Speaker 1: And Hello, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast.
It's Monday. Today is the twenty fifth day of August,
year of Our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is
Tom Sullivan. So for the last week of August, and
a lot of people are theoretically off on vacation. Man,
the news barrel is full. I mean it literally is overflowing.
We got the National Guard in Washington and maybe other places. Chicago. Hello,
we'll get into that. We've got kilmar Abrego Garcia. Well,
he on Friday he was released by a judge and
this morning at seven am, he was taken into custody
by ice. We'll get you up to date on him. Intel.
I've been ranting about this now since I think I
started last Thursday. And I've got a long list of
serious conservative leaders in this country who are not happy.
And of course the trucking situation in Florida, the illegals
driving trucks in this country, and oh yeah, cracker Bill.
So let's start told you we got a lot. So
let's start with the National Guard. And what the signal
is is the President's now talking about and dropping names
of Baltimore and Chicago, which both cities claim they have
a drop in crime, just like Washington, d C. The
problem is is that it is still a very high
Those are high crime cities, and so if you have
a couple hundred murders last year and this year you
have one hundred and ninety nine, your rates drop down,
but still it's terrible high crime city.
Speaker 2: Let me.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a little hint of the most
dangerous cities in this country. Let me give you the
list here. This is US News. Number one most dangerous
city is Memphis, Tennessee. No, it's a medium sized city,
but it's it's number one. Number two is Oakland, California.
They have I mean it's the Bay area, but Oakland
has had a crime problem for a long long time.
Number three on the list Saint Louis, Missouri. Number four Baltimore.
There you go, mister. Number five is Detroit. So far
I haven't run into Chicago. But number six Alexandria, Louisiana.
It's not a big town. It's down in the Bayous
of Louisiana. Number seven is Cleveland. Number eight is New Orleans.
Number nine another small Louisiana town, Monroe. And number ten Pueblo, Colorado.
So I don't know how US News skipped over Chicago,
but those are the most dangerous cities in America, according
to US News. I also have since a lot of
this is they're talking about the president is going after
blue cities run by Democrats. Well, I thought I'd take
a look who runs the cities in this country. This
is ballot Pedia and they Yikiliopedia of American politics. Of
the top twenty cities population wise, the top twenty cities,
how many are run by Democrats? Memory are run by Republicans. Well,
eighteen by Democrats. Two Republicans are mayors of cities in
the top twenty twenty one through forty four Republicans. Oh,
here we go. Forty one through sixty you got six republicans.
Numbers the size sixty one through eighty you back to
four Republicans, and eighty one through one hundred. As far
as population size, you've got nine Republicans. So it's sixty
six Democrats for the one hundred largest cities the mayors
are sixty six are mayor are Democrats, and twenty three
are Republicans, one is a libertarian, three are independent, and
five are nonpartisans. So there's no question about it. The
big cities are clearly run by mayors that are Democrats,
and unfortunately, for a lot of the big cities, they
haven't been run well. They have problems not only crime,
but financial problems, trying to get jobs, the whole gamut
of being a mayor. So that's where the stats stack up,
if you will. The President was out today with a
bunch of executive orders, and they're interesting to see. He's
still don't remember the first day he was in office
for Trump two point zero. I mean, he was signing
executive orders all day long. So he's still doing that.
And today he signed an executive order on cashless and
I couldn't agree more with him on this. The idea
of you get arrested for something, you get booked into
the jail, and you say I'd like to bail out,
and they would say, well, put up a bail bond,
And now they just say, okay, there's the door, see
you later. Here's the President after signing the cashless bail
executive order today.
Speaker 2: That was when the big crime in this country started.
Any street all over the country, cashless bail were ending it.
But we're starting by ending it in DC.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. Even the people of California, they
had passed a law that changed a lot of felonies
down to misdemeanors, and the misdemeanors they didn't have to
pass post any bail. You just were let out of jail,
and crime skyrocketed in California. The people of California go
to a liberal California voted to say as this last
in November, they said no, we're no work. We got
to go back to actually making crimes felonies that are
serious crimes, and we're also going to require bail. So
that even the liberals in California said, no, we made
a mistake on the casuals bail. In addition to the
executive order about no more cashals bails, at least he's
starting with Washington d C. Because he has it's easy.
