms. Well, China's involvement has
been very comprehensive. Initially, I think it was not well
understood how comprehensive it is. Short of providing an actual
weapons platform like an artillery piece or a tank, they
provide components, They provide the minerals, the chemicals. They are
helping a finance and obviously by Russian Russian oil, so
they're a major financer. But what they do to US
system on a battlefield is dramatic, and staying on a
battlefield successfully is more than just the actual weapons system itself.
You need everything, the logistical support. China is a number
one provider of comprehensive support to Russia, followed very closely
by the Iranians, who established a drone factory and built
it inside of Russia and is helping to reign all
of that terror on Ukrainian cities as we've been seeing,
particularly for the last several days.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope it's successful because I'm not a big
fan of sanctions or tariffs. They just don't seem to
ever work. There's always work arounds, and Putin is as
good as anybody, and trying to figure out how to
continue doing business even though the US has dropped sanctions
on them. All Right, Wall Street today it was a
Monday positive. Will take that in most of the indexes,
at least for stocks. The Dow was up eighty eight
to close a forty four tho four point fifty nine,
price of SMP up eight points, Nasdaq up fifty four points,
the price of gold down twelve dollars today to thirty
three fifty two, and the price of oil down a
buck and a half. Let's call it sixty seven dollars
for a barrel of oil. Thanks for coming by today.
We're going to be here again tomorrow. I hope to
see you then too,