He has the authority clearly as the president over Washington,
d C. But he also signed a couple of other
executive orders today. One was about burning the American flag,
which we'll get into. But in this other one about
crime in Washington, d C. He let me read I'm
not going to read it to you, but for example,
he said, operational actions, the Director of the National Parks
Service shall hire additional members of the park Police. Ah,
he's adding he wants them to hire more police. Here's
another one that they shall establish an online portal for
Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds to apply
to join federal law enforcement entities. Another one in the
US Attorney's Office for DC shall hire additional prosecutors to
focus on prosecuting violent and property crimes. Next on this
executive order is the training, manning, hiring, and equipping and
specialized unit DC National Guard to basically ensure public safety.
What else is in here? I mean, it goes on
and on and on, but basically this is answering the
question that I have had all along is you're not
going to solve crime in DC or anyplace else in
two weeks. You're going to need much more time, and
you're going to need to basically change the judges in
DC are letting people out. You've got to change the well,
they changed the prosecutor. They've got to hire more police.
They've got to get rid of that DC Council which
has passed all kinds of laws basically soft on crime.
So all those things. One of the executive vorders is
not getting the attention of casual spail. But it is
another executive order that he assigned today, basically going out
and wanting to hire a bunch of people to try
and make permanent the changes that he has made over
the last two weeks with the National Guard. Tom Bevitt
from Real Clear Politics, this is his view on it.
Speaker 2: It depends on who you talk to.
Speaker 4: Obviously, it's a very liberal city and Chicago it's very
similar to Washington, d c.
Speaker 2: The murder rate is down, but still two hundred.
Speaker 4: As of this week, two hundred and fifty six people
have been killed in Chicago, which is won every twenty hours.
Speaker 2: And so the question is that tolerable?
Speaker 4: Certainly, the crime occurs in a couple of parts of
the city, and so for a lot of people in Chicago,
you know, the city seems safe, but for the people
where the crime is actually occurring, it remains quite violent.
And the question is why is that tolerable? Why have
we come to tolerate that? Remember, Chicago has been ruled
by a Democratic mayor for the last ninety five years.
We haven't had a Republican statewide official in the state
since Bruce ronnerd left the governorship in twenty eighteen, so
Democrats have a super majority in the state legislature, so
it is a completely one party rule state. And the
question is why hasn't anything been done up to now?
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. We've talked on the radio program
for years about the We usually on Mondays we would
have the body count from the weekend of shootings in Chicago.
And it literally is one of those where I would say,
over and over and over again, why isn't anybody doing
anything about this? Every week a number of people shot
and killed and many many more wounded. And the reason
for it was it was happening in two areas, the
West Side of Chicago and the South Side, and those
are low income, minority neighborhoods. And if you're not when
you're visiting Chicago going to those neighborhoods, what do you care?
They had a video of Governor Pritzker at six am
in the morning walking along the lake front of Chicago,
and that was this morning, and he was panting because
he's so heavy, but he was panting away going to
look around, you see any crime? No, he was in
like the nicest area of Chicago at six am on
a Monday morning. So it's one of those where they
really don't I mean, did governor of Illinois, did the
mayor of Chicago just say to the people who live
on the West Side and the South Side to basically
stuff it. We're not going to come help you. You
can go ahead and shoot each other and we're not
going to do a thing. And if you're a tourist
or a business person, you're visiting in Chicago, it's a
nice city. Oh and just to continue with that process,
it's Monday twenty nine shootings over the weekend in Chicago
and for stabbings. So there you go, and they don't
do a thing about it. At the very least, President
Trump is trying to embarrass him into doing something. Back
to Tom Bevan.
Speaker 2: Remember Brandon Johnson Mary Chicago.
Speaker 4: I think pole came out last week had him at
twenty six percent approval rating. He is the least popular
mayor in America. And that's actually up from where he was.
He's climbed back a little bit. And look, I'm sure
fighting Trump will help rally people around him, as approval
rating will probably go up for the people in Chicago
who don't want to see you know, National Guard there.
Speaker 2: But again, there are plenty of folks in.
Speaker 4: Chicago who do think that the city is too violent
and who also think that Branda Johnson has spent millions
and millions of dollars leaning into being a sanctuary city
and providing benefits for people who are here illegally instead
of the residents who want those resources. That this is
not an issue that's going to go away in the
next you know, six months, nine months, we could be
talking about this for a long time. And again, as
even though urner rates are down in some places around
the country, the question is when you look at what's
been done in Washington, d C. No murders in the
last nine days, I think maybe ten or eleven days now,
why can't we have that in places like Chicago and
other cities.
Speaker 1: We could if we had the political Yeah, if they
had the political will, But they don't. So this gets
into then the president's power and does he I know
he wants to do a lot of things, and on
executive orders, I'll repeat myself, executive orders make me nervous
because of the fact that the next president can reverse
all of them and throw them out the door. So
the question comes down to who has the power to
change things going on in other cities. The president definitely
has the power in Washington, d c. But Chicago, now,
there's a lot of laws that say that states rights
federal government cannot come in. The big boot of the
federal government cannot come in and tell states and cities
what to do. Andy McCarthy explains that.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's a smart fight for him
to pick politically. I don't think he's going to get
very far with it legally, because it's Congress that actually
ends up making the laws, including for the District of Columbia,
and it's Congress that sets the terms for funding to
the states. So unless they've given the president a license
or an avenue to cut off the funding on account
of state procedural criminal rules, he'll probably have a tough
time in court with that.
Speaker 2: It of goes subject by subject.
Speaker 3: I think you're right that we're in a constant sort
of battle over separation of powers. But if, for example,
you're talking about something like immigration law, there's no doubt
that the president has the authority to dispatch whatever force
he needs to in order to protect federal functions, and
the courts have found that the immigration enforcement is a
federal function, but when you're talking about things like cutting
off funding, you're really on Congress's turf rather than the
executive branches, and it's a much more it's a much
tougher roe to ho.
Speaker 1: All right, but what about the executive order today saying
that no more cash bail? Can the president do that?
Speaker 3: Well, it's an argument that's gotten a long way with
progressive legislatures throughout the country. I think it's a demagogic argument.
The law in federal court, where we have people of
all races who are prosecuted, is that if a court
finds any condition or combination of conditions that can assure
that a defendant will come back to his court proceedings
or not threaten the public, then they can grant bail.
And there's a preference for granting bail, but there's no
prohibition on putting a financial condition on it. And that's
not driven by racism, it's driven by crime. It really
depends on what kind of area we're talking about. So,
for example, if you're talking about foreign affairs, the president
has very broad power. If you're talking about domestic affairs,
there's a division of authority between the federal government and
the state government when you're talking about the enforcement of law.
When the Constitution was adopted, originally the thought was that most,
if not all, law enforcement was going to be done
at the state level.
Speaker 2: Now, we obviously have much.
Speaker 3: More federal law enforcement than we had back then, but
the states is still deemed to be supreme with respect
to the enforcement of criminal laws within their jurisdiction. So
the extent to which the federal government can pressure them
to adopt federal policies is minimal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it all goes back to states rights. And if
in the Constitution it's spelled out the powers of the
federal government and it's very limited, and if it's not mentioned,
then it's the states that have the powers. The states
were it was designed that way to give the states
more power than a federal government. So that's the legal
part of it. What about the political angle of all
of this and who do we talk to?
Speaker 5: Of course, Carl Rove look smart Democrats. Think about the
mayor of San Francisco, a business guy, moderate Democrat, ran
as a law enforcement, pro law enforcement Democrat and got
elected in one of the most liberal cities in America.
And Democrats, if there were smart would sort of mirror
the approach of Bill Clinton, who in the run up
to the eight nineteen ninety six election realized the Democrats
that were on the soft side of the crime issue,
and so he called for adding five hundred thousand new
policemen across the country with federal support.
Speaker 1: So you know this is a problem.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 5: The lived experience of real people in their cities caused
them to believe that things are more random, more violent,
and more dangerous, and they're not made comfortable by things
like cashless bail and soft a soft on crime prosecutor. Yeah,
and the issue of cashlest bail is going to become
an issue in the governor's race. A congresswoman from the
north upstate New York who's thinking about running for the
Republican nomination to oppose local at least Stephonic is going
to make this an issue.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: She's put forward legislation which has no chance of getting
past Congress. Remember, it requires sixty votes the Senate, and
that would mean you'd have to have a number of
Democrats join with them in supporting a federal action to
prohibit states from having casualless bail. But it's a nice
political issue for her to use. She can say I'm
in favor of ending Casuless bail and Governor Hochel is not,
and Lisa is going to use that issue to her
advantage and the governor's race, and probably helped drive up
her numbers not only in the out state but also
in the city of New York, where this has had
an adverse reaction among a lot of voters who are
nominal Democrats. And speaking of criminals, Kilmar Abrego Garcia back
in the news today. On Friday, a judge released him
and so he had the weekend and today at seven
am this morning, he went over to the Federal Building
in Baltimore and they took him into custody and they
basically they're laying out an option for him. He can
go ahead and plead guilty to the charges of smuggling
and the other things that they have him on and
they will send him to Costa Rica, or he can
fight it and when they're done and they have him convicted,
they will send him to Uganda. So that's yeah. So anyway,
he was at the Baltimore Federal Building this morning. Listen,
this is a guy who's been accused of wife beating,
being accused of being MS thirteen being accused. And this
is the case that he's supposed to show up in court.
I think it's in January, but he's not going to
be around it for that. He's going to be gone
before then. Regarding smuggling, they caught him I think in Tennessee.
The highway patrol pulled him over for speeding and he
had a car full of illegals and he's apparently was
was charged with that, but it was also accusations of
he was doing that over and over and over. That
was that he was making his money. So good old
Abrego Garcia is back in the news and we'll see
where he goes. Does he go to Costa Rica or
does he go to Uganda. Remember, he did have a
court hearing. He's had a couple of them now, so
it's not like he has not had his day in court.
And he was ordered to be deported and he said,
but I'm afraid because El Salvador is scary, and they said, okay,
you can wait, and that's how this whole thing came
to a head. Here's Jonathan Faye, former ICE director, about
Abregio Garcia today.
Speaker 2: I don't think it will bring it to an end.
Speaker 6: But the end is coming for Albrego Garcia in terms
of being able to be free on American soil. He's
going to be deported. And one of the things that's interesting,
this judge in Tennessee kind of created this whole issue
by releasing him, putting ice on the spot that they
have to deport him because he's a danger to the community.
And being on electronic monitoring simply means somebody is on
a bracelet that they decide to cut off and do
harm to Americans or try to escape, we have to
go and try to find them, which is not in
the entrance of public safety. So I don't think it
will end, but it will end for him as far
as being free on American soil. He's going to be deported.
He might go home or go somebody somewhere else. He's
already had due process and a judge ordered him deported,
And the only reason he wasn't deported to l Salvador
is because he claimed he'd be in danger there. And
now we also know things have changed in El Salvador,
where it's significantly safer, certainly significantly safer than the state
of Maryland these days. So yes, he's been deported, he's
been ordered deported. He can go home to El Salvador,
he could go somewhere else, but this administration is crystal
clear he doesn't get to stay here.
Speaker 1: I got the feeling that this we're not we haven't
heard the end of the Regio Garcia adventure. But I
hope so, I hope this actually gets solved. I've been
ranting about Intel. At Intel fine whatever, they were a
giant and now they're not. But it was the news
that came out about the fact that the President has
said we want ten percent ownership of Intel. The Chips
Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.
It gave billions of dollars to chip companies that are
making chips here in the US, and Intel got to
I forget the exact amount, but it was a huge
amount of that money went to Intel, and they're having
all kinds of problem. You can throw money at them
and they still are not able to compete with the
big boys out there in the world, the Taiwan Semiconductor
in that crowd. So the idea of the government owning
a piece of a company, and this is where I
truly believe President Trump has been in the world of
the private sector for most of his life doing business deals.
He loves doing deals, and this was a deal where
he said, I'll tell you what. We gave you all
that money a couple of years ago, why don't we
just convert it into ten percent ownership. I don't want
the government involved in the private sector. There is something
beautiful about this country where the private sector is not
interfered with by the government. And I don't care what
you say. If you own ten percent of a company,
you can interfere. Doesn't they say, oh, no, we're not
going to interfere. No, no, no, we won't do that.
I think they will mohammaedel Arian, highly respected economists had
this observation.
Speaker 7: So I'm getting nervous at this notion that this is
beyond Intel's. The only thing I like about this Intel
transaction is a message of the private sector.
Speaker 2: There is no free lunch.
Speaker 7: Are you going to think if you're going to think
money from the government, don't think it comes from free However,
I worry about two things. I worry about this spreading
and I worry about the lack of respect between in
this critical difference between ownership and control. Ownership is fine,
starting to impact business decision is really problematic. As Kevin said,
what distinguishes the US from the rest of the world
is a dynamic, entrepreneurial private sector that we act quickly.
And I just would be very nervous if suddenly we
go into a world in which the government starts impacting
lots of business decisions. Yeah, and I go back, it's
between ownership and control. If they want to have ownership,
if a sovereign wealth fund wants to have a stake
in corporate US, Okay, that's fine, but please don't go
anywhere control business decision influences. That is a very slippery slope.
Countries have gone down that slope and it ends up
by undermining the economic HEALTHLOK and phospharity.
Speaker 1: Okay, Mohammed, I'm right there with you. Here's another major
conservative over at AEI, the American Enterprise Institute, Jimmy Pethcoccus,
and he's also very concerned.
Speaker 8: Well, it means that the point of this company, and
the point of the of the original substance promised to
Intel was that this is a this would be a
key component in creating more resilience for chip making, which
is so important.
Speaker 2: So like that was the point.
Speaker 8: Uh So, if that's the point, then I'm not sure
exactly what problem is this stake supposed to solve other.
Speaker 2: Than that the fact that the president likes the idea
of it.
Speaker 8: He likes the idea of doing deals, and he likes
the idea apparently taking and if you go with Ama
just said, there's a potential expansive list of companies that
that could be up for more of these kinds of deals.
So I guess, I guess in the end, I'm just
a little confused, like what problem is being solved here?
I tend to think that actually, you're creating new problems
by creating companies which seem dependent on the government, which
may have policymaking now part of their politics, part of
their policy making. I can see plenty of downsides. I
just failed to see the upside.
Speaker 1: Okay, Mohammad and Jimmy Pethicocis, both of them are highly
regarded because they're thoughtful, conservative, very smart men. So let's
throw in a couple more. How about Larry Kudlow, who
was the economic guy in Trump one point zero and
Steven Moore an economist. Here's what they think about the
Intel deal with the government.
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard.
Speaker 9: Joan Powell talking about the economic benefits of deregulation and
pro energy policy in the tax cuts. So you're exactly right.
All I'm saying is that many of us on the
right and free marketeers have been saying, you know, ultimately,
you know, taxes, business taxes are oftentimes passed on to consumers,
and this is a case where I think some of
them are. But look, Trump is triumphing here. The big
deal that he got with the Brits, the deal that
he got with the Europeans amazing. I mean, he's telling me,
and he's told the country, and I'm bringing hundreds of
billions of dollars of.
Speaker 10: Capital, and he's got this, He's got this buydown side
hustle where trillions of dollars are coming in to the
country to invest and create factories.
Speaker 2: And by the way, let me say even one thing
I want to say, not the CBO re estimated today.
Speaker 10: I think they're now saying over ten years, four trillion
in tariff related revenue.
Speaker 2: It's a big number, four trillion. Huge.
Speaker 9: I wonder if they're going to count that in their
estimates about the impact of Trump's plan, because they're those
same people say that it's going to cost, you know,
trillions and trillions of dollars of lost revenue. What I
was going to say is that the terrasts that I
do not like, and I'm going to say this that
I know.
Speaker 2: Don't watching it. I don't like that.
Speaker 9: I don't like the seal terraces and the littum terraces.
I think they're causing more havoc in our manufacturing than
they're helping.
Speaker 10: How about owning, how about the US government owning ten
percent and intel?
Speaker 9: I hate corporate welfare as privatization and reverse we want
the government to divest of assets, not by assets. So
terrible and one of the bad ideas that's come out
of this White House.
Speaker 10: I am very very uncomfortable with that idea.
Speaker 2: I'm very uncomfortable with that one. But that's Chris for
another mill on another day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Steve Moore hates the idea. It's it's corporate
welfare and it's the opposite of privatization, which makes America
so much of a shining city on the hill and
even cudlass as I'm that was his way of saying
I don't like.
Speaker 2: This at all.
Speaker 1: I'm very very nervous about it. All right, one more
business story, and that's the one that I have. I
don't know, it's kind of a silly story. It's about
Cracker Barrel. I never knew about Cracker Barrel. I lived
on the West Coast most of my life, and yet
my wife grew up on the East Coast, and she
talked about Cracker Barrel. So we were actually coming from
DC back up to New York and there was a
Cracker bill just off the side of the highway and
we stopped and I just thought it was amazing. The
food was I mean, fried chicken and mashed potatoes and
corn and beans. Just it was absolutely great. It's just
an old, old fashioned place. And I started thinking about
it with all the hubbub about the fact that some
junior vice president is changing the logo and changing the
decor and changing the menu at Cracker Barrel, and I thought,
the thing about Crackerbil, which you know you don't hear,
is you don't hear anybody arguing about it. People on
the left love Cracker Barrel, people on the right love
Cracker Barrel. We found something that we all find in
a very lighthearted way, cherished memories. So Cracker Bell, what's
the matter with this company that Wall Street punished and
badly when they announced that they were going to change everything?
Byron Donald's the congressman from Florida, he is all upset too,
but he also worked there when he was in college.
Speaker 11: I think the new logo sucks. I don't even understand it.
I saw some of the new renovations. It looks like
it came out of somebody's Pinterest account. It doesn't make
any sense. I saw last night they started changing the menu.
Cracker Barrel Old Country store is a staple of America.
Everybody goes there when they're on a highway to go
get some good breakfast. The hash brown casserole is amazing.
Trust me, I served so much of it when I
was in college. People just want to go, oh, eat
great food and enjoy, you know, just the store. It's
very to change that because you think you need to
do something new. I think they're gonna find out it's
not gonna work. Look, Bob Evans has great breakfast, but
Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel are two different stores.
Speaker 2: Just let Cracker Barrel be cracker barrel. Bring back Uncle Herschel.
Speaker 1: Amen to Congressman Byron Donald, bring back Uncle Herschel. I
don't know what's the matter with these people. Do they
not know anything about tradition? I don't think they do.
All right, let's see what Wall Street did today. It's
last week of August and there's usually a lot of
people that are missing on Wall Street. They're on vacation.
I don't know if they were missing, but they certainly
weren't buying the market today. Fell down down three hundred
and forty nine to close it forty five thousand and two,
eighty two, SMP down, twenty seven, nasdack down forty seven,
go down eight bucks to thirty four. There's a green
arrow with oil. It was up a dollar to sixty
four dollars and some change. That's it for today. Thank
you for coming by. We'll be here tomorrow. Hope to
see you then.